Wunderbares Weimar/Schlechter Männertag

I randomly got the opportunity to go to Weimar on May Day/The Ascension of Christ Day (they occur on the same day this year) with the Young Women. It was a beautiful little city and the weather was divine.

We saw Schiller's house, Goethe's house, Anna Pavlovna's grave, and Liszt's house. We ate lunch in a lovely field of dandelions and daisies. You may think, "Dandelions?" but I've learned to understand the German's appreciation of nature. What they call a park might be called a forest by us, because they just let whatever grow and it's amazing. Some of the girls used the stems of dandelions to toot out some tunes, but I could never make it work.











I had to laugh when I saw this. Michael Jordan. In Weimar, of all places.















Then we hiked up a hill where there was a race going on with self-made "soap box cars" that people had to be able to carry and drive. At the top of the hill was a beautiful old summer home of some rich British dude and which is now a music school. His orangery was lovely and the flowers brought out some "oohs" and "aahs.












Weimar also has buildings, but I was so excited about all the greenery I almost forgot to post a picture of one. (This is the summer house.)











There was also a statue of Wieland, a statue of Shakespeare (who visited Weimar) with poor Yorrick's skull, a plaque with Hans Christian Andersen's name (he visited too), a statue of Herder (I forgot who that is), a building where the first constitution was written, a famous altar painting (The Crucifixion by Cranach), and a plethora of hills. a cool library that had a lot of old books (but the building burned and they had to douse the fire, which soaked the books, which are now frozen and being slowly dried and restored in Leipzig). I lost my chapstick, but it was so fun walking and talking with the girls. (Maybe because it was so fun.) One of the coolest things about Weimar was that the buildings are well-preserved and I hardly saw any graffiti, which is unfortunately all over Leipzig. In all, we walked for about 6 hours. At the end, everyone kept saying, "I am K.O.," or something like that. All I can deduct is that maybe it stands for "knocked-out"? Help me out here, Francy. Ich bin auch K.O.











View from the top of the hill:











Oh, a side note: since Germans have forgotten the purpose of their religious holidays, men decided to take over and this holiday has come to be known as "Men Day." As far as I could tell, it's just an excuse for men to do all the lame, stereotypical things all at once and all together. They go around in big groups schlepping astonishing quantities of beer bottles, they grill, they wear wife beaters, they scratch where they shouldn't, and they cat-call everyone who walks by. Oh boy. Let's celebrate.