7 quick and late takes, vol 7

1. Sneaking in just before the deadline here! I have been very busy, and when I haven't been busy I have been busy being unproductive relaxing.

2. On Thursday was Corpus Christi, which will get a post of its own because there are a lot of pictures. I went and had lunch at the Seepark after the procession, thereby checking another thing off the Summer Fun List.

3. On Friday, we had an all-day outing for the Medieval Mindset class. That is probably worth a post of its own too, so I won't say any more about that, except that I met a member of the German minor nobility--a count. And our entire class accidentally crashed a funeral. So that was an interesting day.

4. Saturday, we rode the Oldtimerlinie, which, again, will be in its own post. Then my drama class went to the opera. We were ridiculously high up--I wished I had brought my binoculars! There were no higher seats anywhere.

This is the Stuttgart opera house. It looked so nice. Unfortunately, I was way underdressed. Oh well.

5. Today, Sunday, there was the universal hour of Eucharistic Adoration with the pope. Apparently it was mostly being done in the cathedrals, but the cathedral here was being used for a concert, so it was in St. Martin's across the street. I prayed all four decades of the rosary. At one point, I felt like I was in a Tridentine Mass, because Pater Markus was praying something in Latin. Since I didn't understand it, I just kept praying my rosary!

6. Being gluten-free makes me feel so much better, but recently I have noticed another benefit: I can tolerate way more lactose than I used to be able to! Processed dairy products, like yogurt and cheese and ice cream don't bother me at all in small quantities. I hate not eating gluten products, but it does improve my life so much.

7. I have been practicing taking better photos using the manual setting on my camera. It's surprisingly easy to get better photos than the auto setting will get me, especially in poor or bright light.

The Freiburg Sacristans!

Last Saturday, I went to go watch the Freiburg Sacristans play a home game. They are the local American football team. I really enjoyed watching the game, even though the Sacristans lost.

It was very interesting because the players were adults, but the whole vibe was more like a community youth team. There were no bleachers, and few spectators. When one of the players got injured, all the other players "took a knee" as we used to say until he was able to get up again, and everyone applauded as he limped off the field.

I took some photos, which unfortunately didn't come out quite as well as I had hoped they would, but here they are anyway!

There were two groups of cheerleaders, one called the Nuggets and one called Native Gold. To me, those both sound like types of potatoes. Then again, they were cheering for a football team called the Sacristans...

The backdrop of the game was the lovely forest. On the other hand, those threatening clouds did in fact start raining on us during halftime.

I tried to dress in Sacristan purple and gold. I really did. But once I put on my sweatshirt over the purple T-shirt, I somehow found myself wearing the burgundy and gold of the Redskins! Old habits die hard, it seems.

The final score. Ouch.

You might notice that that is a weird football score. I saw only one attempt to kick the extra point, and only a few punts. I think that both teams must have exclusively poor kickers--they always went for a two-point conversion (and usually failed) and almost always went for it on fourth down, even in the middle of the field. No one ever tried to kick a field goal. As a result, most of the scores were either 6 or 8 points.

I believe there are two home games left this season, and I hope to go to at least one more!

May Bible Verse Photography Challenge

Ok, challenge number one seems to have been trying to do something with the formatting, which decided to throw a temper tantrum and then be unfixable. (What are the defaults on these posts?) I gave up and deleted the whole post and am now starting over. Here is the verse:

"And I commend enjoyment, for man has no good thing under the sun but to eat and drink and enjoy himself, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of life which God gives him under the sun." Ecclesiastes 8:15

Here are my photos:

I was invited to participate in a wine tasting with a friend and his family. We tried eight wines. One sparkling wine, three whites, three reds, and a dessert wine. All were local. The winery is fun to tour because they are an experimental winery which is working on "shaping the wines of the future," as well as training new winzers and winesalesmen. They showed us their current experiments with a netting to protect the plants from hail and a different way to prune the vines. The last red they gave us was the best wine I've ever had in my life, but it cost 29E per bottle. So I didn't buy it.

In terms of photography, does anyone have a good website to recommend that will teach me how to make better use of my camera? I can use the presets (like "auto" and "fireworks") but I'm sure the camera is capable of doing more, since it lets me customize almost every setting. Is there a website tutorial that will teach me how to do this, or do I have to get a book?

Head over to Flowers Round The Cross to see the rest of the photos!

7 quick takes, volume 6

~1~

I think I am doing the numbers right. Based on the fact that every blog I read is on a different volume number, I'm assuming that the volume number is based on how many times I have participated. Which would be 6 now.

~2~

Today is one of those days where I realize how out of touch I am with the US. Basically all the blogs I read are American, and almost everybody has said something about military people and families in the last few days. There was also apparently a military-themed Google doodle (which of course I didn't see because stupid Chrome insists on redirecting me to Google.de, and then offering to translate the page into English). What a coincidence, I thought. Or maybe a soldier died overseas and I just missed it.

~3~

I finally figured it out, though. Where I am (historically Catholic state), Pentecost vacation is coming to an end. Where everyone else is (in heathen Protestant America), Memorial Day Weekend is starting. Hence the focus on the military.

~4~

I could never be an expat. And I'm just kidding about the heathen Protestant thing.

~5~

Theoretically I am writing a paper right now. I'm roughly halfway done with it. Luckily it's a first draft, because I am starting to get the feeling it's turning into a combination of three things: structural hot mess, grammatical nightmare, and a bunch of BS where content is concerned. I feel bad for the poor teacher who has to grade these papers.

~6~

The closer I get to time to go home, the more I worry about packing. I think I have accumulated a lot of stuff here that I want to bring home as souvenirs. On the other hand, since I brought so few clothes, the ones I brought are beginning to look rather the worse for wear, so maybe I can just throw a lot of them out before I go, freeing up some space for souvenirs. We shall see. I am open to the possibility that I will have to pay for an extra bag on the way back, although I am hoping to avoid it.

~7~

As these takes get more and more scattered, I can feel my blood sugar dropping. Forget about my lack of coherence in this post, and go read the other takes while I go eat some breakfast. Thanks!

Pretty, happy, funny, real

I've never done this before! I almost never have enough photos that would work. However, today I do, so here we go! The idea, which was created by the lovely ladies at Like Mother, Like Daughter, is to post four (or more) photos, one each for each of the words pretty, happy, funny, and real.

{pretty}

It's finally getting warmer here. These flowering bushes are on the way to the streetcar, and they are so pretty! Anyone know what kind of flower this is?

 {happy}

I do know what this is--it's a gray heron. I took advantage of a few rain-less hours to do some birdwatching, and this is the first bird that Kevin and I saw! It stood there forever, so I could photograph it as well as identify it.

{funny}

I mean, really, if you're going to graffiti a dorm, it *should* be in Latin. The highlighter wasn't a good choice, though. It's hard to read, and the transmission of your message is hindered.

{real}

This week, I have two reals:

I missed my brother's Confirmation because I was in Germany. So I made him a cake and celebrated anyway. Flourless chocolate cake, with strawberries to look like tongues of fire. It didn't occur to me until after it had already been decorated that a chocolate cake with white icing is maybe a bit more Lutheran of a metaphor than I was going for. Oh well.

My desk has the dubious honor of being my other {real}. Can you tell I'm trying to write a research paper? I did clean it up, but it already looks this bad again!

3/50

I have already done three of the things on my summer fun list! This is what I have done so far:

1. Read The Name of the Rose. (Spoiler-free review coming up!) I thought this book was fascinating, for sure. It was recommended to me by a dear friend who I have had many a philosophical and theological discussion with. The basic setup is a murder mystery set in a medieval monastery. The detective is a monk who is interested in the philosophy of Francis Bacon and reasons much like Sherlock Holmes. At times, the prose got very thick and I felt like I was wading rather than reading, but I did enjoy reading this book anyway. I don't think there are any characters I agreed with completely, but there are some very interesting threads of thought running through the book. The two threads I found most interesting were the questions about heresy and the question of whether books and knowledge should be restricted and/or censored.

9. Try gluten-free beer. I found gluten-free beer at the health food store across the street, so I thought I would try it. It wasn't amazing, but it wasn't terrible. I would say it tasted like a standard American beer. Or maybe the Americans I know don't drink the standard American beer. Anyway, it was not tooo expensive (1,19E for a bottle) and I will be keeping it in mind for things like cookouts where beer is far and away the most appropriate drink.

25. Go to the Augustiner Museum. This is an awesome museum if you like medieval local art. It had lots of stained-glass windows and statues that were taken out of the cathedral at some point.

I doubt I can keep this rate of completion up, but we will see! Every time I post one of these updates, I'll update the original list with the date I completed each thing.

Summer Fun List

Catholic Caitie Rose had a great idea: a summer fun list! I am going to borrow this idea and make my own list.
However, I am going to declare that summer starts now. Of course, it isn't summer, but I want this list to include things to do in Freiburg, and I only get about a month without classes this year anyway. So this is not so much a summer list as a list of things to do before senior year starts. I don't necessarily expect to complete this whole list, as that would require doing (roughly) 3.6 things a week, but we will see.

1. Read The Name of the Rose. Completed on May 20th, 2013.
2. Ride the Schauinslandbahn.
3. Ride the Sauschwaenzlebahn.
4. Do a wine tasting at one of the wine places one stop away from my house. Completed on May 22nd, 2013.
5. Spend several hours birdwatching in the woods near my house.
6. Spend several hours birdwatching at the Seepark, where ducks hang out. Completed on May 30th, 2013.
7. Run 10 miles at least once.
8. Finish a bottle of calcium pills. I have been so bad about taking those recently!
9. Try gluten-free beer. Completed on May 18th, 2013.
10. Have an American-style cookout with friends for the 4th of July.
11. Read Part II of the Jesus of Nazareth series, in German.
12. Finish reading Plato's Gorgias in Greek.
13. Get a grad school writing sample into at least first draft form.
14. Finish reading the Gospel of Matthew in Greek.
15. Go to Rome.
16. Get a rosary blessed by Pope Francis.
17. Visit the relics of my patron saint, in either Rome or France. (They were divided.)
18. Preferably both!
19. Organize all the pictures I took in Germany.
20. Post them all on Facebook.
21. Send a postcard to everyone I am supposed to send a postcard to this semester!
22. Fix my bicycle's loose handlebars.
23. Mail my sister the baby socks I made her.
24. Go hiking.
25. Go to the Augustiner Museum. Completed on May 21st, 2013.
26. Sew myself another piece of clothing.
27. Make some more jam.
28. Go to Ikea just to have lunch there.
29. Ride the Oldtimerlinie. Completed on June 1st, 2013.
30. Reread Plato's Republic.
31. Take a tour of the Cathedral.
32. Climb the Cathedral tower.
33. Get a haircut.
34. Do something about the sad pathetic state of my house plants. Completed on May 28th, 2013.
35. Save money towards an icon of my patron saint.
36. Go 24 hours without using my computer at all, for anything.
37. Make a scrapbook of my semester in Germany.
38. Pray all four sets of mysteries of the rosary at once. Completed on June 2nd, 2013.
39. Do a facebook friend purge.
40. Go to a Freiburg Sacristans game. Completed on May 25th, 2013.
41. Buy a gluten-free cookbook.
42. Go a week without using Facebook.
43. Figure out what to do with the condensed milk in my fridge that I bought by accident.
44. Clean out my backpack.
45. Fix the broken hook and eye on my skirt.
46. Make a loaf of gluten-free bread from scratch.
47. Come up with a budget for next semester that involves concrete numbers.
48. Take my little siblings fishing.
49. Get another turtle.
50. Buy a copy of the Bible in German.