July Bible Verse Photography Challenge

Can I just say how much I love this link-up? It's once a month, so no pressure, and it challenges me to be creative and come up with my own interpretation of a Bible verse. I typically am not creative. I'm more of a follow-the-instructions type of girl.

This month's verse is: Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgments are like the great deep; you save humans and animals alike, O LORD. Psalm 36:5-6

When I read this verse, my first thought was of a church tower. So here's my picture.

"The unity of a Gothic cathedral, we know, is not the static unity of a classical temple, but a unity born of the dynamic tension of diverse forces which impel the architecture upward, pointing it to heaven." -Pope Benedict XVI.

To see the other photos, head over to Flowers Round the Cross!

7 quick takes, volume 12

Yes, I'm a day late. I was too busy doing nothing yesterday to write a blog post. Today I have to work on my paper, go to a party/get together, and spend a long time on the metro. So of course I have time to write a blog post. IES sent my parents an email warning them that after returning to the USA, I would go through a honeymoon period and then a judgmental period as part of my re-entry adjustment and reverse culture shock. To me, this sounds plausible but also sort of bonkers, since Germany and the US are not really that different, so I am going to defy expectations. This week's 7 quick takes will be things I like better about Freiburg. Next week's will be things I like better about the US, or Bowie specifically.

1. Reliability and cost of public transportation. Public transportation in Freiburg is heavily subsidized, and even more so for students. (A six-month student pass is 79E.) During rush hour, street cars come every five to six minutes. They rarely break and they almost always run on time.

2. Low alcohol taxes. You can get a good bottle of wine for 4E in Freiburg. For a student budget, this is a blessing for Sunday dinners.

3. Availability of foods for special diets. The regular grocery store had a large shelf full of lactose-free dairy products, and there is a house brand of gluten-free food and ingredients. I don't know if it was just our neighborhood, but alternative diets seem to be more of a thing in Europe than here.

4. Architecture. I mean, really, a city that dates from the early twelfth century beats a suburb that was planned and then built in the 1960s. That's not even a contest.

5. Closeness to other countries. I could (and did) take a day trip to France or Switzerland.

6. Lack of work. I had more or less nothing to do, so I got to spend a lot of time sightseeing and relaxing. It was a nice break semester, and I'm sure I will miss it as I head into my difficult senior year!

7. Closeness to extended family. I have two sets of family members, one in Berlin and one in Dusseldorf, which I rarely get to see. It was nice to get to see both sets twice, once near the beginning and once near the end.

To see the other posts, head over to Conversion Diary!

Last Full Day in Freiburg

Wow! I leave Freiburg tomorrow. I will spend the weekend in Duesseldorf with my cousin, and then fly to the US on Monday. We arrive in NYC late at night, so I won't be going home until Monday. So, technically it will take me four days to get home. But then I will be home! And I can't wait for that.

Today is going to be spent running around doing all the little tasks that one has to do before moving. I would like to purge some stuff, in the hopes of not needing an extra suitcase to get home. I am pretty sure that's a pipe dream, but it would be sooo nice. I am going to leave a lot of the stuff I bought on arrival behind, such as my coffee maker, extra blanket, and probably a pair of shoes as well. On the other hand, I have acquired several books, and I was not very far under the weight limit when I arrived. Does anyone know if they actually check the weight limit on carry-on bags?

I will try to get up a 7 quick takes post before I leave, but if I don't, then I don't. All my thoughts are focused on getting home at the moment!

7 quick takes, volume 11: scattered and short

1. This may be brief, because I have a paper to write! Normally, I don't really freak out about papers, especially not in philosophy, because that is my major, and I am good at it. (That is magnanimity, not pride. I hope.) This paper, though, is causing difficulties, because the library system here doesn't work super well, and it's in German.

2. The library system here. Sigh. I could write a whole ranting post, but I won't. Instead, I will say that while the Uni Freiburg renovates its library, the rest of us suffer. My typical way to get a group of secondary sources together is to find a call number that's relevant, and then flip through the books on the shelves around it. Here, because the books are not on their shelves for the duration of the renovation, you have to put the name of a book into their computer system and they will fish it out and you can go pick it up in two days. This makes it harder to find secondary sources, and harder to procrastinate.

3. Let me just say that while my super sturdy (and bright pink!) backpack may be designed for carrying around many large hardcover books, my back is not.

4. On a more cheerful note, I don't have any work to do other than that paper, so I hope to get in at least one more good birdwatching trip before I leave.

5. Does anyone have any experience traveling through Pearson airport? I have a really long layover there, and I'm wondering if it's worth the hassle to leave the traveler area and try to meet up with my aunt who lives in Toronto. On the one hand, I would have to go through immigration an extra time (or maybe two), but since Canada and the US are pretty friendly, it shouldn't be sooo bad. Should it?

6. Freiburg has a wine fest! I went with Kevin and a friend. We had a great time, although I didn't manage to get any very good photos.

7. Last but not least, please pray for a friend of mine, who fell down a hill and broke his nose and required 91 stitches to repair the damage done to his face. 

For some quick takes with maybe a coherent thought running through them, go see what other people are saying at Conversion Diary.

Prepping and packing

...because I can't think of anything better to do the week after three days in the hospital than take a 5am train to a city full of food you can't eat, can you? Seriously, though, I am so excited. I am going to get to see the pope, and get him to bless my rosary! (And some other stuff, but those are presents, so shhhh.) I'm solving the food problem by bringing nuts and hard-boiled eggs with me, and on Sunday night I'll probably scrap the gluten-free diet for the evening so I can eat pasta carbonara.

The last few days have been a whirlwind of activity, since all my friends are leaving. We went out to dinner several times, which left rather more of a hole in my pocket than I thought it would, and we spent an evening at a carnival. As my friend Alex said, "On a scale of one to Mexico, how safe do you think this is?"

There were several typical carnival rides, but there were no rules about how to behave on them. So people were standing up on the swing boats. On the swing merry-go-round, you will notice that my friends are facing me in several pictures. This is because they twisted up their chains before the ride started, and then shoved and pushed each other to make sure they kept spinning for the whole ride.

It was a good evening, or rather set of evenings, and a fun week. After I get back from Rome, though, it will be nice to relax a little bit.

7 quick takes, volume 10

1. Thank you all for the prayers! The final diagnosis was an infection/inflammation of the intestines which my body was fighting off on its own. Therefore, no medical interventions were needed (except a pain drug which is illegal in the US. Ha.)

2. I am now on a temporary diet of easy to digest food. On a lactose and gluten-free diet, that basically means rice, applesauce, and carrots. Yay. However, I think it also includes Fanta, because soda is the easiest thing to keep down if you're sick to your stomach, so it must be easy to digest. And also the doctor left it up to my discretion how long I should follow this diet for.

3. A little over half the people in my program are going home this weekend, which is sad, especially since a lot of the ones I got along best with are leaving. But I suppose this is life, and I will make the best of it. I now have offers of free places to stay all over the US. Road trip, anyone?

4. We had a goodbye party yesterday. I was voted "most likely to have a dozen children" and Kevin and I were voted "most likely to get married."

5. We held our party at the Seepark, where there are so many waterfowl. Since it's summer, there were oodles of baby waterfowl. I saw baby coots, grebes, mallards, and one cygnet. Possibly also a nest of baby moorhens--they were red on top like moorhens, but it looked like a coot was taking care of them.

6. and 7. Pictures of baby birds!

 Not all baby birds are cute. Some look like space aliens.

 A baby coot watching while its parent dives.

 A mama mallard sitting on her babies.

 Coots have strange, strange feet.

 This poor cygnet. He is so clearly going through puberty.

 Baby mallard!

 I threw in this random sparrow for good measure.

 A grebe. They are hard to photograph because they don't stay on the water for very long.

 Two baby coots fighting over an apple.

A baby grebe. They're striped!

Head over to Conversion Diary for the rest of the takes!

7 quick takes, volume 9

1. I haven't posted, because not much has been happening that's terribly interesting.

2. On Tuesday, Kevin turned 21. We didn't really celebrate much, since it was in the middle of the week. But I made sesame chicken and chocolate cake, and that was good fun. We shared the cake with a roommate and his boyfriend and there was still a huge amount left over.

3. Wednesday we had our farewell dinner for the study abroad program. Those of us in University courses aren't leaving for another six weeks, and they threw us in with another IES program who we never see (because they don't speak German), so the farewell part kind of got lost. But it had free food, so no complaints.

4. Thursday was the All-American Barbecue at the university, sponsored by the international club. Everything was almost-but-not-quite right. I did get a picture of me wearing the uniform of the local American football team, and Kevin won the pie eating contest. That was funny.

5. Everyone I know is frantically doing large amounts of work before the semester ends. I have two papers due, one of which is ten pages and one of which is eight to ten pages. The ten page one is onto page ten, and I am not sure it can really get longer. Combined with the fact that I can write German much faster than everybody else on the program, I have so much more free time that it makes me feel kind of guilty. Oh well.

6. Apparently the score I got on the placement test at the beginning of the year was the best score the teacher has ever seen. I learned that on Wednesday night.

7. My seasonal allergies have only just showed up. I had thought I had escaped them by switching continents, but apparently the terrible weather here just delayed them. Speaking of weather, we skipped spring. We went from where-is-my-winter-coat weather to I-wish-I-didn't-value-the-virtue-of-modesty weather. Sigh.

I'm writing these while drinking my coffee, so if they don't make sense, you can find ones written after coffee at Jen's blog.

Oldtimerlinie!

Ok, now I'm all caught up. Or I will be, once I'm done this post.

This is what we did last Saturday: rode ancient streetcars. Once a month during the summer, the old streetcars get pulled out of storage and driven around, and you can ride them for free.

 This one is from 1959, I believe.

 Some nice old ladies offered to take our picture getting on. I put the camera back on auto for them, and the sky is all blown out. Yay.

 Wood paneling inside! How classy.

 The ride was free, but you could buy a souvenir ticket for 2E, so we did.

 Standing in the rain, waiting to switch to the other old streetcar.

 This one is from 1929.

 10 DM if you ride without a ticket!

 The handles to hold onto are made of wood, and those strings are leather cords, to pull to signal the train to stop.

 Here's the front of the 1929 train.

 Waiting in the rain again.

 I love old signs. But I can't imagine the uproar if a streetcar today had seats reserved for "severely damaged" people!

Corpus Christi!

Or, as the Germans call it, Fronleichnam. It's a big deal over here.

To begin with, it's on Thursday. I think if you told a German that in the US a lot of bishops move it to Sunday, they would be horrified. Especially because in Germany, everyone gets the day off school or work. After Mass, there was a long procession carrying the Eucharist around the city. I took lots of pictures, and here they are.

 To begin with, we were greeted by a banner of the SSPX. I am not sure if I should interpret it as a heretical statement that we are all on the same page or a difference-crossing celebration of a common belief. Do the SSPX people have valid Eucharist? I don't even know. (I stopped wearing my chapel veil here, because I get hostile glares from everyone. I think the other people think I am part of the SSPX.)

 So many people, blocking all the street. See all those trees? Those are all branches put up along the procession way to decorate the streets.

 Businesses and houses put up their own displays too, either flowers and pictures, like this one,

 or just Vatican-colored flags.

 Taxis,

 houses,

 historic buildings,

even Lufthansa got in on the fun!

 This banner outside the hair salon is printed with the first few lines of the Lamb of God.

  

 This is the crowd filling the square outside the church at the end of the procession.

We had lovely weather. It was the one day that week that it didn't pour rain. The bishop said that some of the event planners had been taught a lesson about trusting in God! It was a lovely day, and I am glad I went, even if I was sore the next day from carrying my picnic lunch around.