Out of my comfort zone

This has been a pretty busy week with lots of school work starting to pile up. To be completely honest we’re still trying to catch up on sleep from Paris, but we’ve had some new experiences this week that I feel are worth writing about.
Thursday we went to a play called Over There for theater class; it was about twin brothers living in Germany during the Cold War. Their parents have divorced and one lives in East and one in West Germany. For the first bit of the play they must visit each other but then the wall fall and they live together for a bit. The storyline is simple enough, but the author of this play is famous for doing scandalous and over the top things so I was interested to see what happened. I was not disappointed. The actors (who were twins in real life) were phenomenal; they were funny and made the audience feel very comfortable. However, the play was just so…weird. One of the brothers has a child, played by a sponge and they enjoy talking to it in German and Russian. For most of the play the brothers are either wearing these ridiculous metallic like suits, either that or just their underwear. And in the final scene one of the brothers gets angry and covers himself in juice, chocolate sauce, flour and some canned cheese, I think. I thought the play was brilliant but it was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before in my life and I don’t know if I’ll ever see anything like it again, but I did enjoy it while I was there.

Then today my sociology class visited a Hindu Temple. It was INCREDIBLE. The temple itself is absolutely gorgeous; the marble pieces that make up the outside were carved in India then shipped here and reassembled. The detail on the outside is incredible, and it matches the detail of the woodwork on the inside. We went in, took of our shoes, and were ushered upstairs to the worship area of the temple. There were three of us that got there early and so we were by ourselves, and completely clueless. We walked up into a space with some columns where people were sitting around facing three doors. A security guard saw how lost we were and told us to sit because the doors would be opening soon. When they did we saw several statues ornately decorated and the people there started bowing down to them and performing their own rituals. It wasn’t until we went downstairs into the “Understanding Hinduism” exhibition that we understood what was going on. I’m still not sure I completely understand it, but the statues are religious idols that, when the temple opened, were blessed and a religious leader brought the spirit of God into them. So now Hindus come to the temple to show their devotion to God and to meditate etc. The exhibition was really great and taught me a lot about a religion I previously knew nothing about. Although being in the actual temple was a bit out of my comfort zone, I am so glad that we did it. Hinduism is a fascinating religion and I can’t wait to learn more about it now.

But now the weekend is here and so is my mommy!! That’s right my mom is here for a long weekend visit. We’re going to do the touristy things and hang out and have a great time. I’m so excited that she’s here : )