Quick Trip

Well everyone...nothing too exciting going on here right now. It is a blazing 36 degrees celsius outside today and I'm dying. I woke up at 4:30 this morning to take a quick trip to Munich with Mario. He's getting a visa so that he can work in Colorado. Well..I can now find my way around in one part of Munich. :) I did the navigating and we did pretty well. We even got back to T-hof on time. I spent 1 hour standing outside in the sun waiting for Mario to get done. Talk about high security at the US Consulate. It takes 5 minutes just to get inside the first door. Thankfully I didn't have to go through all of that to get my visa! This afternoon we're going swimming at a lake nearby. Should be nice to get cooled off. This evening we're going to eat at a hutte where we get to catch our supper. :) Fish, of course. kinda fun. These past few days have been a bit more relaxed with only 40 some people here instead of close to a hundred. I've been working on putting pictures and music together for some of my friends here for when I leave. There is a missions trip going on in Romania right now as well. A few students and staff. The two korean girls left on Monday to go to England Capernwray and so there were lots of tears. I am not looking forward to next week for me. :( pray for me! It's going to be very hard to leave my home here. I am hopefully going to be able to start packing tomorrow or this evening. I don't know how I'm going to fit it all in. I guess I'll have to weed out the stuff I don't absolutely need. I can't remember what I have at home anymore though. :) Oh well..we'll see how it works. I probably won't have time to post again before I come home..so I'll see you soon. ttfn

What's life without a few embarrassing pictures?

The girls are a bit bored. We went out for icecream together and it turned into a photo op.

This is still at the cafe where we had eis. They always have these decorations on top of the ice cream and Hilde was trying to experiment with taking pictures of them. Unfortunately it just makes me look like I have Walrus whiskers. :)

Ssoon wanted to make a funny picture. Interesting...

There is a huge trumpet in town and I wanted to see if I could get up inside of it. Unfortunately it's too high and there is nothing to grab hold of. Oh well..looks fun anyway. :)

Pictures of Mirror Lake Hike

This is my little Korean friend Ssoon Ja. She is really cute!

Mark, Hilde and Tina found a nice rock to enjoy the view.

Mark showing off. Smooth move. (the ground is about 2 inches beneath him, but at least it looks impressive. ;)

That speck in the distance is Mark being the center of attention again. This is Mirror lake, but unfortunately it wasn't a perfectly calm day and so it wasn't very Mirror like. I hope to get some good pictures there yet. Maybe on Sunday morning this week. :)

Ok, Ok, it's been far too long..again

I have to admit that it has been harder and harder for me to spend any time on here. I know you guys want to know what's going on out here, but I actually am finding much better uses of my time than trying to write stuff down. The time is moving too fast and I'm just trying to soak up as much as possible before I leave here. I am really enjoying the friendships here and am not looking forward to saying goodbye. I know..I'll get to say hello to all of you, but...:) I am definitely looking forward to seeing all the babies and how much all the kids have grown. It feels like I've been here forever, but not very long at all..if that makes sense. I am excited about what God has for me in the future, but impatient to see what it's going to be like. The last weeks here have been flying by. It is only a week left with the students. Crazy!! Last week I was feeling really good again, after struggling with tiredness for most of the beginning of Spring School. I was in charge of the kitchen and the house last weekend, since our head cook and housekeeper and another staff member were gone. It was a bit crazy, but we had a good time in the kitchen anyway. I asked for a few days off this week and have been enjoying them since Tuesday and will enjoy them till Saturday. That was a terrible English sentence, but get used to it, because I can hardly think in correct grammar anymore, nevermind get it out in words. Tuesday I spent most of the day just relaxing. I still got up a bit early, since I had staff devotion in the morning. I shared a bit about loving people unselfishly and how Christ's love was perfect. Also about having a broken heart for people and reaching out to people and not expecting fulfillment. Wednesday I spent the morning relaxing. I slept in until 8:30 and in the afternoon I went on a walk/hike with the students. After the hike I went out for coffee with Heidi (the housekeeper) and had a really nice heart to heart chat with her. She is a really special person and I love her to pieces! Today I slept in until 9:00 and then I went biking! I was so excited to get on a bike again! Mark, (dean of students) let me borrow his bike, and it's actually a pretty sweet ride. I rode for a couple of hours and took a bag lunch along. I definitely found out that I am not in very good shape for biking anymore. You should have heard me huffing and puffing. I'm looking forward to having my bike at home again. :) This afternoon I took an hour nap (still not feeling 100%) and then I helped Tina clean out her apartment. Tina is one of the girls I went to Venice with and the former receptionist here. A huge answer to prayer, she found another job in Germany, and will be starting there next week. She is moving out tomorrow. I'm sad that she's leaving before me, but I am so happy that she found a position where she'll be happy. :) Tomorrow..not sure what I'll do with myself all day, but I'm looking forward to whatever's in store. Saturday I'll make a day trip with the students. We're going to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. Should be interesting. That's all for now..

This duck was hungry enough to almost come up and nibble my toes.

Me standing on a bridge over the Riesachwasserfall. The way up the falls to the lake at the top is incredible. They built a lot of stairs going up. I climbed 700 stairs that day! I know it doesn't sound too strenuous, but some of the stairs were incredibly steep.

This is in Schladming again. Sorry. They got kinda mixed up. Oh well. :)

And the Talbach again. I am so privileged to live here!

Hallstatt is a really old town and they used to exhume the dead because they didn't have enough room to bury everyone. It was a tradition to paint the names on the skulls and also decorate the skulls. The last person to be exhumed and placed in this little chapel was a woman in 1993. Kind of weird. They have evidence that this town was inhabited all the way back 4000 years. They also found some old roman ruins underneath the town. Lots of history here. Also they have ice caves and a salt mine. Definitely a booming tourist town now, but it's still a little harder to get to and so it remains quiet and isolated during the winter months and the early spring months.

Another beautiful view in Hallstatt

Uli and Hilde near the water. The lake was really clear and not too cold either.

Another picture of the town

And More...

An idyllic view where the river is calm

Riesachsee

On Saturday we visited a place called Hallstatt which is a little town surrounded by the mountains. This is the view.

There's little Hallstatt

And More Pictures

Elizabeth at the Falls

It was raining and there was a lot of water coming down from everywhere to join the falls

Elizabeth on the way to the falls

A pretty hut on the way to the falls

Pictures

This is in Schladming on the Talbach River

This is on the way to Riesachwasserfall

This is Riesachwasserfall

On the way to the waterfall

Few and Far Between

I apologize for the infrequent posting. Bible School has been really busy and I've been exhausted. I've actually been struggling with a vitamin deficiency and have been sleeping a lot in the afternoons. I think I'm starting to get better. I've been taking supplements to help. Unfortunately I've had to slow down a bit lately. You all know how hard that is for me. :) I tried to go running last week and actually got dizzy. Not happy about that. Oh well. I'll take it easy for a bit longer. I'll keep it down to hiking and climbing instead. :) Last week Wednesday I went on a hike that took me 6 and a half hours to walk. It was beautiful! Elizabeth and I had decided that we wanted to go and see a waterfall that the students had gone to. It was raining, but we decided to go anyway. It was a tiring day, but well worth the walk. I will post some pictures yet today. Yesterday I went climbing at the local climbing wall. It's a free outdoor climbing wall and it was part of the activities for the students' sports afternoon. Had tons of fun and even did some racing up the wall and belaying for some racers. Good times! I am a bit sore today. Some of the rocks on the wall are loose and for my race I got the part of the wall that had the loose rocks. I managed to slip and scrape up my hands and bruise my knees. Oh well, all part of the competition and fun. Today I've done some cleaning and cooking and now am taking it easy for the afternoon. I also made a Strawberry pie yesterday. yummy! The fruit is so cheap here! The students are getting ready for travel weekend this weekend. Already halfway through the school! Amazing! Time is getting shorter. God has been teaching me to enjoy each minute of everyday. I try not to look ahead too much since it makes the days seem to go faster. Life is still fun here and I'm enjoying the people I work with and even the crazy students. I have a reputation for being strict here, but all in good fun. I caught a few of the boys setting off firecrackers out their window after lock up time. I of course reported them to the principal and since then I am teased constantly. Oh well..So life goes. I do have fun as well and enjoyed outclimbing some of the guys yesterday. I forgot how much fun it is to be around a bunch of teenage guys. They are crazy! I miss you and your friends Tim! Anyway..that's how it's going here. ttfn

Some Snippets of Venice

Finally figured out a way to post pics on my blog again. Here's a few for those of you I couldn't invite to view my kodak gallery. Students have begun to arrive for Spring School. I'm hiding in my room and this is awesome. I found out that the wireless works up here. Yeehaw!! Shh...don't tell anyone. It's great 'cause I'll be able to come up here and hang out in the afternoons instead of trying to find a free place in the Eagle's Nest. Sweet!! It's a pretty lax day today. I don't have to start work till 4:00 and then it begins and the next weeks are going to fly. Most of the students are under 20. I'm going to feel like the old one now. :) 50 out of 72 are under 20 and most of them are 18 year olds. Oh well..should be interesting. I get to help lead a family group. 4 Canadians, 3 Americans and 1 German who I've already met. Nice girl named Sarah. I'm looking forward to having some structure again with bible studies and lectures and sunday services. It was a long winter of hearing German and struggling to understand. I'm still learning. I'm working on reading a book in German with a German/English dictionary close at hand. I am also helping the Korean girls with their English. I told them that they probably shouldn't ask me since I'm from a Mennonite community and also have been simplifying my English for the last few months. Oh well..we'll have korean girls speaking with a mennonite accent. haha. They have a really cute accent now. They mix up p's and f's, and r's and l's. It can be very difficult to understand them sometimes. Anyway..I'm going to go and enjoy the sunshine and find Hilde so we can prepare something for our Family Group. ttfn

A Day In Salzburg

I feel like I've been going nonstop for over a week and I have. :) Once we started the cleaning there was no turning back. So I again was reminded that major cleaning includes vacuuming everywhere. I developed a new technique for under the bed vacuuming. Whatever I don't get with the vacuum..my shirt will pick up. :) I was a bit sore for awhile. I only had to work till Wednesday afternoon. Thursday I took it easy and did some reading and sleeping. Yesterday Mark and Hilde and I went to Salzburg. I'm not really into the whole touristy thing, so we just walked around. Mark came with us because he was leaving for Turkey from Salzburg. He hung out with us in the morning and we had McD's for lunch because we couldn't find a Kebap place. (Hilde and I found 7 different ones after Mark left.) We had a great time walking up one of the hills of the town and checking out the watchtowers and the wall. It was good to get out of Schladming and Tauernhof for a day. After lunch we split with Mark. He went to the Airport and we continued to walk around the old city and climbed up to the fortress. We decided against going in and walked back down to the city to do some shopping. Both of us were successful in finding the things we needed. I'm glad that we didn't have more than a day to walk around. We ran out of things to do and hung out in Mirabelle Gardens for a while. Finally we walked to the train station and met Becca at the train to come back to Schladming. She spent last night here and will be flying home to Canada on the 23rd. Today is a lazy day and I'm tired. I haven't been able to sleep past 6:00 for the past week. Here's a recent pic from our picnic on Sunday. This is the Dachstein in Spring. What a gorgeous day!!

Are You All Just Itching....

to hear what's going on in the life of Beth??? Life is always busy here and it's been another full week with 30 kids. It's the last "normal" day of the Winter season. Tomorrow we start the major cleanup before spring school and we also start to say goodbye to people. :( So..this past week..where to start? Saturday. Saturday we spent the morning cleaning as usual and then we had a fantastic meal all together with genuine Dutch food. I can't begin to tell you the names of the food, but it was potatoes and carrots and cabbage and meat cooked in various ways. We also celebrated Rebecca's Birthday early since she's leaving on Sunday. We had a fruit topped Flan and my specialty One Bowl Chocolate Cake. Thanx Mom!! It's been a hit here! Sunday. Easter Sunday was perfect!! I got up for a sunrise service at 4:00 am to be there for 5:00. We carried torches up a hill to a lit cross and had some singing and a devotional. When we got back to T-hof i decided to go running in the rain (yes it was raining) at 6:00. I got back and made myself a pancake breakfast and then watched a lecture video of Major Ian Thomas with Christian. In the afternoon I sunbathed for a while and then got asked spur of the moment to go snowshoeing with Mark. We hiked up a mountain in snowshoes before I had to be back in the kitchen. It was amazing! God gave us a perfect day for it and it was slushy and wet, but we still slid down the mountain on our backsides in shorts. Sorry if that sounds a little jumbled. Monday was a normal work day. I worked the Bistro with Niffy for the last time. :( Tuesday was my day off and I even managed to sleep through the 6:00 body clock. I finally was able to sleep in till 8:00. Yippee!! It was another gorgeous day and I went shopping in town and bought myself some food to make for dinner. Also Tuesday night we went to the Brewery for drinks because Christian was leaving Wednesday morning. Wednesday. Christian left. :( I peeled cucumbers and potatoes outside in the sun. (I have a pretty good tan/sunburn going on right now) Went to bed at 8:15 and woke up at 6:00 to make breaky. Thursday. Normal working day. Went running with Mark up the Talbach and back. Great run!! and fast! Went to bed at 10:00 and woke up at 6:45 for staff meeting. Friday. Normal day. Morning went fast and we had some time off to relax. Had staff meeting and farewell for 5 more staff members. :( And the rest of the plan for the day...go shopping for gifts and work the Bistro for the last time with Tom. Good times. Peace.

Virus Valley

Well, I'm starting to lose track of how many times I've been sick. I had a 24 hour flu bug on Monday and spen Tuesday relaxing to get over it. I'm still pretty wiped out and a few of the other staff are not feeling so hot as well. It's kinda weird. I don't get sick this often at home. Anywhoo..I spent my sick day in bed and got some stuff done on my computer. I sorted out some pics of Venice and today I got more from the other girls. I have 599 pics so far of Venice alone. Crazy!! I'll send out an invite to a bunch of you to be able to view my pics on Kodak Gallery online. Sorry, I still can't post pics on here. lt's annoying, but I wouldn't be able to fit over 500 pics on this page anyway. The album is combined of pics of 3 people so there are some doubles etc. Bear with the crazy ones. :) Anyway..I'm tired and tomorrow's another day. I also need to write a devo for Friday. Pray for me..:)

Well..it's been another week..

Wow!! Another busy week gone by. I'm basically exhausted right now. :) The new guests are already starting to arrive and I feel like I haven't even had a chance to breathe. Oh well only two more weeks. This week we have a whole bunch of kids. I think around 40. Anyway. I should tell you a bit about my past week and weekend. So..as you all know, last weekend I went to Venice. What an amazing time. The hostel was great fun and I have a couple hundred photos of the trip. Venice is beautiful!! We skipped all of the tourist attractions and just spent the whole day wandering around the city and getting lost. We ended up at a tiny cafe for supper where I had the most amazing meal ever. Real italian pasta and cheese. We also managed to eat 4 gelatto each during the course of the day and I even had an Italian Capuccino and Pizza. So good! Olive Garden will be ruined forever. :) The past week was fun with a really good group of people and I went skiing twice. This weekend we had a staff outing in Salzburg at a Japanese Restaurant. It was kinda the same idea as the Golden Fork, but 100 times better. You chose a sauce and filled your plate with whatever food you wanted cooked and you could have as many platefuls as you wanted. I had Shrimp, Bamboo Shoots, Carrots, Turkey, Beef and Kangaroo and Noodles. Yes..I had Kangaroo!! It was really good. Don't worry, the Australians in our group weren't offended. They recommended it. I had all of that with a Japan Sauce over top which was phenomenal and spicy!! I miss spicy food! A lot of people went back for seconds, but I couldn't. They also had a fruit buffet with strawberries and kiwis and tons of other fruit. Also a Salad buffet and a Sushi buffet. I tried a lot. Did I mention that I ate all of this with chopsticks! Incredible! I actually did quite well and managed to get all of my food in my mouth. And I ate a lot! After that we came back and rented the movie Cars. Really fun! Today I spent the morning reading and rewatching part of Cars and then I watched Pirates 2 in the lecture hall on the big screen. Good times! Anyway, it's gorgeous outside and the sun is calling my name. I'll talk to ya later.

#100

Well guys, sorry it's been a little while again. I have now made it to post 100. Life is good here. I'm a little tired today as I only slept for about 5 hrs last night. I couldn't fall asleep and then I joined Mark and Christian for a bible study this morning at 6:00 am. We watched a video lecture of Major Ian Thomas. It was really good and spoke about giving our lives over into God's hands and living within His will. This subject has been on the hearts of many people here lately. We are leaving for Venice tomorrow morning at 5:00 and it'll take about 4 hours to get there. It should be fun! The hostel that we are staying at is actually a bunch of mobile homes that people rent. Kinda cool. I'm excited to be able to get away for a weekend. I feel a bit like I can't stop working when I'm here. :) I went skiing again on Tuesday and managed pretty well. I skied on a red pist on my 3rd day skiing. I only have enough points to go about six more times. At least I can say that I learned how to ski in Austria though. The church bells are going here. You guys need to watch Sound of Music. Listen to the bells. I get to hear that sound many times a day. It's so cool to have old bells ringing in the churches all the time. I went climbing again at Hopsi on Sunday. I climbed a wall with a difficulty rating af between 5.9 and 5.10 (yosemite decimal rating) I tried once and then had to try again to make it all the way up. My arms were so swollen after climbing that I couldn't even pull the skin. I felt like popeye and my arms were actually numb. Hilde and Tom also came and we took turns belaying each other. Tom is a foot taller than me and so it was interesting to watch him climb the same wall and compare how he could reach stuff that I couldn't :) That was Sunday. It was close to 20 degrees that day and then on Monday we got over a foot of snow down here and probably more than a meter up on Planai. The ski instructors went on a tour today and apparently the Dachstein has some spots with over 4 meters of snow!! Crazy. It went from daffodils blooming back to winter-wonderland in less than 24 hours. It was pretty amazing to see all the snow in the evergreen trees! And it was perfect snowball weather. It's melting quite a bit today and I'm back in my flip flops. It's supposed to drizzle while we are in Venice, but that's ok. We'll have umbrellas. Anyway..I'll take lots of pics and try to post some online somewhere. ttfn

Physically Challenged

Not to say that I'm disabled or anything, but this past week has been challenging. On Monday I went skiing all day. Awesome!! I ended up doing quite well and Niffy had me ski on part of a red flag hill (higher than a beginner's hill). That was challenging and she definitely wore me out. Tuesday I took the day off and just relaxed in the sun and got a bit tanned. It's been really warm here this week. Averaging around 15 degrees down here and probably close to 20 on top. (I skied in a t-shirt on Monday). Wednesday I made cookies for the Bistro. Double chocolate with hazelnuts. Yummy! I have also started making sun tea, which is a bit of a novelty around here. Tastes great though. Yesterday I went climbing at Hopsi (Planai's free climbing wall) and challenged myself again. Apparently I'm a maniac at climbing. I love it! I really hope to be able to do some real rock climbing while I'm here for spring school though. I haven't remembered to take pictures lately so I'll have to get my camera out again. I still can't figure out why it doesn't let me post pics on here. Any ideas?? Today is the last day of this camp and tomorrow we have major clean up and another camp coming right away. Just one more week before I go to Venice!! yippee! Next week it is supposed to snow all week again. I guess it's a good thing since we do have 4 more ski camps. I will also be able to use my skipass to go skiing then. :) One of my friends here is going through a tough time and I would appreciate you praying. I can't really share more than that, but pray for me as well that I would be willing to be used by God however he wants to use me. 1 month before some of my good friends have to leave. please pray that I would enjoy this last month with them. I'm still not thinking about coming home. God has lots for me to do here yet. :) Love ya all and you're in my thoughts! ttfn

Well Guys...I finally did it!

I bought myself a skipass and went skiing for the first time today. A bunch of us went to Reiteralm and Niffy stayed with me to start teaching me. Apparently I am doing really well. It's kinda like rollerblading part of the time. Some of the same muscles and movements. It was fun! I will also be going skiing on Monday and Tuesday with the beginner groups. It's nice to be able to go with the staff now when they go for the day instead of sitting back here and reading by myself. Today is a bit gloomy outside and it has been drizzling and snowing a bit. Hopefully there will be quite a bit of snow for tomorrow when the guests come. Anyway..just thought I'd update you guys on my exciting new development. Also..it's only two weeks before I get to go to Venice!! Yippee! ttfn