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Ken posted this on our Europe semester blog, a little love for home:

Procrastination. Now homework, love you all!

The Annunciation Lillies

Bonne Serra!

Today I am in Firenze! Or Florence, for us english speakers. It smells like wet cobblestones, leather, and cyprus trees! Well, maybe not the cyprus trees in the city, but I thought it sounded good so I added it anyway. Today we put off homework and went to the Uffizi and the Galleria dell 'Accademia. On our way to buy tickets we got caught in a rainstorm and it was thundering and pouring but so much fun! (Now, when I'm dry and warm at least :) ) I baught a three euro umbrella and a five euro scarf and they're probably the best things I've bought on the trip this far! I'm beginning to love annunciation paintings, or, for those who don't know, scenes depicting when the angel Gabriel came to Mary. I absolutely love this one by Botticelli, completed in 1490. The triangular composition characteristic of the Renaissance is clear, the three points made by Mary's halo, Gabriel's bent knee and Mary's cloaked feet. I love the colors, the gold detail in Mary's crown and dress is incredible! I don't know why Gabriel is kneeling, it almost looks like he just landed in the room, his hand raised to calm Mary from his unexpected entrance. Sometimes I think Mary can look a little vague, and while her expression is demure in this scene, her face is sweet and she looks like a real girl. I love it, I hope you do too!

It's time for group dinner! Fingers crossed for raviolli, it's always too expensive for me to buy on my own!!

I love you!

Glass, Gondolas, & Generals?

Hello all!

Guess what?? I’m in a Venice hotel right now. Eek!

To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to Italy. I mean, compared to these other, non-cliché European countries to go to, Italy wasn’t high on my list. Plus it means that our European portion is OVER and I so, so, so don’t want it to be over!! The passage of time is so weird, you guys. Every day feels like a week, and all these weeks add up to about ten minutes. There’s weird things that show time passing, like all the guys are needing haircuts now, the warm summer light of August has turned into the more intense, direct light of fall. The little yellow cards that have our itineraries on them have checkmarks from England to Austria, and now we’re flipping the card over to the back side!

I’m not homesick, per se, but I’m missing a lot of things about home. I miss family and friends, I miss playing guitar, I miss baking and coming down to breakfast and pouring coffee out of our random coffee pot that sits next to the stove under the cereal cupboard. I miss fall decorations, and baked pumpkin things, I miss seeing the mountains in the distance, and having a laundry machine readily available!

But, at the same time,

I love the people of our group: Colby makes friends with everyone, waitresses, gas-station cashiers, palace guards, our old-lady tour guides…, Shanon takes pictures of people sleeping on the bus, Joanna’s laugh can always be heard from anywhere and she’s always available for deep conversations, Alex likes windowsills, Jenny likes fat jokes, Gabe, Nif, and the Kihlstroms are the best and laugh so loud at dinner! We just had a night of cabaret, which shows how well we know each other, each of our groups did a skit making fun of something about our trip, like our leaders loading homework on us, grumpy museum people, people being impersonated… it was great, Gabe says that he would wake up giggling during the night, and it’s we did too! I’m sure our performances will make facebook, at some point, you should watch them. J

Also, we hear that there’s crazy high security at Westmont now?? It seems like a world away and now we have to worry about rooming and classes and what?? And who knows what’s going on with the DC. We have rumors circling our group but no one really knows what’s going on. And we’re kind of okay with it.

Anyway.

Now we’re in Venice!! Guys, we had to take a WATER TAXI to get to our hotel, and we were giggly, squeely, picture-taking tourist girls and didn’t care. Even the guys, because after you’ve been cooped up in a castle library loaded down with homework, cooped up in a bus for six hours, and then put on a water taxi and on canals between mossy-footed stone buildings, you going to freak out at just about anything remotely exciting, not to mention water taxis squeezing between gondoliers in small canals between beautiful old stone buildings! So we arrived at our hotel and went out to explore and find food. Venice is a dizzying maze of small alleyways lined with glittering windows of glass vases and leather shoes which open to small bridges crossing the canals into another small alleyway. We’re only a five minutes walk from St. Marcos Square, so we made a quick visit and picked an alley to explore and found about 20 US military guys hanging out at a bar, so we talked with them for a little bit. There plane broke down on the way to Afghanistan so they’re staying at the Aviano (eh, family??!) base and enjoying Venice…or at least it’s bars… They were great though and loved talking to us college kids, plus it turned out they were high up officers in the 102 Airborne division, which had a big roll in WWII and we learned all about them and visited the town they jumped in on DDAY and went to the museum and all that! They’re the only jumping airborne division left, apparently. So we talked with them for a while, and then we went and got--

ITALIAN FOOD. Guys, I forgot that garlic existed. Seriously. With all our food pounded into shnitzel, drowned in vinegar, or rolled into sausage I forgot that tomatoes and basil and garlic and flatbread pizza existed in this good world and it was absolutely amazing. Appreciate your garlic, people.

Today we have class and free time, free time I will fill with homework and probably museums, knowing us J

I’m feeling better, pink eye is still hanging on a little but I think I quit the medicine too soon, and after our lovely break in Mittersill (I miss the mountians!) I’m feeling much refreshed.

I love you! 

Guten Morgen, Kinder!

Guten Morgen!

I’m writing this on the bus on the way to Saltzburg, the city of the dear von Trappe family! I spent four days between our little home and the attached restaurant, sitting doing homework, having Vespers, watching Tron, playing the piano and guitar (made my week!! Kaly, I played blackbird and thought of you!) AHHH we just saw a herd of yaks! With baby yaks! Ahhh! So yes, being cooped up gets to you, even when you’re cooped up in a castle, so now we have a free day in Saltzburg and people are going crazy on the bus with enthusiasm for everything:

Nif, on the bus mic: Guten Morgen everyone

GUTEN MORGEN!! YEAHHHH!

Nif: This is our busdriver, Alex

ALEX!!! YEAH ALEX!!!!

Nif: And you need to wear your seatbelts in Austria.

…………………….. aw. (clicking noises)

MOUNTAINS!!!

YAKS!!!!

CLOUDS!!!!

It’s time we got out. At the top of the pass there are huge mountians scraping the sky all around us, their rocky tops swept with snow, their huge, spreading feet blanketed with grass. Clouds hang in the valley below us and as we drive on the highway we drive over grassy ski runs. How. Cool. Is. THAT.

Yesterday was my breaking point, I lost my camera the first night in the castle, and since I haven’t left I know it’s here somewhere, but I can’t find it ANYWHERE and it’s been worrying me and then we have so much work to do:

History Paper

Technology Paper

Art Paper

Art Presentation

Poetry assignments

Cabaret presentation

Israel maps….israel’s coming up sooner than I would like…

I know that this is pretty standard for a semester’s work, but when your traveling and only have 5 days to get it done… I freaked out. While I was looking for my camera I ran into Alex in the dining room having hot chocolate and she asked me how I was doing and I totally broke down (again). I chose a hard topic for my history paper so I couldn’t get it written down, which put off all this other work that I had to do plus I can’t find my camera, which just weighs me down and there was no way I would be able to go and see the town because I had so much to do! Alex listened and then took me through a little side door, up a steep little staircase to a secret lookout point in the castle where you can see the whole valley! We ran into Joanna, prayed, and then (I was still totally stressed, and you know me, crying J ) she sat up and said, “Guys, let’s go to Mittersill. Let’s go and get hot chocolate!” So we did, forgetting our homework, forgetting the camera, we (literally) hiked down the hill to the town and got hot chocolate in a tavern and it was delicious, exactly what we needed. It was so refreshing to get away, to stretch our legs and have time just to talk and have fun.

So now I’m about to start on my history essay again, and tonight I’ll try to start on some art. ßThere, that’s my poetry! And I don’t know about the camera. I read the “do not worry” part of Luke, I thought it was kind of appropriate, and it says that God knows what we need and he provides for us when we “seek his kingdom”. He knows that a camera is a traveller’s must-have, but maybe I’m supposed to be learning that it’s not? I don’t know. I’ll keep you updated.

I wrote this, and now I am so, SO happy to say that I FOUND MY CAMERA. In a pocket of my backpack I hadn’t checked before. It would be stupid but its not because I found it!! AND I finished my World War II paper, which I wasn't sure would get done.

Tonight we have cabaret which will be fun but we’re all very overwhelmed with homework, still. Tonight’s our last night in our dear castle!

I love you!

Castle Life Reflections

This is another all-over-the-place one, but it's late so I'm typing fast! :)

You would love this place. The clouds decend on the valley and smother the high, craggy peaks and then you know it's going to snow! It was snowing big fat flakes last night and we twirled in them and it was beautiful! They were illuminated by the lights in the front courtyard and people threw snowballs and for one total california guy it was his first time in falling snow EVER. Imagine that, your first snowfall in the alps in a castle in Austria! 

The people here are masters of soups. They've served us so many over the past few days! Some for lunch and some for dinner, and (haha, when I can taste them) they're phenomenal and so cozy! Tonight we had vespers which was awesome, as always, it comes just in time every week! Afterward Shanan (our guitar chaplain guy) just wanted to keep playing, and a bunch of other people still had a lot of energy so we all hung out in the big room upstairs and they formed a little band and played boy-band music from middle school--I don't like boy-band music sooo I only knew of few of the words but gosh darnnit you can do some mad tambourine to just about any song, even if you don't know it well! It was a great memory! As was last night, a big group of girls and I watched pride and prejudice on the big bed in our room and it was just the coziest, girliest thing ever and we ate it up! Please, castle, snow, and pride and prejudice? Its a girl's dream come true. We may even have had chocolate.

There is no logical floor plan in this quirky castle-turned-cabin of ours, there's random curlying staircases everywhere, hidden hallways and tucked away rooms! The doors all have big, flowery iron door-nobs with big, old fashioned key-holes with matching keys. There are two pianos, one in the library and one in our classroom room and you can hear talented people sneak off from writing their papers and plink away in happy, procratinative bliss. During the day, when we're working on homework (we have two big papers to do, plus a lot of poetry to catch up on) we're scattered on the floor in the small lobby or on the living room couches or floor. Imagine legs stretched out everywhere with apple laptops set upon them, us typing away with headphones in, totally zoned out to the world. Then of course, every hour people start getting antsy and take breaks, talking, going for walks (it's 20 min to the town, and a steep walk back up!) or, as some discovered today, getting the 2.40 euro hot chocolate in the restaurant connected to our castle, across the courtyard. I love that everyone is here together, and I'm so thankful we have a week here to rest up! It's actually hard to get used to, not having to go somewhere all the time, but I love it. My favorite part is knowing that when I walk outside I can touch grass that goes on for a very long time and isn't bound by cement boundaries. Did I already say this? Cities are endless miles of pavement, but here we're free! If anything, I'm learning I love outside, REAL outside, too much to live in a city!

 Typical Prague in the early morning, a stunning city.

 Krakow street performer, how does he do it??!

 Best lunch in Krakow! It was super cheap and with great people :) I had vegetable filled pancakes! They were actually pretty good, and more like crepes than pancakes.

Best dinner in Krakow, group meal at a Jewish restaurant on the Jewish New Years, where a traditional folk band played for us, it was awesome, and we had "dreidel, dreidel, dreidel" stuck in our head for the next few days!

I love you all!

Kenzie

Snowy Mountain Castle

Something interesting about blogging is that the Blogger site changes languages wherever we go, so I’m never entirely sure what words I need to click to sign in.

Anyway…

  Hello all!

It’s been a whole city since I last wrote!

           

Vienna. Vienna was good: it specializes in CAKE, COFFEE, and BAROQUE ARCHETECTURE, what’s not to like?

Highlights:

The Kunsthistoriches Museum (kunst=art, historiches=history…that took me forever to figure out) but it was INCREDIBLE. You walk inside and you are overwhelmed with marble and frescos and gold and ornate decorations and huge columns and smooth white statues. We spent an entire day inside the museum looking at four different pieces and discussing them in groups and all together. We also had cake. My highlight from the museum was seeing Rembrandt’s painting of the Prophetess Anna praying. Rembrandt specialized in making the subject not only look realistic but come alive, he could show their inner thoughts, character, and emotion. The way the light falls, it highlights her faraway, anxious face and her loosely clasped hands. You can almost hear her prayers to the Father she knows so well, praying that she might see the Messiah before she dies. I stared at this painting for almost ten minutes. I loved it.

I also went to eat at a place called Café Central (“centrahl”), twice. It’s high ceiling supported by columns has sheltered writers, politicians, philosophers, and artists since the 1800’s! They had incredible desserts, incredible soup, and a very fun atmosphere. Three of us shared a “pancake”, but really was a pile of dough baked for 20 minutes with plum preserves poured over the top.

The third highlight was going to see the Crown Jewels of the Habsburgs, perhaps them most powerful royal family in all of European history, the last one dying this last year in June. We saw intricate, priceless crowns, a wide bowl of stone that may be the holy grail (in certain light you can see “Christ” in the veins of color in the smoothed stone, almost a thousand years old. We also saw a unicorn’s horn (or a narwal tusk?) that was taller than me!

Ah but now we’re in Mittersill, Austria! In a castle. I know. Don’t get too excited—I mean it’s awesome but don’t picture Beauty-and-the-Beast-enchanted-castle, picture castle-turned-alpine-cabin. It’s the coziest thing in the world! There’s little rooms off the sides of little hallways off of little winding staircases with views of the little town of Mittersill nestled at the foot of HUGE, craggy mountains dusted with snow! All the California kids who have been bemoaning the lack of Mexican food in Europe are now completely enchanted watching the snow fall, and to be honest, I’m giddy right along with them! This morning I got ready and read my Bible and journaled while looking out the window at the mountain sleeping right outside. It feels so good to be in the mountains again, to know that if I stepped outside I could run an touch grass, flowers, trees, and dirt instead of a spreading mass of concrete. I’m glad we’re all trapped in here together, a 20 minute’s walk from town, to do work and get well (I got a bad cold and, surprise? Pink eye. Thankfully Ricola is all over the place and Laura had pink eye medicine!)

I’m wearing my new scarf, my new legwarmers, and I’m happy J