Day 20

            Pretty slow day today.  After a nice breakfast, we took Paul and Barb over to the Luther House and spent a couple hours with them there.  It was nice to see some of those things again. Then we headed down to the Information Center, WEM office, and Castle church.

            We stopped on the way to pick up a brat for lunch at our favorite brat stand.  We stood in the shade to eat the brat and drink some water.  I then headed across the street back to the stand to put trash in their trash container.  There were four people standing around a little table, blocking the way to the trash can.  I stood there for a moment trying to figure out how to get to the trash, then decided I had to ask them to move.  I said “Enschuldigen sie, bitte” (German for “excuse me.”)  One of the ladies jumped a bit and said “Oh, I’m sorry.  Pardon me.” (in English.)  I smiled and said “I should just have tried it in English first, shouldn’t I?”  We all laughed about it, and then started chatting.  It was two sisters and their husbands who were in town for the day.  One couple was from Medford, MN (just south of Faribault), and the other couple was from Rochester, MN.  Our eyes just bugged out at that discovery.   I explained what we were doing for the past two weeks, and they had seen the sign in shop windows about our services.  The couple from Rochester asked what church I was pastor of there, and I said “Trinity Lutheran, right downtown on 2^nd.”  They looked like they were having trouble placing the church, so I followed up with “Just across the street from Just Rite Foods” and they began to nod.  Everyone knows where Just Rite Foods is, even if they don’t know that Trinity is right across the street!  Nice to chat with people from home.

            We went to the Information Office and watched the English version of the movie about Luther and Wittenberg, then Dea and I came back to the hotel to pack.  Paul and Barb are still out wandering.  We’re going to have a farewell supper with LeRoy at the Kartoffelhaus and then get to bed early.

            In case you may not know German, Kartoffel is German for potatoes.  Virtually everything on the menu has potatoes in it.  And the food is very good.  Dea had potato soup with sausages, and I had a potato pancake with apples and whipped cream.  We split both dishes, and they were wonderful!  Had nice conversations with LeRoy, then strolled back to the hotel.  We’ve pretty much finished packing, and then we’ll compare notes with Paul and Barb for tomorrow.

            There are real mixed feelings about leaving Wittenberg.  The two weeks have gone fast, and have been very interesting, but it is certainly time to move on and move toward home.  We’re talking about stopping in Bamburg for a few hours on the way to Nuremberg.  I’ll let you know where we ended up when I can.

            There will probably not be fresh posts to the blog for a few days.  We are staying in a private home with friends of Paul and Barb until Friday morning, and they will likely not have WiFi in their home.  I’ll try to keep up with the blog, and post it when we check into our hotel in Munich on Friday.