Ole, Ole

On Sunday, the 11th, a group of us attended church services in the Nikolaikirche. It's a very beautiful church. I don't have pictures cuz, well, church was going on. Just trust me. It's pretty. It's a Lutheran church, so the service was set up differently than I am used to. And, there was the whole not understanding the language thing. It was really echoey. Hard to understand, but interesting all the same. My tandem partner tells me that not very many people go to church in Germany these days, which for some reason, I find odd. I don't know why. I guess I thought that given the old world traditions, it would be a big thing. oh well.

Sunday was also the game between Holland and Serbia/Montenegro, which was being played in the Leipzig Stadium. I don't know how to describe this to you, but I'll try: starting on Friday, we began to see people wearing orange (Holland's color). By Saturday afternoon, the were EVERYWHERE. And I mean EVERYWHERE. And they were all wearing the same color of orange. Also a few S/M fans started showing up and the had little oompa bands around and dancing. If felt like you wouldn't be able to fit any more people in the city. By Sunday, the city breathed Orange.





Orange everywhere. And all around you heard Dutch being spoken. Truly one of my favorite languages in the world to listen to. It is so funny. It always makes me smile. They also would sing Holland's song. I don't know the words, but it starts with "Ole, Ole, Ole" and they say that a lot. Someone would just start singing it and then pretty soon the entire city was singing it. It was great! We could even hear them singing it outside while we were in church. Apparently, there are no people in Holland. Every single one of them has bought all the orange they could find and are now traveling to each game that Holland plays. There was a moment when we 4 girls found ourselves between S/M fans (who were yelling obscenities at Holland) and Holland fans who were singing. We were really nervous and moved as far away as we could, but thankfully, nothing happened. As Alicia put it, these are the types of fans who will fight and then go out for drinks together after the game. I have to say, though, Holland fans are the best!After church, we went back home and got ready to go to the Opera. We changed into dresses and nicer clothes (ok, honestly, most everybody was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. I dressed up, but then, I'm weird that way). Then, we went to Augustusplatz to watch the Holland-S/M game. It was COVERED UP. There we are, standing around in the hot sun, surrounded on all sides by sweaty, smelly, boisterous fans and all I want to do is take off my shoes. We finally found a little bar and watched the game there. That was much better!

Then, the highlight of the day, we went to the Opera.
We saw Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. It was 5 hours long. That's right. FIVE. FÜNF. CINCO. hours. IT WAS GREAT!!!!! The Gewandhaus Orchestra played and was in tune, the singers were amazing. The horns blazed. I was enthralled. All about me, the other students were falling asleep. Some left after the 1st act. Not I. Sure, there were times that I thought the acting was overly-dramatic, and even bordering on cheesy, but overall, it was wonderful. I got chills.
And that was Sunday.

We didn't do anything special on Monday. We had our first day of classes, and then I met with Sierra and my tandem partner. Sierra is joining us cuz her tandem partner is not around. We talked for 2 hours. Half in German, half in English. We covered a wide range of topics, including the forbidden ones (you know, religion, education, weather - though we didn't get around to politics). It was fun, but my throat hurt afterwards (cuz he smokes) and my head hurt too and I couldn't hardly think. Then Sierra and I came back and did homework. It took 4 hours to read 15 pages and answer 10 questions, but we really understood the reading after that. Today we found out that we aren't turning the questions in - so, yeah, we didn't spend nearly so much time on homework today. Ok, well I'm gonna go. Here's a picture of my room: