An Austrian Wedding... then off to Switzerland

This weekend I was priviledged enough to be invited to a traditional Austrian wedding. Mathias, whose bachelor party I attended at the castle, is now heiraten. The actual wedding ceremony is nearly identical to an American one take two things, there is no wedding party of groomsmen or bridesmaids, and the bride and groom sit throughout the ceremony.

Afterwards, still at the church, everybody is invited to a small lunch of traditional open-faced sandwiches and champaign. Those who have an additional invitation then proceed to the reception.
The reception in this scenario, as I was told, was very traditional. Austrian weddings are formal, every male from 16 years and up had a suit and tie. The reception was also formal. It was held at a large meeting hall that is relatively new, built somewhere in the early 1900s.

There were a handful of skits that entertained through a large catered dinner. Most skits involved singing and/or children and acting.

In a most traditional style, a Kärtener small brass band played a variety of music. It's not really oom pah, but not classical either. Nearly everybody danced. The local dance favorite is a fast moving, spinning sort of dance. I danced with a girl I did not know - it took a lot to even try.

I'm off tonight via night train to Zurich, Switzerland. I'll head North upon arrival to Lake Constance on the Swiss and German border. I'll spend all week along the lake. I'm hoping that my hostel will have internet but we shall see. Cheers to Mathias and his new marriage (oh the wedding and reception lasted nearly 14 hours - they're long winded here).

BFA Spring Break

For those left on the edge of their seats at the end of my last blog I did make it to Germany. With a huge bag I walked across the city of Basel, Switzerland and hopped a bus at the border of Germany that took me all the way to Black Forest Academy, home of the illusive Mike Greenhoe. (Turns out I did not specify that I was coming via night train and it was my fault, oh well). Above is Greenie and I having too much fun – it’s what we do. Below he's checking his watch to see if it's time to pick me up from Basel, 12 hours late.
I stayed with Mike for a week. He is a resident assistant/director at BFA and is on a well-deserved two week spring break. We did nothing of great note the entire time. We just hung out. We hiked to the top of Hoch Blauen. We watched some NCAA tourney basketball (very late at night I’ll add). We watched movie after movie. And we just hung out.
A common thread of my travels so far required that we prepare, we cook, and we feast. Mike threw an Easter Eve dinner for many of his friends and coworkers – I helped with the main course as Mike and another guy struggled for over an hour to make pasta from scratch. Flour covered the counters, walls and floor, but the pasta was a success. The tiny kitchen, insufficient for a small family and entirely inadequate for a 16 person meal was the night’s biggest loser. Tornado Chef Mike took his toll. It was a sweet time.

As a precursor to the Freiburg Marathon, which I am attending on April 6th as a fan for Mike, he and I visited the old German town. My friend, Morgan, who lives in Bend, is spending a year there studying at the University. Morgan led us around her city (shown on the right) as we walked key parts of the race.

Finishing my trip I trained to Zurich. On a long layover I braved the inch or so of snow and spent a few hours walking the well-lit metropolis. A surprising amount of fancy cars whipped their way past me. Zurich (shown below) may well be the capital of the expensive and the rich.

Traveling - Written March 19th

Beyond the glorious side of travel things are not always as exact as a Swiss watch. I am currently in the land of the famed watches. I am in a two story Starbucks, with likely 1,000 sq feet of sitting area upstairs away from the bustle and noise of the latte machines below. It is a wonderful sitting arrangement. It is encouraged by culture; the “zum mitnehmen” idea is strictly American. That is, the German phrase for “to go” gathers rarely more than a blank response. Starkly contrast, you have to ask specifically for a paper coffee cup or naturally you’ll receive your piping hot drink in a classy porcelain mug. The beauty of Swiss culture comes at a price though – the watch I want is just shy of $2,000 and my grande house coffee, nestled next to my computer, set me back $4.90.

Though wonderfully situated and content, I’m supposed to be in Germany right now. Today marks Crystal’s 23rd birthday, the halfway point to my 27th birthday (wow to both of those eh) and the first day of a week with my great friend Mike Greenhoe. Unfortunately, after 9.5 hours on a train and 2 hours waiting at the station, I have come to believe that Mike and I had a misunderstanding on the telephone; I think he may plan on picking me up at the wrong 9:40, the one at night. My cell phone is worthless because Greenie is not answering at his home and he is one of the lucky few who have abstained from the cellular world.

Given my newly opened schedule and the occasion of the date I should reflect. I can remember when Dustin was born, but I really can’t reach back to Crystal’s. In that, I can remember the old red house, and I can remember the trailer, but I guess chillin with her goes back to the early days in my parents’ current home. Crystal loved musicals and while growing tough and rugged I somehow succumbed to her usually in control way of life and danced along. Her favorite of that era was Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

High school is where I remember her best. She joined my crew in my final year. I drove her to school every day. Many days I’d drop her off and skip class with one of the boys to go out deer hunting, she’d do no such thing. While only seven one-hundredths separated our GPAs she was a far better student. I remember Friday nights and taking Crystal to the movies, given she call one of her cute little friends, and just hanging out, having fun. I remember when she started dating some freshman who, to me and my buddies, hadn’t yet earned the dating right. They held hands but the poor dude knew he was pushing his ever tight bounds. I remember when another frosh insulted Crystal and made her cry. The next day he apologized, surrounded by 6 or so much larger senior guys encouraged a beneficial change in the boy. I never again heard of him insulting a female.

I guess everyone is older now. Not in a bad way, that’s how life moves, it sort of undulates along its merry way towards God; at least that is His intention. I’ve managed to successfully dodge Cupid’s arrows, though I’m told that my quickness may be my error. Crystal had other luck and now has a beautiful baby boy. While my concern is getting the last 25 miles of my trip to Germany so I have a place to sleep tonight hers is much more selfless, marriage and a baby – I really respect that.

It should be fun to get home and see Jack, Joshie, Elsa and the older family members (who deserve to be named but you’re all old enough to know who you are and tough enough to get over it). July 4th, one of the greatest days of the year for our small town, will give extra joy because of three extra lil’ ones. Crystal, Shane, Mom & Dad, thanks for years of selflessness already given and many more to come.

A Bachelor Party at Red Robin... Nope, a Castle

Some of the greatest moments while traveling come when experiencing a culture up close and personal. A friend I've met here, a local to Kärnten, Matthias, is getting married on March 29th. It is an event I look forward to. Prior to any guy's wedding though, they've got to have a bachelor party. In Austria, the do bachelor parties right.

At 6:00pm on Friday evening some of the guys picked me up and we drove 15 minutes to a castle. They have converted this old fortress into a restaurant and dinner theatre. You know, the interactive kind where they pull people from the tables and dress them up and make them do silly things. Well if you don't know read on (hopefully you'll read on anyways).

Somehow I think this castle was originally intended for a less inviting gesture than fun and dinner. I also think that the dinners here may have been far smaller and much less enjoyable.

Past the mote and through the gated gauntlet of boiling oil and deadly arrows we found our table.

Not long into things, before we had a chance to dirty their old school costumes, the story began. While I'm learning Germany quickly, following an accented middle age version of the language left me lost but I can pretty well figure out from the pictures that Matthias (in the t-shirt) was some sort of prince and below is his bearded princess.

Through some jousting event Matthias earned his knighthood.
Andy and Rudy were the unfortunate members of our party who were chosen to be the servant and the maid. Not only did the two guys look like goofs, but they had to serve us the meal.
Soup came first, followed by meat, and on the side some sauerkraut and potatoes and more meat, followed by a bit more meat just in case our tummies had not had enough.
Our place setting included a wooden plate with a knife - no fork, no spoon - and a metal dish for bones.
Schnapps is a specialty in this region of Austria so for dessert they brought us each a shot of the local pride. Only moments after getting the picture below I knocked the stack of shot glasses over and most of them shattered on the ground.

Instead of making me pay cash they figured I could suffer a slightly more physical punishment. After some abuse from my friends I managed to weasel my hands out and free myself but in the mean time my head was pinned.
Before I found my freedom, as any male would do Matthias quickly took advantage of the situation. Though he only posed for the picture somebody else whacked me right in the bum with a wooden sword; full swing! Ironically it reminded me of getting punished as a child.
Rudy managed to lose the maid's dress and find some lederhosen. The dinner show quickly turned into a dance show.
Somewhere near midnight about 10-15 girls joined us and things turned to hang out and dance time. With fatigue the camera ceased and I spent much of the rest of the night chillin and chatting in my broken German; I guess I don't dance.

About three forevers later, still having a good time but desperately needing sleep, we ended up at some tiny dance club that was near enough my house to walk home. I trudged in at 4:50am and Dougg Custer, the missionary friend at whose house I'm staying, had gone to bed, slept 7 hours, woke up and had began planning a conference on his laptop all before my night ended. Laughing he looked up and said, "Oh, I forgot to warn you, Austrian wedding parties last all night. Enjoy the morning."

Good Snow, Great Food

This past weekend I was visited by a guest from Texas. His parents are missionaries in Japan who gifted Aaron with airline miles to visit Austria during his final spring break. To make things better God gifted the Alps with about a foot of fresh snow.
We spent two full days on the mountain and a bit of time hanging around Spittal; boarding, eating, chilling, and (for him) shopping. He bought the coolest, but most expensive, traditional German old-man hat (with feather). Awesome is all that can describe it, sorry I forgot to take a picture.


I'll admit that I too like to go with cool stuff, but mine has more function. Here's my super not-European about to ski look, a backwards hat, Nike pro running shirt, Under Armour cold gear mock. And this all gets covered by 20,000 mm waterproof Columbia outerwear. Oh yeah, and Burton GoreTex gloves. Call me what you want, but I'd prefer to call myself the warm, dry guy.
This photo is an attempt to respond to Dustin's super cool face shot I like to call 'turtle in a neon green jumpsuit.' My face hidden in the blue jacket just doesn't do the lime green justice.

Dustin talked me into buying these red lense Quicksilver goggles last year when he was working at GI Joes. Thank you Dust for some great advice, somehow the red filters light off the snow and makes the white stuff distinguishable in all weather types.

At one point on our first day snowboarding Aaron actually fell getting of the 'T'-bar and the next 'T' hit him squarely in the head at about 25 miles per hour. He went down like a sniper had shot him, falling face first into the snow. I nearly chocked trying not to laugh, it was great. It knocked him a bit blurry for a few minutes but we managed to get him out of the way so the operator could restart the lift. Unknowingly he snapped the above picture of me while I waited for him to regain his sense.
Some fresh tracks are shown above. Below is one of my few pics with Aaron in it. This is also one of the few pics that shows the Transformers on my board. I bought it for function, not looks but hey at least it's guy stuff.
We boarded hard but we ate better. On Aaron’s first night here I took him to a restaurant just down the road from the house. It was the same place I went when I first arrived. We had some traditional Wienerschnitzel and potatoes. The other nights, due to my budget constraints, I cooked for him. I say this biased, but as long as I stay single my culinary skills keep improving. I see this as a bit of a liability.
Our capstone meal included a tomato and mozzarella salad with garlic potato soup for starters followed by a pasta Alfredo with veggies and capped with a regional chocolate whipped pudding. Why would it be anything less? I really look forward to running this afternoon (in the beautifully warm sun – which is melting the new snow of course) to balance my calorie intake/output.

On the topic of food and calories, all the ski resorts here serve a local specialty, germknödel. It’s a cakelike dumpling that is jelly-filled (plum) and covered in vanilla sauce and powdered sugar/poppy seed mixture. Unlike the U.S. it is very difficult to find calorie counts on anything, not even on the internet. With that, I’ll guesstimate that the germknödel is well over 1,000 calories. I had one each day boarding.
I prefer to drink water while skiing or boarding for the simple reason that balance is numero uno in both sports and bier is public enemy #1 for balance. For the sake of the pictures, though, I borrowed Aaron’s bier because I thought it looked more Austrian. You can glimpse my water in the germknödel picture (top left corner of the pic).
I'll leave you at the base of the bunny hill lift (complete with the over-direction of Austrian signs). Yeah, we know how to do it, you put the incredibly distressing disk in between your legs and pray that you're at the top already, thanks.

Lazy Days and Travel Plans

Until Monday things have been sunny and slow in Kärnten (the Austrian state that I am currently in, which actually more resembles a county). I've been having a great time enjoying the weather though it has temporarily set skiing in a back seat. There is a 7 mile long lake just 20 minutes walk from my place; it has offered me some wonderfully lazy days.

Recently, a great friend and longtime employee of Black Forest Academy, Mike Greenhoe, visited me on his birthday. Happy 26th birthday Mike! On the day of Mike's arrival it was my turn to host the Skaters' Bible Study that I've been attending so I decided to make some jalapeño poppers, brats, and fries for the occasion. Mike's a Michigan boy so I thought he'd appreciate some home style cooking. The picture below is Greenie and I three years ago, Feb 2005, but I liked it so you get to see it.

On top of a full day skiing (all the pictures are on his camera which is now in Germany, sorry), we spent most of the time just hanging out on the back deck and wandering around the lake.

Greenie particularly liked this little cattle trough/statue. Benches, troughs and little pieces of art seem to be scattered everywhere across the German, Swiss, and Austrian countrysides. It's great for hiking because the water is all fresh spring water that pours into a basin, you can always refill your bottles with pure, tasteless, and safe water.

We actually trespassed onto somebody's dock so we could hang out right on the lake. There were probably 20 such docks that nobody was using so we assumed that the gate was for stray animals and not to keep people out.

Since Greenie's departure and returning from Rome, most of the rest of my time has been busy trying to learn German, enjoying the snow (Monday we had a decent storm), and planning for future trips. On March 19th my oldest baby sister hits another year and I head to Germany as I begin phase two of my travels: I will be visiting the Black Forest of Germany, then back to Austria for a wedding, followed by travels to Switzerland, Berlin, Athens, and finally Heidelberg - all before my mom visits me April 28th. Above is Google's marked map of my travel locations (click it to make it bigger). I should have some great photo essays for this blogsite.

P.S. I figured out how to make the pictures clickable so they get big for you. It's a royal pain but I'm going to try to redo the Rome blog for you Nick.

It's Raining!

I very excited to announce that after a precipitation free February God has blessed March with a little storm. It's raining here in the valley but I'm really hoping it's cold enough to be falling white on the mountain.