Bogenhofen: Life Keeps Going

    Still nothing exciting happening. There have been some frustrations lately. Not sleeping well, some struggles with school work (botched a test last week), and some general annoyance, but you know what? Life just sort of... moves on. I forget about things and can't seem to remember what's made me so upset the day before. This moving on is good, because I'm bored with school and I'm dying for my parent's to come, but it's also scaring me because soon I will be home. I'm so homesick. Really, I can't wait. But, at the same time, I don't know what I'll do when I am no longer with my friends. Where will I find this kind of laughter again? This warmth? This spirituality? How will I ever be satisfied to be alone in my dorm room again? To not have anyone to text? To not count down the days for our next Sabbath vespers?

A castle near Salzburg that we visited




   We recently visited Mauthausen Concentration Camp. I think it was important for me to go, but it was also extremely hard. In many cases, I felt physically ill just hearing about the things that happened to the innocent people kept in the concentration camp, and by the end I couldn't wait to leave. I came away feeling upset and confused that anyone could do that to another human, and even more hurt by the stories I heard about prisoners turning against each other. 

This room was filled with the names of every person who was
ever detained at Mauthausen. This is the only photo I took. 




Our Swans have been dancing lately and we're hoping for Cygnets!

I found a grove of wildflowers on a walk the other day. 



On Sabbath we had another "Checkpoint Family" where us students
go to a church members house for the afternoon. The family I was with took us on a walk
around a beautiful lake. It was fun and we found a bunch of friendly cats. :) 



Beba, the dorm kitty, getting lots of love

Its been super nice out lately, so me and my friends have been
finding new activities to entertain ourselves. Last Sunday we made
a fire and sat around it the entire day doing various things. And the 
last two days we've been teaching ourselves to slackline.

   Recently, me and Keegan have been playing smashbros together, and as the weeks have gone by, more and more guys have found out and have expressed a desire to play also. So, on various occasions we've whipped out the controllers, but we had never had the chance to all play together. Finally, our plans came to fruition this last Tuesday. We played four tournaments together and I won the first three. :) For the fourth one, I agreed to let the boys chose my character for me and so they finally beat me. I was very proud of myself, especially since a couple of them had tried to beat me in the past, couldn't, and thought that the tournament would be their chance (but it wasn't). I dunno, sometimes it's just nice to be good at something. 

My first win using my favorite character.

My second win using my second favorite character.

My third win using a character that I have used before, but don't love.
(with every match I tried to make it easier for them ;) 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bogenhofen: Brot und Käse

Image
   I have a couple trips to blog about, but I also wanted to talk a little bit about what life is like here, and some of the struggles I have run into. I titled this blog "Brot und Käse" because, for the last month, my diet has consisted of a very limited selection of dry bread, cheese, and dietary torture. I think the Europeans may be stuck in the Middle Ages. Not only does their diet consist of peasant food, but they have a plague mentality and many of them think having the window open and letting fresh air in at night makes them sick, which has increased my suffering tenfold. Similarly, they avoid Americans like the plague even though we hail from one of the few places that never contracted this disease.     All jokes aside, there have been some major cultural shocks. The foremost being the food. Germans eat bread with cheese and butter for breakfast, supper, and sometimes lunch. Since I arrived I have had very little protein, sodium, starch, or legumes. Howe...
Read more

Salzburg: These Are A Few of My Favorite Things

Image
     Forenote: Sorry if this post is a little messy or has some grammar mistakes. Not sure what it is but I've lost my writing mojo. 😖    We finally made it off campus. Salzburg was the kind of city that felt old; as if it had never stepped foot into the modern era. The tall mint green, banana cream yellow, and baby blue houses were packed tightly in the valley, the snowcapped peaks rising around them, and steep cliffs pushing them so close to the river it seemed they might fall in. Church spires rose to the height of the cliffsides, and standing like a gaudy sentry above it all, was a white castle with the Austrian flag fluttering in the afternoon breeze.      I have dreamt about seeing Europe for many years, and this was what I meant. Salzburg is what I had always imagined. It was the perfect city to call my first. It was a hodgepodge of different histories, eras, and architectural/art styles, yet there was something synonymous and pleasing abo...
Read more

Vienna... a Roman city???

Image
    I will start by talking about my favorite thing; archaeology. You may want to skip this post if you don't want a history lesson. :D Thankfully for me, Vienna was full of grave goods and artifacts plucked from neighboring countries such as Greece and Italy, as well as a few from far-off countries like Turkey and Egypt. Besides the fact that the Viennese have impressive Greco-Roman and Egyptological collections, I was also shocked to learn that Vienna started out as a Roman city.     In 16-15 BC, the Romans occupied the foothills of the Alps under the direction of Emperor Tiberius, the emperor during Jesus' ministry. Later, the Celtic town of Vindobona, which would later become Vienna, was occupied by the Romans and became a strategic garrison. Gradually, the population expanded because of the town's important position on the Danube River which made it the base for the Roman fleet. Because of its increasing importance, it received the Roman city charter which ...
Read more