Poland Pilgrimage (continued)

9/18 - buses left the hotel at 8:00. A tour guide gave us some quick facts about Krakow as the bus drove us to the Royal Wawel Castle and Cathedral. We were dropped off there and split up into three large groups. Our tour guide was fantastic and the Wawel Cathedral was incredible! It is Poland's most important national sanctuary and arguably the most interesting place in the whole country. It is the burial ground of most Polish royalty as well as the greatest national heroes, two poets, four saints and many Krakow bishops. Although we weren't able to see it, underneath the church is the underground chapel of St. Leonard which was turned into the nation's paramount mausoleum with tombs of the royals and national heroes. We were given a tour of the church which really sparked my admiration and fascination with the churches of Europe - this was really the first time we had been explained the historical facts and intense symbolism (especially the many tombs).
Here is a picture of the girls with their coffee and chatting with our guide :)

After the castle and cathedral, our tour guide walked us to the city center - here's a picture of Sarah and I in the square. That church in the background was where we watched the traditional hourly trumpet song out the window :)

We were then left on our own free time for the next couple hours. We ate at a little restaurant called Yummies which took up most of our time, and so we were in a bit of a hurry to visit some places we wanted to go (mainly shops), and we were back to the bus by 2:00 to go to Divine Mercy Shrine and Chapel. Sr. Gaudia talked to us and gave us some background on the Divine Mercy Shrine and the story of St. Faustina. Mass followed in the Basilica which is there in the background :)

We left for our hotel in Krakow about 6:30, had dinner and went to bed!

9/19 - mass was at the Royal Wawel Cathedral. It was all in Polish but Fr. Ron gave a few words in English during the homily :)

From 10am-noon, Sarah, Andrea and I got coffee and walked around Krakow some more. About 15 minutes till noon they left to go on a little trip with the school to another town. I didn't really want to go and I loved Krakow and really wanted more time, so I ventured off on my own before our bus was going to be leaving for the town of Wadovice.

I can't even describe the feeling of walking all on my own in Poland, it was so exciting! I went everywhere during that time, ate lunch in the park, and shopped. It was fun to see familiar faces and especially running into friends on the way back to the bus :)

2pm we left for Wadowice (Pope John Paul II's hometown).

We had this really rich cream cake, known as "pope cake" because John Paul II liked to eat it while studying in the seminary. I might have gained more pounds then needed while eating it but boy it was yummy ;) We also ordered perogies (famous Polish food).

We met back at the bus about 6pm and everyone was changing into their comfy clothes for the long bus ride back to the Kartause. We watched the Count of Monte Cristo on the bus, had broken sleep once again all throughout the bus ride and crashed upon arriving back in Gaming at 3am! It was a trip I will never forget, and some day I would like to go back to Poland :)

Poland Pilgrimage!

I will begin by saying I loved Poland. This country was beautiful in nature and in history. Visiting Auschwitz and learning about Poland's perseverance and intensity through World War II gave the feeling of an old and emotionally worn out country, but that strength through all those difficult times made me fall in love with her :)

Our Poland pilgrimage began at 8:30pm on Thursday night. Our bus ride was approximately 9 hours long so it was an overnight trip. Sleeping was a struggle - no deep sleep involved and to make matters worse we arrived in Czestochowa and the first thing we did upon exiting the bus was sprint to the Basilica for the unveiling of Our Lady of Czestochowa. Can you imagine... seeing a huge group of about 100 students sprinting across Czestochowa, Poland at 6:00 in the morning? Quote from Andrea during the sprint, "I feel like we're in the army." Haha :) The unveiling was beautiful though, it lasted all about 3 minutes but there were trumpets going and everything!

Here's one of our first views on our sprint

We ate breakfast at the hotel where the buses dropped us off. Sister Monica then gave us an overview/explanation of the Black Madonna (Our Lady of Czestochowa) and her significance and importance to the Polish people, before mass at the image chapel, "Shrine of the Polish Nation" at 8:45am. After mass we had some time to explore the church and surrounding areas before needing to be back at the bus at 10:30. There was a man selling us wooden pictures of the Madonna and he was accepting American money! Andrea had some and what a surprise it was to see American money again! A sack lunch was provided for us on our 2 hour bus ride to Auschwitz. We went on a long tour upon arriving at the largest Nazi concentration camp in all of Europe. It lasted about 2 1/2 hours and included Auschwitz and Birkenau. It was an intense experience which cut deep into the nature of evil and the horrors that man is capable of. It is so critical that we study the holocaust and other sobering events throughout history though because as George Santayana said: "Those who do not know their history, are doomed to repeat it." With this knowledge, we left Auschwitz in sadness but also with a sense of hope as well, because we are shown that horrible events can in fact end. We prayed a Divine Mercy Chaplet at the holocaust monument. At 4:30pm we departed for Krakow and arrived there at about 7pm. We ate dinner at Hotel Cracovia where we would be staying for two nights. Just Sarah and I roomed together so Andrea could be with our friend, Lydia. We walked out into town for some wine and had a little get-together in our room. We got to bed by 11pm which was a little later then I wanted since we had been up most of the night before while we were traveling... but it is what it is, and we had a good time!

It's late now so I'm going to continue writing about Poland tomorrow :)



Home Away from Home :)

This past weekend was a two day weekend so a lot of students stayed back in Gaming. Friday was a visit to the Scheibbs hospital about 15 minutes from Gaming where all the nursing students learned about the Austrian healthcare system and nursing program. We had three speakers, one of which could speak no English so the whole presentation was translated (kind of took forever), and the two others could speak OK English. Then we had a question and answer time where we talked with about 20 nursing students from all over Austria who had come to Scheibbs just for us! The Austrian nursing program is 3 years with one year added if they choose to specialize in a particular area. This can be contrasted to the U.S. where nursing programs can range from 2 to 4 years with the option of further education. Each year they get 8 weeks of vacation, they take 4,600 hours of theory and practice within the 3-year period. They practice in the hospital completely separate from their schooling, for instance, they might be in class for five months at a time, and for the next five months be practicing in the hospital. We, on the other hand, have our clinicals at the same time we are taking classes. The Austrians can start nursing as soon as they finish their 3 years and after they complete four "diploma" exams as they call them in order to graduate and begin nursing. While, we can't start nursing/become licensed until we've taken the NCLEX test. Within five year periods, the Austrians have to complete 40 study hours to keep up to date - this is quite minimal considering the high amount of continuing education after school that is required for nurses in the States. The Austrian healthcare system is socialist so most healthcare is fully paid for but like most Socialist governments, taxes are extremely high. Also, every four years, politicians get together to talk about how much money will go to each Province in Austria. We ate dinner with the students in the hospital after. :) Once we got back to campus, we walked to the town pub called Urs in Gaming where all the students and locals like to go for a little evening enjoyment!

The plan for Saturday was initially to go white water rafting but we were supposed to have 40 students signed up in order to rent a bus, but we only ended up getting about 25 to sign up so it ended up being cancelled... until we got a knock on our door at 11:30 on Friday night from a determined student who managed to get our two RDs and Fr. Brad (one of the two main priests here) to drive us there! So after 10am mass on Saturday morning we loaded ourselves up into two vans and Fr. Brad's car. We drove about an hour and 15 minutes to our rafting location. Here are some locals just walking their cows on the drive over haha

We went on a hike in the time we had before we were scheduled to go rafting at 3:00. I decided that I will never truly escape hiking since most of the people I enjoy being around, love it :P - like my roommates. Hopefully I will learn to love it one day. Here are some pictures!

The rest of the afternoon was then spent on the river. We were dressed in full body wet suits and there were points where we were riding level 5 rapids. Our guide was hilarious - his English wasn't very good, and he reminded us of a hobbit haha. He and the other guides had major competitive streaks in them too because they definitely promoted fighting, wrestling, pushing, jumping to different boats, and tipping them over. It was crazy, like the whole trip was CRAZY! and the water was freeeezing but it wasn't unbearable thanks to our suits :) We had pizza for dinner and got back to Gaming at about 9:30pm - exhausted and ready for bed!

Sunday was a down day. We went into town where all the people were dressed in their traditional Austrian dress, celebrating a day of thanksgiving! The band was playing and there were tables and chairs all set up with everyone sitting and enjoying their beers, sausages and pastries for sale. It was goregous too, it was a perfect day for a town get-together :)

Tonight we leave for Poland!

Salzburg/Munich trip - DAY 3

After Munich, we drove back to Salzburg and stayed our second night in the same hostel as the night before. We drove to St. Michael's in Mondsee for mass at 10am about a half hour west of Salzburg. This church was where the wedding in the Sound of Music took place!

We ate lunch afterward in the town of Mondsee... soup, salad, pork roast, dumpling and ice cream for dessert!

mmm :) we visited the lake where most people went swimming. I didn't want to jump in though so I played frisbee instead. Everyone enjoyed it though, except that it was pretty cold!

Side note: there's a creek at the Kartause in Gaming and it's a Franciscan tradition for students to make frequent "creek jumps." In other words, if you go to Austria, you have to jump in the creek. So against my will, I jumped in. My comment is simply that it was cold and I am content not doing it again. I guess I'm glad I can say I did it though... at least once ;)

Here's a picture of the lake in Mondsee:

Before the lake, Sarah and I stopped in at some shops. Here is the traditional Austrian dress for women. They're called dirndls. so cute :)

And that's the end of our Salzburg and Munich trip!



Salzburg/Munich DAY 2

We had breakfast at our hostel and went to 10am mass at Dom Cathedral (Mozart’s church and the one with five organs) – it was completely in German, so it was very difficult to focus and I confess I spent too much time thinking about very unimportant things! The mass was spectacular though – I felt like I was at a German orchestra concert! At 11:30 the buses left for Salzburg and in a couple hours we were in Munich, Germany! Our director of student life, Mark, led us on a short walking tour and then we had free time for the rest of the day. First we visited the Munich Residence, which was the political and cultural center of the first dukes and kings of Bavaria. It was also the place where rulers kept their art collections and treasure. We had audio guides but it would seriously have taken us like six hours to get through that place if we had listened to every audio clip… It was huge and had an outrageous number of rooms

And here are some more pictures of Munich :)

Look at that architecture!

For dinner, we went to the Hofbrauhaus and the whole menu was in German, so I pulled out my Rick Steves German phrase book and attempted to decode the menu ha but it was entirely too difficult especially with a whole table of people… so with little knowledge of words on the menu we decided to pick something completely random! At least Sarah and I picked something completely random – I think everyone else had some idea of what they were ordering. Here’s what we got :)

Mine is the second picture and it was called Saftiges Bierkutschergulasch, it kinda tasted like chili and - I thought I would look it up on google but yeah.. no luck. I guess it will remain a mystery ;)
Well, turns out they had an English menu… Ha at least we had fun ;)

Funny too, the Hofbrauhaus is a big beer place (what a surprise :P) but no one at our table ordered beer, but somehow one of the guys at our table was given half a glass of beer from another table with Franciscan students who didn’t like it. It was a Radler and I genuinely liked it. So I’m pleased to say my favorite beer so far was the beer I had in Germany :)

Salzburg/Munich school trip - DAY 1

7:30 the buses left for Salzburg – approximately a two and half hour bus ride. We watched a movie on the way over so that helped the time pass :) We had mass at 11:00 at Franziskanerkirche which translated is Franciscan Church.

After mass we ate lunch. Sarah and I kind of lost our people so we sat a four person table where our Philosophy of the Human Person, and Ethics teacher sat, Prof. Harold, and our residence director Katie Hess who’s on her third or fourth year working as an RD in Austria. The lunch here was so good and we ordered white wine which tasted so yummy! And the lunch was delicious too :) We then had a tour of old Salzburg with the bishop’s brother (the bishop who celebrated mass with us at Franziskanerkirche earlier that morning), Dr. Seifert. Apparently he had been Prof. Harold’s professor! Salzburg is the home of the Sound of Music, and I’m a little rusty on exactly all the locations of the scenes in the movie but this picture is of the courtyard and steps where they sing one of their many songs :)

Some students also visited the gazebo where Liesel sings “I am 16 going on 17,” but apparently it was a bit of a disappointment because an old lady broke her hip falling off the benches, so they closed it.
Here’s a street in Salzburg – it was such a cute town!

And here’s Sarah, Andrea and I on the bridge during our walking tour, you can see the fortress Hohensalzburg in the background where we visited later that day

After the walking tour we checked into our hostel around 3:30, got some coffee and walked up the hill to Festung (fortress) Hohensalzburg which is the largest preserved medieval fortress in Central Europe. At the top of the hill was a fantastic view of Salzburg! We also visited Nonnberg Abbey a little ways down the hill from the fortress. Here’s the view from the fortress

We then walked around looking at the shops and stopped by Dom Cathedral in Domplatz – a plaza located centrally in Salzburg. There has been a cathedral in this spot since the 8th century and it honors the patron saint of Salzburg, St. Rupert. Mozart’s parents Leopold and Anna-Maria were married here in 1747 and Mozart was baptized at this font in the cathedral

He also served as organist and some of his compositions were written for the cathedral. We attended mass here on Sunday morning and I read the following, “It is the only house of worship in the world with five independent fixed organs, which are sometimes played together during special church-music concerts”

After visiting Dom Cathedral, we ran into Father Brad and some students headed to Augustiner-Bräu – one of the largest beer sellers in Europe. The tradition is to wash the beer glass in the water fountain before the glass is filled.

First wash the glass…

Then fill it with beer!

Here we are at Augustiner-Bräu, eating dinner :)

And that was the end of our day in Salzburg… Sunday we’re off to Munich!

Willkommen to Mariazell

On September 3, a group of students woke up early to go on an approx 12 mile hike to Mariazell! With this information I chose not to go of course ;) Instead, Sarah and I rode the one-hour bus ride there to join all those who went walking. We found some students who were strong and ready to go on another hike! and others who were not so happy - blisters, cuts and bruises! :P Mariazell was the cutest town, they had all these little religious shops near the church and we got ice cream while we walked around town and visited them :)

The Mariazell Basilica is also located here which is the most important pilgrimage location in Austria and one of the most visited shrines in Europe. Here are some pictures I copied from Google because we failed to get a good picture while we were there :P

Hello Big City

So we just got back from our Salzburg and Munich trip which was amazing! I'm behind though so I'm going to talk about our Vienna trip which was a week ago now.

7:30 on Saturday morning - everyone is pretty tired on the bus except for the kids. Most of the professors who teach in Austria have big families and the kids usually tag along on the bus rides, adding a little spunk to the lives of a bunch of college students :) 10:15 we had mass at Kapuzinerkloster, and at the end of mass we began our walking tour. One of the places we visited on the tour was the Spanish Riding School of Vienna. The horses are Lipizzan horses that perform in front of huge audiences in Vienna. We were told these horses can “dance”. Whatever “dancing” for them is, I guess they are pretty amazing. The first picture are the horses and the second is a sign that tells us when their morning exercise is. I was so entertained! :P

We also visited St. Peter's Church - potentially the oldeset church in Vienna. There are 714 angels in the church and everything that looks like it's made of gold is actually made of wood, but covered in gold :O

We ate at Melker Stiftskeller for lunch. As usual, lunch and the first round of drinks are paid by the University but any other costs are our own. At this point it was about 2:30 and from that time until 8:00 we had free time! We visited St. Stephen’s Church – the heart of Vienna – which was absolutely amazing. It’s a Gothic style church and so far is my favorite that we’ve seen.

I wish I had some better pictures, but it's so difficult to capture how amazing these European churches are! After seeing the church, we took a trip up the “lift” as they call them, and to a platform on TOP of the church. Here's just one picture of the outrageous view. I was scared out of my mind… I can deal with some heights, but this one was difficult. We were SO high up!

Afterward we went to Demel – Vienna’s best known pastry and coffee shop – and had Venetian coffee. I had what was called a Großer Brauner (a large espresso with cream) here’s a picture of it. It definitely made my day :)

We walked around a bit before getting dinner at around 6:30. It was kind of a crazy evening because we ended up with nine people in our group which was stress like no other. We managed to find a pizza place and split four pizzas – which took much longer than it should have. The waitress took forever to get us our check and in a hurry, we paid and left. We got to our meeting place for the bus at a reasonable time, but the stress was enough that I’ve vowed not to go on a trip again with more than four people. We still had fun though :)