What We're Up To
It's always a bit difficult writing a blog when you haven't for a while, since there's so much to catch up on, but I'll do my best.
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| Queen for the day. |
Jacinta's birthday was on October 12, and she arranged a sleepover with her friends at the ITI on the Friday before. It was lots of fun, and I never knew Salad Bowl and Murder in the Dark could be such intense experiences... On her actual birthday we had lunch at Burger King and then had Father Mollenbeck (a professor of Jenny and Rosie's) over for dinner. Jakie is a very happy and affectionate 12-year-old, often you find her literally chasing her sisters down to give them the biggest hug they've ever received. (Hence the reason for having to literally chase them down to give it...)
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| Dinner with Father Mollenbeck. |
A few weeks ago Mom, Dad, Rachel, Claire and Jacinta decided that it was time to home school. They gave their public school a very good shot, but it became clear that they would be happier and more productive studying at home. So, since then they've been getting up bright and early, saying morning prayers together and working on school in the living room. Dad works with them right up until class time, and when I stop by for lunch they're all repeating various German phrases back at him or identifying words and explaining grammar--Dad: "So, Claire, in the sentence we're talking about, 'the girl gave her soul to the witch,' what word is the direct object?" I don't usually stick around for long.
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| Looking out over the city! |
A few weeks ago some friends invited Rosie and me to go on a biking trip to Vienna with them, and although Rosie wasn't able to because she's responsible and had a massive amount of European History to read for her block course that week, I was able to borrow a bike and go with them. It should have been about 30 km each way, but we got a bit lost on the way there and so it ended up being nearly 70 total! It was so much fun, very hard, and on our way back through the city and on into the fields it began pouring rain as it got dark, but we got back safe and sound--though wet and tired. Once we made it into Vienna we stopped for some pizza (one of the two guys I went with is from Germany, so we could relax when it came to communicating with people...), and then we went on to stop "for a quick look" inside the famous St. Stephan's. It's so huge and magnificent, and the streets all around it are so crowded with people and horses and carriages; quite the sight! We went in and happened to see a friend from the ITI, a son of one of the Byzantine priests here, who recently began studying at the seminary in Vienna. He was giving a tour to two girls from Franciscan University who were studying in Gaming (where the ITI used to be), and he casually invited us to join the tour. So our "quick look" turned into over an hour of exploring every part of the church, all the way up to the tallest, off-limits towers, because Danylo had the key for
everything, and was apparently best friends with the elevator lady, the ticket guy, and whoever has the keys to all the secret doors that lead to the not-so-safe parts...
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Freed from the never-ending
staircaseand out onto the roof! |
Anyway, we ended up climbing at least 700 spiral stairs (there's nothing quite as maddening as a dark, endless, small, closed off, spiral staircase...), standing right next to the bells in the tower at 1500 as they rang out over the city, and at one point climbing out onto the little walkway next to the roof. He even brought us into the gap between the inside ceiling and the towers. The church from the outside looks about twice as tall as it does on the inside, so we got to explore the inside of the roof and climb up dark ladders to a tiny trap door, stick our hands out and touch the very top point of the front of the church. When we finally came down the endless staircase after that, (my legs were shaking and we still had 30 more km to bike), we stopped by a little building stuck in between several regular looking city apartments on a random side street, which turned out to be the Byzantine church that Danylo went to there in Vienna. We opened the rather boring looking door and went from the cold, rainy, overcast day to being smacked in the face with all the spectacle of the solemnest part of a Byzantine wedding ceremony. Music, gold, bells and incense; and the couple were both wearing beautiful gold crowns. We stayed for a minute or two, and then back to the regular world and sore sitter-downers for the ride home!
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| Taking a break to eat some cookies. |
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Strawberry Ice-cream and
complimentary blanket. What
more could you want? |
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| Sopron! |
The next day we went on a trip to Hungary! Sopron is just right near the border, so it only took us about 30 minutes to get there. It's a beautiful and old town (city?), and everything was wonderfully cheap. Also, we had a bunch of Hungarian cash that Margaret had acquired when she visited Budapest, and so we could really live it up. We walked around and explored--several more experiences of the boring door squished between other buildings, opening up into a magnificent church--and enjoyed plenty of pastries, pizza and ice-cream.
We spent some extra time in a big church/Monastery and bought some tea that I think the monks there make. I think it was built in the 1300's, originally by the Franciscans, but damaged, and then restored and now a Benedictine Monastery. I'm not sure about all that, I try to pay attention to the history of the places we visit but it's turns into one big muddle as soon as I read it. It was lovely anyway.
We also stumbled upon a Jewish synagogue/museum, that had been rediscovered and restored in the 70's. It had gone out of use in the 1500's when everybody was kicked out, and it was a really neat place to see.
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Rachel in a church
in Sopron, Hungary. |
Besides our various day trip adventures, we've been pretty busy here at the school. Rosie is helping put on Peter Pan with some other students here (who happen to be from California and know some people from TAC, Saint Monica's and some of our other friends), and I'm playing to role of Peter, Claire is Smee, Jacinta is Toodles and Irene is Michael. Should be a fun production!
Rosie and I invited some friends over for tea the other day, and so we had a nice tea/brownie/apple pie/cinnamon role party before heading back to classes in the afternoon. Rosie has been going on various trips with the Studium Generale people, last weekend she got to spend a night in a Schloss in Wasserberg and go for a beautiful but cold and long hike in the mountains. She and I are planning to join the school for a trip to Croatia in November!
Last night Rosie and I were invited to join some friends going to "Cafe Wess" in town, so we had a nice time with our giant pints of beer and goofy friends. I only stayed for a little bit because I had to come back to study Latin with some other friends, but it was a fun little spot, and is apparently sort of an ITI tradition. I'm not planning to get too involved with that there tradition, however, since I've discovered that even a small amount of alcohol makes me really sick. So I'm gonna stick with grape juice and cake generally.
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| Walking about Sopron. |
Tonight there is a 50's dance/birthday party as well as our next drama club meeting, and we make up about half of the Byzantine choir for the liturgy today (heh), so it'll be a busy afternoon.
Irene speaks lots of German now, and it's fun to hear. She's only been in school for less than two months and is already using what she knows to make her own sentences throughout the day.
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| This is a very old wall. Yes. |
I think we aren't yet entirely sure that our visas are on track, so prayers appreciated, but we've done all we can do so we're waiting to see if they'll come in time!
