April 22, 2008

April 22, the day we have been waiting for has finally come. If you did not know, April 22^nd is the day of Vicarage Placements at Concordia Seminary. This is the day when I and the rest of my classmates find out where we will be spending our Vicarages (like a church internship) for the upcoming year. Well, the 22^nd has come and we can spread the good news. Mandy and I will be spending our next year at Trinity Lutheran Church of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. You read it right…down in the South. Mandy and I are really excited for this opportunity and experience and we pray that God will bless us as we make this next big step in our lives.

Here’s a little info about the church if you want to know. It is in the Southern District of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. My supervising pastor for the year is Rev. Scott Schmieding. The church has 1250 members with an average weekly attendance of 525. Attached to the church is a grade school with 3 yr old Preschool to 8^th grade and has 196 students. The church has many ministries including a growing ESL (English as Second Language) ministry. Trinity purchased a 25 acre tract of land in 2005 for future expansion. They are currently developing a master plan for the possible relocation of the church and school in phases.

My vicarage will include teaching a variety of Christian education classes, interacting with the students, staff and families of Baton Rouge Lutheran School, assisting with the youth program, participating in and leading outreach opportunities, helping plan and lead worship weekly and preaching at least once a month. Mandy and I will be living in a house that is on the 25 acres of land that the church has bought for expansion, which is about 5 miles from the church.

The vicarage will probably start on the 4^th of August depending on a few variables. If you would like to get an idea of what our vicarage will be like you can check out the church's website at www.tlcbr.org. Please pray for Mandy and I as we prepare to make a transition from England to Michigan to Louisiana.

P.S. - There are still travel posts to come. Sooner or later they will be posted too.

Sound of Music in Salzburg (a.k.a. Alligator in Austria)

The first time that anyone checked our passports on this trip (apart from the airport) was on our train from Hungry to Austria. And when they did, we didn’t even get a stamp or anything. Because of this, our passports are pretty empty for such an extensive trip. Disappointing, but at least there are no long passport control lines. When we arrived in Salzburg we did not fully know how to get to our Bed and Breakfast. But usually all you have to do is find someone in charge and they’ll help you out, which is what happened with us, and we got on the right train to take us 1 stop out of town. The next challenge was a steep hill that we had to hike up to find our stay. It was worth it though because, being up on a hill, our bed and breakfast had a great view of the mountains. That evening we found an old monastery/brewery where we had schnitzel for dinner and a couple of good brews. It was like the Hofbrauhaus, but a little less boisterous.

The next morning was the 27^th of March, which is Mandy’s birthday. For her birthday she wanted to go on the Sound of Music tour, so that’s what we did. It was a 5 hour tour where they took you around the parts of Salzburg where the scenes were filmed and also out to the country to see some lakes and to the church where the wedding scene was filmed. Along this bus tour they also played the soundtrack. We saw the gazebo (of course) but it was not next to the house it was shown next to anymore. People were coming and making noise there late at night and the neighbors complained so they moved it out of the city more. Also, they usually keep it locked because a 90 yr. old woman fell off of a bench and broke her leg a while back, so you can’t dance around it anymore. But you can look at it at least. They told us that the house in the movie is actually 3 separate houses. The front is one house, the back is another, and the inside was filmed on a set based on the house the filmed the back of. We got to see the front of the one, and the back of the other, but we didn’t get to go up to them. Something about them being privately owned made them keep us away. I’m sure we saw some other movie things too, but I can’t remember. Ask Mandy, she’ll know.

That afternoon we did some sightseeing touristy stuff. Much of the shopping in Salzburg is on one street which we actually stumbled upon. Each store has its own hanging sign and you can even buy traditional Austrian garb there. Mandy’s favorite store was the Salzburg Christmas Store. They had about five hundred million Christmas eggs. They also had tons of other Christmas stuff, and dare I say, maybe even a larger selection from Bronner’s in some categories. Call me a heretic, but it’s true. In the evening we wanted to go hear some type of live performance since it didn’t work out in Budapest. The Festival Halls had the Mozart Orchestra playing. We thought we’d give it a try hoping it wouldn’t be too expensive. Turns out they had student tickets for 10 Euros a piece. What a deal, because the concert was excellent. A visiting cellist played a piece with orchestra accompaniment for about 30 minutes and it was memorized. Brilliant. We felt a little underdressed for the concert, since in the morning we hadn’t planned on this opportunity. We had jeans on and every one else was in a suit and tie or a dress. We sat low in the seats to not attract attention. After the concert we had to catch the train back towards our bed and breakfast. We figured we would have to wait a long time because our train left only ever hour. But, as we were walking back, we realized we could maybe make the earlier train. We got even closer and realized we then might not make it…so we started to run. We ran 3 blocks and then through the train station…And…we made it. With about 4 seconds to spare. It was a good day.

The following morning we visited the Natural History museum in Salzburg. Yeah, not the normal thing to visit there, but what the heck, we gave it a try. We were pleasantly surprised at how good it was, or at least that it was well worth the 3 Euros we each paid to get in. They had 60,000 gallons worth of aquarium with some really interesting creatures. On another floor they had a really good reptile exhibit. Who would have thought we would see Alligators in Austria? Those were the highlights. They also had a bunch of different rocks and some dead ants (the insect exhibit wasn’t doing too well). Later we returned to the touristy area, and of course, back to the Christmas store for another look. This time we found Halloween and St. Patrick’s Day eggs too. This store was big. Everything else we thought of doing was going to cost money, so instead we just sat on a bench by the river and soaked in the Austrian sun for a while, looking at the mountains. I think the mountains were our favorite part of Austria once again. Just beautiful.

Pictures coming soon.

Quick update

Thanks for reading! The pictures for a few posts are not yet up on Picasa so be patient and check back in a bit. Also, we have new polls that you can vote on to the side of the blog. Check those out if you want. Thanks!
-Aaron and Mandy

Bowling in Budapest

The night train included beds this trip, and it was better than trying to sleep in the coach section, but it still was not extremely restful. The conclusion is that no good sleep can come on a train. So don’t try it. But the train arrived as scheduled, early in the morning in Budapest. We walked the 15 minutes to our hostel, but we got there at about 8:00 a.m. It was a little too early to check in. However, we could use the free Wi-Fi in the lobby, so we used that time to check e-mails, update the blog, plan what we were going to do in Budapest, and most importantly, check Fantasy sports teams (just Aaron, Mandy hasn’t gotten into that…yet). For the day we decided to head up to some caves which were under the castle in Buda. Side note: If you didn’t know (as I didn’t), Budapest is made up of 2 cities, “Buda” and “Pest”. Buda is the old city on one side of the river and Pest is the new city on the other side of the river. So we headed over to Buda by metro (this system was easier to figure out). We entered the Labyrinth Caves and…well…it was one of the weirdest things we have done in Europe. The caves wound around, it was very dark and damp, and there were strange themes to every cave area. The first had drawings on the walls from “caveman times”. Another had some strange statues and stone carvings. The weirdest was an exhibition on an ancient race of people who used to live long ago, a race we didn’t even know about, and they left traces of themselves in the clay found there, such as shoe prints (it gets better), cell phones, a laptop (weird huh?) and a giant Coca-Cola bottle (bigger than us). We didn’t get it for a long time. Then we decided they were trying, in each cave, to represent the culture of the people who had been in those caves. It IS a Unesco site, so they must have thought it was pretty good…we just thought it was kinda odd.

We were up on a large hill after seeing the caves where we could get great views over both sides of the city. From there we walked down the large hill the palace is set on and walked across the bridge to Pest. From this bridge we could see a suspension bridge that used to be the largest in the world back in 1903. In our searches for Budapest events for the two days we would be there we found a couple of concerts that were going on. We tried to buy tickets at one place, but the hall was closed, so we moved on. The metro took us near another hall that had a string quartet playing that evening. We walked for a while and tried to find it, but the area was really REALLY shady (as in I’m scared of someone hurting us shady). About halfway to our destination we turned around and decided this wasn’t for us, since we would be taking this same route to the concert, but only at night…in the dark…without the sun. At this point we gave up seeing any concerts that evening.

We had read that there was a wine festival going on in Pest, so we headed over there to check it out. They had a lot of booths with a ton of wines, but each person had to buy a glass, and then you had to buy tickets for each glass of wine, and the wine could cost between 1 and 6 tickets. We were hungry so we looked to get something to eat before tasting. The first thing we found was Pizza Hut. Yeah, we know, we’re in Budapest and we chose Pizza Hut? Well at this point we just wanted something easy and simple and pretty cheap (although we felt like we had lots of money with Hungarian currency). Not too bad, but the onion soup we got with our meal tasted a lot like butter soup. They may have had a mix up in the kitchen. We were thinking of heading back to the wine festival, but we both felt really whipped. Seeing sights every day and not sleeping much will do that to you. Instead of seeing more sights we headed back to the hostel and crashed for the evening. We’re pretty sure we slept for about 13 hours. I guess we needed it.

We went to bed so early, that it was still early when we woke up. The breakfast at the hostel was pretty good and then we thought we would do a walking tour of the city. The first sight we saw (and our true reason for coming to Budapest) was the world’s largest hour glass. Actually it isn’t an hour glass, it measures an entire year, and they flip it on December 31^st at midnight every year. Our walking trail took us through an area with a square with statues of famous Hungarian war heroes, museums, a spa, a scary looking amusement park, a zoo and a circus. They’re all right next to one another in the same area. We walked down a large boulevard down to the center of town near where we had eaten at Pizza Hut. Again we tried to find some concert to hear for the evening. There was a piano recital that looked really nice, so we tried to find where that was. The directions we had gotten didn’t quite get us there, but after asking 2 people (one conversation in English, one in German) we made it to the place of the concert. Then we found out that there weren’t any tickets left for the evening. At this point we gave up all hope of finding any concerts and decided to move on to other things. We set out to finish our walking tour when we stumbled upon Luther’s seal hanging over a doorway. A closer look showed it to be a Hungarian Lutheran museum, telling the history of Lutheranism in Hungary. Our friends Jon and Julie Rusnak had told us about their visit to it in December, but we had forgotten all about it. We couldn’t pass up a find like this, so we headed in and found that it was really well done. A nice happenstance find.

Since we were not seeing a concert that evening as we had planned, we weren’t quite sure what to do. And when you don’t know what to do, there is only one thing left to do…go bowling (and remember, “The Dude abides”). For this we headed back to Buda and found a bowling alley in a mall there. We only bowled one game (it was surprisingly pricey) but we had a lot of fun. And I think we’re the only people we know who have been bowling in Budapest. A rare life accomplishment. A cheap dinner was used to get rid of the rest of our Hungarian currency and we headed back to our hostel, looking back to a fun stay in Budapest, and looking forward to more adventures ahead, but probably without the bowling.

Pizza in Prague (Praha, Czech Republic)

We arrived in Prague, but then had a bit of trouble getting out of the train station. To get to our hotel we needed to take the metro out of town. But to do so, we needed to, of course, buy metro tickets. When we found the ticket machines, we were pleased to find that they had English instructions. We were not pleased to find that they only took coins, and the Czech Republic isn’t on the Euro. We then took some money out of the cash machine, but of course, as all cash machines work, we got bills. So we went to a shop in the station and kept buying snacks until we had enough change to buy our metro tickets. Our hotel was a bit of a hike from the metro stop, but checking in was really easy and we found out that they sold metro tickets at the front desk. And they took bills. They also sold Coca-Cola in glass bottles at the desk, and everyone knows that the best way to drink Coke is from a glass bottle.

Since it was Saturday we were hoping that things would still be open, or at least available for us to see. The castle atop the highest hill in Prague was our first destination. There we saw Prague’s cathedral, the royal palace, and a small row of shops selling mostly artsy trinkets or marionettes. After taking in a beautiful view of the city we headed back down the hill and walked across Prague’s famous bridge. It is lined with religious statues and is also filled with artisans selling caricatures and photographs. Tourist shops then line the streets leading up to Prague’s famous clock. It tells not only the time but also the month and your Zodiac position or something like that.. In this square they had an Easter market as well. We looked for eggs to buy, but nothing in the thousands of eggs they were selling really caught our eye. At this point we were getting hungry so it was time to try some Prague pizza. My grandparents told me before we left that while in Prague we had to try the “best pizza they had ever had.” Being pizza lovers, we couldn’t resist. My grandma directed me to one specific restaurant to get pizza. However, she didn’t know the name, just some general directions. She told me as she remembered, “Go to the famous clock/bell thing. When looking at it, go back behind you to your right. Walk ½ a block and turn right and it is set back in some alley.” We were slightly skeptical whether we would ever find this place since there are about 12 roads leading off of this square, but we followed the directions the best we could. Well, I can tell you that my grandma has a pretty good memory, because we found it just as her directions said, “set back in some alley.” We can also attest that it is some really good pizza. However, like good Americans we are still partial to Papa John’s.

The next morning was a great morning…because it was Easter Sunday. We did look to see if there was a Lutheran church in Prague, but to no avail. So instead we chose to go to church at the Cathedral, St. Vitus, up by the castle. We also chose the 9:30 service because we heard that there would be a Cardinal there officiating the service. The service was pretty interesting. It was mostly in Czech and some of it was in Latin. Then at some points the cardinal would say the same thing in Czech, German, Italian, French then English. I think everyone there at least understood one of those. The one thing we found lacking, at least according to our usual Easter practices, was the music of the service. There were a pair of songs sung by a quartet, and one short piece in Latin that everyone sang, but that was about it. No resounding “Alleluias” like we’re used to, but it was still Easter without that of course. From the summary the Cardinal gave of his sermon in English, it sounded like he had a Christ-centered message, which is always good to hear. We tried to get a picture of the recessional, but it didn’t turn out too well. The highlight, however, was that he splashed holy water at us. What more could you want? After the service we looked around and found the tomb where King Wenceslas is buried. He is a poignant figure in the city of Prague.

Our next stop was actually King Wenceslas square where there was another Easter market. At this one we did find some eggs that we liked and purchased a couple. We also stumbled across a place that called itself “Hard rock café” near the square, but it was a total rip off. Not the real thing, because there is no Hard Rock in Prague. Someone should check on the copyright issues with that one. At the market we also tried a desert that they had at pretty much every other stand. It was made of dough, cooked and then rolled in cinnamon and sugar. It looked like a tasty toilet paper tube when it was all ready, and it was tasty at least. Don’t ask me what it was called. We’ll just call it the toilet paper tube treat. We had some time to kill the rest of the day, and nothing planned to do, so we stopped in a couple of stores. In a sports store we found some outrageous clothes and sporting goods at outrageous prices. Name brand clothing was between $50 and $90 per item. We even found one pair of Asics shoes that cost over $400. Seriously, who pays that much for shoes? Especially Asics. Shopping in other stores in a mall was just as crazy expensive. We weren’t sure who shopped at these places.

We wanted to buy some sandwiches to eat on our night train that evening so we found a Tesco (a grocery store chain that’s in the UK as well). We got a couple sandwiches, but also inside the store was a Little Caesar’s. We were really tempted to get pizza, but after having it the night before we passed and just got Crazy Bread instead. I insisted that we at least buy something to send some more money to Mike Illich, thus supporting the Detroit Tigers. I think Cabrera received the $1.20 that we spent on the Crazy Bread in his recent contract deal. That’s fine with me. Go Tigers.

Back to Prague…we stopped for dinner and got 2 Czech Budweiser’s as well with dinner (which is better than regular Budweiser just to let you know). After eating we went to St. Nicholas Church and listened to a choir and orchestra concert. They sang the Alleluia Chorus from Handel’s Messiah, so we did get our Alleluias for the day. They also sang a Bach mass, a Vivaldi piece, and a Mozart piece. The music was great…the choir was sub-par. The sopranos just drowned everyone out, but it was still fun to go to an Easter concert in Prague. Our short Prague trip had ended and we headed to the train station to pick up our night train to Budapest. Prague was an okay city. Some good history and some interesting sights but we just wished they had nicer train stations. We enjoyed our Coke in glass bottles as we left for Budapest.

Pictures of Prague: click here!