Anyway, probably the best thing about Giessen is its train station. This is how I got around to 4 different cities in 3 days and still got all of my work done. The week of touring Hessen started with an impromptu trip to Lich, home of the Licher beer brewery. I didn't actually tour the brewery since the person I was with just needed to buy some gifts, but we did explore the residential neighborhood around there. It was nice to feel like I was almost in the country again.
The next day was the start of my real weekend so I took off to Hanau, per a request of my grandparents. Part of my grandfather's family is from Hanau and since he has never been there, he wanted me to look around a bit. It's a nice little town. Lots of Grimms things as it is their birthplace. I didn't stay long as it was really hot that day and pale skin and the sun aren't the best of friends.
The next stop was to Limburg, a town on the Lahn River. It's a picturesque town on the river. Made me want to go canoeing and shout "Get off my Lahn!" like a grouchy old man.
My first trip to Kassel was for an opera with a group from my Wagner seminar. Since it is Wagner year, we decided it would be nice to see one and "Tannhäuser" just happened to be playing. It was also Hessen Tag so the city was packed full of people and food vendors. For being my first Wagner it wasn't so bad, just really long.
I then returned to Kassel the following weekend for an open air concert of film music because it is now a UNESCO World Heritage site and to explore the castle and grounds. It is a beautiful city with lots of green everywhere near the castle and modern buildings near the center. The concert was really good, 4 of us went up for the afternoon and took a picnic with us to eat during the concert. Kevin had made a shoo-fly pie and it was entertaining to watch the German eat it.
After the Kassel concert we attended the end of semester concert for Justus Liebig Universität. One of my professors was preforming in it and I figured since I have 3 presentations for him the next 2 days that I should show up...just for good measure.
That week was full of 3 presentations over the course of 28 hours, starting a section of my first Hausarbeit and picking topics/finding sources for the remaining 3. I rewarded myself with my third trip to Rothenburg to watch Sound of America National Honor Band and Chorus preform, almost exactly 4 years to the day as my first concert with them. Well, I ended up getting the concert date wrong, so we spent Friday evening exploring the town and taking photos along the wall. The next morning we took our time walking on the wall and exploring more of the old parts of the city before settling in at a cafe to attempt to do some work. The concert was wonderful, as I had expected, but we had to leave before the last number to catch our train back. And since it was Bavaria, I came back sick. But so is life.
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