Accelerating into the last month

Tomorrow is July 1st, and while that means different things for most people, for me it means that my last month in Göttingen starts tomorrow. It also means it's been a while since I've written about what all I have been up to. So here are a pair of pictures from Goslar. I visited my friend Bea in her hometown Salzgitter-Bad, which was having it's Altstadtfest that weekend. We had some ridiculously good food: steak cooked on a swinging grill over an open fire, and Poffertjes , little baby pancakes served with butter, orange liquor, and powdered sugar. There's sort of no excuse for them, but they're wonderful. Then we drove to Goslar, in the Harz mountains, a city recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage site. It has fabulous old buildings, which I did not take enough pictures of, but one of them you see above. Then we went to the Kaiserpfalz, one of the secondary palaces for the Holy Roman Emperor in the Middle Ages. It was then gussied up by the Prussians in the nineteenth century, and to some degree made to look like what they think it ought to have looked like - including a huge mural showing the history of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa. It was really good to see Bea and neat to see a corner of Germany I wouldn't have gotten to otherwise this go-round.

Barbarossa and me:


I rode my bike to the train station, and had to find it after getting back:

(a little bit harder than finding your car in a parking lot...)


The weekend after that I chorus all week - every night except for Wednesday there was either a rehearsal or a performance. Everything came together pretty well (although the performance in Nashville with the Vanderbilt Community Chorus was way better) and there was always someone in the audience because I invited them, Friday Britta came, and Saturday Solveig was there, along with Sten, who came for the weekend. It was totally nice to have him here, and also nice to say on Monday "See you Friday!"

Friday I took the train to Leipzig and had a great time visiting with Sten and his family. I took my camera with me, and took no pictures. Sorry. But Sten took at least a few, as did his Dad. Friday we visited and played board games. Saturday after breakfast Sten, his sister Aileen, and I all went window shopping in town. After dinner we all went to see an Operetta together. Sunday after breakfast Sten and I went to the zoo, and had time for dinner before leaving to catch the train back to Göttingen. I had a great time (as expected), and wish I had more time to visit again.

Now I have to get back to work, since this weekend I will be going to Regensburg to visit some friends who spent time at Vanderbilt my first year there. Busy as always!