"At least it's not raining..."

Okay so yesterday (Saturday), a bunch of my classmates decided they wanted to take a day trip to Eisanach to see the Wartburg Castle and I decided to tag along. It was a 2 hour train ride there and it was freezing cold and foggy when we go there. Steve had done a lot of research beforehand and found out that the bus that goes up to Wartburg every half hour, but after waiting an hour.... we finally noticed the small print on the bus schedule. It said something about Nov. 1st and calling ahead 45 minutes. We realized that it was in fact, Nov. 1st, but we couldn't quite figure out the complete meaning of the German sentence due to some disagreement about small, yet amazingly important words such as until, only, etc. Anyway, we finally decided to call the number listed on the bus schedule but no one answered. So then after a lot of asking people, who really didn't know what they were talking about, we went back to the Bahnhof and asked one of the ticket ladies there. She found a pamphlet with a newer number on that, so then we were finally able to secure a bus to come at the next half hour. So, 2 1/2 hours after arriving in Eisenach, we were on our way up there. It turns out that after Nov. 1st, if you want to take the bus, you have to call because it is no longer tourist season... yeah. Well we know now!

Anyway, we got up there and took a tour of the castle. It was awesome! I have been to a fair number of European castles and fortresses now, but this one was exceptionally cool. It was built in 1166 and had much of the original roots, but since it was in use until the 1950's, parts of it kept being updated every hundred years or so and so it has styles over a range of 800 years. It's true claim to fame, and the main reason why I wanted to tour it, is because it is where Martin Luther hid under the name "Squire George" and translated the New Testament into German from December 1521- February 1522. I had finally seen that really well done movie "Luther" about the life of Martin Luther, just a few weeks ago, so my interest was especially heightened. It was crazy to actually stand in the simple room where he worked tirelessly over a 2-month period and began the first stages of the Restoration.

So, we realized that it was getting pretty late, and that if we didn't catch the 5 PM train out of Eisenach, we would have to wait an additional 2 hours to leave, so we ran down the mountain, because no more buses were coming. Amazingly, though we got to the Bahnhof 2 minutes after our train should have left, it was still waiting for us, so luckily we got home by 7 PM. I was exhausted after being outside in the penetrating, damp cold and walking (or running) around all day. We saw the first snow I have seen here up by the Castle. But our response to any unfortunate event or complaint of someone being cold, was "At least it's not raining!" Because it rained the whole day when we were in Celle on Thursday. But it was totally worth it, and I am really glad to be fitting in all these weekend or day trips between school.

Today we went to Hannover for stake conference. Janet made a really yummy dinner tonight (taco soup) and we are all sad for her to leave back to Utah tomorrow morning. It has been really fun for Mom to have her over her birthday and for "the Blender Sisters" (named that for the weird voices they do around each other, dating back to a sleepover they had once upon a time, when the tried to impersonate the sound their voices made while talking into a blender... yeah, and everyone thinks the Woodbury girl cousins are so weird and unique with the voices) to reunite the past 8 days.