Week 15

Preface:

Given that the following week is finals, the vast majority of my time spent this week has been devoted to studying. While I know that I need to save the majority of my reflections for my final post, I did think it worth mentioning that this was the first week where the weight of this program ending truly hit me. Not only did I have to prepare for finals, but I also had to prepare for my final days in Germany, the final times that I might ever see the friends I had made here who are graduating to bigger and better things, the final times that I will get to interact with the amazing host family that so graciously took me in. It truly has been a sobering feeling. However that feeling was not accompanied by a sadness or a longing, but of a swell of gratefulness for all of the life-changing experiences and people who I have had the privilege to experience and meet. This has not only been one of the most impactful semester of my college experience, it has been the most impactful four months of my entire life.

Apr. 25: Hildegard von Bingen Museum

Picture of the Rhine from Bingen

Instruments from the time of Hildegard

Inside the "Hildegarten" (Hilde Garden. Germans love their puns).

Hildegard of Bingen, also known as Saint Hildegard and the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary, and polymath. She is considered to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany. I had the opportunity to explore the museum dedicated to her legacy in Bingen as well as the nearby medicinal plant garden containing many of the plants that she would have used in her time to treat a host of ailments.