Sunday we woke to 52 degrees and overnight rain just ending. After breakfast, we counted the money from last night’s
offering. Then Harold went to the office to record offering and attendance, while I stayed at the apartment to shower and work on laundry and make the beds. That can be a pretty major task here, in the tiny bedroom and changing the duvet covers. Even though it was chilly, we put the bed clothes and some of our other laundry out on the terrace to dry in the fresh air.
We ate lunch, then found and watched the movie Georgetown, which Pastor Brett had told us about. That's where she has been living in recent. years, and we think she said the main character had belonged to her congregation. It was a crime mystery, a little hard to follow. It is based on a true story, but it doesn’t claim to be the solution to the crime. It was a way to relax and pass the time. And while we were watching, our laundry drying outside got rained on. 😏
We just hung out in the apartment most of the day. We FaceTimed with Audra and family; it was good to see the girls and talk to them. We watched Advent's service live on FaceBook.
Harold left about 7:00pm to go to Brett Mason’s to watch NFL, starting at noon at home. I would have been able to go too if I wanted, but I didn’t. He hoped not to stay too late—he got back a bit after 10:00.
It was 45 degrees when we woke today. (OTOH, our phones sent a freeze warning for later this week—in Olathe.) After breakfast, we walked to the Arsenal mall. I broke down and bought a puffy coat. It’s pretty lightweight and cheap, but it sure keeps me warmer than a cardigan.
We went to the small grocery store that is in the mall. I had come up with a couple recipes to use some of the food left behind by previous DDs. We were pleased to find everything on our list. I wasn’t sure about bacon or ground beef, and especially soy sauce. And yes, I recognize the irony of buying a whole bottle of soy sauce, which we certainly won’t use up, in order to use some rice. (The funny thing is that, as I was preparing tonight’s dinner and going through the cupboards looking for ingredients, I found a partial bottle of soy sauce.)
After we put away groceries, we went back out to do our Monday poster walk. We ran into a couple of people we know. We spent down a gift card to get extra paper for the office, which will be a good start for next year. The gift card is a “use it or lose it” proposition.
When we returned to the apartment, we had cheese and crackers and fruit for lunch. We watched the news from home—Sunday evening news, just a few hours late.
After lunch, we went to the home of Phillip Melanchthon. We had gone through it last year too, but we get free admission to the major sites once while we are here. Of the historic homes here that are open for touring (including Luther’s and Lucas Cranach’s), Melanchthon’s is the one that is in the most original condition. It was built in the early 1500s. There is some period furniture in some of the rooms, but nothing that actually belonged to him; mostly it's displays about him and his life and maybe what each room was used for. Melanchthon and Cranach, especially, were true renaissance men—they had many talents and their fingers in multiple pies. I don’t know that any of them would have been as consequential on their own as they were with the others. I remember being struck last year, and it hit me again today, that it’s miraculous that these people came together at the same time in this little town, and they changed the world.
The Luther home is also a museum. It had been a monastery, but after the reformation many of the monasteries were closed down and vacant. Frederick the Wise, the local Elector and Luther’s protector, gifted the house to him and Katie. They lived there and raised their children and Katie’s sister’s children; many university students also rented rooms there. That space is closed this year because they are renovating it. The official goal for reopening is in 2026, but our friend Paulina told us that nothing is happening yet. They would like to replace the old windows and frames with something more energy efficient, but due to the historical nature of the building, they have not been able to agree on what can be done.
When we were done at the Melanchthon house, we strolled to an ice cream shop and shared a sundae. On the way, we ran into someone else we know here in town. Then we came home to put our real home-cooked meal in the oven.
We see that there's warmer weather in the forecast later this week. We're looking forward to spending more time outside.
I didn't take any photos at all yesterday, and I wasn't sure I would today, so there are a couple of miscellaneous ones here.
Our building, which also houses the ELCA Wittenberg Center and the Lutheran World Federation (plus a couple other apartments) used to be a bakery. The building was demolished and rebuilt in 2018 (?), and this pretzel above the entrance was retained as an homage to its previous use. (Also kept was the angel bust, in memory of the baker's child who was hit and killed in the adjacent alley. I showed that in an earlier post.)
This is the front door of the Black Cloister, Martin and Katie's home. This entrance is no longer used, even when the building is open to visitors. But I always thought those little stone seats on either side of the door, which are seen on some of the oldest homes around town, are neat. It's the equivalent of today's front porch swing. Many of them have a little cover above them, like this one does, so you can sit outside in the rain. 
The outside of the altar end of the Town Church. These memorial markers have been here for so long, many of them are weathered to illegibility. The graveyard that used to be around the church was moved outside of the city walls back in the 1400s, because of a plague and the danger of spreading disease.
This is the inside courtyard behind the Schlosskirche. It shows the backside of the church (including some memorial stones that have been there for centuries). Toward the left is a more modern building that houses the visitor's center and a small museum and research library. There is also a hall (barely visible on the left) where we will attend a going-away party for the Herzers, long-time residents and musicians at the church) in a couple weeks, and a hostel.
The outside of the Melanchthon house. The gabled roof was very popular at the time; there are lots of buildings in Lutherstadt that have a similar feature.
Many of the old homes have these green tile stoves in them. I can imagine how they would radiate heat, with a fire blazing inside. This one is in the Melanchthon house.
The caramel sundae we shared. Decadent.
This featured blog entry was written by susanharold from the blog 2024 Wittenberg.
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