Two cool coincidences:
When we were in Florence, we saw the same man that we had sat across from on the Train form Rome to Florence the day before. He works for the Italian TV station and was filming something in the area that we were in. I went up to him and said hi and he immediately recognized us – that was pretty fun! ( the man on the right side of this picture is the man that we met!)

Second thing – about two weeks ago, I was on the U-bahn going home from somewhere, and these people got on the tram and sat down next to me and they were speaking English. I could tell that they were form America, and I really wanted to talk to them, just because it was like a piece of home. (When you are in a foreign country for a long time, everyone who is from the USA becomes an immediate friend – almost like how whenever we meet someone who is a member of the church, you can immediately talk to them.) Anyway, so finally, I opened my mouth and said something like, ‘are from the states?’ They were form Indiana, and we talked for the next ten minutes, until they got off. So, when we were in Florence, Kari, Heather, and I were looking for McKay, (we had been separated for a few hours) and randomly in the same square that we had seen the Italian TV man, I saw the same guys that I had seen on the U-bahn in Vienna!! Holy COW!! What a coincidence!! The world really is pretty small! That experience taught me to open my mouth, because you never know when you are going to meet those people again!!!

GERMANY and Neuschwanstein Castle

I must admit, I was really excited to go to Germany! Italy was great too, but I was excited to be back in a place where I somewhat knew the language! And, Kari and Heather know it way better than I do, and thus I just felt partially like I was going home (in Europe at least) and Kari had been to Munich a few summers ago (although only for a few hours, still good enough). We were in Munich for two and a half days, enough time to gat a taste for the culture, and to see a few cool places. We pulled into the train station around 7a.m. and tried to get into our hotel room, but couldn’t check in until 1p.m. Luckily, they let us leave our luggage in a storage room, so we didn’t have to lug it around during the day. After purchasing our transportation tickets, we hopped on a Strassenbahn in the direction of a Palace, and then jumped off and walked a bit of the way through the neighborhoods of Munich until we reached Schloss Nymphenburg. I really enjoyed walking through the neighborhoods, it was peaceful, and so green, and wet because it had been raining. Side note: it rained every day that we were gone!! Everywhere we went, there was rain, it just followed us, wherever we were, there was rain too! When we got back to Vienna, we learned that it had been raining here too, and also in Greece, where a couple other girls from our group went. I guess it was just the week of rain all over Europe!! And, guess what… it’s raining outside right now!
Anyway, so it was fun walking around the grounds of this palace, it was similar to Schönbrunn here in Vienna, with gardens, and green everywhere. We found a little church as we were wandering the grounds, and inside the church, it was grotto-esque, in other words it looked like the little mermaid – under the sea – it was a huge mosaic of tiny rocks and seashells that covered the walls. There was a statue of Mary too, and she was also covered in tiny rocks and seashells. It was a fun discovery!!
After wandering around the grounds of the palace, we took an S-bahn back to our hotel where we finally were able to check in and we all took a nap for about 2 hours because sleeping on a night train is kind of a challenge. After we were rejuvenated, we went back out to see more of the city. This time we went to the middle of the city, and saw the Rathaus (city hall) and some more churches, and lots of people shopping. We ate yummy Bratwurst for dinner, and an older man showed us some neat things about the Rathaus that we would never have seen, if he wouldn’t have showed us. We were kind of lost and we had out our map, and he approached us and asked if we needed help (auf deutsch of course). He pointed us in the right direction, and then walked with us and showed us a few neat things about a few of the buildings. After that, we went back to our hotel and had a great night sleep!

Disney Castle
Thursday, we went to the castle that was the model for the Disney princess castle: Neuschwanstein! It is in the middle of the southern border of Germany, in the Alps! It was so green-wow! It was really beautiful!! Neuschwanstein is actually the second castle built in the city called Schwangau, Leopold II built it across the way from his parents castle called, Hohenschwangau. We took a tour of both of the castles, and Neuschwanstein really does look like all the castles in the princess movies! It is interesting too because the castle was built in the 1860s, but Leopold died suddenly during the construction of it, so he actually only lived in it for about 6 months, and he never saw it completed. Once again, it rained while we were there, but we also had some sunshine, just enough to see the magnificent green mountains.

Last Day in Munich
Friday morning, we walked around Olympic park, where the Olympics were held in 1972 (I think). It was really cool to walk right up to the entrance to the stadium, where 37 years ago, people from all over the world were in Munich, and star athletes broke records, as they pushed themselves to their limits. While we were walking through the park, Heather spotted the newspaper headlines that Michael Jackson had died. WOW! It was pretty cool to be there in Munich, and to read from a German newspaper, the news that was going on halfway around the world, in the city of Los Angeles, where I am sure the news was on every TV station, and all over the radio. I definitely am detached from most of the world while I am here in Vienna!
To finish off our trip, we had to run to the Train station, and made it onto the train with about 3 minutes to spare!! We definitely utilized every spare second that we could of our week long vacation, and now tomorrow, Monday, it’s back to school! When we arrived in Vienna, I felt some relief, because I have been here long enough, that I pretty much know the transportation system, and I knew that there would be a bed for me where I could relax, and I don’t have to carry around luggage for another month and a half!! YAY! I am grateful I was able to have this week of time to run around, and to relax, I have seen so much history in the past week, it is incredible! This has definitely been an adventure, and I still have a month and a half left for more adventures!!

More of Italy - Florence and Venice

So Florence was a really neat small city. We went inside a few churches, and walked around and saw tons of great things. Our first day, we just basically explored the city. We went into a few churches, and took lots of pictures. We ate dinner at a cute Italian restaurant, we all ordered yummy pizza, and then McKay left for home Monday night. As we were walking to the train station with McKay after dinner right before he left, we ran into the missionaries!!!! We were so excited to talk with them, and it was really cool to see them! The church really is world-wide!!!
Tuesday morning, Kari, Heather, and I waited in line for about 45 minutes to get into the Uffizi Museum, one of the most famous museums in Italy. It is a pretty large museum, with paintings dating back probably almost a thousand years! We also saw a few pieces of artwork by Michelangelo and Leonardo di Vinci. It was pretty amazing!! Now, I am no artist, nor so I understand very much about paintings, but as I was walking through the museum, I was thinking about how this artwork is done. It is amazing talent! It is similar with pieces of literature, I have no idea how authors, or artists come up with what they do. I really admire anyone and every one who can gather their thoughts and put them on paper, it is definitely a wonder to me!
After we were done with the museum, we did some souvenir shopping, and then we rushed back to our hostel, picked up our suitcases and literally ran to the train station. We had about 10 minutes to catch our train to Venice.
Bad news: At the train station in Florence, there is a huge board that shows the times of when trains leave, and the times are posted usually about 10 minutes previously to departure time. Well, when we arrived at the train station, we had about 4 minutes before our train was going to leave, but we did not see our train number posted. PANIC! We guessed it was at a certain platform, but as we ran to the train and asked one of the workers if it was the right now, they said no, and of course we could not understand anymore than ‘no’. PANIC MORE! After running to another train, and asking some people who kept pointing us in no direction that was helpful, we looked at the clock and the time was past. So we had missed our train. At this moment, I didn’t panic. Instead, I thought, this happens all the time to people, it just makes the trip more exciting! And, it makes for a good story to laugh about later. As we walked back to the big board, all of sudden Venice was on the screen, it showed that it would be 10 minutes late! So we actually were not crazy, the train was just late!! For some odd reason, this was not posted until after the time the train was supposed to leave, maybe in Italy, they like to play tricks on us! Panic is supposed to be part of the adventure!
So we did in fact make it on our train, and we made it safely to Venice! Instead of having 5 hours there, we only had four, but that was still enough time to take lots of pictures, and eat some more gelato before we made it back to the train for an 11pm departure to Munich, Germany.

ITALY

ITALY
here are some highlights:
Train ride 14 hours to rome; beautiful as we went through the alps long challenge to sleep definitely an adventure
Got off said a prayer found hostel actually bed and breakfast nicer than we expected that was a relief, left on foot walked toward colosseum there it was ruins along the way really cool! We went inside with thousands of other tourists walked around almost the whole thing. Took pictures
Walked farther saw tons of roman ruins
Made it to center of town split Mckay and I got Italian Gelato –yummy!!
Saw pantheon – it’s a super old building!
Ran up and down little Italian streets in and out of churches
Ate Italian Pizza, more gelato, saw the Fountain that is really famous again with thousands of other tourist.
It was fun to hear so much English and we talked with a few groups and met people from all over the states. It was nice to get a little piece of home, knowing that they had been in the USA only a few days before going to Italy. It is pretty crazy thinking that I have been out of the US for now about a month and a half! It was fun to be in a different culture though. The Italian language barrier was a challenge sometimes, especially in Rome because not very many people speak English there. I spoke to some people in German saying “Nein, danke” or “entschuldigung” instead of “Gratzi” and ‘Escuzi’. In one shop I asked the cashier how to count to ten in Italian, and she said them twice, but by the time I walked out the door I already forgot ☺. It is similar in many ways to Spanish, but with a distinct Italian rhythm in the pronunciation of the words.
We went to dinner that first night and ate some authentic Italian pasta. YUM! It was pretty funny because as the waitress asked us what we would like to eat, Kari immediately responded in German, and then the lady started speaking German back! What are the chances that this lady would also know German!! That was an excitement! We had a great time trying to stand out from all the American tourists by speaking in German to each other as we traveled. Every time I heard other people speaking German, I got really excited and whispered to Kari, Heather, and McKay ‘They’re speaking German!!’ When we were in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican city, I approached two ladies who were speaking German and asked them (in German) where they were from. I don’t remember where they said they were from, but it was just fun to be able to use my German.
Sunday morning, we went into a small Museum with paintings that were hundreds of years old. It was nice to walk through and to see the different styles of art through the different centuries. After that, we tried to find the church building that was south of the city, but we did not give ourselves enough time to find it because we got lost, so we just turned back around and went to the Vatican city. I did not know this before, but the Vatican City is its own country and is actually the smallest country in the world. Again there were thousands of tourists. We went inside St. Peter’s Basilica – a massive church; one that beats out all the other churches that I have seen, and I have seen a lot of churches! No wonder, it’s where the pope is!
We tried to see the Sistine Chapel where Michelangelo painted the ceiling, but we found out that it was closed on Sunday. ( we were going to go on Saturday, but someone told us that it would be open on Sunday… oh well, I guess I’ll just have to go back again someday ☺)
We left Rome around 7 pm and made it to Florence around 9 pm. We decided to go straight to our hostel, it was about a 3 minute walk from the train station- great location!! I was really nervous about this place, because it actually was a hostel, with shared facilities, and it looked a bit sketch to me. I was worried because we were going to be staying there for two nights. Luckily, Heather and Kari had a great attitude about it and they were not worried at all, so I just trusted their judgment. It turned out to be totally fine. We were really blessed our entire trip with no problems at all in Italy!

Travel to Italy and Germany

I will not have internet for the next week... I am so excited to go to Rome, Florence, and Munich!!! I will definitely post pictures when I get back!!! Auf wiedersehen!

Frankfurt, Germany Temple Trip

I am really excited to write about my trip to the temple in Germany!! First of all, I was in Germany!!!!! We crossed the border about 1 am, and soon after we had a 45-minute break where Heather, Kari, and I took a picture (the one where it’s all black in the background!) We took an overnight charter bus, and left the Wien Südbahnhof at 8:30pm on Wednesday. It was really a challenge to sleep on the bus the entire night, and when we arrived in Friedrichsdorf, Germany at 6:30am Thursday we were all really tired. There were twenty of us on the bus, and I think a few more met us at the temple. The temple is in a small town called Friedrichsdorf, which is twenty minutes outside of Frankfurt am Mein. The church owns a small dormitory building, which is right next to the church building and about 100 feet from the temple itself. It is interesting now that I think about that because it really was sacred ground, and I could feel the sacredness when we arrived. It was a really neat experience, because now I know what it feels like to live 8 hours away from the closest temple, and to make the journey on a bus overnight, and then spend three days on holy ground.

So, the baptismal sessions were split into two groups, so I was in group A and we had to be in the temple at 7:30 am, an hour after we arrived. So, we ate breakfast, changed our clothes and immediately went inside for our temple session (oder Taufsession). Although I was kind of tired, I had a great experience being in the House of the Lord. It was really neat to hear everything spoken in German, and we were able to each do 15 names each session that we were in. I am so grateful that we have the opportunity to do the work for those who have passed on from this life to the next life. In our session on Friday morning, the temple worker told us that in our session with only 7 girls, we had done the work for 96 names! And that was only one of the sessions! It really was a great experience to be in the temple for three days in a row!

So Thursday after the two baptism sessions, a group of twenty of us took the S-bahn into the city of Frankfurt. We went to a character museum that was filled with comics from one man, I guess he is a famous author…??? I really have no idea, I just know that in order for me to understand most of the comics I either used context clues form the picture, or asked one of the native speakers that were with us. Anyway, I was just really excited to be in Frankfurt, the same city that I had learned about when I was in my German class in high school. I was also really excited because I never planned on going to this temple trip until about a week ago, and it was a really great experience to have! I was so blessed to be able to go and to experience what it is like to be a European! And, we were with the Austrian YSA (auf Deutsch JAE) and to learn from them. This trip was also a great way for me to feel closer to the native Austrians because we were interacting with them so much, and I was practicing German, and they could help me, and they were also practicing their English and we could help them. It was really just a neat experience all around!

Thursday night after dinner, we had a Fireside give by one of the members of the Frankfurt temple Presidency (I think) and it was about temples and how we are in the last days where the world is getting more and more evil, but more and more temples are being built which helps us as members to strengthen our faith (Glauben) and our testimonies (Zeugnis) of the gospel of Jesus Christ (das Evangelium des Jesu Christi). After the fireside, we had a testimony meeting (Zeugnisversammlung) with just the YSA (JAE). This was a powerful experience. Of course, each testimony was auf Deutsch, and I was absolutely amazed at how the Holy Ghost works! I could understand so much of the German, and I really felt the power of the gift of tongues. The spirit that was present in this meeting especially touched me. Testimonies were shared from the heart. The gospel of Jesus Christ is true no matter what language you speak. I also had the opportunity to share my testimony auf Deutsch. Although my vocabulary in German is small, I was able to speak from the heart, and as I was speaking I thought, “wow, this is how the power of the spirit works.” It was truly an incredible experience. That experience also helped me to just open my mouth and start speaking German. So now that I am back in Wien, I am going to just open my mouth and the words will eventually come. Ich weiß dass Jesus Christus lebt. Er kennt mich personnlich. Ich weiß dass das Evangelium wahr ist. Gott ist unser Vater. Er hat ein Plan für uns. Jesus Christus ist mein Erlöser. Er hat alles für uns getan. Er liebt uns. Ich bin sehr Dankbar für Christus und für Gott. Sle helfen mich mit alles dass ich tun. Ich sage diese Dinge im Namen Jesu Christi, amen.

Final thoughts from Sunday

Today was fast and testimony meeting at church, and I was so amazed at how much German I could understand! My ‘guest mother’ gave the lesson in Relief Society and the topic was “Glauben” that means Faith auf deutsch. I thought to myself, how did they know that I needed this lesson today??? Of course Heavenly Father knows that I needed this lesson, and through the Holy Ghost I was able to hear lots of things that I needed to hear today. It is faith and not fear that helps us get through trials. Faith without works is dead. Be of good cheer and do not fear for I the Lord am with you and will stand by you. All of these things were talked about today, and are so important for me to learn and to understand. At the end of the meeting, five minutes were given for sisters to bear testimony, and it was so great to hear the sisters testify of the love that our Savior has for us (auf deutsch) And also in sacrament meeting, I could understand many of the testimonies that were given, and my testimony was strengthened of how blessed I am in this life. I am so amazed at the greatness of our Savior Jesus Christ. He lives, and He knows us individually and He loves us so much! My German is getting better every day and I know I am here for a reason, and I am so excited to continue to learn!

Here are a couple church vocabulary words:
Zeugnis- testimony
Erlöser- Redeemer
Glauben- Faith
Gebot- commandments
Ewigkeit- eternity
Taufe- baptism
Umkehren- to repent
Die Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzen Tage- … (take a guess)

Around the city excitement!

Here are some pictures of things that I have done…
Tuesday I sat on a Strassenbahn, and then went wandering around the city a bit with McKay. We went up to the doors of the Rathaus, and the Parliament buildings. The picture of my roommate and I is at the Rathaus Park. For our architecture class, we went inside the Parliament and Rathaus buildings, and inside the Rathaus, I got to sit in the seat of somebody important ☺. Thursday night was an amazing concert given by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra at Schloss Schönbrunn, with an expected audience of 100,000 people!!! It was so crazy to be there with so many people, and it was an amazing performance. That experience helped me feel very European, with the smell of cigarette smoke, and tons of bottles of beer… so we did not stay very long. Friday night was “Lange Nacht der Kirche” where all of the churches in Vienna, all 23 districts, were open and had various performances throughout the night including concerts, sermons, tours, and such. I had the opportunity to be one of the very few people to climb tons of stairs up to the top of one of the towers of the Votiv Kirche, a church that was built in the 1800s as a ‘thank you’ to God for saving the life of Kaiser Franz Josef in an assassination attempt. Apparently, the only time they let people climb the tower is during the ‘Lange Nacht der Kirche’ and we were part of the last group that got to climb. It was pretty scary being in a tiny, dark, spiral staircase that was filled with tons of spider webs, and when we got to the top, there were dead pigeons laying on the platform. I felt pretty nasty after this experience. But, now I can say that I climbed a real bell tower! And, once we reached the bell platform, we climbed a tiny latter and then another spiral staircase, this time with a handrail with the thickness of a hairbrush handle (sorry I can’t think of anything else to describe it, but it was really small). It was made of steel, but was pretty high, and any wrong step would be …BAD! It was a fun adventure though, and as we climbed up, and down, we all were saying words of encouragement trying to distract ourselves from the crazy thing we were doing. I don’t have a great picture of when we were climbing, or of when we were at the tip top, but I do have a picture of when I was about halfway up. It was a really pretty view of the city!

Parks and Cafes

Okay, so I have now been in Austria for over three weeks! One fourth of the time that I’m here is already gone! Wow! So, here is what I have been up to this week…
PARKS
Monday was a holiday so no class, but I did not have anything planned and I did not do much. My roommate and I did sit in the Rathaus Park for about an hour in the afternoon. Our professor said that lots of Wienerisch people go to parks so we thought we would also try it out. It turned out to be a very relaxing place to be, much better than being inside my room all day, and I began reading the book, “The Secret Life of Bees” It was turned into a movie, but I have not yet seen it, and I only got thirty pages into it but so far I have enjoyed it. On Friday, I went to a park for a couple hours where I talked with Russell, and wrote a letter to Jacob (it will be mailed soon!) P really enjoy relaxing in the parks; Vienna is a very large city but sometimes that is easy to forget because the people here like to relax and are not always rushing to and fro.
The picture of the guy walking on the rope is one of the things that I saw while I was in Sigmund Freud Park across the street from the Votiv Kirche. I was sitting in the park long enough to watch him set up his strap (similar to some of the ones dad uses at work I believe) and then he just started walking across. He was really good! He tried to make it across and back, but I left before I could see him succeed. It was funny because most people acted like that was a normal thing to do in a park, like they were used to people walking across ropes in parks… maybe so?! Anyway, I really enjoy the relaxation that Viennese people enjoy and I am excited to enjoy it of for the next two and a half months!

CAFÉS
Another one of the highlights of things that people do here is go to cafés and restaurants to sit and relax and chat, and just enjoy time as it passes by. On Wednesday, our professor took us to a “swank” high-class café called, “Café Central” located in a ritzy part of town where ‘anyone who is proper, and has class must visit’ Our professor said we had to experience at least once the ‘high-class life’ of Vienna. Our class discussion that day included a tour of the Rathaus which was built in the neo-gothic style, trying to look back to the past of Austria before Napoleon had taken over and the Holy Roman Empire was destroyed. (Sorry, I am not super sure on my historical facts.) But, it was interesting to hear our professor talk about how with the changes that were occurring in Vienna, the high-class became swanker and along with that, the middle-class continued to try and copy everything that high-class society called ‘proper’. Anyway, so I did feel sophisticated as our professor treated us to expensive cake and yummy, yet pricy hot chocolate, and I enjoyed the enchanting environment of the ‘swankest café in Vienna.’ I realized that I had never been to any sort of café before here in Vienna (although they are everywhere), but soon I want to go to a not so ritzy café and again enjoy the pleasant atmosphere. Saturday, I did go to a Konditerei, which is just cakes and pastries, and Sandy, Leah, and I ate yumminess!

Church, Library, Monastary, Palace, and FUN with the girls!

So my batteries have not really been working very well so I haven't taken very good pictures this round, sorry! Here are a couple inside Baroque style churches, me knocking on the door of a Monastery in Melk, Austria. It was Heather's birthday so we found a yummy pizza place to eat at and it was super cheap!

There is also a picture of a group of us outside of Schönbruhn Palace! The first picture is of my roommate and Marie-Louise (our host-mom's daughter) she did not speak to us the first two weeks, but finally wanted us to help us do this puzzle with her! We were so excited that she finally talked to us! Last night too we played cards with her and Shelly (another girl from the program who is living with us. She and her husband also played cards with us!)