You Go Nate!

How I Spent My Sommer Vacation - Part VIII (July 15th & 16th):
THE BACK POCKET OF GERMANY

I left Görlitz by train heading south to the town of Zittau. Zittau lies in a little piece of Germany that juts into the Czech Republic. Poland lies to the east.

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While on the train, two older women boarded and sat across from me. After a few moments one of them pulled out a "Watchtower" with a polar bear on the front and asked me if I knew what the Bible said about Global Warming.

I said, "are you Jehovah's Witnesses?"
"Yes we are."
"That's nice. I read the Bible too." I replied
"Oh, that's wonderful!" Her excitement was barely containable.
"And I also read another book that is a testament of Jesus Christ..." I said calmly.
Her smile started fade.
"It's called 'The Book of Mormon;' have you ever heard of it?" I asked.
They're guard was up now, "Yes, we've heard of it." Even as she spoke she reached for her Bible like a cowboy for his gun. "But did you know that in the book of Acts...."
At this point she started quoting scriptures at me and I realized it was my own dang fault. I wished I was back to listening to Newsies on my ipod.
I made a half-hearted attempt at a response, "But how do YOU know that the Bible is true?" ...and so forth. But as luck would have it, the train stopped at the next station and this was their stop. We both wished each other well and that was that.

Even though I seriously disagree with the Jehovah's Witnesses doctrinally, I respect anyone who is trying to do what they think is right especially when it's not comfortable and pleasant. Having proselytized to strangers myself, I have some sympathy for these women. I realized, however, I still had no idea what the Bible had to say about Global Warming; and since I can't find it in the Topical Guide, I think I'm just out of luck.

After a short and pretty train ride through the forests of Saxony and Poland (since we were cutting back and forth across the river Neiss), I arrived in Zittau.

When I was staying with Sybille she had told me that she knew somebody growing up who is now living in Zittau. She said that both their mothers were friends. She said that she would call this lady and see if she would let me stay for a night or two. We hadn't heard anything when I left Sybille on Saturday, but on Monday night in Dresden, Sybille called me and told me that she had gotten in touch with this lady in Zittau and that I would be welcome to stay there. So I called Wiete from Zittau that morning while in Görlitz and we arranged for her to come pick me up at the train station that evening.

So I arrived at the train station and there was Wiete to pick me up. She hadn't had any contact with Sybille for ages so it was pretty random (and with short notice) for her to get this call. She was such a nice lady for not only giving me a place to stay for two nights, but for pretty much being my private tour guide the whole time. I was very grateful. She teaches kindergarten by the way.

I thought I would be staying at her house, but she drove me to an apartment building a little outide of the town and took me up to the top floor. There was a penthouse apartment that, apparently, she and her husband owned. There was a nice bed, TV, kitchen, nice bathroom, couches, and I had it all to myself. She gave me a small bag of food that she had bought from the grocery store for my dinner and she left me to a nice evening in the penthouse!

I slept great that night and the next morning she came and picked me up and we drove to the hills and forests on the Czech border.

In these hills are all kinds of interesting rock formations. I was so surprised to see such rocks in Germany. I felt like a piece of Southern Utah got misplaced.

We parked a stone's throw away from the Czech border... and I walked across to the Czech Republic. Yay! Country number 23 for me!

We then had a very nice hike up to the top of one of the hills where a great watchtower look-out tower sat.

I climbed to the top and got a great view of the Saxon and Czech (and in the distance, Polish) countryside.

A little Czech village...

Next we hiked across the hill to this house which sits exactly on the border.

We hiked back down to the car and drove into the valley behind the tower to the town of Oybin. At the center of this valley is a large rocky hill. Built on top is an ancient castle and monastery, now in ruins.

We parked near the castle and took the short trail to the top. The rock cliffs were cool.

The trail went through narrow gorges between the rocks.

...and then we arrived at the ruins and went inside. Here I am with the castle behind me.

Here is the main chapel of the monastery.

This monastery is the setting for a painting from Germany's most famous Romantic painter, Caspar David Friedrich.

I always enjoy poking around ruins thinking about the people who lived here so long ago and trying to figure out what each little chamber was used for and so on.

You can see here how the stone was cut sheer around the back wall of the chapel. It was all done with hand tools 500 years ago.

Here's a cemetery with some of the graves built right into the rock.

After exploring the ruins we headed back down to the town of Oybin for lunch. Here you can see the look-out tower, where I was that morning, on the hilltop overlooking Oybin.

Telestial, Terrestrial, and Celestial symbols atop this church steeple.

After eating lunch by the cliffs...

...we drove back towards Zittau. Wiete had never been to the tri-border before and since I had mentioned it, we decided to go find it.

It was kind of tricky to find but at last we found the tri-border between Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic.

Unfortunately part of the border is the Neiss river, so I couldn't do this, like I did for the Dutch, Belgian, German tri-border.

Here are Wiete and I at the tri-border.

Wiete then dropped me off in the main part of Zittau and left me to explore on my own. So I did.

I went inside one church and was very surprised to see this sculpture of Jesus behind the altar.

I went up to get a closer look, and sure enough...

Of course the original version of this statue is in Denmark, but still... it's kind of weird to see this image that I grew up but in this setting.

I wandered back to the penthouse and watched some German TV and read before going to bed. The next morning Wiete picked me up and dropped me off at the train station. I said goodbye to Wiete and Zittau and was off once again....

This time I was on my way back to Munich. I transfered trains in Dresden and then again in Nürnberg before finally getting home. It had been an exciting and fun trip, but I was ready to relax. Even though I had to teach an English course on Friday morning (the 18th) it was nice to have the weekend to rest and be ready for work again the next week.

Here is the Zittau Picasa Album:

Zittau

....but wait! This isn't the end of my Sommer Vacation. I had purchased a four-day Deutschebahn travel pass. That meant that I had four travel days on any train in Germany within one month. When I got back to Munich I had used three of these days. I had one more still to use. Where did I go? What new country did I visit? Was there a lighthouse? Find out soon!

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