DAY THREE: Wittenberg & Disco

DAY THREE: Some of us were supposed to go to a plenary session of the Bundestag, the German Parliament, a treat arranged for us by Luk Klütz who'd interned with his local parliamentarian, but when push came to shove Wednesday morning, there seemed to be no one who really demonstrated determination to go. So we voted and it turned out everyone preferred our alternate, a trip to Martin Luther's city of Wittenberg and the home of the Protestant Reformation. So off we trundled to Hauptbahnhof, stood in line and negotiated the particulars of buying last minute tickets, which weren't as bad as we thought. We took a slow little regional train that still got us to Wittenberg in about 1 hr. 10 mins., then started walking from the stain on the outskirts of town to the historic district. Lucky for us, our ultimate goal, Luther's home and museum, was on our end of Collegienstrasse, so we were able to start our tour with the serious stuff. The museum has a remarkably well-done exhibit explaining the different stations of Luther's life and the rise of Protestantism, and superb examples of his publishing, art works by Cranach, church art and artifacts. We took our time and learned a lot from the experience. By the time we were done, we were really hungry and it was really late, but we found a totally charming courtyard restaurant with outdoor dining and good German food--people had very filling lunches or spectacular salad plates without spending a fortune. After that, we headed for the most history site, Castle Church where Luther's pounding of the 95 Theses on the church door really set the Reformation movement into action. We walked through the church, heard a choir from Minnesota, then climbed the 260 steps to the top of the church tower heralding in German "A mighty fortress is our God," the title of Luther's most famous hymn (--he was musical, too!) After looking over souvenirs and getting ice cream, we headed for our last visit in Wittenberg, St. Mary's Church, which is where Luther actually practiced as a minister and delivered sermons once he was freed and allowed to return to Wittenberg. By 6:30 we were on a train back to the city, and after cleaning up, to the D-Light disco off Warschauer Platz, a disco that is exclusively for high school kids on Tuesday and Thursday nights 8:00p.m.-midnight. We didn't really know what to anticipate--we were not prepared for three floors of music, totally packed full with teens and disco, disco, disco in a very safe environment. To get in, you have to be accompanied by your teacher, and you get wristbanded; once you're in, nobody gets out unless given specific permission by the teacher. So they danced the night away until midnight, we caught a late subway back to Oranienburger Tor, realized we hadn't eaten since the afternoon, stopped for a 1 a.m. snack, and then returned home tired but happy. Friday is dedicated to exploration of Potsdam and a visit to Sansscouci Palace.