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

Busy, Busy, Busy...

This week is full and I've been going hard already. Today was my day off and so I didn't do anything too exciting, but I really needed a lax day so I don't get sick again. Sunday, the guests arrived and I played piano for the praise and worship. It was a bit scary, I introduced myself in German for the first time and played praise and worship for the first time with 2 new songs. It was actually a lot of fun to play for praise and worship and I felt like Niffy, Becca, and I really played well together. Yesterday was a really full day. I got up at 6:00 to prepare breakfast, worked in the kitchen all morning, went for a walk with some girls in the afternoon and then went running after that. Worked in the evening to prepare supper and do cleanup. Then I worked the Bistro till 10:40. I was wasted after that and my roomate said that I fell asleep before my eyes closed. :) I've been learning a bit of German. Two short phrases that I've learned are...Ich bin so stolz auf dich. And...Ich habe drei espresso gemacht. Of course I understand a lot more German than that now, but I am just starting to learn grammar. Don't worry..I'm trying to learn German from people who speak good Hoch Deutsch. There are a few people here who are from Germany and don't speak slang or dialect as much. Especially Mario. His German is almost too perfect. :) anywho..ttfn

Germany's Big Bathtub

So..one of the things that I've really missed here is being able to take a hot bubble bath. Steam is healthy, and it sure helps with sore muscles too! So..as a treat to ourselves..a few of us girls decided to go to a spa in Germany. It was about an hour's drive and so we first went for a walk in the countryside. We drove to a beautiful little lake which had a walking path all the way around. It has been so warm that the trees were blooming and there were all sorts of flowers coming up too. I have pictures, but I'm having problems with uploading them to the new blogger. Any ideas from you old pros? Anyway..after walking for 45 minutes, we drove back to town (don't ask me the name of the town, it's too difficult for me to remember) and went to a cafe which was decorated all red and white and they sold all Mozart chocolate. I had coffee with a buttercream/nut cake. Delicious! After coffee we walked a block in the rain and had supper at a restaurant. The building that the restaurant is in is 845 years old. The waiter wore a peasant style shirt and leather leiderhosen. The waitress wore a Dirndle. Really fun! It was a really old room with lots of old paintings and with candles and big old wooden tables and benches. We had pizza, which was incredible. Finally we drove to the spa and spent 3 hours soaking in warm mineral water. It was so good. It was big and had several pools with different temperatures and amounts of salt. The best one was outside. It was a perfect tempurature and there were jets that went off at different intervals. There were bars all the way around so you could just hang on at the wall while the jets made you float. Also there was a whirlpool area and a jacuzzi area. Inside there was a cooler pool and also there were a few different rooms downstairs. Saunas (we didn't pay the extra for the Sauna) and a couple little pool rooms that were like grottos. The first one we tried had so much salt in it that it made all the little cuts and even my pores sting. We went to a different one that was hotter, but had less salt. We were the only people in there and it was an echo room so we goofed off and sang opera and other songs with 4 part harmony. Great fun!! After relaxing for 3 hours we got out and drove home. We stopped at Burger King on the way home as well. The first hamburger and fries that I've had since leaving home! The Burger King was designed as an American burger joint and had a statue of liberty draped in an american flag and a motor bike hanging from the ceiling. So weird!! Anyway...that's what my Sunday was like. In a month or so, the same girls and I are planning on going to Venice for a weekend. We'll drive down and stay in a hostel and it'll be really cheap. I'm really excited! We already have the hostel booked. It'll be fun to get away for a little while and see yet another country. Well..that's all the excitement I have to share right now. ttfn

Rodelling..??

Many of you are asking, "What on earth is that?". Only the most amazing winter activity in the whole world!! So..the next mountain over has a rodelbahn that is 7 kms long. Basically it's tobogganing on a little wooden sled with a canvas seat that you steer by dragging your feet. It is so much fun!! Last night we went with the Norwegians that are here for this week. It was lots of fun to be able to go in the dark. They have lights all the way down the rodelbahn and there is even a tunnel that we have to go through. It takes 20 minutes to get down to the bottom and there are a lot of twists and turns and bumps on the way. I went during the day last week with Steve and Christy who were here from California, but last night was great. I took my own sled this time. It actually costs quite a bit to be able to go, but I'm going to get a ski pass so that I can go for cheaper during the day. It's really funny to think that rodelling would be completely illegal in Canada or the States. We go down at such a high speed and with so many people etc. Crazy, but awesome! I had french fries last night. They were almost exactly the same as McD's french fries. My system decided that it doesn't like fast food as much anymore. :) Oh well..probably good anyway. Well...It's really warm out again today. It was +15 yesterday and it must be close to that again today. I sat outside for a couple of hours yesterday and I think I got a bit of a tan. I think I'm going to go and read outside again. Hope you are all doing well. Send us some snow ok?

To Germany and Back...

So..I had the opportunity to go for a drive yesterday. Steve and Christy from California needed a ride back to Munich airport. To begin with, just Mark (from Australia) was going to drive them back, but I decided to go along last minute. :) I'm glad I did. The drive was beautiful! It took 2 and 1/2 hours to get there and we took a longer way back to see a more scenic route. It was weird to be in a vehicle again. I've only been in a moving vehicle 5 times since Christmas. Some of the scenery and lakes and stuff reminded me of being in Ontario. Except that the mountains here are huge. :) Today I got up at 6 to prepare breakfast for the new group. It's the Norwegians again. A bunch of kids between 18-20 or so. They are already excellent skiiers and so all the ski instructors basically have this week off. It was great though. Niffy helped me in the house and Mark helped in the Kitchen and everything was done really fast. If it's like that all week...Wow! I could handle that. So much better!! I was done cleaning almost an hour early and the Norwegians always take a bag lunch so we were done lunch clean up really early as well. Well..that's all for now. Oh..by the way, I didn't actually see anything of Munich other than the airport. We weren't sure of having enough time, what with all the traffic. ttfn