2009 CHRISTMAS IN AUSTRIA

Stephansplatz at night


INNSBRUCK TRIP

The angel statue that we caught smoking
(not exactly my picture of an angel!)

A German Santa complete with organ

Beautiful decorations

GATHERINGS IN OUR HOME

Greg reading Christmas book to the kids

Greg's German class (UK, Italy, and India represented)

What would the holidays be without cookie making?

We were honored to have Greg's parents for a week

Well here it is, almost Christmas. After so much anticipation I can't believe it's almost here. We have loved being able to leisurely stroll down the streets of the various markets in Vienna (also Salzburg and Innsbrück), buy Christmas gifts, and have hot punsch (pron. poonch) and tasty treats. The Christmas Markets are coming to an end and families and friends are preparing for their time together. Everything shuts down tomorrow (Christmas eve) at noon and re-opens Tuesday, December 29th. That's right, no day after Christmas sales! So, four days of no shopping (including groceries.) Actually, I'm looking forward to not have to be out there with the mobs.

20 NM expats in our home making tamales

In the last few days I have made numerous trips on ubahn, strassenbaum, and bus to the commissary and stores with my trusty little pull cart. This evening as I walked home I decided to pick up some pine greenery. I guess I've turned into quite the bag lady!

Tomorrow is Greg's birthday (he will finally be as old as me!) and I am planning to take him to lunch at an Indian restaurant. We will have several families over tomorrow evening for a little celebration and some Posole (a NM tradition.) We are planning to sing Christmas carols in our park for whoever would like to listen.

Christmas Day we will go to a friend's home for brunch and then on to have dinner with another family. It's good to stay busy on Christmas so as not to have too much time to think about missing family and friends in the US and Canada.

CHRISTMAS MARKTS 2009
Karlskirche

People from church

Rathaus

Schönbrunn

Spittelberg

Wishing all of you a blessed Christmas!

MORE INNSBRUCK PICTURES

These were lit up at night and were gorgeous.

Love these "wonky looking" apartments

The Alps are only 7000 ft.
We actually lived at higher altitude in Los Alamos.

NM TAMALE MAKING PARTY

We hosted the first annual tamale making party with about fifteen NM expats this afternoon. With the expertise of Heather who grew up making tamales every Christmas with her family, we were able to crank out about eight dozen. We have never made tamales and discovered it is no trivial task.

Heather had the masa and corn husks shipped and everyone made the red chile to fill them. We had a meal together of pinto beans (brought over in our shipments), chile, and all the trimmings.

Oh, and the tamales were excellent!

WEEKEND TRIP TO INNSBRUCK, AUSTRIA

Six of us spent Friday night and Saturday in Innsbruck
following a five hour train ride. The time went by quickly
as we did not seem to lack for things to talk about or
activities to pass the time.

The bridge over the River Inn (Innsbruck)

View from atop the Rathaus Clock Tower after climbing
many stairs in through a narrow, winding staircase.

2009 THANKSGIVING DINNER IN VIENNA

Not sure how more than two weeks could have gone by since my last post. It has been a rather hectic few weeks. Greg had a week-long business trip to Sweden, then we met in Rothenberg, Germany for a Euro-American retreat. Following a six hour train ride home we hit the ground running preparing for an American Thanksgiving on Sunday.

It's not so easy to gather all the food here. Then there's the problem of where to put it. A good portion of the cold items were stored for a few days on our balcony. Thankfully the weather was cool enough to provide adequate refrigeration.

After several trips (on foot and by public transportation) to the commissary and grocery stores with my shopping cart on wheels I was able to find most everything necessary for our Thanksgiving dinner. Fortunately, I wasn't responsible for the entire meal since everyone brought yummy dishes.

The next feat was to cook the dinner in the one rack oven. During church (we had our home church at our place) I had to keep a timer with me to put in three pans of rolls one at a time for 30 minutes each in order to free up the oven to heat other food. The turkey had to be cooked on Saturday evening. After church more people arrived for our afternoon feast. We had a grand total of 26 present (17 adults, 7 kids 11 and under, and two babies.) A young Austrian couple present experienced their first Thanksgiving dinner (including a football game!) After dinner the kids kept busy making Christmas ornaments and watching Polar Express in 3-D.




Our guests represented Oklahoma, Maryland, New Mexico and Austria. It was a great time of food and fellowship.

MELTING POT OF THE WORLD

The Women's Guild (of which I am a member) is hosting a bazaar on Saturday, 11/28. It is a very large annual event that takes place in the Austria Center. There will be food and gift booths from every country. I will be working in the plant booth. We are receiving plant donations from nurseries in town and the country embassies. Last week I called some embassies to remind them of their plant donations. It was interesting to talk to each of them, listen to the music of their country when I was put on hold, and just attempt to communicate when many had a little trouble with my "southern English." Following is a list of the countries I spoke with (maybe you can find them on a map!): Cape Verde, Chile, China, Columbia, Afghanistan, Albania Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Canada, Costa Rica, Cote d'ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of Korea, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Ecuador.

It's so amazing that one can experience the culture, food, and dress of so many countries within one city.

It truly is the melting pot of the world!

DRIVING MISS DAISY

What a wonderful evening this was! A group
of us "girls" attended the International Theater's
"Driving Miss Daisy." It is a cozy theater that
seats about 100. There was no intermission, just
a series of vignettes with familiar old songs between
each one that lead into the next. There were three
actors who not only performed, but also moved
the simple sets off and on. It was a superb
performance (in English) and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

THE RATHAUS-INSIDE AND OUT

The Rathaus houses the city hall and other offices. Our recent bus tour of the city ended here with a tour of the building. Notice the advent calendar at the top of the middle column.

The next pictures are of the inside of the Rathaus.

This light fixture could hold 25 adults standing. It has 200 light bulbs.

This is the city hall. Pictures of different eras are painted on the walls.

This is a sample of the windows in the building.

The afternoon ended with some good wine and great food where we were able to meet and visit with others who had been on the tour. We stood (at most receptions there are tall tables with no chairs provided) at a table with some very nice people about our age from Iowa who are here teaching music at the University.

THE MEXICAN EMBASSY "COFFEE"

Friends representing Indonesia, England,
Canada, and US

Last week we had another "Welcome Coffee" at the Mexican embassy. Strange that they called it a "Coffee" because there was no coffee. When we walked in the door we were greeted by the ambassador of Mexico. Next we were met by a woman carrying a tray of white/red wine and juices. It seemed a little strange to be offered wine at 10:30 in the morning, but the early hour didn't seem to deter many of the women attending.

The big attraction at this Embassy was the area designated for the "Day of the Dead." In Mexico this is a very important day on 10/31 every year where people spend the entire day at gravesides conversing with their loved ones. They also place around the grave all the things that departed ones loved while alive. They had a man standing in the room to answer all our questions about this day. It was quite eerie!




The food we feasted upon was fantastic and made me feel like I was right back in NM. The guacamole and red/green salsa were my favorites.

The people at the Embassy were extremely warm and friendly and made us feel very welcome.

So amazing that we can "take a trip around the globe" when at these Embassy events as there are women from many countries all under one roof.


We were entertained by these senoritas

MAYERLING, HEILIGENKREUZ, & SEEGROTTE

Since Monday was a holiday we took a bus tour south from Vienna to a small town called Bad.

First stop was Mayerling, home of Emperor Franz Joseph and his wife in the 1800s. They had one son (Rudolf) who would have succeeded his father as emperor had he not died in 1889. The truth has never been discovered as to the cause of death. Rudolf married Stephanie in 1881 at the age of 23, but quickly found himself in a loveless marriage. Rudolf's mistress, Mary, 17 yrs. old, died with him. One rumor was that he shot Mary then committed suicide, but there was no evidence of a gunshot wound to Mary. So, the truth may never be known.

Mayerling

Mary

Next we visited Heiligenkreuz (Holy Cross), the oldest continuously occupied cisterciana monastery in the world. It has existed without interruption since 1133. Currently it houses 70 monks who daily occupy the building to recite liturgy and gregorian chants in Latin. Heiligenkreuze combines both Romanesque and Gothic architecture. It was beautiful, but very cold and damp. Prayers are offered daily for the dead in a room with skeleton statues. It is supposedly very simple compared to abbys built later. We will have to see others to have something to compare it to, but it looked very ornate to me.

Last stop was an old gypsum mine called Seegrotte in the village of Hinterbühl.

In 1912 a blasting operation let loose millions of gallons of water which flooded the lower caves of the mine, creating the largest underground lake in Europe. During the 1930s a team of cave experts found the lake. During WW II Germans requisitioned the mine and pumped out all the water. They set up an underground factory to produce the fuselage of the world's first jet plane, the HE 162. Over 2000 prisoners of war worked in the cold and damp caves to produce these airplanes.
We walked down a very long path in the cave to arrive at the lake where we took a boat ride. It maintains a constant temperature of 8 celsius in the cave and the water is only a meter and 20 cm deep.

On the way back we were driven by an old castle, Lichtenstein. It looked amazing from the outside and I can't wait to be able to go in it. I think we will wait for grandkids to visit this site.