These past weeks have been filled with adventures and lessons learned and people met, but I think I will just share a few highlights from them:
Last week the speaker who came was John Allen from Scotland. I thought he was an absolutely wonderful speaker and I really learned a lot from the things that he said. He spoke about Ecclesiastes and Daniel and he covered a lot of ground in each lecture so it was good that he talked 100 miles a minute! I didn't really follow much of Daniel; it was mostly historical and I don't necessarily find history to be "the hammer" (I'll explain this later). But Ecclesiastes was much easier for me to take in information from (of course, I mean…it is a wisdom book). I loved the lessons about the seasons of life and all that goes along with it.
Two weekends ago was travel weekend and my plans were to go to a hutte in the mountains with ten other people and hike around in the Alps. My friend Kim and I were put on meal duty so on Thursday we headed to the grocery store to shop for the weekend. Who knew how much food you had to buy for eleven people...especially with five boys! We also had the added challenge of not having a refrigerator, since the hutte had no electricity. After stopping at the third (and last) grocery store in town we had all the food we would need for the weekend! We threw it all in the back of the car and got ready to leave the next morning for the hutte!
One of my roommates, Rebecca, also went to the hutte for the weekend, but our other roommate Teanna was headed to Prague. They left at 4:00 in the morning on Friday, and Rebecca and I ran outside and yelled goodbye to her from our balcony. Then we went back to bed, and got up in time for breakfast and then packed up for the hutte. I was very skeptical about going; I was tired and felt like I needed some time alone, and all I really wanted was to curl up in my bed at home and watch a movie. But God completely dashed all of my fears and hesitations the minute that I got there...it was so incredible!
We drove up to the hutte (only twenty minutes) in Samuel and Ruben's cars. Ruben's car was a little sketchy to drive in, and we ended up getting out and walking up the last hill so the car could make it. But everyone arrived safe and sound. Once we got to the parking area we all grabbed everything we could and walked the last 300 feet or so to the hutte. We ran inside and immediately fell in love. It is the cutest little cabin I had ever seen! It is super tilted and there are only little windows so it was really dark inside. But it was so cozy and homey and wonderful. There was a neat well inside the hutte (that doubled as our refrigerator--no electricity) and three rooms, plus a kitchen. The room "upstairs" (up a really rickety ladder) was a girl's room and also one of the rooms downstairs, and then the boys were in a downstairs room and one slept on the couch in the kitchen. I absolutely loved our little room off of the kitchen. The kitchen had a big table and a couch and the stove had to be heated by a fire, but it kept the room super warm.
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| The little kitchen and dining room! |
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| Part of the upstairs room of the hutte. |
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| More of the upstairs room. |
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My room off of the kitchen!
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The first day we all got settled in, made some pizza dough and then went out on a shorter hike. We went to two different huttes and had beautiful views from each. Then, to get back to our hutte we crawled through the forest, down into the valley, over a river, and up the other side of the valley. It was quite the adventure, but it was fun! After this hike we starter preparing dinner--calzones made over the fire. They were SO GOOD, with homemade dough, tomato sauce, cheese, salami, peppers, and mushrooms. Then we ended up just sitting around the fire for hours, singing and roasting s'mores and making bread on a stick (just bread dough that you wrap around the end of a stick and then put whatever inside--chocolate, nutella, jam...). It was delicious! After a long time of singing and laughing and eating we headed to bed. Hearing the candle blown out right before bed was such a beautiful way to end the day.
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| Glorious view from the first hutte. |
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| The start of the hike on Friday afternoon...our first adventure! |
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| Group photo from the first hutte. |
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| Hiking down into the valley without a trail. |
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| Continuing on our journey back to the hutte. |
The next morning I got up around seven and went outside to read. The mountains were so glorious from my rocking chair on the porch of the hutte. The air was so fresh and the morning was so peaceful…it was a perfect way to start the day! Eventually I went inside and helped prepare breakfast. At eight we woke everyone up with our theme song from the weekend:
That day, Saturday, we decided to go on a long hike up to the peak of a mountain. We couldn’t quite make it due to the snow and the potential for avalanche, but the view we had was incredible. It was a difficult climb to the top, but on the way down we were able to slide down the snow for a ways, so that made it a little easier! It took the majority of the day but was completely worth the effort.
When we came back to the hutte, we all just did our own thing until dinner—reading, journaling, playing guitar, etc—it felt like a little family and it was so fun! Then we had dinner, which was Penne with pesto, mushrooms, peppers, and cheese. So far we had done very well with the amount of food that Kim and I had bought for the weekend. Then we played games around the table and went on a little night hike.
The next morning it was raining and snowing, and all of us slept in a bit. Then we had a big brunch, but there was so much leftover food that Rebecca and I said we couldn’t leave the table until all the food was gone. We started playing a drinking game, but instead of drinking when you lost you had to eat something like chocolate cake or milk or cereal or something. It was rather miserable actually, but a good memory. It just wasn’t so fun when we all thought we were going to throw up!
After this we packed up and started for home! It was a wonderful weekend and I am so glad I had the opportunity to spend more time in the beautiful Alps.
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| Only the beginning of the hike! |
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| Climbing up to the peak of the mountain. |
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| We were all getting a little tired on our hike up. |
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| We finally made it to the top! |
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| Kim and I at the top of the mountain! |
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| Rebecca and I at the top! |
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| Beautiful panorama of the peak we were attempting to climb. |
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| Climbing back down. |
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| Beautiful snack break! |
This past week not much happened...on Thursday my outreach group went to the Old Folk’s Home and sang to them. It was my first performance in a choir and I thoroughly enjoyed it! We were supposed to interact with the old folks after, but since none of them spoke English, I just wandered around listening to all the German.
Yesterday the Saturday outing was to a small town named Hallstatt. It was one of the first civilized cities in Europe and the first of the salt mines to be discovered. It was a rainy day, but we still had fun walking around and looking in the little shops and cafes. We also went on a little walk up to a waterfall which was nice. Hallstatt was ranked up with the Pyramids and the Great Wall of China on things to see around the world. I don’t know if I would go far as to say that, but it was a cute little town. And I counted around 90 Chinese people there, so it definitely was a tourist attraction.
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| One of two churches in the little town of Hallstatt. |
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| My roommates and I after our little walk to the waterfall. |
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| Jasmin, Emma, Kim, me, Rebecca, and Anne in Hallstatt. |
Interesting fact:
In German, if something is really awesome, you say it is “the hammer” and if you have a song stuck in your head, you would say you have an “earworm.”
