Day Eight: Leipzig

Our day began with a bus trip to Leipzig, where we visited Thomaskirche. This is the church where JS Bach was cantor for 27 years and where his remains rest today. Again, not quite "getting" us as a group, our head tour guide (Iain) allowed seven minutes for us to visit this church - not realizing how profound it is for a musician to stand before the resting place of such a great! As we stood there quietly, reverently, Billye began to sing ever so softly the Komm in mein Herzenshaus... there was not a dry eye to be found.

We had a few quick moments to spend at the Bach Museum and then it was back on the bus to head for Wittenberg. Thankfully, our dear Peter insisted that we be allowed to spend some time in Lutherstadt Wittenberg -- the capital of the Reformation. We saw Schosskirche, where Luther posted his 95 Theses, Marienkirche, where Luther preached and Lutherhalle, a museum dedicated to Luther and artist Luther Cranach.

We were then back on the bus and headed for Berlin, where our tour would end. To add yet another adventure to our journey, one of our travelers found that he was completely unable to keep up with the tour group and so had to have special arrangements made for all travel by foot. On this evening, he was put in a taxi and sent to the restaurant where we were all to meet in an hour's time. It was about a seven minute walk from where the buses were parked. Everyone took the hour to check out the church where our final concert would occur the following evening and to do a little window shopping. When we arrived at the restaurant, Ron was not there. Unfortunately, no one had gotten the name of the cab company, nor the cab number and, as far as we were aware, Ron did not have the name and address of the hotel with him. Thankfully, he DID speak fluent German -- but everyone was still quite concerned.

The tour guides and bus drivers went into action and finally, the police were called in. As we were about to finish dinner, we received word that Ron was fine. He'd been at the hotel all along and the hotel had called the tour company and they had tracked us down at the restaurant. Even though Ron spoke perfect German, his taxi driver did not! He was Turkish! We later found out that the restaurant had recently moved and Ron was taken to the old location and let out -- alone! Bless his heart, he was a good sport about it all. Thank God he was okay!

Oh, did I mention that dinner was sausage and sauerkraut? At least there were no freakin' dumplings!