A long walk

I had a chance to rest this weekend and while it was hard for me to rest, I was able to take a full day on Sunday and enjoy the outdoors.  I walked along the river, up the mountains, and just enjoyed a slower day.  As I walked along, I stopped to listen to the river, sat on benches along the path and read, and just spent time reflecting on God's goodness.  It had been raining and cold for two days, so the sun and warmer temperatures felt great.  I passed several people and used my Austrian dialect to say good day, which is 'Gross Gotte,' which means greet God and everyone uses it here. And I loved the sound of the river flowing, it was so calm.  As I went at my own pace, I even noticed a small snail snoozing on a leaf. 

While I don't often get days like this, I'll remember the sound of the birds chirping, the smell of the pure air, and most importantly, the fact that God knows what we need even before we ask.

Exporing Austria

Elka, Ahsley, and Sharon under an umbrella in the rain in Bad Ischl, Austria

There were a few older student here this past week and I got to know Elka and Ashley, neighbors from Germany.  Elka is 49 and Ashley 29.  They stayed through Friday, so they invited me along to see a small town in Austria called Bad Ischl.  We went in Elka's car and drove about 1 hour and 30 minutes away from Schaldming.  It was nice to see the landscape by car.  Once in town, we visited Kaiservilla, where the emporer of Austria, Franz Josef and his wife Elizabeth, or Sissi, made their summer residence.  We toured the grounds and the home.  Most was original furnishing and very intricate.  We even saw the document where Franz signed the document that started world war I.  When we went outside, it was pouring, so we quickly found a cafe and had tea and very petite and scrumptious desserts.  After this, most of the shops were closed so we headed to dinner at a nice restaurant nearby, after getting a recommendation.  While I love the food at Tauernhof, it was great to be able to order off the menu:  asparagus mouse with salmon, spinach rolls, and vanilla bourbon dessert.  We chatted away most of the day, and I thoroughly enjoyed this.  They invited me to Germany and said that I would love their little town called Woerzburg.  Ashley said that her and her husband have road bikes and that I could borrow them and ride around town and to nearby vineyards.  Hmmmm...maybe I'll extend my stay. 

Speed Hiking

Emily and Sharon at the top of the Gutenberg hike

I was in the mood to get a good workout on sports day, so I decided to go on the speed hike with the cook Lota (pronounced Low-ta).  He and his wife are from Germany, but have been at Tauernhof for 2 years -- he as the cook and his wife Ana as the main person in the office. They are both so nice. Only one other girl, Emily, went on the hike with us. She's 17, but she and I became fast friends early on because we both have short blonde curly hair. We decided that she would be my little sister while we were here. She's so sweet, hugable, and just real. She's also in great shape. I heard legends of Lota's ability, but I wanted to try it. So I went hiking with two very fit people.

We went by car to Bernbirg, which is across the valley from Tauernhof. We parked by some beautiful houses and then started on our hike. Right off, the we hiked a good incline. They were ahead of me rather quickly, but I kept up a good pace behind them. The plan was to walk to the top of the mountain on the ridge. It would take us 1.5 hours to hike up and about an hour to hike down. As we started the climb, I noticed a sign stating how long it will take to get to the top. The sign said 2 hours and 14 minutes. So we were really going to have to move to get to the top. We hiked up pretty quickly to a spot where we could look back and see the valley. We continued on our hike and after about 20 minutes walked over the top of the treeline and the terrain became quite rocky with low brush. I had never hiked this high before. The stone path got narrower as we hiked up the hill. Lota was ahead of Emily by some distance and Emily ahead of me by some distance as well. I saw Lota come check on me at one point and asked how far it was to the top. I thought that he said 5 minutes (his English is hard to understand at times). Great, I thought. Wrong. I continued to hike the rest of the way up the side of the top of the mountain on a zig zag path which was covered with big boulders. We were up so high that there was snow.

As I continued on I kept thinking that the top was going to be any minute. I was challenged by the constand uphill hike and rocky ground. When I was very tired and alone, I came across some sheep on the hill. This of course made me smile. I was really high up at this point and here were these sheep literally in the middle of nowhere. All you could hear was the slight wind and the sound of one of the sheep who had a bell on its neck. They were really cute, especially the little baby one. I continued on and kept climbing up the winding path and couldn't believe how high up that we were going. Fortuneately, the paths are well marked here, so you just keep looking for the Austrian flag. On this trail the flags were painted on the rocks. After a seemingly long time, I saw Lota and Emily. They had only been waiting 10 mintues for me. We sat at the top and just soaked in the view. As Lota pointed across to the mountains on the other side, I realized that we were as high as the mountains that we were looking at. Lota pointed out the highest mountain in the area. We enjoyed a drink, snacks, and Lota gave thanks to God by praying in German. It was a bit cool up top, so after we fully rested, we headed back down the mountain. Easier than going uphill, but it was very technical. You needed to really watch your step so that you wouldn't slip on the stones, but it wasn't too bad. And Emily was kind enough to walk down with me and Lota stayed with us for awile. Emily and I had a very nice talk and arrived at the bottom of the hill exactly one hour later, for a total hike of 2 hours and 40 minutes.  What a hike.

Slipper Run

Women making "hausschuhe," or slippers

We've had a couple free afternoons the past two days.  While I've really enjoyed the new teacher and topic of Christ as Life, I've been grateful for the down time.  And this afternoon, we ran for wool slippers in a nearby town.  While I was expecting a shop, it was actually in this woman's house.  We walked in her front door and off to the right was her shop.  There were two woman making slippers from sheep's wool that they had pressed and dyed.  The woman said it took about 45 mintues to make a set of slippers.  Speaking of sheep, I can't get over the fact that every day you'll see sheep grazing on a hill.  And most often it's a ski slope.  You'll look up a the ski slope and see brown dots and a few black ones as well.  For some reason it just makes me laugh.  Only in Austria can you see sheep grazing on a ski slope.  As for the slippers, I'm the proud owner of pair.

"Mountain" Biking

Kate, Dani, Sharon (me), Megan, Steph

While the topic for lecture this week was "spiritual endurance," I think that this week was filled with more physical endurance.  Kate and I went on a hike on Monday and the route that we chose went straight up, but as usual, the view from the top was spectactular.  On Wednesday, I chose boxing for my sports day.  I heard that it was a challenging workout, so why not?  Little did I know that I would be training for 2 hours.  We did about 1.5 hours of workout before trying boxing.  This was optional, but I tried it with one of the younger, sweet girls.  But she was tough!  It was so awkward for me to throw punches.  I'm not sure that I'd have to try the actual boxing part again.  But I enjoyed Tobi, the instructor who works for Tauernhof. 

And today, we went on a mountain bike ride.  I mean a mountain bike ride.  I went one other time at home, so this was only my second true mountain bike ride.  That was one thing that I wanted to do here -- to see the area by bike.  I was not disappointed.  Tobi and an older student in the class, Denis, were the leaders.  We got a few tips on technique and then we started out -- apply 70% to your front brake and 30% to your back brake.  Very helpful.  We road along the street until we came to the path.  This was a wider track and beautiful, but extremely steep.  I had to stop a few times and so did the others.  And it kept going up and up and only improved in incline slightly.  We got to a stopping point and travelled along a mountain road for a bit.  We all needed the recovery. 

Then we headed up a single track through the woods.  Tobi gave us a few more tips on riding uphill.  Pull your elbows down and have the center of your body forward over the chain.  By applying the technique, the uphill wasn't so bad.  It was the downhill on a single track that was tough.  At times, we rode along the side of the mountain with a long drop to the right.  In that moment, I didn't have time to be afraid, you just did what you needed to do.  Once on more level ground, we split up into two groups and I chose the easier route.  I can't imagine what the harder route was like.  As we headed along a road to the next path, this was one of my favorite parts of the route.  We were essentially road riding through the forest with views of the mountain.  At a brief stop, Denis reminded us to enjoy the ride, that we all need to see all the splendor that God created if we would just focus on it.  But too often we rush or let others rush us.  It was a good reminder.  We headed up to a cabin and stopped to eat our packed lunch.  This is when we looked around and saw pine trees, mountain flowers and mountain views and just sat there in awe.  One of the girls and I looked at each other and said, "we are really mountain biking through the alps" (see picture above).

I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the journey.  It didn't get any easier, it was still single track, but it we were riding through the forest, little yellow and purple flowers covering the ground and it was absolutely peaceful.  You could hear the leaves rustling slightly and you could actually hear the sound of silence.  As we rode along, those more experience in the group helped the others.  We rode over a few two plank bridges, around trees, over tree roots, and rode along a small river.  After 3 hours, mostly riding uphill, we had a nice long downhill and headed back to town to return our bike rentals.  It was the best 7.20 Euro that I ever spent.

Cleaning the "hut"

So, I had my first work day today.  Our assignment was to clean a cabin, or "hut" as they call them, in the mountains.  The cabin belongs to a family that lets Tauernhof use it during the summer and fall.  Andy, one of the construction workers m and a native of the area, took seven of us to the hut.  Everyone kindly asked each other if they get car sick when we picked our seats.  I said, "no, I don't" and got in the third row. Andy got in the vehicle introduced himself and said, "It's about 40 minutes through the mountains so just relax and enjoy the ride."  Lovely, a nice ride through the mountains.

We headed up some winding roads at what seemed like a faster than usual pace.  About 10 minutes into the ride, the three of us in the back looked at each other and I started to feel a little queasy.  So, we opened the window and I kept thinking that we'd almost be there.  The roads got more narrow and winding.  I think it's the first time that I recited the verse "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" in a car ride.  The only thing that I can compare it to was a road that we took once to my grandparents house when I was younger, and never took that road again because it was so winding.

We arrived at the hut and I felt very green.  But the ride really was spectacular through the upper mountains.  The cabin was just like "Little House on the Prairie."  Dani, my roommate looked at me and said, "why don't you get some fresh air for a bit," noticing my green color.  After I took in some fresh air we promptly went to cleaning the cabin.   Before this, we got a quick tour and the cabin was all wood, no insulation, and mattresses on boards.  This was really remote.  No electricity, but running cold water.  There was even an room where they split wood and there were a lot of tools in this room as well.  Dani and I cleaned the loft area containing about 10 mattresses in one room.  The others cleaned the remaining bedrooms, the dining area, the bathroom and the basement.  The cabin isn't used in the winter, so it had been sitting for 6 months.  It was mostly dusty with cobwebs.  But we shook out the mattress and everythig else. 

Dani (Germany), Sharon/me (USA), Spencer (USA), Ana (Germany), Steph (Germany), Whitney (Macedonia), Elizabeth (USA), and Andy (Austria)

After about one and a half hours we had the place cleaned from top to bottom.  As we sat down for a snack of fresh milk from the farmer and some baked desser, Andy told us more about the cabin.  It used to be used for farmers, called an "alm" in German, for making cheese from the milk. The farmers used to bring their cattle up and this was the way to preserve the milk.  They no longer use it for that, but just for Christian camps.  I must admit it was pretty rustic and pretty remote. I thought of how much I appreciated my little twin mattress in Schladming.

On the ride back, I kindly asked Andy to drive slower and sat in the front.  While it was a much better speed, one of the girls looked green when we got out of the van back at Tauernhof.  We laughed so hard as we thought about the ride being worse than cleaning the cabin.  Makes for good memories anyway.

Roommate night

Tauernhof, where I live and the home of the roommate night

While I am just have one roommate, Dani, other students have up to 8 roommates.  So there is this event where some of the girls will hold a "roommate night."  They buy chocolate, talk, dance, pray together and just hang out.  When you're 17, 18 and 19 years old, this is what you do.  I laughed when I talked to Dani about this and suggested a "roommate morning" in which we get up early, go to a local bakery and have tea.  I can't stay up much past 22:30 (or 10:30pm) let alone be social after this.  But since I've been here, I've had the opportunity to talk to several of the younger girls (under 23-years-old) about life, boys, and other relevant topics.  It's been such a blessing. 

So, word got out about one of the conversations that I had and the advice that I gave, so one of the girls invited me over to their room to hang out and talk with them.  This was during a roommate night.  Now, remember, roommate night usually starts at 10:30pm.  But thankful for the opportunity, I agreed.  Luckily our lecture let out early and I headed over at 9:30pm.  This was nothing that I could have expected.  I listened to the various topics and then we got into conversations about what's challenging in life today, about being a young Christian and even what would be good/bad about being in an Amish community.  The conversation flowed and I was thankful to be able to listen to their challenges and talk about life.  It was 11:09pm when I left.  While we didn't get into too many topics, they invited me back.  What a privilege to be involved in their lives.  I am so grateful for this part of my experience here.