Sunday, December 23, 2012

Weihnachten in Neu Gerolding + Christmas in Graz

Spending Christmas in Austria means celebrating on the evening of the 24th. Spending Christmas with an American means celebrating on the morning of the 25th, too.

So, we took the train to Vienna to Tom's Mom's place, where we were picked up by Richi. In a small 2-door Peugeot we crammed in 4 adults, one kid's car seat, our luggage and presents, Mutti's luggage and presents and somehow made it to Neu Gerolding in one piece.

We enjoyed singing Christmas songs with everyone - Sabine and Moritz especially enthusiastically joined in.

The 24th will bring a big lunch, a Christmas service, decorating a tree and opening presents.

Here are some pics to help you visualize it all!

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Date night in the city

Yesterday evening Thomas and I had a great date night. Before the week got too busy and full, we decided to have a nice, relaxing time looking at the Christmas markets, eating dinner than watching a movie! Very simple but also quite enjoyable.

I love my husband so much and am so grateful to get to spend such a fun evening with him!

Here are some pics:

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

First snow :)


We just had our first snow. Rebecca saw it first. She came into the room with a really excited face: Look outside, quick! And then we saw the snow already on our roof-window :) I said immideately, that we should go for a walk. That's what we did:


The big white blob is one huge snowflake flashed by my phones flash :)



These are the first footprints on this snowy bridge.


Our first snowballs :)


Some random flowers on the side of the road.

It was such a lovely walk. So beautiful to see the snow falling in the lights of the streetlamps....
The next day the snow was almost gone. There is some left on the hills nearby and on our rooftops. Hmmmmm. We are already in a little bit of a Christmas mood :)

Monday, July 23, 2012

To the states via Singapore

Here we go, this is the second attempt to write this post. In the first one I accidentally deleted the 'offline' post using my mobile client named 'Blob'. I finally figured out to press offline draft to actually save the thing on my Nokia N8 (btw most pictures here were taken with it :))

Anyway - the trip!
It started delayed. The official statement: Thunderstorms and lightning disabled the landing guide system on one of the runways. Thus planes had to circle and be queued in order to land and therefore the plane came an hour late to Graz. So we landed in Frankfurt and ran. We were told our new gate, supposedly B22, but not if they would wait. We were still running , passing several info screens, but - what the heck - the plane was not there and can you believe it- no personale to see. We ran 15minutes, arrived at B22... no plane. Darn.

We ran back to find - someone, anyone! Over there an Infodesk, great! Well as it turns out (feel then showdown?), every plane in Frankfurt was late today, except, you guessed right, ours - it left right on time, hmmm, at least we knew now. So we calmed down and after the stressful part we strolled slowly hand-in-hand :) to the Lufthansa ticket office. (On the way there we thought we earned ourselves a Frankfurt Starbucks mug :))

We picked number 636, waited 15 minutes and got ourselves the 8.30 morning flight operated by Singapore airlines (sweet!) from a pretty frustrated Lufthansa lady and strolled over 3 minutes to Sheraton Hotel.



People there were really nice, huge building, great room on the seventh floor



with a little bit of a view,



which turned out to be great sunrise view :)



That was quite an adventure, we finally are on our way on the Airbus A380-800



(yes the new jumbo - supersweet!) 11887m high above the Atlantic at 887km/h at freezing -44°C in comfy emergency exit seats and amazing service and 3 hours until touchdown :)








Sunday, March 4, 2012

Yummy baking session!

Here's a peek at my latest baking endeavor. Proved to be a great study break from my New Testament course reading. :) I'm a huge fan of Anna Boling O'Steen blog (lovelyladycakes.com). She's got fabulous, fun and fool-proof recipes and great videos to help visual learner's like myself! First time ever to whip up some whoopie pies and they turned out simply scrumptiously!

Friday, February 10, 2012

Can you say Aufenthaltstitelverlängerung 3 times fast??

So, today marks the (hopefully) last time I had to apply for an Aufenthaltstitelverlängerung. What is that, you ask? Is it contagious? No, silly! An Aufenthaltstitelverlängerung is the German word for the renewal of my temporary residence permit. This means that next time I can apply for a 'Daueraufenthaltsbewilligung' which is more permanent and only requires renewal every FIVE years. :)
Now a little background info. Every year around our anniversary I have to get all my paperwork together and head down to the local authorities offices - which I've lovingly dubbed the foreigner's Mecca. There I pull a number, wait for what usually seems like ages until I can present myself and my stack of papers to a grumpy Austrian government official. The past several years I've gone by myself due to the limited opening hours and this has been a real struggle for me. I tend to get nervous, worrying that I've either forgotten to fill something out, bring all the correct documents or for some unforeseeable reason I will be denied my visa. And of course there's always that unstoppable flood of Bureacratese to catch you off guard and overwhelm even a native German speaker.
That being said, this time Thomas was able to join me and even though I still had some pre-meeting jitters I was much calmer and way less worried than ever before. Not sure if it was the part of Ephesians I read this morning or my recent prayers, but God really helped me by reminding me to be confident of my status before him. This was also the first time that I got a non-grumpy official (!!!) who actually seemed like she had empathy (!!!!) and who spoke clearly and at least tried to be patient!!!! Wow! She answered our questions so that we understood some of the new laws and regulations. All I have to do is bring 2 copies of a document when I come to pick up my visa in March! As we left I was overwhelmed by how well and how much God's provided for both me and Thomas - not just well-paying jobs and good education which allow me to have fewer problems with all the red tape, but also so much more. As a kind of celebration we stopped by one of favorite cafès on our way back home. We've got so much to be thankful for!