Put Your Records On

Goodness I <3 Jesus Christ Superstar. I mean really. Last night's performance suffered a teensy tiny bit from accent issues (Judas especially) but only a little bit really. Otherwise, it was beautifully done and the director added some nice little sub-sub-themes via costuming: Herod showed up in a bathrobe, hooked to an IV, surrounded by nurse-themed background dancers. Naturally, I assumed he had AIDS, which is equally morbid and hilarious. When Judas did his zombie bit at the end and danced around the cross, his backup dancers were dressed in American flag vests, leading me to the assumption that some sort of blame was being laid on the US, with which I am not at all okay. I guess Americans are the new Jews? Another detail of the crucifixtion scene involved a dude with a video camera all up in Jesus's face, and Anja told me she interpreted that as Mel Gibson, which made me laugh. The Sanhedrin lacked the crazy onion dome hats they have in the movie, but they had some major bling going on and I guess that's cool too. Pilate OWNED his role, and was apparently some sort of understudy cause the guy that was cast as Pilate died 2 weeks ago eeep!? Also I realized that I basically have JCSS memorized, which I am sure will come in handy one day.

So today was my last Sunday at church, and the Official end of Nadja's work, although she's spending another month in Augsburg to do an internship, but this means there were many sad goodbyes. I have a wonderful big photo collage and all these memories floating around now, and I'm really going to miss my German church. So many amazing people who took me right in to their midst this year and were all a huge part of making me feel so at home here in Germany. By the last song, Nadja and I were both crying, and neither of us is sure we really want to leave. After church came Sommerfest, where we migrated to the yard of St Max (since theirs is green) across the street and grilled and ate and hung out and played around and painted giant musical notes and there was water and then there was rain at exactly the time things were breaking up anyway but it was short-lived and did nothing to stop the heat. Sommerfest was probably the best way to end my Augsburg EMK experience, and as much as I look forward to being back at Trinity, I really do love my church here and saying good-bye is very difficult. And since the Germans were always wonderful and worked their way through songs in English, I promised to teach you guys some songs in German, even if it's just translations of the songs you already know. It's only fair, really.

I plan to spend tomorrow packing, and probably also remember to de-register from the city of Augsburg. Tuesday is a trip with Eva and Anja and Nadja to Neuschwannstein and maybe some other things, Wednesday is when my host parents head up to Berlin for a meeting and Piff has his choir concert, and Thursday is when I fly. Nowhere near enough time. Sigh.