Exploring – Kelsi's Travel Times

Hiking Photos

These last weeks have been pretty busy for me so much like with my previous post I’m just going to load some pictures from a couple of hikes that I’ve done with friends to give you an idea of what it looks like a bit more here in Austria!

#1 : To Duisitzkarsee

This was a small hike that I took with a friend of mine from my Bible school in Sweden, Rahel. This hike was about a 20 minute drive outside of Schladming where we both live right now. It was pretty chill and the view at the top was so beautiful!

The path up to the lake often went back and forth zigzagging through this waterfall which was really beautiful and so cool!

Our final destination with a beautiful view of the lake and surrounding mountains

#2 Scheichenspitze

This was a longer and more challenging hike that I did with four coworkers of mine. In total it took us about 6 hours from start to finish and the peak is at a height of 2667 m. You better believe it’s pretty hard to breathe at the top. We left for the hike around 6:30 in the morning, below the cloud line it was still a bit dark but as soon as we passed above the clouds it was so light!

You can’t see in this photo the place that we started our hike because it’s below the cloud line but this was taken after about a half hour of walking

Finally made it to the peak in somewhere around the 3 1/2 hour mark I think. Crystal, me and Amelie.

At the peak of most of these big hikes there is a cross. You can actually see this cross from Schladming down in the valley on a really clear day. But like, that view though!

Paul, Johann, me and Amelie representing that we are indeed all working at Tauernhof while admiring the view of the surrounding mountains. We actually were super fortunate with the weather on this hike. Though it was cold at the top I actually got a bit sunburnt throughout the day. We ended up being really glad that we went on that particular weekend because it snowed the weekend after and that would have made it impossible for us to do it without more equipment.

Starting the harder part of the decent. We basically spent 2 hours sliding down rock fields which is actually really really fun. The only downside is that my feet were so so sore by this point because I was wearing hiking shoes that didn’t fit me very well. (My good hikers are still in Canada because I’m dumb) You can kind of see the chain near the bottom of the picture that you can hold to help stabilize you on this first really steep part of the route, though it’s actually there more to help people climbing up than people going down.

We hiked down to the bottom of this ravine and then a bit further. The clearing that you can see in the middleish right side of the picture is kinda near where we ended our hike. The actual place would be a bit more to the right side, a bit further down from the clearing, behind the peak on the right. It took us about 2.5 hours to get down.

By the end of this hike we were all just wiped. We ended at the Gondola station for the Dachstein mountain where we ate traditional Austrian Kaiserschmarn for lunch around 1:30 and were picked up by friends!

If you look up to the 3 mountains in the top of this picture, the left most peak is Scheichenspitze which is where we hiked to. Because of the bad photo quality you can’t see the cross but I could see it very faintly when I took this photo. We started from a bit higher up so not right in the bottom of the valley but it was still quite a long ways .

Adventure Photos

Since being back in Austria I’ve taken 2 different day trips. Since it would take a really long time to write all the details about each one, I’ll just share photos from each of the days that will give you an accurate picture of what each day was all about!

Adventure #1 : Day in Hallstatt, Austria

Hallstatt is a small picturesque town about an hours drive from Tauernhof. I went there for a day with my friend Johann on one of our days off and it was super fun!

This is probably the most famous view of Hallstatt, it’s where all the tourist (us included) stop and take pictures and it’s the picture that’s on like every post card

Something that I found was really cool in the town is that most of the houses are painted bright colours and they nearly all have really great flower gardens in the front or huge garden boxes on the sides of their balconies which makes everything look so beautiful

Of course we have to goof off a bit so we tried on some funny hats and sunglasses at a little tourist shop off a side street

This is the main square of the town. We were really fortunate to be there on a day where there were really minimal tourists so it was really nice and quiet on the streets, even right in the middle of the town.

Being typical tourists at the popular viewpoint overlooking the town

This picture shows really well how the town is really built into the side of the mountain. So there are actually very few streets where you can drive in this part of the town because it is built so narrowly into the side of the mountain

So we spent the first part of the day until about 2:00 in Hallstatt, just walking through the streets and enjoying the view. By the time the afternoon came we had pretty much been through the town, (it isn’t very big) so we decided that we would use the rest of the day to find a lake within driving distance where we could go swimming.

The picture below is a lake about 20 minutes away from Hallstatt and we literally just searched for lakes on google maps until we found the closest one. We decided not to swim in the lake in Hallstatt because there were a lot of boats there and though there weren’t a ton of tourists there were still some so we wanted to find somewhere a bit quieter and more chill.

This lake was near the town of Bad Aussee, I’m not sure exactly sure where but it was in such a beautiful place. The picture absolutely does not do it justice because the whole area surrounding the lake was really beautiful. We swam out to the little dock that you can see in the bottom right side of the picture. The water was really really cold but luckily it was a warm day so you warmed up pretty much as soon as you got out of the water.

After a few hours of hanging out at that little beach we drove back to the school which was also a really nice drive through the Austrian mountains which are so green at this time of the year.

A picture taken from the car window which is why you can kinda see my reflection. But just focus on the beautiful mountain behind it 🙂

Adventure #2: Day trip to Venice

So this was probably our craziest idea because we literally planned it the day before. Venice is about a 4 hour drive from where we live so it was a really long day but totally worth it I think. I’ve wanted to go to Venice for a really long time. If you’d asked me for the last few years “what’s one place you’ve always wanted to go?” My answer would have been Venice. Now I guess I have to find a new answer to that question. I drove there with 4 of my co-workers and though it was really hot in Italy we had a good time there!

My co-workers that I went with: Crystal, Simon , Johann, Me and Hanna

This photo is from a little bit later in the day. The light got quite soft and pink and made for some really good pictures of the bigger, more open canals.

Of course there are no cars in Venice which leads me to wonder if there is gas stations for filling up your boat?

We passed this Canal on our way to find St. Marks square in the middle of the city.

Right as I was taking this picture there was a boat passing under the bridge that had a wedding party in it so everyone on the bridge was yelling and cheering.

Me, Crystal and Hanna right before we left the city in the evening

The Sunset light was so beautiful and makes all the buildings just glow in the craziest way because of the reflection off the water. It’s the coolest thing.

We left the city around 8:00 because we still had a 40 minute walk back to our car and then a 4 hour drive home. It was so cool to finally get to see Venice even if it was only for a day, I definitely want to go back there sometime when I can spend a few days there and see more of the city at a more relaxed pace. It’s a really unique place.

So those are a few pictures from my most recent day trips. Some thing that I LOVE about living in Europe is how close you are to so many cool different places. It gives such a unique option so see a lot of places even if you don’t have so much time or like me are fitting it into days off around a specific schedule. I’m excited to see where the next few months will take me!

I hope you enjoyed these pictures and as always feel free to send me a text on Facebook or whatsapp or send me an email if you want to know more about my time here in Austria.

First Week Back!

So as mentioned in my previous post, I spent the first two-ish weeks back in Europe in Germany and was lucky enough to get to spend all of that time with friends from my Bible school. My timing coming from Canada was even convenient enough to put my back in Germany right in time for two weddings of close friends of mine and it was so special to get to share that experience with them. Unfortunately I don’t have a ton of pictures from this time but I’ll put the few that I have in here as well.

On August 6th I landed in Frankfurt in the early afternoon where I was picked up by 4 friends of mine who were all staying together prior to the first wedding. My travels went totally smoothly despite everything with Corona and how border controls can be difficult right now so I’m really thankful for that. We drove to the home of our friend Kari who lives somewhere near Frankfurt though I honestly couldn’t tell you specifically what the town is called. That whole first afternoon jet lag was hitting me pretty hard; definitely I would say that for me that’s the worst part about traveling. That evening though I was able to wake up enough to play a few really fun games of beach volleyball at a facility a few towns over. We met another friend from Bible School there and definitely enjoyed our evening spent together playing mediocre but hilarious volleyball.

That first night I slept so hard, I was so exhausted which definitely helped me stay awake for the most part the next day. In the morning we played some games together and prepared some things for our friends wedding. Later in the afternoon we packed up the car and drove up to Düsseldorf which is where the wedding of our friends Tim and Judy would be held. We hung out there at the church were they would be hosting the wedding which was also where we would be sleeping. Around 7:00 things started to get going though it definitely was different than most traditional weddings. They had already had their sort of “ceremony” at the courthouse earlier that day. Because of Covid regulations in that part of Germany it was easier to just do this at the courthouse with only their immediate families and then have a party with a larger group later.

Tim and Judy (the bride and groom) are to my right

In total I think there was only about 50-60 people there which actually was really nice. It made it possible to spend a lot of time with everyone including the bride and groom which you might not get at a larger wedding. They started things off with some worship and music and then said their vows in front of everyone. Even though it wasn’t a formal ceremony I think it was really cool that they did that with their friends and it was really sweet to hear them. After that we had dinner which was a kind of build your own Döner situation. It was so good and definitely more chill than most wedding food but if you know Tim and Judy it’s no surprise that that was their food choice. Another reason it ended up being such a good choice was because it was also so so so hot that week in Germany so it was nice not to have super warm food. Everything about their wedding was so well suited to them and it made it so personal and amazing.

The rest of the evening after dinner was pretty much just the hanging out, party, and dance part of the wedding. I would guess about half of the guests were classmates of ours from Holsby so there were lots of people to catch up with and talk to. Around 4:00 a.m things finally really calmed down and pretty much everyone who was still there went to bed. Needless to say we were pretty tired the next morning but it was definitely worth it. Much of the morning was spent just helping clean up the church and helping make brunch for everyone who had stayed over. Around noon we were pretty much all cleaned up and ready to go and by that point it was already so hot outside and in the building that it was really nice to leave and be able to be in a car with air conditioning.

The next two nights I stayed at my friend Stefan’s house and on the second night we celebrated the birthday of another friend of ours, Annabel, with a big group of people.

We were able to use a small cabin near Stefan’s place that he helped build with his friends. This was really great because it was far enough away from any houses that we could pretty much be as loud as we wanted. In the late afternoon and early evening we pretty much spent the whole time in the pool because it was still so hot outside. But once it cooled down a bit we could have a fire and barbecue some meat and other things for dinner. This kind of bbq thing is something I’ve done really often with my German friends and I’m not sure if it’s really popular in general or if it just happens to be something my friends do a lot. Either way I really like it and it’s a really fun and easy way to make food for a lot of people.

Pretty much the rest of the night after eating was just spent hanging out together and talking and catching up. Around midnight a few of us went back to Stefan’s house where we stayed overnight. The next day I took the train to Annabel’s place where I stayed with her and Isaac (another friend) at her apartment. The rest of that day was pretty chill because we were all really tired. We just hung out, played some games, got ice cream and watched some movies. It was also really hot again so we didn’t really feel like doing anything too strenuous or exciting. We also slept outside on her balcony because it was way cooler out there than inside.

The next day was also very full and very hot. Another Holsby friend, Johnny, picked us up in the morning and we drove about two hours to an Europa park theme park. We spent pretty much the whole day there from about 10-6. Though we had to wear masks inside and when we were in line, the one benefit of being there during this time is that numbers in the park were drastically reduced so we never really had to wait more than 30 minutes for a ride. Compared to some other theme parks I’ve been to that was really nice and it allowed us to do pretty much all of the rides we wanted with minimal waiting time. They had a lot of really big roller coaster there which we really loved and I loved going into the different “countries” and doing the different rides, especially the water ones. We definitely had an awesome time the whole day, and by the time the park was closing we were pretty tired so we drove the two hours back to Annabel’s apartment and just watched a movie and went to bed.

We all met in Sweden so naturally we had to take a photo in the Swedish part of the park

Wednesday was a really chill day which was really welcome after a busy few days. Annabel and I went out for breakfast in the morning at a cool little café nearby while Isaac was still sleeping. After that we browsed through some thrift stores which is always fun and interesting depending on the things you find. We kinda just wandered through a bunch of stores and stuff for awhile, not really on a schedule just chatting, looking into different places and running a few errands. When we started to get hungry again we went back to her flat and made some lunch. Isaac wasn’t there as he had gone to help our friend Mari run some errands and organize some things for her wedding which was that weekend, so Annabel and I just spent the afternoon relaxing together, playing some games and going to get ice cream (We ate a lot of ice cream this week). When Isaac came back we ate something and watched a movie before going to bed. There was also a bit of a thunder storm that night and we were able to sit up on the roof and watch that from a distance which was pretty cool.

Thursday was another pretty full day for me. Annabel and Isaac had a few things that they had to do to help out with our friends wedding on the weekend, so they spent the day doing that before meeting me again later. While they did that I took the train to Reutlingen to meet up with my friend Jan who I would spend the day with before going back to his place where we would meet Isaac and Annabel. It was raining a lot when we got there which we honestly didn’t mind at all after the heat wave that had been going on for the last few days. We walked around there for awhile, got very wet and saw a few different things before taking the train to Tübingen, another city nearby.

Tübingen is pretty well known for being quite an international city with a ton of young people because they have a big international university. It also has a really beautiful old town and castle which overlooks most of the city. So we pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon there wandering around.

In the early evening we went back to Jan’s place where we met with Annabel, Isaac and Friedi. We spent the evening together hanging out, talking and spending time outside. We grilled some meat over a fire for dinner which we ate with some salad and buns and enjoyed watching a meteor shower late into the evening. We finished off the evening by watching How To Train Your Dragon, though I’m pretty sure most of us slept through the majority of the movie so we just went to bed after that.

Annabel and I enjoying the sunflower field behind Jan’s house

Friday began the weekend of the second wedding that I went to while in Germany. In the afternoon the five of us drove about an hour to the wedding venue where we spent some time helping to prepare the venue. That evening many of the guests who were invited from farther away arrived. Some from Holsby but also many guests from Austria because that’s where Mari (the bride) is from. We enjoyed the evening spending time together, walking around in the vineyards which surrounded the venue, playing a lot of spike ball and enjoying the beautiful sunset.

Saturday was the day of the wedding so we spent the morning doing our best to help with whatever needed to be done before it would start. At 3:00 the ceremony started and it was great that they were able to have it outside despite the forecast of rain. I haven’t been to a lot of weddings where I previously knew both the bride and groom so both these weddings were really special. Joe and Mari also got together during our time in Sweden so it was really exciting to see things work out so well for them because they are actually the cutest. It was also really cool because though Joe is German and Mari is Austrian, they did the whole ceremony in a combination of English and German, translating both when needed.

After the ceremony there was a bit of time where they took some pictures and we moved a few things around. Right after they finished it started pouring rain so it was good timing to move into a tent that they had set up for the program. The program was really enjoyable with a bunch of fun games and some funny slideshows and performances from other guests and friends. After that was dinner which was a variety of things, pulled pork, vegetables, different types of bread and some different grilled meats that you could take fresh off the grill. It was all super great and I again really enjoyed that it wasn’t overly fancy.

The rest of the evening was spent pretty much just hanging out and doing a variety of activities. They had a fire with s’mores once it stopped raining and we played volleyball and spike ball in the dark which was really hilarious and fun. Sometime around 1 or 2am was when things started to quiet down and people started going to bed. Because most of us were sleeping at the venue it was pretty much that once a few people went to bed most people followed suit shortly after. It was such a fun and special day overall and I’m so glad that it worked out that I could be there to celebrate with so many friends.

Sunday was my last full day in Germany and it was all really chill. We spent the morning helping to clean up the venue and get everything put away. Annabel, Isaac, Jan, Friedi and I left around noon and all of us except Friedi stayed over at Annabel’s apartment that night. On Monday morning we were up early so that I could catch my train to Salzburg.

I feel like this whole week just flew by, I guess that tends to happen when you’re surrounded by such amazing people. Overall it was just such a great week and it was such a blessing that I could come back to Europe even in the middle of a pandemic like this. It still feels a bit surreal that I’m actually back here, (now in Austria) and I’m so excited for what these next four months here will bring!

Coming (hopefully) soon will be more about my first weeks back in Austria!

More Travels and Christmas

After we left Düsseldorf Celeste and I had a busy week. We visited 4 different countries and I feel like we didn’t spend enough time in any of them. I do however, feel that it was worth every minute of travel time and craziness to get to visit so many of our amazing friends and getting to spend even a little time with each of them.

Our first stop after Düsseldorf was in Amsterdam. I think this was the only leg of our travels where we didn’t have problems actually. Our friend Lisa dropped us off at the bus depot and the bus ride to Amsterdam was only about 3 hours. When we arrived there it was about 2:30 in the afternoon and knowing that we only had basically one afternoon/evening to spend there we wanted to get going as soon as possible. We walked to our hostel which was about 20 minutes away from the bus station, got checked in, dumped our stuff and then hopped on a bus to the city center which was about 30 minutes away.

When we originally looked at Hostels in Amsterdam we debated whether or not to book something closer to the city center, and if I went there again I probably would do that. But because of where the bus station was and because we were leaving from that same station early the next morning we decided that it was more of a priority to be close to the station than the city center. The first sight of the tourist part of Amsterdam is actually so beautiful. The main station is such a beautiful old building and as soon as you leave it you can see the old buildings and canals that Amsterdam is known for. The fact that it was near Christmas time just added to the effect because of all the Christmas lights that were hanging up all around the city center.

This picture doesn’t do it justice at all but it is really a beautiful station.

For the afternoon and much of the evening we just wandered around the city near the central station. We didn’t really have the time to visit many of the attractions that Amsterdam is known for but we did pass a lot of museums and go inside many big churches. We also walked past the Anne Frank house and that’s something I definitely want to visit when I’m in Amsterdam next time. It was super fun to just be able to walk along the canals, visit the cool little shops and experience the atmosphere of the busy city. There were also bikers literally everywhere and so we had to be careful not to get run over by anyone; they can literally appear out of nowhere so I’m actually surprised that we didn’t run into anyone.

We had dinner at a little restaurant to finish off our day before heading back to our hostel. It took a little while for us to find the right bus but eventually we managed it and packed it in for the night. One thing that I didn’t love about Amsterdam was that so so many people smoke and so it smells like cigarettes (and other things) literally everywhere and it was even worse on the buses with so many people packed together.

The next morning we got up early and walked back to the bus station in time to find our bus which was supposed to be leaving around 8:00 to go to Antwerp in Belgium. From our experiences, usually the buses for international trips get to the stop anywhere between 30-15 minutes before leaving, so when it was 10 minutes to 8:00 and the bus wasn’t there, we started to get worried. Soon enough it was 8:00 and there was a crowd of people at stop but still no bus. A few different people that we talked to said that they had tried to call the number on the ticket but there had been no answer. After another half hour of waiting, we were pretty sure that the bus wasn’t coming at all. We also spoke to a lady that said that she knew someone who had booked with the same company and had also had a bus that didn’t show up, so we decided to book a different ticket. Luckily for us, there were a few different options that were inexpensive (like 8 euros or something) and would be leaving only an hour later than our original bus was supposed to. This bus got in at a different station than our original bus, but we called our friend who was supposed to be meeting us and she said that it would be no problem to come get us at the different station.

A few hours later we made it to Belgium where we were met by our friend, Lise, who we also know from Sweden. We took the metro to her house where we spent a couple hours just relaxing and meeting her family. A bit later, we used bikes that their family had and biked all around Antwerp. This was probably one of my favorite parts of our whole trip because it was a completely different experience than we’d had in other cities. You get to see much more than taking a car or a train but you can still see a lot of different things in a little time; Belgium is so so beautiful so this was an awesome was to see it.

This is one house… crazy huge but beautiful

She took us down some streets to see some huge old houses with some crazy architecture and also showed us the main station which was also super massive and beautiful. We biked through a bunch of different parts of the city and past the harbor which is apparently a really important port for bringing goods into Belgium. Next we made a stop at a quirky little coffee shop before going into the main part of the city to see the Christmas market. We locked up the bikes and spent a few hours just wandering around the lit up streets. All the buildings had a ton of Christmas lights and it made it easy to see everything that was happening there even though it was getting dark outside. One thing that Lise told us was a super common thing at Belgian Christmas markets was that you do shots. It was different for Celeste and I because we have both been to a lot of markets in Germany where the big drink that they sell is Glüwein.

Once we were finished at the Christmas market we biked back to Lise’s house. The bikes were really fun but also a bit scary because there didn’t seem to be many traffic laws surrounding them so it was basically just anything goes and you just drive all over the road. We had dinner with her family and then just spent the evening hanging out and watching a movie because we were really tired after a few days of such busy travel.

This was some weird art in the square with the Christmas market

The next morning we packed up and Lise took us to the station where we would catch the train to Brussels. That was where we were supposed to be meeting someone who would drive us back to Stuttgart. This again was a bit of a transportation adventure. We checked the tickets and found the platform in the Antwerp main station without any problems. The train was on time and so we quickly said goodbye to Lise and got on. Somehow though, this wasn’t the right train and this still puzzles me. According to the ticket that we had, there was supposed to be 5 stops before we would get off at the south station in Brussels and it was supposed to take 50 minutes. But after 50 minutes, it had only been 2 stops and then the train started going in the opposite direction. Someone even checked our tickets while we were on the train and confirmed our destination with us.

This street was really fancy so we walked down it to look at all the houses

Realizing that something was probably wrong, we quickly called Lise and asked if there was any chance that we got on the wrong train and she said no. When we told her the station that we had just stopped at, called Leuwen, she told us that this was 40 minutes in the wrong direction from where we needed to be. We double checked the tickets, the platform, the station and the time and it was all the same as the train we got on. You can imagine how confused we were. To prevent us from going any further in the wrong direction, we got off at the next station, (a tiny one in literally the middle of nowhere) and checked for trains going where we needed to be. By this point, there was no way that we were making it to Brussels on time and we were panicking a bit because we were unsure if the guy that was supposed to be driving us would wait for us. When we were finally able to get in contact with him we explained the situation and thankfully he said that he would meet us at the station in Leuwen even though he was 40 minutes away and it wasn’t what we had agreed on.

When we finally got back to Leuwen (about 45 minutes later because the train was delayed) he was there waiting for us . Something that I should probably explain is that we got in contact with this guy through an app called BlaBlaCar which is basically a carpooling app for long distances. It’s kinda comparable to Uber except you only pay for the gas that it takes to get to your destination. The benefit of this is that it is waaaaay cheaper (like 200 Euros cheaper) than taking a train and it takes way less time than a train because you drive directly there. At first I thought it sounded kinda sketchy but it actually has a really good reputation and you can read the ratings that other people have given the driver. The website also has really strict policies about drivers so it isn’t as crazy as I first thought it might be (don’t worry Grandma). The guy was actually really nice and we are really glad that we did that instead of taking a train. It took us about 6 hours and we drove through Belgium and Luxembourg to get back to Germany. At one point near the border of Luxembourg we were only a few kilometers away from Germany and France.

This was a sign near a gas station that we stopped at.

Our driver dropped us off at the Stuttgart airport where we were picked up by our friend Stefan who took us back to his house where we spent the night. The next day we went to an international church in Tübingen. It was pretty cool because the pastor gave the sermon in German but they had sermon notes in English and he also gave the key points in English so it was really easy to understand. He also spoke pretty slowly in Germany so it was even easy to understand. I guess they have lots of people at that church who only have German as a second language so they’re used to having to translate. Our friend Jan also met us there because he was the one who recommended the church. After the service they also had a lunch so we stayed for that and got to talk to some cool people, many of whom had heard of Torchbearers and were interested to hear more about why we were there and additionally why we were going back to Austria.

After that we drove to Jan’s house where we just stopped really briefly to get some food items that we needed and also got to meet some of his family which is always cool. For the rest of the afternoon and evening we met up with our other Holsby friends Friedy and Elias at Friedy’s house. We had such a good time there with them just catching up and making supper and waffles. It definitely turned pretty crazy with so many people in their kitchen but it was so hilarious.

Jan and I trying to make waffles without a recipe… an interesting experience to say the least.

Later we were joined by Joe and Mari and we all hung out together and played Telestrations until probably almost midnight at which point Joe and Mari took us back to Joe’s house which is where we stayed from the 23r to the 26th.

Celeste, Jan, Me, Stefan, Elias, Mari, Friedy and Joe. We took this at Friedy’s house.

On the 23rd we mostly had a chill day but one thing that we did was go to a basketball game which according to our friends was like the second highest division in Germany. It was actually the level of bad college teams in Canada but there was a lot of people there who were really rowdy and we had so much fun!

Our group after the basketball game.
Joe, Friedy, Elias, Celeste, me. Jan

Christmas this year was definitely a different experience, even different from last Christmas which I also spent in Germany. One of the weirdest things is that Germans say, “Merry Christmas” on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas day. On Christmas Eve we helped with preparing some food before going to the Christmas Eve service with Joe’s family and Mari. It was actually really nice because Mari translated pretty much the entire service for Celeste and I so we could actually understand it. Once the service was over we went back to Joe’s house for a really nice meal which his Mom mostly made. I’m really not sure what all the food that we had was but it was all really good. We had potato salad, sausage, regular salad and something that Joe described as being something like a dumpling which was really nothing like a dumpling but still tasted good. After dinner we exchanged gifts and then just spent the evening together and watched a movie.

Celeste and I decorating the Christmas tree at Joe’s house

Christmas day was also really chill. We had another big meal for lunch of wild boar, venison, cabbage, salad and a few other things, all of it was really good. In the afternoon we took a long walk around where they live and played some games and watched a movie. It was really low key but actually it was really nice to not have a super busy Christmas. I really enjoyed spending Christmas with Joe’s family and they did such an amazing job of making sure that Celeste and I were included and felt at home.

On the 26th we drove back to Austria with some of the other staff members. I really had such an amazing time traveling and especially getting so see so many friends from Holsby. I’m also really excited to start this next season. This week we have our first ski camp and will start to get into more of a routine so get ready to hear more about that in the coming weeks!

This is my address in Austria, send me mail anytime!

Christmas break: Düsseldorf

Celeste and I spent the last few days in Düsseldorf staying with two friends of ours that we met at Holsby. On Monday we traveled most of the day starting in Schladming in the morning and had an interesting day.

Everything went fine at first, we changed trains in Salzburg with no problems and got on our second train to Munich. We knew this would be a tight change because we only had 10 minutes in between, but we both figure that if we just looked at the signs we would be fine. Well… that may have helped, except that we got off the train one station early and by the time we realized our mistake we had already missed our next train. Neither of us are really sure how it happened because we were both sure that we had heard the conductor say “Next stop Main Station,” but I guess that is the hazard of language barrier.

To try and get another train to Düsseldorf, we jumped on one of the local trains to the main station. Once we got there though, there was the challenge of trying to find the long distance trains, because we were in the completely wrong part of the station. We wandered around for probably about 40 minutes looking for a DB office where we could talk to someone about whether we had to buy a completely new ticket or whether we could just get on a new train with the same tickets. Once we finally found the office we told the dude that we had missed our train and he just printed us a ticket for another train to Düsseldorf, no questions asked. As it turned out, our original train had actually gotten into Munich late and so we would have missed our connecting train regardless.

We got on the new train about 20 minutes later and luckily our arrival time was only about an hour later than we had originally planned. We were met there by our friends Lisa and Miriam, and we took the local train with them back to their apartment. It was so great to see them both again, Lisa was one of my roommates at Holsby so I really missed her! We had tacos with them for supper that night and had a good time just hanging out before we went to bed because both of them and their other roommate had to be up early for university in the morning.

We took this at a Christmas market, these are the girls we stayed with. Lisa, me, Celeste and Miri

Tuesday morning Celeste and I slept in late and hung out in the apartment until 11:00 which was when the metro tickets that we booked started to be valid. With a little help from Miri the night before we had figured out the stations that we needed to go to for some of the places that we decided to see. We took the metro to a station in the old town area and we pretty much just spent the whole afternoon walking around there.

We walked passed this building in the old town.

In pretty much every street that we walked down there was booths and vendors selling all sorts of food and Christmas stuff. Basically the entire old town was just a giant spread out Christmas market.

Every street either had these decorations or cool lights. In the day it’s less impressive but super beautiful at night.

We walked around for about 4 hours looking at different booths and monuments and looking into old churches and stuff. We also walked along the Rhein and were there at just the right time to see the skyline really outlined in a great way.

The big Ferris wheel in this picture is something that they only have up around Christmas time and is lit up at night.

We tried to get into the building behind me which is the Basilica of Düsseldorf but unfortunately it was locked:(

We also visited some coffee shops during our afternoon and one of them was a little café that roasted all there own coffee and sold it in the shop. This is only interesting to you Dad so you’re welcome.

You can kinda see the roasted in the back but everything on the shelves was roasted in the shop.

When we knew that Lisa and Miri would be back at the apartment, we took the metro back and met them there to hang out for a bit before going back to the old town in the evening when everything would be lit up. There honestly isn’t much to tell about this part of our evening because we just walked around and chatted but I’ll put in some pictures to try and give an idea of what it looked like.

The giant Christmas tree in the main square

Of course we had to drink some Glühwein while at a Christmas market.

The other main thing that we did that night was ride in the big Ferris wheel. It was actually pretty inexpensive and had some great views of the city from the top of it, unfortunately I don’t have a picture but I can confirm that it was really cool. To finish off our night we just took a walk beside the Rhein and looked at some of the cool buildings and architecture before heading back to the apartment for the night.

Wednesday was another day of adventure. Celeste and I slept late again and had planned to visit two more places that day: the aquarium and some old castle ruins.

We took the metro to a stop near the ruins and walked around that part of town for awhile first because it was really cute. There were some booths selling fresh fish and baking so it was definitely an interesting bunch of smells.

Eventually we made our way to the ruins that we’d been looking for. Unfortunately they were closed and so we couldn’t go inside but we still could see the outside of them so there was that at least.

Then came the interesting part of our day. We didn’t know what metro stop to take to the aquarium and since google maps said it was only about an hour walk, we decided that it would be no problem for us to just walk there. We might have been slightly wrong however. We started following a paved path beside the river which looked a lot like the other paths that we’d taken that morning and the day before. But this particular path was a little bit different. After about 15 minutes it was no longer paved and we were walking on a muddy dirt path. There were other people on it and we knew we were going in the right direction so we just kept walking, and walking, and walking. We were now in the middle of two fields and for a long time there wasn’t really any place to cut back across the field towards civilization again. The whole time we joked about getting lost in the wild Düsseldorf outback because we really had no idea where we were.

After about 40 minutes we just decided to cut across a field because we could see a path that was closer to houses that was going the right way. Once we reached it we turned onto it and kept walking. Lucky for us, after another hour of walking we finally reached a more industrial area and saw a sign for the aquarium! We made it! After all that walking we were pretty excited:)

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the aquarium and it was really neat. All the signs were in German so we couldn’t read anything but I mean, fish are fish so it’s pretty self explanatory. When we were done there we found a train back to the apartment where we spent the evening. We just had a really chill time that night; ordered pizza and watched a movie because we were all pretty tired, and then just chatted before going to bed.

A random picture of an old car we found because why not?

So that was our time in Düsseldorf. Yesterday we said goodbye to the girls and Celeste and I are now in Amsterdam. Neither of us have been before so we are super pumped! Definitely keep us in your prayers over the next days as we will be moving around a lot and staying in hostels and such. We always try to be safe but you can’t predict everything so we are hoping it all goes smoothly.

Week 1: Germany

This first week in Germany was a mix of exploring, relaxing and getting over jet lag. We had lots of time to focus on getting into a normal sleep schedule and recovering from the exhaustion brought on by the long travel days. To help get us into the routine we visited a variety of different places near Asperg, Germany which is where we’ve been staying for the week, and had the chance to visit a variety of friends from Holsby, the Bible School in Sweden that we attended last year.

Monday was basically just spent relaxing, sleeping in and hanging out with each other so Tuesday was the first day that we really did anything. In the afternoon we walked to a Christmas market that was in the next town over, Ludwigsburg.

The market was set up in a square closer to the middle of the town and was quite big compared to ones that I’ve been to in the past. People sell all kinds of stuff there, mainly traditional German foods, jewelry, Christmas ornaments and clothes. There is usually a wide variety of other things too but it can also depend on whether the market has a theme and how big it is. While we were there our little group shared a variety of foods that were sold at the market because though Celeste and I had both been to markets before, neither of us had really tried much of the food. I don’t remember the German names for many of the foods that we tried but there was a lot of them. We had one that was with Sauerkraut and a type of noodle, tried different kinds of sausages, spiced potato wedges, a kind of burger with veggies mixed in with the meat. Something sweet at the end that we tried was called Dampfnudel which is a big ball of dough, that has lots of yeast and is left to rise until it gets big. The one that we tried had a filling of some sort of plum jam and was covered on top with vanilla sauce. Neither Celeste nor I cared for it much but it was definitely worth trying it.

The other thing that you generally see a lot of when you go to the outdoor markets is called Glühwein which is a kind of mulled or spiced wine, served hot. I think it takes kinda weird but it’s been a bit different any time I’ve tried it so maybe it’s just an acquired taste.

Once we were done checking out the market we headed back to Joe’s for the evening. Our friend Stefan (also from Holsby) visited for supper and it was nice to catch up and get to see another friend. It was a pretty chill time and we finished the day by watching a movie before going to bed; both Celeste and I were pretty exhausted by that point.

Wednesday was another afternoon of exploring. After a relaxing morning we decided to walk up to the castle which is on top of a hill really close to Joe’s house. I’ve actually been up to this Castle before because it’s where we set off fireworks from when I was at Joe’s house on New Years Eve last year, but I’d never really been inside during the day. We walked around the outside walls which was neat because you can see all of the surrounding towns and stuff from that high up. You could also see a whole bunch of the vineyards that are on the hillside beside and near the castle so that was pretty cool even though they are mostly dead now in the winter.

Once we’d walked around the Castle, we decided to go for a bit more of a walk through the dead vineyards and on the paths between them. This was super beautiful; the leaves are still falling and yellow here so it doesn’t quite feel like winter yet and the sun was nice and warm. As much as it’s cool to see the usual sightseeing things, I think that it’s also fun to sometimes just walk through the normal areas of places that we visit. It really gives you a sense of pace of the place the you’re visiting in a cool way so it’s something that Celeste and I have liked to do when we’ve traveled together before.

In the evening we made an attempt at making homemade Mac and Cheese. We didn’t really use a recipe or anything and were kinda just winging it so all things considered we did pretty good. Our friend Annabel was also visiting for dinner so it was really great to get to catch up and see her because she was a really close friend of both Celeste and I while we were at Holsby. To finish off our evening we once again just watched a movie to relax before going to bed.

Thursday we had another really chill morning and did most of our activities in the afternoon. Around noon we had to drop Mari off at the airport but it actually worked out pretty well because it was kinda in the right direction to another Christmas market that we’d been thinking about visiting. This market was in the town of Esslingen and was medieval themed so there was a lot of different stuff for sale compared to the other market we’d visited. Esslingen was also a bit more of a stereotypical European town with the colourful buildings and stone streets so it was a super cute place to walk around. Because of the medieval theme there were people wearing costumes and also a few little shows going on around certain booths so it was an interesting place to just walk around and observe.

Once we were done at the market we wandered around the streets a bit more and looked into some of the old catholic churches that were around center of the city. This is something that Celeste and I have really liked to do when we are in older cities because often the big stone churches are some of the most beautiful buildings and they are usually always open.

On our way home from Esslingen we stopped and grabbed kebab for dinner. I guess that it’s originally a Turkish kind of food but you can get it all over the place in Germany and it’s actually really good. Every person that I’ve stayed with in Germany has always wanted to get kebab at some point because they think it’s crazy that we don’t really have it in Canada. Basically it just has meat that’s roasted throughout the day on a spit and they shave off meat as you order something. You get to pick what kind of vegetables and sauce are in it usually and it’s served in a kind of wrap or bread that kinda reminds me of a pita though that’s probably the best way I can describe it.

After grabbing food we went back to Joe’s and had a really chill evening. All 3 of us were pretty tired so we just had a quiet night watching a movie and then going to bed early.

Friday was one of my favorite days this week because we got to spend some time with a few other people from Holsby. Our friend Johnny came in the early afternoon to hang out with us at Joe’s and we had a good amount of time to talk and play some board games and catch up. Later in the afternoon we drove about an hour away to visit our friend Stefan’s house and see him and 2 of our other Holsby friends who were there too. We had such a good time hanging out with them. A lot of the time we were there was just spent talking and catching up with the last 6 months of each others lives because a lot of things have changed since we last saw each other. Many of our friends have now started university and so they have a lot to tell about with starting new classes and moving away from home and adjusting to College life.

Johnny, Stefan, Joe, Friedy, Me, Jan, Celeste

Later in the evening we decided to go out for a walk and it took us right past the Stuttgart airport. It was pretty neat to see so many different planes coming and going so close to where we were walking. We ended up staying at Stefan’s place till about midnight but we made it home a lot faster because there was hardly any traffic that late at night.

Saturday was our last day in Asperg with Joe and it was also a full day. In the morning we visited the house of one of the members of his small group and we did a whole bunch of Christmas baking which I guess is a bit of a tradition for them. Every person made a different kind of cookie so by the time we were done there was a huge variety and every person took some of each. I guess it’s an efficient way to do all your Christmas baking which is no surprise since Germans are all about efficiency.

In the afternoon we had our last 2 visitors, our friends Elena and Rebecca. As with our other friends we spent a whole bunch of time catching up and playing board games. It was great to see both of them and they both stayed really late into the evening despite the fact that they both came from over an hour away to visit.

So overall it was an awesome first week of our travels. We got to visit and spend precious time with so many of our friends from Holsby and also recover from our significant jet lag. Today (Sunday) begins the next part of our journey. We are currently on the train on our way to Schladming, Austria which is where we will be volunteering at the Torchbearers school. Both of us are excited to see what it will be like there; where we will be living, if we will be roommates and what our work schedule will look like. At this point we don’t have a clue about any of these things but we are really looking forward to finding out later this evening!

If you are at all interested in sending me mail my address in Austria is:

Why Austria?

On Thursday I began the travels for my adventure, but before I detail that I figured it would be a good idea to address the question that I’ve had from a lot of people lately as I’ve told them about my plans for this year. Why Austria? How we ended up here has a long story to go with it, but to try keep it short I’ll just give the general overview.

While I was at Bible school in the spring of this year, my friend Celeste and I both applied for several volunteer positions within the organisation called Torchbearers, which was the same organisation as the school that we were attending in Sweden. Both of us were unsure of what we wanted to pursue within the year after we were done in Sweden and so we thought that it would be cool to spend another year abroad, this time as staff instead of students. We were hopeful that we would receive responses from these schools right away as to whether or not they would like us to come and work for them but we actually ended up waiting a long time for answers. When we finally received the first ones, they came back negative, saying that they already had their positions filled. Eventually the only place that we hadn’t heard back from was the school in Austria, called Taurenhof, and so we were praying that this would be the place that God would call us to.

We waited and waited, but still nothing. We had almost stopped hoping that they would take us since we thought that if it was taking this long to answer then they had probably filled the positions already. But the evening that a group of us from Holsby were preparing to leave for a missions trip to Brazil, we found out that Celeste and I were not going to be able to go due to issues with Visas. We were hoping to be able to re-schedule our trip to Brazil for later in the year so as to not lose the money that we had spent on flights. But this meant that we now needed an answer as to whether we were accepted in Austria so that we wouldn’t re-schedule our flights over the time that we would potentially be there. We called the school and told them that we needed a response by that afternoon and so they said that they would call us back. We spent a big part of that day in anticipation of their response, and when they called us back, they said that they would take both of us! We were at most expecting one of us to get in so this was a huge answer to prayer that neither of us would be going alone.

As it turned out we decided not to re-schedule our trip to Brazil because it just didn’t really work for either of us. But we were so happy that we had both gotten accepted in Austria that it made that really terrible day a lot better. We felt that this was God’s clear answer to our prayers because we had been denied so many things that day that it was awesome to receive a yes from them.

So that is an extremely condensed versions of how we ended up with this position in Austria, (the Brazil story could be a lot longer with more details but that’s the general idea). Taurenhof is located in central Austria closeish to Salzburg. Celeste and I will be working in the kitchen at the school as well as possibly helping with a few other jobs around the campus. We actually don’t have a ton of details about this but are really excited to find out what it’s going to be like!