This is how I see the world.

Church today. The people there were friendly, more gregarious than any I’ve seen since coming here. I suppose that’s not saying much, as East Germans are very reserved as a rule, but the ones here did go in for the whole hand shaking thing. I understood perhaps 3% of the sermon, but came away with the feeling that one would pick it up more of it eventually. This feeling may have been completely unfounded, as my brothers assure me that they have been through that ‘eventually’ and have made little progress thus far.

Which is ridiculous; they’re doing remarkably well. Immersion ftw.

Visited a family from the church for a few hours, following a walk in the park (more like a wood that happened to have suitable walking paths, actually). The husband is a programmer for a software consulting firm, his wife teaches piano within their home and at a localish music academy. The dog doesn’t do anything in particular, but is instead named Isha (aye-shah), which they figure mostly makes up for it.

Their (primary) piano (among three) was of interest. Scarcely two weeks old. Understand that I haven’t touched a piano – any piano – for months, let alone a shining black stallion of a piano. It wasn’t anything terribly fancy, just an upright (though it did have the ability to silence the strings and turn into what amounts to a hammer-action digital), but.. sigh. Like picking up an old drug habit.

I would think.

And I love old churches, by the way. There are a couple shots in photog of one from a few days ago; you can see graffiti on the walls in a few takes. We went to one this evening for a concert – absolutely massive cathedral. A work of art. In complete awe the entire time. Pictures tomorrow, but… man. Beautiful. The concert was the church choir and philharmonic orchestra (oh yes, they have their own philharmonic), and between their skill (impressive for what was essentially a group of parishioners) and the acoustics (imagine masonry walls holding vaulted ceilings three hundred feet high)… yeah. Beautiful. The concert also included a performance on the church organ, the pipes for which took up most of one wall. Absolutely incredible.

Though the best part was probably the Bose speakers mounted on the austere stone walls. :D The building was in the final half of restoration (the concert was part of a fundraiser, I think), and the construction scaffolding in parts of the halls made for an interesting juxtaposition with the aging majesty of the cathedral itself.

But yeah. Pictures tomorrow.

Cheers –