Running In the Mud

Have you ever just wished that you were miserable? As in, have you ever been sitting around and all of a sudden thought to yourself, “Dang! I wish that I was super uncomfortable and miserable right now!” Because I do! (But before you think I just love to torture myself, I suppose I better explain what I mean.)

Last semester my friend Heather and I decided that we were not in shape. I am not trying to say that we were only running four miles per day and eating ranch with our carrots, but that we really were not at all in shape. We mostly instead went to Java City and drank hot chocolate and ate cinnamon rolls every night, which many doctors agree is not good for you.

Lying on the floor and eating candy was a much more typical activity for us!

We decided that we would motivate ourselves by signing ourselves up to run in a mud run, which is a 6.2 mile run hosted by a group of marines in Charlotte used as a fundraiser. Not only do you run the six miles, but you also have to overcome 36 obstacles as a team of four. And, of course, there is a lot of mud! So Heather and I signed up with two of our friends, Joe and Marcos.

At first, we were super into training. We started running every day, and got to the point where we running five miles a day. We were basically super awesome. But then midterms came. And then projects, and grades, and papers, and everything else until Heather and I decided that the ideal amount of running is actually two miles per day. So after that we just ran two miles, twice per week.

Reading this blog impression, you might get the impression that I like to run. Let me hurry up and correct that for you, I HATE to run! I hate it with a passion! I loathe every second of it and wait impatiently for every run to be over.

Our friends made signs to motivate us to keep going!

But at the same time, I really love it. I think the reason is not because I loved running, but because I loved running with Heather. Heather and I would use our runs as an opportunity to pray for our school, and while we would run we would take turns praying out loud praying for the people in our school and the people of Due West. (I should point out here that because Heather is a cross-country runner and I am not, she had a lot more turns than I did, as I was usually panting for breath and falling behind 😛 ) The running was an amazing opportunity to really get to know each other and build our faith together.

And because of that, I sometimes really wish I was on a miserable run. I really miss going on those runs with Heather, because I hated them so much, and loved them at the same time. That is one of the major life lessons I have learned (or started to learn) while attending Erskine: sometimes the things you really love you have to work for, and they will not always be fun.

Heather, Joe, Marcos, and I looking super legit after we crossed the finish line!!

To conclude this post I will tell you the happy ending of this story. My 21^st birthday rolled around, and the four of us traveled to Columbia and ran for about two and half hours. We were covered in mud and had a fantastic time!! We then traveled back to Erskine for a gospel choir concert (better not even get me started on how amazing that was!) and then a dinner at Ruby Tuesday with friends.

(And for those of you who were wondering, I do not think I have run once since that big race. I wish I could say that I had, but most of the time when I wake up and say that I am going to go for a run, I once again find myself laying on the couch watching Alias and eating Cheetos!)

more of Mainz

You may be sick of hearing about Germany by this point; I promise that I am more than halfway done though.  Just to cheer you up, I’ll start you with a fun fact: Carnival is HUGE is Mainz!  So big that they have a statue dedicated to it in the centre of town with over 200 unique figures on it to celebrate their favourite celebration.  I would love to experience Carnival some time in my life!

Anna and I posing in front of the Carnival statue. It’s actually much larger than it looks in the photo.

To continue where my last post left off, the next church Anna took us to is called Petruskirche, or St. Peter’s Church.  The baccalaureate ceremony for her high school graduation was in this church.  If I ever attended a service in this church, I’m not sure I would be able to pay attention at all to what was being said.  Pictures truly are worth [at least] a thousand words, and I think the photographs below are explanation enough for this (click to enlarge):

Of all the beauty contained here, I think the organ has to be my favourite.  I also have an immense respect for the artists who painted this church.

Never fear: we visited some Protestant churches too!  I really enjoyed Christuskirche, or Christ Church, which was built around the turn of the 19th century and rebuilt after World War II.  We also got to sit in on a rehearsal for an Easter concert the church was hosting.  It was wonderful to warm up from the cold outdoors while hearing some very talented musicians rehearse.  Not wanting to be too much of a distraction, we didn’t take many pictures inside.

Our last stop before the train station that evening was–believe it or not–a shopping mall.  Now, I definitely do not enjoy shopping but Anna wanted to show us what was under the mall: an ancient Roman temple dedicated to Isis, the Egyptian goddess of fertility, and Mater Magna [Great Mother], a goddess favoured by soldiers.  We got there just as it was closing but the lady was nice enough to let us down to see it as long as we didn’t take too long.  This article goes in-depth into the history and discovery of the temple–so interesting!  I began my day in a thousand-year-old cathedral and ended it examining ruins and artefacts over 2500 years old!  We’re talking Old Testament times here.  I wonder what those who built and worshipped here would think of it now.  Below are some of the photos I took; the article I linked to above has more.

We DID buy something in the mall after all; when we had looked around the ruins we went and got ice cream! I mixed raspberry and the Mozart flavour which was quite possibly the best ice cream I’ve had in my life!

I will conclude with some miscellaneous photos that I took around the city.  My next travel post will focus on my final adventures in Germany.  God bless! xx

This is the Proviant-Magazin in Mainz. I love the building and I love the sunlight in the picture.

This is the Landtag Rheinland-Pfalz, a central government building in Mainz. [This explains what exactly it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landtag_of_Rhineland-Palatinate%5D

Left: a Roman column of Jupiter still standing
Right: a larger-than-life hourglass that actually turns; we happened to be there just about on the hour

Top: Statue over the doorway of a building. I love little architectural details!
Bottom: a random sculpture of a foot–I’m not certain whether there was actually more to it at one point, or what its significance is.

a world apart and yet the same: our visit to Mainz

I would like to take a moment to thank my friend Scott for his incredible trip-planning skills.  I have no idea how much time he spent figuring out the best times and cheapest prices for our travels, but it worked out so perfectly and I definitely could not have done it alone.  If I’m being honest (which…I am…), taking two overnight buses in a row during the first part of our journey was a bit rough, but the FIRST CLASS trains on the way home made it more than worthwhile.  I highly recommend it.

Continuing with my Easter travel adventures: Scott and I said goodbye to the rest of the group in Dresden and continued to Frankfurt, where we stayed in a hostel for two days.  This was my first experience in a hostel and it is certainly one that I will never forget! I met so many lovely, kind, interesting people there from around the world and still talk to several of them.  I will expand on this more in my Frankfurt post.  This one is to tell you about our day in Mainz where we met up with my friend Anna from high school!  Anna is German and spent a year at my high school while I was there; we have stayed in contact since then and when I let her know that we would be travelling through Germany, she offered to show us around her home!  We met her in the train station and spent the day touring around the beautiful city of Mainz.  As large European cities go, it was not touristy (which I really appreciated).  It was also very nice to have a native showing us around! Anna confessed to me that she had done some research the night before into some of the places she was showing us so that she would be able to give us more information and answer questions.  How sweet! She’s so lovely.  Anna is Catholic like me, so we geeked out a lot together over the churches and the history but Scott didn’t seem to mind too much.

Our first stop was to Mainz Cathedral; construction on this impressive place of worship began in 975 AD.  Half a dozen monarchs were crowned in this cathedral, and many prince-archbishops of the diocese are buried beneath.  The artwork inside literally spans a millennium.  My entire perspective of art and history and the concept of OLD is forever altered by places such as this one.  I felt such a connection with my brothers and sisters in Christ throughout literally the past thousand years.  Moments such as these put my life and anxieties in perspective.

Looking up at the altar in the Mainz Cathedral

Some of the artwork is visible in this photo, as well as some of the truly amazing architectural and artistic detail of the building itself.

Oh, to worship in such a place! I couldn’t help but spend a while kneeling in prayer here.

(Random fact about the cathedral: If you know anything about typical cathedral construction, it is quite rare for the cloister to be two stories: this cathedral is one of only a few in the world to be constructed so.)  I find it difficult to believe that anyone can walk into a place such as this one and NOT feel the very presence of the Lord.

Anna, my beautiful, wonderful sister in Christ! The two-story cloister is visible in the background.

Another view of the cathedral’s exterior

After our time in the Cathedral, we all decided to placate our stomachs and find lunch.  Anna took us to her favourite restaurant which is right across a wide road and plaza from the opera house, called the Staatstheater.  In this area is a statue of Johannes Gutenberg (yep, the guy who invented the mechanical printing press) and a design in the ground letting you know that you are standing on the 50°N parallel.  Lunch was delicious Italian food and I had my first ever cappuccino. (Yes, Italian in Germany. Don’t judge us.)

standing on the 50th parallel

Opera house!! I wish we could have gone inside.

It was beyond cool to be walking the streets where Johannes lived, invented the printing press, printed the first Bible, and died. Quite unfortunate to see the golden arches in the background though…

Yes, I ate this entire pizza. And, yes, it was delicious.

Anna then took us to tour a bit of her school, Johannes Gutenberg University.  It was interesting to see and hear about a foreign [to me] university and her experiences there.  I really enjoyed it but it was strange to thinking about being at such a large university, especially after 2.5 years at little Erskine!  Gutenberg University is far larger than even St Andrews.

Arriving at Gutenberg University: Anna told me that she had never seen her uni look so beautiful as this picture makes it look. I thought it was quite nice though.

There were many interesting modern sculptures around campus like this one.

This was spray-painted on an archway we went through. It seemed like a well-timed reminder from God just when I was feeling a bit insignificant in this big world of ours. He truly works in mysterious and wonderful ways!

The second church we visited was St. Stephan zu Mainz, or The Collegiate Church of St. Stephan; it was originally built in 990 AD on the tallest hill in Mainz. The current church, pictured below, was completed in 1340. The view inside and out was gorgeous!  I absolutely love the back story of how the church came to look the way it was.  The altar is 13th century and the tabernacle dates to the early 1500s! Is anything that old in America?  Marc Chagall, a Russian Jew who fled France during the Nazi occupation, created the stained-glass windows of the church in the 1970s-80s at the request of the bishop who was a friend of his.  Chagall considered the windows a contribution to Jewish-German reconciliation and the windows with pictures demonstrate commonalities between the Christian & Jewish faiths.  I love the story and symbolism of this loving act.  Though we were not there to see it, it is said that at certain times of day the way that the light plays through the windows makes it seem as though there are angels flying through the air.  It is an amazing effect either way.

I think this post is quite long enough for now, but I will finish up a few more stories [and quite a few more pictures of course!] in my next post.

An Erskine Student

Good afternoon!

My name is Holly and I am a student at Erskine College. More specifically, I am about to start my senior year at Erskine and I am VERY excited! I double major in mathematics and psychology, and this upcoming year I am about to have one of the best experiences of my life : I am going to study abroad! (You can go ahead and bet 20 bucks that many of my blog posts will relate to my travels and fun in Scotland!)

My most recent Erskine yearbook photo 🙂

But before I tell you every detail about my plans to go abroad, would you like to know a little bit more about me? I am from Southern Pines, North Carolina and I went to Pinecrest High School. Unlike many students at Erskine, I did not choose to come to Erskine because I am a loyal member of the ARP church (I am a Baptist :P) or because my great-great-great-great grandfather went to Erskine. My average grandfather did not go to Erskine, either!

I actually heard about Erskine on the internet, from a website called commonapp.org. It is actually a really cool website! High school students go online and fill out a questionnaire about what they want their college experience to be like,  and then recommends what it thinks would be the perfect college for each of the students. I answered all of the questions, and it recommended Erskine College for me. So I applied, and visited, and now here I am!

Me and my six best friends at Erskine!

I basically think that Erskine is the best college in the entire world! I love all of my professors and the close friends that I have made! Even more, I love the community. I love living in a dorm where I know everyone and where I can run up and down the dorm halls on Sunday nights in my jammies, begging everyone I see if I can borrow a movie (because I certainly do not want to study on a Sunday!)

But I suppose that anyone can tell you that they love their college without giving any concrete reasons why they do. So let me tell you a few reasons I love Erskine so much. I have thought for a long time about it, and I have decided that the best part about Erskine is the professors. Why the professors? After all, the students at Erskine are also pretty awesome 😉 But if it were not for the professors at Erskine, we would be a pile of really awesome, really uneducated students hanging out in lobbies watching movies and trying to microwave pop-tarts! But besides teaching us basic course material, our professors go way out of their way to teach us the important things in life: how to decide what we want to do with our lives, how to enjoy our learning, and how to do well in life outside of academics.

Some students at Erskine think that they are ninjas!

My professors have certainly done these things for me! My freshman year I had no idea how to write a paper that made any sense at all, so my seminar professor (Dr. Chaney) spent hours in her office with me that year teaching me the difference between an active and passive voice, and what my other professors meant when they talked about “to be” verbs. My sophomore and junior years I took two intense physics courses, and I was falling behind. My physics professor, Dr. Schelp, let me come to his office four days a week outside of class for extra tutoring and help on my homework. He never even once complained about how slow I was, or how much help I needed all of the time. He just brewed a cup of coffee and microwaved himself a burrito, and then kept answering my questions! I mention these two professors because they are the first two I thought of, but many of my other professors have given me extra help, spent time in their offices with me talking about life, and helped me to grow outside of the classroom.

At Erskine we also have academic advisers. Each student has a professor in their major who helps them sign up for classes, who helps them choose the best route for them to take in their major, and who helps them do other academic stuff (such as apply for summer research opportunities and maybe even grad school!) Because I am a double major, I have two advisers. Dr. Abalo is my math adviser, and has probably had more questions for me from any other student he has ever advised. Every semester I go into his office and draw a chart of my upcoming semester and make lists of all of the possible classes I could take. He kind of looks at me like I am crazy each time and then helps me choose what would be the best math classes for me to take. I think he wonders how I can possibly talk so much, and how I can have so many questions, but he answers them all and is one of my favorite professors at Erskine 🙂

The Erskine Society of Psychology (ESP)

My psychology adviser is Dr. Elsner. Of all of my professors, he is my favorite and also one the reasons why I came to Erskine. I attended one of his lectures during a scholarship competition weekend and he talked about how wonderful the psychology program is at Erskine. He told us all about the challenging courses we get to take (I am a nerd and get really excited about my classes, as you might can tell), and how successful the students are after they graduate. The whole thing was so well done, and offered the extra incentive of doing well in life after graduation, that I could not help but come to Erskine! 😛

Dr. Elsner has definitely been the best adviser a student can have. Besides patiently answering the hundreds of questions about what I should do with my life after graduation, he has helped me with hundreds of other problems I have stumbled across as a student at Erskine. Which leads me to how I came to study abroad: when I decided (way too late) that I wanted to study abroad, I was not eligible. This year is my senior year and I had too many courses I needed to take before graduation in order to leave for a semester. Dr. Elsner rearranged my entire last year and course requirements so that I could go, including teaching an independent study for me last semester because I would miss the required course while I was abroad.

You know you go to Erskine when this is what you see on the way to math class!

Now there are only 44 days remaining until my flight leaves for St. Andrews, and I am about to die with excitement! Actually I hope not to die, because then I would miss out on this wonderful opportunity that Erskine is providing me!

 

but wait: there’s more! (Dresden continued)

As I said in my last post, there are so many more parts of Dresden that I want to share that I decided to do a second post.  These other adventures include: exploring Dresden Zwinger (the palace), [me] singing outside of the Semperoper (the opera house), admiring the Fürstenzug and other murals, having a delicious lunch in a bakery, exploring this awesome store called Globetrotter, and other assorted adventures around the city.

I think I am going to let my pictures do the talking; as always, click on any photo to see the full-size version.  I’ve included descriptions for almost everything.

Posing in the courtyard gardens of Dresden Zwinger, the Dresden Palace. It was immense and so lovely!

Another view looking into the main courtyard of the Zwinger.

An interior courtyard of the Zwinger; statues lined all of the walls surrounding a fountain.

One of countless fountains in the Zwinger; empty for winter, it was still a beautiful sight to behold!

Semperoper; The Dresden Opera House

Yes, I actually sang on this statue outside of the opera house. (The photo may be posed but the singing was real.)

I love these beautiful ladies!

The Fürstenzug on Augustusstrasse; it was nearly impossible to get this entire mural into one shot, but it shows centuries of Germanic princes and historical figures.

Hannah, Anna, and Christabel posing like some of the figures on the wall.

German bakery. Delectable.
(left to right: Anna, Scott, Nick, Christabel, and Hannah)

We found an awesome six-person bicycle and tried it out for size. It was quite an interesting contraption!

I cannot remember what this building was but it was immense and beautiful. Have you noticed a common theme yet?

Nick, Hannah, me, Christabel, and Anna posing in one of the many picturesque parts of Dresden.

Christabel showed off her gymnastic skills; unfortunately I caught the shot on her way down.

University kids know how to entertain themselves.

I have a thing for doors. I found this under a giant staircase and really wanted to see what was on the other side, but unfortunately it was locked.

A collage of photos I took inside the Globetrotter store; there was actually a multi-story climbing wall, an indoor pond, and rain falling from the ceiling.

history in real life: Dresden, Germany

Every time I come to write a new blog post, I am amazed at the time that has gone by since I last posted!  It seems that only upon reflection do I ever realise how quickly life is passing.

For example: this post is about my day with friends in Dresden, Germany, which was 4 months ago! I still remember it so clearly though. I am so grateful that God has given us the capacity for memories.  I am equally grateful for the beautiful people that I created these memories with!

I think the most incredible thing about touring Dresden was exploring the city centre which was completely bombed out by the Allies at the end of World War II.  Photos of the city after this happened show the unbelievable damage that essentially flattened it.  Yet the only evidence of this that we saw in person was the colouring of some of the bricks in buildings that they rebuilt.  During restoration of the city, they used as much original stone and brick of buildings as they could; it is easy to spot the old bricks because they are charred from the bombing.  I think one of the best examples of this that we saw was Dresdner Frauenkirche, the Church of Our Lady, where Martin Luther himself preached. Talk about historical!   We sat for a while inside the Frauenkirche, which was rebuilt about 10 years ago to look exactly as it did when Luther was alive.  Words and pictures cannot express how exquisite this church is, though I’ll try to show you below (click on any photo to see it full-size).  As with the cathedrals of Europe, I think it is impossible to be in this church and NOT feel the presence of God.

The outside of the Church of Our Lady. I spent some quality time with Luther there; we may have our disagreements, but he’s a pretty good guy.

Can words express the exquisiteness of this sight? I cannot find them.

In my humble opinion, no church is truly complete without a pipe organ. This one is certainly beautiful!

I love how the sunlight streaming through the windows played on the life-size statues at the front.

This shows you how intricate the carvings and artistry is in the church.

I include this photo because the man there gives you an idea of the sheer magnitude of the size of this amazing church.

Kreuzkirche, Church of the Holy Cross, was another beautiful Protestant Church we visited, though I have fewer photos of that one.

Outside of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity (unfortunately it was locked so we couldn’t go in). This is another example of the combined old and new stones used to reconstruct the city.

Black & white, old & new. History intertwined!

This is one of hte most unique crosses I have ever seen in a church.

Can you tell I love pipe organs?

Dresden was absolutely freezing; there was still snow and ice on the ground (especially in the shadier areas), but it was still such a beautiful place.  I think the coldest part was when we walked Augustusbrücke (Augustus Bridge), which crosses the river Elbe.  The wind was so biting! But the view was gorgeous and definitely worth it.

Enjoying a calm moment on the bridge with the lovely Christabel!

Nick and Scott were admiring the view by the river; I snuck a few shots.

In terms of Dresden, I think I will let the photographs do the rest of the talking.  Because I have so many more pictures from to share, though, I am going to put them all in my next post.

 

 

Easter travels, part VII: Herrnhut, Germany

Summer seems to be racing by, yet I continue returning to my spring holiday travel stories.  There are so many to tell though!
I spent the majority of our two-week holiday in Germany, mostly in a small village called Herrnhut close to the Czech and Polish borders.  This town is the centre of the Moravian church (Zinzendorf, anyone?) as well as where the 26-point Christmas star was created and is still produced.
My friend Scott lived here with the Novak family for several months last summer while volunteering with the Jesus-Haus.  Jan and Ulrike were kind enough to welcome us into their home for a week, including an extra six university students for the weekend.  The boys stayed in their attic room and us girls shared the beautiful guest apartment connected to their house.

A peek from the doorway into the guest apartment we stayed in for the week. The bedroom (with a loft!) was straight ahead, bathroom to the right, and kitchen downstairs. Beautiful, peaceful, and cosy.

This was the view from our bedroom window. I never got tired of seeing this!

It was really nice to be a part of the daily life of the family:  helping with cooking, playing in the snow, going to church, and getting to know the family.  The four children–Natti, Hanni, Joshi, and Elli–were so wonderful!  Elli is Scott’s goddaughter and the three of us spent a lovely afternoon building a gigantic snowman in the courtyard of the Jesus-Haus.  Scott did most of the heavy lifting and hard work, while three-year-old Elli chatted away to me in German and built mini-snowmen to be the family of the daddy snowman.  We did help Scott some by making the head and throwing snowballs at him.  Little is cuter than hearing a ruddy-cheeked three-year old exclaim, “Bauten wir eine große Schneemann!” while she claps her hands.

Scott & his goddaughter working together–what a sweet photo!

Scott was, rightfully, so proud of the finished snowman! Elli and I left him with most of the work but he did a great job.

Another afternoon Scott and I took four-year-old Joshi to the Ethnographic Museum in town which was quite interesting despite two-thirds of the descriptions being solely in German. And Hanni and I got along quite well; we spent some quality time together playing with each other’s hair, reading or playing games, and helping Ulri with preparing meals.  Ulri is an incredible cook!  Our first night she made traditional Czech dumplings which were beyond delicious.  We had so much amazing food that I cannot choose any one favourite.  We also gave the Herrnhut baker a fair bit of business.  Aside from France, I’ve never had such good-tasting bread.  It was the week before Easter so Scott and I went one evening and bought some sweet Osterbrot, or Easter bread.

Easter bread from the friendly baker in Hernnhut! Literally some of the best bread I’ve had in my life.

Friday night the members of the Jesus-Haus celebrate [a slightly Christianised version of] Pesach, the Jewish Passover.  Our friends from St. Andrews had joined us by this point and the eight of us spent Friday afternoon cooking and baking dishes before celebrating a trilingual Pesach.  (If you have never made an apple pie from scratch, you are truly missing something in life.)

We had so much fun making all sorts of goodies. Who says college students don’t know their way around a kitchen?

We met everyone in the Jesus-Haus and talked a bit before it started.  Jan and Ulri had their turn leading the celebration that night and words cannot express how moving it was.  I felt connected to God and His people through thousands of years, through all of our history.  It wasn’t just living history, it was living part of the Bible.  It’s truly an experience that I will remember and treasure forever.

Jan and Ulri have a huge heart for the Jewish people, culture, language, and history.  Both of them study Hebrew (and know quite a few other languages) and have done a lot of work with Israel.  I learned so much from them! It is always inspiring to talk to people about the opportunities they have had in their lives and to hear about their passions.  It was also really interesting to hear stories and perspectives from a couple who grew up in eastern Europe during Soviet times.  Walking around parts of the former USSR made a huge impact on me: history became much more real.

One of the most exciting parts of our stay in Herrnhut was when I learned to ski! On the Saturday we were there, the eight of us university students, Ulri and her father, and the three oldest children spent the day in the Czech mountains skiing.  None of us girls from St. Andrews knew how to ski so after everyone got fitted for boots & skis, we made our way to the baby slope.  Scott, James, and Nick took turns coming over to give us pointers; none of us were too horrid, but let me just say that learning to ski in jeans means extremely cold, wet legs.  I absolutely love snow and the day was great bonding time for all of us.  We even managed to order ourselves food and drinks from the little café in Czech! Cultural experiences for the win!

Sarah and I all bundled up for a day in the snowy Czech mountains!

This is the longest icicle I’ve ever seen in my life!! Don’t worry, no one was harmed in the taking of this photo. (pictured: Scott & James)

We were so blessed to be able to live, work, pray, and fellowship with this wonderful family and other members of the Jesus-Haus.  They were perfect examples of hospitality and love and I will always be grateful for that week.  I dearly hope to return some day!

I took this in the kitchen while we were making food for Pesach. Even though it was almost Easter, I felt like we needed to have Christmas carols on!