Weimar

During the Host family weekend my host parents, Hans and Ruth, took me on two excursions.  the first we went to Weimar on Friday.  That quickly became one of my favorite cities. The city was beautiful despite it being gray the overcast contrasted the bright colors of the city very well.  First we visited the Anna Amalia Library! And we sure got lucky, because they only let about 200 people in per day because the building is so old.  In order to avoided our shoes scuffing the hard wood, we had to wear large slippers over our shoes. Very tough to walk in, very well worth it. The library was such an interesting chunk of history there were a few videos explaining

1. How incredibly awesome and interesting Anna Amalia was, she seriously became one of my favorite historical women.  She was so cultured and had such great connections with the mind of the time.  And her appreciation for music and literature was astonishing. 
2. Also The videos gave a more detailed history of the library. 
3. The most interesting part being the fire and and how volunteers in the area were working together to rescue as many books as they could. Following that video was one about the restoration of the library and how local volunteers worked to repaint the library in its original style. 

Unfortunately I couldn't sneak a picture of the inside (as much as I wanted to try) but there were busts of Anna Amalia's favorite and most influential people of the time.  It was almost moving how beautiful the library is.  Also when you stood in the center of the library, if you looked straight up there was a painting on the ceiling.  And above the main shelves of books there's an illusion that makes there appear to be even more levels of books, but in fact it was a painting.

After the library we visited the an art exhibit of the work of Lucas Cranach and then from there the museum extended to be a historical art museum guiding us through history and art with each ascending floor. Unfortunately we didn't make it up to the Rodin exhibit, but we were able to see a lot in such a huge museum. But alas, our stomachs were calling, and we left the museum.

Finally we were coming to the end of our day, we wandered the city some, and made our way to Franz Liszt's house, which was BEAUTIFUL. Sadly I couldn't take pictures in there either, but the memories are there.  He was quite the packrat -- many of the rooms were just as he had them, and there was a lot packed in there.