Travel – Kelsi's Travel Times

The End of an Adventure

My German friends that I was able to see one last time before leaving.

As I write this, (or at least the beginning of it because my laptop will probably die before I finish) I’m sitting in the Airport in Amsterdam waiting for my next flight which will take me home to Canada. I’m finally going home with the intention to stay, as far as I know at least. I first left for Austria 13 months ago and it has been a whirlwind of a year. The first few months were still “normal life” while I was there, but since last March the program of this trip has been constantly changed and redirected because of Corona (of course).

My crew from the last month with a snowman we made, affectionately named “Thicck Rick”

I decided to leave now because the center where I’ve been volunteering in Austria, Tauernhof, found out that they would have to remain closed for at least a few more months. And because I didn’t want to spend another few months in relative isolation in Austria I came to the conclusion that it was the best thing for me to come home. I have a lot of peace about this decision, probably because it’s not totally unexpected, but of course this isn’t exactly how I would’ve hoped my time here would end. With that being said though, I was actually able to say goodbye to many of my friends yesterday before leaving and that was a huge blessing for me and definitely gave me a degree of closure.

Mya and I at the train station in Schladming

I started my travels home yesterday when I took the morning train from Austria to Munich. After a tearful goodbye to a few of my friends in Schladming, I wasn’t really feeling the best about the whole situation, but in Munich I got a surprise visit that cheered me up a lot. Well, actually at first it terrified me, because my friend Marianne thought that it would be super funny to come up behind me, grab one of my bags, and try to run away with it. Of course at first I panicked because she was wearing a hat and mask and was completely unrecognizable, but once she pulled her mask down and hugged me my terror faded into joy at being able to see her. I had planned to take one more train from Munich to Ingolstadt, where I had made arrangements stay for the night. But Marianne had come to the station with a car so I ended up unexpectedly getting to drive the rest of the way with her, which was obviously much preferable to trying to haul all of my heavy luggage on and off another train.

Marianne and I on the way to Paul’s place

We then drove to my friend Paul’s house where we would both stay the night. I worked with Paul in the kitchen at Tauernhof, but interestingly I actually knew his older sister before ever meeting him because she was one of my roommates when I was at Bible School in Sweden. Small world. We spent part of the afternoon just talking and getting caught up before driving to an open parking lot where we would meet the rest of my friends who were volunteer staff at Tauernhof this season. They had all found out that I would stay one night in Germany before flying out and insisted on coming to stay goodbye which of course I was very happy about. So we were able to go for a walk in the countryside near where Paul lives, broken up into groups of two or three at a time to at least some semblance of social distancing. It was so awesome for me to get to see them one last time and say goodbye. Because when they all left for Christmas break we thought that we would be seeing each other again in a few weeks so we didn’t really say goodbye.

Rebecca, me and Mia. These girls have been my besties for the last few months!

Unfortunately most of them couldn’t stay for too long because they had to be home before their community curfews at 8pm and had to drive a ways. But it was nice to see them even for a little while. After they all left, Paul, Marianne and I went back to Paul’s house and played some games. Then we had dinner and watched a movie before going to bed pretty early because we knew we’d have to be awake again in a few hours.

At 3:15am my alarm went off to wake me up and by 4am Paul and I were headed out the door to the airport. I’m so thankful for friends who are willing to wake up that early to drive me to an airport an hour away. Otherwise I would have to stress a lot more about transportation. We were at the airport by just after 5am. The check in desk opened shortly after we got there and it was pretty easy from there. I had to pay extra for an overweight bag which was sucky though not unexpected, but on the bright side, I was able to check my carry on suitcase for free right from the desk instead of hauling it all over the airport with me.

Right before security I said goodbye to Paul and pretty much just breezed through from there. The airport was not busy at all that early in the morning so there was no one else in line for security. I was at my gate an hour early so I called a friend and took a nap before boarding. The flight from Munich to Amsterdam was about 2 hours and I slept the whole way.

Now as I said, I’m sitting at my gate in Amsterdam waiting to board which will likely not be for another hour or so yet. And look at that my laptop is still alive! I still won’t publish this post until later though, because I want to add a few pictures and I can’t do that until I get home because my phone is being silly and won’t connect to the WiFi here. So that means that if you’re reading this, I’m back on Canadian soil and have been for awhile!

Since this is the end of my time here in Europe, (for now) I won’t be using this platform much anymore – at least not till I plan my next trip. If you’ve been following along in my journey, you know how strange it’s been, but thanks for sticking with me and I hope to see you soon!

Time off in Austria

The view from the top of the ski hill that I live beside

In my last post I gave a little update on what my Christmas and New Years plans were going to look like as far as I knew. I was still waiting on a Visa to stay in country and waiting to hear more about whether or not our season would be able to go forward. Since then I have gotten my visa which is great because it gives me lot more freedom to leave when/if I want to, but things regarding my job here are still a bit uncertain as the restrictions in Germany and Austria remain in place. This means that we can’t start our programs yet and probably can’t for awhile yet and so I’m currently on the fence about whether it’s the best thing for me to stay here and keep waiting, or if I should just head home when it’s possible.

I’ll post another update when I get that all figured out, but for now I mostly want to just tell a bit about my last few weeks and show some cool pictures of the area where I’ve been living for the last while.

Most of my crew for the last month. Zach and Bree (from canada) and Merr (from Romania) On a walk up in the mountains on my birthday.

Christmas this year was a bit different to how I would have normally spent Christmas if I was at home, but I guess in some ways it also held some similarities to the last two Christmases that I also spent away from home. I was able to spend Christmas with a family that lives here in Schladming that I know because they work at the school here. With their four kids and a mix of German and American traditions, it definitely felt a bit more like home. My family usually celebrates with a mix of traditions as well so lots of the things that they did (for example, opening gifts on Christmas Eve) were very familiar to me. On Christmas morning we had sweet rolls (like a different version of cinnamon buns) and homemade eggnog which was delicious. After breakfast the rest of the morning was spent just playing games with the kids and chatting and such. It was relaxed but wonderful to spend Christmas with a family.

The days between Christmas and New Years were good as well. I had my first few ski days which were really fun and an awesome way to pass some of this endless free time. On New Years Eve I celebrated my twentieth birthday with pancakes, pizza, friends and a beautiful walk up in the mountains. Definitely the most low key birthday I’ve had in awhile but it was really enjoyable nonetheless. We ended the year off by watching a movie until midnight and then watching fireworks from our balcony. It’s a perfect vantage point because the main building here is one of the tallest in the area and has a wrap around balcony that allowed us to see fireworks all over the city which was super cool! My friend Mira also came to visit on New Years Eve and she’s been here since then. I’ve really enjoyed having a roommate again and the constant company that she’s provided!

Mira and I on the top of Planai (the ski hill)

The days since New Years have been a very relaxed cycle of skiing, reading, going on walks and playing a lot of games. There are currently five of us living at the center which isn’t much but it is nice to have a little bit of company. Other than those activities we haven’t done much because everything is still closed. We’ve been to church in Salzburg on Sundays and this last week we went to an open air Skating rink while we were in the city which was really nice!

This is the daughter of a family who lives on campus and she’s been my little pal these last couple weeks! Skating in Salzburg.

Ski day with Mira. The clouds were so cool in the valley, it looked like you could just ski off the edge of the mountain and continue right onto the clouds.

A lot of people that I’ve talked to lately have been pretty curious about how skiing here works since everything else is closed. It is also interesting to me that skiing is something that the government considers necessary to be open but I’m definitely not complaining. There are restrictions with how many people can be on a hill at a time, but with the lack of tourists here they’ve never reached capacity. You also have to wear a medical grade mask in the lifts, lift stations, gondola, bathrooms and anytime you’re waiting in life. They are really strict about enforcing it which is really good to see. Those are the main two things that allow them to keep the lifts open but I guess it does make sense to me that they can stay open because it’s really easy to social distance while skiing and it’s really nice for locals to have something to do during this quarantine time. I know I’m definitely taking advantage of this!

Mira and I on Reiteralm, which is 2 ski hills over. We went there to watch the world cup ski cross races happening there on January 9th and 10th.

So for the most part that’s what I’ve been up to lately, and just trying to get things figured out as whether I’m gonna stay here or head home. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this small update about my last bit of time here. I also want to put some pictures in here of the town of Schladming where I’ve been living for the last while, so if you’re interested to see what an Austrian tourist town looks like, then keep scrolling!

This is a picture of one of the more expensive hotels in Schladming, how it looks from the valley.

This is the lecture hall here on the Tauernhof campus.

A view from the valley of one of the ski hills, Hochwurzen which we can see from the school.

One of the main streets in Schladming leading to the square.

The white church is one of the two old church buildings in Schladming

This picture I think needs some explanation. So these are called Krampus and basically it’s just people dressed up who run around in the beginning of December with bells and whips in the town squares. They legitimately chase you and smack you with branches or whips if you get too close. They wear bells so you can hear them coming. It’s actually terrifying to be anywhere in town when you know they are there but the local kids think it’s really funny to hang around and get chased by them, so to each his own I guess.

A sunset view of Schladming from the climbing tower on campus here.

A view from a popular walking trail beside Schladming

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!

What’s Up Now?

In the last update that I sent out things were changing a little bit. Well, they have definitely changed more than a little bit to say the least. So I’ll just give a little picture of how these last few weeks have been for me, not necessarily that eventful, just with some unexpected things happening.

I’m staying in German right now at the house of one of my coworkers, where I’ve been for the last week and a half. When we left from Austria I don’t think that I or any of the other people that I was with expected that things would get this serious or change this fast. The majority of us thought that it would be no problem for us to return to Austria within 5 weeks as planned. This meant that I left most of my clothes and other possessions back in Austria and only brought with me the things that I would need for 5 weeks that I was planning to be in Germany.

Our last day at Tauernhof with all the volunteers, right before we left.

But as is pretty much common knowledge by now, the boarders between most European countries are now closed and it’s basically impossible to get through without being a citizen which I obviously am not. The closures happened the day after we left Austria so it ended up being a really good thing that we left when we did. As I mentioned previously I’m staying with a friend of mine, Johann, who I’ve been working with for the last few months, and his family in a small town near Karlsruhe, Germany. At first I thought that I would only stay here for a few days before going to stay with a different friend who lives nearby, but things haven’t exactly turned out the way that I thought.

Once we arrived in Germany we found out that because we were coming from Austria, we were supposed to be in quarantine for two weeks automatically. But since Johann had a slight cough, his doctor thought that it would be a good idea for him to get tested for the virus just in case. This was on Sunday and the test was scheduled for Thursday. On Monday we found out that some of the guests from Tauernhof had been diagnosed with the virus so that was enough to make it feel a little bit more real, but still we hoped that maybe we hadn’t actually had contact with whoever it was. On Wednesday however, we found out that some of the other staff had it, so it was pretty likely that we would have it as well since we all have such close contact all the time. When Thursday came he got the test done and on Friday we found out that the test came back positive.

None of us were that surprised because we had kinda expected it, but still, none of us had anything beyond mild symptoms. He had a cough and I had been a tiny bit congested for one day, but nothing serious. We definitely have been super fortunate that neither of us, nor anyone from his family have felt any of the severe symptoms that we’ve heard others are experiencing. Hopefully it stays that way. But since we got to his house and now for another few days we obviously have to be in isolation until we are sure we aren’t contagious anymore.

So what have we been occupying ourselves with for the last few days? Well to be honest, not that much. But I’ll give you a little run through of what a typical day has been looking like for us here.

Playing one of my favourite board games from home!

Pretty much every day since I’ve been here both Johann and I have been running on the weirdest sleep schedule ever. Sometime going to bed earlier if we’re tired or sometimes going to bed at 3am. In the morning we’ve been waking up at different times but whenever we wake up we usually just have been spending some time reading together in the morning. Lately it’s been the New Testament but other days it was a book or just whatever is on the News. Around 10:00 we usually eat breakfast, typical breakfast here is homemade bread with jam or Nutella or cream cheese. Basically whatever you choose.

After breakfast we have often been spending a good chunk of the rest of the morning just reading outside on their trampoline. The last few days it’s been a bit too cold but when it’s been warm enough, we’ve been out there. It’s just nice to be outside even staying in the yard, because we spend so much time inside right now. Usually we spend a few hours out there, sometimes reading the whole time, sometimes just chatting or taking a nap.

We look incredibly bored in this picture, but this is what most of our mornings look like

Around 2:00 we usually eat lunch with his family, since being here I’ve gotten to try lots of different traditional German foods and to be honest I don’t really know what most of them are called but there haven’t been any that I haven’t liked at this point. We helped Johann’s mom to make pretzels once which was super fun but we kinda sucked at it. But they still tasted good so that’s what counts!

In the afternoons we do a variety of things. Sometimes just spending more time outside, sometimes playing pool, darts or ping-pong, passing a volleyball or football around or playing basketball outside. It’s a little different every day but a lot of the same activities and it’s usually pretty relaxed. In the later afternoon and evening we usually watch a movie or some episodes from a TV show. Sometimes we play a game, read a bit more or call friends or family. Always different depending on the day. Sometimes in there we eat dinner, sometimes we eat together with his family and sometimes its just everyone kinda makes their own thing.

So that’s kinda what our very chill quarantine life looks like right now. Even though we have been in quarantine for 2 full weeks already, we still had to stay mostly in the house until yesterday because that’s the official two weeks since Johann was tested. And I guess the only thing really left to tell is what is coming next for me?

Well the answer to that question is still a bit unsure. As of right now I will probably be staying at Johann’s house until this Saturday before I’ll go to stay with a different friend of mine who lives pretty nearby. More long term I think that I will probably need to be heading home in the next few weeks here. At this point I won’t be able to go back to work in Austria for at least 12 weeks, possibly more and so I’ll probably end up coming home. Nothing is really set in stone yet but I’m checking for a few flights which are available and not crazy expensive which can be a bit hard to find right now. But for right now I’ll kinda just be hopping around to a few different friends and focus on being able to enjoy the time with them!

Feel free to shoot me and email or a text to let me know how you’re doing! I’d really love to hear from you:)

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!