Hey I discovered this rad website http://www.freerice.com/. It asks you multiple choice vocabulary questions and for every one you get right, they donate 10 grains of rice. It doesn't sound like much, but after playing for 15 minutes or so, I already had 600 grains. DO IT!
And if you are feeling epecially proactive check out http://www.one.org/ which is trying to put an end to world poverty. Awesome!
Or if you are interested about social justice from a progressive Christian perspective, check out http://www.sojourners.com/ .
Does anyone else have any website suggestions? Related to these topics or otherwise?
Life is short so make it count! Rock on.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Fall Vacation: Graz, Climbing, Home Cookin'
I will add more explainations later, but for now enjoy the mystery of looking at unlabled pictures.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
My Home
I know, it still isn't pictures from my trip, but this is my little home. It might not be super exciting but mom wanted to see pictures. First my room:
The furniture and the maps came with the room, I put up all the pictures, etc.
Even though it's in the basement, I get a lot of light. The garden is out the window, so it is a pretty view looking up.
That is looking out of my room into the hall. Two of the rooms on the right are the grandsons of my landalady, one is an extra room. On the left is the Schnapps tasting room of the dad, then the kitchen, toilet, and bathroom.
My kitchen
I hope this one is self explanitory.
A free round trip ticket to Austria for anyone who can explain how to use this "shower" without getting water everywhere.
The furniture and the maps came with the room, I put up all the pictures, etc.
Even though it's in the basement, I get a lot of light. The garden is out the window, so it is a pretty view looking up.
That is looking out of my room into the hall. Two of the rooms on the right are the grandsons of my landalady, one is an extra room. On the left is the Schnapps tasting room of the dad, then the kitchen, toilet, and bathroom.
My kitchen
I hope this one is self explanitory.
A free round trip ticket to Austria for anyone who can explain how to use this "shower" without getting water everywhere.We had daylight savings time a week earlier than the US so the sun is going down early. Plus with the mountains so close and so tall, it gets darker faster anyway. I feel like I'm in Alaska with the short days.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Thoughts
I just got back from a week of travelling and visiting friends. I will tell some stories and post pictures later. For now a conglomeration of thoughts from others:
"Change and growth take place when a person has risked themselves and dares to become involved in experimenting with their own life." -Herbert Otto
"The Christianity of private piety, affluent conformity, and only 'God bless America' has compromised the witness of the church while putting a new generation of Christians to sleep." -Jim Wallis
"In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned; Hearts are not had as a gift but are earned by those that are not entirely beautiful." -William Butler Yeats, "A Prayer for my Daughter"
Suck the marrow out of today, because life is a gift, and we don't know when there won't be a tomorrow!
"Change and growth take place when a person has risked themselves and dares to become involved in experimenting with their own life." -Herbert Otto
"The Christianity of private piety, affluent conformity, and only 'God bless America' has compromised the witness of the church while putting a new generation of Christians to sleep." -Jim Wallis
"In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned; Hearts are not had as a gift but are earned by those that are not entirely beautiful." -William Butler Yeats, "A Prayer for my Daughter"
Suck the marrow out of today, because life is a gift, and we don't know when there won't be a tomorrow!
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Vienna Waits for You
I just got my first paycheck and I have a week off.
It's time to take a trip! How about Vienna? Or Graz? A wise reminder from Billy Joel:
"Where's the fire, what's the hurry about? You'd better cool it off before you burn it out You've got so much to do and Only so many hours in a day /Slow down, you crazy child and take the phone off the hook and disappear for awhile it's all right, you can afford to lose a day or two When will you realize,..Vienna waits for you?"
Actually, the last month has been one of the most low stress I've had in a long time (along with the two months I spent in Alaska this summer). I could really used to having all this extra time. I've been watching a few movies, reading some books, sitting around thinking, learning lots of new German vocabulary words, trying to catch up on meaningful correspondence, looking at maps, going hiking, exploring the area...
And here are some pictures from my weekend in Innsbruck (when I went climbing with Johanna). Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of climbing.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
It's Like Summer in Alaska, But Colder
In the last couple weeks I have settled in even more and there is almost a rhythm to my daily life. A couple pretty cool things have happened too.
The best thing that happened, especially when thinking about the long term, is that I found a church. Yay! After spending ten of my eleven months in Germany looking for a church before I found one, I was very concerned that I would have the same difficulties this time. But I planned ahead and started asking people in the U.S. if they know someone who knew someone who works for a ministry that knows of a church near the little town of Landeck. As promising as that question sounds, I didn’t turn up any possibilities for a while. Amazingly though, my last quarter at WWU, I met Michelle in a German class. I was amazed that we hadn’t had class together before but I found out she had been in Graz, Austria the year before for a study abroad. I also found out that she was a Christian. Although she didn’t really know about the options in my part of Austria, she gave me the name of a University ministry that I could contact in Innsbruck and the name of a denomination or group of churches that are throughout Austria. I looked online before I left and got some information. There wasn’t one in Landeck, but there were some that were in Tirol. I couldn’t find a lot of the towns on my map though, so I waited till I got here and got to know the area and then looked on line again. The closest one was in Imst, 20 minutes on the train East of Landeck. After the train ride and then some inner-city route finding (the Austrians aren’t really into street signs), I found it. It is pretty small from 20-30 people probably that meet in a big room above a store. Everyone was really nice. I got an offer to carpool to a Bible Study and after setting out back to the train station a car pulled over and I got a drive-by lunch invite from two ladies that go to church there. The both work for a ministry called “Vision fuer Afrika” that sponsors kids, kind of like World Vision, but infinitely smaller.
I was back again this week and actually met several people who are my age!!! This is quite remarkable because up until now, the only 20-something person I have met in Johanna, the teacher I went climbing with. The group of girls told me that there was a group of young people from the church that usually meet on Fridays. This Friday is Austria’s National Holiday so the group doesn’t meet but we exchanged phone numbers and we will hang out anyhow and do something. I’m super stoked! So many things have been great so far, and I can’t complain, but so far, most of my friend options have been either 15 year old students or 35 year old teachers with families. Diversity is key and I have enjoyed getting to know a lot of people but it is also really nice to be able to hang out with people who are relatively mature but have time to hang out too.
Speaking of people my age, I did spot one or two others of Thursday night. My first summer at YDA, I was on summer staff with Katie Van Guilder who is from New Hampshire. We recently had a tear filled (just kidding) reunion on Facebook after losing contact for two years. She has been in Romania for about a year now working with a wilderness program there. She and her brother have been travelling around Europe the last couple of weeks before she heads back to the states. When I found out we might be near each other, we decided to try and meet up at some point if it worked out. And it did. They didn’t have internet very often so I wasn’t really sure when to expect them but they ended up rolling into town on Thursday night and called me from the Train station to say they were here. I’m only a ten minute walk away so I walked over there instead of giving them directions on the curvy, unlabelled streets.
I was fun having my first guests in my apartment. We sat around in the kitchen for a while just talking, eating the apples my landlady supplies me with, and drinking Gluwein. Gluwein is like alcoholic counterpart of spiced cider; it is basically spiced red wine. They usually only serve it around Christmas time at the Christmas markets that are all over Germany and Austria during advent. My favorite thing to do that time of year when I was in Germany was to go wander around the Weihnachtsmarkt enjoy a mug of Gluwein and a fresh made Crepe with Nutella schmeared on it. Oh how wonderful.
We went out for dinner and had some classic Austrian and Tirolian fare. I told them the little that I knew about Austrian food and suggested Spaetzl (a sort of midget-like homemade noodle), Knoedel (bread crumb dumplings with meat or cheese inside), or Wiener schnitzel (breaded veal or pork). Katie made the mistake of trusting me and ended up with a Knoedl that was, as we found out later, in a gravy of calf’s lungs. I hear it can be good but she didn’t like it much. I tried a bite and thought it wasn’t too bad but it did have a very distinct flavor. It’s probably one of those ones you either love or hate. I got Wiener schnitzel that was delicious and huge. Greg, Katie’s brother had the best meal though. It was some sort of roasted meat with some cooked veggies with a very good gravy type sauce on it and rive with some sort of cheese dressing. The meat was so tender and delicious. Of course we also had Bier. That was good too.
The next morning we got up and went for a short hike up the hillside to see the Ruine Schrofenstein, a small castle that is still privately owned. In the last post, there is a picture of its silhouette.
Another exciting culinary incident occurred at the beginning of the week. I got home from school and walked into the kitchen to make lunch to discover an infinitely beautiful and large Apfelstrudel sitting on the table with a small pitcher of sweet cream sauce to pour over it. My dear landlady, Brunhilde, had made it herself and brought me some! Apfel strudel is a croissant type pastry with apple pie type filling in it. Yum. It was so good; it was hard to eat my lunch first before digging in. As if that wasn’t enough, the next day when I got home from school, I had just started making my lunch when Brunhilde came down with her hands full of food for me. She had made ham Knoedel (the bread crumb dumplings) in soup and a salad with greens from their garden. She has been so nice since I got here, and the whole family. But after the food offerings, we are pretty much best friends.
After debating whether the awkwardness would be worth it or not, I decided to go to the Matura Ball Saturday night. It is Austria’s version of Prom but they do it in the fall so that they can focus more on studying in the spring. All the parents come and they even had a live big band. Of course Austrians can drink Beer and wine when they are 16 (hard alcohol at 18) so they get to drink at their prom. Since I still had it with me from Kristin’s wedding, I wore my bridesmaid dress to the ball. It was the only thing that was even close to formal enough. I never thought I would use it while I was here or possibly ever again. You know how often I wear dresses.
It turned out to be pretty fun. I sat with other teachers and got to know some of the ones that I hadn’t had a chance to talk to yet, so that was nice. I was also invented to dance by the principal which was fun but a bit strange. I have gotten comfortable with my freestyle dancing in public but I can’t remember how to do a waltz or any other traditional dance even though we did a unit on it in Freshman PE. I guess that was 9 years ago. I brought my camera but then didn’t take any pictures. Oh well.
In other news, my little old Jeep Cherokee finally sold. Providing me with bit of extra money before my firs t paycheck comes and I will use a lot of it to pay tuition for my TESOL practicum which I will do starting in January. And I will probably buy the season pass for skiing that will get me into several ski areas nearby.
In closing, I went for a run today in spite of and because of the cold weather. It was absolutely wonderful. I haven’t ran much since I have been here partly because I have been hiking end climbing too, partly because I am lazy, and partly because I did something to my ankle earlier this week causing sharp pain in my right ankle every time I went from a walk to a run. It was quite strange but seems to be better now. It didn’t swell much but bruised some the next day. The school nurse thought that I must have popped some blood vein or vessel or something and figured that it would recover pretty quickly. Today I tested it out and it was great. I ran down the trail that is right next to the river with views of the mountains off in the distance and then for half the run transitioned to a burly up-hill hike to a great lookout point.
At 6 pm the sun had already been behind the mountains for a while and the moon was already up, snow blanketing all the peaks nearby, and behind me a bench and a “alter” of sorts with Jesus on the cross. And as I stood there and admired all that lay before me, a few tiny snowflakes fell from the sky. For me, running is like therapy. It is so refreshing and life-giving. I hate that feeling when it has been a week or more since I have run or really sweat a lot doing something intense. Somehow I feel like when I sweat, all the gross fat and unhealthiness gets sweat out of me too. And the cold fall air is so awakening. It hits you so boldly but cheerfully as your cheeks turn rosy with color. I was alone seeing all this beauty and feeling all those things. I stood at that outcropping and just sang. I love to sing. Usually I sing in my car, especially on long drives alone. I just sing my guts out. Sometimes I sing in my room too in Bellingham or at home. But here, my room is right next to two guys I don’t really know and it is sometimes hard to tell when they are home or not. I don’t really like to sing around people if I am the only one singing, but especially not people I don’t really know. So I just let loose up on that hillside. Pretty soon the cold was penetrating my thin layer of spandex and I had to head back down but oh what a feeling.
It was a wonderful run and a great end to a great week. It made me feel so alive and so thankful to be alive.
“let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross…” Hebrew 12:1-2
The best thing that happened, especially when thinking about the long term, is that I found a church. Yay! After spending ten of my eleven months in Germany looking for a church before I found one, I was very concerned that I would have the same difficulties this time. But I planned ahead and started asking people in the U.S. if they know someone who knew someone who works for a ministry that knows of a church near the little town of Landeck. As promising as that question sounds, I didn’t turn up any possibilities for a while. Amazingly though, my last quarter at WWU, I met Michelle in a German class. I was amazed that we hadn’t had class together before but I found out she had been in Graz, Austria the year before for a study abroad. I also found out that she was a Christian. Although she didn’t really know about the options in my part of Austria, she gave me the name of a University ministry that I could contact in Innsbruck and the name of a denomination or group of churches that are throughout Austria. I looked online before I left and got some information. There wasn’t one in Landeck, but there were some that were in Tirol. I couldn’t find a lot of the towns on my map though, so I waited till I got here and got to know the area and then looked on line again. The closest one was in Imst, 20 minutes on the train East of Landeck. After the train ride and then some inner-city route finding (the Austrians aren’t really into street signs), I found it. It is pretty small from 20-30 people probably that meet in a big room above a store. Everyone was really nice. I got an offer to carpool to a Bible Study and after setting out back to the train station a car pulled over and I got a drive-by lunch invite from two ladies that go to church there. The both work for a ministry called “Vision fuer Afrika” that sponsors kids, kind of like World Vision, but infinitely smaller.
I was back again this week and actually met several people who are my age!!! This is quite remarkable because up until now, the only 20-something person I have met in Johanna, the teacher I went climbing with. The group of girls told me that there was a group of young people from the church that usually meet on Fridays. This Friday is Austria’s National Holiday so the group doesn’t meet but we exchanged phone numbers and we will hang out anyhow and do something. I’m super stoked! So many things have been great so far, and I can’t complain, but so far, most of my friend options have been either 15 year old students or 35 year old teachers with families. Diversity is key and I have enjoyed getting to know a lot of people but it is also really nice to be able to hang out with people who are relatively mature but have time to hang out too.
Speaking of people my age, I did spot one or two others of Thursday night. My first summer at YDA, I was on summer staff with Katie Van Guilder who is from New Hampshire. We recently had a tear filled (just kidding) reunion on Facebook after losing contact for two years. She has been in Romania for about a year now working with a wilderness program there. She and her brother have been travelling around Europe the last couple of weeks before she heads back to the states. When I found out we might be near each other, we decided to try and meet up at some point if it worked out. And it did. They didn’t have internet very often so I wasn’t really sure when to expect them but they ended up rolling into town on Thursday night and called me from the Train station to say they were here. I’m only a ten minute walk away so I walked over there instead of giving them directions on the curvy, unlabelled streets.
I was fun having my first guests in my apartment. We sat around in the kitchen for a while just talking, eating the apples my landlady supplies me with, and drinking Gluwein. Gluwein is like alcoholic counterpart of spiced cider; it is basically spiced red wine. They usually only serve it around Christmas time at the Christmas markets that are all over Germany and Austria during advent. My favorite thing to do that time of year when I was in Germany was to go wander around the Weihnachtsmarkt enjoy a mug of Gluwein and a fresh made Crepe with Nutella schmeared on it. Oh how wonderful.
We went out for dinner and had some classic Austrian and Tirolian fare. I told them the little that I knew about Austrian food and suggested Spaetzl (a sort of midget-like homemade noodle), Knoedel (bread crumb dumplings with meat or cheese inside), or Wiener schnitzel (breaded veal or pork). Katie made the mistake of trusting me and ended up with a Knoedl that was, as we found out later, in a gravy of calf’s lungs. I hear it can be good but she didn’t like it much. I tried a bite and thought it wasn’t too bad but it did have a very distinct flavor. It’s probably one of those ones you either love or hate. I got Wiener schnitzel that was delicious and huge. Greg, Katie’s brother had the best meal though. It was some sort of roasted meat with some cooked veggies with a very good gravy type sauce on it and rive with some sort of cheese dressing. The meat was so tender and delicious. Of course we also had Bier. That was good too.
The next morning we got up and went for a short hike up the hillside to see the Ruine Schrofenstein, a small castle that is still privately owned. In the last post, there is a picture of its silhouette.
The night before they came it had cooled down a lot and there was snow only a 1,000 ft. or so above us. Autumn is now in full swing. The morning after they left, Saturday, I opened my window in the morning and saw snow. Only this time, the snow wasn’t just on the mountains, but rather on the grass and leaves in the yard! It was just a thin layer and melted by the afternoon but it is staying quite cold hovering just above freezing during the day. This means, probably no more rock climbing until spring. The mountains are so beautiful covered in snow though! And it means snowboarding will be coming soon!
Another exciting culinary incident occurred at the beginning of the week. I got home from school and walked into the kitchen to make lunch to discover an infinitely beautiful and large Apfelstrudel sitting on the table with a small pitcher of sweet cream sauce to pour over it. My dear landlady, Brunhilde, had made it herself and brought me some! Apfel strudel is a croissant type pastry with apple pie type filling in it. Yum. It was so good; it was hard to eat my lunch first before digging in. As if that wasn’t enough, the next day when I got home from school, I had just started making my lunch when Brunhilde came down with her hands full of food for me. She had made ham Knoedel (the bread crumb dumplings) in soup and a salad with greens from their garden. She has been so nice since I got here, and the whole family. But after the food offerings, we are pretty much best friends.
After debating whether the awkwardness would be worth it or not, I decided to go to the Matura Ball Saturday night. It is Austria’s version of Prom but they do it in the fall so that they can focus more on studying in the spring. All the parents come and they even had a live big band. Of course Austrians can drink Beer and wine when they are 16 (hard alcohol at 18) so they get to drink at their prom. Since I still had it with me from Kristin’s wedding, I wore my bridesmaid dress to the ball. It was the only thing that was even close to formal enough. I never thought I would use it while I was here or possibly ever again. You know how often I wear dresses.
It turned out to be pretty fun. I sat with other teachers and got to know some of the ones that I hadn’t had a chance to talk to yet, so that was nice. I was also invented to dance by the principal which was fun but a bit strange. I have gotten comfortable with my freestyle dancing in public but I can’t remember how to do a waltz or any other traditional dance even though we did a unit on it in Freshman PE. I guess that was 9 years ago. I brought my camera but then didn’t take any pictures. Oh well.
In other news, my little old Jeep Cherokee finally sold. Providing me with bit of extra money before my firs t paycheck comes and I will use a lot of it to pay tuition for my TESOL practicum which I will do starting in January. And I will probably buy the season pass for skiing that will get me into several ski areas nearby.
In closing, I went for a run today in spite of and because of the cold weather. It was absolutely wonderful. I haven’t ran much since I have been here partly because I have been hiking end climbing too, partly because I am lazy, and partly because I did something to my ankle earlier this week causing sharp pain in my right ankle every time I went from a walk to a run. It was quite strange but seems to be better now. It didn’t swell much but bruised some the next day. The school nurse thought that I must have popped some blood vein or vessel or something and figured that it would recover pretty quickly. Today I tested it out and it was great. I ran down the trail that is right next to the river with views of the mountains off in the distance and then for half the run transitioned to a burly up-hill hike to a great lookout point.
At 6 pm the sun had already been behind the mountains for a while and the moon was already up, snow blanketing all the peaks nearby, and behind me a bench and a “alter” of sorts with Jesus on the cross. And as I stood there and admired all that lay before me, a few tiny snowflakes fell from the sky. For me, running is like therapy. It is so refreshing and life-giving. I hate that feeling when it has been a week or more since I have run or really sweat a lot doing something intense. Somehow I feel like when I sweat, all the gross fat and unhealthiness gets sweat out of me too. And the cold fall air is so awakening. It hits you so boldly but cheerfully as your cheeks turn rosy with color. I was alone seeing all this beauty and feeling all those things. I stood at that outcropping and just sang. I love to sing. Usually I sing in my car, especially on long drives alone. I just sing my guts out. Sometimes I sing in my room too in Bellingham or at home. But here, my room is right next to two guys I don’t really know and it is sometimes hard to tell when they are home or not. I don’t really like to sing around people if I am the only one singing, but especially not people I don’t really know. So I just let loose up on that hillside. Pretty soon the cold was penetrating my thin layer of spandex and I had to head back down but oh what a feeling.
It was a wonderful run and a great end to a great week. It made me feel so alive and so thankful to be alive.
“let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross…” Hebrew 12:1-2
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