December and Beyond

I can not believe it is already January 2012! Where did the year go? Here's a brief update on the last month :)

On December 17th I left Holsby with about 10 other students to spend two days in Copenhagen, Denmark.  We arrived without mishap and spent the afternoon exploring the down town pedestrian area including the Lego store, the Disney store, a candy store, ... The next day we toured the city with my room mate Sarah as our guide. We also took a tour of the canals.

On the 19th, the large group splintered into many smaller groups as many of the Germans headed home and others headed in various travel directions. Sarah, Bethany, Magda, and I went to Sarah's house in Bredstedt, Germany. We spent the week leading up to Christmas being treated to an enormous amount and variety of delicious food and excursions into the various towns and cities close by. On the 18th we walked on the bottom of the ocean to an island off the coast of Germany. The tides in that area vary so much that at low tide we could walk across and when the tide came in we took a boat back. On our walk to the island, it was quite windy; at first it was also cloudy, then we were hailed on, then the sun came out, and then it turned cloudy again!

Sarah, Bethany, and I spent Christmas at Sarah's house. For Christmas dinner we had goose, chicken, and roast beef, red cabbage and a variety of other vegetables, potatoes, and so much else. We opened presents on Christmas Eve evening, and we were surprised by Sarah's family who gave Bethany and I presents of like three different kinds of chocolate, slippers, a necklace, a scarf, and slipper socks. All in all, it was a good Christmas, but not really like Christmas at home. I called my family on the evening of the 25th, which was their Christmas morning, and it was really nice to get to talk to them all.

We spent a day in Hamburg visiting a Christmas market and doing some random shopping since lots of things are cheaper in Germany than in Sweden.

We left Sarah's house on the 26th for Berlin! We visited many of the historic sights in Berlin including the Checkpoint Charlie, the Brandenburg Gate, and the government buildings. We went to a service in the Berlin Dome, in German; the organist was pretty good even though we did not understand much of the song lyrics or the sermon.

After Berlin we headed to Stuttgart, which was definitely a highlight. We met up with a few Holsby friends, visited the Daimler-Mercedes museum and the Rittersport Chocolate factory. We got to try a few Schwäbisch dishes like maultaschen soup and also raclette (we put a bunch of veggies and meat in a mini pan, topped it with cheese, melted it in a special griddle and then dumped it over some potatoes).

Next came Salzburg where we took the Sound of Music Tour! I wish I had seen the movie more recently so that I could recognize more places in the city that appeared in the movie, but on the tour we saw the gazebo, the back and front of the vonTrapp house (which are actually two different palaces), and the church where Maria and the captain were married. We also heard the story of the real family vonTrapp and sang along with the sound track to the movie. We saw some beautiful mountain scenery too! I would love to go back to Salzburg especially to explore the countryside around the city.

New Years Eve, or Silvester as it is called here in Europe, we found ourselves in Vienna. We had a difficult time finding a place to stay in Vienna because it was New Years Eve and ended up staying with Kate, a past Holsby student, and her family. They were amazingly welcoming, explaining the best places in Vienna to visit and also inviting us to their Silvester celebration. We ate a meat fondue, several different types of salad, and a variety of breads. For dessert we had cookies and a chocolate fondue. We swapped Holsby stories with Kate, and it was really cool to hear about her experiences and what she is doing now, studying architecture. Right before midnight we headed down town and ended the year with live music and fireworks! When we got back to the house at 1:30, we visited with Kate for a while more and ate chocolate mousse. We headed for bed at 3am, only to wake up two hours later in time to run for our train to Venice! Kate had made us breakfast! We sat a little too long over breakfast and because we had to buy a subway ticket and take three different subway lines to arrive at the train station, we made our train with three minutes to spare!

Venice was probably the most disappointing stop on the trip. It was interesting to see all the canals through the city and see the water right against he sides of some of the buildings, but there wasn't as much water as I was expecting. It was nearly as romantic as they portray in the movies either. Maybe you just have to know where to go and what to see because other students that visited liked it better. I though the city was pretty dirty and there was a fair bit of graffiti, and it just wasn't that wonderful. At least I'll be able to say I was there before it sank into the ocean!

Our last stop before heading north again was Rome. We visited the Colosseum, which was impressive, the Trevi fountain, the Spanish steps (and climbed to the top of course!), the Pantheon, and St. Peter's Basilica. On our last day, Bethany developed a migraine. Since we were planning to take a night train, we did not even have anywhere to go to give her peace and quiet and a place to lie down. We ended up spending 3.5 hours in the mall under the train station in the quietest corner we could find until she felt well enough to go visit St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican. That night we started our 22 hour train journey back to Sarah's house. After spending a day recuperating there, we boarded the train back to Holsby.

It is so, so good to be back here. It has been great to see everyone here again, reconnect, and hear everyone's crazy travel stories. Also, there are eight new students this term, two girls from Austria, one from Germany, one from the US, two boys from Canada and two from the US. One of the new girls from Austria, Franziska, is my new room mate. My other new room mates are Katy from Iowa and Tara from Alberta.

Since I've got back on Saturday, I've already gone on five walks! It snowed a little the day we got back, enough to almost cover the grass, and now the forest and everything is so beautiful. Yesterday was sunny, too! The sun sets at around 3:40pm so I have to take advantage of the daylight as much as I can, but at least we're gaining around three minutes every day so that by the end of January the sun will set at 4:25pm.

Today was Goal Setting day and Prayer day. We set academic, spiritual, physical, and relational goals for this term in order to live more intentionally. After being given a short introduction, we were released to find our own space to pray, reflect on the past term, think and set goals for the term ahead. I dressed warm and headed out into the forest. I found a quiet place by a stream and sat down for a while. When I got too cold, I decided to continue exploring along the path I'd been following and then come back to that spot so I left my stuff there and set out. It wouldn't be the start of a new term if I did get lost in the forest... So much for my hope that it would be easy to follow my footprints in the snow back to where I started. I tried to just walk in the direction I thought I should go in and eventually found a path to follow that I thought was the approximate right direction. It eventually dumped me out on the road to Vetlanda, and then I knew where I was. I think I was only lost for about fifteen minutes, and unlike when I got lost in September, I was familiar enough with the area to know where I was when I hit the road. The rest of the day passed without incident since I stuck to paths I was familiar with. It was really nice to get some time to myself with God after having been with the same people practically 24/7 for the past three weeks.

I have decided I want to learn German. It will be much easier to learn German at Holsby than Swedish since we have far more German-speaking students than Swedes, including one of my room mates. So far I can introduce myself, comment on the weather, count to 1000, ask for things to be passed at the table, and a few other random things. All the Germans seem very happy to teach me.

It's snowing! And the temperature, according to my computer, is -3C so I guess it'll stick! My feelings about the snow are mixed since I don't want it to keep me inside or off the trails, but it's so beautiful and I've never experienced more than a foot at a time that sticks around for more than two weeks. I figured Sweden would be my chance to experience 'real' snow.

My biggest prayer request right now is for the chance to catch up on sleep. I'm not feeling really tired right now, probably because I'm just excited to be back, but I've noticed that I'm doing things and making decisions I probably wouldn't if I wasn't so tired, just little things but still...


Wow, this turned out to be pretty long and I probably missed a ton, but I hope you enjoy reading it. I'll try to add some pictures later, but my camera wasn't working (it kept telling me "Lens Error") so I have to get pictures from my friends. Have an awesome week!