Aktivitäten/Activities

This city has a variety of religious congregations to choose from, including a wide variety of protestant churches. Located in central Erlangen is the Evangelische Reformierte Huggenotten Kirche (Evangelical/Protestant Reformed Huggenott Church). It was actually the Huggenotts who played a big role in founding this city back when they fled France in the late 1600s. As to finding a church, the word Evangelische can be distracting when trying to find a Protestant “Reformed” church because it is in the title of any protestant church, whether it is Methodist, Lutheran, or Baptist. As usual at a German church service, the congregation was very small in a big, old church. The service itself involved a lot of singing, but the songs were all very slow. You could say it was like reading the Psalms with the addition of varied rhythms and notes. The sermon was nice. The pastor spoke slow and he enunciated as he preached about Psalm 23. Next week I may go to a different church that I just learned about this afternoon. It is apparently another evangelical church in the religious tradition of the Huggenott Church, but I am under the impression that the service is more lively and the congregation younger. But, perhaps I will research this church during the next week and find out that I don't want to go there after all. We'll see.
Traditionally, German cities lie in a coma on Sundays, but when I came out of the church around 11:30am, tents were being set up in the square in front of me and lots of people were milling about. I figured I had to check out what was going on before I went home. I discovered that today was “Erlangen Fruhling”(Erlangen Spring), which is one of four days in the year when stores are open on Sunday and there is a bit of fest in the central shopping district. There were tents selling baked goods, confectionery treats, bratwurst on bread, handmade goods, locally made goods, and used books for 1 Euro each. Then there were tents for groups advertising “causes”, events, and the activities of their group. And, what German fest is complete without the folk band freezing their bare fingers as they play traditional marches and waltz'?
I was very pleased with my luck of stumbling upon this event. I found three German books at the discounted book tent. They definitely cross the gamut of difficulties and genres. I first chose a children's book of short detective stories (with about half of the mysteries being solved by me!) called “Gauner, Gangster, Geistesblitze” (Swindler, Gangster, Flash of Genius) by Wolfgang Ecke. I then found a novel by a French author, Bernard Werber, called “Die Ameisen” (The Ants). The last book I chose was called “Heimweh, Kitsch, und Co.: Die ganze Welt liebt deutsche Worter” (Homesickness, Kitsch, and Co.: The whole world loves German words) by Andrea Stiberc. When I go into libraries or bookstores, I have no idea what I want to read about, but these books succeeded in attracting my attention.
I love detective stories (Did you notice my favorite tv shows?) and short detective stories are the best. According to the frontcover and backcover of “The Ants”, this novel is a crazy tale of intelligent ants trying to take over human civilization. There are only four sections to the book and there are a variety of writing formats in the text. It looks like one of those great masterpieces that authors spend years constructing. “Homesickness, Kitsch, and Co.” sounds incredibly fascinating. There are chapters on German words being adapted to a variety of languages ranging from English, Russian, and Turkish to even Japanese! I was excited to come away from that tent with three intriguing books.
At another tent I was given a pamphlet on tours that are given in the city with various themes by the tourism office. The two tours that sound most interesting to me are “Mit dem Fahrrad-die Geschichte der Erlanger Garten” (With the bike-the History of the Erlangen Gardens) and “Von der Ackerburgerstadt zur Medizinmetropole-1007 Jahre Stadtgeschichte” (From the Agricultural Citizen City to the Medicine Metropolis-1007 Years of City History). The garden history tour visits various parks and protected lands in the city by way of bicycle, telling the history of which lands were appointed to be “gardens” and which ones just ended up that way. I am attracted to the 1007 Years of History tour because it connects the old history of the city to its present day context. We'll see if I end up attending these tours.
The tent that got me really excited was for a local group called “Erlanger Tanz Haus” (Erlanger Dance House). This group sponsors free and very low cost social folk dance lessons/sessions. Among the variety of programs they have, there is a free dance program that teaches folk dances of a different heritage each Tuesday evening. This coming Tuesday is dance from Catalan (a region of Spain). Another free program which happens the first Monday of every month also does a different heritage each session. Examples of the dance heritages which I could end up learning are Balkan, German/Franken, Irish, French, Greek, Israeli, Franken/Provence, and Scottish! I am very excited about participating in this program! I just hope that there are at least a few young people in attendance and not all old people.
My brother Paul and I used to joke that he needed to build homes for us that only had rounded corners because we were always running into the corner of a wall between our bedrooms and the bathroom. On Friday night, and then immediately again Saturday morning, I was reminded of this need for a home that is gentle on the body. You see, Friday night I bent over to throw something away in the garbage can under the desk when I got smacked in my right cheek bone by the pointy top of my desk chair! I considered putting some frozen veggies on it to ensure no bruising, but then I was curious if it would bruise, so I went to bed without any nursing. It turned out that as painful of a blow that it was, the faint darkness that has developed is only something that I would ever in a million years notice. Saturday morning came and I was nearly ready to leave for meeting Bernhard when I walked around the corner of the bedroom cabinetry and whacked my leg on a pointy corner. As I cursed the pain, I contemplated the idea that my room was out to get me! Now that I am aware of these dangers, I have been very wary of the desk chair, and we'll see how I do with that cabinet's corner tomorrow morning when I am trying to hurry myself out the door.
It's back to the lab tomorrow. Crushing clumps of soil between my fingers, sieving, weighing, noting, and bagging. If I work at a good pace, then I can also begin labeling soil colors tomorrow as well. As usual, I am a ball of nerves as to whether I have been recording the proper information about the samples I sieved and bagged on Friday. I would feel horrible if I had to redo anything.