Austria pictures...

These are not the pictures I took. I will upload those when we get back home. These are photos I found on the computer, which show the places John and I visited over the weekend. Enjoy!

Where do I begin?!

Well, well, well...it's hard to know where to begin!

Austria was absolutely beautiful! We got there on Saturday afternoon and did some touring of downtown Salzburg. It is a beautiful old town, with charming 'buildings'. We walked around, and toured a beautiful castle, and then went to see Mozart's home. Unfortunately, we got to his home too late, and it was closed. We walked around a few more hours, taking pictures of just about everything (since everything is so beautiful), and then ate at a delicious Italian restaurant.

On Sunday, we took The Sound of Music tour, which was incredible!! The tour was four hours, which sounds really long, but it felt like 1 hour! We took a tour bus with about thirty/forty or so other people, all from different countries. The tour took us all around the different places in Salzburg that the movie was filmed. We got out numerous times to take pictures, and walk around. We visited the mountains that a lot of the scenes were shot, the church that Maria and Mr. von Trapp got married at, the gazebo where 'I am 16 going on 17...' was filmed, the gardens where the children sang 'Doe a deer, a female deer...'. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, it was incredible! After the tour, we walked around Salzburg some more and found ourselves at one of the famous beer gardens. We had a beer, enjoyed our time together, and then set back for Germany.

We had a series of unfortunate events, that led us to take over an hour to get to our car, instead of the 15 min. it should have taken. It's not a trip in Europe if you don't get lost a few times. Pretty much, a few different people tried to help us, but each of their attempts to help us got us more and more lost! FINALLY we got to our car, and began our 3 hour drive back to Germany.

We got back to Germany for our second week here last night at around 8:30pm. We found ourselves at a beautiful, but VERY rural countryside hotel. We were planning on staying here the whole week, but I don't know if we (I) can take this much rural-ness (a word?) Surprise, surprise...a few more funny things happened!

We set up the computer last night, only to find that there was no free internet, although the hotel advertises that they do. We found out that we could pay $9 for one hour, that's what I ended up doing this morning. When we arrived last night, we were only one key. No one at the reception desk spoke English very well. We were told (in broken Germanligh) that the boss spoke good English and to speak to him tomorrow. We decided to go to bed, and in the morning, I'd get another key for myself to have during the week. John left for work this morning, and locked the door behind him. This morning, I got up to leave for breakfast, and the door was locked. I couldn't get out! I was freaking out thinking to myself, 'What am I going to do locked in here??' I was locked IN! I called down to the reception desk, (who didn't speak English), and pretty much yelled "HELP!". She came running up to my room (because she probably thought I was hurt), and unlocked the door. I was able to get out of my room for about 30 min. to have breakfast. While walking down the stairs with her, I was praying that God would somehow make sense of this situation...because it wasn't looking good! I came to the dining hall, and there was only one person. Praise God, she actually spoke English...very well! She and the woman from the reception desk spoke English back and forth to translate, and told me that I couldn't get another key because the key John had, had a certain ID number on it that was needed to replicate the key. Yikes! I also found out from the English speaking German, that there is no public transportation to take me into town, or anywhere for that matter. The nearest town is 25 miles away...and no way of getting there.

Soooo...I am going to do a lot of reading and journaling in my room today. I think that John and I may look for a different hotel to spend the rest of the week at. My $9 is almost up, and I have a few more things left to do on the internet. Wow...I'm sure more stories to come from the Dorr's this week.

We're going to AUSTRIA!

That's right everyone...AUSTRIA! We're actually going to Salzburg, Austria where The Sound of Music was filmed...yah! We'll b there for two days, and we cannot wait! We're going to try and book two tours: The Sound of Music, and the tour of Mozart's home! Ah, so excited! I'll be sure to take pictures. Again, I can't post them until we get home.

Keep reading...more to come...

Thankful?

I'm reading an awesome book called Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World. I read a book written by the same author a few weeks ago, and it was also great! This book talks about finding intimacy with God, even when your circumstances aren't optimal. I think we can all agree that there have been times in our lives when we're thankful all the time, because everything is going well. I think we can also all agree that there are times when we're the furthest thing from thankful, because things are going poorly in our life. Being in Germany right now, it's easy to be thankful to God for providing us with such an incredible opportunity to travel...together! I can look around at God's creation, and His people, and see his awesomeness. I have a tendency to walk out of situations like this, and back in to my day-to-day life, and not put effort into being thankful. I am working on that area of my life so hard, and I think I've gotten better at praising God, no matter the circumstance. Thanking the Lord for John, my family, my job, my dog, friendships, my house, my community, and so on shows me that I have much to be thankful for! In the book I'm reading it says this,

"Gratitude is important because it has the power to change our attitude. When we are willing to give thanks to God in all things, not just some things- to consciously thank him even when we don't feel very grateful- something in us begins to shift. We begin to see life as Christ sees it, full of opportunities rather than obstacles. And when we view life through eyes of faith, fear just has to flee."

I love that! Don't you? Training ourselves to be grateful, even if we don't necessarily feel it in the moment. I've been practicing this over the summer, and I can see a change in my thoughts and attitude.

Food for thought...

Pictures of Germany

A few of you have asked to see pictures, but our camera won't load to the laptop because our laptop is from the stone ages. Instead, I found some pictures of the town center a few blocks away. It's where John and I go for dinner, and where I spend my days. The pictures show the beautiful buildings in the middle, and surrounding it are other restaurants, coffee shops, and stores. The walkways are cobblestone, and the buildings are OLD! I hope you like...!

My first day in Germany on my own...

Today was John's first day at work, and so I was on my own. Since our hotel is so close to the 'town center', I've been able to walk back and forth throughout the day to get coffee, shop, and so on. The weather was a little chilly, and raining on and off today. It seemed as though as soon as I got to the hotel after being in the rain, or the cold, the sun would come out, and it was be warm again! If you had the chance to read our funny story in yesterday's blog about the debit card incident, we got the problem solved! I went to the bank this morning, and this nice woman (who spoke great English) was able to help me! They unlocked the machine, and I got our debit card back...thank goodness! John should be back in an hour, and we're going to have dinner out.

Thanks for reading...

We're in Germany!

Hey everyone! We made it to Germany, safe and sound! It is beautiful here, and I already love it!

A funny things happened to us only a few hours after arriving. We got to the hotel, slept for an hour, took showers, and then decided to walk around town. We went to a bank to withdraw Euros, and we mistakenly put our debit card in the wrong machine! We thought it was an ATM machine, but it was an account statement machine. Oops! John's debit card it stuck in there, and I have to go tomorrow to get the back to open the machine up to get the card. We thought that was pretty funny...

Our hotel is only a few blocks away from the 'town center' where there are stores, restaurants, coffee shops, and more. We aren't staying in a tourist area, so we are pretty much the only Americans here! We were pleasantly surprised that a lot of the people here actually speak English. It's broken, but well enough to communicate back and forth. John's work week starts tomorrow (Monday), so I'll be on my own to explore. I brought two books with me, so I'm excited to go to a coffee shop and drink coffee while reading. All the restaurants and shops have outdoor dining, and the weather is beautiful right now! A cool breeze goes through the town center, it's great! After John gets back from work, we're going to try a restaurant that looked really good.

I'll keep posting throughout the week. I was hoping I could post some pictures, but I don't think it's going to work on our laptop. I'm going to have to post them once we get home.

Keep reading...