Deutschland und Ostereich

I know, there should be an umlaut over the O, but I couln't find it on my computer. Nonetheless, we just returned from our visit to Germany and Austria. Our trip began in Munich, where the weissbier und wurst flowwed like milk and honey. We spent a few days searching the streets, taking in the culture and laboring to utilize my limited German vocabulary before being recognized as American and spoken to in English. How frustrating it is to be in a place where seemingly everyone maneuvers effortlessly between multiple languages while you strain to remember the appropriate definite articles of the most basic nouns. Despite the frustration over my own limitations, we had a wonderful time in Munich!

We then rented a car, hit the autobahn and made our way to Mittersill, Austria. After a sketchy drive through heavy snow in the alps, we reached the Schloss, a castle above the town of Mittersill which serves as an international learning community focused on bringing about a new "Christian Rennaisance" in Europe. Our friends the Olivia, Patrick and Sharon Pelham have spent quite a bit of time there over the years and so we wanted to visit, experience the culture of the community and see if it is a place where we might want to spent a few months or more some day. We had a great time talking with Norm and Donna and a number of others about the community and trying to get a feel for whether it would ever be a fit for us. While we did not walk away with much clarity in regards to that question, we certainly enjoyed our stay and the opportunity to connect with others from around the world who had like hearts and minds.

Making our way from Mitersill, we continued on to Salzburg Austria, the home of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the Sound of Music. Interestingly, the Austrians detest the Sound of Music for obvious reasons, but the American tourists eat it up as we are often infatuated with our fabricated, hollywood picture of the world. Jenni and I would have no part in it! That is, until we found out that Salzburg has it's own 24-hour Sound of Music television station. Back to back Sound of Music, it's hard to resist. Of course, we only watched it in order to empathize with the Austrians over it's deplorability.

We did on the other hand attend a Mozart concert at the Schloss Mirabell. Beautiful! The musicians could not have been more that 20 years old and were outstanding. We had hiked up to the castles above the city earlier that day, our dinner that evening was wonderful, it truly was an amazing day spent with the most incredible woman in the world! And that was really the greatest joy of the trip, to spend a full week with Jenni and explore new places together. Our time gave me a whole new excitement for what is to come as we dream about spending a year overseas.

Finally, we made our way back towards Munich, stopping in Bernau to visit the place where Jordan (Jenni's brother) studied for a few months. Just outside of Munich we got an opportunity to visit Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp in Germany. I cannot begin to describe the thoughts and feelings that I experianced as we walked those sobering grounds. For that I shall have to write in another post. Nonetheless, we are grateful for the opportunity to make that a part of our visit. We stayed out that entire evening because our flight was early the next morning. We had a blast taking in our last night in Munich, missed our flight the next morning due to daylight savings time (which we already had 2 weeks earlier in the states), and spent the next 2 days in airports. What more could one ask for, than to share the joys and frustrations of travel with the one you love! It was truly a gift and I am so very grateful.

When we get our pictures onto the computer I'll be sure to post a few.