Student Blog by Margaret Shoemaker: 1st Academic Tour

During the past week, we’ve been doing a lot of academic type stuff, like reading and writing papers.  So I haven’t had much to blog about, though I haven’t been bored! If you have to write a paper, a coffee shop in Europe is a great place to do it.

This weekend we went on our first official Academic tour.  We’ve been studying  Christian Worldview and Apologetics with Dr. Baker from Corban University, so our Academic tour was to Weimar, which is basically the German equivalent to Florence.  Famous people like Nietzsche, Goethe, Schiller, and Liszt lived there. I know because we toured all of their houses with audio guides and heard lectures on them. :)

  The niece of Fredrick the Great, Anna Amalia was here and valued knowledge so she used her influence and invited several intellectuals to live here as well. They came, and the city became famous because of them.   Goethe was one, he was the Shakespeare of Germany during the Golden Age of German culture. He had an expanse of knowledge in many areas which Germans valued highly, and he wrote several books & plays.  Schiller, a playwright and historian, was a friend of Goethe and another resident of Weimar. Nietzsche, the father of nihilism moved into town in the late 1800s. 

                As we walked around the city, we ran into some pretty neat locals. We met one shop owner who grew up in East Germany, talking to her made me appreciate the things I had. Another local was telling our group about how Weimar has basically become a museum to Goethe and Schiller, they’ve preserved it very well which makes it a neat place to walk around. Weimar was also a pit stop for Martin Luther on his East to West route. 

                We also went to Flossenburg and Buchenwald, two concentration camp memorials.  It was eye opening to be there and see where such horrible things happened. Going to both camps was a lot to take in for one weekend.

                We arrived back in Regensburg Sunday night, and today a group went to the Oktoberfest,  and a bunch more are planning on going on Thursday after class.  We’re still working on plans to visit Spain and Paris, for the first travel-reading week. I’m getting excited!