Erlangen, Germany
Monday, February 12, 2007
I attended a Church service at the old University Lutheran Kirche downtown, during which there was an organ recital and the choir sang some baroque pieces, quite impressive. Then I made it to an opening of a new exhibit at the City Museum, this one about "foreigners" (Fremden), and how Erlangen and central Europe in general has a long history of foreigners, refugees and guest workers coming in. Fair numbers of Turkish people were in attendance, one group outside the front door had a Turkish flag. One of my photos this time is of the exhibit poster (see caption for translation). "Everyone's a foreigner somewhere" is the exhibit title, and it made the point that multi-culturalism is really not a new thing, and has many advantages... an important message in this country where xenophobia remains. They were even offering a computer game called "Xenophilia!"
http://www.xenophilia.de/ Later on, my friend Wolfgang invited me to come with him to a small town he knew of that had a little Gasthaus that was open this time of year on Sunday evenings. Had some dinner and talked and called it a day.
