It was so nice to wake up this morning, albeit how early it was, and get to shower with MY shower stuff and wear MY clean underwear and clothes. Little things in life, really. You don't realize how much you'll miss things until your luggage gets lost.
Breakfast was amazing, as to be expected in Germany, and I got to try a delightful chocolate cereal that I will have to ask Silas to remind me the name of, since we don't have it in the States. Today we went sight-seeing around the old part of Minden. We had to cross a suspended bridge which was covered in locks, which Lothar told us were love locks, many with engravings of initials or full names. What a cute idea! Also, I love the buildings here so much. Can I live here?
Don't worry, it's quite stable!
Some of the lover's locks.
Some of the beautiful buildings on the old square.
Magnificent!
Dr. Webb found our poster downtown!
Tyler Durham, Chris Newsom, and Tyler Schlesselman.
Bentley and a statue.
I wish we could've spent more time exploring the town, but we had a schedule to keep up! We then set off for the Bückeburg Castle, which I ended up missing most of the tour, because I discovered we had left Kayley Olsen back at the bus because she had to use the restroom. After running back, I learned Mirko, our bus driver, had pointed her the opposite direction by accident! I then set off, getting lost in a park, calling Kayley's name everywhere, and ended up in town. I started going into shop by shop, describing her as best I could to any worker or customer that could understand a little English. Finally got a text from Mirko saying she had been led back to the group by a resident, and I ending up catching the second half of the tour and getting a few pictures in the process.
The Bückeburg Castle, in all its glory.
Beautiful paintings in nearly every room!
Cannot deal with even the ceilings here!
Tribute to various Roman gods
We sang on the terrace for our tour guide, whose name escapes me.
No rest for the weary! We are now late for our guided tour of Hannover, where we have our second concert tonight!
Despite all the repairs/construction, a beautiful city!
I wish I had taken a better picture of the concert venue, but so much was happening that I missed my opportunity. Cool fact, we invited a composer of one of our pieces, Damijan Mocnik, to come to a concert, and he and traveled all the way from Slovenia (9 hours!) with his publisher, Astrum, just to hear us sing his Sacra Religio, which happens to have been my favorite piece only like, the entire year. If you've heard any of our concerts, it's the one that has each voice part enter one after another, starting with the basses, and it builds and builds and builds until I'm emotional from all the glorious sound. And I'm not saying that because he came to see us. It has been, and always will be, my favorite piece from this season. So. Beautiful.
It was a fabulous concert, and afterwards we were driven back to Christuskirche to be picked up by our host families. Silas drove us back to his parents house, and to my and Amber's surprise, they had prepared a cookout for us in our honor! An even bigger surprise, Sierra and Bekah's host family were there, too, so it was quite a backyard party. I haven't had so much fun in a long time!
Bekah Bliss and Sierra Saylor
Host family love!
Yummy breads, grilled sausages, and pasta salad!
Host family pictures!
Andrea, Dirk, Amber, Silas, and myself
After it started getting late, we all took it easy and watched Youtube videos, listened to German Disney songs, and talked about how different/similar American and German cultures are.
Time to just sit back and relax!
I loved today so much. I was so sad that this was our last night with our host family. They already became like MY family in less than two days. It's amazing how love works.
