The reason I didn't write this last weekend was because I was visiting Charles in Espelkamp. I left on Thursday after I was supposed to have my trumpet lesson (which got canceled). Espelkamp, a town of about 20 000, is where Charles has been living and working with heating and air. About 50% of the people that live there are Russian and many of those are Russian-Mennonites who came in the last several decades (including Charles' host family). The two main employers there are a cigarette vending machine manufacturer, and a slot machine manufacturer.
On Thursday Charles and I went out to the brewery in Espelkamp (evidently one of the few interesting places to go out to in Espelkamp). That night I stayed at Charles' host's house. It was a duplex, but it was the closest thing to a house that I've been into in the last 5 months. There are apartments everywhere here; people above, below, and on all sides--all the time. This house was still fairly small, but shared only one wall and has a door opening directly to the outside world. What a luxury.
On Friday Charles had to work, and thought he would be off by 12pm or maybe 1pm if his boss forgot that he had asked to leave early. I got up aroung 10am and had some breakfast. (I was just planning on having the cereal that was left out for me on the table, but as I was finishing up, Charles' host mother walked in. She told me that I needed to eat some more, and gave me bread meat and cheese to eat too.) Then I waited, and watched some German television. Eventually it became noon, but no Charles. 1pm and still no Charles. At 2pm the host mother said we would eat, because she didn't know what was taking Charles so long. She asked me if I wanted to pray, and I told her that would be fine. I folded my hands expecting her to begin praying, and then she said "You can pray aloud in English or German, it doesn't matter to me." I was caught off-guard. I had been speaking in German to her this whole time, but I had never prayed aloud in German. I just went with the English. And it was not long after our first bite of food that Charles come through the front door. His boss had evidently lost track of time, or didn't realize how long the project would be.
Later that afternoon we headed off to Muenster. The is a little more than an hour away for Espelkamp by train, and is a university city. There are 50 000 students alone. But in 1533 it wasn't a university city at all. There was a group of anabaptists who took over the whole city and ruled there for only a few years before an unlikely alliance of Lutherans and Catholics drove them back out, and left their leaders' dead bodies hanging in cages off the church steeple. Charles had found someone he thought we could stay with through a couch-surfing website, but he hadn't got a sure answer yet. On our way to the train station we had to stop at the gambling-arcade (not quite a casino) which was the closest place where Charles could get access to the internet. He found a message in his "couch-surfing" account inbox that said the place wouldn't work out after all. We decided we would send messages to as many people as possible to see if they could host us that night still, and we headed out anyway.
When we got there, we went into the nearest internet cafe to see if anyone had replied. Someone had, and said that he would be studying until about 10pm that night, but that we could stay with his friends. It turned out to be a really great experience. The guys we met showed us around the city and took us out that night. When we arrived, they even offered us some noodles (which they said were probably 80% of their diet). The next day we went to the city museum, where there was an exhibit on Low German, as well as the Täuferreich.
Then on Sunday, I came back to Wuppertal, and met up with the Bethel interterm travel group for Supper. There were also several Bethel-Wuppertal exchange alumni from as far back as the 50s. It was interesting to experience this meeting of people from my home school and Wuppertal people, especially here in Germany where I have been fairly isolated from people back home.
This last week I have just been trying to tie up some loose ends, and make an exit strategy. I had my last lessons, and yesterday I played the concerto I had been working in my trumpet lessons with a piano player in Solingen. It wasn't really a recital, more just to get the experience of playing it with accompaniment. Afterwords my trumpet teacher took me to his apartment, and introduced me to his dog and cat. We had some bread with mashed avocado (he has been a vegetarian for several years), and coffee.
Later than night, I went out to eat with many of my friends from the university at a tasty Indian restaurant where my family and I had eaten when we were in Wuppertal. The waitress remembered me, and told me to tell my family hi. (She also suggested that I should come back some time again, maybe after I have kids.) And we went out one last time, as had become somewhat of a tradition for Thursday nights.
And today is Friday, the Friday before the Saturday on which I will be arriving in Kansas. It's been a good experience, and I have made quite a few friends, that I hope I will see again, but I am excited to come home. I don't think the fact that tomorrow I will be home has really sank in, and it probably won't really sink in that I am going home until I am already there.
Well until next time in the USA,
--Austin
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