A normal American peasant. Except that America never had real peasants so I probably can't even claim that lowly title. I'll try to forget that fact by recounting my last few days, which actually weren't super exciting except for the fact that I was still in Europe.
I took a really long bus ride through Poland to Berlin on Sunday and decided it was okay that my bus days were over. I had a nostalgic 23 minutes at the Berlin Südkreuz station and then took a train to Wittenberg.
You may wonder why I chose to go to Wittenberg. Unless you are educated in both the life of Martin Luther and my own historical fancies. One of my history professors is working on a book on Martin Luther for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and I get to help him do some of the research (meaning he sent me home with 15 hefty German books in German to read and find useful information), so I decided it would be a good idea to visit the city where he taught, preached, and lived.
I found a hotel online and knew nothing about it except that it was really cheap, which usually does not bode well for quality but I was very pleasantly surprised because it turned out to be a cute little old lady's house where she rented out three of the upstairs bedrooms to people. Which meant it was like staying with your German grandma. The only weird thing was that the shower was in the middle of the hall. No doors or anything--just the shower. But it had a curtain so I shouldn't complain. Aforementioned grandmother figure even made an adorable breakfast well decorated and tasty to boot.
Now that I've bored you with hotel descriptions, I will also mention that the rest of the visit was also great. I went on a tour of the city and learned a lot about Luther, spending a fair amount of time in the museum made from his house (which only survived the Soviets because Peter the Great had visited the house and signed his name on one of the doors--sweet, yeah?!). Wittenberg is one of those little cities that is really great to visit because it's not too big and very picturesque. I was quite satisfied.
After my day there, I took a train to Leipzig, where I was nostalgic for only 4 minutes before taking another train to Frankfurt and then to Altenstadt, where I was reunited with my beloved Sister Meisenfelder (who just goes by Janine these days). I got to go to the temple with her and her kind father took me to a Celtic museum in a neighboring dorf and showed me the beauty of the German countryside while Janine was at work.
Oh and I bought a boat load of chocolate.
Okay, not a literal boat. Not even a suitcase full actually.
But more chocolate than I could safely consume in a week period.
So I don't know if that makes me an American peasant with a dowry. Except that I don't think the chocolate will last until I get married (though if I'm still single in decade, I shall have to return with a bigger, more sustainable chocolate dowry) and I think we already established that I can't be an American peasant since they don't exist.
So yeah. America.
Hm.
Anyone want to go to Germany for Christmas?
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