sprechen sie deutsch

Ok. so i was at dinner with my host family again last week. We had a grand time, their english is great and we talked a little german, a very little. Also we talked about the things that Teryn and I need; some bath towels, our laundry done, and some more food for breakfast. We told Oma that we needed some bread milk and juice.
On my way out the door We were saying our good byes and I said, "tschuss" this means goodbye it sounds like -chews- or -choose- anyways, I was like
"tschuss"
and Oma says, "yes milk, bread and juice"
"no, no. tschuss"
she looked at me and then taryn and said, "yes juice"
ok... "goodbye"
then she says, "ciao"
ya, don't forget our chow...

Temple trip

Last weekend a few kids from our group, myself included went on a temple trip with the institute program in Vienna. The temple is in Germany, in Freiberg. It was really fun! The temple is small but very beautiful.


Also, while we were there we got to go on a city tour of Dresden. The city was almost completely destroyed during WWII and if you have read the book Slaughter House Five you know why I was interested in the place. It was pretty interesting to see how the city had been built up. They used the stones that they could salvage from the wreckage so all the buildings are partly black and smokey from the bombing and part new and white. It is actually very pretty.


The people at the Freiberg temple treated us so right. We had three great meals a day and we stayed at a little camp that had fun places to play. They took us on city tours and we even had a dance.

They Waltz.
not just to slow songs either.
they only waltz.
it was fun though, i learned a little, taught a little.

The Rad Route

Last week we went on a bike ride from Melk to Kraum. Heres the darn thing...

Salzburg day three

Day three started the way most good days start. with hot chocolate, and my new favorite hazelnut cream (Nutella). we started early and drove out to an old salt mine, that is now a museum. It was sort of weird. there was this weird movie they kept showing us with really bad actors in it. It sort of reminded me of those projects everyone had to do in highschool. you know when a charecter in this "drama" would just start saying all these facts... anyways they had also installed these wooden slides in the old salt mine. just for kicks. They were fun to slide down, though, and we got cool white suits to wear.



After that I went to the top of a mountain!! I was so excited. I didn't even have to hike and I got the most beautiful view (besides the view from the top of Blackisten) I got to take a cable car up, like at Disneyland. It was the best ever.



When we got up there we hiked a little bit, in the snow, to another peak. I loved it.







After we got back we went to a really cool museum about Mozart. It was probably one of the best museums I have ever been to. Instead of being sort of boring, they had had an artist design the whole thing. So it was really modern and beautiful. we heard a lot of live greek and spanish music walking throgh the streets. I bought a really cool painting of salzburg, and we ran into a puppet show about hitler?



It was in german so I don't really know what it was about. but they did have a Roosevelt puppet wheeling around...

day zwei

I like the salzburg. We started today with a guided tour through the city. This is one of the many great views we saw

great right. After our tour we went up to the fortress you can see on the hill behind me. The view of the mountains, part of the alps, was beautiful! Here are some more pretty things...




also today we went to some catacombs, but they had taken all the bones out! so I had to fill in the space.
Dead

Alive

Austria, you are welcome

Salzburg day 1

We started our day early early in the morning, Salzburg is about five hours out of Vienna. After we had been driving for a while we made our first stop at a concentration camp museum. It's called Mauthausen, it used to be a concentration camp. it was really sad.About 200,000 people were killed here before the camp was liberated in 1945. It doesn't really feel appropriate to blog a lot about it but like our program director told us "sometimes the study of great evils can be good for you" So maybe look the place up? or if you really want to watch a good movie watch It's A Wonderful Life.

We had a few hours to recover on the bus, and then we had a much more fun stop. A few hundred years ago there was a guy who was both the arch bishop and the political leader of salzburg. He had a summer home built for his mistress (he didn't have a wife that he cheated on, he was an arch bishop though so he could marry her)and their 16 kids. At first when we heard stories about this guy I thought he was a real creep but after visiting his summer home I like him! He has what they call "trick fountains" there. They were really funny. there was a river running through the property and he used the water pressure to make a lot of...trick fountains...

a mad hatter tea party wet-style


I did not volunteer for a reason!
Also, at this place was the the gazebo from the sound of music. complete girl photo op.


finally we got to Salzburg. We went to a restaurant by our hotel where I got a very austrian dinner, wiener schnitzel and apple strudel. then we went on a walk through the city. We found a pretty garden and as we were walking through it we stumbled upon a concert.


Where does that happen?!

pentecost fiasco

So monday was pentecost, Holiday! no school. Me and my roommate another girl from our group, Danielle, bruce (really bryce but our german teacher calls him bruce, so I do) and Richie... decided to go to some underwater lakes we heard about. What are under water lakes? can you swim in them? Does it cost money? how do you get to them?
All things we did not ask ourselves.
It was an adventure (an inconvenience rightly considered). You see on holidays here in Wein buses and trains do not come through stations as often which means it takes a lot longer to get places. Our trip took three hours. We made good use of the time.

I beat Richie a lot at cards.

observed nature...

and we finally made it! Turns out under water lake= cenote (like the ones in cancun...) sort of a tourist trap... but it was cool. If there ever was a list of things to do on this earth I can check off "see Europes largest underground lakes" Turns out these tricky little lakes used to be a mine. When the miners passed other miners walking into the mines they would say "Gulluk Auf" literally "Luck up" meaning both I hope your luck is good and I hope you have luck and get out of the mine. Sadly, not all of them did the natural water broke through the walls one day and thats why they are now underground lakes. Sad, but at the small memorial for those who died there is a banner that has a G and an A above it. What optimism in such dark circumstances.



In WWII they were used to build secret planes... and then the movie "The Three Musketeers" was filmed there in the 90's. Thats the shortened history at least...

party city

There aren't a ton of LDS young single adults in Vienna, this is good for us because they are excited we are here! there is an outreach center where we can get cheap dinner on monday nights before fhe and go to institute in thursdays. This last Friday they had a BBQ, we all went.

thats not everyone... some people came late, turns out mormon standard time applies to all mormons. anyways, after that we all went out dancing. After getting gelatto (everyone gets gelatto always...) It was really fun but smokey! everyone smokes in Vienna, it smells bad.



I like them. They speak German, english too. we dance

Mein Mutter

This mothers day I am real far away from home! Mostly because my mother and father are so kind to me. My mom is always pushing me to do new things in my life.Last Fall I was headed back to Hawaii for the third year in a row, and she just kept telling me about how I could do whatever I wanted,go to utah stay in Vegas, Mix it up (and hopefully meet a tall boy from Las Vegas.)I did it(not the meet a boy from vegas part. still working on all of that...)No,i went to Utah. And I had a lot of fun.
She always used to tell us about all the fun things she did in highschool; gymnastics and skiing. Hearing about all the stuff she did has always motivated me to get the most out of life. She taught me to seek out adventure, and we both have scars to prove it! I love spending time with her and going on all of our family trips. Love you mom!


I am so grateful for such good examples of what a woman can be.My family is full of great mothers, great women. I hope I can turn into one when I grow up!

Don't. Stop.

Don't, stop. don't stop till you get enough.
When ever I see this sign on the U- baun thats what i think.

Slovakia

Last Wednesday we woke up early and took a bus east to the capital city, Bratislava, of Slovakia. As we all stepped of the bus in a normal enough town our program director Brother Jacobs walked us about 200 feet to a loading dock for boat rides back to Vienna. He looked at us all (we were still half asleep, it was about 8 in the morning) and he said “see you at 5:30, right here” and then he left… Uh, I don’t know about any of you but I didn’t really know anything about Bratislava. I didn’t know any of their language (not how they counted or how to ask for a bathroom or anything) or their money (crowns) or even what there was to see in the city. We all started wandering and seeing what Bratislava had to offer, but when I pulled out my camera to take a picture of some graffiti I liked I couldn’t turn my camera on! Out of Battery… but other people in my group were prepared so I have some pictures.



We walked through the streets of “old town” for a while. The buildings were beautiful. Some were very run-down though. I thought they looked cool and that maybe they had been bombed during the war or something… later Brother Jacobs told me that Slovakia used to be a communist nation and that those buildings were just run-down because they didn’t have the money to keep them up (that shows you what I know about history).

For a while I got lost all by myself, on purpose, it was fun. We had an assignment to draw something we wanted to remember, so I stopped to draw this yellow church I liked. After that I just wandered around. I ended up at the top of a castle, with a great view of the Danube, and I ran into my roommate and two other girls, Emily and Katrina. We met some guys from Argentina (one was playing rugby in Italy, and the rest were there visiting him) So we hung out with them for a little bit. For the most part, we did a lot of wandering.



who gave me the map?

and then we took a boat back to Wein!

Oh. And the gelato in Bratislava is divine. Also, it loved my body (the gelato) I’m lactose intolerant… but a gelato enthusiast.