{"id":272,"date":"2014-07-23T08:38:54","date_gmt":"2014-07-23T12:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/social.rollins.edu\/wpsites\/letters\/?p=272"},"modified":"2019-07-29T21:18:42","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T21:18:42","slug":"ende-of-semester-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/2014\/07\/23\/ende-of-semester-tradition\/","title":{"rendered":"Ende of semester tradition"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_18294\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18294\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/frats-225x300.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-18294 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/frats-225x300-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-18294\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">fraternity brothers gathering in front of Lamberti Church<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As I often do, I strolled through the Altstadt last Tuesday, a rather rain-beaten day. \u00a0On the square in front of the Lamberti Kirche an unusual looking crowd of young men was forming. \u00a0The longer I stood, the more young men congregated near the door to the church.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_18295\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18295\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/flags-and-boots-300x281.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-18295 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/flags-and-boots-300x281-300x281.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"281\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-18295\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">caps and flags of fraternity<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I began to recognize signs of old nineteenth century traditions among these &#8220;brothers.&#8221; \u00a0These were fraternity men from various groups coming together. \u00a0Other onlookers gathered too. \u00a0None of us seemed to know what was going on, so I approached a rather tall (ca. 6&#8217;5&#8243;) young man to ask him to explain. \u00a0He and his &#8220;brethren&#8221; explained that it was the end of the semester and that it was tradition that the fraternities came together for a church service and then a banquet.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sword-225x300.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-18297 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sword-225x300-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Not long thereafter the colorful group processed through the portal of the Lamberti Kirche. \u00a0See the rapier to this young man&#8217;s righthand side? \u00a0Older fraternities in Germany have the tradition of fencing, called &#8220;schlangende Verbindungen.&#8221; \u00a0 Fraternities are controversial in Germany because they represent a sense of an &#8220;elite.&#8221; \u00a0Some people associate them with very conservative politics, perhaps even neo-Nazi attitudes.<\/p>\n<p>These guys were clearly more formally attired than any of the rest of us that soggy evening. \u00a0An interesting encounter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I often do, I strolled through the Altstadt last Tuesday, a rather rain-beaten day. \u00a0On the square in front of the Lamberti Kirche an unusual looking crowd of young men was forming. \u00a0The longer I stood, the more young men congregated near the door to the church. I began to recognize signs of old&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[367],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-field-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18298,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions\/18298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}