Lüneburg, Germany

On Sunday, I had a strong desire to get away from the hustle and bustle of Hamburg, so I took a day trip to Lüneburg, Germany with Daniela. Lüneburg is a very old, quaint town located approximately 30 miles southeast of Hamburg. The town itself is over 1000 years old, and signs of human inhabitance dates back 150,000 years. What makes Lüneburg unique from many other German towns is its preservation of history due largely in part to its survival during WWII. I really enjoyed visiting the town because it made me feel as though I had stepped back in time and left the modern world behind.

Wasserviertel or "Riverside Quarters"

An old cobblestone street

The "Old Crane" is mentioned in documents dating back to
1346.

A Renaissance building constructed in 1548.

The Rathaus (Town Hall) - the oldest part of this
building was constructed in 1230.

There are three major churches in Lüneburg: St. John's Church, St. Michael's Church, and St. Nicolai's Church. Johann Sebastian Bach not only learned to play the organ in St. John's Church, but he was also a member of the school choir at St. Michael's Church.

St. John's Church

The organ upon which Johann Sebastian
Bach learned to play.

St. Michael's Church

For all of my meteorology friends: At the top of Wasserturm, or water tower, there was this random room dedicated entirely to water conservation and water usage. In this room, there was a machine that allowed you to create a tornado by turning a lever and displacing the water. Needless to say, Daniela and I thoroughly enjoyed this contraption!

Creation of a tornado with the simple turn
of a lever!

On Tuesday, I found a travel brochure in Dr. Schatzmann's office and went, as Kaitlyn called it, all "psycho-tour-guide Barbie" on them. We ended up in a very industrial part of town where old market halls had been converted into contemporary art and photography museums. The museums had a really creepy vibe about them. They had stark white, insane asylum walls and were playing music that you would expect to find in a really bad horror film (or, for those of you who know what I'm talking about, music similar to that from Introduction to World Music). Either way, the place gave us the creeps - my bad! On the way back to the train station, we stumbled across these really tall, skinny sculptures of a man and a woman. Such a strange part of town....

Deichtorhallen - A Contemporary Art Museum

Statues of tall, skinny people standing in
front of a library.

This week has also been exciting because we booked two more trips! Florence, London, Reading, Prague, and Dublin are all officially booked! I can already tell 2012 is going to blow 2011 out of the park. Tschuss :)