Kassel

A few months ago I heard about a temporary art exhibition called Documenta 14 which is held in both Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany. The main showpiece in Kassel this year is "The Parthenon of Books", which is a full size replica of the temple at the Acropolis in Athens....only this one is made out of 100,000 banned books (over 170 titles banned in countries around the world for one reason or another). The work is the brain child of Argentine artist Marta Minujin, and sybolizes the resistance to all forms of censorship. Not coincidentally, it is at Friedrichsplatz, the same site where Nazis burned 2,000 books in 1933 as part of a campaign of censorship.

As soon as I heard about it, I posted it to my book club's fb page and said we needed to go, and this week a few of us finally did! It didn't disappoint.

 This work is actually ongoing - almost complete, but there were some workers still putting up books while we were there.

All the books were donated for the project. Each one is encased in a ziploc bag, to protect it from the weather, and when a column is complete, the entire thing is wrapped in plastic. When the art exhibition ends next month, all the books will be donated.

It was fun to find all the titles we have read. It was basically a Parthenon of good books to read :)

Restriction of free thought and free speech is dangerous.

"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."

— On Liberty, John Stuart Mill

Anyway, The Parthenon of Books was definitely the highlight for us, but there were also a few other things around Friedrichsplatz to see and hear.

 I would have liked this more if there had been people living inside of each pipe ;)

This one seemed like it was framing something specific that the artist wanted you to see....

...but when you got up there, there was a sign that said this, hahaha ;)

I took a picture anyway.

 After lunch...

...we headed over to Bergpark (mountain park) Whilhelmshohe, which is a HUGE hillside park that is known for it's amazing Baroque water features. The park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I've had it on my bucket list for a while, but I had NO IDEA how cool it was!

At the bottom of the hill is an orangerie and Schloss Whilhelmshohe, which is a museum.

 Looking up the hill to Hercules monument, our destination.

 A little ways up is the remains of an aqueduct.

 It's a beautiful walk.

 Getting closer. Here you can see the Plutogrotte (with Hercules monument still in the background).

And next to it is Teufelsbruke (Devil's bridge). This whole area of the park is called "Hell", but I think it's beautiful enough to be heaven ;)

 And a little ways further we made it to the foot of the stairs that went up to Hercules monument. Unfortunately, it was under construction, but it was still impressive. On Wednesdays and Sundays and holidays, a huge amount of water is let lose for 10 minutes, to cascade down these steps, then down to Devil's bridge, and continuing down the hill from there. We were there on a Tuesday, so we missed it :(

 What goes up must come down, so back down the hill we went, only a slightly different route so we could go past Steinhofer Wasserfall.

 Just like with the other water features, this celebrates the power of water, and is incorporated into nature almost seamlessly. Gorgeous!

What a fun day! Despite the amount of sweat we generated, and a pretty desperate toilet incident that we don't need to talk about, it was a fantastic day trip....most likely my last one here.

Girl's Camp

Right from the start, girl's camp was....challenging this year. It was held down in Garmisch, Germany, which is on the border of Austria. Cora was YCL (youth camp leader) this year, and needed to go down a day early, so Joe and I decided to take her and her friend down ourselves, and spend the day there. I wasn't going to camp this year because I was released as YW president a couple of months ago. We were only a 1/2  hour from camp (we had just dipped down into Austria, and were coming up to Garmisch....because that's the fastest route) when our car died. Right outside of this beautiful little village.

We were not getting any internet or phone service, so I left Joe with the girls and walked into the village. I couldn't find any businesses, so I followed the voices of some people I heard to their house, and asked them if they could help me. Luckily, one of the women spoke a little English, so we were able to communicate. She called us a tow truck, and he took us to the nearest auto shop, which was in another town a few miles away. The alternator was dead. We decided to have them just charge the battery so we could get to Garmisch, and then we'd figure it out from there. It took a couple more hours, and we had lunch while we waited, which totally makes our visit to Austria count :)

We drove the rest of the way, and thouroughly enjoyed the scenery. It's so beautiful there!

We finally got the girls to camp, about 5 or 6 hours late. But hey, they got there. The camp was area was as gorgeous as anything else we'd seen.

We got someone to take us to a parts store to see about an alternator (Joe could have fixed it if we could get the part), but they wouldn't have been able to get one for 2 days. That wasn't an option for us. We needed to get back to Wiesbaden. So we decided to buy a battery charger and a battery and just drive. Long story short, we ended up spending the night in Stuttgart, got home, and now we're just going to junk the van. No use buying an alternator now, because we're moving so soon, and we're not spending money on a vehicle that we can't take with us, and we can't sell because it won't pass inspection. It's been a good van for us here - saved us a TON of money on gas - but it's time to part ways with the "Poo"geot.

Anyway, back at camp, it rained every day, things got wet, and other trials were had. But lessons were learned, including:
1) People aren't perfect.
2) Sometimes WE get what we need out of these experiences, and sometimes we are there to help other people get what THEY need out of it. Both are valuable, and both can strengthen our testimonies in different ways.

They were able to go on a couple of amazing hikes, including one of the places that Joe and I had wanted to go.

 

And of course, the girl's all got to know each other better (we have a LOT of new Beehives).

 

I feel like, in some ways, girl's camp has gone down hill in the last couple of decades, trading in tents for cabins, having most or all of their meals made for them, and going straight to Pinterest for ideas, rather than...well, just relying on the Lord more maybe? I think the girls miss out when things are too easy, or too cutesy, or too shallow. They don't need to be spending too much time crafting, they need to be working on/doing the same things the boys do - starting fires, using knives and compasses, repelling, white water rafting, snorkeling, strenuous hiking, really pushing their limits, and learning and growing and seeing what their bodies are capable of. They don't need to be comfortable, they can sleep in a tent, dig ditches around them to keep out the water, dig their own latrines if need be or learn to squat, wash in the freezing cold river instead of a warm shower. And they don't need handouts with short inspirational quotes and a piece of candy, they need deeply spiritual experiences and discussions. I'm not doubting the prayer and fasting and hard work that leaders put into these camps, I just see some of these things missing in most girl's camps these days, things that I DID have when I was a girl, and I don't think they're doing the girls any favors. Girls WANT to do hard things. That being said, our stake leaders did a LOT right with camp this year, and it definitely was not easy for the girls. I'm glad for that.