Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Alps and Bike Tour

The Alps were amazing and it could not have been a better weekend to go. Our group was defineitly meant to go this weekend, we bounded so much. It feels like I've know the group so much longer than I actually have.

I got a lot of much needed rest at the Alps too. I slept late on Saturday and just stayed in in front of the fire. Then on Sunday a second group of us hiked to the top of one of the mountains where there is a cross. It was an amazing view and an exhausting hike, but it was completely worth it.

On Sunday night we had a communion service in front of the bonfire and then headed back to Vienna on Monday.

Nothing else interesting has happened this week until today. We took a bike tour around the ring today and it was amazingly cool. I think I will go rent a bike for the day and ride around. Other than that not too much to report, German is coming along and have used it some.

Tschüs

Friday, September 15, 2006

Alps Retreat

Just a quick note before I leave. We are leaving for our Alps retreat at Schwarzdeckhaus. It's about an hour a way. It is going to be a relaxing weekend and Dr. Fletcher said that in the mornings it will be below freezing so it's going to be our first day of actual cold. Well out of time I'll try and update again soon.

Monday, September 11, 2006

London to Vienna

Well we are finally in Vienna and a lot is happen, a lot more than I have time to talk about right now. But we traveled to London first and it was a pretty miserable flight for me at least. My sinuses were still clogged up and then the pressure on them from the altitude changes made them hurt really really bad, but other than that I made it safely.

I have never been so tired as I've been this past week. But we hit the ground running anyway. When we got to London we walked to Westminster Abbey through Hyde Park and the Kensington Gardens. We also say Big Ben and Parliament.

On Tuesday we went to Oxford and Warwick castle, both where very cool. Oxford works very different than most other universities but the way it works is very interesting. At Warwick castle we were able to see a Birds of Prey exhibit and a lot about the way life was in the middle ages.

Wednesday was our first day to travel the "tube" (subway) and Dr. Fletcher lead us on the wrong one. It was quite an experience, it's likes sardines in a can. When we got to the tower we were able to see the the tower bridge as well. The first stop we made in the tower however was the crown jewels and the doors that lead into them really are a testament to the value of them, it was like a bank vault.

At noon we went to St. Paul's Cathedral ("Tupins a Bag") where we climbed the 530, that's right 530 steps of spiral staircase to the top of the dome for an amazing view. We were able to see, the eye of London, the New Globe Theatre, and the Millennial Bridge. We went on to the National Gallery but we were all pretty exhausted so we headed back to the hotel pretty quickly.

On Thursday we went to the British Museum which was pretty cool but terribly crowded. We saw mostly just the highlights there, including the Rosetta Stone. Finally time one of my favorite things from London. We went to the British Library. It was amazing! Everything from Canterbury Tales to the Gutenberg Bible to the Magna Carta. Talk about old books! I loved it and it is definitely one place I would go back to again. Oh yeah, they also had original Beatles lyrics too.

After that we decided to take it a bit easier so we got on the first tube that came by, stayed on for 5 minutes then got off, found something to eat, and found a park to sit at for a while. It worked out really well too because school had just let out so there were little girls running around everywhere that looked like Madeline.

On Thursday night we went to see William Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors which was very humorous and it was really neat to see it done in the globe theatre as well.

On Friday Amanda and I made a quick run to The Texas Embassy Cantina to take a few pictures. We caught our bus to the airport at noon, but we were almost late because of some very horrible traffic. We did end up making it in time and we even got to cut in front of everyone at security and then the plane ended up leaving an hour late, oh well.

When we finally got to Vienna it was dark so we couldn't really see anything much but we did make it to the castle which is amazing, the pictures don't begin to do it justice. We were all able to unpack and most of us got private rooms as well. Well that its for now. I'll try and post about this week soon.