Nurnberg

This week was busy! I have officially been in Germany for a month now. I started the week off by hosting the first girls Bible study in my dorm room. Two girls came, Jessica and Marta, who is from Poland. Tuesday brought a tour of the Old Town Hall in Regensburg. The Town Hall provided a meeting place for the political meetings of governing princes from the surrounding area. My friends and I attempted to make a strawberry cake from scratch using ingredients that required lots of "improvising." For example, we needed strawberry gelatin and I'm not sure if we bought pudding or jello. It still remains a mystery. The purpose of the cake was to celebrate the program director's birthday the following evening. We had a pasta dinner, movie night, and strawberry cake (however they turned out more like strawberry brownies with the dense consistency) at The Johnston's and at Griffin's. Thursday, I baby-sat for the four Johnston children. Finally, Friday came and the group took a day trip to Nurnberg.

The train ride lasted about an hour. Once we arrived, we got on a city train that took us to the Nazi museum. The museum is located where the Nazi party use to rally. I spent the next 2 hours walking around with a speaker device that told me all the information in English. It was information overload as far as content, but I learned so much about WW2 and Nurnberg. I found one fact very interesting: typically when a political party receives a "majority" vote, the percentage is 5-7%, Hitler came into power with a 34% popularity vote. I was absolutely amazed.

We took the city train back into old town and my friends and I took our time walking to the next excursion. We had to be at the Albrecht Durer house by 3, but from 2:30 to 3 we hiked around the Nurnberg Castle! I was so happy to finally get to look through a castle. I had only seen a castle the week before from the train. At 3 the tour of the artist's house began and the tour guide dressed in an authentic outfit of Albrecht's wife. The lady guide did a wonderful job and was absolutely precious. Albrecht's house was considered "modern" because it had a rope attached to the door allowing it to be opened from the 2nd floor. This house had 3 kitchens. One for the wife, one for the mother-in-law, and one called the "color kitchen" where Albrecht mixed all of his paints. We left the artist's house and spent 30 quick minutes walking through the toy museum since it closed at 5.

A group of us ate dinner at an underground German restaurant. I split a macaroni and cheese dish with Jessica. For dessert, I got sugar-roasted almonds from a vendor off the street. At 730 we loaded back on the train to come home!