Slovakia Mission Trip - Part One

The Slovakia mission trip was "born" out of the Romania mission trip, something the University puts together every semester. I signed up for the Romania trip because a) I wanted to do something worthwhile during my ten day, b) it was cheaper and, c) I liked the air of mystery it had about it.

However, a lot more people than usual signed up to do it this year, so the director, Dr. Healy, found some more places in Romania to send people, and then also two places in Slovakia.

The entire process, Dr. Healy kept asking people for their preferences (though no guarantees) and I kept telling her "I don't care where you put me."
Honestly, I was worried that if I tried going to a particular place or go with a particular group, I would have expectations and if those were frustrated, I would spend my mission trip being a big ol' baby.

God really worked things out well though - I was in one of the two groups that went to Slovakia, and I was not in the group that got sent to the parish that was apparently veryyyyy charismatic, while we had a small, quiet Byzantine Mass on Sunday in Kosice.
In the most reverent way possible, God really is swell.

Anywho, most people left to begin travelling on Thursday, right after classes, but the Slovakian teams didn't leave till early Saturday morning. Basically, that gave me a lot of time to 'kill' and honestly, I don't remember how I wasted it, except that I am now seriously regretting that I didn't get more work done on my philosophy paper that is due THIS THURSDAY. (I'm not panicking - do you see me panicking?! Nope, NOT panicking.
At.
ALL.)

I hardly got any sleep the night/morning before we left, because of talking with Sister Maria, but I was able to get a lot of sleep on the trains.

It was kind of funny, because I woke up in a bit of a daze, and was basically following the other group around the Kartuase and then the train station, and at one point, one of the girls in my group started asking people if they had their passports. I was sitting on the bus bench and was so out of it, and when she asked me, I just smiled, shrugged and said "I think I have it, but I'm not sure." Then the girl, Allison, and a couple other girls freaked out a bit on me, telling me I should check, and since I was too tired to argue, I checked, and sure enough, I had it.

Basically, that describes how I've traveled in Europe - followed other people around and been a little too unstressed about those little things like passports.

The next situation that describes how I interacted with my team most of the week: we were waiting at the bus stop, and after sitting there for a while, I spoke up and said that I was pretty sure we needed to be down at the further bus stop. Allison, in a not unkindly manner, replied rather assertively that we were supposed to be at the one we were waiting at. I didn't argue, because I knew it would be pointless (plus I was too tired), and hey, if we were at the wrong stop, then at least we'd be missing something together!

Fortunately, Dr. Newton was on an early morning jog, saw us waiting, and told us we needed to be at the stop further down.

However, for the rest of the travel, I remained pretty clueless and just followed everyone around and smiled at everyone freaking out about making it on time (we did perfectly fine). It didn't take very long for some of the team to realize this and stop asking me questions about where we were, because my answers were always the same - "Hmmm....I don't know..."
I hope I was at least useful in being stress-relief in the very fact I was so unconcerned about everything, because otherwise, I was very useless and slept most of the time.

When we finally got to Kosice, my half of the group (Allison, Savannah, and Morgan) went with a Byzantine deacon, Father Lukas, to a place called the Dorka.

The Dorka is kind of like an orphanage, but not really. The way I view it is a place for people who are struggling to get back on their feet to get some help. Most of the people have self-inflicted problems and are still working on getting their act back together, but there were some people that were there because of others. One of the residents, an older lady they call Babka, was taking care of her granddaughters - Gabbitka and Nikolka, born of two different fathers.

Anyways, when we got to the Dorka, it was night, so one of the social workers, Barbara (pronounced bar-BORE-a) showed us our rooms and gave us our schedules.
Morgan slept with the two other Byzantine seminarians in the basement, next to the kitchen. We girls were given two separate rooms, right next to each other, but we decided to all sleep in the same room because it was large enough, plus, the other room was usually used for physiologists, so we just felt more comfortable in the second room.

Our schedule consisted of a work "activity" that began at 8:45 and went until noon, then a two hour lunch break, followed by random activities with the kids until 6, then a one hour supper break, a skit and "Rosary" with the kids, then free time.

Our work activities varied from day to day.

The first day, we cleaned out a pretty messy garden room, but with five people working on it, finished with an hour to spare.
The second day, they needed one person to help them with the kids in the morning, so Savannah did that while Morgan, Allison and I cleaned out a really grody cleaning supply closet. We spent most of the time bagging detergent, which was a rather nice, mindless task. I can't give a good estimate of how much we bagged, but the fact that it took us two and a half hours should give you an idea.

The tons of bags of detergent were mostly donations from store owners, given because the bags were unsaleable because gypsies had slashed holes in them, taken some detergent, and left the rest.

So Europe has this thing with gypsies - Romanian "tribal" people that basically won't settle down and get jobs, have bunches of children to collect welfare, and steal a lot of things and basically act as a pain in the arse for most Europeans.

We had to bag all the detergent because the Dorka, instead of giving out the detergent free, sold the detergent to its "clients"(residents) in smaller bags for a minuscule fee.

The third day was my least favorite activity - they gave us two dark and musty closets to clean and organize. The first one wasn't too bad - Allison and Morgan took care of that one, which left Savannah and I to the second, larger, darker, most grody closet.
Yum.
The closet was packed full of boxes and bags stuffed with children's clothing, and it was our task to go through the clothing, toss out the really nasty articles, then fold and organize the rest. This clothing would later be distributed to the clients as necessary.
Anyways, this job took us the longest because there were so. many. boxes. And man, some of those boxes were NASTY. We ended up tossing two large bags of clothing.

We only finished this job on time because Allison and Morgan finished their closet an hour early and came over to help us.

We didn't have an activity for Thursday - we actually spent the entire day in the kitchen, making a Thanksgiving dinner for the kids.

On Friday, I awoke and discovered - you guessed it! - that I was sick! Again! Yay!
Our task that morning was to paint the walls of one of the apartments with this super thin paint that dried within minutes. Savannah got really excited at first, because she had been talking the entire week before about how she spent the summer on paint crew for Franciscan (i.e., painted a lot of the dorms, Heights, etc) and knew everything there was to know about painting.

No one liked that job (except for me, but I ended up leaving after an hour because I was feverish and so tired), but Savannah REALLY hated it. She was so flustered, because what Barbara wanted us to do basically went against everything Savannah knew to be right as a painted.

For one, the paint was incredibly thin. Second, we only painted two of the walls in one of the rooms, which freaked her out because normally, even when you're painting with the same white paint, the shades will be different between the newly painted walls and the old walls. Thirdly, we didn't "cut" the room, where you use a small paintbrush to basically outline the walls, so that you don't have to worry about getting paint where it's not supposed to be when you use the roller. Fourth, paint was kind of getting everywhere, but she didn't realize that it could be rather easily cleaned off if not let to dry for more than an hour or so.

Anyways, I could understand Savannah's frustrations, but Barbara kept reassuring us and telling us this was the way Slovakian's painted, and Savannah would keep talking about wrong everything was when Barbara left. For me, if the Slovakian's wanted it painted a certain way that I was unaccustomed to, I would tell them my worries, and if they reassured me that this was the way they always did it, I would just complete the task and then leave them to the product they desired, whether it fit my expectations or not.

But like I said, I was sick and I didn't have enough energy or patience to try to calm Savannah down, so I just worked silently until I got so tired and achey that I left.

I'm still a little sick today, and this post is already ridiculously long (what else could you expect after a ten day hiatus?), so I will continue it later with more details on the kids, Lukas and the staff, Igor the pathological liar, Thanksgiving dinner, and my team. 

PSA

I'm gonna be in Kosice, Slovakia on a mission trip from tomorrow morning to next Saturday night.
I'm worried about having enough to do there (this was rather a last minute mission trip set up by Dr. Healy since so many people wanted to do the Romania mission trip) and honestly, I'm also worried about my "team".

It's only three other people, but we all had dinner together this evening, along with the other Slovakia team and Romania teams, and man oh man, I don't know if it's just a mood or what, but I just got really tired of everyone really fast.

Maybe it's because I literally am so tired.

Anyways, you say prayers for me, I say prayers for you! It's a win-win situation! (though I'll probably get more win out it...)

Where I go a little cray-cray with the Rosary

I mentioned awhile back about how I was praying the Rosary on weekdays with a couple girls I met. Well, a couple weeks back, I saw a bunch of posters pinned up around campus about Rosary at 5:30 in the Kartuase church, with the intention of praying for the persecuted Christians in Syria - an issue that lies a little closer to home here than it does in America. The girls and I decided to just go to the 5:30 Rosary instead, since it was more "official" or whatever, and there would be more people. 

Different people lead the Rosary every day, starting the beginning prayers, leading the first decade, and then finishing up. Once they finish the first decade, there is a pause for someone else in the church to pick up the next decade. 

It's kinda funny, because sometimes there is a long pause before someone will just give in to the "peer pressure" and just lead the next decade. Of course, given the opportunity to be distracted by something, I run with it and have had fun chuckling to myself over who will give in first. I myself have never led a decade because...I dunno, "public speaking" or whatever just makes me really nervous, and that church is VERY echoey. 

Anyhow, the point is that I enjoy other people being nervous when they feel "pressured" to lead, though I didn't dare do it myself.

So last night, I got in a couple minutes early (*polishes halo*) and was kneeling in a pew, when suddenly I felt someone leaning in to my pew to tell me something. I turn, and my philosophy teacher asks me if I'll lead the Rosary. 

To him: "Um, sure."

To myself: "AGGHHHHHH!!! PUBLIC SPEAKING!!!!! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

Then he told me to wait a couple minutes to give people a chance to trickle in. 

Of course more people came that evening that any other previous evening.

Go figure.

Anyways, I could've used that time to calm down and give myself a pep talk ("C'mon Clare, you can do this! Your entire life has been preparing you for this moment! Just think of all those decades you've led at random churches and at home! You were BORN for this!") but mostly I just freaked out. 

Like, how was I supposed to word the intention at the beginning? Most people said something along the lines of "We offer this Rosary up for the persecuted Christians in Syria", but what if they had changed the intention on me? What if we were now praying for seminarians, or persecuted Oliphants in Kalamazoo?! 

What if I said it too fast (I talk extra fast when I'm panicked)?!

WHAT IF THE WHOLE WORLD CAME CRASHING DOWN BECAUSE I DIDN'T GET THE WORDING EXACTLY. RIGHT.

So those few minutes went really fast in my panic, but also really slowly, because I was unsure about how many minutes I was supposed to wait. 

A "few" minutes?! 

How much is a FEW minutes?! 

1? 

2?! 

3 minutes and 24 seconds?! 

AGHHHHHH.

When I decided that if I waited any longer, my teacher and everyone else would start throwing tomatoes at me, I just skipped the prayer intention all together and dove right into the Creed. 

Aside from the panic about the prayer intention, things actually went pretty well - I managed to lead slowly, but not too slowly, and distinctly, but not too distinctly - it was juuuuuusstttt right. 

Most people who lead end with the Hail Holy Queen, the "Let us pray: O God, whose..." and then invoke a couple saints. I, however, decided to get a little cray-cray and "added" the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be for the pope at the end (to gain the indulgences)

As I was doing so, I was laughing rather maniacally to myself, thinking 'Professor MacNamara is probably thinking "Oh no, this one's gone haywire - she's adding extra prayers!! TAKE HER DOWN! GO GO GO!"' and then he and a bunch of other secret prayer agents that popped out of nowhere would jump over the pew and take me down while everyone else in the church panicked at my adding the extra prayers. 

That didn't happen, fortunately, but anyways, I felt like a blog post was due and this is one of the more "significant"  (i.e. something that I can add extra embellishment to to make more interesting) events that have occurred recently, so, there you are! 

The Moment You've All Been Waiting For

...just another blog post! I like to keep everyone on their toes about when I'll post. ;)

The morning got off to a nice start with 7:30 Mass by the bishops. A lot of bishops and priests came in a couple weeks back for a short LCI program to help them learn better English, and they've been offering Mass at 7:30 consistently, which has been AWESOME. However, now they're all going back to their parishes, which makes this morning probably the last Mass of theirs I'll have attended.
Major bummer.
After Mass, I talked with Mrs. Newton, because I was scheduled to do Ministry to Mom's today, but I was (still am) getting over the sore throat thing and didn't want to infect the girls. Mrs. Newton was really funny, and told me I was still quite welcome to come (she seemed especially eager), because the girls being around sick people "toughens them up".

We had our Medieval History small group discussion session today, which was interesting enough. I wrote a letter to Polly Wolly the first half of it, and asked lots and lots of super intelligent questions during the second half!

Then we had Christian Marriage, and John, I didn't play any games on the computer! Instead, when I got bored because someone got Cassidy off topic, I tried drawing him. Because he wouldn't stay still, I drew my reflection from the laptop screen, which sounds rather egotistical, but it was actually kinda interesting - I've never tried drawing my most loverly face before.

I regret to inform you that despite my great drawing skills, I was not able to catch all the refined and elegant features my face possesses.

Once class was over, I piddled around till the Mensa opened (half hour later), ate lunch, then went back to the room and, you guessed it, NAPPED!

After my short but lovely nap, I walked over to the Newton's. Mrs. Newton was pretty much running out the door when I arrived, and managed to give me some rushed instructions on what to do with Allie (the youngest), as all the other girls were gone and she had somewhere to go.

I spent the next hour and a half reading to Allie - I'm really surprised I didn't lose my voice.
Some of those stories we read were kinda strange - one was about a soldier cuts off the head of an apparently harmless old witch so he can get her tinder box, and eventually uses this tinderbox to buy himself a lot of stuff, fake friends and eventually the prettiest princess ever. And apparently that's totally fine in this magical world.

Anyways, after dragging Allie off the couch to play outside with the next girl who came in for MM's, I sent some letters, and began working on my philosophy paper.

Ugh.

Writing papers is agony enough as it's torture having to organize my jumbled thoughts and put them on paper. But writing about philosophy? Way worse. My thoughts are ten times more jumbled when it comes to philosophy, so we'll see how this comes along.
I have so many papers to write this semester. It's so sad. I miss my Comm. classes where I just made stuff.

Then I had a dinner by myself, because Krista didn't need supper, and I'm sick and don't feel very peopley.

When I finished eating, I started having a mini panic attack about my first midterm, choosing my history paper topics, and my philosophy paper, so I stopped in at the church to calm down.

I don't know if this is a regular thing they do (if it is, I wish I had learned about it earlier!), but the bishops and priests were having Rosary and then Benediction. I only got in for the tail end of it, but it was really nice.

After that, I decided to begin the inevitable, and study for my history midterm. I went to this spot (I'll add a picture later) near the Bibliotek.
It's my favorite studying spot so far because it's not too far away from the room so that it takes too long to get to, but it's also not too close to people. As Goldilocks would say, "it's jussstttt right!"

After that nice study session, I went to the laundry room to put my clothes in the dryer.
At first, I was the only person in there, but by the time I had pulled out a shirt, smelled it, and remarked "ew, this does NOT smell good", another person had entered and started their laundry. I look over, and there was my philosophy teacher, smiling;
"Hi Clare."
I just have impeccable timing.

Anyways, I asked him what he was doing in the dorm laundry room, to which he responded he doesn't have a maid to do his laundry, so I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume he doesn't have a washing machine in his apartment or wherever he lives. That seems kinda weird since he's a professor, but still, it was funny seeing him NOT in a suit.
His version of dressing comfortable was a nice t-shirt, nice pants and nice shoes.
Sheesh, Europeans - they can't even relax without being fashionable.

I put the clothes through another cycle with lots of nice smelling stuff and when I checked on the load fifteen minutes ago, it smelled deeeeelightful!
Tomorrow, assuming I'm not sick, I go on the Mariazell hike. It's about seven hours of hiking, all which I will walk in flip flops because, yep, I forgot sneakers.

It's either going to be a really painful day or a really fun day.

Relaxing Weekend

Krista has been getting on my case for not writing a blog post in a while, so here I am!
I can't really remember a lot of the little things that have happened recently, and I definitely can't recall (or recollect them...) in a cohesive manner, so I won't try.

Yesterday Krista and I spent almost two hours in the Bibliotek with the swanky grand piano. Rosie, you would LOVE this piano. It was so relaxing to listen to that beautiful instrument played by a beautiful person. ;)

Friday and Saturday this week have been very nice, despite not going "anywhere"- most of the students are gone, so the few students that are here are more relaxed and open to having small chats.

Today was an eventfulish day.

The Gaming campus hosted a symposium today, so in the morning, I watched the three youngest Newtons so that Mrs. Newton could attend one of talks.
It was super fun - Allie (the youngest) has the most adorable stammer, but man, she can get addicted to messing with my phone fast! All of the girls particularly love the videos with Pip and Bro in them, but Allie really gets into it, so I probably won't bring my phone over anymore.
I'll detail the Newton's later, but for this post's purpose, I spent about three hours playing with them, and then we went to the noon Byzantine Mass.

That was quite interesting - I liked it, but I like "my" Latin Mass better. ;)

Afterwards, I walked/talked/ate with Kristin, who had come over with some other ITI students for the symposium. It was SO nice to see her - it was actually only the third time we've met up ever (and that includes the thirty second subway meeting), but it was so natural to just pick up where we had left off. We've made some sketchy plans for meeting up in the future, but it's definitely happening.

After lunch at the Keller (the restaurant that's part of the Kartuase), we went to another of the symposium talks, given by Dr. Newton. I really like Dr. Newton, but I didn't know much of the context of what he was talking about, plus I missed half the talk, but everyone else thought it was quite an inspiring talk.

After that, they had a small coffee break, and when it was time for the last talk, I left to go study while Kristin stayed for the talk.

I ended up sleeping.

Once the last talk finished, most of the attendees went over to the Kartuase church for Vespers, which was nice.

I took Kristin to the upstairs chapel (I'll have to detail that later to) when we finished , and we sung rounds and church songs until Kristin had to leave. The acoustics made everything sound so dang nice, and Kristin can harmonize really well.

I walked down to a little pizza/kebap restaurant afterwards, and ate a yummy kebap (I'll detail this as well in a food post) with Christine, Jessica and another girl I just met there.

The symposium was also hosting a concert after the talks/dinner (for the fancy people), so we walked to the Bibliotek (where it was being held) and apparently we got the schedule wrong, because the musicians didn't start officially playing until an hour after we arrived. We had to receptionize until they started (I made up the word; the students that arrived early were sitting in the chairs listening to the musicians practice, when some fancy people came in and the lady in charge said "The reception is first!" - I don't know why they had it before the music, but whatever)

But play those musicians did!
There was a pianist and a violinist, and they were SO GOOD.

The pianist was a smaller, quieter man that didn't know much English, but he was super sweet and nice when I asked him about one of the pieces (he didn't quite understand and gave me the wrong piece, but THIS was the first piece)
The violinist was a younger man, and very dramatic with the violin so that it was almost funny (okay, it WAS funny) but in a good way, because he was so good.

When the concert finished, Christine, Jessica, Jenny, Iryna and I went to the chapel and prayed the Rosary. Iryna doesn't know the Our Father in English, so she said her decade in her language (Bosnian/Russian) while we replied in English. It was really pretty.

After that, I eventually bumbled my way back to the room - Ethel and Myrtle are SUPER tired tonight, so with that, adieu! 

Vienna

Early Friday morning, we left for the university sponsored excursion to Vienna, and a lot of interesting things happened that would take FOREVER to write about, so I will refer you to Krista's blog for most of the first day.

After morning Mass, we were led on a tour - I won't be able to tell you very many interesting facts about Vienna though, since I couldn't hear most of what was being said. 

This was the big difference between Vienna and Salzburg for me - Salzburg is, in a way, more interesting for me since I know "a lot" about it, but Vienna was more...immersion (I guess you could call it)

Anyways, for the first bunch of pictures, refer to Krista's blog if you want to know the general overview.

Veronica and Monika

Taking a picture of someone taking a picture of someone taking a picture of someone taking a picture. There were lots of these. 

St. Stephan's!

It has a cool tiled roof.

The other tower - basically the builders got bored and tired of Gothic architecture by the time they came around to finishing this tower, so they just stuck a dome on top and called it a day. 

The Most Expensive Street in Vienna...I think.

We gave up trying to figure out what the tour guide was saying, and instead took some more statue selfies! 

I took this picture for the guys ;)

First part of lunch - a super yummy soup that we also had in Salzburg. Someone told me the name, but I forget, and I still don't know what those noodles were made out of! 

We were walking through a random private apartment thing when we saw this.

Now on to the palace grounds...

The palace gardens!

I told her to make an interesting pose.

Cool gardens I wanted to explore

Creeping on a random citizen

Creeping on the group

Ooolala! Even Google+ noticed and decided to automatically edit it as such

D'awwwww, young love!

Upper thingy in the gardens - I was the only one who walked up all the way

Vienna! The palace looks "small" from here, but it has around 3300 rooms!!

Krista saw her doppelganger at the palace!

Some weird street food composed of spicy-ish chicken stuff, rice, onions, tomatoes and chopped up lettuce.

So, the funny story behind my supper Friday night; the whole group was really hungry after walking around the palace grounds and so we walked to a street with a lot of food places, but no one could agree on where to eat. We eventually decided that each person should just go where they wanted, and then meet back at the designated area.
A couple people got some Chinese food, some had a sandwich already packed, and some went to the Spar. I got some chocolate milk at the Spar, but for my supper, I wanted to get "authentic" Viennese food, so of course, I went over to one of the street vendors and ordered some food. I don't remember what it was called (Humerbox or something) but it was interesting.

Anyways, after I paid for the Humerbox thing on one side, the guy told me to go to the other side for the food. I walked over to the other side and watched another, younger Turkish looking dude prepare the meal, and I ended up talking a bit with him.
Because it would be difficult to communicate all the little expressions and misunderstandings very well, I won't even try, and I'll just give you the story in short; he asked me my name, told me his, then asked me where I was from, then asked me if I had a boyfriend (when I told him "no", he gave me a big smile and two thumbs up), then asked me for my number (I don't know what the number of my temporary phone is yet, so I told him no, to which he frowned), then asked me something else which I couldn't understand, and by that time, he had already handed me my box, so I told him I had to go back to my friends and I split.
It was quite an interesting conversation - so basically the first person to ask me out on a date wasn't American and spoke hardly any English at all.
On another semi-related note, when the FUS crowd was taking the subway to the hostel Friday afternoon, I ended up briefly talking with an older man on the subway. Everyone was super crammed in the sub, and a minute or two before we got off, the man standing next to me made a comment to me.
I didn't understand it, so I just smiled, but then he said something in the form of a question. I looked at him confused, and then he repeated himself, and upon more confused looks, said a couple other things to explain the question.
I still didn't understand him, and by that time, he was getting really confused with my confusion, so I finally just said "American", to which he laughed a little and nodded. He said his English wasn't very good, and he said something else that I couldn't understand, because it was loud in the subway car, and, as he said, his English wasn't very good.
Right before our stop, he asked me nicely what my name was, so I told him, than asked for his name (Rami), then we all flooded out of the car and that was that.
Sorta.
I was laughing about it and telling Krista about it as we were coming up the escalator to the exit, when out of nowhere, I hear someone say "CLARE PREZZIA!!" and rush at me!
It was super surprising but SUPER funny - Kristin and I were in the middle of a big rush of people heading to the exit, just hugging each other. I'm still really confused at what happened since it happened so fast, but Kristin told me to get back with my group and ran off - I didn't see her in Vienna after that, but it was still hilarious. Apparently a lot of the FUS students walking by were really confused/amused - Krista overheard one guy saying "Are they playing or are they for real?!" (I don't really know what that means either)
So basically the first day was quite eventful.

Louise!

Now for the second day.
We went to Mass at a nice Gothic church - I like Gothic okay, but I mostly just like churches with really pretty windows (which this church didn't have).

Afterwards, I walked to St. Stephan's with Krista, David, Kakha, and Maria. We ran into one of the RD's, Scott, on the way, and he took us into a nice adoration chapel in St. Stephan's. I ended up asking him if I could tag along with him for the day, because David runs his "tours" at a super fast pace, which I wasn't up for. Also, the other LCI girls weren't with the group (they were meeting up with Iryna's cousin); Kakha doesn't know much English, Krista would end up talking to David most of the time, and Maria is super nice, but very chattery and I was too tired from the night before.

So Scott and I did a holy hour, then I wandered around the church for a little bit while he went to confession. When he finished, we walked to a little cafe next to a church he really liked, and had some streduel. He got apple strudel - I know no apple strudel can beat Grandma Prezzia's, so I got "curd" strudel (tastes like cream cheese) and it was pretty tasty. Scott was really nice and paid for us both.

After we finished eating, we went to the church - I don't have the little card that I picked up from it, so I don't actually know what church is was. It was really pretty though, and there is a Servant of God resting there. I don't remember his name either, but when the Soviets were occupying Vienna, he went on the Marizell pilgrimage (more on that next week) and apparently had a vision. Mary told him to pray the Rosary a lot, and so he got the Rosary Crusade started. Some time (and TONS of Rosaries prayed) later, the Soviets left Vienna, and this is attributed to the Rosary Crusade he started.

Anyways, after that, Scott told me that he was meeting up with the other RD, Sarah, and Professor McNamara, to go to some Viennese food/flea market thing. 

Vienna is apparently some big shopping place for neighboring countries, and has a TON of stores, so the faculty peeps decided  to meet at some store called McNeals. 

And there, I spent a good hour and a half of my time in Vienna.

It was a blast.

I mean, honestly, one of my favorite things in the world is watching 30-something-year-olds try on really nice clothes. I just love it.

But for reals, aside from being very boring, it wasn't too bad - I just pulled out my homework once I realized that Scott and Professor McNamara were going to be shopping for a while. 

Finally, we left, and strolled leisurely along one of Vienna's "most expensive" streets, till we got to the market. 

The market was actually pretty interesting - I would have liked to pick up some of the cool spice/wine things for Mom and Dad, except I didn't know what most of the things were, plus I only had about two euro in cash.

I got this really tasty bread that was wrapped in bacon with cheese toasted on top - it was SO good, even though it didn't look terribly appetizing at first. 

We got through the food section and briefly browsed through the flea market section - beside not having anything really interesting, everything was SUPER overpriced, so we ditched it and started walking back to the meeting place, eventually meeting up with my history teacher, Dr. Hass. 

I kinda felt weird walking around with the faculty, but it was interesting enough (outside of the men's clothing store)

Scott is a really cool guy, but super A.D.D - it was only at the end of the day, when I was discussing the Latin Mass with Dr. Hass that he really focused and seemed interested. I don't quite understand Scott, but it was nice of him to put up with me and let me tag along. 

Professor McNamara was really nice, but honestly, I was a bit disappointed that he didn't know many Irish songs. He's really smart, so I felt pretty dumb talking to him, though he wasn't trying to make me feel dumb. 

I talked to Sarah for a while too, and she actually knows some St. Greg's guys, as she graduated from Ave Maria. She liked them, and thought the video of the guys juggling in our basement was cool.

Though he was with our group the shortest amount of time, I actually had the most fun with Dr. Hass. He's very opinionated, blunt, and kinda awkward, but funny if you're in the mood for his humor. 

We started off by talking about how he got into history, made our way to his previous job at Ave Maria, then I asked him if he knew about the St. Greg's guys too. He'd had a decent amount in his class, and his opinion of them was that he thought they were really smart and interesting, but too close-minded about his class. He taught Western Civilization, and apparently the students he had didn't like him spending much time on non-Church related history. However, he still really liked his students - his favorite St. Greg's student was a Daniel Schiller (?) and that guy's sister was one of his favorite students ever. He also went to Jeremy Gay's wedding...? 

Anyways, that was fun talking about that, but it got more interesting when we started talking about the Latin Mass - apparently one of the few times he went left a "bitter taste" in his mouth, because while the music was phenomenal (one of his favorite Mass's), he didn't like how the priest didn't inflect the Latin properly and thought the rubrics were too stiff. I thought this was interesting coming from a history professor that specializes in medieval history. 

It was when we were talking about this that Scott perked up a bit and started talking too. He really likes the Latin Mass, but also really likes a reverent Novus Ordo Mass, and told me that I should talk to Dr. Cassidy (my Christian Marriage teacher), since he really loves the Latin Mass. Now I'm excited to talk to Dr. Cassidy and see if I can get a ride with him to a Latin Mass sometime this semester.

Day Six

Today was a really tiring but fun day.

The school organizes a day outing to Salzburg, so we had to get up at the crack of dawn to get on the buses in time. I slept quite well on the bus, and I'll be able to sleep in (finally!) tomorrow, so no biggie.
We got to Salzburg, where the weather was gloomy and rainy for the entire day. We had Mass at the Franciscan Church, and it was celebrated by the auxiliary bishop of Salzburg, who is the uncle of Gaming director's wife.
That Mass would have been a good example of an argument for the Mass in Latin and with fixed rubrics, because this Mass was a prime example of people not knowing what to do because of language/culture confusions. I'm just sayin'.

After Mass, we got divied up into groups of 40, and though I tried hard to get in Mr. Pipps group since he's really funny and doesn't have a foreign accent, Krista and I ended up in the group led by the Gaming director (Mr. Wolter)'s wife.

That actually was pretty interesting; Mrs. Wolter showed us two churches, a cemetery, and the garden that the people run through in the Sound of Music.
Mrs. Wolter gave us some background info of Salzburg - salz means salt, which was a super snazzy (read: profitable) export back in the day, and burg means city.

A lot of Salzburg's history has to do with this dude; I missed the first part of this story so I'm missing pieces (story of every story I've heard in Europe so far), but apparently he loved Italy and hated Austria, but was made bishop and prince of Salzburg. He was forced (I think?) to become a cleric, but he did his darndest not to act like it. He made a piazza in Salzbug (several, I think), one with a fountain supposed to rival a famous fountain in Italy that I can't remember the name of.
He had a mistress, made a palace for her, and had fifteen children with her. He also had his own private palace.
He didn't like the original cathedral that was built in 774, so when the people came running to him one day telling him that the church was burning down, he said "Let it burn." Some people even believe that he started the fire.
Anyways, he built a SUPER nice church in it's place, and that church has a couple really cool things about it. First, it looks awesome.

Secondly, it was the first church to try to incorporate "surround sound"; Mozart had four organs installed at the corners of these pillars, and the organists would have someone nod to them when it was time to play, so they could all play in synchronization.
Thirdly, there are a bunch of bishops skulls with miters on them in the church (sorry, I forgot to take pictures), so when Mrs. Wolter's uncle was being made bishop, apparently her little brother started to cry, because he made the connection between becoming a bishop and dying. The auxiliary bishop has received a lot of death threats, because he's apparently one of the most outspoken European bishops against abortion.
Fourthly, a funny story concerning that stinker archbishop mentioned above; when he built the church, he placed two angels holding a golden crown near the top of the front of the church, to signify his princeship. The people of Salzburg then built a statue of Mary in the piazza/square outside of the church, placing it so that if you stood in the correct spot, it would appear the angels are crowning the Mary statue. Pretty clever, if I do say so myself.
Finally, the church was accidentally bombed by Americans during WWII (they missed the train station by twelve kilometers), but the general that made the mistake raised enough funds for the rebuilding of the church, and wow, they did a pretty good job!

The other church we visited was also very pretty, but I loved the cathedral most, so if I have time to upload pictures of the second church later, I will, but no promises.

Anyways, back to the story of the archbishop prince. He was eventually put in prison, but not because of his immoral behavior - nope, it was because he was taxing Salzburg's salt exports too much! While he was in prison, he had a conversion, and then wrote a beautiful letter to all future priests of Salzburg to offer Mass for his soul. Mrs. Wolter mentioned they had that letter in a particular church, but I didn't get to see it.

It was cool how Mrs. Wolter explained the animosity of Europeans towards the Church (the faith is struggling big time here) by showing how they had to see a ton of filthy stuff like the bishop-prince happen, and they didn't always know about the redemptive part (if there was ever one)

Mrs. Wolter led us through a super old cemetery - there's a bunch of cool facts about it, but here are just two.

1. The makers of the Sound of Music were inspired by it - they recreated the cemetery, and used it in the scene where the Von Trapp family is hiding behind the graves. At the actual graveyard though, there wasn't any space behind the tombs.
2. Also, even though the cemetery is very old (7th century, I think), there aren't many people buried there that died before the 20th century. The reason being, the families/friends of every person buried there have to pay rent for the grave - once they stop paying rent, the remains get sent to some church outside of Salzburg. One (if not the only) exception to this rule is the American general that accidentally bombed the Cathedral, but then rebuilt it. The city of Salzburg made him and honorary citizen, and promised to pay rent for him so that his remains could always remain there (see what I did there? ;)) 

After the cemetery visit, we walked to the Mirabel gardens, where the kids and Maria run through in the Sound of Music. They were really pretty, but I kinda felt bad for the gardens, because there were signs everywhere for tourists so it didn't look quite as pretty. 

I'll try to upload my non-iPhone pictures later

We spent about ten minutes there, then walked Stiegskeller for lunch provided by the university. It was a super big room (dang, I should've taken a picture...) and dinner was very delicious and fun. The other groups had already arrived, so Krista, Maria (an LCI student I was talking with) and I had to squeeze ourselves into the middle of an already full table. 

We had soup first (mostly broth, with some sort of potato shavings/noodles), then the main course, which was chicken, some vegetables, and really yummy dumpling noodle like things. I talked with Maria most of the time - she's from Slovakia, and she's very funny and extraverted. We talked about weird American things, weird European things, and funny words. 

After dinner, everyone had free time, so we joined the other LCI students to spend our last six hours in Salzburg. 

So far, I really like the LCI students. They're more mature (the youngest is 19, and the oldest is at least 26), more open and helping them with their English is super fun/ny. We also had two FUS girls, Jessica and Christine in our group, and they're both super sweet. They're the ones that sing the pretty music at Mass (though Jessica was going a little crazy with the organ at Mass today - I think she was just really excited/nervous to be playing in such an old, cool church)

One of the students, David (a Hungarian), has been in Salzburg before, so he was our "guide" (I use the term very loosely - he didn't know exactly where he was leading us most of the time). He led us up and up and up a side of the mountain - tiring, but it was fun to talk to the girls. David was also pretty goofy and reminded me of David. He also reminded me of an Indian tour guide, the way he would say things like "Come this way!" and "We are in the city now!"

Maria is the most fluent with English, and also very opinionated - if she didn't like the path we were taking, she would let us know (most of the time I agreed with her.) It was nice talking to her, since she's also been in the states, and it's easy to understand her. She REALLY doesn't like the idea of selfies, and that was super funny.

Maria and I

Iryna is the next best at English after Maria and David, and I think she's the oldest. She's been super sweet and friendly since I met her, and was constantly asking me if I wanted to go anywhere in particular. She asked me about Thanksgiving dinner a couple days ago, and thought it was such an amazing thing that Americans do.

Then there is Monika and Veronica - they're both very shy and not very good at English, but they are super sweet and once you get them talking, they get very excited. Veronica asked me to sing the national anthem for them (and I sung it too, Dad!), and then they both sang their anthems - it was super sweet and awesome. We also discussed the happy birthday song, and their versions of it - apparently they just sing happy birthday in English when it's someones birthday. They thought the monkey version of the song was super funny, but they didn't quite get the humor in the St. Greg's doom and sadness birthday song. ;)

We basically ambled around the city for the six hours - my feet are tired now, but it was the most fun I've had in Austria so far.

Selfy with Mozart! And a random family in the background!

With about an hour and a half to go, Maria, Krista, Jessica, Christine and I accidentally broke off from the other LCI students. We spent the remaining time trying to find a place to eat - all the promising market stalls from the morning had closed, which was a big bummer, because the entire free time I was talking about obtaining a chocolate covered pastry (twisted like a pretzel - it looked AMAZING) so that never ended up happening.
Most stores in Austria (and I think general Europe) close around dinner time, so we had some problems trying to find somewhere to eat. The McDonald's was too expensive (can you believe it?), but we found a cheaper Burger King, got some shakes (yes, I know, that's kinda pathetic, but like I said, the market stalls were closed!), and sat there for awhile figuring out how to get back to the meeting place.

It was kinda funny, because everyone, including Maria, was freaking out a little bit about it and wanted to give us a ton of time to walk a little ways to the place. I wasn't too worried, since I actually had a pretty good idea of where to go, but I didn't want them to count on me in case I messed up, so I just relaxed while they planned. I think I'll be more comfortable giving a little directions next time we're out - I just didn't want to make that leap of faith in myself on the first outing.

After chilling at Burger King for awhile, we left to get to the buses, and right next door, we found a little bakery that was just closing, but had some cheap and super yummy looking food. I got these donut ball things - Maria said they were sweet cheese ball things, but I don't think so, because I didn't taste any cheese. It was still very good though.

We made our way to the buses (it was super easy), then got bussed back to Gaming, and here I am! This is definitely the most fun I've had, so I'm really hoping Krista and I can do more things with the LCI students, and branch out from there. (hahahahahhahahahaha, who am I kidding?!)

Anyways, I'll (hopefully) upload more pictures later.

Day Four

Today was an improvement on yesterday.

I didn't think it would be, as I woke up a little late and took a late shower, thus making Monika miss her shower so she could get to breakfast in time. Not very considerate of me, especially considering Monika is an LCI student.

The Mensa doesn't offer many options when it comes to breakfast, and those options don't vary from day to day. I'll probably be rotating between granola and a ham & cheese sandwich for the entire semester. Yay. At least I have Choco Flakes to munch on in my room.

My first class for B days is Medieval World, which was pretty interesting. Lots of talk about emperors and Constantine - neat stuff. Plus the teacher is gonna break up the class, with lecture on Tuesday, and completely class discussion on the assigned readings for Thursday. It sounds chill and fun. Plus Krista's in that class, so I don't have to awkwardly sit by myself during the small breaks - we get to sit awkwardly together! Yay!

Next class was Christian Marriage, which has fifty girls and nine boys (Krista counted)
Our teacher has hilarious facial constructions, and when I understand a joke he makes, it's usually pretty funny. Thing is, I don't actually know what he's talking about most of the time, because he's Scottish, and has a VERY thick accent (Rosie, he sounds like Stoick from How to Train Your Dragon - they say "hiccup" the same way!) Also, I'm wondering how he's going to spend three hours a week for sixteen weeks talking about Christian Marriage - we already got the basics and a bit more covered today. More interesting will be watching Krista alternately sass and squirm three hours a week, for sixteen weeks.
We'll see how long she lasts.

The assigned reading is the book by Archbishop Fulton Sheen It Takes Three, so I am looking forward to that. The paper and tests don't look very intimidating, which I can't say of my other classes. Also, Professor Cassidy challenged us to memorize the Instruction on the Day of Marriage from the 1962 Rituale Romanum. If we memorize and recite it perfectly in class, we don't have to write the paper or take any of the tests! That would be sweet, and if it were any other class, I'd totally memorize it, but this class looks like it'll be the same amount of work either way - writing the short paper and taking a few tests, or memorizing a good page and a half of instruction, so I'm not sure if I'll do it. I already have a ton of reading for my other classes.

After classes finished (I finish right before noon Mass every day), pretty much the entire campus went to noon Mass as the bishop of Gaming was saying Mass. The bishop seemed really nice, but honestly, I slept through his sermon because I was already sleepy and couldn't do any more interpreting thick accents at that point. The music, even for Franciscan, was off today, people were clapping for the bishop (he seemed kind of embarrassed), and then we all crammed in the apse of the church to take a picture with the bishop. So, I was glad to get out.

There was a long line for lunch because of the "Mass rush", and it was packed in the Mensa. Krista and I eventually ended up finding two open chairs, and just sat in the middle of this table. The girls on one end were nice and we talked to them a bit, then left when we finished.

We came back to our room, left for the Spar, and I returned with more snacks and milk (yay! 3.5% fat - I'm looking forward to this!) whereas Krista came back with chocolate bars for her family, and then a bottle of wine and plastic cups for herself. Yep, she's acclimating herself into this Europe thing quite well.

Then I piddled for an hour while Krista worked out, and when she came back, we set off for a jog.
Don't worry - I'm still a big bum, but I wanted to use my pretty sketch book, so I figured I'd jog with her till I found a good spot for sketching.

We ended up climbing a little ways up the mountain that the rowhouses (the teachers houses) sit on, but it was super muddy, we didn't actually jog. I found a dryish place to sit, and spent the next hour or so sketching a big blob into my beautiful watercolor book. It's kinda sad actually, but practice makes perfect, so hopefully I'll have at least one sketch that resembles my object by the time the semester is over. Krista explored around a bit, and then found a decent place to jog. I joined up with her later at the Mensa for supper.

phone pictures - don't judge

The Mensa wasn't super crowded, but there weren't a lot of empty tables either. Krista ended up running into a friend of hers, and so we sat at his table with his friends. They were all really funny, and it was the most "normal" I've seen a group of Franciscan students (that had more than one male in the group) act. Half of the table left a while after they finished eating, and I thought we were eventually going to skeedaddle too, but Krista's friend ended up talking to her for another hour or so about her leaving Franciscan. He was super nice and thoughtful - Krista should appreciate the friends she has that she doesn't hang out with as much more. *cough* Krista *cough* ;)

Came back to the room, "finished" my watercolor blob, studied for a bit, then I went out to pray the Rosary at the Kartause.

As I was crossing the courtyard to the church, my paths crossed with another girl. We ended up talking a wee bit, and I asked if she would like to pray the Rosary with me, and she did! That was really nice, because when I pray the Rosary by myself, I end up getting super distracted and take way more time than I should.

When we finished, I asked if she wouldn't mind singing the Salve with me. She asked me to hum the tune so she could remember if she knew all the words; while I was humming it, a girl I met a couple days ago walked out from the chapel and overheard me. She's a music major, and she seemed super nice - she and her friends sang for the Mass at Gaming two days ago, and not only did they have beautiful voices, they also sang some really pretty songs too (read: Latin songs)

So anyways, she asked me if we were going to sing the Salve, and ended up singing it with us. It was really nice and sounded AWESOME in the church, despite the fact I had a scratchy throat and Jenny (the girl who prayed with me) didn't know all the words. Jessica (music major) had a really good voice to cover for us, plus the acoustics (or whatever you call it) in that church is amazing.

Afterwards, we talked a bit outside, and we're going to try to make it a regular thing to meet at nine for Rosary at the church. I'm really glad to have more people praying with me, plus, Jessica's music major friends will probably be coming, which will make the Salve sound even better!

Now I'm back, and guess what? I might get to bed on time if I finish this right now, so peace!

Day Two

I almost missed breakfast again today, but I just made it in time! For breakfast, all the Mensa has is Greek yogurt (unsweetened, not refrigerated = nasty), some granola, some rolls, and a cheese and meat tray. The roll with a slice of meat and cheese was actually pretty tasty, but I foresee myself quickly becoming tired of it after a couple weeks.

After that, we had really long meeting in the Kartause's library, met the faculty, and people told us about a lot of stuff, the majority of which I've already forgotten.

After this meeting, Mr. Pipp (the director of Student Life in Gaming - very funny, reminds me of John) took us on a short walk around Gaming. Gaming is known for its banks and hair salons - I think Mr. Pipp said it had four banks and five hair salons, which is rather ridiculous for a town of its size.
Some of the little shops looked promising - there was a pizza/kebab shop run by a Turkish man and his sons (Mr. Pipp highly recommended the kebabs), a toy/office supply store, and a bakery. I really like bakeries, and this one sells some kind of deep fried pastry on a stick, which sound DELICIOUS! I'm predicting this treat will be a big highlight of my stay in Gaming.

After the tour, we had lunch. Pork, carrots, noodles, and a meat sauce for the noodles - everything was strangely super bitter, so I ended up eating a bowl of granola for lunch. It was also pretty tasty, but I'm not sure if I used milk or half and half with it, because they keep the glass kegs with the dairy next to the coffee machine, and they don't label them. Because of this, I ended up drinking half and half instead of milk last night at supper, but I like half and half, so it all worked out!

When I finished my super yummy granola and milk/half and half bowl, I came back to the room and slept solidly for an hour, so that I almost missed the next meeting (noticing a trend here?)
This meeting was all about housing rules and was long and Krista was freaking out during its two hour duration because she STILL hasn't gotten her suitcase from the airport yet. After the meeting, Krista immediately jumped up to talk to Mr. Pipp about the suitcase, while I got in one of six groups led by RA's for a tour of the campus itself.
The tour was helped orient me (though I've already forgotten all the room's official names), but it was longer than it needed to be because we had to wait on other groups to go through.

When we finally finished, I went back to the room to check on Krista. She got her suitcase thing figured out, but didn't have any respectable clothes to wear to eat supper with me, and our LCI roommate (who's actually Bosnian, not Slovenian) had to go to a meeting, so I was on my own. I almost chickened out and waited 45 minutes for Monika (the LCI roommate) to finish her meeting, but I decided to be brave and talk to some people on my own since my nose has FINALLY stopped dripping!

So I got to the Mensa, and the main food line looked nasty, so again, I went for the roll with meat and cheese. After retrieving my small morsel of food, I looked about the crowded Mensa for the least intimidating place to sit. There were some really crowded tables, some super long tables with a couple scary girls sitting at one end, one table with only one person sitting at it, and one completely empty table. I almost went with the completely empty table, but remembered I was there to be brave, so I actually asked the loner if I could sit with him. He seemed kinda surprised, but said yes.

After I finished praying, he introduced himself and started talking to me about Gaming and asking me about my flight. He was really nice, had a good manner of speaking (at least compared to most of the other guys I've met so far) and he's apparently really good at soccer because his high school team went to Europe for a soccer tournament thingy, and won more than two games/matches (which he said was a first for an American team, since Europeans are so in to soccer). He was quite impressed when I told him about John wrestling for Wisconsin, and he said he liked wrestling too (he's from Ohio, and was talking about the place where they hold states, and how they have sixteen mats out and it's huge and amazing and I couldn't help thinking about Dad disparaging Ohio wrestling so I just played super ignorant and smiled and waved, boys!)
We were talking about wrestling for a bit when five or six people came and sat with us, including the guy's girlfriend, who is an RA and pretty nice (I had to laugh at myself, because now I understood the guy's slight confusion when I asked to sit at his table - what kind of hermit was I that I didn't know he had a girlfriend?! Craziness!)

The guy that sat next to me (he has an identical twin that was in my campus tour group the hour before) started talking about wrestling too and how it's so fun and fun to watch, to which I said it was nasty for girls to watch, and he had to agree with that. A girl, named Audrey, sat on the other side of me, and I mostly talked to her for the rest of the meal, since she had spent the week before in Ireland.
She was super nice, and I had a lot of fun talking to her. She told me how Cork, Ireland was really nice, but Dublin wasn't so much. However, she and her group were trying to figure out which pub to try one evening, and an old man was watching them. When he sad them heading into one pub, he called out "you don't want to go to that one, unless you want to get beat up tonight", and then he recommended a different pub. They followed his recommendation (it turned out to be a really good pub) and as he walked about, he called out "good choice!"
Basically, since the big crowd of people came over and sat at the table, I couldn't help snickering to myself about how I accidentally picked a popular people table, of all tables, when I was being such a chicken before.

So, that was a pretty fun/ny dinner, I felt extremely proud of my social "success" and now am rewarding myself by dedicating my last couple hours of today to being a recluse in the room with Krista, eating Milka, and reading a book on Krista's tablet.
Btw, here's Krista's blog.