Oxygen is my favorite (specifically O2)

Elevation Murray Utah : 4396 ft.
Elevation Marchtrenk Austria : 961 ft.

Air Quality Murray Utah : Red
Air Quality Marchtrenk Austria : they don't have a system because it's never less than perfect

Running in Murray Utah : Normal (I'm acclimated there)
Running in Marchtrenk Austria : Head rush, so much oxygen (yeah I know the atmosphere isn't even mostly oxygen)

I went running Monday night for the first time since my arrival, and it's actually been a long time since I've really run, I've been doing a lot of cycling (indoor stationary type) and other aerobic exercise (Zumba, Wii Fit)  But my running muscles are a bit out of practice as are my joints (I have the knees of a 97 year old woman, thanks mom for that bit of genetic code) but it felt glorious.  I got a good stretch in before I took off and I kicked my old standby running tunes: Linkin Park, Hybrid Theory.  There's something about the intro to Papercut, it's the perfect length to finish your stretching, then when it takes off it makes you feel like it's you against the world, I find myself boxing a little as I'm running.  Listen to the album straight through from the beginning, the album is short enough that you can be finishing your cool down as the final track is ending.  Be warned however, track 11 A Cure For The Itch may cause involuntary Pop 'n Locking, so I would recommend trying to be back in the privacy of your own back steps by this point.  For me it's like running to Eye of the Tiger or the The Final Countdown.  A soundtrack is so important for effective exercise with me.

Here's a picture of the girls finally, Melina on the left and Emily on the right.  These "cages" were in the coat room at the House of Nature in Salzburg, the girls climbed in and pretended to be monkeys.

Turns out the Institute class that I'll be attending is the "Preparing for Eternal Marriage" course.  Thank goodness I don't understand German that well.
Good thing about Institute outside of Utah: #1  The people that are there actually want to be there, and have to make a certain level of sacrifice to get there (€3,80 for the train each week at the very least)
The people are all pretty cool, I'm the youngest person in the group there's one other guy that's 22 but he's older than me.  Most everyone is 25-29.  I like hanging out with older people, which is good because I don't have many other options.  Most people my age are still at away at University.  There is a University in Linz ( the capitol of OberÖsterreich and the 3rd largest city in Austria) but a lot of people go away to school in Graz or Salzburg or Vienna.
From what I could tell the lesson was about the Natural Man, I caught bits and pieces and was able to contribute in very broken 8th grade German.  Afterward we made pita pockets and mingled.  After double checking the train schedule we noticed that our second to last train was leaving in 13 minutes, so we piled into one of the instructors' car (I lay across the laps of 3 of the other girls in the back seat and I tried to not be visible from the outside.  Everyone here drives like crazy people, they don't decelerate around turns or roundabouts, and they drive so quickly.  When we got to the train station we all piled out, ran to the ticket machine and sprinted to the platform, as we reached the top of the stairs our train started away.  It was kind of frustrating because there were people on the platform that could clearly tell we were rushing to catch that train and they didn't hit the door open button.  I'm not angry or anything because that would be stupid, but I would have held the door if I could have.  At any rate we missed the train.  The next train that would stop in Marchtrenk didn't leave for another 40 minutes.  Everyone else was taking a train to Wels in 20 minutes.  Hannah offered to drive me to Marchtrenk from Wels.  I didn't want to buy another ticket so I said I'd wait until 10 for my train.  And now kids I have to admit that I caved to peer pressure.  I took the train that I did not have a ticket for.  Before this moment I had only ever had my ticket actually checked once.  I was somewhat paranoid to say the least, then from the end of the car I see a ticket checker (conductor? are they still called conductors?) and he's making the rounds.    I start to panic and ask my friends what I'm supposed to do.  My german is really not good enough to explain the situation (and by explain the situation I mean talk my self out of a citation it's €65 if you get caught) luckily Rahel and Antwi were able to help me out and the conductor spoke enough english that he could tell I'm very new to the country and he let me go and suggested that I purchase a discount card for future ticket purchases, he was very nice.

Thursday passed with little event but Friday Maria e-mailed of friend of hers that's in a cover band here called Vitamin BSC who's looking for a keyboardist.  She told him (Sigfried) that I play keyboards... and well he invited me to come play with them next Thursday to see if I like it.  They have keys for me to use and everything so I guess we'll see.  They play gigs around the region at festivals and bars, they make a few Euro.  It should be fun.  More on that front in next weeks episode.

Saturday I went to Salzburg with the Reisingers.  It's about a one hour car ride from Marchtrenk.  An interesting thing about traveling by car in Europe is, where we go over mountains through passes or around them, the Europeans just tunnel through them.  There are multiple tunnels through the Alps. THE Alps!  Salzburg however is on the Alps.  It's kind of like driving to Park City as far as the countryside is concerned, except there are all of these beautiful natural lakes with little tiny picturesque towns all around them.  It's just fantastically lovely, one of the biggest lakes is the Attersee it's hundreds of feet deep.  And every lake is drinking quality.  How crazy is that, you can just walk up to a lake or a stream and just dip your hands in and drink it! (providing of course that your hands are clean).  

I did not take this picture, but it's lovely.

I think the most impressive thing about the Alps is not just their sheer height, but how quickly the rise out of the valleys, there aren't really foothills and they're so craggy!  Instead of a few very tall peaks surrounded by a giant mass of mountain, there are a lot of individual tall peaks standing alone.  It's beautiful... cliffs and peaks. It's fantastic!

Salzburg is really a truly spectacular city, there are buildings that are over 600 years old.   The old city wall is partially a giant cliff, and some of the buildings are actually built into that cliff.  There's actually a parking garage in a cave in the cliff.  The city itself isn't actually very big, only about 100,000 people live there (about the size of Orem or Provo) you have to drive through the modern part of the city (most of the houses built in the 60's and 70's just like in the states) to get to the Altstadt which is in the center of town.  We wend to der Haus Nautur (a natural history museum) they had a spectacular aquarium area with a very entertaining octopus, I've never actually seen an octopus this active before, it was very cool.

It's a pretty cool museum and very interactive, there's a science center attached to it that had a really excellent music/sound station, it had a sound booth that measured how loudly you could yell, a pitch matching software that you'd sing into and the would measure how close you were to the provided pitch.  There was a sound modification area, at which you could record a clip then add echo, reverb, distortion and pitch modulation.  They had some organ pipes with a giant billow pedal attached to show that air makes sound.  There was a dome with a bell in it that you could evacuate the air out of to show that there is no sound in a vacuum.  Oh and it had one of those drums with a hole in the bottom head that you could aim at at large board with plastic discs on it to show how that air is displaced when the head is hit. But the best part was a display called Feel Mozart (they brag about Mozart every chance they get) it's a room with a screen and a few very comfortable wingback chairs with a speaker on each side and woofer in the seat.  Then you would watch and listen to music.  It basically sounded and felt like sitting on stage in the middle of an orchestra.  It was very cool.


After the museum we went to a traditional Austrian restaurant for lunch, we had schnitzel and bratwurst and potatoes and knödeln (dumplings) and saurkraut, which apparently is not to be eaten on top of schnitzel as it make the schnitzel soggy, and no on likes soggy schnitzel.  It was all very delicious.  Oh and we also had a great chestnut and cinnamon soup and a fantastic cheesy dessert.  I really have no problem with the food here.   Which is too bad, I could stand to lose a couple of inches, which would be easier if I didn't like the food.  We then walked down to the famous Getreidegasse an old cobble stone street that is now a walking shopping district.  Everything is in the Late Gothic/Early Baroque style, cobble stone, beautiful signs for each of the companies, even the McDonalds sign is ridiculously ornate.  It's actually a requirement for having a business front on this street.

This is the street that Mozart's birth home is on! Moztart Geburtshaus! It's a museum now, we didn't want to take the girls into another museum, they would have gone crazy.  I'll go back another time and tour the house.  The house is like 500 years old or something.  Very cool, everything here is just old.  Not ruins, but highly functional well kept, recently rennovated, beautiful buildings. 

Saturday was also part the Faschings festival.  Faschings season is like Carnival, Mardigras, but it starts in the middle of January and goes until Fat Tuesday.  So there was a huge parade with marching bands in costumes, it's kind of like Halloween here.  Faschings is traditionally the midwinter festival here people dress up like monsters called Percht that are supposed to chase away the winter and welcome the spring.  They are mischievous and some are actually quite scary.  Each village has their own representation  of the Percht.  There are Schönpercht (beautiful Percht) and Schiachpercht (ugly Percht). A group of them were taking people out of the crowd and taping their legs together.  It was pretty fun.  The girls loved it.  Some of the marching bands played traditional marches but a lot played stadium rock, pep band type stuff, including some RHCP (Red Hot Chili Peppers for those of you that aren't on the level.)

A Percht and me, he dumped confetti on my head right before this picture was taken and I'm still finding it 2 days later.

Salzburg is easily the most beautiful place I've seen in Europe so far.  I will most definitely be going back in the fairly near future, possibly next weekend for the Mozart Festival, it's his birthday on the 27th and the party goes until the 31st.

This whole row of buildings was built in 1408, It's now apartments and shops and clubs and bars.

The dates on the top are the years of the original construction and the renovation.

On the right is a huge and famous Cathedral, I'm not sure what the other building is stay tuned to find out.

Remember how I said that Salzburg is a little arrogant about the whole "Mozart was born here" thing?  Well there's a chocolate named after Mozart.  You can buy it pretty much anywhere in Austria (and at Siegfried's German Delicatessen and Market in Salt Lake City) but here there's a whole shop dedicated to this brand.  Well it's a total tourist trap, they sell it for a third of the price at the Spar in Marchtrenk.  But the greatest thing happened! Maria said "but you won't get trapped, you're not a tourist, you live here."  yay! I live here! They like me! I'm not a tourist! I hate being a tourist! I love that I have enough time to really experience Europe the way it should be experienced!

Me, Melina and Wolfy

Sunday I mas going to be on time for my train, I was going to get to church by myself.  I left with enough time, I tried to take a small short cut... but I missed it... and I watched my train leave as I was purchasing my ticket.  The next train didn't leave for an hour, meaning not until after church started.  But I was determined to get there by myself, so I waited on the freezing cold platform (there isn't an actual building at the Marchtrenk train station)  And because of the outfit I had chosen... I wasn't wearing tights or boots... just my dress and my coat and my red Chucks, socks with souls.  Mom pay attention here, I have finally come to learn that you should not choose fashion over function especially when it's only 18 degrees outside.  I should have worn tights.  There, my first real life lesson.  Never again will I leave the house in a dress without tights if I'm going to be taking a train that I could very possibly miss and end up having to wait for an hour and then walk another 15 minutes to my church.  I got there for the closing song in Relief Society (which is first) which I ended up playing because the regular pianist was helping in the Primary as they were going to sing in Sacrament meeting, which is last.  It went alright, I played the top hand and the bass note occasionally.  I really need to learn people's last names by the way.  But a couple sat next to me in Sunday School, they had also been at the Schmidl's for dinner that first Sunday.  They're very nice.  In Sacrament meeting, Rahel asked me if I wanted her to translate for me, I declined because I need to just get used to hearing German.  After ward, Sister Schmidl invited Rahel, Antwi and myself to dinner with her family.  One of her other sons (Robin) had just moved to the Wels area from Graz with his family.  His wife is named Tara she was born in Provo, raised (bilingually) in San Diego and moved to Austria when she was 12.  So she has a nice American accent and speak Hoch Deutsch.  So I was able to understand her a bit better than some of the others.  After dinner and ice we all sat around talking, the kids were running around and Brigitte asked me how well I played the piano. I  told her that with opportunity to practice I'm decent.  She asked me if I'd be willing to accompany her and a few others when they sing in church (date TBD).  I clumsily read through the piece and told her that with ample time to prepare I'd be more than willing.  So Rahel offered her piano to me, so on Monday and Tuesday nights I'm going to go to her house and practice the piano.

Well that's pretty much it, it really is great here, I'm having a great time.  I love you all!

Jet Lag is aw... ful. Awful.

This is a really long entry, I'll try and keep the next one shorter and with more pictures. But I also tried to keep it interesting.  So please read it, I spent a lot of time on it.


Guten Abend von Marchtrenk, Ober Österreich!


I began my journey on the wrong foot.  (Kind of like Marley was dead to begin with)Tuesday night, January 4, I stayed up playing games with my family thinking that my flight left at 10:55 the next morning.  I printed my itinerary at about 8:00pm but didn't bother to go get it from the printer until after midnight.  Lo and behold, my flight was leaving a 7:30am. Meaning we needed to leave about 5:30 meaning I needed to wake up at 4:30 and it was currently 1:00.  Yay me! I don't know how I had this confused for the last several weeks but... whatever.
I woke up after about 3 hours of sleep and finished my last little bit of packing.  I also finally cleaned out my trunk (these are of course, things that I thought I was going to have time to do in the morning).  And so we were off.  At SLC International everything went mostly smoothly, one of my bags was 5 pounds over, the other was 2 pounds over.  The guy at the check-in let the smaller one go and then let the larger one go at 3 pounds over, which was very nice of him, and I only had to take out 2 hand bags :)  The line for security was pretty ridiculous for a Wednesday morning my family stayed in line with me until we actually got up to the roped off cueing area. I got to the gate with plenty of time, there were no problems with my carry on luggage or as they say here "das handgepäck".


The flight to Chicago was uneventful, I sat next to the emergency exit so I had about an extra 14" of leg room which was nice, but it was also freezing! I was able to sleep for a couple of hours after I put both of my coats on.  I sat next to a delightful woman with awesome hair and a Cajun accent. I also had the window seat, so I was able to watch my mountains disappear from view.  There is nothing quite as beautiful as flying over the mountains.


 My layover in Chicago was also uneventful but I didn't sleep because of paranoia that my macbook might wander away.  So I watched Across the Universe (for the first time.  The music is great but the story was really lacking and the psychedelic bits were too obviously modern effects, so much that is was distracting.  A movie that I would buy the soundtrack to but am glad I torrented the film).  I sent out a few last text messages, my phone doesn't work here, and I decided to contact a friend that I hadn't heard from in a long time, that I guess I had almost given up on.  We never had a fight or anything but somehow, we just grew apart.  I got around to thinking that she didn't care to hear from me and I guess she got around to thinking I wouldn't care to see her either.  It probably would have been awkward if we'd both shown up at the same New Year's party, that type of situation.  But I'm glad I shot her a text, I know we won't ever be as close as we once were, but I couldn't imaging embarking on this adventure and her not knowing about it.


At this point I had to officially check my trombone, they didn't charge me for it though, so that was nice. My transatlantic flight left on time, I sat next to a little old West African man and to a very nice and friendly Israeli couple.  This may seem a little juvenile but I still get excited when I fly on a 747.  When you first walk in and you see a stairway on a plane! It get's me every time. Then you walk back through 3 sections and over a gigantic wing.  I sat in the middle section which wasn't great, the sweet West African man was flying with his daughter and her grandchildren (across the aisle) he spoke hardly any English and required a lot of assistance to get up and that sort of thing.  Luckily on my other side was this lovely Israeli couple, they were more than willing to stand up if I needed to get up and stretch my legs.  Unfortunately there was a short somewhere in my inflight headphones (possibly in the socket) so no in flight movies for me (which was too bad because I hadn't seen either of them and I would really have liked to they were Eat, Pray, Love and Life As We Know it, gotta love that Josh Duhamel) Instead I watched About A Boy on my computer (which just about nixed my battery).  I couldn't really sleep on this flight even though I was exhausted, there just honestly wasn't room and there was a 9ish year old kid sitting behind me with the feet up on the back of my seat.  The food was actually pretty good though, it was kind of a chicken (das Huhnfleisch) teriyaki with rice (der Reis) and vegetable (das gemüse) and a kind of Orzo salad, a brownie, a roll (ein Brötchen) and some cheese (der käse). I tried to dose off a bit with out much success.   After we landed (an hour late) I figured I had plenty of time to I allowed others to deplane before me because other people were clearly rushed.  Turns out I didn't have as much time as I thought I did, I walked briskly for about a mile through the Frankfurt airport, I had to change terminals and therefore go through security again, as I was leaving the first terminal I had to wait in line to get my passport stamped.  Security is different in every airport, for example I didn't have to take my shoes off at Frankfurt, but I did have to take my external hard drives out of my carry on... which I didn't know, and so my bag got flagged and I had to go wait in line to get my bag hand checked.  I stopped to buy a phone card so I could call my parents and when I go to the gate it was closed.  I had packed my watch and my phone no longer works so I guess I didn't really have a grasp of the time.  I had a bit of a meltdown, I said some words, then I said a prayer.  I think the second one was more beneficial.  After I finished bawling like a baby (mind you I was frustrated and sleep deprived) I went to the restroom, washed my face with cold water (to reduce blotchiness) then stood in line to get a transfer ticket.  Every time I explained what had happened, the person would look at me like I was some kind of idiot and say "An hour twenty minutes should have been plenty of time" I would again explain about getting my bag searched (which in hind sight was probably not such a good idea) really all I wanted them to do was tell me what I needed to do.  It turns out I didn't have to pay for my transfer and I even had my seat upgraded because there wasn't any economy on the next flight.  The service lady said I was very lucky and the words seemed to taste like vinegar coming out of her mouth.  The only real drawback to this experience was the fact that I now had to spend an extra 7 hours in the Frankfurt airport.  I tried to sleep on one of the benches but it was so uncomfortable and I was so paranoid about missing my flight again, that I got a total of maybe 2 hours of sleep.  

out the window on the last leg of my journey

I finally got on my plane, the people were especially friendly I felt (tender mercy or low expectations?) The steward that was demonstrating how to use the oxygen mask and where the exits were was a nice (or creepy) middle aged man that could tell I was exhausted (or was just creepy) and winked/smiled at me a couple of times.  The flight is only about an hour, I ordered my orange juice in German (Orangensaft) and thanked the stewardess for my Milka™ Schokolade (that's right no peanuts or stale pretzels, a full 40g of Swiss chocolate) and quickly fell asleep.  When I got off the plane my luggage was still on the carousel and the Reisingers were waiting for me (they had come to pick me up earlier and were able to find out that I'd been booked on a later flight, also my father had sent them an e-mail and a message on Skype. Luckily it's only about a 15 minute drive and the 6th is an official holiday [Drei Königens Tag] so it wasn't too off putting for them.)  They are wonderful people and the girls, Melina and Emilie are really, really sweet.  We drove to the house, Thomas carried my bags in and they did everything they could to make sure I was comfortable.  I unpacked my things and fell directly to sleep.


I was awakened the next morning by Thomas telling the girls not to come wake me up.  That is real irony, not the Alanis type.  After a rather large breakfast we went into Pasching (a neighboring town) to go to the mall, I needed an adapter for my MacBook power block and some winter boots also Thomas needed to get his phone fixed.  The parking complex was really cool! I know what you're thinking... Psh parking complexes. But wait! Above every parking stall, at the back, is a little light.  Red if it's full Green if it's open.  No I am not so easily amused, think of the benefits, you can tell from the end of a row whether or not you should bother driving down it. It saves tons of time, ALSO you never have to be deceived by the SHORT CAR!  It's really quite brilliant.  Now you're going to find yourself wishing that  your local shopping mall was as advanced and conscientious as PlusCity!


We went first to drop off our coats in a neat automated locker area, you put your password into a kiosk and then select the locker you want to use and it opens it. Very cool.  On to mcworld to get my adapter, then up to Humaniacs to get my boots.  I'm a size 40 in European sizes (which make way more sense then American sizes and also they are standardized) I got some kind of puffy white moon style boots that come all the way to my knew and are comfortable, flexible and easy to walk in, albeit not really my style, but no one here knows that they're not my style, I can be whomever I want to be.  They're pretty cute I guess und sehr preiswert! (it means they're a good value).  On an semiunrelated side note, they have a pretend spaceship with game consoles in it so kids can play while their parents shop.


We then dropped off Thomas's phone with the "crazy phone gangstas" his words not mine.  Maria wanted to look at coffee tables for the living room, I kind of followed the girls around while Thomas rolled his eyes at Maria.  When Maria decided there wasn't anything there that she liked, Thomas said to me "let's hurry out before she spends all the money".  Couple dynamics are pretty much the same everywhere.  We then went to have lunch in what we would call the food court, but you will not find anything like a Chick Fil-a or Hot Dog on a Stick here, we had Turkish food, there was also Mongolian BBQ and the like, but every shop has it's own seating and theme and such.  Also a lot of people smoke here.  People can smoke inside, however, if they want to they have to go sit in a big plexiglass box.  They also serve alcohol in this box and have tables, so it's more like a bar (every where but Utah, where people can't even smoke in bars)  But the boxes are sponsored by cigarette companies.



Also the advertising is very different.  At least from Utah,  The entire mall is like a Victoria Secret window.  Best way to sell shoes? Naked people wearing shoes.  Best way to sell books, naked people reading books.  This may be some what an exaggeration but you get the idea.  Also, models in pictures smile here, every one always looks like they're having fun.  It's an interesting and different world.  After lunch we went to Check on Thomas' phone, they said another half an hour.  So we went and dropped the girls off at a day care that's in the mall.  It's free... I guess the part of the revenue from rent goes towards funding this child care.  It's basically a giant play house, it also has a mini movie theater.  I guess the idea is that grownups will spend more money if they aren't in a rush to get out with the children.  You can leave them but you have to check on them every hour.  If they had something like that in Utah, it could not be free, there are just too many children.  We then went to an Italian coffee place in the mall.  I had an Italian soda.  Maria and I went to get the girls while Thomas checked on his phone (which was still not ready, he ended up having to leave it over night).  Then back to the car and back into Marchtrenk, Thomas drove the scenic route so that I could see a bit of the country side, I saw my first glimpse of the Alps as the clouds had cleared a little by this point.  The Wasatch look like the Appalachians in comparison.  We drove through the center of Marchtrenk and the Thomas pointed out the "scary pubs" that attract the "crazy people" I went to the bank and changed my money all by my self.  I spoke English.  They had to find someone that knew how to do traveler's cheques.  ps. Traveler's cheques are a really dumb way of moving money from one country to another.  I should have left my money in my checking account and just used the ATM's.  You can't use cheques anywhere, not even at the airport, people are more likely to take a USD before a cheque.  So remember this for future international travel.  We then went back to the house.  I took a nap (jet lag :P) and woke up at about 5:00 when some friends had come over with their children for fondue (and booze)  I got to speak a little German with them but mostly English.  The drunker Phillip got the less English he spoke and the less like German his German sounded (Austrian German is very different from Hoch Deutsch, the words are the same but they certainly don't sound the same, it's like speaking German through a mouth full of oatmeal.)  It was a pretty fun. So far the food has not been an issue, but I think I'll start pretending like I haven't heard of the German/Austrian foods so they can have the excitement of introducing me to new foods.  I feel like I'm robbing them every time I say I've had something before.

imagine this little boy speaking very fast German without swallowing his oatmeal first.  That is Austrian german.

Saturday I went on my first planned adventure.  Thomas drove me to the train station (der Bahnhof) so that would know where it was (it's about 15 minutes walking from the house.) Then he drove me into Wels to see where I would get off the train then we drove and found my church.  Then he dropped me off with a train schedule and a map of Wels at the Wels train station.  I then walked to my church (learning by doing) and walked to a grocery store called Billa, I bought some tooth paste and such.  Then I just kind wandered around Wels, it's a beautiful old city originally established by the Romans.  There is still a wall and the ruins of a tower from the 14th century (for a brief history see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wels )  There's also a 16th century church and a small castle as well as a great walking district with shops, it's really a great town.  Pop. 65,000.  I then made my way back to the train station.  On my way back a creepy/or nice guy started talking to me (in English) I must have looked very touristy standing on a street corner with my map and my Wörterbuch. He was probably 40 something and he asked me for my number (which I don't have yet) and offered to buy me a coffee.  I politely declined and got on my way.  I got home feeling rather proud of my successes on the train and navigating a city that isn't structured on "the Grid"  As I was walking around I kept thinking "I can't believe I live here, but also an incredible sense of belonging (despite my lack of German skill)  There are very few experiences in my life where I have felt this right about what I was doing.  It's an incredible feeling.


Sunday I woke up and it was foggy and misty (and I was running a bit late) so Thomas drove me to the train and I took the train into Wels for church (die Kirche).  My ward (das Gemeinde) is very small, I estimated about 60 people.  I got there about 20 minutes early because of the train schedule and the first person I ran into was the Relief Society President (I think) Schwester Brigitte Schmidl and then Bischof Peter Lehmann.  After a very brief tour of the very small church house, I helped set up the chairs in the RS room. As each sister came in the introduced themselves to me and I introduced myself in (very 8th grade style) German.  "Ich bin die Bethany Brinton, ich bin Amerikanerin, ich komme aus Salt Lake City (at this point their eyes would light up with understanding) ich bin Au Pair Mädchen bei die Familie Reisinger in Marchtrenk.  Ich komme nach Österreich lezten Donnerstag (this should say "Ich kam nach") Ich bleibe für ein Jahr.


One really wonderful thing about the church is that the hymns are basically the same every where.  When Sister Lehmann came in and started playing prelude music I was overcome with not so much the Spirit of God but the spirit of community that occurs in the Church, so I guess that's also the Spirit of God.  I really didn't understand much of what was said, and it was all a little overwhelming but when I would actually hear a single word (the words all run together here, people speak so quickly and also with the Oatmeal) I would look it up and write it down in my little notebook.  I have my english scriptures, and an english Sunday School study guide, but my RS manual is in german.  Luckily the names of the books look pretty much the same so I could read the scriptures that are in the lesson.  We had lesson 23 on the Sacrament/Last Supper.  Afterwards a girl my age (Hannah Fuchs) came and spoke to me in about 2:1 english:german she invited me out to institute and made sure that I knew where I was going.  There is also a YSA group here.  And they call it YSA not junge unverheiratet Erwachsene.  It's kind of impossible to fall through the cracks here.  If you show up to church once the ward is like a spider on a fly, or alligator, once they've got you they don't let go.  And of course I use those similes in a very endearing way.  It was nice it felt like a very sincere (if not strangulating) hug. Sunday School was about John the Baptist just like for the rest of you I'm sure.  Austrians use a lot of gestures, the teacher kept abruptly putting his hands up in a wide "field goal good" kind of gesture to help punctuate his statements, they didn't help me understand any better. 


In sacrament meeting I didn't really understand anything, but again the music was very comforting, the musical number was Lead Kindly Light a kind of Violin (die Geige) flute (die Flöte) piano (das Klavier) and vocal number it was really beautiful, Hannah Fuchs participated in this.  I don't know how accurate the german translation is but in english, the second line of the first verse is "The night is dark, and I am far from home. Lead thou me on." and I lost it a little bit at this, my eyes welled up and I sniffled a little bit.  I recovered quickly.  After church Sister Schmidl invited me over for Mittagessen (lunch which is the largest meal of the day here) with her and her husband, another couple and there son, and a single mother Maria Auer and her son Valentio.  The Schmidls live out in the country side between Wels and Marchtrenk in an old Bauerhaus (farm house) built circa 1930.  Their son Oliver and his wife Rafaela (primary president) and their 4 children live in a separate section of the house.  I spoke as much german with all of them as I could and they spoke some english, but this was my first real experience speaking conversational german here.  They spoke slowly and would help me with words and grammar, they are pretty great people.  Some how it came up during lunch that I play the piano, Maria Auer said she would have to tell Rafaela... and they don't currently have a primary pianist so there may be a calling in my near future... oops. I should have kept my mouth shut.  I was at the Schmidts' for most of the afternoon and then Maria Auer gave me a ride back into Marchtrenk so I wouldn't have to take the train.


And that is the not so brief story of my first four days of this newest adventure.


Love you all, 
Blants