Our Weekend Trip!

Us on the train
Bach House
Wartburg Castle
Martin Luther's Room where he translated the New Testament
The Concert hall in the Wartburg Castle

This past weekend we went on our first field trip as a group!  The trip was so amazing!! We went to Eisenach, Weimar and Leipzig.  These are al places that are huge in german/music history.  In Eisenach we visited the Bach house which is the house that Bach was born in and grew up in.  They had a small concert with "period" instruments (instruments from the 18th century) and a tour of his house.  It was really amazing to be in there.  Then we went up to the Wartburg Castle which is from the 11th century.  This is the place where Martin Luther translated the New Testament into the German language while hiding from the Catholic church and government.  Kinda a big moment in church history. Haha (to say the least).  It was really awesome to see the actual room where he did this.

After that we stayed in a hostel and left to Weimar that next day.  Weimar is a huge city in German and world history.  Every significant part of Germany history has passed through this town.  Weimar is often considered the heart of Germany or the "real" capital.  There we took a tour of the Franz Listz House.  He is a German pianist/composer who was the best and most talented pianist the whorld has ever seen.  His room is exactly the way he left it when he died there.  It has his original two piano's he played and taught on as well as his desk where he wrote many of his works.  It was breath taking.  With in the town there were so many old houses, a castle and churches.  One little cool thing is that we saw a famous balcony that Hitler woud stand on and wave while the soldiers marched in the square during the parades.  It was really interesting.  We also saw the German National Theatre where composers like Mendelssohn, Wagner, and Shumman all conducted their Symphonies and other works.

The next day we were in Leipzig which was the best part of the trip.  There we went to the Thomaskirche (St. Thomas' Lutheran Church) which is where Bach was the cantor (in house musician and conductor) for over 30 years until his death.  He is even buried with in the Church in front of the alter.  We got to see a boys choir concert in there as well.  We also went to a church service in there the next day.  That was interesting to experience, the service was all in German.

However, the highlight of the trip was that night.  We found out that there was going to be a free concert by the Gewandhaus Orchestra in from of the opera house in Leipzig.  Right before it started, it started to rain and they moved the concert inside of the Gewandhaus which is one of the best sounding concert halls in the world.  Once they announced that the concert was going to be moved inside there was a mob of about 2000 people trying to shove there way inside.  It was like a rock concert!  It was very intense and people were going nuts, but for us it was a lot of fun!!  And we ended up on getting in and getting front row seats behind the Orchestra.  From where we were sitting we could see their music and it almost felt like we were playing with them.  It was so much fun!

That next morning we went to the church service and took a 5 hour train ride home back to Heidelberg!