Did we mention that we are on a bus alot? AAh well we are sometimes we even get off it. Abby loves the bus so much that her ankles swell with excitement everytime she gets on. Mmm love those cankles.
Unusually today we had a good stop in Dresden, Germany for a couple of hours. As we looked at the impressive restored historic buildings it dawned on us that the bells were ringing for an awfully long time. Jess eventually made the connection that it was Sunday. We are so out of touch with reality that this was a big surprise to us. So to fill our time we thought we would attend a church service.
Frauen Kirhe Dresden is church with a magnificently restored building. During the WW2 Dresden controversially was bombed by the Allies. They destroyed approximately 70% of the central city including the church which was filled with over 200 hundred people seeking refuge. The city of Dresden has paid over 200 million euros to accurately restore it plus some useful extras such as mics and amps etc.
The service started promptly with a Bach prelude on the organ, then a whole lot of german, a baptism, more german, music by a chamber music group, sermon in german then fugue on the organ to finish. An hour start to finish. We reflected on this experience, the language barrier gave us a fresh view on the Christian culture, perhaps this is what it is like for non Christian looking in not understanding the Christian jargon. Trying to say the responses on the service sheet without knowing the meaning seemed empty. However it for us it was still a spiritual experience.
On wards we travelled to Berlin. Stopping for a service stop outside of Berlin our eyes were drawn to the sky where we saw an European Fighter plane doing acrobatic stunts which was very impressive and noisy.
Upon arriving at Berlin we set out to find a bar to watch the football, Germany vs. Australia. With so many Australians on the tour and with our good kiwi upbringing “we support New Zealand and anyone playing Australia” we cheered for Germany which proved to be quite appropriate due to Germany’s thrashing of Australia 4-0.
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