Where I Am Living, Spittal, Austria

Until the end of March I am in Spittal an der Drau, Austria. It is a town of about 18,000 people, so a decent city by Alpine standards. It has much of the quaint feel of any European city and offers much of the same exciting color schemes and architecture.
At one point this was a walled city similar to many others around this area. There is little but a remnat of the wall, but this arch is a piece of that history.
The old wall was a stone thing that wasn't too glorious. It is now just a part of the town with the modern city limits extending probably two miles past this old wall.
The town is long and skinny, tucked neatly into a little valley that is split by the hill pictured below. On the other side of that is a lake, the Millstättersee, which is also long and skinny. This region, I'm told, is much more the summer paradise than winter wonderland. I guess I planned my trip backwards.
In all, this is a pretty town, often shadowed by a decent mountain directly to the south. There is nothing that I need that is more than a 15-20 minute walk with most essential things being closer.

How Aboot Canada, Eh

A month ago, my two brothers, Shane and Dustin, my friend Brandon and I hopped in Brandon's LAV (a Subaru Outback wagon) and drove umpteen thousand miles to British Columbia for a stellar weekend of skiing. A bitter irony, proven repeatedly in my life, is that I travel to ski but the best snow falls within the Oregon borders. Mt. Hood was sitting on multiple feet of new snow on top of their already adequate base, whereas Canada had only a small amount of dirty white stuff with rocks creeping under the powder waiting to rip my new skis apart.

With that in mind, the trip was great! Brandon drove the entire way, allowing us three brothers to sleep as much as our hearts desired why he pounded away hours of asphalt. Great snow is fun, but great company will always trump lack of coverage.

We visit four resorts, Crystal Mountain in Washington (near Mt. Rainier), and Big White, Silver Star and Sun Peaks resorts all near Kelowna B.C. (about 4 hours by car from Vancouver, B.C.).

The best snow seemed to be on the closed runs and at risk of getting kicked off the mountain we skied many such runs. On the last day we found a nice run that could easily have been opened up but was not. Even so, we got first tracks and found a fun little kicker. Here's Dusty showing how you do it after skiing nearly 100 times last year at Mt. Bachelor.

All in all, a great trip. Maybe we'll get to do it again some year and take the wives and kids. Or maybe we'll visit and stay in one of the fancy ski in/out resorts before driving over to Whistler for the 2010 Olympics, I never dream small.

Unreal Hospitality

Today's blog has no pictures that go along so the pictures are random and not from Europe.

Sunday morning I attended the church service held below my house. And after a sweet German worship session and sermon this morning (I'm still struggling with the language badly and thus understood none of it) I was chilling in the common area of the church when my buddy Marco (who looks out for me and translates when I'm stuck) came up and asked what I was doing for lunch. I told him nothing so he turned and went across the room to a member of the church, Kurt, and just invited me over to Kurt's place for lunch. Kurt and his wife Ulli gladly accepted, though he warned me that he spoke no English (each of his 4 kids spoke a little).

They took me to a huge house out in the country and Hannah (12), Samuel (16), Benjamin (18), Kurt and I played a board game while Daniel (14) helped his mother cook a nice dinner.

Anyways, we finished the game and had dinner and a small dessert (some hand-made chocolates, both white and dark, with coffee) and talked for quite a while when Benjamin grabbed a new game. All of us played the game together for about an hour until we switched and played more games all the way until dinner. The whole time Hannah never complained and the boys never argued--we just had a good time.

We prayed for a long time before dinner, each person in turn, then I was given a ride home at 8:30 (as I left they asked if I would come for dinner again soon). I was there over 8 hours!
What's crazy to me is not just the unreal generosity, but how big God is! As we prayed, they in German and me in English, and as they spoke about their dream for God to radically change their town here (18,000 people, big for European standards) it really hit home that God is bigger than America. Yeah, I obviously know this, but to feel something first hand, to feel His love through other Christians that can barely communicate with me, is invigorating and crazy and really a glimps of what is to come.
PS. These are my two nephews: Joshie in the sweet sweater and Jack in the crazy warm polar bear outfit.

Snowboarding meets T-Bar

After a week in Austria my tired muscles asked for a break today, and a little bit of protein. I've skied once and boarded 3 times in 7 days. I've visited 3 separate resorts too. As I mentioned though, there is very little new snow. There's good news on the horizon though, it's raining right now. Hopefully about a thousand feet above me it's falling white.

As you all know skiing and snowboarding is a social sport where after a period of exercise you get to sit on the lift and glorify how hard your buddy crashed on the last run. Of all things, the lift should offer no opportunity to crash on its own. Yet, in Austria, they've figured out a way. It's an old piece of machinery, long since removed from the States--the dreaded T-bar. It's a device that is shaped like a T and it drags you up the hill while you ski/board up. While skiing, the T settles nicely under you bum (you face directly uphill), while boarding, it goes in between your legs and pulls in an ever so invasive manner at your inner-thigh (you face sideways). There is no socializing, take a few unkind words as the bar yanks you up the hill. Below is a lousy picture of people attempting the ride up the dreaded bar. Above is me risking my body to take a picture while dragging up the hill.

On a brighter note, Austria is beautiful. Even if the snow has been compacted, it still offers great scenery and an intriguing mix of cultures (many other nationalities vacation here, such as Romanians, Slovenians, Italians, etc.). I'm just sure that the people in the background of this ski-train photo were speaking Romanian.

New to Austria

I am sitting in the living room of the apartment that will serve as my home for the next 3 months. I am surrounded by Alps, which rise directly up and out of the city. Unfortunately, I am cursed by the snow gods. Last year, my first in Bend, I was forced to ski only on weekends and in a 5 month season only found powder maybe 3 times. This year, in the Alps near me, there is only a few inches of God-made snow. Fortunately, the Austrians do not wait for him and they blow man-made snow down their key runs (actually probably up to 3 feet in most spots). The machine assisted snow is really quite nice though, as the picture shows.







My home here is above a Baptist church. From the church anyone can come up to my home--there is no lock between the two. This should help connect me with the locals here.


Today my hosts (the owners of the home) left me to go back to the U.S. They were my translators and it is now up to me to finish learning German as is my plan. It is a time to sink or swim. The people here are very friendly and have shown great hospitality so far. I hope I can continue to grow in friendship with them so as to not become bored out of my mind.


For the next 3 months I will have consistent internet access so will be blogging often.


My schedule should include (but can change at any moment):

*January 4 - March 31 -- Living at the apartment above the church in Austria
*Beginning of April -- Leave Europe for a week or so (Switzerland... Israel... ??? Who knows)
*Mid April -- Go to Germany and visit friends
*End of April - May -- Travel through places such as Italy, Greece, Czech, Austria, Spain, Germany, Hungary (This section is really up in the air and will be determined by cost and how cool of travel buddy I can talk into coming to visit with me)
*June -- Some hanging out in Germany and Turkey, possibly the coast of Italy
*July 3 -- Fly to Portland at 8:59pm


P.S. For anyone who wants to know more about me you can read Jill's thoughts on me in her post about me.