EuroLife Day 33

Thank you! We have been getting a lot of comments lately, and we love it! You'd be surprised how excited we get whenever a new comments shows up :)

Today was the perfect example of why Sundays are my favorite day in Jena. We started the day with our walk to church, and I have to tell you things didn't look all that promising. We have been in a cloud--and I mean that literally--for a week now. Michael says he saw the sun last Sunday for a little while when hiking, but I can't confirm this wild claim. I myself had not seen the sun for over a week when we set out for church this morning. During the service, however, things started to look up. About halfway through, the sun started to stream through the windows. Our church, incidentally, is in a very nice building. It is a former youth hostel/youth center, and resembles a very large house. The sanctuary has windows along the wall and behind the altar. I really love it.

After the service, we met a few new people and I successfully carried on an introductory conversation in German. It was fairly brief, but I was proud of myself for the rest of the day. Baby steps. We then persuaded two of our friends to join us for an afternoon hike.

We started out at Landgrafen, which is the hill closest to our apartment. Actually, I must digress. There really aren't any hills surrounding Jena; we just learned this today. They are neither hills nor mountains. Instead, Jena sits in a giant hole. This makes sense, and should give you a better idea of how the city is situated. Apparently, the soil is primarily chalk and (I think) limestone, and it is quite soft. The river that runs through Jena, the Saale, carved a long, deep hole through the area. Jena sits in that hole. As a result, it looks as if Jena is surrounded by hills. (It is, of course, surrounded by hills in one sense, but relative to the rest of Germany, it is not.) The hills are all about the same height, which makes sense in light of this news, and it was remarkable to look down on Jena and see it as one giant sinkhole. (Not stinkhole, it really is quite lovely, but a hole nontheless.) This also explains why, once you have reached the very top of any of these local hills, it feels as if you've reached a plain, rather than a peak. The first photo shows one corner of the hole that is Jena :)

I will likely continue to call them hills or mountains, but now we both know the truth.

So, off we went to Landgrafen. After climbing (and climbing and climbing) we reached the field where Napoleon was defeated. The second photo shows the Napoleon memorial. It's a bit odd; they really seem to celebrate Napolean, though of course he was the enemy. I suppose they are just proud to have defeated him, but it sometimes looks more like a celebration of Napoleon himself. Well, there we are anyway. Those are our friends Rose (from Kenya) and Kirsten (from England.) I will leave it to you to determine which is which.

We carried on past Landgrafen to a "hill" that we had not yet hiked, Sonnenberg. It was an extremely beautiful walk and, not surprisingly, many other people were out for the afternoon. Autumn is very pretty here, and reminds me of the Fall in NY or PA. The leaves are particularly red right now, having been almost exclusively yellow for most of last week.

Finally, we reached our destination: though, sadly, we can't remember its name. Here's a picture, in any case. It was a lovely little restaurant, and we arrived in time for coffee and cake. Rose and I indulged and had hot chocolate (heisse chokolade) with our cake. I love Germany. The menu also offered, though we did not try, both Garlic and Onion liquors.

We headed back to Landgrafen along different trails and rested along one of the many benches along the way. The trails are often very steep, and they have benches placed at scenic overlooks all along the trails. Like many of these views, it's difficult to capture in a photograph how impressive the landscape is.


I will include one more photo of the trail, I realize I am bombarding you with pictures today. It was a wonderful day, though. And now I hope you know why Sunday is my favorite day in Jena.