Medjugorje

Border patrol

By far, one of my favorite trips I have taken while living here in Austria. Hopping on the bus, I left not really having any expectations or reasons for going (except for my mom’s sake really). Fourteen hours and three border stops later, my group and I had arrived in Medj! Immediately we were greeted by our host Nancy, who gave us each hugs and kisses as if we were her own
children. We then settled into the castle (that’s right—we lived in a castle during our stay), ate some amazing bread (they fast on Wednesdays and Fridays), then left quick to hear a visionary’s talk. After the talk, we gathered for our ascent of Apparition Hill. On the way up we prayed a rosary, mingling with the rosaries being prayed around us in Italian, Croatian, and more—incredibly beautiful.

The part of the castle where my dorm was located

The loft inside the castle

Afterwards, we had some down time to relax and reflect. It wasn’t much, because soon I was sitting in the back of a van with Nancy and a few of the other volunteers, as we headed off to international mass and adoration. The mass was outside, with it being said in the native language, and me having a tiny radio to listen to the English translation. The best was communion. We all got up and lined ourselves down the aisles; the priests celebrating the mass then came to us to give communion, taking the time to come to each person individually.

After mass and adoration, there was dinner at 9 pm (more bread!), then off to bed.

Day two was just as packed as the first. We got off to an early start, but first taking time to have an amazing feast of a breakfast (can you tell I really liked the food there?). We made our way to Mount Krizevac. Katherine’s mom, who was with us for the pilgrimage, assured us it would be easier than the climb we had done the day before—false; definitely not any easier. Though as we climbed the hill, praying the Stations of the Cross (which, by the way fun fact: the only other replica of these stations are back on campus at FUS)with a small number from our group (we got separated), I could not help but feel incredibly at peace. The top was the most rewarding, being that there was an enormous concrete cross there. The locals had constructed it years before the apparitions had even begun. As well, there is a piece of the true cross inside.

On the way down Regina and I helped an old Italian couple. They didn’t speak any English, so, seeing as how our Italian was limited to “bonjurno” and “gratis”, communication was limited (though at one point the elderly man I was leading began to lead me—too precious!). I could honestly keep on with all that had happened in Medjugorje, so maybe I’ll just make a short list for the rest; other high points of the pilgrimage included:

-Visiting the  Comunità Cenacolo (for more info, here is their website in the states: http://www.comunitacenacolo.org/ )

-The Miracle of the Jesus statue at Medj—the knee leaks tears (which we helped Amy to collect on her little cloths…all 20 of them)

-Outdoor adoration with the happy little local song at the end

-Confession with Father Kevin (at the hour when Mary appears to the visionaries even)…Had a good vocations talk with him and one of the best confessions ever as well

-Waking up at 4:30 am to climb apparition hill with Christina and Cecelia

John 16:33: “I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world."

Here it is! The moment you have all been waiting for--a tour of the Kartause! Or as we affectionately call it, our home.Let's start with the most important room in our house:

That's right, the bathroom folks. Fun fact, for the first month, one of our lights was burnt out, so it was super dark for awhile--I actually thought the walls were yellow. Got a new light, walked in the bathroom, and immediately "a whole new world" went through my head. Also, there is a lot of calcium in the water, so we have to scrub the shower every day...or at least we're supposed to.

Next we move to the bedroom. There are four of us that live in here,and right now it looks a little bit like a winter wonderland (since we recently cut out snow flakes and hung them from the ceiling with dental floss; we also stole the ficus from down the hall to use as a Christmas tree--just making use of our resources over here)

When you walk out into the hall, this is what you see. We live on third floor, in case you were wondering.

When you continue down the hall, you come upon this quaint little gathering place.

...then you continue on, and it leads to the stairs

look! stairs!

...that lead to second floor

After completing yet another set of stairs, you reach 1st floor; this is the way we take to get to all of our classes, as well is where all the guys live

Aaaand finally the last set of stairs! These lead you to ground floor.

Once you're outside, you come upon these huge doors. They lead to the courtyard (if you turn around), but this view is looking at where we just came from (ground floor)

Since I didn't take pictures of ground floor, we'll just move on to my next favorite place: the Mensa! Here is where all the wonders of wonders of food are served to us 4 days of the week.

"What's for dinner tonight? Pork? Oh really...maybe I'll make a sandwhich...."

The mensa

So this is a view of the courtyard once you leave the Mensa. The buildings in the middle aren't always there, it's just for the Christmas market being held here for the week.

...another view of the courtyard

The hallway leading to the audi-min, where we have Medieval History and our Nursing class

Same hallway, different direction. You could say that it leads to the audi-max, which is where we have Philosophy of the Human Person, and Ilsa has Christian Moral Principles.

When you go through the door in the picture above, you come to this hallway. It leads to the Kolbe room and 6ths track, which is where I have CMP and where the rest of the ladies are housed.

To be continued...

To our 10 followers/anyone reading this:

Sorry for the delay! We have literally been living from one moment to the next these past couple weeks. For all those who didn’t know, we recently took a 3 day pilgrimage to Poland, visiting the Shrine of the Black Madonna, the concentration camp Auschwitz/Birkenau, Krakow, the Divine Mercy sisters, and finally Wadowice (the birthplace of JPII). The trip was humbling and wonderful, some of the highlights being:

-Running off the bus at 5:40 am to make it to the unveiling in time 

 

-Crawling on our knees around the image of the black Madonna, following in the footsteps of previous pilgrims that have done so (to the point that there were indents in the floor from where their knees had been)

-Saying a divine mercy chaplet in Polish

-Sitting on a bench in JPII’s hometown, watching the kid’s playing in the fountain (though not so much for Ilsa, she was just getting over being carsick…not fun) 

More happened, and hopefully we can add that on a later date, so for now this will have to do…

More recently, it was Oktoberfest here at the Kartause. We had been studying for midterms all weekend, so the festival was a welcomed break for everyone. The school even provided the opportunity for us to rent dirndls, which for Austrians is considered formal attire (seriously—we see people wearing those things everywhere around here). Naturally, we were stoked (who wouldn’t be?!).

When we arrived to pick out a dirndl, we came to find absolute chaos in the Francis room. Dirndls were scattered everywhere, with girls running from here to there trying to find the best one. We both came out with some pretty spiffy dirndls, Ilsa’s being a beautiful blue, and mine striped red wool. Donning our dirndls, we headed out to the festival tent…

…only to find that hardly any of the locals had a dirndl on. Seriously, they most likely were really confused. And ours were way old—probably from when their grandma’s wore dirndls. Oops. We didn’t care though, and settled in for some time of dance and merriment (ok, a little cliché, I know).

We polka-danced the night away, had some dance-offs, got rejected by an Austrian grandpa when I asked him to dance, then was redeemed when the Austrian man Peter agreed to dance with me instead. We stayed out until almost 2 am (living on the edge)—definitely worth it. 

Everybody be like:

And we're over here like:

With all four of our midterms completed as of today, we are now on our way to Lourdes for our mission trip. There we will be serving a special needs group of pilgrims for the duration of their stay in Lourdes. Service includes anything from basic house-keeping, to kitchen duties, to CNA care. Ilsa left today, so I will be meeting her in Paris this Friday (just booked the hostel tonight…) we will no

be back from France until the 20^th,so until then just know that we are thinking of you all and keeping you in our prayers!

Aufwiedersehn, Tschuss!

Note: the first two images and the dirndl ones were taken from Google (not  sure on the specifics, so hope I'm not breaking laws or anything)

 

Also, there was a horse in the courtyard for the blessing of the animals on st. Francis’ feast day. 

P.S.S. For all you moms out there, here is where we will be staying in Paris Friday night (

and Ilsa is spending the night in a convent thursday):

http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/FIAP-Jean-Monnet/Paris/20653?dateFrom=2013-10-10&dateTo=2013-10-13&sc_sau=avdc&sc_pos=1

Mariazell

(Sadly, due to unforeseen circumstances, such as a nasty cold, homework, and poor weather conditions, Ilsa was unable to attend the hike because she might have died, which would make life miserable, so I forbade her from going, in order to maintain happiness for the both of us)

Friday: such an amazing experience! Woke up early, hopped on a bus, and drove a ways to be dropped off in the middle of a nature park. Along with about 70 other students, we started our walk in what would be a 24 mile pilgrimage to the shrine of Maria Zell, in honor of the pro-life cause. Seriously, this became one of my favorite things I have done since coming to Austria.

To start off the hike, my friends and I sang songs ranging from Mulan’s “Be a Man” to “Lord of the Dance”. We were hiking through the gorge at that time, so we took many stops along the way to admire the beauty of nature that was all around us (waterfalls, river rapids, rolling mountains, etc.). After a while, I was separated from the group for a bit, which turned into a great opportunity for thought and reflection—even took the time to eat my entire apple, core and all, in honor of our trip to Glacier National park last year (this one’s for you Ms. Kuphal ;) 

 The hike went on for about 4 hours when we came across this tiny outpost along the river. No idea how they did it, but it was a restaurant where we could by food and drinks if you needed a small break from the hike. Laura and I wanted to continue on, so alone we made our way up the dreaded never-ending hill that Mr. Pipp had warned us about. Only, we completely forgot about that, so we kept turning the corner expecting it to level out, but it didn’t (this is the hill that neeever ends, it just goes on and on my friiieennnds), so that was disappointing (fight the pain—it’s for the babies!).

Needless to say we survived, and ended up catching up with my old roommate Melanie and Sister Maria Clare. That didn’t last long, though, because they were power walkers and we were tired. We stopped for a stretching break in a rolling meadow (yes, we did frolic—couldn’t resist), then continued on. 

 The last 5K was probably the toughest. By then, I felt like an old man—my knees hurt, the bottom of my feet had blisters, we were feeling muscles that we didn’t even know we had—but  we kept on. The end was composed of highway roads, cutting through a small town before opening up to the home stretch. Somehow, we ended up ahead of Sister M.C.  and Melanie (they took a wrong turn). Together with them we made it through the cold and the rain to the end of the pilgrimage, getting a celebratory scoop of gelato from the town (pretty sure we earned our sweets for the day) and taking a much needed break on the side walk before heading to Mass.  In total, the trip took us 6 hours and 45 minutes (Yes!—under 7 hours!).

This post doesn’t do the day justice, because (as cliché as this sounds) words cannot describe the experience of this hike. Honestly, one of the best experiences ever and couldn’t of be happier that I was blessed enough to be able to take part in it.

So here we are, second post on Linz (who would’ve thought two posts would be necessary to describe our day trip to a randomly picked drowsy city in Austria?)

So I have to admit that I wasn’t quite sold on the museum exhibit that we decided to check out next. As Tess mentioned, we already had decided to turn down a longer weekend trip to save some money, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pay five euro for this “OK tour” (the name doesn’t exactly inspire confidence—not good, not great, just… mediocre?) But I didn’t want to get separated from Tess and Ginny and so I decided to go ahead and join them.

The first room of the exhibit that we entered didn’t exactly alter my uncertainty. We entered a dark room and waited for several minutes for something to happen with some other people touring the exhibit. Then all of a sudden a machine on a pole in the middle of the room lit up and started moving around and shining a beam of light in all directions. Needless to say, we were slightly confused. We waited a while, but it didn’t really do much else and then followed the first family who left the room (I think we were all kind of thinking the same thing and everyone was just waiting for someone else to leave first because most of the room followed us). Only after leaving the room did we realize that the pamphlet we’d been given when we got our tickets had short explanations of each part of the exhibit. The one on the room with the light went like this: “When entering the room the light begins to dance, shining a spot that seems to be curious to illuminate what lies hidden in the dark. The playful struggle for insight is accompanied by the sound of the motors that almost have a musical quality.” So as you can see, it didn’t shine a whole lot of light (yes, I admit, pun intended) on the situation. Or else, I am simply uncultured and unable to appreciate modern art.

We continued through the exhibit, enjoying the sometimes strange, albeit interesting, displays. When we realized we didn’t have a whole lot of time until we needed to head back to make our train, we hurried to what had attracted us to the museum in the first place: the tower with the lookout over the city. After only making it halfway up, I knew I didn’t regret paying the five euro—the view was beautiful! 

We headed back down the tower to the rooftops and across to another part of the exhibit: a sort of dome woven out of bamboo creating a light-flooded space inside.

We stopped to get some gelato on the way out and made it back to the train station with time to spare. We had a (pretty) uneventful trip back to Gaming, missing one train on the way, but thankfully it wasn’t the last one of the night and we didn’t have to wait long for the next one. We’ve been told that it’s inevitable that we’ll miss a train at some point and I don’t think things could have gone much more smoothly than they did when missing a train.

This weekend we are doing a 22 mile hike to Mariazell as a pilgrimage to a Marian shrine. Then on Saturday we’re planning to head back to Linz for a day trip of shopping, since we know our way around now.

Tschuess! (that’s bye in German!)

(This happened last weekend by the way, just haven’t had time to post about it until now…)

First free (no plans, no trips with the school) weekend these past couple days, so what do we do? Stay behind like the true poor people that we are.

Ok, so we’re not that poor, but we are trying to save some money and not bust the bank while we study abroad this semester. Let’s face it: travel is expensive. So Thursday through Friday we hunkered down and got to work on homework (“quiz” for philosophy of the human person, quiz for nursing, paper for Medieval, project for Medieval…) since the rest of the campus had left on their various trips (I think Croatia, Slovakia, and Slovenia were the biggies). With majority of campus gone and not much to do, things were pretty quiet around here…Until then something spontaneous happened

Friday at midnight we bought a group train pass and on a whim decided to travel to Linz, Austria. Why you ask? It was close, bigger than Gaming, and had a picture of this face with a waterfall coming out of it next to its description in the travel book. 

who can resist this face?? (this isn't my picture by the way, I took it from Pinterest)

The next morning came and we were at the bus stop outside the Kartause at 9:00 sharp. Prof. Newton just so happen to be walking by as we were waiting for the bus, shouting out, “Where are you off to?” (He’s British, so make sure you read with that in mind) “Linz!” we replied enthusiastically. His confused response?

“Why?...”

Oh boy…not a good sign. Not only were we tired, lacking in good judgment, and unsure of ourselves as is, but now our professor had just confirmed those fears in his response. What in the world had we gotten ourselves into?

 Ilsa and Ginny on the train...not really sure what Matt is doing?

We made it to all our buses and trains for the rest of the morning, even surviving the one cart train from Sheibbs to Pochlarn with a little hesitation. Upon arriving in Linz we immediately noticed the sleepy disposition of the town, but didn’t think too much of it, and headed off to explore. We wondered through a park, found a beautiful church, and then headed off to find some food when we stumbled on a real gem: the town was holding a festival that weekend! People and venders from all around came to display their authentic Austrian food and goods. There were crowds and crowds of people, random folk bands playing all around, and even free samples of food that just added to the lively atmosphere of the festival. 

 Random statue we found at a park

 View of part of the fair from on top of a church

We got some food and set out to see the sights. Eventually, the group of us that were traveling together made a split, half wanting to do one thing, half just going with the flow. Ginny, Ilsa, and I went to find this lookout that could be seen high above the city, getting trapped in an electronic store in the process (ok, so maybe not trapped, but when Ginny tried to leave the way we came in, the attendant started yelling at her in German and pointed elsewhere). We escaped, and made our way down another street, away from the fair.  Eventually, after much searching, we came to find that the lookout was a part of an exhibit that was visiting town. So, like the good natured tourists we are, we paid the 5 euro for “OK tours (not good, not great, but OK!) and headed up the stairs…

(to be continued)