More photos

I wrote earlier this week about our trip to Schwarzwaldeckhaus last weekend. We went with the Haskews and the Hayes family and a two individuals from the Inzersdorf congregation. Alex, one of the Hayes' boys (the middle one -- after all, the middle child is often the most talented, right?), took some amazing photos. There's a little sample below. Click on the links to see the full shot and check out his other photos on his Flickr account. He has several photos of sites in Vienna, but also some other interesting subjects.

1. a dash of hope, 2. Fairyland, 3. transience, 4. reliance

By the way, all three of the Hayes boys seem to be quite talented, not just Alex. Movie editing, photography, piano, classical guitar, cooking -- between the three of them just about everything is covered.

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