Machines, Maria Taferl, and Melk

This is what I did Monday. (That was for my benefit, not yours.)

I used my cool Austrian alarm clock to wake up. I’m not sure if it’s going to survive this semester, because I’m used to my quiet little phone vibrating, and I don’t react well to blaring buzzing in my ear. I hit it pretty hard. Oops ;)

After a shower (I figured out the shower, no probs. Win!) I headed down to the Menza for breakfast, where I learned that with Austrian Coffee machines (which also dispense hot water for tea) you have to hit a stop button to keep it from overflowing. Then I stopped in Maria Thron (Mary Throne), our Church here at the Kartause (pronounced Cart-ow-za, something I failed to mention earlier), to pray. I love that Church.

After the Church we had another talk, slightly less boring than the others. It was given by Professor Franz Schneider. He’s the German professor. He’s kinda awesome.

Then we got on a bus and headed out to Maria Taferl for our first FUS-planned/paid for trip. I almost cried it was so beautiful. For the record, I’m usually not a fan of Baroque architecture, by any means. However, this Church had so much… love. I don’t know how to describe it, but it was holy ground. So many people have given God their everything there in that building. So, so beautiful. Below are the pictures.

 

After exploring/praying/nearly having my heart explode from joy we went to dinner at a fancy Austrian restaurant, paid for by the school. I didn’t think to take pictures until dessert, which I couldn’t eat anyways, haha. This is what was for dessert:

These are the reviews of the the dessert:
Emily: Love on a plate.
Helen: Very dead and bloody smiley face. (she made a smiley with the cherry sauce. She’s not really as creepy as she sounds.)
Storm: The chicken nugget part was strange; the other part was cherries. (looked like chicken nuggets, was not actually.)
Matt: As not being a very high fan of cherries, it wasn’t bad.
Mary: it was like a giant donut hole covered in powdered sugar covered in cherries and cherry syrup.

After Maria Taferl we got back on the buses and drove to Melk, where we visited and toured the Church and the surrounding area. I took some pictures, but my pathetic camera can’t even begin to capture how ornate everything was, so you can find some more here. The best of mine are below.

Gerda, our tour guide, and a stairwell with a mirror at the bottom so it looks huge.

This was the tiny, simple Eucharistic Chapel in the Melk Abbey. It was, without a doubt, my favorite part. It was beautiful.

My Britni being gorgeous, and Matt. I took the picture through two bus windows.

Melk was much more ornate than Maria Taferl. It was bigger, and had a long history of being passed from various secular and religious leaders. It was very impressive, but for some reason I didn’t get the same sense of wonder that I did in Maria Taferl. I’ve actually thought about it a lot, and I’ve come to the conclusion that Maria Taferl simply spoke to me on a deeper level. Even before I really realized that it had been a site for pilgrims for centuries, that people had literally died trying to get there, I felt that it was sacred. It’s incredible how much God can fill a building with His grace. He is so good to us to meet us in such a way.

We were very, very late coming back from Melk, which is rare, because Austrians are super big on being punctual and proper. When we got back we ate dinner right away, and then chilled for a bit until we got to go to a talk about drinking! Oh joy. (sarcasm there. lots of it.) It was good to be made aware of the differences between European and American alcohol though, because drinks here usually have a higher alcohol content than back home. Then we got our Austrian cell phones. Here is mine:

Yeah. It’s a beast. I know. It has the Snake game though! I think I will become great friends with it. It doesn’t have a setting where it only vibrates though, so it beeps at me! Ugh. We also got a chance to sign up for student work jobs here. Pray for me! I didn’t sign up for a cleaning position, because honestly I’m a little tired of custodial work. I’ll do it if that’s all they have though. Hopefully I’ll get one of the few secretarial jobs though. That’d be great. (:

THEN, I got to talk to Hannah!!! So much happiness. Then bed. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to talk about Tuesday tonight as well.