The hills are alive...

Gruss Gott! In other words, the greetings of God be with you! This is the Austrian way to say, "Hey!" It's a bit more personal, don't you think? Anyway, first and foremost, my apologies for being so terrible at keeping up with this! It really would be a lot easier if everyone could just be over here with me having all the same adventures. How's that sound?

Well since my last post, I have started classes and am loving them! I'm only taking four (Christian Marriage, Sacraments, Theology of the Church, and Metaphysics. For all of you who were just dying to know), but they are keeping me on my toes that's for sure. I even think midterms are coming up in a few weeks. How is that even possible? Didn't we just get here? Even the weather is trying to make the semester go by more quickly: apparently it's pretty abnormal for all of the snow to melt at the start of February. Personally, as a Florida girl, I pratically cried with joy and immediately busted out capris and flip flops. Unfortunately, the sure signs of winter are starting to creep back up on us. Soon I think it'll look like this again:

Maybe we'll get lucky though and have beautiful sunshine. Trust me that makes the snow MUCH more bearable

This is the view from my window. That's right, this right here is my backyard!

So life here in Austria has been pretty busy. I mean, come on, it's pretty weird when the weekdays full of classes feel like down time! But that's how it goes when you're gallivanting on the weekends to incredible places like Salzburg and Munich! We got up nice and early one Friday morning and drove into the city just in time for Mass with the bishop of Salzburg who is in fact a very adorable and funny man. After Mass, we ate a most delicious lunch and checked into our hostel (which was super nice. Yay for school sponsored trips!). We then had free time the whole rest of the day which meant I was making my way up to the Hohensalzburg Castle which can be seen practically anywhere in the old city. That, my friends, was quite the hike. Definitely an incline made for horses and not people. But we made it to the entrance which was not at the top, so after paying, we climbed up even higher and just when we thought it was such a bad idea to climb up, we found a side alley which opened up into an incredible view of Salzburg at sunset.

Definitely worth 3.80 Euro!

Breathtaking, right? And of course the pictures don't even do it justice.

And we finished the night off with watching the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King in German! And we couldn't get subtitles on. It was pretty bizarre and very hard to take the serious parts seriously. Luckily I've seen the movie enough times to practically translate the whole thing. And I don't speak a word of German...

The next day was spent in Munich which despite the gray weather was quite amazing and very fun. We had Mass in the church of Joseph Ratzinger, better known now as Pope Benedict XVI! After a short tour of the main center of the city, we had the rest of the day to explore and experience Munich. For me, that included walking around the city with three of my friends, Katherine, Caitlin, and Mary, and eating lunch at this cute little cafe called Ludwig's. It was the kind of place where locals walked in and the staff knew them by name. I got a very delicious and reasonably priced bowl of soup there, and it was very difficult to leave and get back in the cold. But we stopped by a coffee shop and got the best hot chocolate I've ever had and continued on our way. The rest of the day mostly consisted of exlporing only a small handful of the many beautiful churches in Munich and running into our friends Chris and Griffin in one of them. The most pleasant surprise for the day though was definitely this little hidden treasure

 

Now at first glance, it looks like some sketchy nightclub or an underground operation headquarters. It turns out though, that off the busy streets of Munich, these doors conceal an adoration chapel. How typical humble of the Lord to make himself available without being flashy and excessive?

We returned to Salzburg that night and the next morning (Sunday) we were able to attend Mass at the cathedral where Mozart was baptized! And since it was Mozart festival weekend, it was a Mozart Mass. Now, I'm not entirely sure what that means except all the music was written by him and they had a full chorus with the big grand organ and everything. And the entire thing was in German! Definitely different but such a great thing to experience. After Mass, we got back on the buses for a half hour drive to Mondsee a.k.a. the town with the church from The Sound of Music!

Amazing. All in all, a blessed weekend filled with the Sound of Music stuck in my head, good company, some of the best food yet, and grand adventures! Ok, I promise, I really am going to get better about updating this. Trust me, trying to catch up on a good 3 weeks in Europe is no fun. So more to come soon! I mean it this time...

The sun is up, the sky is blue

What a week! And it's only Wednesday! I start classes tomorrow which is so bizarre. What's this school thing I signed up for? I thought I would be travelling all over Europe for 4 months! (Just kidding, Mom...) Really though. I can't believe this semester hasn't even technically started.

So on Monday, we went on a day trip to Maria Taferl, which is a beautiful church, and the town of Melk where we had Mass and a tour of the Benedictine monastery. I'll start with Maria Taferl. I wish remembered more of the history, but combine my history skills with the morning and we're all just lucky that I remembered my name. But apparently it used to be a site of human sacrifices? Eek! Well now it's an incredible church dedicated to Our Lady on top of this mountain with a wonderful view great for pictures. Oh speaking of pictures, I'll include the link to the Facebook album with the pictures, but remember, I'm knew at this so it might not work...But back to Maria Taferl, so inside is just overwhelming beauty. And there's this little almost secret door on the side in the back where you can climb these stairs to three room/platform things and along the entire way, the walls are just COVERED in these beautiful pieces of artwork of Jesus, Mary, and various saints. You'll have to look through the pictures, and even those can't do it justice. I have a feeling that a lot of my pictures will fall short of their subjects. We then had lunch at a hotel/restaurant and it was SUPER delicious and authentic and just so tastey.

Then we piled back onto the bus and headed to Melk! We didn't explore the town, just the monastery, but it was worth it! Oh my goodness, I can't even tell you how breathtaking it was! And they have a museum with an insane amount of awesome artifacts and we got to take a tour of it. One thing I love about Austria is that all the really cool places are on top of a mountain so it makes for really beautiful views. Again, I can't even describe how everything looks, so I highly recommend checking out the pictures. It was an exhausting day but so wonderful. I wish everyday was just like it. Unfortunately, we have school and now even the weather is turning on us. It's freezing and rainy and bleh. Well, it can only get better. Actually, that's a lie. It'll get colder and snow and THEN it can only get better!  Ok well, my pictures aren't quite done uploading but I'll put the link in as soon as it stops being a dumbbutt!

Willkommen!

This is our chapel. Isn't it incredible?

Greetings from Gaming, Austria! I'm going to try and keep up with this blogging business which is as foreign to me as German (and that's pretty bad, trust me!). And don't worry, I'll get my own pictures up as soon as I dig out my camera from the depths of my bag. So I just arrived today and am in the midst of unpacking and learning my way around because it's a lot more confusing than you would think. You have to go up this staircase, turn and go up another, then go through the secret door and up another staircase, it's crazy! (Note: there isn't an actual secret door. It just seems like it).

The bus ride from Vienna to the Kartause (the name of the place I'm staying at) is about an hour and 45 minutes and it was a beautiful drive. The sun came out apparently for the first time in a couple of weeks and everything looked so vibrant and fresh and just gorgeous! And the water here is so crisp and clean! For those of you that have never had to experience Steubenville water, it's quite the change from filtering your water almost excessively to just drinking from the tap. SO GOOD! Go ahead and make fun of me, Sarah, I just can't help it that I love water! 

Well I am just exhausted (even though it's only 3:00 here!) and we have Sunday Mass in an hour, so I better get ready and finish putting my stuff away. There will be more to come. Tomorrow, we're going on an expedition to the town of Melk! Auf Wiedersehn!

P.S. Laura, do you like the font? I changed it to Helvetica! But really, I did.