North by Southwest

After a brief respite in Copenhagen, I headed north to Bergen, Norway. It was a cloudy day, but as my plane broke through the clouds on its descent, I discovered I was going to heaven. For one, the hilly, rocky islands and slopes of the fjords only accentuated the bleak flatness of Denmark. But honestly, my train ride from Bergen to Oslo illuminated the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen in my entire life on this planet. Bergen is a cute little city worth visiting, but after everything I had seen, Oslo was kind of a letdown and way too expensive. There are some museums there that would be nice to visit, but my timing was off so instead I slept through most of my time in Oslo.

Madrid's a nice city, and my hosts were certain to make sure I had the necessary cultural experiences, though it's not someplace I feel I need to go back to. My hostel was loud, but the people in my room liked to sleep, and I met lots of nice people. I drank sangria and cider, ate paella, and had way too much tapas. I visited the Prado, home of Hieronymous Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights and too much religious art, the the Reina Sophia, a more interesting modern art museum that is home to Picasso's Guernica. I walked all around town, had a cafe con leche in the Retiro and a beer in Plaza Mayor. Despite two dinners that other people paid for and free tapas, it was an expensive trip since the Carleton contigency is used to eating out for lunch since they get most of the money in a stipend from Carleton to pay for it. It was very nice though to see and spend time with Ann and others from Carleton, and my Spanish friend Miguel that I met at French camp years ago.

From Madrid I flew to Cologne, the hub of discount airlines Germanwings. For all its randomness as a destination for me, Köln's a rather nice city, which a famous cathedral that miraculous survived WWII bombing right outside the doors of the train station. On Friday I went to the Chocolate Museum, which claims to be like Willy Wonka but is really just a museum about the history and production of chocolate, and does include some active chocolate making machinery and a glass elevator. The most impressive part of the museum, really, was the gift shop, with more flavors of chocolate products that I ever thought possible. I bought myself a Bio-Beer chocolate bar--an organic, fairtrade dark chocolate candy bar with a chocolate filling that has organic beer brandy. Fascinatingly delicious.

After the chocolate museum I headed south to the quaint old town of Oberwesel in the heart of the Rhine Valley to attend the fall retreat of the European Unitarian Universalists with Christopher. It was quite odd being a *conferee* of sorts, but a really enjoyable and relaxing time after all. Most of the attendees were expats and the children they've raised in Europe, though there were some honest-to-god Europeans among the crowd. Because of the ex-pat domination, the retreat had a very UUA feel, but with broader perspectives and a more international outlook. The guest speaker was Rev. Gordon Oliver from South Africa, who spoke on the theme of forgiveness and reconciliation. During the theme talk he discussed the steps he took to fight apartheid as mayor of Cape Town. The Sunday service took a more spiritual approach, and made me feel more connected to my faith here in Germany than I have been for the past two years in Minnesota and even on Star (which loses its religious affiliation somewhat when you work there). Sometimes you need to go far to find home. I had my first Samhain service since my youth group days, which was really nice. On Saturday afternoon I attended a workshop on international UU theology, and although I was rather critical of the New Zealeand theologian I had to present, I really liked what this one young Spanish theologian had to say about person-centered faith. The workshop in particular and the retreat overall made me much more aware of international Unitarian perspectives and standpoints. Still, in many ways this retreat could just have well have been in the states, yet I wonder what it's like to be a member of this religious minority in Europe. So many Americans have never heard of UUism, and the denomination is even smaller in most of Europe. Having retreats like this a couple times a year, even if there is often less than 100 attendees, most be really meaningful for the European UUs. It was pretty meaningful for me, as it is.