Pictours

Hey everyone, I decided to post some pictures of where I live with snow. These pictures were taken out of my 3 windows in my room.

This first one looks up the hill. Hochblauen is in the top right of the photo. It is a bit concealed by cloud cover.
This is the second pic. It looks down the hill towards Kandern.

This is the third pic. It looks up to the middle of Marzell and beyond. The Blauen dorm is the first house across the street on the left. Those are our vans in the driveway.


You can click on them to make them bigger!!

Oh the weather outside.

Well it took a while, but winter is finally here. It started to turn cold on Sunday and has gotten colder ever since. We had snow last night and then again it started tonight. It is falling lightly and beautifully and isn't supposed to stop until tomorrow night. Yeah, I am happy.

Also, if you could pray, fellow RAs Matt and Sarah recently had a baby. Her name is Anna Pearl. I had said before that the right side of her heart didn't work. She has heart surgery tomorrow. They are putting a shunt between her aorta and pulminary artery. Please pray for her and them.

Windsday

Crazy weather. I have been told that the weather was wonderful here and have yet to see any snow. January has been rainy and in the 50s. What crazy weather. People here are even shocked about how it is. We also have had crazy winds over the last couple of days. I don't know if you have seen it on the news, but Europe has been getting pounded by a system that brought winds upwards of 120 mph. We here have experienced winds around 60 or so mph.

Oh well, besides that the guys are back. They have come back rested and excited which is crazy. Unbridled energy can be a scary thing, but it is good to see them and I am glad that they are back. I hope y'all are doing well.

Announcement

I HAVE A PHONE!!!!!

That's right. After 5 months of not having a phone, I have one. It has been a hard thing, but this is a great happy thing. Much better now.

YIPPEE!!!!

It's coming

Well, it is about to start. The next semester of stuff at BFA. The guys start coming back on Sunday. And then school starts back up on Tuesday. The fun insanity will pick back up.

God give me strength.

New Year's

This was quite the strange night to behold. The bigger towns and cities have an official fireworks thing, but a small town like Kandern doesn't have anything. That does not mean a lack of fireworks though. The grocery stores sell a bunch of fireworks for anyone to buy. And then at midnight people come out of their houses and spend 30 minutes or so lighting fireworks. Some are bigger than I expected, but there are a lot and there is trash just everywhere.

It is a very un-German thing to do to just make a mess and a lot of noise late at night, but it seems that 1 night a year they let loose. In other news, yours truly had to light his share of fun stuff on fire. Yippee.

Christmas in Germany

So what is Christmas like here. Definitely a bit different. There is nowhere near the craziness here. I am not really sure what German families do for gifts, but there aren't the huge malls for anyone to crowd during the holidays. Houses aren't all lit up on the outside. That is different too. They have trees and lights up inside though.

People seem to enjoy Christmas here, but it seems to be a lot more about family and friends and simply getting together. They have these cool things here called kinder-eggs which are hollow chocolate eggs with a toy in the middle that you can put together.

Overall, it was weird experiencing Christmas in another country. I personally don't even feel like I really experienced Christmas. It is a really odd feeling. That being said, I really miss you all.

But we ARE in Europe

Not sure how a bus can be heading to Europe while in Europe, but that is what it says.

Anyway, I hope that everything is going well for everyone. The guys have all gone home for the break and it leaves us with a bit of a break from the busyness. It is well timed relaxation. Especially for one like me who had a not-well-timed bout of sickness decide to nail me. Oh well, I shall conquer eventually.

The Home Stretch

It is almost here. The first half is almost done. On Friday, classes are done for the 3 week Christmas break. Between now and then, there are all kinds of exams and dorm cleaning. The guys will be traveling anywhere and everywhere this weekend.

And there is the fair share of sickness going around. Please pray that all of this goes smoothly and all of us staff hold ourselves together.

Christmas Markets

Europe has these things called Christmas markets. In the center places of towns they set up all these little booths and lights and you just walk around eating food and looking. I have had the pleasure of going to 2 in the past week.

The first one was in Colmar, France. What a quaint little town. It is pretty old and the shops were set up in about 5 or so different places. It was nice and relaxed and some really old churches that I got to see.

The second one was in Heidelberg, Germany. I had the privilege of spending the last weekend there with 12 fellow RAs. Their Christmas market was much bigger. There were lots of people too. It was all down one main street in the different squares. It was quite nice and relaxing. Oh, and to boot, there was a Roman castle above it. Pretty cool.

As for the dorm, we are coming down the homestretch. The guys leave in a week and a couple of days. They are coming into exams and life is just crazy right now. All we have to do is make it 2 weeks. Please pray for the guys.