Frankfurt Casting Weekend

Wow, was the weekend great! I did some of my favorite kind of traveling, the kind where you wander around a city and every now and then find a place to sneak a look at your map. I took loads of pictures, so I'll put a few in this post and the rest will have my comments on them in Picasaweb.

I arrived in Frankfurt around 10 (using the ride website that helped us teach the Word of Wisdom to a dude), and after consulting the train station's non-helpful map (with no north/east/south/west), I simply started walking straight into the heart of the city. I got turned around a few times, but I finally found Goethe's house.

Next up: the Katharinenkirche (kirche=church), the Paulskirche, the Römer, and the Nikolaikirche. Then I walked across the Main river on the Eiserner Steg. From there I visited the Dreikönigskirche, then I walked along a street of museums. I regretted paying for the architecture museum which was really just pictures of a few cool buildings in the world. I took some pictures just for you, Tanya.













Then I walked into the Städelsches Kunstinstitut (art institute) und Städtische Galerie and loved the special exhibition from Max Beckmann, who was born in Leipzig. I found it interesting that they had a timeline of his life that left out the WWII years, though all the quotations of his that were posted around the room were from then. As usual, I liked the post-1700s stuff the best.

Then, upon approaching the Museum of Communication, I stopped dead in my tracks. (That's where I posted from.) Upon seeing the following sign, I got so excited I quickly thought about spending the rest of the day in the museum.
















You see, that sign says "Absolutely Private? From journal to blogs," which is EXAAAAACTLY what I want to write my doctoral thesis about. I went upstairs and took pictures and took in everything I could before I almost peed my pants and had to go downstairs to find a bathroom. Then I found out I should have paid and left my backpack downstairs, so I paid and left. It was raining outside and that's when I discovered my umbrella was a bit broken, so I had to hold up the top with one hand. Walking back over the Eiserner Steg, I went to the Schirn Kunsthalle with modern art, which had some pretty nifty Russian art.













Then I saw the Kaiserdom, a church that had parts first built during the Holy Roman Empire. The Museum of Modern Art was unfortunately closed for some unknown reason. My throat was killing me at this point (those antibiotics from the doctor didn't work). I saw a piece of the old city wall. I visited the Liebfrauenkirche, bought some flowers for the Wiborny family, and bought a delicious Wurst outside of the underground entrance. I got lost for a while (which is not a bad thing) and finally found my way to the institute. David and I played the organ until institute started, which was a fabulous lesson about the 13th Article of Faith. We discussed a recent unfortunate translation that changed "of good report" to "something that sounds good."

The next day, I went with Janett to the Saalburg, an old Holy Roman Empire settlement. Then she dropped me off at the templegrounds, where I stayed for the weekend.

VOCALIS CHOIR TRYOUTS













There I sung with the choir, practiced a lot, did baptisms, played football in the parking lot under the church, etc. That choir is hard-core! I had really good chances to get in as they are desperately lacking altos at the moment, but as we practiced "Sicut Cervus" with other people trying out and as we sang later with the choir, it was quite clear to me that I'm not ready to sing with them. For my personal try-out, I had practiced "Come Thou Fount," but a guy told me it didn't fit my voice and encouraged me to sing the other one I'd practiced, "Be Still My Soul." It took me forever to decide. I even called the sister missionary who'd been giving me singing lessons and sang to her on the phone. I ended up singing the second one and did quite well, I thought, at least better than I did with the quartet singing "Sicut Cervus." They had me sing lower and lower (I got to D) and asked me some questions (one of which was "How is your German so good?" to which I replied, "Is it?") and then it was over with! Before I left on Sunday, the two people responsible for the choir took me aside and asked how I felt about my tryout. I told them that I didn't feel like I was ready to sing with them, and they said they agreed but were sad not to have my great personality in the choir, which made me quite glad. I absolutely intend to keep learning in Leipzig.

The choir will be singing in Salt Lake City at the Assembly Hall in March or April, so if you are there, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE go hear them, they are amazing!

It was great to see the Wibornies and Jessi and to hang out with Inka (though 7 hours of travel to save 3 Euros getting home was a little extreme) and get to know a lot of new people. Oh, and happy birthday to Jessi today!