The Black Forest Dorms

So what does it look like to attend boarding school in Germany? Read along for a glimpse into the BFA boarding program…

Along with attending classes, dorm life is an integral part of the BFA student experience. Of the 250 high schoolers who attend the school, about 60% are dorm students. There are eight high school dorms at BFA—each one different from the next. 

 On Thursday night, the new staff had the opportunity to take a grand tour of all the BFA high school dorms. Since Kandern is such a small community, most of these dorms are spread throughout the neighboring German villages. Piling into two BFA vans, we prepared to depart on a 3 hour adventure of visiting dorms and meeting the 2013-14 Res Life staff.

Palmgarten

Maugenhard

Our journey began with a stop at Palmgarten and Maugenhard. These two dorms are the only ones located right in the center of Kandern. Because of their close proximity to the main campus, students at Palm and Maug have the luxury of walking to school when the weather is nice. Palm was originally built as a hotel (much like our ever-beloved Garni), but now accommodates between 20-22 girls. Above Palm, is the newest of the BFA dorms, Maugenhard. It too, is fairly large, housing between 20-24 boys. My favorite feature of these dorms would have to be the enormous kitchen in Maug and the stairway to nowhere in Palm. I guess if you’re feeding 24 high school boys, you had better have a huge kitchen! As for the stairway to nowhere, I suppose it just makes Palm even more unique. :)

Check out Liel's green fireplace to the left!

After Palm and Maug, we took a 10 minute drive to the village of Liel. One of the oldest buildings in the BFA dorm collection, Landhaus Liel (known simply as Liel) was built around the year 1760. No big deal or anything, but that’s 16 years older than the entire United States of America! As a result of Liel’s impressive age, the floor has started to sag a little bit, which means that BFA will have to find a replacement building in the next year or so. My favorite feature in the girl’s dorm of Liel would have to be the lovely green fireplace…which doesn’t actually work anymore, but is still a really cool visual piece.

Yup, that's a real stork!

After Liel we proceeded to Storchenblick, known for short as Storch. Originally a village school, this girl’s dorm got its name due to the beautiful view of nesting storks that can be seen on a neighboring church tower. This dorm was one of my favorites—very artistic with a warm and home-like feel.
    

Storch Dining Room

Archway into HBR

Haus Bad Riedlingen was the next dorm on our tour. Known commonly as HBR, the 20 boys that live in this dorm often joke that “bad” is their middle name. Built around 1750, this dorm is even older than Liel! The original building had a mineral spring bath. One of my favorite features of the dorm was the large painted sign that hung over the front entrance.

And...another dorm room! (boy's)

Inside a typical dorm room (girl's)

 Wittlingen (pronounced with a “v” sound) was originally built as a combination inn, country store, and gas station. I would say that it has the most confusing and exciting layout of all the dorms we visited. Secret rooms in the north tower, fire escapes to the roof, hidden basements, and a lovely backyard were all a part of the Wittlingen experience. Witt accommodates between 18-20 girls. One of my roommates, Julie, used to live at Witt when she was a high school student at BFA!

Outside of Wittlingen

The final two dorms on the tour were located about 10 kilometers away from Kandern in the beautiful hillside village of Marzell. These dorms included Blauen, a girls dorm with lovely blue shutters, and Sonnenhof, a boys dorm with a castle-like appeal. Although these dorms are the farthest from Kandern, they were definitely two of my favorites! 

Sonne

Blauen

Painting on the wall of Sonne

Seeing the dorms of BFA helped to give me a better understanding of campus life here in Kandern. It was a glance into the lives of the students and a chance to imagine what it must be like to live and study as a high schooler away from home. While it must be extremely difficult to live away from one’s family, it was encouraging to see the way that BFA strives to create such a loving home away from home for MKs from all over the world.

To Infinity and Beyond!

For those of you who were particularly interested in my post entitled, My Run to the Sun, I have some exciting news! I have successfully completed the quest to locate all nine planets! In addition, I was even able to find Ceres, which is largest asteroid and the only dwarf planet in the inner Solar System.

The first stage of my mission was accomplished last weekend. While my roommates were still nestled all snug in their beds, I rose early Saturday morning to follow the illusive trail to Pluto. I decided that the best plan would be to work my way back to the last planet that we had discovered: Neptune. Sure enough, when I reached the model of Neptune, I found a small picture of a planet and a tiny arrow pointing back towards Kandern. Above the arrow was the word, “Planetweg.” I also noticed a short footnote at the bottom of the sign, “1400m zum Pluto.”

With these two bits of information to guide me, I turned back down the trail and started to head in the direction of downtown Kandern. It seemed strange to me at first  to be heading right into the city. After all, shouldn’t the planets be hidden in the woods and not in the middle of a city street? My fears soon faded when I noticed the start sign for another hiking trail. Since the Planetweg was obviously built as an attraction for hiking trails, I was convinced that this must be the way to find Pluto. Completely ignoring the previous information that Pluto was only 1400m from Neptune, I headed pell-mell up the mountain and into the new world of the red diamond hiking trails. (Most of the trails that I had been following before had been yellow diamond trails.)

You can probably guess that my hasty actions did not serve me well. I scoured those mountain trails for nearly an hour, completely determined that I would not give up until I had found the little planet. Finally, hot, tired, and a little grumpy, I decided it was time to head home. I would have to look again tomorrow. Besides, how was I to know if some crazed anti-Pluto activist hadn’t removed the planet years ago? Perhaps all my searching had been in vain…

Feeling much less enthusiastic than I did on the way there, I ran dejectedly down the main street and back towards our home at the top of the hill. Just as I was crossing by the bridge near Rachel and Amy’s house, I noticed a man reading a city map that was posted off to the side of the main street. Taking a closer look, I realized that right beside this map of the city was none other than the model of Pluto! It had been right there on the main street all along and I had just kept on running blindly past. You can probably imagine my elation when I realized that I would not have to return home without accomplishing my task. The littlest planet had been found and it was much closer to home than I had ever guessed it would be!

My planet quest was officially completed on Sunday. Before church, I spent my morning time with God by running from Pluto, to Neptune, to Uranus, to Saturn, to Jupiter, (to Ceres,) to Mars, to Earth, to Venus, to Mercury, to the Sun and back again all within 70 minutes. Talk about a great reminder of God’s amazing creation!

My favorite planet, Saturn!

Einkaufen Gehen

One of the biggest adjustments to living in Kandern has been learning to adapt to a new style of grocery shopping. Besides the obvious struggles of reading German food labels and converting dollars into Euros, there are so many other little differences to be considered. Let me share with you a few of my lessons learned…

 

The Playing Field: There are two main grocery stores in Kandern: Penny and Hieber. Penny is more of a discount grocery store (similar to Aldi in the States). However, unlike Aldi, Penny offers a random assortment of special sale items each week. These can be anything from “Hello Kitty” pajamas, to chain saws, to cheese graters. Hieber, on the other hand, has a much bigger food selection and a wider variety of international brands and products. Yet, with this variety also comes higher prices! 

Weigh those Veggies: At Heiber, you have to weigh your fruit and vegetables before you check out. This can be confusing since we usually weigh produce at the check out counter in the US. If you forget to weigh your veggies, the sales clerk has to get up from their seat at the cash register, go all the way back to the produce area, and weigh your produce for you! As can be imagined, this can get a little embarrassing if you end up holding up an entire line of time-conscious German shoppers. 

Decisions, Decisions: Many of the German grocery stores (Penny more so than Hieber), don’t offer the product selection that we see in the US. If shopping at Penny, you probably won’t see fourty-five different types cereal, eight brands of ketchup, and fifteen different kinds of milk. Instead, there are usually two or three reasonable options. While this might sound limiting, it does make shopping a lot easier!

On the flip side, if you are shopping at Hieber, you may find an overwhelming selection of products that you would never suspect to see in the US. For example, there is an entire aisle devoted to jam. Though I don’t have an official count, I am guessing that Hieber offers well over forty different jam varieties. Hieber is also crazy about their müsli selection—raisins, sunflower seeds, chocolate, dried fruit, almonds, crunchy, chewy, healthy, organic, for kids, flax, millet, and the list is never ending! But, to the German’s credit, the Müsli here is really good! 

Going Green: Don’t come to the grocery store without your own bag! In Kandern, people typically use reusable canvas shopping bags. You could request plastic at the checkout line, but you would have to pay an extra 5 cents per bag…not to mention a few glares for your wasteful ways.  

Who says we need a canvas bag? We have a laundry basket!

Less is More: In Europe, you typically don’t buy as many groceries as you do in the States. The reason is very simple, you just don’t have the room! The refrigerators here are much smaller, especially when you are sharing with seven other girls!

Our German "mini-fridge"

Eat Fresh: It seems that food here goes bad a little faster than it does in America. There is much less use of pre-packaged/boxed food and preservatives. (yay!) So, be sure to eat your food quickly, otherwise, watch out for mold!

Scrambled Eggs: Looking for eggs? Don’t check the refrigerator aisle. German eggs are always left out on the shelf. At Hieber, you also have the option of individually selecting the eggs that you would like to purchase. You simply load your own carton right there in the store! You can also buy hard-boiled colored eggs at any time during the year, not just Easter!

Bäckerei: Heiber and Penny both have a great selection of fresh breads. Most German breads are crusty, grainy, and brown—just the kind that I like! They also have some yummy soft pretzels for only 70 cents. I have enjoyed getting to practice my German skills with the bakery staff at Hieber (and Heitzmann, another local bakery), “Ich möchte zwei vollkorn brötchen, bitte!”

So this isn't actually the Heizmann in Kandern..but the inside looks similar!

My Run to the Sun

While this is probably going to sound a little crazy, I ran to the sun yesterday. Before I expound upon this further, let me first preface this story by saying that my morning running excursions have become so much more enjoyable now that Jesse and Sam have moved into town. Jesse and Sam are two new BFA staff members who have come all the way from Oklahoma to work with the support staff at the school. They live on the top floor of an apartment just three houses down from the Garni House. And the best news, Jesse just happens to be a runner! It is such a blessing to have a friend waiting for me outside at 6:30 every morning so that we can run up the German mountains together before language class! 
 

Well, my story begins on one of those such mornings. Jesse was waiting for me outside the Garni in her gray pullover and green running gloves. Mornings have been pretty chilly here in Kandern. I suppose you could say that August in Kandern is similar to October in West Virginia—cool during the mornings/evenings and hot during the day. Anyway, I come out of the Garni to meet her and we decide to run up Sauweg and towards Rainweg. Since I arrived about a week earlier than Jesse, I have the advantage of already knowing a lot of the trails. As usual, the run on Rainweg was lovely! We could even watch the sun rising over the crest of the mountains. After about 3 miles, Jesse decided to head back towards home since she is still getting back in shape and adjusting to the hilly German trails. (I think I have a bit of an advantage since West Virginia is good deal more hilly than Oklahoma!)

Well, I continued on the trail another mile and a half through a long patch of wooded area and then some rolling hills and an open field. At the bottom of the one of the hills, I encountered a very peculiar sight for the middle of the forest. There was a huge silver orb on a pole in the middle of the field. Just in front of the orb was an informational plaque which was labeled “die Sonne.” This title was followed by a paragraph of scientific facts about the Sun and the surrounding universe. As I continued down the trail, I soon found Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. It seemed that all were built to scale according to the circumference and location of the model sun. Therefore, Earth was about the size of a marble and was suspended above a plaque approximately 150 meters away from the giant silver sun. Below each model planet was scientific description and an accompanying picture.

Now if you know anything about me, you can probably guess that the first thing I wanted to do was to discover the location of all nine planets. But, regretfully, I was already over a half mile past my allotted running “turn-around” point. Which basically meant that if I wanted to make it to language class on time, I would have to turn around as soon as possible. So, I sadly waved good-bye to the solar system in the woods and traveled back up Rainweg to home.

But, the story doesn’t end there! The same afternoon that I discovered the Sun, a few of my roommates decided to go hiking in the mountains. Near the bottom of Sauweg, on a path that I have run nearly every morning since arriving in Kandern, they discovered Neptune! To think, I had run past it all those times and never noticed it before. The craziest part is that the model of Neptune is a good four miles away from where I found the Sun! It seems to me that our solar system is way more vast than I have ever previously imagined! So now, I have a new running mission: to discover all nine planets before the start of school. Saturday’s goal: Pluto hunting! :)

Sonntag im Deutschland

Psalm 117 - Praise the Lord, all you nations;

    extol him, all you peoples.
 For great is his love toward us,
    and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.

Praise the Lord.

If you ever have the chance to attend a church service that is conducted entirely in another language, I urge you to take advantage of the opportunity. It is something truly amazing to hear those around you singing praises to God in a tongue that is different from your own. To me, it’s like a little picture of heaven with every tongue and tribe praising God in their native voice. Though it might seem strange to us at first, it is important to remember that God speaks German (not to mention Italian, French, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, Hindi, Swahili, and any other language) just as well as he speaks English! (Though I suppose a person could argue that He speaks Hebrew the best, but we won’t go there in this blog post…) My main point is that God is the God of all nations! I feel so blessed to be able to serve him in Germany!

Last Sunday, I attended a German church in the neighboring village of Haagen with three other BFA teachers. Even though there is an English speaking church right in Kandern, I wanted my first experience of church in Germany to be at an actual German church. Similar to in America, churches in Germany are entirely different depending upon the denomination, worship style, pastor, and all those other factors that make a church unique. The church that we attended was called “Gemeinde Der Offenen Tür,” which basically means “church of the open door.” True to it’s name, it was a very welcoming environment with lots of friendly greeters…not to mention a coffee/cookie bar. ;) The worship style was energetic and modern—similar to many newer American churches. It was fun getting to sing some familiar English songs with new German lyrics!

Praising God in Germany!

To help foreigners (like myself!) understand the sermon, the church offered a simultaneous sermon translation. This meant that while the pastor was teaching, I could listen through a headset to a real-time English translation. This was definitely helpful since my German is not nearly advanced enough to understand an entire sermon! About mid-way through the sermon, I decided to take a little break from the headset and see how far my language skills would take me. I did fairly well, but was nowhere near full comprehension. I remember him talking about the story of the boy who shared his five loaves (fünf Brötchen) and two fish (zwei Fische) with the crowd and how Jesus multiplied it to feed over 5,000 people. There was also this example about giving God all they keys of your life (Schlüssel zu Ihrem Leben) and not holding back any keys like the key to your house (Schlüssel zu Haus) or your car (Schlüssel zum Auto). Of course, all of this linked together somehow in a lesson about Barnabas in the New Testament, but I have to admit that my limited German didn’t always pick up on the connections. Overall, it was a memorable experience and I am excited to visit other churches in the area.

Sundays in Germany are traditionally a day of rest (Ruhetag). Stores shut down and many people spend the day resting or visiting with family and friends. People typically will not do any type of outdoor/public housework…so no washing your car, mowing your lawn, hanging your laundry, or painting your patio. (Not that people typically paint their patios…but I just thought that I would throw that in there!) People are also expected to be a little more quiet and respectful on Sundays than they would on normal days of the week. Of course, all of this is from the perspective of a small rural town in Southern Germany. I am sure that if you visited the big cities in the north like Berlin or Hamburg, things would probably be a little different.

Even though the stores in Kandern are closed on Sunday (make sure to do your shopping on Saturday!), restaurants do remain open. After church, we decided to stop at the local Döner/Pizza shop. This is where I had my first (and definitely not my last!) taste of a Döner kebab, which is a Turkish flatbread which is basically the same thing of as a Greek Gyro—shaved lamb, tomato, lettuce, cabbage, and a cool yoghurt sauce. So delicious!

Kebab shop at the bottom of our street :)

The Kandern Trails

If you jog about a quarter mile away from the Garni House, heading in the direction of the mountains, you will encounter one of the many entrances into the hiking world of Kandern. I've discovered that there is an entire network of trails, or Wandernweg, which lead over mountains, through forests, and across fields to connect all the little rural villages in the area. I have been told that one of the hiking groups at BFA actually followed this trail network all the way to Basel (which is no small feat considering the fact that Basel is about an hour away by car!)

On my first run in Kandern, I can remember how easy it was to find a trail. Bleary eyed and jet lagged, I stumbled out of the house and headed down Wolfsheule in the direction that I knew led away from the center of town. (In Kandern, it’s not really normal to see people running up and down main street…so I figured that I had better flee to the woods. After all, I wouldn’t want to bewilder the locals on my first full day in Kandern.) Within 3 feet (literally) of leaving city limits, I saw a small white sign pointing up a gravel path. Although I didn’t see the customary picture of a hiker, there were a bunch of different town names followed by a distance marked out in kilometers written on the sign. Seemed like a trail to me…so I started on my way up the mountain. Sure enough, I had stumbled upon an entrance to the Kandern trail network!

Oh, the forests of Germany are beautiful! There are so many trees, all so thick and full, like wide green umbrellas bending over the hiking trails. While the Black Forest is commonly known for its foreboding dark pines which supposedly block out the sun, thus making the forest “black,” this particular section of the forest is a logging area. Therefore, instead of numerous pines, there are a large number of tall, branchless trees that are ideal for lumber yards. While running along the trails, I often see piles of these trees, cut by the side of the trail and perfectly stacked in flawless German fashion. In addition to stacks of logs, there are also numerous tree houses, wooden huts, and benches staggered randomly along the trails. I’m not really sure if these are for camping, or if people just like to build tree houses…but I have yet to see any people in them. I'll be sure to let you know if I ever do. ;)

The trail closest to our house is called Sauweg. It leads about a mile up to big picnic/hiking area called Waldparkplatz. This area has a large trail map mounted on an announcement board as well as a few parking places for cars. The trails that begin at Waldparkplatz are Rainweg (my favorite, so far!), Rotterrainweg, Obererheubergweg (my other favorite), and Fasanengartenweg. Most of these trails are interconnected and lead to even more trails...but I can't quite remember all of the fancy German names. Sometimes they are so long that it is hard to read them within the two seconds that I am running by. I do remember that one of the trails connected to Kandernweg which took me all the way to Hammerstein, the neighboring village. My plan is to explore as many trails as I can before the winter sets in. :)

As far as wildlife is concerned, I haven’t really seen much while I am out on the trails. I caught a glimpse of a German deer the other day…but they kind of look just like American deer…maybe a little leaner from running up and down the mountains. The most common animal that I have encountered are these giant orange slugs. These things are at least 3 times as big as my thumb and are an brown-orange color. They kind of remind me of carrots...which is just creepy. On wet days, there are so many that I have to watch my footsteps pretty closely so that I don’t end up with globs of orange goo on the bottom of my running shoes.

In addition to those lovely creatures, I have also encountered some German dogs. My first encounter occurred on my second run into the mountains. I was on my way back down Sauweg when this small, Benji-looking dog came charging at me from down the trail. Normally, I don’t mind encountering dogs while I am running as long as the dog’s tail is wagging and the owner is nearby. Well, this dog’s tail was NOT wagging. He was actually barking and half-snarling as he was tearing up the trail towards me. His owner, who was about 30 meters back, yelled something at me in German—but she was too far away, so I couldn’t understand what she was saying. All I could do was hope that it was something along the lines of “Don’t worry! He’s nice!” and not “Run for your life!” My instincts told me to stop running and wait for him to approach me. I stopped and put out my palms face up, so that he could see that I wasn’t trying to threaten him. Thankfully, he stopped barking, sniffed my shoes, and decided that I was no longer a threat to German society and allowed me to go on my way. I greeted his owner with a simple “Guten Morgen” but didn’t stop to chat just in case “Benji” decided to get frisky again.

My second encounter with German dogs was even more startling than the first. I was out running on Rainweg. It was a particularly dark morning with lots of rain clouds and heavy tree coverage. Well, I was just thinking about how lonely and quiet the woods were when a man comes around the corner with his three large dogs. The man was tall, muscular, and bald. He was wearing a black workout suit and he kind of reminded me of Vin Diesel. Among his large dogs was a fit (slightly ferocious-looking) Doberman pinscher. Remembering my encounter with “Benji” from the day before, you can imagine how scared I was to see these three big dogs coming towards me with their rather intense-looking owner. Well, as soon as the owner sees me coming up the trail, the most amazing thing happened. He stopped running and faced his dogs. Then, without saying a word, he put out his palm in front of them as if motioning for them to stop. The dogs immediately stopped running and sat in a perfectly straight line in the middle of the trail. Their owner remained with his hand outstretched until I had passed safely by. He then, lifted his hand, the dogs simultaneously stood up, and the four of them continued running. People weren’t kidding when they told me that German animals are well-trained!

The Joys and Terrors of Ikea (aka “ee-kay-ah”)

Though it may be hard to believe (I have already shocked several of my roommates with this information) our shopping trip to Freiburg on Friday was my first time ever shopping at an Ikea. Unless, of course, I just forgot ever going to one…but, as one of my roommates clearly pointed out, “Ikea is not a store that you just happen to forget.”

Ikea in Freiburg

Well, as I was saying, I had my first experience at the German Ikea on Friday. If you are a frequent shopper of Ikea, then you probably know how huge and overwhelming it can be. You begin by traversing an enormous show room on the top floor where you basically take a walking tour of a thousand different little apartment rooms. During the tour, you use your nifty Ikea golf pencil to write down all of the furniture that you are interested in purchasing. If you survive the showroom, you continue down the stairs to the “small items” area where you can pick up everything from bed sheets, to lamps, to clothes hangers, to picture frames, and ceiling fans. Then, if you somehow make it through all of that, you enter this gigantic warehouse where you push roller carts up and down aisles searching for the items that you had written on your card from the showroom. These items are packed away in large boxes that are often extremely hard to lift and awkwardly shaped.

Now, I want you to  take that image of Ikea and imagine how you would feel if every sign and product description was written in German, every measurement was using the metric system, every price was in Euros, and every employee was speaking in German. This is exactly what I experienced. Let’s just say that after 3 hours of intense shopping, I finally crawled out of Ikea, barely alive, and feeling even more tired, hungry, and thirsty than I do after a long run. However, I did end up with some pretty exciting bargain-priced furniture…and a green polka dot duvet cover! ;)

Yay! New duvet :)

Now, the big challenge is assembling all those wonderful bargains into actual furniture and not just a random pile of wooden boards and screws that is lying on my bedroom floor. I assumed that with all my training constructing Lego sets as a kid, I would be more than equipped to handle some Ikea furniture. Not so! I ended up assembling an entire dresser only to find that I had left the backs off all of the drawers! Live and learn, I guess. ;) 

Ikea construction kit...please note the beautiful rock that we substituted for a hammer!

The Garni Girls

I am sitting on my balcony watching the sun rise over the rolling green of the German mountains. My room is located in the northeast corner of the third floor of the Garni House. I have a little balcony that I can walk out onto and enjoy a lovely view of the neighbor’s garden and the surrounding hills. It’s nice to have a garden just outside my window. It reminds me so much of home and my dad’s garden in the backyard. Although, I suppose that dad’s garden is filled mostly with vegetables, while my German neighbors only seem to care about flowers (which is just fine with me!) They have so many varieties—blue and purple hydrangea, pink hibiscus, roses, daisies, mums, and a wide assortment of delicate wild flowers. Sometimes, my neighbors sit outside on their balcony (which is directly across from mine) and chat or play cards and work on crafts. I have tried talking to them, but so far we haven’t gotten much past, “Hallo!” and “Guten Morgen!” 
 

Some of my neighbor's flowers

The Garni House

Even though I have only been here about a week, I am starting to settle into life at the Garni House. I have some terrific roommates who have come from all over the US to serve God and teach the students at the Black Forest Academy. There are four of us living on the third floor—two in rooms to the east, and two in rooms to the west. Laura lives in the room next to mine. She is from Portland, Oregon and is going to serve as the freshman English teacher at BFA. How exciting to have another literature lover right next door! Across the hall of the third floor are BFA’s two new orchestra instructors. Dayla lives in the room across from mine. She moved here from Boston, plays the viola and violin, and is going to teach the advanced orchestra class. Next to her is Johanna who is from Vermont, plays violin, and is going to teach the beginner orchestra class. So, interestingly enough, the third floor is the land of books, writing, and music. :)

 If you continue down our twisting marble staircase (okay, it’s not really marble, but it’s something like marble) you will arrive on the second floor/main living area of the building. There are two bedrooms on this floor—one occupied by Hanna, the new BFA Spanish teacher from the Chicago suburbs who used to play as a goalkeeper for the Georgetown soccer team. The other room is occupied (temporarily, until her actual apartment becomes available) by Julie the new BFA health teacher. Julie grew up in France and actually attended BFA while in high school! 

Living Room :)

  The living room has four big picture windows that let in lots of sunshine (well, that is, of course, if it is one of those blessed days when Germany actually decides to be sunny). Connected to the living room is the dining room and kitchen. We currently have only two mini-fridges in the upstairs kitchen…not sure how this is going to pan out with eight girls living in the house…pray for us. :) 

Dining room and kitchen

The first floor has three more bedrooms, plus the “guest room” and the cupboard-under-the-stairs. The guest room is a pretty tight squeeze…there’s a big water heater thing in there, so it’s kind of creepy. But, hey, at least there’s a bed! The other bedrooms on the first floor are fairly big and spacious. They also come more furnished than the other rooms in the house, probably because no one really wanted to carry all that large German furniture up the stairs. There is a small kitchenette in the front bedroom…which will definitely help since there will be so many of us living at the house. Currently, there is only one housemate living on the first floor. Her name is Christine and she will be teaching special education at BFA this year. Our other housemates are still on their way to Kandern, but should be here within the next couple of weeks.

Well, I hope that served as a good introduction to a little of my life here in Kandern. I will be sure to add more stories of our adventures at the Garni. :)

Ready for Take-Off!

Well, here I am...sitting in the Washington Dulles airport waiting for the flight that will take me to my new home across the ocean. Moments like these always seem to be such a surreal combination of dream and reality. I’ve been planning and anticipating this move since January. Now that it’s finally here, I can’t decide if I am living in actual reality or if I am just caught in some crazy dream world. I can pinch myself a hundred times, but I still have to keep reminding myself that all of this is real.

I’d like to thank you all for your encouragement and prayers along the way. God has shown up in my life in some pretty exciting ways. Two weeks before today, I wasn’t even sure if I would be arriving in Germany on time. And now, I’m sitting here at Gate B44—tickets in hand, suitcases packed, and a heart full of eager anticipation. Thanks for walking with me in the journey!

For some interesting airport items of note…it appears as if I will be flying to Europe along with a high school drama team. There’s currently about 30 high schoolers bopping around the airport terminal and all of them are wearing fluorescent yellow T-shirts. I wonder if London is their final destination? Perhaps they will be stopping to see a performance of Shakespeare at the Globe! :)

Otherwise, things at the terminal are pretty tame. Although I am getting some entertainment from the continual paging of people with really cool and complicated names, like Abdul Kerygista Thaileke Egimofor or Malcolm Sinbad Alzsakei. (I probably really messed up those spellings.)

Well, it’s almost boarding time. Please to sure to check in with my blog along the way!