Whew!!!! What an adventure! Austin, Jordan, Sarah and I started off by catching a train friday morning at 7:40 to Basel, Switzerland. It was about a 9 hour ride since Basel is up in the NW corner of Switzerland on both the French and German borders. It was a great little town with open markets, small streets, cute churches and a beautiful river running through it. The weather was great and our youth hostel not too bad. We had 2 nights there and one full day to walk around. On sunday morning, we hopped a train to Interlaken, Switzerland. AMAZING town! This is exactly what I pictured when I thought about what Switzerland would be like. Cute little houses, bitterly cold weather and breathtaking mountains that shoot straight up into the sky with sheer white cliffs! I will try to post pictures sometime this week. We stayed here one night and rented an apartment that a lady had built on top of her house. It was great! We got to sit in a jacuzzi hot tub and drink hot chocolate out on the deck bundled up under blankets and then come inside to sit by the wood stove fire! It also had a full kitchen so we bought eggs and milk and bread and made french toast and scrambled eggs for dinner. Monday morning we trained to Zurich for one more day and night in Switzerland. Zurich is a huge city, so it gave us a different feel and look at Switzerland. There was a lot to see along the river and bay and some gorgeous churches. We mostly just walked around and looked in tourist shops and then headed to our hostel to go to bed pretty early because we were so tired. We were able to buy swiss army knives for a discount from our hostel which was nice. Tuesday was another 9 hour train back to Vienna where we slept that night at the castle in order to catch our plane to Athens the next morning. The castle was very empty and cold, almost in a freaky way. They turn the heat off to save money while we are gone so it was dreadfully cold. But it was nice to have the place to ourselves. We watched a movie and had the computers as long as we wanted them and didn't have to share with 50 other people! On wednesday we landed in Athens, Greece to sunshine and 70 degree weather. We found our 3 star hotel for 10 euro a night per person (traveling in the off season is the best), grabbed our first of many gyro's and headed to bed to gain energy for our exploration of Greece over the next 4 days. On thursday, after our continental breakfast, we headed for the Acropolis and Mars Hill. We had planned to read Acts 17 where Paul preaches on Mars Hill about the unknown god, but after we walked for about 30 min, I realized that I had left my bible at the hotel. We went back to get it because we all wanted to read it on Mars Hill. We finally made it up there and we first ate lunch on the hill. After that, we explored the Acropolis. It was great except for the fact that the other 3 got in free because they were under 20. I had to pay :(. The Acropolis was worth it though! The Parthenon was beautiful even with all of the construction going on. It was also great because you could see the entire city of Athens since it is up on a hill. After we were done there, we went back to Mars Hill and I read Acts 17 for us. It was pretty amazing to read it in the same spot where Paul gave the sermon from! On our way back to our hotel, we started our shopping that would continue on through the next day. We again had gyro's for dinner and headed to bed. Friday was deamed a shopping day by the girls. It was fun though to see everything and just be in the Greek culture. The people are so nice. I bought a few gifts, but mostly just enjoyed walking around. Again, we had gyro's for dinner. We were suppose to go out to Aegina Island saturday morning and spend the day and one night there, but when we got to the port we found out there were no boats going because there was such bad weather out in the gulf and a huge storm coming in off of the ocean so even if we could get out, there was a good chance we could have been stranded and miss our flight, which we found out happened to some girls from our group! We were a little upset, but were alright with not going because we went back and got another room at our same hotel becasue we had made friends with the receptionist. He was hilarious!! He told us stories about Greece and gave us a Greek language lesson. The funniest was when he was trying to check in the Israeli professional rugby team, but still came out and told us a story about how he called up his friend Apollo, the Sun God, and how he arranged to have the sun for us, and called him back when the sun didn't come out and had him fix it and it was sunny all day for us!!!!!! We ended up just walking around that day and went out to Gryfada beach in athens but couldn't swim because the water was too rough. This morning, we decided to go up to Mars Hill to take communion. We bought saltines and peach juice because that was the best we could find, but it worked!! It was an absolutely amazing experience and one I will never forget. One funny thing about Athens is that there are dogs everywhere!! They are all well behaved, but they are everywhere just laying down and walking around. On our way this morning to Mars Hill, a big white husky dog started following us. She followed us all the way up the hill, about 1 1/2 miles, layed down while we did communion, and then back through the streets while we shopped. She would stay outside of stores while we shopped and stayed right by us. We named her Sadie. It was fun. We then went to the airport and got on our plane back to vienna where there is snow on the ground and it is -1 C, about 28 F degrees. Over all, our trip was great. we had so much fun! I will never forget the places we went and things we saw and people we met. God continues to amaze me with his creation and by continuing to bless me day in and day out. Like I said, I will try to post some pictures this week. I am pretty much done with class and all I have to do this week is help get ready for a huge thanksgiving feast here in the castle. We are expecting about 120 people!! We are thinking about going to Salzburg and Bratislava as day trips, but other than that we are done traveling. we will leave 2 weeks from tomorrow to head to oklahoma and then on to Portland by Dec 10th!!! I can't wait. it has been a great 3 months, but I think I'm ready to be home and am excited for christmas!! the christmas markets will be fun here in Vienna these next 2 weeks though!!!
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