Schones Wochenende! Oh, and a little about a monastery...

Good news, it's the weekend! Which means I finally have time for the one thing I hoped to always have time for: sleep. Oh, and this too.
I handwrote a couple of journal entries on Berlin when I was in Berlin, and I've put them in here under their original dates. It probably seems a little cheap, but it'll just make more sense that way.
Oh, and the computer's getting more fickle, so I may not be able to update as often if it decides it's tired of turning on for me. Worst case scenario: a little over 2 weeks. That's right after fall break. My new laptop may get here before then, but I'm not going to place any bets on it. This one may hold out for the next week, but I'm not sure how likely that is either.
So lets talk about everything else this week now.
Tuesday we went to this gorgeous little monastery outside of town. It dates from the 12th century and was Benedictine. It didn't fare well through the ages, though, because the Benedictines there actually tried to stick to the stricter interpretations of Benedict's Code, which meant they had no property besides the monastery, no income, and often had to beg for food.
Not a very popular way of living, especially when the Benedictine's up the road have all their gold and are constantly fattening up on delicious food.
So it fell into various phases of disuse over the years, was brought back to life a bit in the 18th and 19th centuries, dwindled again, and was eventually bought by the Thurn & Taxis family (remember them? They own most of the city now). One of the Thurn and Taxis men attempted first to revive the monastery, then simply resigned to living in it. He'd sit in his room in the church facade (built as a guest room in the 19th century) and lower down the key on a string whenever anyone knocked at the church door.
He died some time recently and the Thurn & Taxis family let a montessori school move in. They totally rennovated one building of the monastery, so now it's bright yellow with fresh wrought iron and is every inch the 19th century building.
Two things made this monastery especially interesting for me. Firstly, the contrast between the old, cracked buildings with all their 19th century decay stand stark against the two rennovated ones (along side the montessori are now a series of flats available for rent). It's just a purely ascentic fascination.
Second is the church.
As I told you, this place was originally built in the 12th century, so it's a Romanesque church. Besides the date, you can see it in the windows, the layout, and so on. But when the monastery experienced a bit of a revival, they turned it Baroque. So now you have a layer of VERY Baraque paintings over what was once totally Romanesque murals. You may have seen my photos of the Romanesque murals in the All Saints Chapel at the Dom. I'd link you, but the photo page is misbehaving again. Anyway, these are like those, if thouse hadn't been destroyed. They've totally uncovered the original paintings on the trancept and the ambulatory (that is, above the choir and altar). On the ceiling sits the Virgin Mary, clad as a queen, representing the church in all its splendor. Virtues and Angels flank her, and on either wall saints, apostles, and prophets come toward her. Below the prophets are the various church orders, and below the apostles are the hermits. Interestingly enough, a set of the hermits is female, but when the murals were discovered and restored in the 19th century they painted them male to avoid controversy.
So, you'll see this in my pictures once they're uploaded, but just imagine it now, you have above the choir and the altar huge, Romansque paintings, covering every inch with vibrant colors that have faded to a sort of chalky lightness. Then, above the nave (the long stretch with the pews) are these dramatic oil paintings of the patron saint of the church: George.
St. George was a very hard man to kill, according to catholic legend. His persecutors tried to burn him, to boil him, to stab him, to break him on a wheel (similar to the rack, if you're familiar with that particular part of torture), and do various other cruel things. On the ceiling, he's depicted in typical Baroque-liveliness, smiling and looking holy while they try to do all these things to him. The paintings there are done in oil, and neatly framed. The rest of the walls are white.
So, back to the church as a whole. Totally white except for St. George being martyred on the ceiling, up till the darkwood alter. Then bam! it's like the walls exploded into color. The contrast is amazing. The oily frames of St. George, though lifelike and beautifully painted, are like little windows looking into a far away place, but the romanesque paintings are right there, bringing you to the gates of heaven in every color imaginable.
I wonder what it must've looked like when the whole church was painted in Romanesque.

As you can imagine, I thoroughly enjoyed this trip. In my pictures, you can also see the abandoned astronomy tower, which housed snipers during WWII and, later, squatters. This gorgeous little nitch is just one more example of the thousand years of history that I'm living in right now.