Celeste – Kelsi's Travel Times

February and the Unexpected

Has it been a hot minute since I last sent out an update? Yes it has. And I could blame it on the busy schedule that we have, but to be honest it mostly comes down to poor time management on my part. But here I am, to let you know what I’ve been up to in the last month so that you know that I’ve been doing well! There are some big things changing for me around here, but more about that later.

With the more routine things first, the work I’ve been doing here is still going great. When I first came here I wondered if I would be bored after a few months of the same jobs every day, but so far I can’t say that I’ve ever been really bored in the last 3 months. There is always new things to learn and new people to talk to. Working in the kitchen there is always opportunity to learn new skills when you ask the right questions and also to learn new German words and phrases that make it easier to live in a German environment.

Even to do the more chill jobs like cutting vegetables or washing dishes is made fun by my coworkers and the hilarious conversations that we have daily. Despite language barriers that sometimes come up we still somehow manage to make fun of each other and constantly roast each other. Sometimes the language difference makes it even funnier when you try to translate something directly and it has a completely different meaning in the other language. It definitely keeps things interesting.

A beautiful sunset we had a few weeks ago!

We (and as “we” I generally mean the other volunteers that I live with) are often able to find different and interesting ways to spend free afternoons and evenings. Sometimes we get the chance to hang out at the houses of the permanent staff, for example, the Bible school principal who invited us over to his house for a “bad taste party.” This just meant that everyone dressed up as crazy as they could, with combinations of pattern and style, to see who could look the most ridiculous.

It was a super fun evening of getting to spend time with each other outside of work. It pretty much just ended up being a big dance party. We played a few games and got to talk with each other but mostly just danced like crazy which is absolutely hilarious when the majority of us are not good dancers. At all.

Do we look ridiculous? Yes. Do we know that? Yes.

Another fun thing that we did this month was have an outing with all of the staff. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures from it but I’ll describe it anyways and you can use your imagination. What we did together was go ski touring, which I think is also sometimes called back country skiing, (but don’t quote me on that cause I might be wrong) up to a “Hut” in the mountains near where we live. The ski culture here also involves a lot of socializing in the huts which are basically just traditional restaurants that are often found at the top of ski slopes or trails. People generally go there to get traditional Austrian or German foods and usually a beer or schnapps as well, and that’s just a big and normal part of what you do when skiing here.

So with ski touring you take special light weight skis that have a different kind of binding and you can wear them with regular ski boots or special lighter ones. The bindings are special because when you are going up the mountain, the back of your binding isn’t clipped onto the ski. It lifts up so that you can lift your heel and walk normally. You also put “skins” on the bottom of your skis which prevent you from sliding backwards down the mountain which is very important. Then you basically just walk up the mountain with skis on your feet. You don’t really lift your whole foot with the ski, you just slide it along the snow so that you’re not working so hard and so that you can go faster and not lose your balance. It’s pretty exhausting because on the way up, you’re obviously going uphill the whole time. But I really really enjoyed doing it with such a big group of people, because even though it was my first time I had lots of people to give me tips and to chat with along the way.

The evening that we went on was actually beautiful. Cold but not freezing and snowing gently, just enough to be really pretty. None of us were really in a big hurry because the purpose of the activity was allowing us to have time together to socialize as a whole staff and we had a lot of fun and great conversations during the 2ish hours that we were walking. By the time we got to the top I was pretty tired and definitely had some massive blisters on my feet. But it ended up being totally worth it as we had an amazing dinner of spare ribs, potatoes, salad, bread and ice cream. We spent an awesome few hours just hanging out together with all the rest of the staff and their families.

Once we were done with dinner came the most fun part of the night, skiing down the slope that we had walked up earlier. To be honest I had been a bit nervous for this because it was really dark by the time we had to go down and the path was not lit up. We brought head lamps but they weren’t that bright so I was low-key scared of accidentally skiing off a cliff. Thankfully that didn’t happen and it was way less difficult than I expected. As we were with a group there was always someone to follow and some people had some super bright flashlights as well so that was helpful. It was super cool to ski in the dark in the middle of the forest. It was pretty quiet in the snow and generally just a really nice night for it so I enjoyed it so much!

This isn’t from our staff outing but I guess it’s mildly related because it’s still from skiing!

In the last few days and weeks we’ve also gotten the chance to do some really cool walks and spend a whole bunch of time outside. That’s something that I really love about our schedule here, we have most afternoons off so we have lots of opportunity to spend time outside and enjoy the area. I don’t have a ton of pictures but I’ll put in some of the ones I do have so you can see more of the beauty of this area!

The mountains in the beautiful town of Ramsau which is basically on the other side of the valley and up from Schladming. Many of our permanent staff live in Ramsau.

From a walk we took on a warmer, clear day that was absolutely beautiful!

So it’s definitely been an awesome last month, but now comes the changes that I mentioned earlier. It’s been very sudden, but we found out yesterday that due to the Coronavirus going around, Tauernhof, (where I work) will be closing as of today, and that they plan to be closed for 5 weeks. Hopefully we will only be closed for that long and that we can reopen again for the spring school as planned, but at this point we have no idea how this is going to play out. The last group of guests left this morning so now there is only really only full time staff and volunteers left here. But the directors here have asked that if possible, any of the volunteer staff who are able to go home should go home.

Obviously that’s a bit more difficult for those of us who are coming from North America because flights are crazy expensive, limited, and run a high risk of being cancelled. So they are willing to make exceptions for us, but I’ve decided not to stay here anyways. I just don’t think that I would like to be here for 5 weeks with hardly anyone here and not being able to work. So the plan for me is that I will spend 5 weeks in Germany with friends from Tauernhof and from my bible school last year. God has been so faithful in providing many options for places for me to stay for these next weeks and I’m so grateful. The details aren’t planned out completely yet but I know at least where I will be for the first few weeks so that’s awesome.

The big question that remains for me is what will happen after those 5 weeks because no one really knows how this situation is going to play out. If after those weeks, they reopen Tauernhof, then I’ll return to work here for the rest of the year. If things haven’t settled out in those 5 weeks and they decide not to reopen, then the most likely thing for me would be to return home to Canada. It just wouldn’t super reasonable for me to continue to stay in Europe after that point unless I’m working or end up with a different reason to stay.

In the staff and with our guests this week we’ve talked this week about being able to let go of our fear because we know that God is in control. In the Bible it says “do not fear,” 365 times. Once for every day of the year and that includes this year even in the middle of so much panic. I have a lot of peace in knowing that God is in control of this situation and that we are doing everything that we can to be safe and sensible.

So I guess that’s all from me for now. I’ll do my best try to keep you in the loop of whats happening and how things are going for me. I’d also definitely love to hear from you so feel free to send me a text or email or even just comment on this post to get in touch with me:)

A picture from our last water fight in the kitchen yesterday. You can’t really see it, but we are soaked!

New Schedule and New Years Eve

Once we returned from our Christmas break it was time to start getting into the rhythm of working here at Tauernhof. We got back on the 26th and guests came on the 27th so it was really just jumping right into a new schedule. The first few days of work were really just getting comfortable with new tasks and getting used to being in the kitchen for 6-8 hours a day. It was a lot of learning how to do things efficiently because you quickly realize how important that is and getting to know the other staff better and how to work together.

A giant snowman that we made in the snow this week.

My days are pretty similar from day to day in the tasks that I do, but of course some things are different depending on the meal being prepared, how many people there are and how much time we have. There are 7 other volunteers in the kitchen along with 2 cooks and so it gets very full at times, especially right after meals.

A typical work day looks a bit like this:

The morning starts with 2 people (and sometimes one cook) making breakfast. If I am on breakfast in the morning that means that I am in the kitchen by 6:45 to set everything out because breakfast is served buffet style and it starts at 7:45. I think I’ve probably almost got the hang of making breakfast though I have yet to try making it with only one of the new volunteers and without any of the old ones. So far I’ve really only been on breakfast with one of the two girls who’ve been here for awhile, but that will change as of this week with the way the schedule works.

Breakfast is pretty much the same every day though some days we will have fresh buns or croissants or sweet bread that gets put on each table instead of the buffet. Other than that there is always a variety of kinds of bread, a meat tray, a cheese tray, cottage cheese and a veggie tray. The cereal changes almost everyday and with that there is always also yogurt, nuts and cocoa powder. We cut butter and put jam in bowls for the tables and make about 3o liters of coffee to put on every table as well. Usually we try to prep the meat, cheese and veggie trays the day before to save time, but other than that it’s mostly just a bunch of those little jobs that take up that hour in the morning. If you aren’t prepping breakfast then you don’t have to be in the kitchen until dishes after breakfast so we usually only have to get up that early about twice a week.

After breakfast ends around 8:40, all of the volunteers clean up by putting away any extra leftover food and washing all the dishes, usually this takes about and hour, sometimes a bit less and sometimes a bit more. At 9:30 the kitchen staff and the housekeeping staff get together and do a short Bible study and have a prayer time. This is usually a good chance to have a bit of a break in the morning to just sit and have a coffee or tea while we talk and read. After this we spend the rest of the morning preparing for lunch and supper. Some jobs that are done almost every day are washing, cutting and drying salad, making salad dressings, cutting meat and cheese and making the meat and cheese trays, and cutting veggies for the veggie trays. Often we also have to prepare the desert for that evening which sometimes means doing some baking and sometimes means making pudding or mousse, it changes every day. Other than those kinda standard things that get done almost every day, there are also a lot of more specific jobs that we have depending on what food we are having that day.

Lunch is usually the big warm meal here so its usually the most stressful right before the meal because we can’t put out food until 5 minutes before and there are usually about 20 tables so we always have to rush a bit to get everything out on time. After that it’s usually pretty chill though. One person always stays in the kitchen to make sure the buffets get refilled if needed but everyone else can sit down and have a normal meal. When lunch ends we do all the clean up and then we have the afternoon off until 5:30.

First day of skiing we got to watch an amazing sunset on our last run down the hill!

In the afternoons we pretty much can do whatever we want. Lots of the other staff who have season passes go skiing or snowboarding for a few hours in afternoon. I’ve only been skiing twice and I’m pretty rusty because it’s been awhile, but they have equipment and passes that we can use if they’re available so I will probably start going a bit more often and I’m excited to improve a bit more in the next few months. Usually though, I just hang out in the staff lounge with some of the other staff members, sometimes playing games or doing baking for the staff. It’s really nice to have afternoons off because usually the evenings get pretty full so it’s nice to have some down time.

At 5:30 we are back in the kitchen to help set everything up for supper which is at 6:00. Usually supper is a lighter meal, salad and something small on the tables like hash browns or Hawaii toast and then there are almost always leftovers that we also warm up. Then when supper is done and we finish with the dishes and clean up then we are free for the evening. At 7:45 the guests have a lecture and worship time that they go to. All the staff are welcome to join but the lectures are in German so I usually don’t go unless there is someone doing a translation. This week there is one guest who doesn’t speak German at all so all the lectures are translated into English so we’ve been going to listen to them in the evening. After lectures are open we either hang out with the guests or just with the other staff and usually what I choose to do depends how tired I am or whether I am working for breakfast or not the next morning.

Sometimes it’s really exhausting to spend time with the guests because some don’t speak very good English and then I kinda just feel annoying because they want to talk in German. But some of the groups have younger people who speak really good English so then we are able to hang out and play games with them more easily. That can be really fun and even after only a few weeks I’ve gotten to meet some really cool people from all over the place. The language barrier is sometimes more apparent than others. Almost all of the staff speak pretty good English though I think that German is definitely spoken more often right now just because the camps are in German. It’s definitely hard sometimes when instructions are given in German and we just don’t understand but there is almost always someone to translate for those of us who don’t speak German and that makes it easier. I’ve already been able to pick up a lot of different words and phrases which make it easier to communicate especially with one of the permanent staff in the kitchen who doesn’t speak any English at all.

Celeste and I on New Years Eve:) Getting ready to go sledding!

New Years Eve was probably the most eventful night that we’ve had here and it was so crazy and so much fun. The day was really chill because I had the morning off and only had to work for dinner. I got to read a bit and call with some of my friends and family which was really nice. To celebrate the new year all of the staff and guests went up onto a nearby mountain with the Gondola to watch fireworks. We spent about an hour up there hanging out in one of the Chalets before midnight and then got to watch all the fireworks which was so crazy and cool because we were really above everything. Most people here put off their own fireworks so they are absolutely everywhere and it’s so amazing to watch. Once most of the fireworks were done, (about 12:30A.M ) was when the really crazy part of our evening started. That was when we sledded down the mountain. They had a whole track made just zigzagging down the hill which was 7km and took us about 25 minutes to get down. I partnered with one of the ski instructors and once we really got the hang of going around the tight corners then we got going really fast. It was so crazy fun, there were some huge bumps and I had some massive bruises on the backs of my legs after but it was so worth it. We screamed pretty much the whole way down but we only fell off twice while trying to turn corners too sharply so I’d say we were pretty successful. It was definitely one of the best ways that I’ve ever spent new years eve and it felt like a bit of home because we usually always go sledding there as well. We finished off the evening drinking punch, (which is really just like apple cider) and hanging out with the guests until like 2:30 in the morning. It was such a fun day.

My sledding partner and celebrating that we got to the bottom of the hill alive!

Sooo yah. That’s basically these first few weeks in a nutshell. It’s been mostly really positive though one thing that happened yesterday was that Celeste cut her hand really badly and is now in a cast to help it heal. You would think that she cut it in the kitchen on something sharp but in reality, she cut it while tying her shoes. How you may wonder? Well she bent over to put on her shoes, lost her balance and tried to brace herself against the wall by putting her hand out. Unfortunately she put her hand against the corner of the mirror which was chipped and got a huge cut. She actually cut through the nerve to her pinky and now has no feeling in her finger and can’t work for at least 2 weeks. You can definitely keep her in your prayers as we are hoping for everything to heal properly. Other than that though, we’ve had an awesome first few weeks and I’m really looking forward to the coming weeks!

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 2: Beginning in Austria

This last week I spent at the Bible School Tauernhof in Austria which will be my home for the next year. This week was mainly an introduction to some of the tasks that we will be doing as volunteers. We also helped a lot with some cleaning tasks to prepare the campus for the ski camp that is happening there over New Years.

When we arrived on Sunday afternoon we were met at the train station in Schladming (which is the town where the school is located) by two of the permanent staff. They showed us our rooms and we had time to get our stuff unpacked before meeting some of the other staff. Celeste and I aren’t roommates which is something we had wondered about, but we both really like our roommates so it’s all good. One of my roommates is from England and one from Germany and both are working in the kitchen as well. Before and at dinner we got to meet a lot of the other staff. Some of the other volunteers had been there for months already while some were also new like us. There are a lot more volunteers than I expected but I think that’s because in addition of housekeeping and kitchen (which we knew from Holsby) there are also ski and snowboard instructors who are volunteering for this season with the ski camps, so that does add to the numbers. In the evening we just spent time with the other staff, playing games, watching a movie together and talking to try and break the ice of the awkward “Hi, I’m still trying to remember your name” phase.

I took this picture on the first day that we arrived and there wasn’t really any snow. But there definitely is more snow now as it snowed most of the week! This is the main house of the campus.

On Monday morning and for the rest of the week our day started at 8:00 with breakfast. This was when we met more of the permanent staff and everyone introduced themselves. After breakfast most of the volunteers for kitchen and housekeeping went up to one of the buildings and got a rundown of how to properly clean the rooms and then we divided up into teams to start on that huge task. Because we arrived right after the fall bible school finished, none of the rooms had really been cleaned and so that was something that we spent the vast majority of the week doing. It wasn’t hard but definitely a bit slow so we just talked and blasted music for a lot of the time which made it considerably more fun!

I took this picture from the top floor of the main building. This ski hill is basically in the backyard of the school.

This first week we also learned how to prepare breakfast. All of the new volunteers in the kitchen got to spend two mornings helping with the prep in the kitchen so that we will be (mostly) ready to do that when we come back from break and the ski camps start. This included learning what food to put out when and how and also how to do cleanup and run the dishwashers. It was sometimes a lot of information to take in all at once but I’m sure that with more repetition it will be no problem at all. There was also always a main cook and the older volunteers in the kitchen with us to help if we had any questions so that was really useful.

So during the day that was mainly what all of the new volunteers did. We rotated between housekeeping and kitchen until everything was clean and ready to go for the camps. We always worked in teams so it was a really great way to get to know the other volunteers and permanent staff. We actually had a lot of fun working together and I enjoyed getting to work with others because I was never bored.

I’m the evenings we did a variety of things with the other staff because we always had evenings off. Monday evening was the Christmas party for the school staff so we went to a restaurant with all of the other staff and had a really nice meal and had more time to socialize. Some other evenings we spent watching movies together or playing bored games like extreme Uno or jungle speed. One night we went to the local Christmas market and walked around for awhile. It was super cute and small and it was funny because we happened to meet one of our friends from holsby there, Rahel, without even planning it! It was a crazy coincidence but Celeste and I had a really good talk with her while we walked around.

Not a great picture but these are some of the surrounding mountains.

Schladming has an interesting atmosphere because it’s hardcore a ski town in the winter. One of the staff told us that it’s way more quiet in the summer but right now there are lights up everywhere and tons of people staying in the town to ski. I’m really interested to see how that changes in the spring and summer with less people around because I think it will make a big difference in how busy it feels all the time. I think that it’s going to be an awesome year here. Even without having a set schedule for this week I’m starting to feel more comfortable every day that we spend here and I’m sure it won’t take much longer until it feels like home.

Much of the Christmas market was lit up with these kind of lights which was really cute!

This morning Celeste and I left for the 10 day break that the school requires you to take. Next week I’ll write about what we will be up to over the next days. I’ll also try to take more pictures than I did this week (oops). Feel free to text me on WhatsApp or email me at kelsikann@gmail.com during this time. I’d love to here from you!

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:

Travel Days

My travels to Germany took three days, the first day was by myself and the other two were with my friend Celeste who is in the picture above and is coming to Austria with me. I left from Calgary early on Friday morning and flew to Milwaukee via Toronto and Detroit to meet up with her. I’m actually really glad that I chose to travel this way over a few days, staying overnight at Celeste’s house for the first night because it broke up my travels and meant that I wasn’t quite as tired throughout the trip.

I arrived in Milwaukee around 9:30 on Friday night and was greeted by Celeste and her friend Abby who hung out with us that evening and the next morning. Saturday morning we got to sleep in and grab coffee and breakfast before we had to leave around 12:00 to drive to the Chicago Airport to catch our flight.

When we arrived at the airport we checked our bags, (with really expensive overweight fees, oops) and made our way through the extremely busy airport security, grabbed some food and went to our gate. The airline that we flew with was called Tap Air Portugal and we were both a bit nervous about it because neither of us had ever flown with them and the flights were really cheap so we were kind of unsure of how legit this airline would actually be. We also found out the day before that they had pushed our flight back an hour which meant that we would only have about a half our layover in Lisbon for our connecting flight. When we asked the flight attendant if we should be concerned about this and she said that it should be no problem as our flight would be leaving on time.

Well… she was wrong. They closed the gates on time but we taxied on the runway for about 45 minutes before taking off. This meant that our arrival time in Lisbon was now after the time that our connecting flight to Frankfurt was supposed to leave. That made for a pretty stressful flight and as a result neither Celeste or I slept very much. We arrived around 8:35 AM local time and as we suspected, our connecting flight had already left. Lucky for us, there was probably about 20 other people on our flight who had also missed their connections, so the airline was ready to re-book flights for a lot of people and they gave us tickets to a new flight about 6 hours later. As it turned out, we waited about an hour and a half in line at customs so even if our flight had been on time we still would have missed our connection because of how long the customs line was. Once we finally got through customs we just sat down at a table, hung out, and napped a bit until they released our gate number.

After that little hiccup, it was pretty much smooth sailing for the rest of our travels. We arrived in Frankfurt around 6:00 local time and were a bit unsure about how to go on from there because we had missed the train we booked previously, according to how our original flights were. Thankfully, when we landed we got a text from our friends Joe and Mari, (we are currently staying with Joe,) saying that they would come and pick us up from the airport. We were really thrilled because by this point we were so exhausted that we just wanted to sleep and were super not in the mood to re-book train tickets.

It’s now early in the morning of the second day that we are spending at Joe’s house in Asperg, Germany. We are planning to be here for a week until Sunday the 8th when we will make our way to Austria by train to start our new “job”. Jet lag is hitting pretty hard this morning for me as I’ve been wide awake since about 3:30 AM. Hopefully this means that I’ll be extra tired by tonight and then I’ll be able to sleep through the night. For the rest of the week we are planning to visit a few Christmas markets nearby and also visit some other friends from Holsby who live relatively close by, so we are super looking forward to the rest of this week!

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!