I Found Luther!!!!!

I can’t believe I have reached the halfway point already; I feel like I just got here!

This last weekend, I had quite the interesting interaction. Since Wittenberg is maybe a half hour train ride away, I decided to visit on Saturday.  Midterm exams were coming up and I didn’t want to be out of town for a whole weekend. After a whole day of wandering around Lutherstadt, Wittenberg, the part of Wittenberg where Luther lived and taught, I was ready to go back to Berlin. Something I should also mention is that due to certain business decisions of Deutsche Bahn (The company in charge of mostly all the trains in Germany), the last few years the train reliability has gone down the drain. Many are delayed, late, or malfunctioning, similar to America’s issues with air travel. I found out that my train to Berlin was not stopping in Wittenberg, and I had to take another train back, but that train had technical problems and I had to wait about two hours before I finally left Wittenberg. to pass the time, I struck up a conversation with a lady who was from the area, and I talked to her for about an hour, all in German. She was very nice, and the time went by quite fast. I want to develop my German language skills, so this was perfect. This sort of thing is what I wanted to experience every day- meet new people, exchange life stories, really connect with them, you know? But something I noticed about Berlin, is that I cannot do that or else people will look at me funny. Even in larger cities in the U.S., people will look at you strangely if you asked them how their day is going. Unfortunately, this was one of my goals for this semester and it is very difficult to be able to talk to people due to social norms. I suppose I must adjust this goal and instead of connecting with people every day, I might be able to do it once a week.

But I also am meeting the goal of travel! I bought train tickets and a hotel room for Warsaw, as well as a flight to London! I am excited to travel alone. There are many different types of people who travel around Europe, such as backpackers and partiers. I prefer to just wander around, and if there is something that catches my eye, I’ll check it out. Guided tours are helpful. Most of them show the cool places to visit, then end with, “Okay, now go check out these places at your own leisure.” I really enjoy this way of sightseeing. There is no pressure of trying to fit everything in! I would strongly recommend the “wandering around” technique.

Left: The Theses Doors, Center: Castle Church, Right: The Luther Study

Here are some pictures from Prague as well!