HalloWien

Someone told me they saw a sign the other day that said "HalloWien" which means "hello Vienna." I thought it was was pretty clever. But then again, I'm a big fan of the pun.

Austria doesn't technically celebrate Halloween even though it seems like there is a lot of Halloween stuff around. But there are no trick-or-treaters, no small bags of candy at the grocery store, no haunted houses. I saw a lot of advertisements for Halloween parties at bars and restaurants, so maybe it's the adults that enjoy Halloween here. Some of the people in our class are planning to meet tonight for a party in the city. The party starts at midnight and goes until 4 a.m. Thanks, but I think I'll be in bed. Tomorrow is an official holiday (All Saints' Day), so everything will be closed.

Yesterday we hosted a small party for the kiddos. They watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and decorated pumpkin cookies. I think the kids had fun, but it was pretty weak compared to the parties in the U.S. I tried to get a photo of everyone in costume, but it's tough to get five kids and a dog to sit still long enough to snap a photo. This is the best I could do -- out of focus and no one is looking at the camera!

From left to right: Caleb as Buz Lightyear, Zaden, Carli as Snow White, Sharkdog as a witch, Abby as a princess and Cotter as Woody.
We left Sharkdog's shark costume in OKC because it's too small for him. So he was a witch this year. You can tell that he is really enjoying this, can't you? I bought this costume (which consists of a hat and a cape) for him last year because I liked the idea of Sharkdog in a cape. But the cape just isn't as billowy as I had imagined. The hat is still cute.

Original photos here:
1. shark witch 3, 2. shark witch 2, 3. shark witch 1

Weekend update

Fall is my favorite season. I love the food, the smells, and the chill in the air. I love long sleeve tees and hoodies and boots. Oh, and the holidays -- I love Halloween and Thanksgiving. But it feels like we completely skipped over fall in Vienna. Bundled up in my coat, scarf and gloves. No Halloween specials on TV. No trick-or-treaters. No pecan pie. It's a little sad. But I'm looking forward to Christmas in Vienna. I've heard that the Christmas Markets are marvelous. And they're already selling roasted chestnuts on just about every corner. And maybe we'll get some snow.

Speaking of snow, check out what I've been looking at the last couple of days.


This is the view from a cabin located in the mountains outside Vienna that is owned by the churches in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. The cabin, which can sleep about 50 people, is used as a camp. We went there with the Haskews and a couple of people from the Inzersdorf congregation to clean, paint, do some maintenance work and prepare the building for winter.

The night before we left, the Haskews asked if we had any snow gear. Being from Texas, I didn't even understand the question. (Because we don't get snow in Texas, not because people from Texas are slow -- just in case you were wondering.) Fortunately, one of the families from the church had an extra pair of boots that I wore and some waterproof thingy that Brian wore from his knees to his ankles. I don't remember what these things are called. So anyways, we headed up there on Friday morning. We arrived in the general area of the campsite and parked, got into our snow gear and started to head towards the campsite.

What the experienced people failed to tell us is that it was a 45 minute hike to the camp -- 45 minutes in good weather. We were working our way through at least a foot of snow with several inexperienced hikers. What I failed to mention to the experienced people is that I'm diabetic. So, about 15 minutes into the hike (which I still had no idea was at least 45 minutes), my blood sugar level drops. I was in the back of the line with two other people and we all stopped so I could eat and wait for my sugar to return to normal. This is when I found out the camp was still a good ways off and I decided that I needed the car to come back and pick me up. (There was one car with snow chains that took all of our luggage and Amanda and Abby to the camp.)

We couldn't get a signal on any of our cell phones and as we were trying to decide what to do I saw Brian heading back our direction. He asked if everything was okay and I told him no, that I needed the car. I was close to tears. I had plenty of food with me and had been eating it all along the way, but I can be a little irrational when my sugar is low. I was convinced that they were going to make me hike the whole way and I was going to collapse and die right there on the mountain. But as soon as I told Brian that I needed the car he said he would go for it and took off running towards the camp. He was my hero.

Meanwhile, the three of us still there decided to jump a fence and sit on the porch of this little cabin along the trail. I was feeling a little better, but my sugar was still too low to start hiking again. That's when Josef, the man who had driven the car to the camp, showed up. I think he still had the keys with him because I later found out that when Brian got to the cabin no one could find the keys to the car. Josef was coming down to retrieve a snow plow thingamabob and he offered to give me a ride on the snow plow. So this is how I made it up to the cabin.


Now you may notice that there's really only room for one person in that seat. And no, I didn't drive it. See the little grater thingy right in front of the tred? Well, I straddled the backhoe arm and stood on that grater thing facing the driver (Josef). It was a long, bumpy ride. But there was only one time I feared for my life, so all in all it wasn't too bad. As we were making our way to the campsite, Brian made it back to tell me they couldn't find the car keys. Poor Brian must have been chilled to the bone by the time we finally made it to the cabin for the last time.

Aside from the life-threatening hike to the cabin, the weekend was really nice. I got to know a couple of people from the church better and enjoyed a little time away from the city. The three families that went (us, the Haskews and the Hayes) all brought our dogs along, so Sharkdog had a blast. It was so much fun to see him running through the snow. He doesn't get off his leash much, so I think he really enjoyed it. Here's some more photos from the trip. You can see all of the photos on my Flickr account. I'm working on adding descriptions to the photos in Flickr, so if you want more details on a photo you might be able to find it there.



Here are the links to the original photos:
1. road to cabin, 2. road to cabin 2, 3. sharkdog and daisy 2, 4. schwarzwaldeckhaus, 5. mountains 9, 6. abby and daisy, 7. daisy and sandy, 8. sharkdog and daisy, 9. brian and sharkdog, 10. abby, 11. mountains 5, 12. sharkdog and daisy 3

Oh, and if I haven't mentioned it yet, I'm loving fd's Flickr Toys right now. You can use it to make the cool mosaics that I've used in several posts. It's free, easy and a great way to add lots of photos without taking up lots of space.

Calling all decorators

I've never been good at home decor stuff. I like it, I just don't know what to do with it. Plus, I have a hard time keeping things uncluttered, so I'm afraid that the decorations would just get confused with the mess. Nevertheless, I'm trying to convince Brian to let me get something for our table. He said he'll have to think about it, but if he lets me do something it can't look yuppy. So, I'm looking for ideas.

Here are some pictures of our living/dining room now that we have our table in here. (You can check out the "before" pictures in this earlier post.) In case you can't tell, we've moved the couch to the front of the living room and put the table in the back of the room near the windows. Everything works better this way -- even the crazy lights aren't in the way. We also removed the coffee table because we don't particularly like and it just got in the way.



Also, in case you didn't notice it in the photos above, we bought a new crazy light for the living room. I wasn't sure about it at first, but then I decided since we already had weird lights why not add another one. And it turns out that it's quite fun.

Do you ever get the sneaking suspicion that your furniture is trying to take over?

This one is inspired by one of Brian's favorite scenes in The Office. You can see it about 20 seconds into the video below. This is one of many montages using clips from The Office, but I couldn't find the snippet alone so it will have to do.




If I can find colorful bulbs, so you think the lamp could pass for a Christmas tree? I photoshopped some color into the bulbs to give you an idea of what it would look like.

Enough fun with the lamp, back to the subject at hand. I'm looking for suggestions for some non-yuppy decor for the table. Here's a picture of the table. Any ideas?

To begin again

Brian and I started our second round of language courses this week. I'm really excited about this class. The teacher is great and there's a good mix of students. We have three 45-minute lessons per day Monday through Friday. It's so much less exhausting than the summer course, which was four lessons a day. Maybe it's because the class starts at 11:45 instead of 9:15, so I can sleep in a little. :)

My favorite thing about the class -- the knowledge that when it's over at the end of January, Brian and I will have completed the B1 level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. According to the framework, by this point we:

Can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest. Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes & ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.

Describe dreams, hopes and ambitions! Come on, don't tell me that's not exciting. But we're not going to stop there. Oh no, we plan on continuing through the C1 level. Beyond that, I don't know. We don't want to become too pretentious or anything. (Does the description of the C2 level sound pretentious, or is it just me?)

In other news...

I received two books from my mom that I'm super excited about. The first one is Bend-the Rules-Sewing by Amy Karol. I love Amy's blog -- Angry Chicken -- and love the stuff I've seen in the Flickr group. I took a sewing class in junior high, but haven't sewn much (if any) since then. This book has patterns plus basics for beginners. Amanda and I have already decided that we're going to pick out some projects and head to the fabric store in the not-too-distant future and then Amanda's going to teach me to sew.

The second book is Sock and Glove: Creating Charming Softy Friends from Cast-Off Socks and Gloves by Miyako Kanamori. I decided I must get the book after seeing this adorable elephant on another one of my favorite blogs, house on hill road. And it doesn't disappoint. I'm too lazy to scan some pages, but you can find some here on Angry Chicken.

Wow, there are a lot of links in this post. I hope at least some of you made it to the end and didn't get distracted on one of those other pages. Since my last two posts didn't include any pictures, I figure I better throw one in here so you don't get too bored. Brian took this picture of Sharkdog at the Karl Marx head during our recent trip to Chemnitz. Who has the big head now?

Phone home

I'm always surprised at the things that are difficult to figure out here in Vienna. Laundry. Dishes. The telephone.

Yes, I've been having problems with the telephone. You're probably wondering how on earth the telephone can be difficult. You just pick up the phone, dial a number and then hope someone answers (or doesn't answer) on the other end. But I've had a lot of trouble with the phone.

There are several issues involved here and I won't bore you with the details. I was able to use a cell phone without any problems, but up until a few weeks ago I could not get the land line to work. In fact, I had never been able to place a call from our land line. So I got the box that the phone came in and tried to figure it out -- like maybe the instructions would tell me there was some special code I had to use in order to place a call.

Well guess what. Lo and behold, right there on the front of the box there was a message that the phone was programmed to work with Telekom Austria -- one of the big phone companies, but not the one we went with. I still don't know exactly what it means to be programmed to work with Telekom Austria, but I did figure out that it meant I needed a secret code in order to get my phone to work. Well, maybe not secret since it was right there in the instructions. (Although, since the instructions were in German it was a bit like deciphering a secret code. And while I'm on it, why is it that every electronic thing I buy in the U.S. includes instructions in 20 or 30 different languages -- or at least 3 -- and everything I buy in Austria only has instructions in German? Or, if they do have instructions in other languages it never includes English. Come on, don't you think English should come before Dutch? Surely there are more people in Austria who speak English than Dutch. I think it's a conspiracy.)

Anyway, so it turns out that we have to hold down this particular key on the phone for several seconds until we get a different tone, then we can make a phone call. Not just once, but every single time we have to make a phone call. It's not difficult, but just the thought of it kind of annoys me. It makes me wish we didn't pick out the cheapest phone at the store.

Active waiting

I don't often write about "the work" here in Vienna. Mainly because I don't often feel like I'm involved with a work at this moment. A while back, I wrote about how this is a new work, not a work-in-progress, and how we're building a foundation and taking time to learn the language and culture. Many people -- missionaries, former missionaries, elders -- have confirmed what we're doing. We've been encouraged to remain focused on our task of learning German and sticking with our plan of engaging the culture. But it's hard. It's hard to wait. Because waiting often feels like inaction.

I recently signed up for a weekly Bible study for women involved in missions and I received my first weekly study guide this past Wednesday. It's on Nehemiah. The study points out that once Nehemiah arrived at Jerusalem, he waited three days before inspecting the wall and proposing the idea to repair the wall (2:11,12). Why, the study asks, does Nehemiah wait three days before taking action? Generally speaking, I don't like this kind of question because someone is trying to make a point by making an assumption -- often a big assumption. Nevertheless, the point is sometimes valid. The study suggests that Nehemiah waited three days because he was waiting before the Lord for guidance. It goes on to ask in what ways do I find it hard to wait, especially when I think I know what I need to be doing.

That's when it hit me -- I think I know what I need to be doing. I need to be doing something. Something measurable. Something so that at the end of the day or the week or even the month I can say, "This is what I've done." It is hard for me to wait. But waiting doesn't have to mean inaction. What I should be doing right now is praying. Not just that God will soften the heart of the people of Vienna so that they are open to his message (as I have been praying), but that God will put people in my life who are seeking Him. And that God will guide me to people who themselves are asking God to bring someone into their lives. I ask you to join with me in this prayer -- not just for me and the people in Vienna, but also for yourself and the people in your community. I'm excited to see what happens while we're waiting...

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The past couple of days I have read two blogs that have stirred a lot of these thoughts. They're both amazing stories about how God works to bring together the people who are searching for Him and the ones seeking to do His will. I encourage you to take a look.

Graham Kervin - http://grahamkervin.net/?p=140
Stephen Meeks - http://stephenmeeks.blogspot.com/2007/10/seeing-darfur-day-6.html

Stop me if you've heard this one

I know that some of you have, in fact, already heard this one. Sometimes I like to try out my material on a live audience before posting. No, not really. I just think this is a good example of how a simple thing becomes so much more complicated when you're thrown into a different culture and language. So here goes...

A while back, I mentioned going to the pharmacy to get some medicine for sinus pressure. This is what I ended up with:


The pharmacist said to take up to 50 drops at a time (notice the dropper thingy on the bottle) and that would be about a spoon. A spoon? Maybe I looked confused, so she confirmed with a co-worker. Yes, a spoon. (I wasn't confused, by the way. I just thought it was funny. Because we use teaspoon and tablespoon as a form of measurement, but it's a precise amount. A spoon, on the other hand, isn't so precise.) Anyway, so I head home with my medicine.

I only had a few minutes at home before I needed to leave again, so I pulled out a spoon and filled it with the medicine. It was pretty hard to get the drops to come out since it's a glass bottle, so I couldn't squeeze it. I fill the spoon, stick it in my mouth and immediately I know something is wrong. It taste terrible. And burns. Then a panicked thought came to me -- what if I was supposed to put this up my nose and not in my mouth?!

Okay, let's pause for a moment. Normally I would never think about putting something up my nose unless I knew that's where it was supposed to go. You can usually tell by the bottle, right? But this bottle was strange. I had to shake each drop out one at a time. And if I needed a spoonful, why on earth was there a dropper on the bottle. So in this brief moment, I thought perhaps the nasal medicine bottles were a little different in Austria than in the U.S.

So, what's a girl to do? I started downing water -- to dilute the medicine, just in case. And I started scanning the instructions (which were, of course, in German) for words like "mouth" or "nose" to give me some clue. Eventually, I found instructions that said you could mix it with tea or fruit juice, so I knew I was safe. Later I remembered from a previous experience years ago that European medicines often have a much higher alcohol content than U.S. medications -- thus the bad taste and burning.

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Now that I've written all this, I think the story works much better in person. Oh well, I hope you enjoyed it anyway.

It's in the bag

Apparently, Vienna isn't the only city that provides bags to keep the city dog-doo free. While in Prague, I noticed similar bags in a lot of areas. But these bags were paper bags. It just didn't seem like that would work as well, so I decided to check it out. Fortunately, there were pictorial instructions on the back.

That's right, the paper bag included a piece of cardboard so that you could scoop up the mess. Sounds a little... messy. I think they should have included a plastic glove. Or maybe chopsticks. [Refraining from posting a photoshoped picture.]

But the best part of this doggy bag was the picture on the front.

That dog is using the toilet. And reading the paper. With reading glasses. And he's wearing slippers. If only Sharkdog could do this! But then, I'm not sure where we would find reading glasses for him.

Riding the rails - Part 2

After our rainy day in Prague, we hopped the train for our next destination -- Chemnitz, Germany. During my college years (oh, so long ago), I spent most of my summers in Chemnitz working with LST campaigns. This was my first visit in five years and the first time Brian (and Sharkdog) visited Chemnitz. There's too much to share here, so I'll just hit the highlights.

We happened to visit on a weekend when several things were planned with the church. The church is always busy, so it's hard to visit on a weekend when something isn't happening. On Saturday we attended the 50th birthday party for Larry Sullivan, one of the missionaries who works with the church. On Sunday, there was a potluck after the worship service, so Brian and I had a chance to chat with some of the church members. On a side note, while we were waiting for lunch to begin, Brian asked me if I was worried there might be a lot of cabbage dished. I told him that I wasn't worried and sure enough, there wasn't a bit of cabbage. However, we weren't so lucky at dinner.

Happy birthday, Larry!

On Sunday night we decided to try a new Mexican food restaurant. I had mixed emotions on this one. The last time I had Mexican food in Chemnitz was at El Taco. I should have had my doubts based on the name, but I gave it a try. I was served something that tasted like a pancake with a bit of ground beef, lots of beans, corn and a stack of cabbage. I think I ordered a burrito. On Sunday, I figured the worse that could happen is I would get a good story about German-Mexican food. So we gave it a try -- and I was very impressed. I'm not a huge fan of Mexican food, but I would place this as my second favorite Mexican food restaurant. Take a look at our tasty food.

When you think of common foods included in a Mexican dish, cabbage probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind. But apparently, it's a requirement for Mexican food in Germany. The nachos were delicious once we removed the cabbage and the rest of the salad on top. I had burritos (there's cabbage here too!) and Brian had wings. I'm not sure that really counts as Mexican food.

We also got the chance to play Wii. The boxing was definitely the funniest to watch, but I didn't try playing it.

I love the way Seppel is pointing and laughing in the first photo. But he ended up looking pretty silly too.

And, of course, we took Brian and Sharkdog on a tour of the sites of Chemnitz, which consist of a huge head and some penguins.

That's one big head! Including the base, this monument of Karl Marx is approximately 25 feet tall. It was erected in 1971, during which time the city of Chemnitz was called Karl-Marx-Stadt. The city decided to keep the head as a reminder of the socialist period. The huge plaque behind the statue says, "Workers of the world, unite" in four languages.

The plaque on the ground says that if you walk in a straight line all the way to Antarctica, you'll run into the largest colony of penguins -- or something like that. I don't really remember, so I may be way off. In any event, we enjoyed taking Sharkdog's photo with the penguin colony in Chemnitz. There were several parents there trying to get photos of their kids with the penguins. Silly parents! They'll take pictures of anything!

Sharkdog, as always, was a big hit. Everyone loves Sharkdog.

Karen and Sharkdog - Karen, Sharkdog and Seppel - Dirk and Sharkdog

Riding the rails - Part 1

As I mentioned yesterday, Brian and I just returned from our first trip outside of Austria. First stop: Prague, Czech Republic. We arrived in Prague on Wednesday night around 11 and left Friday morning, so we really only had one day in the city. And it was a rainy day. But that didn't keep us from going out and enjoying the sites. There were only a few things I wanted to see -- the Church of St. James in Old Town, Charles Bridge and Lennon Wall.

Brian ran across something about the Church of St. James several years ago and we've been curious about it ever since. When you enter the church, hanging from the ceiling immediately to your right is a mummified arm. That's right, an arm. Legend has it that a thief tried to steal the jewels from a statue of the Virgin Mary and the Virgin Mary reached out and grabbed the man. She held on so tight, they had to cut off the man's arm to free him and they hung the arm in the church as a warning for other would-be thieves. Unfortunately, photos are not allowed in the church, so we weren't able to capture an image of the gangly forearm. If you want to see a mummified arm hanging from the ceiling of an old church, you'll just have to make the trip to Prague yourself.

The next stop was Charles Bridge. This bridge is best known for it's role in the opening sequence of Mission Impossible. Okay, so maybe that's not what it's best known for, but that's how I know of it. Here's Sharkdog with the Charles Bridge in the background and me and Sharkdog on Charles Bridge. As you can see, the weather wasn't great. It started raining soon after these photos were taken.

Our last stop was the Lennon Wall. When John Lennon was killed in 1980, some young people began a memorial by writing lyrics and drawing pictures on this wall. Lennon was a role model for peaceful resistance to the young people in this communist nation. For some time, the police tried to paint over the graffiti and arrest people who wrote on the wall, but eventually they gave up. By the end of the 1980s or the early 1990s, it became legal to write on the wall. The wall has been painted several times and new graffiti is always appearing, so it's look is always changing. It's a shame that the original messages and drawings are long gone.

By the time we left the wall, it was raining quite a bit. We headed back to our hotel for a nice afternoon nap. Later in the evening we headed back to Old Town for a traditional Czech goulash dinner.

Doesn't Sharkdog look so well-behaved at dinner? Don't let this picture fool you. The picture below is a more accurate portrayal of the evening.

And here's just a few more photos of our day in Prague.

Prague's most famous citizen is Franz Kafka and you'll see references to him around the city. But "Hotel Metamorphis"? Is this really a good name for a hotel? I'd be afraid of there might be cockroaches.

Sharkdog loved the bed at our hotel. I found him curled up on my pillow soon after I got out of bed.

And later in the day, he settled in for a nap. This dog knows how to sleep!

The silence of the dogs

Brian, Sharkdog and I just returned from our first excursion out of Austria. We spent about a day in Prague, Czech Republic and about two and half days in Chemnitz, Germany. It was a lot of fun and I have a lot of photos and stories to share, but I'll just start with a few photos today.

Dogs are allowed on the public transportation in Austria (and other European countries), but they must wear a muzzle and a leash. Sharkdog's old muzzle apparently wasn't the right type and he was able to remove it in under 30 seconds, so we had to get him a new one. Doesn't he look so pathetic wearing his muzzle?


Sharkdog was supposed to wear the muzzle the entire train ride, but we took it off once we were settled on the train. He ended up sleeping most of the ride, but we enjoyed looking out the window for a little while as our journey started.