Ok, compared to our previous schedules, today was an easy day! We were on our own to explore the village of Oberammergau today. We did some shopping and a few of us came away with some great treasures……like cuckoo clocks, beer steins and Hummel figurines to name a few!

We also visited the Oberammergau Museum which held many different works of art depicting the passion play as well as other subjects. There were many antiques and wood carvings to view, too. This was very interesting as there were quite a few different depictions of the passion play housed in the museum.

\From there, we headed off to lunch. For the last 5 days, we've been eating pretty light….until today! The Wolff Restaurant made sure that we had enough sustenance for the upcoming afternoon as they served us a full meal including chocolate mousse for dessert….yummmy! We had a little time to relax before heading over to the play house, which was a whopping 2 minute walk from our hotel. Gotta love being city center!

The play starts with Jesus riding on the donkey with the kids waving the palm fronds, or Palm Sunday. It then progresses through all the events of holy week. The play is actually performed in two parts. The first half is 2 ½ hours and the last half is approximately three hours. This was the most amazing production I’ve ever been able to witness! The actors were fantastic, musicians and singers were simply amazing and this entire play was totally awe-inspiring. I know you won’t be able to make it this year, but if you can, you need to come to the next showing of this play in 2010!! I highly recommend it! Now it’s time to sign off and pack up to head off to our next destination (which will hopefully have internet so I can upload this stuff!). We’ll be starting our Lutherland portion of the trip where we’ll learn more about Martin Luther and the Reformation. I’m really excited for this part of the trip as this will be completely new territory for me. More tomorrow!