Home Safe and Sound

Laura and I spent a week as a couple of beach bums in Bol, Croatia. It was literally 35 degrees celcius every day and just too hot to do anything else but just sit on the beach. The water was a nice relief to the heat, and Laura even went for a wakeboard out there. It was pretty sweet. The beach there was gorgeous but it was full of rocks, it was no Grand Beach. The last night we were in Bol the power went out and we were without air conditioning in our apartment that night. It was tough because we had to get up really early to catch our bus back to Split, needless to say I didn't get much sleep that night.

So the next day, being completely hot and tired, Laura and I had utilized every form of transportation possible. We took a bus from Bol to Supetar, caught a ferry to Split, took the bus again to the airport, then we caught a flight to Stuttgart Germany, and from there took the train to Munich. Wow that was a long day! We stopped in Munich for 2 days because there was a band playing there that Laura really wanted to see live. The band is called Mutemath, and they put on an amazing show! They're not so well known in Germany yet so the crowd was only about 100 people. It was fun to go out to something like that though. The rest of the time in Munich we spent shopping!! I had a little space to fill up in the extra suitcase I bought. :o)

From Munich we flew to Ljubljana, Slovenia! Laura has a friend that runs an adventure tours company there and we were spending the weekend there for some good adventures! We stayed in the campsite that he has set up there in tents that were set up in little wooden shelters. So our first day there we went Canyoning. It was soo much fun. We had to hike straight up hill for about 45 mins to get to the starting point, geared up in our wet suits and started to make our way down the canyon. It's kind of hard to explain exactly what Canyoning is but hopfully the pics give you an idea of what we were up to.

Our next activity we did was Paragliding! That was amazing, you're pretty much just running off the edge of a mountain and letting the wind take you away. We were attached to a professional of course, but it was awesome. We were floating up there for about 15-20 minutes. My stomach was starting to feel a bit queezy half way through so we didn't linger too long up in the air. But it was an amazing experience.

And our last fun adventure was white water rafting. It was listed as a class 3 run but it seemed pretty low key when we went through it. I was expecting intense action the whole time, but we floated through most of it with a couple of fun rapids. It was raining while we were going down too. It was cool because there was a mist rising above the water, it gave it a mystical feeling. And the last kilometer we were able to jump out of the boat and just float down the river ourselves. It was awesome. I'm definately looking forward to going again sometime in the future!

Slovenia was sweet, and I'm glad it was our last stop because it was a great way to end our travels out in Europe. Now we started our tedious travels home. We flew to London where we stayed one night, and only one night because it is just way to expensive to stay there. Then from London, having gone through major security checks, we flew to Amsterdam. From Amsterdam to Paris... and in Paris is where all the fun began. We had to go through security again, and wait in rediculously long lineups, then the terminal train that would get us to our gate was broken. And as a result delayed us and our plane 2 hours. We were stressed...by the time we finally made it to Montreal and cleared customs we had missed our last flight to Winnipeg. There were no more flights going to Winnipeg that evening so we were stranded in Montreal for a night. ugh.. So we went to the nearest hotel, the Hilton, and got the only available room, on the executive floor! It was so sweet, the room was huge. We had been up for about 24 hours at this point so we had a solid nights sleep that night. We caught the next flight home the next day and finally made it back into Winnipeg.

I'm so sad that it's all over, but I had an amazing time and definately got my money's worth. As for now, the holiday is over and is time to get to work!!

Sweating Buckets in Croatia!

Hey Everyone! I have to admit I've been very neglegent on my blog. Well where do I begin? Since the last time I wrote I have finished up Tauernhof and am now sitting in a hot internet cafe, with some really funky chairs I might add, in Split, Croatia! I can't believe how quickly Tauernhof came and went, and how much I accomplished in the time in between. I'm so glad to have gone there, I loved it out in the mountains and the people were awesome! On the second last weekend out there a group of us got up really early, 3:30 am, to hike up a mountain to catch the sunrise. Wow, it was amazing. The hike up was intense, straight uphill for 45 minutes on an empty stomach and half asleep, it was a challenge to say the least. It never fails that when I go hiking it always makes me realize how truly out of shape I am. I'm used to running on nothing but flatness in the Prairies so adding an uphill was a change of pace. The hike was totally worth it though, the sunrise was beautiful! It was definately a highlight of my time out there. Just on the other side of the mountain we climbed up was a lake called Mirror Lake. It's really small but when it's calm it reflects the Dachstein peaks. It was sooo worth it!

It was kind of sad to leave Tauernhof but I was ready for the next phase of my trip. I met up with Laura in Munich and from there we flew to Dubruvnik. It was a complete change in scenery, going from the mountains to humid tropical beaches ! Not too bad. We've spent a fair amount of time on the beach working on our tans because it's just too hot to do anything else without sweating like crazy. We did some touring around as well, Dubruvnik how an Old Town that we checked out. We walked on the wall that surrounds it and got some sweet pics from the views. After that we stopped into one of the tiny Italian restaurants down a little alley in the Old Town for some Pizza. We ordered a Pizza for 2 and decided to share it. When it arrived it was the biggest Pizza ever, and there was no way we could finish that thing off ourselves. Luckily we were able to take it with us for later. It was good Pizza though! After 3 days in Dubruvnik we took the bus over to Split! We're just staying here 1 night and moving on to Bol where we have a nice little apartment for a week! I'm pumped just to sit on the beach and relax and get in some good vacation time. I'm going to enjoy it while I can because the relaxation ends when I get home and start the job search!

That's about all I have for y'all today. I can't seem to get the pics on here at the moment, this computer is frustrating me!! I hope to get them up as soon as possible, sorry!

I hope everyone is doing well and I will be seeing you in a few weeks ! Ciao :o)

Just a little note!

This past week has been pretty interesting so I've got a few new things to add. On Thursday it was my turn to do devotion after breakfast. Everyone has to do it and Thursday was my day, I was pretty nervous about it. It went surprisingly well, I was just being honest about a few things that I've learned here at Tauernhof and the words just came naturally for me! So that was a good experience.

Then on Friday we had a Pirates and Ninjas evening! It was a blast, everyone got dressed up, we played games and watched Ninja movies. I went as a Ninja seeing as my current wardrobe (which is pretty much whatever could fit in the back pack here, is not a lot) does not include anything resembling a Pirate so I went as a Ninja! Here's a pic of me and my room mate Lindsay.

And on Saterday we went on a day trip to Mathausen concentration camp just about 2 hours away from here. I kind of knew what to expect coming here since I've already seen Auschwitz but I think each time you go to a place like that it will hit you just as hard each time. We watched a short film about the history of the camp and some survivors told their experiences there. Some of the images they had on display were very graphic, I honestly was feeling sick by the end of it. It was a really hot day out as well so it was overall just uncomfortable. There were a set of stairs called the, Totestiege, the death stairs. They were called that because the weakest of the prisoners were forced to carry blocks of rock, up to 50 kg, up these stairs. They walked so close together that if one fell over due to exhaustion it would create a domino effect and take out those behind them as well. It's just an awful thing to think about.

That evening there are some mountain biking qualification races going on just beside our campus here so I went to check it out for a bit! It was amazing how fast some of those guys fly down the tracks. After that they were playing a snowboarding video so I went to watch that! It was so awesome, it showed the evolution of snowboarding to date and followed a group of pro snowboarders exploring the Alaskan mountains. It just gave me an itch to go snowboarding again!!

Anywho, that's my update for now! I hope the weather gets better at home soon for you guys! Take Care :o)

Half way done plus a trip to Vienna!

Once again it's been way too long since I've updated my blog. There is always something going on here to keep be completly busy and away from my blog. Two weeks ago we had a day trip out to Hallstadt. It's this tiny little town on a lake just and hour away from here and it was so beautiful. It's claim to fame is that it's one of the oldest towns in Austria. It was a great day, we stopped into a church that had a room filled with bones and skulls. Kinda creepy I must say, but it was interesting. We walked around town for a bit and looked in some of the shops and ended the day with a ferry ride around the lake! It was so beautiful. Just at the end of the ferry ride this wall of rain came through the valley. It was amazing, the day went from clear and sunny to a wall of rain and cloud coming our way. We ducked into a small cafe for some pastries adn by the time we got out the sun was back out! It was a great trip though, I'm glad I got to see it.

This past weekend marks the middle of Bible School for me and we had a travel weekend. I and 4 other girls decided to go to Vienna! It was a blast, aside from the minor train problems (a 4 hour train ride turned into a 7 hour train/bus ride) everything else went smoothly! We found our hostel no prob, and the U-Bahn was really easy to figure out. We went out on Friday night to the main shopping strip by Stephansplatz. There were tons of people out and enjoying the beautiful evening. We found nice little Italian restaurant and grabbed some Pizza and topped it off with a few ice creams afterwards! Saterday we spent the morning visiting the main sites. The Hofburg palace was huge, we didn't go inside though. Just outside it though there was a beautiful rose garden with rows of rose bushes of every colour imaginable. So naturally I took a ton of pictures because I love taking pictures of flowers! We had a nice little picnic in the park as well which was great, I loved watching all the tourists pass by. We saw the Parliment building, Stephansdom (a cathedral) and more importantly we found an H&M!! Our afternoon was filled with shopping, shopping and shopping! After all that shopping we treated ourselves t osome Applestrudels! It was delicious. Also while we were down near Stephansplatz we saw some guys breakdancing! It's the same guys that Laura talked about in her blog if you'd seen it already. They were amazing to watch.. I got some good pics! That evening we found an english theater and went to see Spiderman 3! It's been so long since I've been to the theater so I was pretty excited to see it. I haven't seen Spiderman 2 but I still thought it was pretty good. On Sunday we checked out the Schönnbrunn Palace and spent most of the day there. It was also quite huge with an awesome garden! It was sooo hot out, it was really quite nice. I hear that it wasn't the greatest weather in Winnipeg for a long weekend which is too bad. It was definately nice to get away from school for a few days but I'm glad to be back. This weekend we're heading to Mathhausen, it's a concentration camp in Austria not too far away from here. So I'm interested in seeing how that will go. Time is flying by here, I can't believe we're in our 5th week already.

Anyways, I hope that everyone is doing well and healthy back home!! Pics are coming soon, for some reason it won't allow me to download pics from this computer. Soon I promise!! Take Care :o)

Taurenhof.. Loving The Fresh Mountain Air!

So, here I am.. It's been a good 2 weeks since I've written anything on here and a lot has happened. Laura and I spent some time in Hagedorn with our family friend Heike Pothast. We were just happy to stay in one place for a few days and relax. We did get a bit of relaxing but the week flew by at Heike's. We went to a bigger town, Paderborn, to go shopping with our cousin Klara. It was nice to visit with her again! We made Heike tacos one night, and they definately did not taste like the ones we make at home but it still was pretty tasty! Heike teaches yoga so Laura and I joined in on her class. It was really interesting, since I've never done yoga before and it was all in german. I enjoyed it though! We also joined in on Heike's drumming class, which was awesome.. it sounded amazing! On our last day with Heike she took us out for a canoe ride down the Lippe.. a little river near by her place. Laura and I were in a canoe and Heike and her friend Herald were in the other. Much to our surprise there were little rapids on this river and Laura had to steer us straight through them. It was pretty fun, we got a good pic of us in action! From th ride home. Heike's car broke down 3 times, once on the autobahn (Laura was driving it at 160 km/h) and we were able to get help right away because hte autobahn is a priority for them. Then again 20 minutes later the gas pedal was stuck down, we had to wait over an hour this time. So Heike went to a near by house and called to order a pizza. So there we were on the side of the highway eating pizza in Heike's car waiting for the repair guy ! The guy came and fixed the pedal but a short 20 minutes later the fuse broke ae Lippe it was a bit of an adventure to get home though. What should've been a 45 minute drive turned into a 5 hour towgain. So we finally got towed back to Heike's by her friend who came to pick us up. Phew, just a bit of an adventure for us. After Heike's Laura and I set out for Schladming and Part II of our Europe trip where we go our seperate ways. We spent a day together here in Schladming, Austria and checked the town out and where the school was that I was going to be attending for the next 2 months. I was glad that Laura could come out here with me and we could hang out a bit more before I start school. I'm a week into the course now and let me tell you things are different here. From a flexible, do whatever we want whenever attitude to having structure and lectures in a new environment was wierd. There are 72 students here and a lot of them are from Canada! There is actually a few people from winnipeg and 3 people from Winkler ! Fellow Mennonites .. yay! I am learning a lot about the Bible and even more about myself out here. This will be a great experience, as difficult as it feels sometimes, and I'm trying to take advantage of every minute of it. Our campus is right on the side of the moutains here so I can look out of my bedroom window and see the moutain side right there. It's truley beautiful here, I've been out hiking a lot and the views are amazing. There's a river that runs right through town and as I was walking along it one day I saw a bunch of brand new baby ducklings!! They were so cute! Anyways, I just thought I should update my blog since it's been so long..

We went on a 5 hour hike today! It was amazing and worth every step. We climbed up to a little lake and the path followed along this awesome waterfall! It was so beautiful.. I really love it here in the mountains! :o)

I hope that everyone is well at home! Take Care :o)

Berlin, my Favorite City !

Berlin was awesome. I think it's one of my favorites of the cities that we've seen so far. Our hostel was just on the edge of the citz in the Grunewald. It was cool because here we are in a huge city and our hostel was in the middle of a big park. We took a free tour through Berlin our first day. The guides work for tips and the guide we had definately earned hers. She was energectic, funny, and fit hundreds of years of history into an understandable summary. Wer saw most of the main sties in Berlin on this 4 hour walking tour. First we saw the Brandendurg Gate, it was built as a tribute to peace in the 18th century. It was the site of many military parades, demonstrations, and it was the backdrop for the famous pictures of when the Berlin wall game down. Next we saw the Reichstag which had an interesting role in history. Today the Reichstag is the home of the governing party but in 1933 it was mysteriously burned down after which Adolf Hitler declasred a state of emergency and seized power. We walked through a gorgeous park called the Tiergarten (Animal Park) which was used as the Royal Hunting grounds for the Prussian monarchs. After that we saw a holocasut memorial that was built in the city. It was very simple yet very effective in conveying some of the feelings and experiences of the people sent to concentration camps. The memorial took up about a block and from the side it appears to be a bunch of blocks lined up in rows all at the same height. When you walk through it the ground level starts to change and you become lost among these huge pillars, I almost lost Laura in it. Our tour guide mentioned that it's the feelings of getting lost, being separted from the people you're with and being alone that perhaps allow people to reflect on what the holocaust must have been like. Our guide took us to a spot which is apparently not advertised in most tourist books. It was the location of a Nazi bunker in which Adolf Hitler had killed himself in. There was nothing there to state what used to be there because they don't want people to memorialize it and it turn to a place hwere people would bring flowers to and such. The entire bunker was destroyed as part of de-nazifacation after the ar. Next we walked through the square in front of the university where the Nazi's burned books that sent a 'wrong' message or were written by people of Jewish decent. We also stopped in front of a huge building designed and built by the Nazi's. It was truley huge, the door to get in was much taller than your standard door entrances and the door handle was up to my neck. Our guide said that Nazi architecture was designed to be big, intrusive, and meant to make people feel small when they walked up to it. What was interesting about the building was that on one side wall was a long mural of the 'perfect' socialist society. Happy people working tough labour jobs together, business people and labourers shaking hands, etc. Just adjeacent to the mural was a picture of the people in the front row of a demonstration in protest of that type of society who were shot in the back, the reality. I thought it was an interesting display. Just past this building was a piece of the Berlin wall, I'm not sure what I was expecting exactly but it was nothing special, but the story behind it makes it interesting. When the wall was torn down they left a brick outline in the road so people know where exactly it used to be. At the end of the tour our guide told us the story of how the wall had come down. A long story short, from what I understand, there was a misunderstanding between some important people and it was announced on Live TV that travel restictions would be lifted between east & west Berlin, effective immediately. Our guide went on to tell us the 3 day party that followed the announcement and the destruction of the wall. Wow, I can't imagine what it would've been like to live through an experience like that. Berlin seems to have come a long way since then, there's been a lot of rebuilding going on. But there are plenty of reminders throughout the city of it's past, such as the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gedachtniskirche (Memorial Church). It was built in the late 1800's and was significantly damaged during the war. It still stands in downtown Berlin as it was when it was bombed. I these things so interesting, coming from a city like winnipeg that doesn't have such an ancient history. Our second day we went to a suberb of Berlin, Potsdam and visited the Palaces there. We took a tour through the New Palace where Fredrick the Great lived in 1763. One room that made this palace unique is the Grotto Salon! It was really cool and had sea creatures designed into the flooring and seashells decorated on the walls. We stopped at a German Film History museum that Laura wanted to check out, wanted through the parks a bit more and head back to Berlin. Our third day there we went to see the main attraction at the Berlin zoo, Knut ! He's a baby polar bear that we lined up for 45 minutes to see. He was so cute. We also saw a new born deer there as well, the mom was still licking him clean and he was trying to take it's first steps. After a few hours at the zoo we went to the German History museum. It was really interesting but 3 hours of stnading and reading boards was tiring. They had so much information there. Lauar and I decided to stay an extra day in Berlin.. there's just so much to do and 2 days just wasn't enough. Next we venture out to see our family friend Heike Pottast in a tiny little town of Hagedorn !

Cloudy in Poland

From Prague we moved on to Cracow, Poland. we arrived just around dinner time and the Easter Markets were still going strong. So Laura and I went over to check things out. Most of what they were selling were the same as in Prague but some of the food they were making wsa a bit different. Laura and I stopped at this stand that was cooking up some great pork and veggie dishes, it tasted amazing! After a long day on the train it really hit the spot. There was also a stand cooking up waffles so of course we couldn't resist that one either! The weather wasn't the greatestwhile we were there but Luara and I still managed to get out and explore the town a bit. Cracow, along with many other towns we've visited, had a castle that we went to see. In the middle of the castles courtyard there was this huge cathedral that was amazing! We went inside to take a peek and it being Easter monday, there was a service going on. It was all in Polish but it was nice to get some Church time in. What was really great was the men's choir that was singing from the balcony at the back. It sounded so great in that church. For the rest of the day we wandered town a bit more and found a bagel shop, which are few and far between here in Europe. So we stopped in there for lunch! Cracow has a Jewish quarter called, Kazimerz. When WWII broke out there were some 70,000 Jews living in that area. They were eventually all sent over to concentration camps, most likely to Auschwitz that was only an hour and a half bus ride away. Our second day in Cracow we went out to see Auschwitz. The cloudy, rainy weather almost felt appropriate for our visit there. What I hadn't realized is that there are actually 2 camps in that area, Auschwitz I was the first one. It was originally built for Polish prisoners of war but as the war progressed it expanded and used to house the Jews, gypsies, and others that were sent to concentration camps. Auschwitz I is where we found the famous sign that reads, 'Arbeit Macht Frei'. The second camp that is only 3 km away is called Birkenau, Auschwitz II. It was several times larger than the first one and the conditions at this camp were much worse. At the first camp the barrocks were made of brick and were somewhat insulated, at Birkenau the people slept in wooden barrocks that were originally used to keep horses in. The tour we took through this was really interesting and I had learned a lot about WWII and Auschwitz that I had no idea about before. One thing that really stuck out for me was that the Nazi's had kept and re-used everything that they acuired from the people who arrived at the camp. Most of the Jews that arrived at the camp were under the impression that they were just being relocated so they had packed all of their most valuable possessions, unfortunately when they arrived at the camp their luggage was confiscated from them. There were warehouses on the camp site where prisoners were put to work and sort through all of the luggage. Valuable things like jewlerey were sent back to Germany and other items such as shoes, brushes, glasses, pot&pans, everything else was store in the warehouse. The museum we visited had rooms full of this things that were kept. What hit me the most was that the Nazi's had kept the hair they had cut from the people who were gassed in the gas chambers. Apparently it was quicker and easier for them to cut the hair off the people after they had been killed. A portion of the warehouse was full of sacks filled with human hair to be sent to textile companies to make cloth from. In the museum there was a display of such fabric that was made from the hair sent from the camp. On our tour we also saw what was left of the main gas chambers and crematoriums as most of it was destroyed by the Nazi's at the end of the war in an attempt to cover up what they were doing there. This picture on the right is of the train tracks where people were first off loaded and where 'selection' took place. That's where the decision was made weather a person was fit enough to stay and work in the camp. Most elderly, pregnant women and children were sent directly to the gas chambers that were located at the end of these tracks. It was definately an educational experience to say the least. That evening Laura and I just spent some time on the net and relaxing. We head back to Germany, next stop... Berlin!