My Cup Runneth Over...

That's what I have been feeling like the past couple of weeks or so. I feel like my cup is not able to hold all of these wonderful experiences I've been blessed to have so far. Each day brings with it its own set of hurdles, some very small and others a bit bigger, but half of the experience is determining how it is exactly that you're going to get over the hurdles. So, looking at it that way... Hurdles, they're alright, I suppose.

Now that I have really started to settle in, I am finding it easier to just 'be.' Those of you who know me decently well should know the importance I place on learning to simply be. It is a matter of learning to enjoy whatever you are doing wherever it is that you are doing it. Although, perhaps enjoy is not the right word because there are certain things that truly are not enjoyable. My mind is leaning towards the word tolerate; however, I do not think that quite fits either. I guess being has to do with a general appreciation for any sort of experience because you are indeed living it, with all your senses and with your mind and with your heart. When you think about it, a fair amount of the time we don't 'get' everything out of our experiences, whether they are conversations, trips, songs, time spent alone, or anything really. This happens because our minds are already off to the next thing on our agenda for the day. We are not present.
Well, I want to be present.
I want to appreciate (and enjoy as much as I can as well) my time here and all that it holds. I want to have those times where I am sitting on a park bench simply being and enjoying it, whether I am in solitude or with company. I want to take every experience and every encounter and truly be present through its entirety; when it's over, I want to ring it out like a sponge and get what is left over for my mind and heart to do with what it will. A sponge is never completely dry, though, until some time has passed; and the bigger the sponge the more time it needs. It has to be left untouched. Maybe that is what it is like with any collective life event, like college or working a job for 10 months somewhere you didn't like or 4 moths spent in another country studying. During the experience you get what you can out of it, but then you leave or it ends. You are forced to cease being present in those conditions but they're still there, just sitting and drying up. It's during that time that you can gain even more from the experience as a whole. The sponge is letting all of the liquid out. Time is letting all of the insight, wisdom, and whatever else out of the experience. I think the same principle applies as well: the longer/bigger the experience, the more time it'll take to dry up.

In the past couple of weeks I have spent time learning more about my family here and special role that I now have. I have been reminded of what it was like to be a little girl and to think that a boy at school is "so romantic" and to write "fake" love letters that accidentally get seen by their addressee. So adorable. I have also been reminded of the horror that is bedtime for a child who desperately wants to watch just a bit more TV. It really is hard. I must say though, the goodnight hugs are still great, especially when they are followed by a sigh and, "You give the best hugs, I love you."
"I love you too."
And then there is the hectic morning time of making sure everyone gets to where they're going on time and that everyone has what they need for where they are going! Ahh--madness! However, for each part of the day, I'm learning what I can do to help make it run smoother for everyone, even if that means just staying out of the way of last minute trips upstairs!

I have also enjoyed learning about all the new and interesting people that I have met so far . It really is so so cool who God puts in your path at just the right time. They are honestly becoming my friends and I could not be more blessed. I have been getting to know people from church more, which has been really great. A couple girls and I got together after my German course last week to just walk around and enjoy the city together. We each have such different stories and it is so neat to hear just exactly how we all came to be here. The same goes for a few people in my German course and people living outside Vienna as well. I find it fascinating how fast you can make instant connections with people if you let yourself; I am glad I have let myself.

Just this last Sunday I got to experience what was certainly a once in a lifetime opportunity: I got to pick grapes at a local family's vineyard and see how they make their own wine. It was something offered to Mikal and me weeks ago by one of Mikal's host family's relatives. I am so glad it actually happened because it was fantastic.
It was 9:30am when we got to the vineyard. We were shown which grapes were good and which could be clipped off, given a pair of gloves, clippers, and a bucket, and told to get to it. I was slow at first, but once I got the hang of it I moved a bit faster. It was the perfect temperature, and I had just the right number of layers on to keep me comfortable. Thankfully I was lent a pair of shoes and and old jacket to wear so that mine, which were not appropriate for walking and standing in the fields thick with tan mud, wouldn't get ruined. We took a break for "breakfast," at which point it was only about 10:30am. Mikal and looked at each other like, "Um, it's too late for breakfast. This is brunch." Haha, so we went over to the truck and were offered a salami sandwich and something to drink. In true Austrian style, beer and wine were drunk that early in the morning. Not a problem.
Then we went back to picking and finished the whole field a little after 1pm.

An cloudy overcast start to the day, but it was beautiful.

Hard at work.

Adding the last bucket fulls.

Mikal, my partner across the vine :)

There's no more grapes here!!!

  We headed back to the house, all 15 of us, where a delicious lunch was waiting. We dined on cream of pumpkin soup for a starter followed by salad, pork tenderloin, fried pumpkin and dumplings of some sort. I don't remember what bread they were made from, but they were delicious. Everything tasted so good. Then we had hazelnut strudel served with coffee for dessert. A true Austrian lunch. I wasn't sure what was happening after lunch, but I soon realized what: there was a whole other field of grapes to be picked. We all piled back into the cars, got back on the winding roads that separate the many many fields, and found our way to the second field. This one was a bit bigger and on much more of a slope. Everyone started at the top of the hill and we worked our way down finishing just as it was starting to get dark. Perfect timing. During all the picking, Mikal and I talked a lot, and I even got to practice my German with the other family members, which was really great. Everyone there was so nice and didn't poke too much fun at the fact two American girls, inexperienced in the world of grapes and wine making, were helping them pick their beautiful green grapes.

Good bunches! There were times we had to clip off bad ones, or just pick of the good ones. It was nice when the whole bunch was nearly perfect, like these ones!

The drying out of the leaves is really cool looking.

The second field, at the bottom of the hill :)

Once we left the second field it was about 6:30pm and from there we headed to the wine cellar to squeeze the grapes. I wasn't sure what this was going to entail...if we would be stomping on them like the OceanSpray commercials in the USA or if there was going to be a machine. Kudos to technology, there was a machine. The first level of the cellar had a whole in the middle of the floor that was a tunnel to the "squeezer." It chopped the grapes, stems and all, and everything dropped into a big tub. It was so cool! The juice was white-ish yellow in color and foamy! The grapes sat there over night, after adding some sulfur to stop the fermentation process, and would be put through the grape press the next day. After that, the juice gets stored in the casks and becomes wine. Once all the grapes were squeezed, we sat down for supper, which was delicious as well. Fresh dark bread with all sorts of sausage and ham and Gouda cheese, which seems to be the most popular around here. There were two small glasses of the freshly squeezed juice brought up for us all to taste: It was heavenly. So sweet and so yummy! And of course, we drank some of the wine from the previous year, which was also very good. All in all, it was a great day and an awesome experience. The company was incredible and so hospitable. I couldn't have asked for a better time in Lower Austria, which is the region I live in.

This part of the cellar was actually underground...for some reason I sort of felt like I was Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn, I'm not really sure why.

Juice!

So, that's how you make wine. It will be ready by mid November or so, I think.
This week has started off nicely, but it's that last week of my German course, so that's sort of a bummer. I've really enjoyed it and have learned a lot, plus even made a few friends out of it, which is what I was hoping for also :) :)

Today a friend from church and I went walking through a big market in Vienna called Naschmarkt. They literally sell everything there from fresh produce, meat and seafood, nuts, coffee, tee, a couple Asian food stores, tons of little restaurants, and even clothes. And of course Vienna souvenir shops. It was so neat and I wanted to buy everything; it was a good thing I literally only about 3 Euros to spend. Once we walked through the whole thing, we went to an American, British, and Irish grocery store! It was so nice and incredibly expensive, but still. They had A1 steak sauce, PopTarts, Lucky Charms, AW Root Beer, McVities digestive biscuits-the caramel & milk chocolate ones that they don't sell in the US- and so many other things that made me miss both the US and Scotland. Good thing I'm planning my holiday for Scotland soon! Once we had our "home fix" we walked around the city some more before parting ways for the afternoon. It was such a lovely day, not to mention gorgeous weather. I'm talking 70's, the loveliest breeze, and not a cloud in the sky. Beautiful.

And the adventure continues...

~Sarah