The Art of Loneliness

I hate being alone.

No really, this is probably my idea of hell: to be by myself, with no contact with others for all eternity.

...and there would be bugs.

I know God said "It is not good for man to be alone," but I have come to realize through my relationships with those in the world that call themselves "introverts" that alone-time can, for many, be valuable and energizing. This, however, is rarely the case for me as I quickly lose motivation and focus when left on my own for too long. It's just who I am. I thrive off good company. Note that this does not mean I constantly want to be in the company of just anyone, but a phone call or visit with a close friend or family member can mean the difference between a clean house and happy day or a Netflix marathon and week-old dishes rotting in the sink.

You can understand then what it means to me to be married. Aside from the obvious benefits of living with my favorite person in the world, at a very basic level, it means I do not have to live alone. I think God blessed me abundantly when He gave me Andrew, but He also just blessed me to give me anyone at all (to be clear, this does not mean I would have married anyone to escape my worst nightmare of loneliness, but it sure was convenient that I got to go straight from a college house full of friends to a home with my best friend). Basically, I hit the jackpot all around.

However, life is not meant to be constant heaven on earth, and the downside to marrying Andrew is that, while we have had such a happy time together thus far, we are so often not together.  Andrew's job is demanding, with constantly changing schedules and lots of time away from home. This means that I often have to be alone.

This began early in our marriage when, a few days after our honeymoon, he had to leave me for a week. I was by myself, in our new house, on a country highway in the middle of nowhere, with no near neighbors, in a new town and state, and it terrified me. The days were bad enough, but the nights were infinitely worse. I didn't know all the sounds of our house at night, so every little noise made me jump. Moreover, I have a vivid imagination that would inconveniently recall every scary scene from every scary movie I've ever seen at the worst moments. Suffice it to say that that week was a struggle which I made it through thanks to an impulse-buy puppy, Redbox, our friend Shawn who gallantly kept me company two of the evenings, and the hope of a positive pregnancy test. But I made it through, and I would make it through more nights like it when Andrew was out in the field over the next year and a half, though I don't think any were quite as bad as that first week.

It wasn't just the times when Andrew was away overnight that were difficult. For several reasons, I did not get a job when we were first married, so I had to learn to fill entire days by myself. I had a hard time not feeling like a useless vegetable, sitting around all day until he came home from work. After the insane busyness and built-in social life of college, this was horrible for me. I am very good at handling a tightly-packed schedule, late nights, many demands on my time. I actually get a bit of a high off conquering the stress, but I have never had to be productive in empty days, without company. In this time, I did my best to eat healthily for the sake of the pregnancy and keep the house clean, but so many days I failed at what you would think would be so easy. What I learned about myself was that I would rather do pretty much anything than be alone.

My saving grace was Andrew coming home from work, happy to see me. That and knowing that I was growing a baby inside me who would some day keep me busy and keep me company. I don't know that I ever got very good at being alone, but I tried. By the end of our time in that house I had decorated most of the rooms, established budget/grocery shopping/meal routines, prepped for the baby, taken some college music classes, and mostly maintained my sanity. I wasted hours and hours of time, but I taught myself how to function without the safety of a tightly-packed schedule, and it was psychologically so much harder than the craze of college life ever was.

Now I'm five months into a 6-8 month deployment. That's 142 days of no Andrew coming home at night, and yes, I have cried a lot of those nights...I'm also pregnant again, so I blame at least 50% of my breakdowns on hormones. I'm growing a baby, give me a break! I have learned how to establish a routine, to reach out to others and make sure I get the people time I need throughout the week, and most importantly, thank God for family. God graciously gave me the tools I needed to make it through this deployment. I live in a basement apartment, below extended family, I am 15 minutes away from my parents' house, and I now have a hilarious, interactive one year old to keep me busy and entertained. Nevertheless, I have struggled hard through these months, mostly in the evenings when I realize that I don't have someone coming home to share my day and bed with.

"So you're alone," you say, "But it can't be quite hell, what about the bugs?"

 Did you not read that I live in a basement?

Haha ok, that's enough of my 3am humor.

One lesson I learned in college was the value of self-knowledge, and I think that's partly why I find personality tests and analyzing my temperament so interesting.While discussing these tonight, my brother-in-law informed me that the Myer's-Briggs test was devised partly to enable us to understand the weaknesses in our character in order to become more well-rounded. It suddenly hit me that my most pronounced characteristic, my extroverted-people-needingness would be the hardest for me to change and overcome. I then had an "aha" moment when it became clear that God has already been working on that these past two years and that I can see the real fruit of this time spent learning to be alone. I still hate it, I'm still not good at it, but I have done it. I have overcome some of the fear of it, and I have learned the skill of accomplishing daily tasks while out of my comfort zone. I don't know what this means for my future, but I am happy that even just by living everyday life I am growing, expanding my horizons, and drawing closer to reaching my potential as a human being.

I'm also happy that this time apart from my Andrew is nearly over. I'm sure there will be other challenges up ahead, but hopefully we can face them together, which of course, will be an adventure in itself.

On Making Plans...and Remaking Them.

This fall, or rather this entire year, has been a whirlwind of changed plans, and as a result I have learned that I am not as adaptable as I used to think. It started early on, last winter, when Andrew was working long hours and trying to make it through a particularly difficult and prestigious military school while I was pregnant, attending classes at the local community college, and driving him 30+ minutes to work each day. Then it was the surprise of preeclampsia and early birth of Adeline, during which time Andrew was at another intense school and only got paternity leave thanks to an especially sympathetic superior. Now it's the pre-deployment scramble where we literally don't know what the next week will bring. This has meant a lot of traveling and adjusting of travel plans because I don't like to stay here alone without Andrew and use his every absence as an excuse to go to home and visit family.

For example, this weekend we drove up north for an extended Thanksgiving visit. Two days before the trip we discovered that Andrew would pretty much be gone from the end of our trip until the beginning of his Christmas break (another set of dates that has yet to be finalized), so we quickly devised a tentative foolproof plan for the next few months which included me spending most of it in the north punctuated by a quick post-Christmas trip back south to pack up our house. Given my year of experience with military family life, I should have known this plan wouldn't survive the week, but for whatever reason I spent the week in the naive bliss of imagining we had a grip on (read: total control of) our lives for the next few months.

 Alas, as Jeremiah would say, "You duped me Lord, and I let myself be duped."

The night before Andrew's trip back down south he approached me with the news that he actually had a week back at work before leaving on the aforementioned pre-Christmas trip. This meant that I had the option of driving back to spend an extra week with him and then flying up again for his absence. It only altered my precious plan by a week, an extra drive, and a flight, and it meant that I would get to enjoy six more days with my beloved husband so by all processes of logic I should have been thrilled.

Woman's emotions have long operated in opposition to logic however, and I was less than thrilled. In fact, to be blunt, I threw what could be best described as a "hissy fit".

"I can't do this anymore," I vented to poor Andrew. "I'm so sick of changing plans."

Fortunately, God gave me the most patient husband alive. He has this sixth sense about when to take my emotions seriously and when to just wait and let me get it out of my system. He could have been frustrated that I was dragging my feet about the idea or even hurt that I didn't appear overjoyed at the prospect of spending more time with him. Instead, he calmly sympathized and gave me the option to stay with my family and not undertake another "uprooting" as I dramatically termed it and then kind of backed off until I came to my senses.

To be fair, I had been hit pretty hard with a cold over the weekend and hadn't gotten enough sleep, and it's true that our lives have been fairly uncertain lately, but we aren't the first to face such things. In the end, I realized it all boils down to this need that I have (and I suspect I'm not alone) for control.

I don't like when plans change, when life is unpredictable, even when the dishes aren't put away properly because I like to feel like I can influence things and people around me in a way that is comfortable to me. I don't think I'm a control freak. I'm just human and we like to think we're bigger than we are. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), we're not in total control and we never have been. We have the ability to make small choices that have a certain amount of influence and sometimes that goes to our heads. It's kind of ridiculous. I mean, how do we think we got free will in the first place? We didn't even get to be alive by ourselves.

I see this attempt for control even with six month old Adeline. As soon as she grasped the fact that her fingers were a part of her and could be manipulated she began trying to grab everything within reach and shove it into her mouth. Sometimes, however, she doesn't understand that some things should not be grabbed or eaten–dirty diapers, hot mugs of coffee, nasty hairballs on the floor. I have a somewhat better sense of what is best for her and have to snatch the dangerous things away and put the appropriate things within her reach–rattles, squishy toys, soft blankets that are also big enough to shove in her mouth without being choked upon (can you tell she's teething?). I think this is probably similar to how God sees us.

"Here have a life choice...oh, not that life choice...ok, try this instead. Oops, poor thing, don't cry.."

But like me with Adeline, he doesn't force us to pick things up. He allows us to discover our own abilities and make our own decisions for a little bit and then gently nudges us in the right direction. In this instance, I was offered the choice to undergo a slight inconvenience of more travel for the sake of spending more time with Andrew and here I am in my own home again, enjoying the fact that Andrew got off at 1pm today. If I had stayed away we wouldn't have this time together and I would regret that. Would it have been nicer to know his schedule in advance? Yes. Would I have learned a valuable lesson about flexibility and not being the supreme ruler of my own universe if I had known his schedule in advance? No.

It turns out there's order in this chaotic life. We just have to find and appreciate it. And I suppose it wouldn't be quite the same adventure if everything worked out according to plan.

What They Don't Tell You About Love

Do you ever feel like you're stuck on a carnival ride? I do. And it's the spinning teacup one.

By this, I mean quite literally that I feel like I'm constantly about to lose whatever small meal I have just managed to consume. I don't always lose it but the feeling is still there. This is not a metaphor for helpless drowning in a sea of deadlines (those days are behind me), nor is it a clever way of saying that I'm going through a post-graduation crisis. This is, in fact, my current life as an expectant mother still stuck in that dreaded first trimester. Saltines, my bed, and netflix are my most loyal friends. Yep, I'm pregnant.

I did not resurrect this blog or start this post to whine about my physical ailments, so I'll spare you some of the more gruesome details and skip to the point. I have never, ever felt like this in my life, and I'm not just talking about the sickness (though the feeling holds true for that as well). Technically, I have never before been so utterly depended on and so needed, yet in actuality, I have never felt more useless. Let's see if I can sort through those contradictions for you.

When I dreamed of having children, somehow, as we do in most dreams, I skipped over the less savory bits. Pregnancy was probably just an exciting nine months where you guessed your baby's gender, delighted in his or her every kick, felt slightly uncomfortable at the end, and voila: Motherhood. This new "occupation" would of course bring with it a sense of worth, a feeling of importance. I mean, you made a baby. Yeah, it would be difficult at times, but in the end, it was a real vocation, something you were created for, a path to heaven.

Well, my view of the end-goal hasn't changed much, but my understanding of the journey has and I'm pretty sure it's only the beginning. As I've been confined to my bed or a chair at the kitchen table most days for sheer fear of vomiting, my extroverted personality has teamed up with my sense of worth for a series of revolts.

"If you don't get out of this house today, you are useless," 

"How are you going to make friends if you don't get a job?"

"Well, there goes another day of writing thank you notes at the kitchen table. Remember when you had a real life?"

At first I was tempted to believe these statements. It's true, I haven't gotten out much since the sickness set in. I haven't made many friends. I haven't gotten a job. I haven't even really finished setting up our new house. But everything changed when we had our first ultrasound last week. At the technician's cheerful pronouncement, "Yep, there's a baby in there!" all worries of self became background noise. There, on the screen in black and white was a little human with tiny arms and legs waving and a strong heartbeat that I could see pulsing away.

Yeah, remember when my "real life" consisted of writing papers that one person would read and grade only to be forgotten in my file folder forever? Remember when I could go shopping for clothes with friends? Remember when I worked at a cash register all day, taking people's money for plastic merchandise? Those were the days.

The days before there was a life inside of me.

I have since realized that the reason I felt so useless is because outwardly I am not doing much. Inwardly, however, God is doing miracles and I get to be His vessel. Is that a waste of my life? I think not.

It hit me tonight that, like it or not, I am being taught how to love selflessly. There is no physical part of me that is profiting from this baby, nor can I really control anything in this situation beyond my attitude. Yet, as my body is being offered up for me, so can my heart also learn to sacrifice. Sometimes, it turns out, we are drawn into something bigger than ourselves, and apparently that's when we truly learn to love.

My own efforts at love are feeble, limited by my humanity, but when united with God, they can help to create and nourish life itself. Though it took my present condition to see it, I don't think this is only a pregnancy thing either. We all have the capacity to be an instrument in creating beauty on this earth. It's simply a matter of forgetting ourselves and submitting our wills to a higher purpose. His purpose.

See what they don't tell you about love is sometimes there are situations beyond your control, when you don't feel like you can do much of anything. But that's generally when God is doing the most.

Austria Journal 10~Vienna Revisited and The Land of My Fathers

Bratislava!

Hypothetically, a free weekend to explore Europe is something people dream about. Before my semester in Gaming, when posed with the question of where to go, the scene of my consideration might be described as one not far removed from that of a dog drooling over a bone. ‘Perhaps Venice,’ I’d think with slightly glazed eyes, ‘or maybe a small town in the heart of Germany,’ I’d drool. Well, I’m wiser now, and slightly worse for the wear, but when it came to our first really free weekend this semester, we (Alex, Mark, and I) had quite the time of it figuring out where to go. It wasn’t really a matter of where we wanted to go, we could easily all agree on Venice, Paris, Spain and a few others, the issue was more along the lines of where we could afford to go without a EuRail as none of us had activated it yet. We researched several possibilities, each more expensive than the last, until finally in desperation, the night before we were to leave, we settled on heading back to Vienna to look around a few places we had missed the last time and to ask at the train station about fares to other nearby cities. Accordingly, we booked a hostel in Vienna and prepared to make the journey, packing anything and everything that might be necessary (young inexperienced travelers that we were).

Mark and Alex outside the Hapsburg

The next morning we hurried out to the bus stop well before our arranged time so as not to risk missing our bus and consequently ended up catching an earlier one with several other Franciscan students. Since none of us had traveled by bus or train on our own before, there was a bit of confusion when we arrived at the first train station…and the second one. We managed to make all of our trains however, with only the slight mishap of accidentally not paying for one of them and accidentally buying a ticket for a dog on the other one. I was in a nervous sweat the entire way to Vienna, afraid of everything from being arrested to thousand Euro fines while Mark calmly chuckled across from me. Apparently, he can be quite calm and collected while breaking the law, so keep him in mind for future illegal operations. I, on the other hand, prayed that God would show His mercy to us poor ignorant train hoppers. He did, and by the sheer luck (providence) of getting on that particular train with a bunch of school children, we were never checked and so got to Vienna without spending hardly anything.

Viennese Cakes

Judenplatz on a rainy twilight

Memorial for the Austrian Jews who were killed

The Musikverin

St. Peter's dome

We spent
that afternoon locating and checking into our hostel, exploring the major churches in Vienna: St. Stephen’s Gothic Cathedral, St. Michael’s (a beautiful little church that the palace servants attended), the gorgeously ornate Baroque church St. Peter's, and making our way to the Jewish Quarter of town with the Judenplatz. This had been a special request of mine, after reading about this square as the place where hundreds of Jews were rounded up by the Nazi’s in Hitler’s Anschluss of 1938. Alex wanted to see the apartments of Ceci, a young Hapsburg ruler featured on many posters and paintings throughout the city, so Mark and I made our way over to the artists quarter of the city to find the Musikverin, another part of the city featured in a series of books I once read. This area of town was full of street musicians and performers taking part in some sort of street fair. We spent some time watching them before finding Alex again and heading to find dinner.

Gothic stonework in St. Stephen's

Our stay in the hostel was uneventful, though I did perform several investigations and tests to determine that we were free of bed bugs, and we awoke early the next morning to make our way to the train station, where we learned that it was only 15euro roundtrip to Bratislava. This was perfect, I thought, since I had been thinking about making a visit to Slovakia, the home of three out of my four great-grandparents on my mom’s side. The train ride was only about an hour long, and as we set foot off the train, we realized that this city was very different from the artistic Vienna or picturesque Salzburg. Where Vienna has sparklingly white stone edifices, Bratislava has easter-egg pastel houses, where Salzburg has statues and monuments, Bratislava has graffiti, lots of it. Everywhere you turned there were signs of the recent Communist regime made strikingly visible in the several “symbols of Communism”, oddly shaped monuments throughout town. We had a vague map from the train station and were able to find our way to the touristy part of the city, a few cute little streets lined with shops and bars. Alcohol was very present in Bratislava. Every other restaurant sign proclaimed cheap prices for beer, vodka, and other varieties of hard liquor.

Pastels in Bratislava

I will definitely be going back.

 The diamond in the rough proved to be a small honey shop that we stumbled upon a little before lunch. The owner, a young man in his late 20s, was an excellent salesman and reeled us in bit by bit, but it was worth every penny. First he allowed us to sample as many varieties of the flavored honey as we wanted, ranging from wildflower mountain honey to a creamy hazelnut flavor. As we deliberated over which flavors to buy, he produced several bottles of honey wine, or mead. To seal the deal, he proceeded to let us sample each of these until we were pretty set on buying not only a few jars of the delicious honey, but also several bottles of the sweet drink. Even though we recognized his sale tactics, it was honestly one of the best purchases of the semester thanks to the genuine, natural sweetness of the goods.

They're big into their graffiti there

 We had packed sandwiches from the hostel’s breakfast (a cheap traveler trick for when you don’t want to pay for lunch) but the constant drizzling rain forced us to seek out a small coffee shop for lunch. Surrounded by poofy, feminine colored cushions and a large, Canadian group who felt the need to express in loud tones how much the American economy depends on Canada, we licked ice cream cones and ate slightly squashed sandwiches out of napkins while we planned our next few hours. We had done zero research before the trip, so we pretty much only had our little train station brochure/map to go off of, but it seemed to hit all the highlights. After lunch, we made our way to a few churches which were all locked and closed to the public. Deciding to take a different tack, we climbed up to the fortress on the hill and spent about half an hour taking pictures in the gateway simply because we were sick of walking about in the rain with our overly-packed backpacks. None of us felt particularly like paying to see the inside of the palace, so we wandered about the ramparts a bit before heading down to seek out St. Elizabeth of Hungary’s blue church.

Roommate Besties

St. Elizabeth's

                St. Elizabeth’s really was blue. I’ve never seen a church like it before or since, though we were unable to explore it fully because a wedding was going on inside. Finally, we decided it was about time to make our way back to the train station as we had several long rides ahead of us. It was an uphill trudge through the rain with our bags heavier than ever upon our backs, but we made it and I bought a Slovak sausage from a vendor at the station, which was nice. Our ride back to Vienna was uneventful and we managed to catch an earlier train towards Gaming than we had hoped, this time paying the proper amount. Our conductor was quite friendly and explained to us at which stops we would have to switch trains. We were a little confused by his directions but got off at St. Polten as he suggested and looked for the next train to Pochlorn. Alas, this train did not leave for another hour. Well, no matter, we thought. We could just look around for some more food while we waited. As the time for the train drew near, however, we realized that the sign had “nicht something” written underneath our train number. We asked a few people what this meant and discovered that the train we were expecting to take would not be traveling out of St. Polten that night. Slightly annoyed and exhausted, we checked for the next train at the information booth and found that it would not run until about 9pm, which meant we wouldn’t catch the last train from Pochlorn to Scheibbs (where we catch the bus to Gaming). Afraid we might have to spend the night in Pochlorn but helpless to do anything about it, we bought more food and sat around looking forlorn as swarms of strange-looking teenagers milled about the station. They had evidently just participated in some sort of huge event that included being coated in large amounts of colored chalk, which simply added to their rather loud, annoying presence and the peculiarity of our predicament. We were so fortunate as to board our train an hour or so later with a bunch of them, but when we embarked at Pochlorn, every human in sight quickly disappeared to their homes and warm beds. We alone were left in the empty train station with only the promise of the sparse Sunday morning train schedule linking us to Gaming and our vacant beds. Despite our exhaustion, I was all for walking (we had googlemapped directions at McDonalds in St. Polten just in case), but Alex pointed out that by the time we got there, it would be the same time as if we took the train.

Queens of the castle

We decided to walk about the town just in case there was a restaurant or hotel open but in the typical small-town Europe style, everything had closed hours ago. Only bars remained open. We located the least sketchy looking bar and began staggering our drinks so as to spend as much of the night as possible there without spending a fortune or getting drunk. Alex calmly requested Earl Grey tea, to which the bar tender laughed, but at least she was not in danger of getting drunk. Mark searched out every hotel in the area, while we sat and drank, but to no avail and we finally decided to walk back to the station and spend the rest of the night there. We took turns waiting up, which meant that Mark basically stayed awake the whole time while we slept fitfully on our backpacks, hoping we wouldn’t get some sort of dreadful disease from the train station seats. After several false alarms when trains that were supposed to come (on a regular week-day schedule we later discovered) did not arrive, and several hours of an obnoxious girl smoking inside the station and giving us all sore throats, our train finally came and we boarded it utterly spent and rather disheveled. I have never been happier to board a train, and the smell of breakfast at the Kartause was pure heaven. Likewise, our beds were waiting and I spent a good portion of the day sleeping blissfully under my very own duvet with my head on a cushy pillow.

Bratislavan Fortress Gate

                Though this unfortunate ending rather marred our overall experience, it could not be denied that we learned a lot from this trip. Not only had we figured out the complicated mix of trains and hostels, but we had seen two cities successfully and kept our overall expenses under $100, which was a lot better than most people that first weekend. It’s a trip I look back on with a mixture of fondness at the thought of our naïve traveler’s sense and bitterness at the remembrance of the dehydrated, sore throat feeling of that night in Pochlorn. Never again will I pass through that station without shuddering, but never again will I fail to check and double-check a Saturday evening train schedule. In the end, however, I’m left with a sweet memento of the journey in our Slovak honey, of which I have several, beautiful, full jars.

Traveling buddies

Austria Journal 9-Vienna pt 2

Note from the Author: This post will be short and sweet so we can move on to more recent trips. I had to post it though, because I'm sure you were all dying to know how the rest of the Vienna excursion went. Actually, the slight streak of OCD in me is simply suffering and demands that I make sure these entries are complete...even if it takes me the next 3 years to finish. 

The second day in Vienna, we attended mass at the Minoritenkirche, a beautiful church not far from the Habsburg Palace. Afterwards, Mark and I had to go to the Kunsthistoriches (Vienna Art Museum) with our Art Class to do an independent study project. The museum was fascinating. It’s funny, I used to hate museums, particularly art museums, but I’ve since come to really appreciate them, and this one proved to be no exception. From Roman sculptures to Renoir, the museum was filled to the bursting with treasures. We spent several hours wandering around, snapping pictures and studying particular works for our independent studies (or in my case, falling asleep in front of our work…the couches were too comfortable). I analyzed a work entitled ‘Madonna of the Rosary,’ by an Italian painter named Caravaggio, in which the Blessed Mother is depicted bestowing the rosary on St. Dominic, who in turn, gives it to the people. It was a beautiful piece and if you would like to know more, you can read my paper. :P

Our Lady of the Rosary

Impressive sculpture of the battle between the centaurs and Lapiths

          So engrossing was the art museum, that we quickly lost track of time, not emerging until around lunchtime. Mark and I and a few friends discovered a small festival on the green across from the Habsburg Palace. We got tasty traditional German food and decided to go see the Schonbrunn Palace next. Located a little outside the city, this palace was the Hapsburg family's summer residence and, according to our fellow students that had visited the day before, it had beautiful gardens. Alas, we only experienced about 2 minutes within those gardens, as the trip to the palace took a lot longer than expected and we realized along the way that we had forgotten to buy our vorteil cards (passes that make all trains in Austria half price) that we needed to purchase at a specific train station in Vienna. Because of this, we hurried back to the metro after snapping a few pictures.Ah well, another day, Vienna.

Schonbrunn Palace

 The last hour of our trip was a little stressful as we rushed round via metro trying to get our vorteils, stop at a grocery store for food, and make it to the bus on time. We weaved through throngs of people gathered to see or participate in a Muslim protest march (that was interesting) but finally made it safely back to the bus where we exchanged stories and pictures with our other friends. Among these was Alex, who had gone to see the Royal treasury and glowed with details of her fun day in the city. The drive home was uneventful and relatively restful. Vienna was over. The school had successfully prepared us to travel overnight and now the next weekend was up to us.

Schonbrunn Gardens

Gazebo in the gardens

Stay tuned for "The First Free Weekend" to hear about our journey back to Vienna and somewhere else exciting!

          

Austria Journal 8- Vienna pt 1

St. Stephen's Gothic cathedral

 The day began bright and early with a quick shower and breakfast before boarding the university buses. It was a brisk morning, but at our travel meeting the night before, Mr. Pipp (the jolly student life director) had promised us sunshine for our first overnight trip with the school. The ride was long, a few hours, and we arrived in Vienna well-rested. Or, at least I did. I have the wonderful ability to sleep anywhere and everywhere, both a blessing and a curse really, as this extends but is not limited to class, Mass, on top of my school books, and well, you get the picture.

     Vienna, on first observation (thankfully an observation I slept through) appeared to be filled with somewhat scandalous lingerie adds. This of course, did not set quite the tone for our day that we had been hoping, but the sight of church spires and the opera house somewhat alleviated our initial feelings of distrust. Fortunately, the ads seemed to decrease within the central part of the city. 
     The bus dropped us off by the opera house, and we made our way to a Franciscan church containing the crypt of the entire Hapsburg family. In case you are, as was I, completely ignorant of that which is Hapsburg, they basically are/were the ruling family of the Ostro-Hungarian Empire. It is from this line of royalty that Empress Maria Teresa of Austria comes, as well as her daughter Marie Antoinette (perhaps you’ve heard of her?) This church, the burial spot of kings, also forms the end of the Hapsburg burial procession. There is a nice little tradition connected with it that when the procession arrives at the doors, an old friar will answer the knock and ask who it is. The attendant names the royal dead with all of his or her titles, to which the friar replies, “I don’t know him/her.” This process is repeated until the attendant finally says, “This is so-and-so, a poor sinner in need of God’s mercy.”  I’m paraphrasing. Then the friar replies “Come in and welcome,” and the royal body is placed below in the crypt.

          We had Mass in this tradition-filled spot with the bones of kings resting beneath us. After Mass, we opted not to pay to see the crypt, but I’ve heard the tombs are gorgeous, encrusted with jewels and such. Instead, we joined up with Mr. Pipps walking tour of the city (we had him in Salzburg and really enjoyed his sense of humor and jovial presence amongst all the unfamiliarity of a European city).

          As we learned through the tour and the rest of our stay there, Vienna is known for

Polish King Jan III Sobieski, who saved Vienna in 1683 from invading Muslims and discovered coffee all in the same day

Alex in front of the Hapsburg Palace

its culture, especially music. This was apparent in the many red coat-tailed, be-wigged Mozart men that harangued every poor, impressionable tourist that so much as glanced their way. These imposters, who probably couldn’t carry a tune themselves, waved tickets to classical Viennese concerts, emphasizing to the aforementioned tourists that to not attend such an event would be akin to playing the Viennese waltz in 4/4 timing, thereby causing Mozart to roll over in his grave and bringing shame upon all things cultured and good. Likewise, the architecture was refined and only slightly less overbearing, having to it a sort of dignity, brought about partly by Gothic influence, partly by the touch of time. Our tour made its way down the main shopping drag, past the grounds and buildings of the Hapsburg Palace (their winter residence), near St. Stephen’s Cathedral, a massive gothic structure whose spires have pointed heavenward for centuries.

          Our tour ended at an old pub for lunch. Descending to the basement, a large beer hall, and down another flight to the second basement and a room full of tables, we glimpsed stones even older than St. Stephen's. The cellars date back to the 12^th century, and it was here, beneath arches that had supported the groaning beer hall tables above for nine centuries, that we were served our first real Wiener schnitzel (the mensa had served us something like it, but that doesn’t really count). Along with that, we ate soup, vinegar-soaked potato salad, and delicious apple strudel. Mark didn’t like the Wiener schnitzel (big surprise), but I did.

slightly blurry picture of the ancient
 restaurant basement

          We checked into our hostels after lunch and were then on our own to explore the city for the night. The hostels weren’t as bad as I expected, and Alex and I shared with two of our friends, Mary Grace and Evelyn, so we were at least in good company. Honestly, we hardly stopped there long enough to tell if the place was clean or not before rushing off to discover the Viennese metro system and figure out how to get into the standing room section of the opera. Along the way, we did end up talking to one of the red-coated fellows—several of them in fact—but one in particular chatted with us for a while, somehow managed to compliment everyone except Mark, and got about as close as anyone could have gotten to convincing us to buy concert tickets. We didn’t, however, and soon were in the queue to purchase 4 euro tickets to a legit opera in the opera house in Vienna. Granted, they were standing room spots, so by the end, our backs and feet were killing us, but it was, nonetheless, an opera. La Traviata, to be exact. I had seen this in Dayton a few years back (I mostly just remember that I couldn’t stop coughing and that I sounded more likely to die than the tragic heroine), but the acting in this production far surpassed the other. The set, on the other hand, certainly did not. In fact, it was really weird and lame. Actually, I have yet to see a show with a set that really surpasses those of the Schuster Center.

Inside the Vienna Operhouse 

Alex, Me, and Evelyn after the opera!

          The opera set the tone for the night, in more ways than one. On the one hand, it was exciting and fancy and fun to go out at night, dressed up, to a big opera house and experience such a show; on the other hand, standing in such a constricted space for 2 ½ hours brought misery upon my back for the rest of the night and the following day. That wasn’t enough to ruin a fun night, though. We ate dinner at a little café in St. Stephansplatz, the three of us (Mark, Alex, and me) but met up with some other opera-going friends for a bit after. Later, after walking most of the group back to the hostels, Mark, Katrina, Courtney, Caitlin, and I went out again, but by then most things were closed and we just made a brief stop at McDonald's before dragging ourselves through the maze of metro stops back to our hostels.

          Now, as this is the first recording of overnight stays, it must be made clear that I have a deathly fear of bedbugs. The others make fun of me for it, but I will not sleep in a hostel bed without first examining every inch of it multiple times, including various “surprise checks” throughout the night…just trying to catch the bugs off their guard! That night, about halfway through the night, I dreamt a bedbug was biting my knee. I actually felt the itch! Gasping, I leapt out of bed, and rushed to the light of the bathroom where I discovered no bug, no bite…no, not even an itch. Nevertheless, I still made sure to doubly investigate the scene of the illusory crime. Sure enough, no bugs. Mary Grace enjoyed relating this story the next morning, however, dramatizing my gasp just a bit. I’ll admit, since there was not actually a bedbug involved, it was funny...to be continued.

Austria Journal 7- Book Mountain

The c

One Wednesday afternoon, after cleaning the Mensa after

lunch, Alex hurried me into sporty clothes and down to the Spar where several of our spelunking friends, Katrina, Caitlin, Courtney, Mark, Evelyn, and Rachel were waiting to make the trek up Book Mountain, another one of the mini-mountains that surrounds Gaming. This particular climb actually included a path (as opposed to our spelunking/cliff climbing adventure) and led to a cell tower and a clearing of trees where Franciscan students have carved their names and signed a book for years.

Random uprooted tree. It's absence made a huge bowl in the ground

The path began at a set of metal stairs in some random Gaminginian’s backyard and zigzagged through a series of stations of the cross up to a beautiful scenic overlook where an iron cross perched on a rock jutting out over the picturesque landscape below. We spent a good half hour taking dramatic pictures here, most of which have adorned our facebooks and spurred even mere facebook acquaintances to comment in awe of the sheer natural beauty of it all combined with the powerful symbol of the Cross.

From there we continued on and up through a forest that looked like something straight out of Lord of the Rings. I felt like a hobbit making my way through Fangorn Forest, or Lothlorien, where the trees and terrain made me feel my smallness and insignificance in the face of such long-established parts of creation. We eventually reached a point of some confusion where some of our group decided to climb up the mountainside rather than search for the continuation of the path. I was among the sensible few who preferred to never experience such a climb again, so Mark, Courtney, Caitlin, Rachel, and I backtracked until we discovered a narrow, winding way that climbed steeply upward. This path was even more beautiful than the first and led us through glades of lush green, ethereal beams of sun slanting across the path at perfect angles for really interesting pictures.

 

The last few minutes led us up a quite steep but always climbable way and finally to the clearing where several Franciscan students were employed carving initials and symbols into the already full trees, signing the book, and searching for fellow student’s entries from years gone past. Unfortunately, the book only dated from 2011 because someone had removed the old Franciscan book (Too bad! I would have liked to find Aunt Ali!). We all signed the book and found stones to carve our names into the trees. I carved mine and Andrew’s names into the well-marked bark of one such tree while half of our group went off to find the cell tower that everyone climbs to get a really good view of Gaming.

Mine is the orangeish looking heart

When I finally finished etching my mark into the tree, it was nearing dusk. I ran to the cell tower and climbed about half-way up before being completely overcome by the sheer height of it all. I’m a big wimp. Our more brave friends (Katrina, Mark, and Caitlin) made it all the way to the top and they exclaimed for hours over the beauty of it all. It almost made me wish I had followed their example, but I have yet to overcome this fear of heights enough to embark on such a daring feat.

In our excitement, we lost track of time and soon discovered that it was nearly dark. Not nearly nervous enough, we began the trek down, following the path and praying a rosary along the way. At one point we entered a denser area of the forest and had to depend on someone’s iphone light to find our way. We joined hands and formed a human chain, still praying, until we emerged back at the bottom where the iron cross overlooked the village. Tiny lights sparkled up beneath us and we took a few moments to ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ over it all before continuing on our way. At this point, someone had the idea of singing (probably me or Courtney) and we all joined in our favorite Les Mis and P&W songs. It turned our fear of the dark into fun and our tentative steps into confident ones and as we neared the bottom, I thought about how God shows us the bigger lessons of life through practical experiences. For instance, when we climbed the mountain to the caves, I learned that you just have to cling to what is concrete in life and keep climbing even through the unstable parts, keeping your eyes on your goal. On this hike, trusting God to guide us through the darkness, became the theme. There were parts of the forest so dark that all we could do was feel the person in front and behind us, but praying and knowing that God was there protecting us helped us to find our way out with the aid of just one tiny light to follow.

We finished off the night with Kebabs from the shop in town. They were so delicious after the exertion of another fun, full day in Gaming.