On Saturday Carrie and Mom went to some yard sales to see what kind of junk they could drag home. Soon they phoned home to please go there-and-there to pick up a new Jeep. Well for $50 who can say no to such a good deal?! So now Carrie is the proud owner of what resembles een echte Hollandse fiets. That's right, some Dutch now and then. Who knows, soon I might just do all my blogging in Dutch.
Just before leaving Geneva at the end of April, I decided it wouldn't be right to leave without having seen the Reformation Museum in the old part of town. Since Carrie had to work I went alone. (Back in January, it was great to know we would have 4 months to enjoy the city, but how were we to know that time would eventually run out??)
Some scenery on the way...
St. Peter's Cathedral is a big old church where John Calvin did some fire-and-brimstone preaching during the Reformation era. Here's the chair he used and the steps to the pulpit he preached from:
The church itself is a fair size and nicely plain inside (in contrast to the decked-out Roman Catholic churches in Europe). I climbed up the bell tower and took a zillion pictures of Geneva.
Beside St. Peter's Cathedral is the smaller Calvin Auditorium (a.k.a. John Knox Chapel -- it seems to have several names). This is where Calvin and Knox (and others) preached during the Reformation; it has been used by Protestant groups ever since. Nowadays it is in use by a Dutch Reformed group and the Church of Scotland (we attended services of the latter several times).
Some time probably last century, it was discovered that there were ruins beneath the cathedral, so now there is an archeological dig underneath the site with lots to see. An audio guide is available for a self-guided tour, which provides one with plenty of history (back to the 1st century AD) and a great view of rocks.
Cross sections of the ground show how everything was built up over the centuries. And I encountered a skeleton... neato.
The ticket I bought got me into the bell tower, the ruins underneath, and the Reformation museum. The museum had plenty of things on display, several presentations, and a whole lot of history to read. It all seemed pretty accurate, from what church history I've retained over the years.
There were plenty of manuscripts, like a 300-year-old copy of the Heidelberg Catechism, a 400-year-old edition of the acts of the Synod of Dort, a 500-year-old Latin edition of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, and a letter of John Calvin to William Farel.
In the bookstore I just had to take this next picture. Perhaps he didn't brew beer, but apparently he inspired someone to.
Not far from the cathedral site is a park on university property that includes part of what is known as the Reformation Walk. It has statues or monuments of the main Reformation characters. The main 4 on the wall are Calvin, Farel, Knox and Beza. If any of these are foreign to you, pick up some books! :)
And that, my friends, was Protestant Rome.
Well, for some strange reason people are still checking this blog... I feel obligated to write something.
We're back in Canada finally. We flew in Monday June 4th on KLM from Schiphol and moved into my parents' house. They then flew in from Schiphol 3 days later after their own two-week stay in the Netherlands, and we graciously allowed them to move in as well. We spent the week relaxing and recuperating from all that holidaying. Back to normal soon...
Today is Sunday. We went to Toronto church for the day, being members there and all. It was great to be back and to be welcomed back. In no time at all we were asked to house-sit for a couple going on vacation, so for the next three weeks we'll have a nice place in Richmond Hill with a pool in the back yard. Sure, I'm totally gonna get work done now...
Yesterday was the annual season-end barbeque for our Bible study group which we haven't attended in forever. Maybe it's fortunate that we didn't know about it, since we skipped out on half the meetings! Sorry Roze, I didn't read your comment in time. Oops...
Not sure why I'm ending every paragraph with an ellipsis. I'm sure nobody minds. Unrelatedly, I think perhaps I'll continue blogging if only to help myself remember what we've been up to. Being 30 has its downsides.
I have no pictures with which to excite my readers. Lucky for me there's not much you can do about it!
p.s. Carrie still plans to blog about her Geneva internship. Patience, grasshoppers...
Well this is it. Just like that, our stay in Geneva has come to an end. We're off on holidays for the next few weeks, without a computer (!!!!). So no blogging for a while, unless some library or Internet cafe proves to be too much to resist.
We're heading to Spain for just under two weeks; the first week is at a resort in Malaga, but for some of those days as well as for the second week we hope to cover Granada, Gibralter, Ronda, Cadiz, Seville, Toledo, Madrid and a whole bunch of other places I haven't heard of.
Then off to Italy for just over a week, where we'll visit Rome, Florence, Venice and a few other scenic stops.
Then back to Geneva where we'll have left most of our luggage, and we take the train to the Netherlands. We will stay there for two weeks and hope to see a myriad of relatives (both sides of the family) and as many cities as we can comfortably manage.
Over and out.
