An Insider's Look at Augsburg

Just got back from hanging out in Augsburg with Benny and Korny. I met Korny down at the University where he has classes and got a tour of the campus. It was pretty sweet. Half of the campus was built in the '60s and the other half in '06 or so...you can definately tell the difference. Another interesting point...the cafeteria at the University here in Augsburg smells just like the cafeteria at Liberty...apparently cafeteria food trancends cultures. After that we went back to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station...aka HBF) to meet Benny for lunch. After waiting around for about 30 minutes Benny showed up...FINALLY! I'm just kiddin ya...After lunch we walked over to the Dom (aka gigantic cathedral) and looked around inside. There were tons of little shrines and I think we counted 8 confession box things. There was also a huge stone bowl of holy water in the center aisle. There were stairs on either side of the altar/stage that lead into the basement that contained the remains of a virgin martyr (not really sure what the story is on that one) and St. Ulrich, a bishop from the mid to late 900s....yes I said 900's... When we walked down the stairs there was a woman standing in front of the gate that guarded the tomb of Ulrich. She was praying to him. That was really sad to me. Knowing that she believed that he heard her and had the capacity to answer her prayers...it's heartbreaking. There is a sign next to his tomb that said he is often worshiped because of his defense of Augsburg in a time of war. We came back up the stairs and continued to look around the front of the cathedral. After about a minute or so a priest walked by...we didn't think anything of it, after all this is a cathedral...and then the mass started...oops, so we made our way to the back of the church and watched for a few minutes as they recited prayers in a droning chorus. They are so close...yet so far away. After the cathedral we walked down into the old city. Now keep in mind that when they say old city here in Europe, we're not talking 200 years old, or even 400 hundred years old...but several thousand years old. It was really cool. We then went to a cafe and hung out and talked for a few hours and that brings us up to the present where I am typing this blog. I'm really thankful to get to hang out with these guys on a semi-ragular basis. Thanks guys for letting me tag along with you!! Now I am incredibly tired and so...I will go to bed...oh, I did get to go to a Mutemath concert last night, which was AMAZING, but I'll write about that later....