We spent our first weekend with our host families--beginning the mutual acquaintances that are essential parts of our SST experiences. On Monday, most of us were out the door by 7:30 a.m. to head for our first morning of language instruction. Our first teacher, Christel B. soon had us working collaboratively on our German. At noon, Joe & Jo-Ann introduced us to the student Mensa (cafeteria), after which we returned to the school for Wolfgang B.'s introduction to Germany in 2009.

On Tuesday we climbed into the same bus that had brought us from the airport to Jena last Thursday and headed for the town of Eisenach on the western edge of Thuringia. Perched above the town is the Wartburg Castle, founded almost a millenium ago. Its walls sheltered Martin Luther in 1521-22, and we were able to see some of Luther's own handwritten translations of portions of the Bible into German. Three centuries before Luther, the castle was home to St. Elisabeth of Hungary, renowned for acts of Christian charity. Three centuries after Luther, the castle served as a symbol of a growing German nationalist sentiment, and UNESCO recognizes it as a "World Heritage" site of unusual cultural significance. In the Middle Ages it overlooked significant trade routes and from 1949 to 1990 sat above the border dividing East and West Germany.

In the afternoon we took up the trail of Eisenach's most famous native, Johann Sebastian Bach. The historic Bach House museum has displays ranging from antique instruments--demonstrated for us by a museum staff member--to forensic reconstructions of Bach based on a 19th-century bronze cast of his skull. Alas, the museum does not yet comment on GC alumnus' Bradley Lehman's Bach tuning.

After touring the museum we headed to Arnstadt, one of Thuringia's oldest cities, and the place where at age 18, J.S. Bach was first employed as an organist. The current organist of the Bach Church there provided details of the restoration of the 1703 organ, brand-new at the time of Bach's employment. He then played several pieces composed by Bach at Arnstadt before moving to a demonstration of a 1913 organ housed beneath the 1703 organ. We joined him at the newer organ for a closer look at how organs operate. Some of us even tried the 1913 organ for ourselves. We returned home tired, but grateful for the expert guidance of jenakolleg's Bernd Z. on this day of learning. (Bernd joined us again Wednesday afternoon to share his perceptions of growing up in the German Democratic Republic.)