Pentecost Activity

It turns out that actually living the life is more fun than writing about it. That may or may not be the reason I haven't been Blogging so much. But enough about my troubles...

From around May 29th - June 2nd

I'm going to use more pictures so I can write less. And 'cause it takes time to remember things. :)

But, just to show what's going on: we drove for about 9 hours which should have taken 7 or less. Baustelle, or construction, on the Autobahn is ridiculous. We arrived around 10PM to see everyone around the fire discussing some struggles people have with putting God first over their own life.

Here, we gathered around a fire every night to have a spiritually related discussion.

We walked into the woods for a little while and sat here to play a get-to-know-eachother game. We wrote three things about ourselves: something no one knows, somewhere we've been, and something we used to do. Then the cards were taken up and distributed out. At this point we were to get up and try to find this person. For example, I was to find a person that had lived with little Thai lady.

In this picture is a person from France, two from Belgium and two from the States.

A cute squirrel. They look quite different than American ones.

This is on Sunday as we wait at the train station (Bahnhof) to go to church for Pentecost services.

We are in the Cologne train station. A pretty crazy place. It's a huge fashion center... maybe not good looking fashion, but apparently still fashion.

This is the Cologne Dome. These pictures can't show the incredible size of this Catholic building. It was massive. Also, it was very dirty. It's not supposed to be so dark.

And that's just one side...

The towers were also really tall.

Behind the Dome, there was a sea of gothic people. Probably waiting for the priest to finish his chanting service and engage in their own Satanic worshiping.

The next day we went site seeing around the camp site

To stand on that wall...

...is to see an amazing view of the landscape

Miria's favorite picture

My favorite

:)

just kidding.

Funny thing is, that was Miria's idea.

The activity ended the next day and we all drove back to our normal lives. It's interesting to see how very few and scattered the believers are in Europe and yet they are very dedicated. They yearn for more people to meet with on a regular basis. In America, we have the blessing of having many people that believe the same thing meeting on a regular basis. What they yearn for, we have. Yet, their dedication and belief is not so apparent in a many people. It's a dangerous thing to get comfortable.

"I'm an American, I'm an American"

It's pretty sad that not even a week into my trip and I was already made fun of for being an American. But I could not stop laughing.

Thursday, May 21st

I love how healthy Miria's family is. See, we drove to Germany to attend a wedding in Miria's family. The trip was about 7 hours long and in America, we would have definitely stopped for fast food. 'Cause that's convenient. But here, we stopped at a big gas station and had Brot, Käse, Schinken, Obst, Gemüse (bread, cheese, cold cuts, fruit, vegetables) and some other very healthy food brought from home. When I eat fast food, my body feels like my organs have a thick layer of fat that's enclosing them to an eternal death. Or something like that. It doesn't feel good. Thankfully, the food I have been having has been nothing like that and I am eternal-death free.

We arrive to Miria's uncle's house, which is ginormous (that's gigantic and enormous in one amazing word) to hang out for a few hours, eat a little and have a good beer and then take off to Miria's aunt's house where we will be staying for the next couple days. Man, the Germans are some clean people. Crystal, Miria's aunt, and her husband are such nice hosts. They only speak German so I didn't understand most of what they said but their actions were very hospitible.


Friday, May 22nd

The Hochzeit (wedding) was to start around 4 in the afternoon. Miria's cousin was getting married. The couple was having a Catholic wedding in a church that is in walking distance from Crystal's house. So we have a lot of time to take a walk around the area and we meander into a graveyard. As we were entering a couple was leaving and saw us looking at the No-Dog sign posted on the fence. So I guess the guy thought we were looking at him and he decided to tell a very un-funny joke (in German, so Miria had to translate afterwards) but I just waited until he smiled and then I laughed like I knew what was happening. The joke was something about how he was not the dog on the sign... or something... that was not funny. Anyways, my question is: Why is this dude in such a good, joking mood after leaving a graveyard?

My beautiful girlfriend, Miria :)

One of the houses close to the wedding church.

Haha... cracks me up.

The church where the wedding was held.

And fastforward to the wedding and beyond:

So this guy that Miria's cousin is marrying is one talllll skinny guy. He towered over everyone, but he had a smile that was almost as big. So the wedding was very nice. The priest was talking for a while and the couple's kids were running around checkin' everything out and being pretty loud, lol. I realized the importance of not having kids in a wedding.
After the wedding and all the pictures were taken, we went to the BürgerHaus. And there was a very nice reception. Decorated with streamers and and cool little houses on the tables, and inside the houses were strips of paper for each person on the table that had a clue and we were supposed to figure out who it was talking about and then dance with that person. But since so many people were dancing it was unnecessary. I really like how there are always fun games to play at all the

dances I've been to so far in Germany. At one point, the couple was looking for a key (dunno for what) by having the bride pop balloons taped to the ground with her heel. But I am getting ahead of myself. First thing we did when we arrived at this place was drink some champagne... in very short glasses. So I have one mixed with orange juice (quite tasty) and I'm enjoying it and listening to everyone speak German. I'm standing next to Miria who is talking with someone and this person decides to give me a hug out of the blue and so I have to act fast and I just throw my right arm out and go for the hug. But of course, Miria's drink is right there so I hit it and it goes all over the floor. Thankfully she did not get any of it on her dress. Then, a while later I'm talking with one of Miria's relatives and I kind of move my elbow backwards just because... I dunno, stretching or just a little movement and Miria's brother is right behind me, lol. So I hit his arm and the drink splashes on his shirt and tie. But it's all right, he just takes the tie off and it wasn't too bad on his shirt. He gets another drink and while we are in a group of the cousins, he starts mocking me, throwing his drink around and acting drunk while saying "I'm an American, I'm an American." lol. Man, I was laughing so hard... even when other people had stopped laughing I was still going. It was good stuff.

The rest of the reception was filled with dancing and fellowship.

It was a lot of fun.

Here are Miria's parents doin' a little swing dance action

Very good Kölsch beer. Not sure what kind though.

Welcoming Party

Tuesday, May 19th:

About an hour later from leaving the airport, we arrive at Miria's and her family's house. (But first we stopped at a little market and I got to buy my first Stiegl beer!) Miria gives me a quick tour around their really cool house. This house does not have air conditioning but man, it does not need it. The air feels amazing. When it's hot the house feels good and when it is cold they just fire up one of two giant ovens (plus a furnace in the basement) and it's toasty. I'm gonna show a couple pictures of the house.

Here is one of the ovens. It's like a fortress!




Here is their door handle.



So after the tour and unpacking, we went to Salzburg where I met a couple of her friends and her sister. Very nice and very funny people. They had a nice welcoming party for me. It was good times. But I forgot to bring my camera with me to Salzburg so just imagine good beer, good food, a nice toilet, and good fellowship. At first, we were in the backyard drinking a little and then we came in to fix to the food. One friend of hers, Lena, had some really tasty Schokolade (chocolate) with her and she'd be eating it, then say to me "take it, I don't want anymore" and then a minute or two later, she would be munching on it again, lol. Then, the owner of the place we were hanging out at, Robert, suggested we watch Achmed the Dead Terrorist and now Miria can't stop saying "Silence! I kill you!" Especially when I'm talking nonsense to her. It was a great time.

Lightbulb

So it occurred to me after I was finished writing my last post that I need to make known the date of all these stories. So, I arrived on Tuesday, May 19th. Which is the date of the last post.

Deutsch Sprechen

Because I'm here speaking German, or at least trying, I will be writing in German sometimes. I wont make it burdensome and I'll probably translate most of it, but if someone needs it I have put a link under 'Helpful Links' to a pretty good translator.

Erste Kontakte (First Contact)

as a quick side note, if my y's and z's get messed up it's because German keyboards are a slight bit different

And on with the stories:

Everything went very smooth on the flight. Beautiful weather for flying and KLM has very good food and service. I was quite impressed. I flew about 10 hours to Amsterdam where I had a two hour layover. And also this was the first place I used a European bathroom on this trip. It was exciting :) And to set the scene a little bit, you have to go down some stairs to get to the bathroom. The stalls here give you so much more privacy than American stalls. No kids or even old men could get under them! So, I'm there in my time-out room for a stall enjoying the toilet and I hear some ladies walking down the stairs, complaining that they have to walk down stairs to go to the bathroom (which projects images of overtly large women in my mind to be complaining about that). So then, a few guys in the bathroom say ''G** D***, go back to America!'' in some sort of Netherland-like accent. So at this point, I'm thanking God that the stalls were as big as they were. But after that it was back to just waiting out the time until I see Miria, my girlfriend.



Two hours or three hours later, I arrive at the Munich airport at about 11 o'clock in the morning. Now it's game time. Miria is somewhere in this airport and all that was seperating me from her was the baggage claim.... oh, and the fact that I needed to use my first German bathroom since the Feast. woo hoo! Nothing more calming than the toilet. Anyways, I now have my luggage and I walk through the doors expecting to see the beautiful face of an Austrian girl I know.... and I'm looking... and I'm walking around the airport (which is pretty small). There is only like two terminals that she could be looking for me (which is why she didn't know exactly where I was) and no one was at the other terminal. All right, so I walk back and as I do I see a faint figure in the distance (my eyes aren't the best) walking towards me. And as this figure gets closer I just hoped it was Miria cuz I was smiling pretty big and staring at this figure. But then I got a glimpse of her smile and I knew it was her. And while we were hugging this dude sitting a little ways off is looking at us and smiling.... hmm... little strange. She has a sign that says ''Welcome Mr. Texian'' (me being a Texan Mexican) with her and a shirt with our picture on it. But she was kinda late so it didn't work out the way she planned, lol. Then I meet her mom, we get ready and off we go to Austria.

Testing the Waters

Well this is kinda cool :) I really thought blogging wasn't the most interesting thing to do.. which it's not... but it's still interesting. But by popular demand, (I think like.. two people?) they have wanted me to blog about this adventure.. quest.. thing.. and other adjectives about my travels to Austria/Germany. So I have to make the crowd happy and thus, Blogs are in the making. Thanks to my sister, we now have a glimpse into..........

THE TRAVELING DAVE

(well.. once I start traveling)