Life in another place...

For My Entertainment

2009-07-26T11:04:00.003+02:00

There's a path that runs in front of the house, a hiking path. On good days such as today, it is busy with much foot-traffic. In Switzerland, the hiking paths are marked with yellow arrow signs that say "Wanderweg" - or wander way. Other signs can be as simple as a yellow diamond, just so you know you're on the path. At intersections (yes, they have so many paths that they intersect each other), there are signs that give time and distance to towns or landmarks. Anyway, I digress to the first sign I was describing, the simpler yellow "Wanderweg" signs. When people come on the trail from town, the last sign along the road (or our driveway) and the sign down the hill are not visible from each other - the green house is in the way.

This has been giving me much entertainment since hiking season began. People come (with their walking sticks, of course) and do one of two things at the sign on the driveway. First, they could do the stop and freeze, searching for the sign and not finding it. If there is a couple, the man will usually be pointing with his walking stick in the direction that he thinks the path goes. The second thing they could do is that they usually continue in the direction that the next sign actually is, but stopping in front of the green house so they still cannot see the next sign. Sometimes they continue along the driveway and even around the house, still not spotting it. It gives me great satisfaction to see their confusion.

That is all,
Jon

Rain, Sun, Visitors, Hay

2009-07-22T20:03:00.003+02:00

The weekend weather fit better in the month of March. It rained the entire weekend and didn't get above 50-something until late Sunday morning. Handily, I just so happened to have a guest, Kristen, for the weekend. Instead of doing fun outsidey things, like walking in sunlight, we stayed inside and watched movies (The Hangover, Borat) and tv shows (Flight of the Conchords, Family Guy) until the weather decided to cooperate on Sunday. Before lunch on Sunday, we took the walking path that goes on the driveway and down the hill in front of the house. It provided wonderful views of the valley and area that I hadn't seen before.

Not three hours after Kristen left that day, I went to pick up Stephanie from Wattwil. She had began her travels that day in Salzburg, and has traveled to such cities as Berlin, Prague, Munich and London in the month of July. It was fun to hear what she'd seen. Unfortunately she came at a time when it was impossible for me to take off, so she made use of a relaxing time here on the farm by hiking and playing piano. She'd also help pick currants every once in a while, which I appreciated. Stephanie left today, just before lunch and heading to Basel.

I couldn't take time off because it was high time for hay time. When I wasn't picking currants on Tuesday, I was out on the hillside with a rake. By the end of the day, I barely had the energy to shower the dust off myself.

In due time,
Jon

Most Surprises Are Good

2009-07-15T22:10:00.002+02:00

Including this one.

I get a message on Facebook from a friend from Bethel, Nick Schrag. This came on Sunday. Summarizing, it said: "Hey, myself and two friends are in Zurich and are wondering if you have any room to crash for a night or two." I ended up not being alone here while the family is on vacation (they're returning tomorrow). They made the house a base and went up the mountain yesterday afternoon. Aside from that, it was just a great time of socializing. They even helped me out in the stall, which more than earned them their welcome.

These guys are from Freeman, SD, which first made an appearance on this blog in the "Summer From Hell" entry.

Nick has a nice camera and while here for two nights, he took 172 pictures in the Hemberg area. Here are 11 (some with commentary).

Here's the greenhouse that I helped put together. It's got many things, from radishes to broccoli to lettuce growing in there.

When we 'make hay', it gets pulled up through this tube by a very fast fan. It (somehow) automatically moves so that the hay can be distributed evenly in the storage area.

Here's the storage area. That giant fan helps dry the hay.

This is the summer stall that we finished building in the spring. The cows are here in the daytime when it's hot out and then they're let out onto the hillside in the background at night. When we're done cleaning it, the ground is clean.

The sheep have a couple of different places where they can go. The building is another side of the stall/machine shop. The cows eat the grass on the hill above the fence.

Some great workers!

Dirk does have cowbells but doesn't put them on his cows. He says they're too loud, which I agree with. It's 10:30 pm right now and I can hear bells echoing throughout the valley.

We went on a walk last evening and sitting on a fencepost was this hat. It's the typical hat of a Swiss farmer. Sweet!

They left today. Kristen is coming on Friday and Stephanie is coming on Sunday. With more friends coming and the inevitable hay making, the dwindling time will be finished before I know it.

Show Me A Little Shine,
Jon

Is a vacation at home possible?

2009-07-11T22:04:00.004+02:00

Let me jump back to before the Montreux post and regale you with stories from the weekend that took place two weeks ago, or the weekend before last, or, known simply as the weekend where I was put in charge of the Fellmann Farm. But wait, there's more! For this weekend only, you'll also get an 8 year old who takes Ritalin everyday and loves the rapper 50 Cent even though he doesn't understand any English!

Before I had my weekend of joy at Montreux, I endured a weekend that was filled with me saying words like "nein," "schneller," and "stehen" repeatedly. Cyrill wanted to have a friend come over. Nein. Cyrill would drop behind me when we were walking to the stall. Schneller. Cyrill would sit when he was supposed to help me. Stehen. Cyrill would want a popsicle. Nein. Cyrill would want to stay up. Nein. Cyrill would work too slowly helping me clean up the kitchen and table after eating. Schneller. Nein, nein, NEIN!

The weekend actually went better than I thought it could've gone but it still had its down moments. When the cows were in the stall here at the house, he'd help once or twice a week doing the stall chores, but he hadn't helped yet in the other one. This made it hard to find him something he 'enjoyed' to do. He'd think he was finished with a job and sit down, where I'd find him sitting and then tell him to get up and work, because he wasn't finished. Perhaps this was one of the few times that I was glad my German isn't perfect. There were times where I wanted to say some choice things to...umm...'motivate' him in ways a coach or two has 'motivated' me in the past.

I was rewarded for my weekend of work with two extra days off. However, as time is dwindling I do not know how I will spend my two remaining days off. I think Dirk was trying to 'help' this situation by having me start work an hour later each day this past week. While I am a fan of later sleeping, my internal clock is tuned to wake up each day at 6:45. So on these days of supposed later sleep, I'd be lying in bed wide awake for an hour and that's not how I want to lose half a day of a day off. In fact, I think Dirk was quite perturbed that I actually started work at the normal time on Friday. Too bad.

The weather here has been quite Oregonish. Highs have been between 60 and 75 with lots of drizzly weather. On Thursday evening, the skies finally cleared just enough for the sun to peak and shine through the still rainy weather. I ran down to the fence at the bottom of the property to snap some rainbow pictures, unobstructed from the electric towers. I'm really going to miss the valley.

On Wednesday night, Dirk, Maya, Tim and I stayed up a bit later and played a game - Scotland Yard. The game involves trying to stumble upon a thief (Tim) in the city of London. The rest of us were detectives and tried to find him. Tim really likes Michael Jackson (or Michi Jackson, as it's said here) and was devastated to hear about his death. (I was more devastated to hear about Billy Mays myself.) In the game, Tim didn't want us to see where he was looking on the board.

I finally get a few moments of some peace and relaxation here on the farm. The family is leaving tomorrow with the camping trailer and going up to a camp ground near the Bodensee. They'll be gone until Wednesday. We'll probably be doing more hay later in the week. I'm looking forward to a visit from Bavarian Trainee Kristen Jones next weekend and Dutch Trainee Stephanie Siemens after Kristen leaves.

I've also begun throwing certain items toward my suitcase. In a few short weeks I'll be returning to the land of the hot and home of Jessica (Kansas). I mustn't get too used to the views outside my bedroom window, but it's hard when they're this fantastic.

Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think.
Jon

Rock Cliches and a Drumstick

2009-07-05T20:18:00.003+02:00

"We all came out to Montreux
On the Lake Geneva shoreline
To make records with a mobile
We didnt have much time
Frank zappa and the mothers
Were at the best place around
But some stupid with a flare gun
Burned the place to the ground
Smoke on the water, fire in the sky"

-Deep Purple

Since last weekends wonderful time with Cyrill, I hadn't been able to get "Smoke on the Water" out of my head. I was extremely excited for my 4th of July Weekend and sang the first lines of the song repeatedly. Rock cliche, I know.

I left on the 8:35 bus on Saturday morning to begin my 'pilgrimage' to the Montreux Jazz Festival. What began as a jazz fest in 1967 soon turned into an arts festival spanning not only jazz, but reggae, classic rock, hip-hop, and any other genre under the sun. As soon as the Dave Matthews Band was announced to make their first appearance at the legendary festival, I knew I had to take the opportunity to see one of my favorite bands at such a historical fest.

In Zurich, I met up with a fellow DMB fan that I met online and we were going to make the trip together. We only live about an hour away so it made meeting up pretty easy. He had previously traveled to Paris earlier in the week to see them and is also going to their Amsterdam show this week. Lucky guy.

We arrive in Montreux to building storm clouds and skies growing gray. We follow signs from the station that have only one word: jazz. This is a serious fest! The Montreux Music and Convention Center and main location of the fest is located on the shore of Lake Geneva.

We scoped out the venue for lines and joined the only one we saw, thinking that it was already the line for the concert. It was the line for tickets to be released that day. We already had our tickets so we walked around. Stefan had met a woman at the Paris show that lived in Lausanne and she was also joining us in our adventure to be in the front row. Perhaps I should explicitly explain this. I'd seen DMB three times previously, all times being either in the lawn at an amphitheater or half-way back in an arena. I always had to rely on the video screens to even make out what was going on on-stage. The ticketing and seating arrangement for this show was opposite of typical North American shows: the general admission, cheaper standing tickets were on the floor and the expensive seats were in the balcony. Anyways, my goal was to be front row, dead center. Goal stated.

For easy re-entry once you enter the venue, your ticket was checked and you were given a bracelet. The three of us were first in line for that at 4 pm. From there, we proceeded to be first in the venue line.

We waited in line for 3.5 hours and met some interesting people. There was a couple who came down from Hannover for their first DMB show. There were some eastern European fans that came. There were people from Spain, France, Germany, and Switzerland to see the show that night. After 3.5 hours, the doors open and in the style of a cow slaughterhouse we sprint up stairs (taking 5 or 6 at a time) and there I am, staring at the stage set up for Steely Dan from the front row, absolutely dead center.

I make small talk with an older gentleman sitting on the floor next to me as we wait for the show to start. Since the festival's inception in 1967, he has only missed 4 or 5 years. He used to come for a week but now chooses a show to come to each year. He said Bob Dylan is always the best show. He even had juice boxes!

Finally the lights dim and the festival organizer comes out, introduces the night and Steely Dan takes the stage.

They played all their hits. From Reelin' in the Years to Aja to Two Against Nature, I was surprised that I recognized a lot more than I thought I'd recognize. They played a funky hour and 45 minutes of music. The piano player even played a melodica!

They started 5 minutes late and played 15 minutes over their allotted time. The DMB fans were worried that DMB would have to cut their set a bit shorter. After a quick change and 30 minutes to sit and rest up, the lights went down and DMB was introduced. The hall came alive with a bit more raucous cheering than Steely Dan had.

Starting 15 minutes later than they were supposed to, they also chose not to stick to their allotted time. Thankfully. They played many new songs off of their new album (which sounds fantastic, by the way). Dave's shirt was also soaked with sweat after about 2 songs. He didn't help himself in this regard by dancing like a mad-man.

They put on a fantastic show, even though it was a little over half the length of what they usually play.

Anticipating being in the front row, I made a sign. I heard a story that there was a person who brought a sign to each concert he went to that only said "Love". People were remembering him by making signs that said the same thing. Here's my Swiss Cheese Love sign:

At the beginning of DMB's set, there were about 15 photographers in the space between the front row and the stage. A couple took pictures of me holding the sign while I was singing and dancing. The camera behind Carter even zoomed to the crowd and I could tell he was focusing on me (or my sign). On #41 (a song by DMB), Dave looked down and gave me a slight nod. They noticed!

Not wanting to waste paper, I also wrote something on the other side. It said, "Carter rocks my socks off! ...stick?" Carter is the drummer. When they finished the set and walked off the stage, he walks directly toward me, pointing his sticks at me. He tosses two in my direction and I successfully catch the first. In awe that I caught the first, the second one lost my attention. I didn't care. I got a Carter Beauford drumstick!

Being hot and thirsty after dancing and singing to DMB, we exited the venue as the stage was being changed to Chickenfoot. Here are the three of us who met up: me, Stefan and Anne.

Anne left so Stefan and I went back in to check out Chickenfoot. They were terrible. It seems like Joe Satriani only knows how to play a guitar solo, not a song; and Sammy Hagar started every crowd participation in the book. We left after a couple of songs back to the train station and caught a 3 am train back to Lausanne, where we slept in the train station for a couple hours before getting on the first train back to our region of Switzerland.

It was a mighty fine weekend! Perhaps DMB will get invited back and will be allowed to play longer, but for now I'm just hoping that a DVD will get released. Montreux generally releases shows a couple of years after they happen, so I can only hope that a show (where I was front row at!) will get released on DVD.

I'm tired and need to brush my teeth as that hasn't happened since Saturday morning. Mmm.

Here's a slideshow with other pictures from the weekend, though I posted all the 'good' ones.

Keep on the sunny side,
Jon

Audience Participation!

2009-06-30T16:13:00.002+02:00

We're in the heart of strawberry season here, which means one thing: post your favorite things to do with strawberries!

Jon Huber - Slavedriver

2009-06-25T21:57:00.002+02:00

If this weekend were going to be shot as a movie, this is how I'd probably be credited in the credits.

Cyrill had a bad week at school so he doesn't get to go home to his mom or dad this weekend. It also happens that tomorrow is Dirk's birthday and he and Maya will be going away for the weekend.

How handy.

I'll let you in on just one of the things Cyrill did, only because I happened to be involved. Yesterday I was told to keep an eye on him while he did his homework and I played with Salome. He was to get a half-hour pause after each piece of homework was finished. So I asked him that when he was done to bring me the paper so I could make sure that he was done. Sounds easy, right? Apparently not so much for him. I was outside with Salome and he opened his window to tell me that he was done and he was ready for his pause. I asked him to bring me the paper. He whined and shoved it up to the window thinking that'd make me happy.

Later after I saw the paper and let him take his pause, he was playing with a tiny water gun. Salome mimics everything that Cyrill does and it's starting to get really annoying. We've had some rather cooler weather here lately so they were playing with the water gun inside. I didn't think that was a good idea. I followed them upstairs and when I reached the steps and came within their vision, I got shot in the face. Being kind of chilly and inside didn't make this situation any worse. Cyrill took the gun away from Salome (who shot me) and probably knew that I was going to take it away from him. I asked him nicely many times but he never gave it up. Then I became all parental on his keister and counted to 10 with my hand out. He started crying. Hooray! That was also when I reached into his pocket and took the gun out and he ran to his room, swearing at me as he went. Hooray!

Apparently he also did other things in school that I only heard tale of but cannot regale them here because I don't know all the details. I don't know if I want to. I think I heard one story where the nouns in the story were Cyrill, poop, and a Kindergartner. Scheisse.

Drik and Maya are leaving tomorrow soon after lunch. Tonight Dirk spent some time on the computer coming up with a schedule for the weekend. That's nice. I think one of the only saving graces is that I'm getting 2 whole days off for doing this this weekend.

Stay tuned, I'll probably have more stories after the weekend.

Rest well,
Jon

Vacation Slideshow

2009-06-19T19:59:00.003+02:00

For those of you not wanting to read or scroll through the entire post (I know it's a long one), here's a slideshow of all the pictures in that post.

The Big Three

2009-06-18T18:35:00.003+02:00

I got back last night from Amsterdam about 8:15. Yesterday was the last day of a European trip to three of the biggest destinations: Munich, Prague and Amsterdam. I made this lovely excursion with none other than this lovely girl I met a couple years ago named Jessica. She's neat.

I left last Wednesday and got on a EuroCity train bound for Munich and I arrived to Stief's (nickname for Stefan) apartment around 6:30. After dropping stuff off, we headed for Olympic Park and set up a Slackline. You know those straps that are used to tie down heavy loads on trucks? That's what a Slackline is, so, we Slacklined.

That's Stief:

This is me trying my hand at it:

By the next day, I could stand pretty well and even walk 4 or 5 steps. It's a pretty fun hobby that I might take up.

Jessica arrived the next day from Spain, where she'd spent a few days with her family. I got to go to the airport and pick her up. We were happy to see each other.

The Munich Airport is right next to the town of Freising. If that sounds familiar, Freising is where the Huber Brewery that appeared in my post called "Munich and Oktoberfest". Jessica and I stopped there on the way home and went to the Huber Brewery for lunch. I had a Huber Burger and Huber Fries, with a Huber Weisses Beer. Mmm.

We walked by the town square, which had colored sawdust laid down in artful patterns. This is the coat of arms for Freising:

Stief was a great guide. On Thursday evening he took us on a short walking tour. One of the stops was at a bridge over the river that runs through the English Garden. People attached boards to ropes and set them in the fast moving water to form a wave that can be ridden. Apparently Jack Johnson (famed singer/songwriter and surfer) made a stop here when he played Munich last summer.

Then we had a lighter supper by the Chinese Tower. We didn't bring our own food, but we did have some yummy sausages and beer. It was a fun atmosphere which I'd like to experience in the daytime.

The next day we bid Stief farewell and went to the train station. Our train for Prague didn't leave until 4:43 pm, so we still had time to see Munich sights. We didn't want to do that with all our stuff, so we put our things in a luggage locker.

We mainly walked through the main pedestrian zone in Munich and lunch at another beer garden, this one in the Viktualienmarkt. Walking along a sidestreet, we ran into the world famous Hofbrauhaus. It has two large rooms, which can hold a couple thousand people each. Here is one, where the origins of the Nazi Party began.

For a fee, one can purchase or rent a locker for their beer stein:

After the visit to the Hofbrauhaus, we found the trainstation and got onto our train. Being one of the first ones on, we thought that we'd be the only one's in a compartment - a very good thing on a long-distance train. Suddenly a man came in and made himself comfortable and then he stood in the corridor hanging out the window. People would squeeze by him and ask us if there was room in our compartment (3 places left). He'd answer for us, saying, "Weiter, weiter." That basically means keep going. He turned away all these people but suddenly a Catholic Sister appeared at the doorway, just as the train was about to move. We thought, "Was he going to turn her away, too?" He didn't! And we only had to deal with him for about 35 minutes, when he got off the train.

We had to switch trains at the border of Germany and the Czech Republic. Once you cross the border, you know just by looking at the buildings that you are in a different country. The buildings look drab and run-down. Once we made it to Prague, our host, Ondra, wasn't on the platform to greet us. Instead, a woman in her 50s asked us in a quiet voice, "Do you have accommodations?" "Yes!" was our immediate and firm response. A couple minutes later, Ondra showed up.

We got in at about 11 pm, thendropped our stuff off at our "accommodations" and proceeded to see the city lit up beautifully at night.

He took us first to Wenceslas Square, which is better defined as a boulevard. At the beginning of it is the National Museum.

Then he took us to the Old Town Square to view the Astronomical Clock.

And the Charles Bridge at night.

The next day (Saturday) we went to one of the highest points in Prague, which is where the castle is that the prime minister lives in.

Then down to a garden which had this weird wall sculpture.

We utilized the Metro a lot in Prague. I was amazed at how long the escalators were. Some took 3 minutes to make the trek!

That evening we went to a beer garden. British men are known to have their bachelor parties in Prague because in the long run, it's cheaper for the flight and drinks than to plan a party on their little island. We ran into the man-to-wed in the bathroom.

After that, we went up this tower to get views of the sunset and city at night.

On Sunday, we went to another castle, this one just above the river.

They grow their grapes differently there, with big sticks instead of wires between sticks.

:)

We also utilized the tram system. At this particular machine, we had put in our money and heard the change be dispensed, but no change came tumbling out. Upon further investigation, some punks had put wadded up tape inside to catch lose change. We foiled their plans and took all 56 Koruners that came out.

Typical Prague building facade.

Then we climbed a tower that resembles the Eiffel Tower. From there, we saw the Strahov Stadium. It has a capacity of 220,000 and is the training facility for Sparta Prague. It's not used for official sporting events, but large pop concerts. It's the second largest sporting complex in the world, just after the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

On the walk down the hill, we spotted the Charles Bridge through some trees. The bridge began construction in 1537 and was the most important trade route between Eastern and Western Europe upon completion. Today, it's thronged with tourists during the day and is romantically lit and quiet at night.

I like to sample local food and I made my wish known to Ondra...the less English the place knew the better, in my opinion. Ondra took us to a local pub and there I had sauerkraut, pork, potato dumplings, red cabbage. It was tasty.

And now begins a series of unfortunate events that somehow eventually righted themselves. Jessica and I left Prague early Monday morning at 7 am. The night before, I had for some reason thought that we left at 8 am, so we prepared to get to the airport for an 8 am flight. This wasn't realized until we get to the airport (after first getting off at the wrong bus stop) and read the departure board. After 20 minutes of sign-less walking, we finally found the check-in desk, only to choose the slowest line. Finally we get our bags checked and our boarding passes and hurry to security. Security was a breeze and we're finally at the gate, 15 minutes before the departure time. They weren't even boarding the plane yet. Crisis #1 averted.

Once we got settled into our seats at the gate, I thought my pockets felt a little different than normal. I soon realized that my credit card, BahnCard, Swiss visa, and my cell phone were not in their normal home. I shot up and without saying much to Jessica, I took off on a dead sprint back to security. Perhaps the two policemen I passed thought something was weird, since I wasn't heading toward a gate, however, they just watched my fly by. I arrived at security and was directed to the supervisor, who had the tray with all my stuff in it. I grabbed it, shoved the contents into my pockets and took off on another dead sprint back to the gate where I found Jessica hurriedly looking through my backpack. The line to begin boarding had formed and we weren't locked out of our flight to Amsterdam. Crisis #2 averted.

After an uneventful flight (the best), we land in Amsterdam. We deplane and didn't have to wait long for our luggage to come on the belt. Jessica was getting the passports out of my backpack when I smelled something and asked Jessica if she smelled it too. To confirm my suspicion, I opened the suitcase and the smell hit me even harder. One bottle of wine, from Liechtenstein, had broken. Of course, it's only the red wine bottles that break and this was my luck. We dropped everything and went up to the lost/damaged baggage desk. I also mentioned that the handle had been broken, which had happened well before this trip, but I thought I'd try my luck. The lady asked for identification so I asked Jessica for my passport which she had taken out of my backpack. As luck would have it, she had left them at the luggage belt where we had discovered the broken bottle. Fortunately, the common man is inherently good and someone met her halfway, holding our passports up as if they were playing cards in a hand of poker. I'm anticipating a free piece of luggage. Crises #'s 3 and 4 averted.

I had been given instructions by our host in Amsterdam on where to go with the trains. Feeling sure that we were getting onto the right train, it never stopped at the station that we needed to get off at. Instead, it took us directly into Amsterdam Centraal Station, in the middle of town. Making contact with our host, we took a tram to where she eventually met us. Crisis #5 averted.

So finally we are in Amsterdam. But before we can go anywhere, laundry with the smell and color of red wine needs to be done. Fortunately Sarah had the equivalent of OxiClean and after a little while of soaking the whites were whiter and the colors were brighter. Crisis #3.1 averted.

And finally, after a much needed nap, we head into Amsterdam. Unfortunately for you, the reader, I took no Amsterdamian pictures so you'll have to listen/read my words.

Sarah had given us directions to the "Singelkerk", a hidden Mennonite church in Amsterdam. A hidden church means only that the church was not visible from the street, not that they necessarily had to hide their worship. We came unannounced and the caretaker was happy to drop everything and show us around. I think he likes visitors. I remember visiting here on choir tour in 2006 and I was glad to revisit, this time to pay attention to what was being said.

We then walked through the main shopping district and arrived at a recommended french fry stand called "Mannekin Pis". Their logo is just that. The fries don't taste anything like that. We had ours squirted with cheddar cheese and they were fantastic. We walked through the old town and decided to find a park bench to sit on for the afternoon and then we headed back to Sarah's place for a wonderful meal of enchiladas.

The next day (we're on Tuesday now), Jessica awoke with backache which was very similar to the one that put me out of commission for a few days at the end of May. This meant we slept until noon and luckily that was also when the rain decided to quit. She took some ibuprofen and we headed out for the day. In Amsterdam again, we went to the Van Gogh Museum which is near Vondelpaark. After that, we walked through the Blumenmarkt (Flower Market) and eventually found the tram for the ride back to Sarah's. We saw a bit of Amsterdam but we were exhausted from our times in Munich and Prague and that showed with how touristy we were.

Wednesday was the day we decided not to talk about for that was the day we were parting ways - she to America and me back to Switzerland. I double checked my flight the night before, so I knew that I was correct. Jessica was too. Our flights were both in the same terminal but my flight left an hour before hers did, so she took me to my gate and that was where we said goodbye after a wonderful six days together.

I flew British Airways to London and was to switch planes there and board one bound for Zurich. To make this story better, BA wanted me to find my way through the infamous Terminal 5 at London Heathrow. Let it be known now, Terminal 5 can rest in the shallow places where the likes of NASCAR, Britney Spears, MTV, rap music, and Czech Baggage Handlers reside. Luckily I had 3 hours between my flights to do everything. For some reason, they make you go security again even when transferring from one flight to another. Why? You don't leave a secure area, ever! This means anyone boarding a flight in London, as well as the transferees, must go through the same security. It was routine to let people who had sooner connections through the line.

Avoid this terminal at all costs:

Finally, after a well deserved British Ale, I was seated at my gate. As I was sitting down and settling, I saw a beast take off. The beast was one of the new Airbus A380's departing departing the runway. Unfortunately I couldn't get my camera until it was well away, but here's what I came up with.

The A321 we boarded was only filled with 25% capacity. Soon after we took our seats, a PA announcement came over the speakers and told us that while we had one pilot, the plane needed two to make the flight. Where could we find a pilot, hmm? Well, I knew of two others on that plane - myself and the guy next to me was a pilot for NetJets (a fractional ownership company). Instead of asking if there were any pilots on board, we waited and took off an hour and a half late with another BA pilot. I was beginning to question whether or not I would make it back to Zurich in time to make the connections I needed to make the 19:35 bus...the last bus of the night. I was pondering this question as the Swiss Alps became larger on the horizon.

I deplaned for the second time that day and quickly found the baggage carousel and snagged my backpack. I hurried toward the rail lines and found that the last train I could use was leaving in 4 minutes. As soon as I got my ticket, I sprinted down the escalator and there was the train that I climbed aboard and made it to Wattwil just in time for the last bus. Crisis #6 averted.

Congratulations,
Jon

PS - Comments have been disabled for this post. If you would like to leave a comment (you know you want to), leave it on the slideshow that's posted above.

Rainy Days and Ingrown Nails

2009-06-09T19:57:00.003+02:00

I suppose I should post what's happening in the coming days. It's the second part of my long awaited holiday.

Tomorrow after lunch, I'll be catching a bus and ultimately a EuroCity train in St. Gallen that's bound for Munich. I'll be arriving just before supper time to the apartment of Stief. He is the guitarist in the band Philipp is in (Trivial) and is studying in Munich. I'll pick up Jessica from the airport on Thursday morning and we'll sightsee in Munich, most likely going to the Chinese Tower in the English Garden among other stops. (I saw Tim and Heidi's blog and it looks very appealing.) Our train then leaves before 5 pm on Friday. This particular train is bound for Prague.

This will be my first time in "Eastern Europe" and I'm looking forward to it...especially since we have a real, live Eastern European to show us around and speak the language. Ondra, who some Goshen readers might know, will be meeting us in Prague for the weekend. We'll be there until Monday morning, when we take a flight from there to Amsterdam. In Amsterdam we'll be staying with one of the Dutch Intermenno Committee Members, Sarah, at her apartment. We'll see what Amsterdam has to offer until Wednesday morning, when both of us part ways and return to our 'homes'.

Work here has been slightly hard to get back to after being on vacation. I pulled weeds all yesterday afternoon only to have Dirk tell me this afternoon that I missed a lot. Little did he know that I hadn't yet covered all the ground.

Weather here has been rainy, which is good for my being gone in the coming days. As long as it's wet there's no chance to cut hay.

I'll be going to the doctor tomorrow morning. It looks like I have the beginnings of an ingrown toenail. Hopefully everything can get taken care of tomorrow at the doctor. I'm not limping or anything yet, but it's red and slightly swollen, with a whitish puss oozing out if I squeeze it in the correct manner.

With that,
Jon

Strawberries! Pull over!

2009-06-06T21:00:00.003+02:00

It seems like after 10 months of waiting, the last 10 minutes seem to creep by like a barge heading upriver.

Fortunately instead of hitting port, my destination was Bingen am Rhein and into the waiting arms of Jessica and her family. They had flown into Amsterdam about two weeks ago and were slowly making their way down the Rhein from The Netherlands. They picked me up and we made our way to the Dettweiler Hof in Wintersheim. The trainee there, Crystal, took over hosting duties as Heike and Heiko always seemed to be out and about. I think we shared only two breakfasts together the whole weekend.

Due to some unknown scheduling circumstances, Saturday's schedule was thrown a bit off cue but we were given more time to sightsee. Instead of going to Worms, we went to Heidelberg. I called Tim and Heidi that morning and asked if they wanted to join us. Heidi and Gustav couldn't, but we picked up Tim and he was a wonderful tour guide for the afternoon. (Thanks Tim!)

I like to catch what I've been calling 'Funny Looking Europeans' in pictures, and the next one is probably the best I've caught in the 10 months I've been here. Why not walk the streets of Heidelberg in Dominatrix attire?

The Fridley's rented a Ford Galaxy which comfortably sat the six of us plus luggage. It also came with a GPS, but in the following picture you'll notice another GPS on the dash. We made due with two GPS's, which always seemed to find the BP fueling stations and IKEA super-stores. Sometimes the two would find different routes and we'd be left discussing whether to turn or not. Luckily, both are programmed to re-calculate the route if you 'miss' a turn.

The first weekend together was Ascension Day, or Pfingsten in German. The Dettweiler winery across the road in Wintersheim put on a wine festival. We had lunch there on Sunday. After, Heiko took us on a walk through the vineyards explaining and taking questions on all things grapes. Then it was naptime! That night, we sat out on the patio and made our own winetasting evening while being accompanied by the band across the street, who also happened to play hits of 80's, 90's and today until nearly 2 am.

We headed out on Monday through the Black Forrest in Southern Germany on our way to Switzerland. We stopped in Freiburg in the late morning. Perhaps if it hadn't been a national holiday and more things would've been open, I would've been more impressed. We stopped in a small town south of Freiburg, Staufen, where we made our signature picnic lunch at the base of a castle on a hill.

We stopped at the German Basel Train Station so that Jessica and I could get our Munich-Prague tickets and Jonathan and Julie could get tickets from Utrecht to Burgos, over Prague. After that, Debbie recommended a traditional Swiss restaurant where we had fondue. Usually fondue is consumed when there is snow on the ground, but we decided to throw that out the window and join it on the sidewalk. After supper, we continued on to Langnau im Emmental, where Eliane's parents opened their house for our posse.

The Kipfer Family knows how to make people feel at home and well-hosted. Eliane took Tuesday off and had a wonderful auto tour planned that lasted until supper. While long and a bit tiring, she showed us her part of Switzerland. The first stop was Trachselwald Castle, a fortress where Anabaptists were imprisoned during the time of Persecution.

We then drove through some mountains and found ourselves driving along the Lake of Thun...

...and through Interlaken and up to an Alpine restaurant.

After lunch we went to the Frutigen Valley. Barb's, Jessica's mom, maiden name is Schmid and this is the valley where her family comes from. She had come with her family in the 70s, but wanted her family to see where they had come from. We stopped at the church and wandered through the cemetery for a little bit.

Then Eliane took us to Bern, the capital of Switzerland. We walked through the old town and poked into the random shop.

For supper that night, I sufficiently engorged in Lisa's raclette. I sat beside Peter for most meals, since I was the only one out of the group (except for the Kipfer's, of course) who could communicate in German. He handed me his cheese tray and asked for another piece of cheese. I put it under the grill and then he told me that it was for me...so for awhile I had two pieces of raclette going. I was stuffed full by the end of the night.

Wednesday after breakfast, we left for Hemberg but stopped over lunch and for the afternoon in Zurich. We spread our picnic out beside the Zurichsee.

I took them on a walking tour of some of the churches in Zurich. We visited the Fraumunster and the Grossmunster. There was someone practicing the organ in the Grossmunster, so I decided to take a video.

We also made our way past a plaque that is in the place of where some Anabaptists were drowned in the Limmat River during the Reformation.

The next day, we're on Thursday now, I got to show them my area of Switzerland, the Toggenburg. Our first stop was the Appenzeller Show Cheesery in Stein, where they make famous Appenzeller Cheese.

Then we went to the town of Appenzell, which is a more-than-typical Swiss town. We had another picnic lunch here while the shops had also closed for lunch. Then we walked around the town for an hour or two.

We took a scenic drive past the Säntis, the mountain that I can see out my window. On the other side is a picturesque valley (not that mine isn't picturesque enough). We took a skilift up and then hiked on a special walking trail.

Aside from having lots of cows to pet, it's a musical walking trail. There were different instruments to 'play' along the hour-long stretch that we did. There was a see-saw that had xylophone bells in the middle and when you see-sawed, a ball would roll and make music. There was an iron cage with many cowbells hanging from chains and you can shake it to get them all to ring and sound like a herd of cows. Then there was this one:

Jonathan and Julie left yesterday with the car to return it to Utrecht and tonight they are in Paris.

I took George, Barb and Jessica to the Zurich Airport this morning and came back to a house full of sick people. Dirk and Maya are both spending a lot of time in bed asleep. Salome was sick this past week, as was Tim. So far Jara and I are the only ones who haven't gotten the bug. If it were to get me, my hope would be sooner rather than in the middle of the week because that's when I leave for Munich and meeting back up with Jess. I'm distancing myself from them and not holding hands when we sing before meals and hopefully that plus a lot of handwashing can keep it at bay.

See you 'round,
Jon

Stormy skies and dry hay

2009-05-26T21:19:00.003+02:00

The skies began to darken this afternoon around 3. Salome and I were jumping on the trampoline, or rather, Salome was jumping on the trampoline while she made sure I was sitting on the edge and not jumping (or 'gump-ah', as she calls it). Clouds began swirling and I could see rain beginning to fall in the valley toward St. Peterzell.

"Salome," I began, "we need to go in the house, a storm is coming."

"Chico auch!" she replied. (Chico [the family dog] also.)

The skies darkened ever more and about 10 minutes after we went into the house, the rains came and the winds blew. Hard. I haven't seen it get that windy since I've gotten to Europe. We're finishing up moving the green house (putting the plastic over it) but there were still some random things laying out by the garden. Jeff and I ran out in the pouring rain and pounding wind to pick up the pieces. It was a fun storm. Apparently the church in town got struck by lightning. The power was out for a good 45 minutes. Chico gets scared when there is gewitte. He paces and pants with his tongue hanging out and there is unfortunately nothing we can do but say his name in a soothing, calming voice.

Fortunately for the hay, we finished that yesterday afternoon before today's thunderstorms came. Making hay is probably one of the hardest jobs I'll be doing here. Dirk has 'joked' that all the work I've been doing has been training for hay making. I believe him now. I can see my main job while Dirk is sitting on the hay collector is to follow behind him on foot and dragging a giant rake. Remember, there are hills here. It's not your flat-land cut the grass, let it dray, rake it, bale it hay making. Because we have hills, there is some land which is not accessible by machine and all the work has to be done by hand. Sometimes when a machine can go in the area, it's not possible to get everything on the first try which is when we have to follow behind with the rakes. After the collector is full, we follow Dirk down to the barn and proceed to unload it. With 3.5 loads, we filled a room that's perhaps 20 feet x 25 feet and as deep as 8 feet.

When the cows are in the summer stall, they are let out to pasture everyday (or night, depending on how hot it gets that day). There is a large section (read: hillside) that is set aside for the cows. They don't get freerange of the whole section. We divide it off and when that section is all consumed, we remake the fence to enclose the next section. There is also a path that leads from the stall to the cafeteria. All of these fences are electric. I'll post pictures when it's not raining so you can better understand.

Last week on Wednesday I woke up with a ruckschmerz (back pain) on my right side. It felt like a muscle was tensed up and something wasn't allowing it to relax. I was unable to do much of the outside work so I was left to play with Salome. The next day I was taken to the doctor and he gave me some pain tablets, which didn't really help. Fortunately by the weekend things had evened out pretty good. I just hate it when I wake up and am sick. The main reason why I'm here is to work and when I can't do that I feel like I'm letting the family (my employers) down.

Jeff is visiting. He was the trainee here a year ago. The family absolutely adored him and I didn't know how to feel about him visiting. I had my reservations, especially since they called me his name the first three months I was here. Turns out he's pretty cool, though he is sitting in my place at the table. I don't know how I feel about that.

Looking forward,
Jon

Wishing Friday was tomorrow

2009-05-23T23:12:00.003+02:00

Perhaps I should expound upon the previous post. In 6 days I'll be meeting up with Jessica and her family in Germany and then traveling to Wintersheim. I began this experience almost 10 months ago and she was the last person I saw, being the person who dropped me off at the South Bend airport. I think I can safely say that in our 2.5+ year relationship, this is the longest that we've gone without seeing or visiting each other.

Our itinerary looks something like this:

They actually fly out tomorrow (Sunday) and arrive in Amsterdam on Monday morning. I meet up with them on May 29, when they pick me up at the train station in Bingen, on the Rhein River. Then we make the short trip to Wintersheim and my first placement with the Dettweiler's. We'll walk through the vineyard's, go to Worms, and see the vineyard operation. There's also a wine fest across the street on one of the nights. From W'heim, we go to

Langnau im Emmental. We'll stay with the Kipfer's. Near the Emmental is the Frutigen Valley, where some family history of Jessica's mom is. Hopefully the weather will be nice and we can see some of the Berner Oberland. From Langnau, we head to

Hemberg. We'll do some light hiking, visit some cities and maybe even a cheese factory. On Saturday the 6th, they head to Madrid and I'll stay here on the farm to do some work. But wait, I'm not done!

On the 10th I'll head to Munich. There I'll stay with Stief, the guitarist from Phil's band, Trivial. On the 11th, I pick up Jess from the airport and we'll see Munich sites. The next day, the 12th, she and I board a train in the late afternoon and head to

Prague. Ondra, who is a Czech/friend from Goshen will be our host from Friday to Monday morning. On Monday morning, the 15th, we fly to

Amsterdam. There, we stay with Dutch Committee Member Sarah. We haven't done much planning for these three stops, so it should be a fun improv-ed time together!

If anybody wants a more detailed itinerary, leave a comment with your email and I'll try to get one sent to you.

I spent some of my Saturday purchasing train tickets and an airplane ticket to get to places I need to be when they are here. I also spent 5 hours doing odd jobs, like turning dirt in the garden and making a new fence for the cows. We also loaded up some wood and marinated turkey and went into the forest, made a fire, and grilled. There also happened to be a small nature preserve nearby with marshes, so we also went mud jumping.

On the next blog post: Jeff is visiting, explaining making new fences for the cows, and other subjects yet to be determined.

What's that?
Jon

One week

2009-05-22T20:30:00.001+02:00

That is all.

17ish hours on trains from Friday to Sunday

2009-05-18T20:07:00.003+02:00

Friday morning I hopped on the 8:35 bus out of Hemberg and began making my 7 hour, 11 minute journey from deep in the heart of Switzerland towards Meckesheim in Germany. My destination was the Germany/Switzerland Intermenno Spring Retreat where I'd meet the 6 other D/CH Trainees, plus the committee and Tim, Heidi and Gustav. At past retreats in Meckesheim, Heidi has cooked for the weekend and she (and Tim and Gustav) didn't disappoint this time. It was a fine balance between family and trainee time, and unfortunately, trainee time cut into family time whenever an interesting discussion began. I did get some Uncle Jon time with Gustav:

One of the purposes of the Intermenno program is learning more about European Culture. What better way to do that than tour a brewery? That's exactly what we did on Friday night after supper. Aside from it being a FREE tour, in ENGLISH, at the end we got to sample the product for FREE. Alone, those are good, but combined it was fantastic!

It's always a good time when the trainees get together. Everyone tells stories from their respective travels and placements, which are always nice to hear. There is usually always wonderful food to snack on (the trainee from Bavaria works on a strawberry farm and Friday was the first day of the season so her hosts sent a couple baskets of berries). We also do interesting activities.

Saturday we were turned lose in Heidelberg with the aim of completing a photo-scavenger hunt. These are becoming ever more popular with the advent of digital photography. We met back with the committee for a picnic lunch on the banks of the Neckar River. Fortunately the weather cooperated for our day outside.

That night we went to a 'Jugend Gottesdienst', or youth church. As one might guess, there was a worship band who probably pulled out all the English P&W/throw up music that they knew. This was evidenced as Charles and I single-handily rescued a male/female call and response song for the males.

On Sunday, everyone slowly left between 1 and 3 pm, with Alyssa and I being the last trainees to leave. I have the longest journey (7 hours) so I wasn't looking forward to the late leaving time. Luckily I made all my trains (with a close call at the Basel Badischer Station) and returned to Wattwil and a ride from Dirk at 9:26 pm.

Last week Maya was gone on a retreat for the school that she teaches at, so Dirk's mom came down from Limburg a.d. Lahn for the week. This meant that I got to work outside all the time, since she was able to be with Salome and cook all the meals. She was fun to chat with and later in the week, I brought up that Heidi was a trainee but couldn't remember where she had been placed. Inge had remembered a Heidi in the 2000/2001 group that was near Limburg. Showing how small 'Die Mennonitisch Welt' is, Heidi had indeed been a trainee there. I love the Mennonite Game. In Inge and Gerhardt's time as trainee hosts they had a few people from Kansas. One name they remembered was Leroy Penner (their first). If anyone who reads this might know of trainees from the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, it'd be interesting to hear about that.

On Thursday of this week is a holiday of which I forget the name of. I plan on working a normal day, gaining an extra day off of work while not feeling like I should be taking advantage of a three-day weekend and traveling somewhere. This will also save money for the long awaited visit of Jessica and her family. They arrive on the continent next Monday and I'll be meeting up with them in the Wintersheim vicinity next Friday. It'll be the end of a long 9 and a half months of waiting!

Keep it up,
Jon

Send happy thoughts

2009-05-17T22:26:00.002+02:00

I'm not usually one to make a request like this, but I'll do it without getting too specific.

Alyssa really needs some happy thoughts sent her way. She's going through a rough patch right now and really needs them.

Thanks,
Jon

We summitted

2009-05-10T21:31:00.004+02:00

On one of my previous posts, I asked for people to contribute their ideas for cooking green beans (thanks to Erica and Kate for responding). The reason I did that was because I wanted to find out if the way I made it a couple weeks ago was indeed a correct way. I made it the way Kate described:

"...as for the green beans i´m boring and just boil them until they seem the right texture... then add a little chunk of butter for good measure?"

That's exactly the way I did it, yet at lunch, Dirk said they weren't good. I said they tasted fine to me but then he said that they should taste good for everyone. (By the way, I'm not saying Kate's way is wrong, just that maybe I did in fact do it wrong, but that's unlikely.) This didn't put me in a very good mood the rest of the day. Maybe I'll try something different next time.

On Thursday, I woke up to some splendid fog throughout the valley below the house. I'm particularly proud of the second picture. It might deserve getting blown up when I return home.

On Friday, the main work of the day was working in a trench. As the snow was melting, a pipe broke for the drainage at the other stall. It was a long morning of carrying 30-40 foot long pipes down a hill and then filling the trench back up with dirt. It was exhausting. As Dirk says, all the work I'm doing now is training for when it's hay-making time.

Friday evening I made my way to Basel. Alyssa and I planned another Super Awesome Swiss Weekend, this time XIX. On Saturday we made our way down to Geneva where we spent most of the day wandering around looking in the windows of shops we'd never set foot into. We joked that we were there for a summit meeting, because that's about the only time you ever hear about the city. I was also surprised to hear that the UN is based there. I always thought that it was in New York.

Edit: So I did some research and my good friend Wikipedia tells me that the UN's International Territory headquarters are in NYC. So I wasn't wrong at all. There are offices of the UN in Geneva.

They also have a really tall water fountain. Fast facts about the water fountain:

-It can be seen from the air as you fly over the city at 33,000 feet.
-132 gallons/second are pumped to a height of 459 feet, leaving the nozzle at a speed of 124 mph.
-At any one time, there are 1,489 gallons of water in the air.

That's the only evidence I have of being in Geneva.

Today, we walked around Basel and sat on the riverfront of the Rhein. It was pretty lazy.
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Train Travel

I am going to miss train travel so much when I leave. Think about it. I can get onto a bus here in my tiny village of Hemberg, and I can go anywhere in Europe. It might take awhile and cost a lot of money, but eventually I could get to Moscow or the far reaches of Northern Scandinavia. The US is not that connected. Sure, we have the Interstate System, but just think of all the pollution that causes. A lot of the rail lines in Europe are powered by electricity, yet that electricity still has to get made at power plants so I know it's not a perfect system yet.

I also really like my travel cards. I have a German BahnCard 25, which takes 25% off of most fares. I enjoyed that card but I like my Swiss Rail Card a lot more...it saves me a lot more money. I have what's called the Halbtax and the Gleis7 card.

Halbtax:
The Halbtax card cuts any fare in half, just like that. It also can give you discounts on certain gondolas and ships.

Gleis7 (Gleis Sieben): This card allows me to travel for free, on any train after 7 pm. I have used this card many times, specifically for forays into Germany. I'll go to Basel in the evening and stay with either Debbie or Alyssa, and then get into Germany. This saves me about CHF 35 each time.

With the combination of these cards, the trip to Geneva on Saturday cost a quarter of what it would cost the average tourist. We used our Halbtax cards to get there in the morning, which cost about CHF 33. Then we went back to Basel after 7 pm so that trip was 'free'. I am very happy that I elected to purchase those two cards (which are on one card, but are two different things) when I came to Switzerland, they've saved me a LOT of money.
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On my walk home from the bus stop tonight, I was listening to music. Suddenly this flashy red sports car flew by. I immediately recognized the sidepipes and contoured lines as my favorite car, a Dodge Viper. Thinking that it had gone ahead on the road and out of Hemberg, I was happy to discover it at the school. It was dropping off a kid at the boarding school. The Viper's plates were from Liechtenstein. I gawked.

Enjoy the show,
Jon

The cows are enjoying their summer home

2009-05-07T20:42:00.002+02:00

As the winter stall was being cleaned for the last time, I couldn't help but think that the classically styled song on the radio was a song from a soundtrack to a movie. The song comes from a part of the movie where something extraordinary is going to happen, but only the viewer can feel that something is coming and the people on screen are oblivious.

Sadly, the cows were not walked up to the other stall. We converted the work truck into an open-air box truck and the cows were loaded up 3-4 at a time and taken to their summer home. It was a big to-do. Since they hadn't seen their newly remodeled sleeping quarters, they started freaking out: probably at what such a good job we did on it. My job was to guard a small opening meant only for the calves to go in and out. I didn't do much. Salome hung out with me for a little while so that kept things interesting for me.

It was weird waking up today and NOT going down the stairs to the stall. That's what I've done almost everyday since I got here in mid-February. Instead, Dirk and I went to another piece of land that they have and we repaired the fence there. The land is a little higher up than the house is and we had a better view of watching the sun brighten the valley. You could hear cowbells echoing as well as the cuckoo call of a bird. Dirk called today a 'summer day' and the high was close to 25-26C (75-80F).

My main job today was to clean out the hay boxes in the winter stall. There are 11 boxes, 4 on one side and 7 on the other. The cows do everything but eat in these boxes: sleep, stand, pee, poop, and lie. When we did the stall, we only removed the poop from the top and added a thin layer of fresh hay to it...and that was twice a day. If you haven't imagined it yet, there was 4-5 months of compressed hay held together by 4-5 months of cow pee. This reddish brown mixture had to be removed by me. It was hard work and I have the callused hands to show for it. I had the side with four finished before lunch and finished the other side after lunch.

Tomorrow we get out the pressure washer and, well, pressure wash the crap out of it. Dirk joked that it will be so clean it will be their new living room. Some Swiss farmers even rent out their clean stalls in the summer time to hikers who sleep on fresh hay, but Dirk doesn't do that.

'til later,
Jon

What is cuter than one lamb?

2009-05-03T20:45:00.003+02:00

If you guessed "three baby lambs," then you're correct.

On Friday, one sheep gave birth to two lambs, one of which we found dead later that day. However, this morning two more lambs were birthed. All but one sheep (the male) are/were pregnant, so now it's just a waiting game for all of the lambs to pop out.

We're also extremely close to finishing the work on the cow's summer home. We've been adding new places to sleep, gates, and other finishing touches for when the cows finally leave the stall for the summer. Neighbor cows are out and about and I'm sure they can hear the bells echoing throughout the valley, spawning a longing feeling to eat fresh grass and poop even more freely. From what I understand they'll be heading there tomorrow or Tuesday.

The gate's to freedom; the high road or the low road:

Wednesday I had a relatively free afternoon. I say 'relatively' because it didn't involve any work. Instead, I went with the family to "Sinnorama," which reminded me of a Halloween haunted house, except the theme was the Old Testament made so 5-10 year old's could understand the Bible. It had trapdoors, a light show, and our guide was named Johannes. I think I would rather have stayed home and worked than go.

On Friday, Dirk and I spent the entire day (it seemed like) planting three trees, an apple, pear and walnut. It's quite an intensive process which I won't bore you with, but keep in my head for the next time I plant a tree.

As I was finishing the stall in the late afternoon, the skies were darkening and the wind was blowing harder. Suddenly the skies opened and the thunder crashed, with rain coming down in sheets. It made a part of me miss those wonderful Kansas thunderstorms that you can see rolling in from Colorado.

You might be able to notice the yellowness on the hillsides. Daffodils are beginning to bloom and die, releasing their seeds. The hills have been many different colors since February. First white with snow. When that melted, it revealed green hills. As soon as the snow was completely gone and everything was green, they immediately turned brown with poop farmers spread over their fields. After a couple of rains and some grass growth, the grass turned a brighter green and less brown. Now they're greenish-yellow. I look forward to seeing what other colors the hills will turn. (And if one of you even thinks of singing "The hills are alive..."...)

This weekend I had no plans, so I woke up at 10 am on Saturday and stayed there for 30-45 minutes. It was fantastic. Then I got out of bed for lunch which was at the school where Maya teaches. She teaches at a home for troubled youth and they were having an open house with free brats for lunch. I had two. While there, one of the girls from church came up to me and asked if I wanted to go to the youth group (Jugi) meeting that night. I had nothing else going on so I said yes. I'm kind of glad I did. What I thought was going to be a night of intense experience sharing (which I couldn't dream of doing in German), turned out to be a pleasant night of game playing. I did speak German. They're happy to help and understand when words might get misplaced (and quick to correct). I got a compliment or two about how good my German is considering the only class I've taken is a beginner 9 week course. At church today, I was asked if I wanted to come over to someone's house for a spaghetti lunch and an afternoon playing soccer. I borrowed some shorts and now have some nicely reddish shoulders. I also got another compliment on my German, this time from a teacher of German. That really made me feel good.
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READER PARTICIPATION!

How would you cook frozen green beans?

Respond in the 'comments' section.
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Have a good week,
Jon

Super Awesome Swiss Weekend XVIII

2009-04-26T21:27:00.002+02:00

Like I said in the previous post, much of my work recently has had to do with fences. On Friday, my afternoon work was to screw in the pieces that hold the electric wires. By hand. After doing about 30 of them, the palm of my right hand had a nice hole worn into it that not even my gloves could prevent. Unfortunately, 30 posts was only a fraction of the number that surrounded the field...the total turned out to be more towards 300, but that's only a guess since I lost count after 220-something. Here's a picture of the field. Notice the lighter brown, unweathered posts, those are the new replacement posts. Also, see the fence posts at the top of the hill, to the right of the large tree? I was also up there...it was a long afternoon but counting made things go quickly.

I'd been looking forward to Friday for awhile, because that meant that Sharon* and Alyssa were coming for Super Awesome Swiss Weekend XVIII**. After I had finished work, Dirk and I had supper as Maya had taken the kids swimming. After supper, I mixed together some bread dough and let it begin rising. Then I took a shower. By that time I was finished, it was time to pick up Debbie and Alyssa in Wattwil, since they were coming after the last bus. What did this mean? After three months of just riding in the car, I finally got to drive the car through the winding roads down from Hemberg to Wattwil and back.

When we got back, it was time to put the bread in the oven. I make enough dough for two loaves and one of the loaves usually has raisins mixed into it. As the bread was baking, Debbie took command of making a batch of chocolate chip cookies courtesy of the chips and brown sugar that Mom had brought when she visited in March. They were (and still are) tasty.

The main plan of SASWWXVIII was to visit Liechtenstein as a day-trip on Saturday. The weather cooperated wonderfully throughout the weekend. Here's a picture from our walk to the bus from the house:

Some fast facts about Liechtenstein:

Population: 35,322 (204th largest country); Hutchinson, where I come from, has about 40,000 people
Area: 62 sq. miles, about the size of Manhattan Island (NYC)
GDP: $4.993 billion (1st in the world)
Main export: false teeth
They also use the Swiss Franc and speak German. There are also many banks and companies registered because of flexible business laws.

I've wanted to go to Liechtenstein mainly because Hutchinson is larger than the country. It's also cute as a button...Liechtenstein, that is. With Debbie and Alyssa, we were set to visit the capital city, Vaduz (pop. 5,109; twice the size of South Hutchinson). The smallness of the country was the draw for all of us.

Alyssa and Debbie, on the bus from Hemberg to Wattwil:

It was a rather uneventful trip. We did, however, manage to ride on a double-decker bus from Nesslau-St. Johann to Buchs. Being the young people we are, we managed to elbow our way in front of old people and sprint up the stairs to get the seats at the front for views like this:

The three Swiss Intermennonites:

From Buchs, it was a 20 minute ride to Vaduz after we crossed the Rhein River. Here's the flag, soon after crossing the river:

Vaduz is a rather interesting town...for a few minutes. Immediately you can tell that it is built for one of the largest trades, tourism. This is evidenced by giant plastic cows in the style of the national flag, which we of course had to take a picture with:

Along with the Asian tourists, we walked up and down the short pedestrian zone purposely not going into the many shops that were selling Gucci and Armani threads. Instead, we decided to get some food and plop ourselves down onto a bench and do what we do best: people watch. We sat ourselves at an outdoor restaurant and promptly noticed that Asian tourists liked to have their pictures taken with random things, such as balloon animal artists:

Vaduz is the residence of the prince of Liechtenstein, Prince Hans-Adam II. He lives in a giant castle above the city and only invites people in on Liechtenstein National Day (August 15). It's pretty big:

We decided to hike up to the castle. This walk took us near some interesting architecture, such as this center for Communication Arts:

The hike also gave us some wonderful views across the valley and of the Swiss Alps:

Switzerland allows the team from Vaduz to play in the Swiss League, since there is no Liechtenstein League. Here is the National Stadium (capacity 6,127):

We finally made it up to the castle and celebrated with a picture:

I ended up making a few purchases, notably adding a bottle of wine from the prince's vineyards to my collection. I also sent a postcard (but to who!?).

As we were waiting for our bus back to Switzerland, we noticed someone had some fun with a trashcan sticker. It roughly translates to 'Please dispose of your dog here'.

I think my favorite part of Liechtenstein was perhaps the license plates. They just looked cool:

I don't think I need to go back to Liechtenstein. It's nice to say that I've been there, but for what? It's small, there are a lot of nice cars (we saw a couple Ferrari's, a Lamborghini, among gaggles of Mercedes' and BMW's), and I think the people are nice.
-------------------------------
Today we went to St. Gallen. There's not much to write about here since nothing was open as it was Sunday. We just walked through the old city and relaxed on a bench for most of the day. I bid Sharon and Alyssa farewell and I made my way back to Hemberg.

When I got back, the kids had made a fire in an old tree stump in front of the house. That was where we had supper. We baked bread wrapped around sticks over the fire while wurst was being grilled. Then, Maya added banana's wrapped in foil that had chocolate added to them. It was all really swell.

After an eventful weekend, full of sun and wind and early mornings, I must retire now to my bed. Who knows what will happen next weekend?

'Til later,
Jon

*I like to call Swiss Committee Member, Debbie, the name Sharon from time to time. It's her middle name and I feel like she doesn't hear it enough, so I took liberties to change that.

**We have not had 18 (XVIII) Super Awesome Swiss Weekends all together, but it needed a snazzy name.

Fences and Bricks

2009-04-23T21:00:00.002+02:00

First, a sad update from the previous post. Sadly, I discovered that the International Beatbox Session in St. Gallen we were going to go to didn't start until 9 pm...much too late in the evening. Instead, we went Putt-Putt Golfing in Wattwil! That was probably a lot more fun than listening to rapping and people making noises with their mouths. Maya won the round and I came in second, though I had more Holes in One than anybody else. I also got some new headphones and socks. Sweet.

On Sunday we went to church. Again, the service was plagued with throw-up music, however I could understand a bit more of the sermon. I like it when the main ideas are projected onto the screen so that I can not only hear but see it. That helps me understand more.

Now that the snow has melted, we have shifted gears and gone from winter to spring. While there's no snow to shovel, there are fences to fix. We have to prepare the fences so that the cows and sheep can go into the fields. I'm also learning where Dirk's fields are so that when I am told to go and check on the animals, I know where to go. I enjoy fixing fences. It is fun work. It generally involves shaking the old posts to see if they need to be taken out, reattaching wires, and pulling the wires taut. My arms are also a nice shade of red which I hope will turn to brown soon.

Today my job was to re-lay a couple sections of bricks outside the sheep stall where the ground had partially given way. I was to take up the bricks and level the ground underneath with rocks and sand, then put the bricks back in. This was time consuming work as I finished the last section at 6 tonight, just in time for supper. I was bending over all day. I also had to bring a large load of sand from the house up the stall. This took a long time because they have hills here, as opposed to Kansas.

I intend to post pictures of both the newly repaired fences and re-layed bricks in the next post, so stay tuned.

My German has grown exponentially here. I'm happy about that but it's nowhere where I want it. It probably never will be. I am able to get by on trains, in grocery stores and random small talk. After church, we had lunch with another family in Hemberg. There, the man asked me if I'd had any classes and I said only for 9 weeks. He said my German was good for only that much class. I'm taking it as a compliment. Everyday I learn new words, such as tools that I use.

This weekend I will add a new country to my list of countries visited. On Saturday it will read, in order of visitation: USA, Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. Nice. That, and more in the next entry!

Peace,
Jon

It feels like time is dwindling

2009-04-17T21:29:00.002+02:00

Realization: in a couple weeks time, I'll have hit the 3/4ths mark on my life in another place.

There are some things that have happened or happening that makes it feel like that day in August when I return home is much nearer than it is. After all, it's three months and a summer in Europe away from now.

First, I got a plane ticket from Toronto to Kansasland. My complaint is that our itinerary's are separated by Amsterdam-Toronto and Toronto-Home. Intermenno pays for our journey's between Toronto and Amsterdam and we are responsible for getting to and from Toronto. Those two different journey's completely unrelated to each other in the airline's eyes. It's unfortunate because a journey between the US and Canada is a domestic journey and you must pay for a second piece of luggage. On top of that, we are then forced to check-in again in Toronto. This makes for added time and stress. I hope the two hours and fifteen minutes I have allotted for that goes smoothly.

Second, I'm nearing the completion of enrolling in classes for next year at Bethel. This is another thing that is giving this year a sense of early closure. However, this is also giving me a good feeling since I'm not one of a handful of trainees who have no ideas of what they're doing when they're finished. The year of classes will be getting many required classes for my major that aren't in the realm of Communication Arts out of the way. Unfortunately, all but two or three or 100 and 200 level classes. I am looking forward to taking Mennonite Life, History and Thought. As the schedule stands before it's approved by my adviser, I will have 15 credits in the fall and 17 in the spring. Though this also means that I will not be finished with my Communication degree next year. Doing Intermenno, I missed a cycle of classes that I will have to take in the 2010-2011 year.

Now for a list of things that I'm looking forward to yet while I'm still here:

1) Next weekend we're having Super Awesome Swiss Weekend XVIII here in Hemberg. Debbie and Alyssa will come out and on the agenda is a trip to Liechtenstein.

2) We have our spring retreat as German/Swiss Trainees. It will be good to get together for a weekend in Meckesheim (near Heidelberg, train stop away from Tim and Heidi) and share new experiences with each other. Rumor has it that Heidi will be the chef for the weekend.

3) The last weekend in May, I'll be meeting Jessica and her family in Wintersheim and making a German/Swiss Trip from there.

4) Jessica and her family will head to Spain, but then Jessica and I will meet in Munich and then continue on to visit a friend in Prague. From Prague, we'll fly to Amsterdam for a couple days.

5) On July 4 I'll see Steely Dan, Dave Matthews Band, and Chickenfoot at the Montreux Jazz Festival. I'm excited to see one of my favorite bands share the stage with other such talented musicians at a world renowned festival like Montreux.

So those are things I'm looking forward to, how about a little bit of what's going on now?

Yesterday was a relatively bad day. I wish it had gone better. I was informed at lunch that I would not get my daily hour-long nap after lunch. I have gotten used to this time of rest in my daily schedule and did not know how things would go. I was doing without my pause to watch Salome for the afternoon. Dirk gave me instructions to take her out to the garden and pick salad plants, and she was to help me. Unfortunately her idea of 'helping' is not the same idea as mine. She found it necessary to put things like dirt into the basket with the salad plants, step on heads of lettuce and almost break them, and above all, she threw a sizable, quite heavy rock at my hand. After many tries at explaining to her that these actions were not allowed (verboten), she kept doing it. So I took her in and gave her a 15 minute time-out, the first time-out I've ever given-. She didn't like this, so she cried. But I'm not a fan of giving in so she cried that whole 15 minutes on her bed.

Then as it was getting close to time to do the stall, the doorbell rang, but I was keeping my eye on Salome and Cyrill. I go and sell a dozen eggs and I come back and Dirk is yelling (not really yelling, just explaining to me why I shouldn't leave them alone) at me for leaving them, "You must stay here to make sure there is order in the room at all times." Then I showed him the CHF 8,00 and things changed.

Today I finished removing the stones from the grass beside the driveway that the snowblower threw. It was hard and it took a lot of time, however I can be proud of my work. I was armed with a rake and a bucket and it's still not completely clean, nor will it ever be. As I said it was hard, the driveway is cut into the side of a mountain so I had to deal with a steep incline and not falling.

The hard work will be made better tomorrow. We'll be heading as a family to the First Annual International Beat Box Session in St. Gallen. It should be pretty rad. :)

With that,
Jon

Zurich and A Happy Easter

2009-04-13T20:31:00.002+02:00

Last Sunday, I met Alyssa and Debbie in Zurich where we spent the entire day on the lakefront. The weather cooperated wonderfully well. For about 6 hours, we just sat and chatted, and did a bunch of people watching.

(l-r) Alyssa, Me, Debbie:

Debbie got interviewed for the radio, but first he was interviewing me. I had no idea what he was saying but I didn't want to interrupt him so I waited until he was finished before I informed I didn't know what he was saying.

And now for people watching:

Look closer, count the legs:

Green shorts, long black socks, blue shoes. Stylin':

AAAAaaaannnnndd, I'm going to see Dave Matthews Band at the one and only Montreux Jazz Festival along with Steely Dan and Chickenfoot. That's how I'll spend my Independence Day:

---------------------------

Today I spent seven hours traveling home from Rudesheim am Rhein, in Germany. There, I met Philipp. He spent his junior year of high school at Nickerson and we became good friends. He and I played soccer and were in jazz band together. Every time I've come to Europe, I have visited him either in Berlin or Rudesheim. This was the fourth visit. Like the weekend in Zurich, the weather here was absolutely perfect. Sun, no rain, and a comfortable temperature. Every meal except for the Easter Brunch was consumed outside.

Table for Easter Brunch:

Opa, Oma, an aunt of Philipp:

They have a tradition here where you try to smash another person's egg with yours. It's much like doing the wishbone from a turkey:

Philipp's parents, Ursula and Ralf:

Phil has two siblings, both younger than him. This is Freddy, short for Frederica:

Alex, Phil's brother. When I got there on Friday, Phil hadn't yet arrived from Berlin and I mistook Alex for Phil:

Opa got a little wild:

My new European goal is to find these:

Philipp's parents operate a vineyard. However, that's not the only way they make their money (and they make a lot of it). Ralf is a consultant and an engineer (what he consults and engineers, I don't know). He spends a lot of time giving seminars and presentations. I did come away from the weekend with four bottles of wine. Huzzah!

I also found some interesting small glasses in a shop. I now have six glass boots. That's five more than Tim has! Five more!

I like warm weather!

With that,
Jon

I worked in short sleeves yesterday

2009-04-04T11:09:00.003+02:00

My shoulder is slowly getting better, but I still notice that I got horned there. We determined that if it still hurts on Monday that we'd go to the doctor, but I don't think that will be necessary.

As the title dictates, things have been warming up and I was almost sweating during a portion of the work yesterday. Since it hasn't been raining, we've been destroying (sawing and splitting) a pile of wood to be burned next winter in the oven.

The big saw is on the right and the splitting machine is on the left:

This is where the finished, split wood goes. It's my job to split and stack the wood, which is why it looks so neat.

I'm enjoying the warming weather. The hills are beginning to get character as the snow is melting and revealing colors of green.

Come May, June and July, we'll be cutting hay on this hill:

On Tuesday I had some free time before lunch so I utilized the chocolate chips and brown sugar my mom brought when she visited and made chocolate chip cookies. Not to brag, but they taste delicious.

Maya's mom, Esther, has been here since Thursday and she's been a hoot to chat with. Today after breakfast she even gave me a chocolate Easter bunny and an invitation to come visit her and her husband over a weekend. I'll probably take her up on that offer sometime.

This is Chico, the family dog:

This is where the hay goes after we cut it and before the cows get it. Notice there are two different colors, which are different kinds of hay:

Today I was going to make a trip to Embrach and Neftenbach for some Huber family research. However, with the forecast of rain in the afternoon, I have postponed my plans for a later date. Tomorrow I'll be meeting Debbie and Alyssa in Zurich where we'll probably just sit on the shore of the lake and hang out. Maybe I'll bring my ukulele and maybe we'll have a picnic. At any rate, it should be better than going to church. I haven't necessarily been enjoying going to church because they frequently sing what I like to call "Throw Up Music". Along with that, the pastor usually speaks very quickly and I am unable to follow the idea of the service, so I go off into my own little world (which is rather quite enjoyable).

With that,
-Jon

Ow.

2009-04-02T20:52:00.002+02:00

This evening has been kind of frustrating. -Don't worry, I won't be complaining too much.- But this evening was my first shot at doing the whole stall alone. I can do everything in the stall but hooking up the cows. The hardest part is remembering where each cow goes. Each has their own specific place in the stall. I was kind of frustrated because I told Dirk that I didn't know, but he still wanted me to try. I had to, because he wasn't going to be there when we usually start the stall work in the evening (5ish). There are two different places in the stall, one side has four cows and one calf while the other side has the rest. These two sides are connected by an outside pen-like area. I was trying to coax one cow to go into one of the sides so I could hook her up, but as I was reaching for her collar, she decided to use one of her horn's on me in an un-peaceful manner. She struck me with the side of her horn (not the tip) on my upper right arm and front of my shoulder. It took me a little while to get my bearings. She didn't knock me off my feet but, ow...it hurt! And it still hurts. I continued on in the stall hooking up cows while full of frustration and a hurt shoulder. Finally, Dirk arrives. Amazingly, I only got two cows mixed up in the whole process. I'm anticipating my shoulder to hurt a lot more tomorrow.

A happier note sometime later,
Jon

I went thrifting and swimming

2009-03-28T19:40:00.002+01:00

Today was a rather successful day. Finally I was taken to a 'real' second-hand shop. Not just a consignment shop that sells used clothes for 20 times more than they should be. Maya took the kids and I to St. Gallen where there was a Swiss affiliated Salvation Army store...a 'real' second-hand shop. This had all the sections a store back home would have: incomplete table settings, Don Johnson records, ugly china, and a nice selection of used clothing. I hope to make this a monthly or bi-monthly trip. Today I came away with four items, totaling 6 Swiss Francs.

I picked up three different beer glasses. All are .3L, instead of the 'normal' European .5L. This is good because they just don't sell beer in half-liter portions in the US. One is even a boot.

When perusing the t-shirts, I was hoping to load up on shirts that had different things written on them in German. None really stuck out to me, until I came to this one:

After thrifting we went to a sports club (think YMCA). There we went swimming. Nothing much to report about that other than that I float about the same over here.

Brace yourselves for the next section. It may involve some gruesome pictures.

It was time
Yes, it was time. Since early August, I had not trimmed my facial hair. Until Thursday night. Things were starting to get tangly and knotty (naughty?).

After 8 months, it had grown about 9 cm. We'll just say about a centimeter a month:

I decided to have a little fun with it, so I let Tim tell me how to trim it. Here's the beginning:

During:

I wanted to leave it like this, but Tim didn't want me to:

Wrapping up:

.....aaaaaaaand......

(cue fanfare)

(play fanfare)

The nearly finished product:

Finished!:

What have I learned about having a beard such as the epically long (for me) one that I just trimmed? It comes down to this. Having a beard is one of the easiest ways to keep people from sitting beside you on the train. They take one look at you and possibly at the book you're reading and keep walking down the aisle. I enjoyed that. I always had a seat or foursome of seats to myself unless the train was really full.

Fun upcoming things

I will be heading into Germany for Easter and visiting my old friend from high school, Phil. This seems to be our only chance to catch up with one another in the entire year I'm here, so I'm taking advantage of the opportunity.

Rumor has it that the Dave Matthews Band will be playing the festival that such acts as Eric Clapton, Chuck Berry, BB King, Bo Diddley, Deep Purple, and Stevie Ray Vaughn have been apart of. Held every year on the shore of Lake Geneva, the Montreux Jazz Festival is one of the most prestigious music festivals in Europe. If the rumors are true and they are playing on a Saturday night (July 4th to be exact) I will try to make this show.

With that,
Jon

I was busy

2009-03-23T20:40:00.004+01:00

Wow. What a weekend. It was filled with wonderful people, food and conversation.

I headed out of Hemberg last Thursday and arrived at Debbie's house about three hours later. There, we did some last planning and train connection checking while I finished off that night's supper.

I began Friday by sharing a breakfast with Debbie's grandma, whose attic I slept in. She speaks no English which meant I had to communicate in German. She also can't hear very well so I had to repeat things a lot, which was good practice for my language skills. Friday was an especially busy day, with me being 'responsible' to pick up everyone from where they were arriving. The first person was Matt, a Dutch trainee, who flew in to the airport at about 10:30. I had been expecting a call from Meredith before this time, but she had to rush onto a train in Geneva. She had flown in from Wichita that day. Finally easing my growing worries, she called from the Basel train station, safe and sound. Around this time, Debbie, who had to teach that morning, also showed up. Blaire came in on time back out at the airport and our posse was almost complete. Charles came in around 5:30 and we made our way to Debbie's house.

This whole weekend emerged from a Facebook wall post that Meredith sent to me back in November: "You may just be the impetus for a highly improbable Swiss Spring Break that Blaire and I are talking about. I want it pretty badly, but let's not get too crazy just yet. In any case, you should eat lots of cheese, all the time." Like she said, it was highly improbable but as time went on and tickets got cheaper, the planets aligned and things started happening. Not wanting everyone to have to travel all the way out to the boonies of Switzerland, I asked Debbie if we could get together at her place. She said yes and plans began to form.

Friday night we had a traditional Swiss meal of fondue. For this meal, you have a long metal fork and cut cubes of bread. You then dip the bread into the cheese and eat it. It's a very simple meal that doesn't take much preparation and makes for fun conversation.

We went to the Basel Zoo on Saturday. While a bit windy, the weather was wonderful. The weather was great all weekend.

Charles and Meredith on the train:

Baby hippo:

Much of the crew watching the baby hippo:

Monkeys!:

Debbie petting a horned animal:

We then left the zoo and traveled down to the Rhine River and sat on the waterfront for awhile, lazily watching the water travel by:

Matt is my Dutch counterpart, he's the Dutch Trainee Rep:

Sunday was another day spent outside. We went up a gondola to the top of a Swiss hill, which would be considered a mountain by Kansas standards.

"Asian Tourist Pose":

We did a lot of hiking. It was almost too much hiking on snow and ice for my knees to handle. They let me know of it. The views were worth the pain though:

This morning, Blaire headed back to the airport and eventually to Barcelona where she's been studying this semester. Meredith meanwhile went the other way to Luzern. She plans on doing a day of skiing and then meeting back up with Blaire in Barcelona.

I hung out at Debbie's place until later in the afternoon when I made my trek back to Hemberg. While changing trains in a town, I couldn't help but notice the return of the smell of spring rain. Though it was still quite nippy and windy, this smell made me breathe deeper and enjoy my surroundings.

I don't have much more on my palette. Phil will be in Rudesheim for Easter and I may take advantage of the four-day weekend and finally visit him. I'm sure you'll hear about it.

Until next time,
Jon

I jumped on a mountain

2009-03-17T20:59:00.002+01:00

Last week on Wednesday afternoon, we packed up the car and went to Flawil. There we visited the Schoggi Fabrik, or chocolate factory. It was a nice attempt at a tour, with a movie and real live tour guide to show us the process. However, there wasn't much going on down on the packing floor and we were left to imagine thousands of bars of chocolate going down many conveyor belts. I still found some cheap chocolate in the scratch and dent store at the end of the tour.

That night as it was nearing time to go to bed, I had a sick feeling. I was really tired and had a sore throat. I knew that I would be sick in the morning. I woke up and came downstairs in the morning to work the stall, but Maya stopped me and took my temperature. It was 39C, or about 102F. She told me to go back to bed where I stayed until about 2 pm. That's when Dirk knocked on my door and asked me if I wanted to eat anything, which I did. Then I rolled back over and went back to sleep.

You may recall that I was sick around Christmas time, when my parents visited. It seems that my body likes getting sick at the most inopportune moments. Fortunately, I was better on Friday, because that's when my I went to pick my mom up from the train station. Earlier in the day my older brother, Tim, put her on a train in Mannheim. We had helped her find cheap airfare for her spring break. That was two days before she was to leave Wichita, bound for Europe.

She won the award of "First Visitor" that I've had in Hemberg. That also meant that I hadn't really gone anywhere and didn't know where to take anyone. We ended up following our noses on Saturday morning and headed up to St. Gallen for the day. We mainly walked around and peaked into little shops, though we also went into a church or two. For lunch, we went to the market in the square and got different things for a picnic.

----------------
Short story:
I emailed a Huber cousin, Gene, because I remember getting an email awhile ago in 2006 that had Huber information in it. It ends up that between 1300 and 1600, Huber's that I'm related to occupied at least three towns in Switzerland, near Bern, Basel, and Zurich. That said, the Huber name is all over things, the most prominent being on the side of silos. But here's a picture of a Huber Fenster (Huber Window) company.

I do plan to make a 'pilgrimage' or two to some of these towns and see what kind of Huber dirt I can dig up.
----------------
We walked a lot and this made me realize how in shape I will be by the time I get home in early August. It's a 10-20 minute walk from the house to the bus stop in Hemberg. Here's our driveway:

Mom got to see where it is that I live and work. She got to see the sheep:

My house (on the left, silly):

The cows and milking equipment:

The family:

Sunday was a relatively lazy day. We went to church and then came back and had lunch. The rainy/cloudy day didn't make us want to go up a mountain, so we hung around the house and napped in the afternoon.

Monday was a beautiful day with not many clouds in the sky, thus making it a good day to go up a mountain. We chose the one that I can see out my window, the Säntis. Here's a live camera link from the top of the 8,200 foot peak.

At the top of the gondola ride was an area of mannequin's dressed as Swiss people.

It was a good day to go up a mountain, even if a little cold:

(I could think of a better looking girl to stand next to.):

From there, we used our day tickets and went to the city of Appenzell, 'capital' of the canton of Appenzell. They are famous for their cheese and bitter liquor. We wandered their streets for an hour or two.

The mountain we went up earlier in the day, from Hemberg:

I was glad she came! We woke up early this morning and went to the Zurich Airport, where she got on a flight to Frankfurt. Right now she is on a plane bound for Chicago. Eventually she'll get to Wichita later tonight.

Until next time,
Jon

I like to stay positive

2009-03-09T19:50:00.002+01:00

Before anything else, here are pictures I promised a time or two ago of Debbie and I in the wheelhouse of the most awesome train ride ever:

I never realized how positive I can be until it was pointed out to me by Ruth, a German committee member. On the way home from the committee meeting in Krefeld, they were asking me how things were settling down in Switzerland with the new family. I mentioned how everything was great except for one tiny thing. I get called Jeff a lot. Jeff was the trainee here a year ago, before our group began. Apparently the family really adored him and I can see why. At the end of his time, he decided to stay since he didn't know what he was going to do when he got back to Canada. He stayed until October when he left to go build villages in Africa or something.

Ruth asked how that made me feel when I get called Jeff. I said that it makes me want to work hard so that they call the next male trainee Jon, whatever his name is. It can be frustrating though. Today, Tim called me Jeff about 6 times. If that's the worst thing that I'm dealing with at the moment, I think it's going pretty good.

It keeps snowing. This morning I walked out of the cow stall and there were little ice pellets coming down and it changed to snow through the morning. Over lunch there was sun and then the clouds came back and dumped heavy snow in late afternoon. It was so thick that I couldn't see out my window to the power line tower down the hill.

My mom is in Germany right now visiting Tim, Heidi, and Gustav. We helped her find cheap airfare over her spring break so she's making use of that. She actually came over with two fairly empty suitcases (except for random North American baking supplies) so Tim and Heidi can send some things back with her. For those of you who don't know, their visas have been rejected and they may be forced to go home before their term is up in July. Mom will be coming down my way on Friday where she'll stay until Tuesday, when her flight out of Zurich leaves. I still have a little bit of planning to do, but I think we're going to have fun.

The next weekend (20th), I'm meeting Bethel friends in Basel. Blaire, who is studying in Barcelona, and Meredith, who also found cheap Spring Break tickets, are flying in on Friday the 20th. Fellow trainee Charles will be arriving that afternoon and we're all staying at Debbie's house. It should be a fun weekend of story-telling and sightseeing with good friends.

Until next time,
Jon

I can milk a cow

2009-03-05T21:02:00.003+01:00

Cyrill is a terror and likes doing things with either his fecal matter or another person's.

Preface: He has ADHD and probably more things wrong with him. He is a pseudo-foster child that the Fellmann's take care of. He is here during the week to go to a school in Hemberg and then goes home on the weekends.

Tuesday's it is my job to get him out of bed, eat breakfast, and get him on his way to school. He must leave by 8:30 to be at school on time but he usually leaves much later, sometimes by 8:45. To battle this lateness, I decided to set the clock forward about 15 minutes. Much to my amazement, he left at exactly 8:30, but the clock he was looking at said 8:45. Dirk and Maya thought that was a novel idea. However, they learned at lunch that he was still late. I don't know how he can get lost on the way to school, there's only one road between here and the school.

He was also late on Wednesday. I brought up an even better idea, better than moving the clock forward, at lunch. I walk him to school, in through the front door, all while holding his hand. How perfect would that be? We still haven't put that plan to use, but it's there, ready to be launched.

(This has nothing to do with Cyrill, but for the sake of telling things in chronological order, it needs to go here.) Last night, Salome was running around and it was a bit after her bedtime, but there was no Dirk and Maya around. So I did the only logical thing and took her to bed. After she 'read' the story of Bambi to me, I said, "Gute Nacht," walked out and shut off the lights. Dirk appeared and asked where Salome was and I told him I put her to bed. He, the soft-spoken man that he is, said, "Vielen Dank!" and Maya was equally happy this morning when she found out.

Today he got in trouble. Apparently he took someone's shoe off of their foot, took it into the bathroom, and pooped on it. Because of this, he got to work with me this afternoon. Hooray me! From 2-3 pm, he helped me split wood and stack it. Then he was supposed to do homework for a half hour. While he was doing homework, I made more No-Bake Cookies. He came down at 3:30 and I asked him if he was done with his homework, to which he replied no. Then I asked him to go and finish his homework and he asked me why. My German is not so good that I can explain to 8 year old ADHD kids the reasons why it is good to finish homework. So without a suitable explanation, he began playing with Salome. 20 minutes later I again asked him to finish his homework, to which he and Salome ran upstairs and 'hid' underneath his bed. In this time, I was cleaning up my small mess in the kitchen. He comes flying down the stairs and throws the diaper that Salome was wearing at me. Luckily the contents were only yellow in nature. In response to this, I marched up the stairs after him, pulled him out from under the bed, sat (threw) him down in his chair, placed (shoved) a pencil in his hand, pushed his chair closer to the desk, and walked out of the room. I didn't see him until it was time for stall work with the cows.

He helps Dirk in the stall twice a week and today was that day. Dirk has been teaching me all the aspects of the stall so that I can eventually do it all by myself. This includes the ability to milk a cow, by hand or by machine. I've never been able to milk anything before. Anyway, today Dirk had some other things to take care of and only got the cows hooked up to their chains and the poop cleared from under them. He put Cyrill in charge of cleaning the fenced area outside which left me to do the 'Misten' (poo cleaning) and milking. Then I got to keep Cyrill busy and on the other side of the stable so I couldn't hear his complaining. We finished in decent time. Dirk got back from what it was he was doing and asked me how it went. Maya said, "He did it all!" Dirk shook my hand and said, "Mega cool!"

I'm also beginning to use the descriptive word 'mega' when I'm describing something. Perhaps it was a former trainee that got them started on it, but it's fun.

I'm coming up on a month of being here. I know I wrote this at the month mark in September, but wow, time sure is flying and I don't know how I feel about it.

Until next time,
Jon

I had a great weekend

2009-03-02T20:42:00.002+01:00

Friday was a day of normal work, but filled with great anticipation. The first celebratory event observed for my birthday was a lunch of raclette. This was done on Friday, because I was leaving later in the afternoon to go to Basel and then on to an Intermenno committee meeting in Germany for the weekend. Throughout the week I'd been getting envelopes in the mail from relatives and friends from church. The eating of raclette sometimes involves long pauses, so I was able to open my cards as we were eating. I got some recipes along with many well-wishes. Thanks to everyone who sent cards!

Here are some pictures of the meal with the family gathered around the table. From left, Jara, Maya, Salome and Dirk:

Me with my cards. (I got more when I got back from the weekend today.)

Maya asked me earlier in the week what kind of cake I wanted. My traditional birthday cake is a Buttermilk Chocolate Cake, first made by Grandma Friesen. I emailed my mom and she obliged with the recipe. Here's Maya's quite tasty result, with Tim:

I was off Friday after work to Basel, where Debbie (Swiss Committee Member and officially one of the coolest people ever) had promised a meal of chicken fajitas. She and Alyssa (other Swiss trainee) picked me up at the train station and the food was ready. They were very good! For dessert, she asked me what kind of cake I'd like and my response to her was something chocolaty with cherries. She produced Chocolate Cherry Kirch (cherry liquor) Cupcakes. Splendid! After the meal they gave me a package. Inside was a cookbook full of Swiss delicacies that I will attempt to reproduce and an apron. The apron is a 'professional' model that many waitresses and cooks wear in Europe. It's black. The evening, like all the evenings over the weekend, was fulled with wonderful conversation. We didn't go to bed until 2 am.

Debbie and I were up the next day for our 5:27 train toward Krefeld, site of the meeting. The train ride was uneventful and we were in Krefeld before lunch. The meeting began soon after lunch. This was a joint meeting between the Dutch and German/Swiss committees with the main focus being the selecting of trainees for next year.

As my last post stated, I turned 22 on Saturday. This did not go unnoticed by the committee. At lunch there were two presents at my place at the table. Awhile ago Debbie asked me what my shoe size was and led me to believe that she had found some awesome shoes. It ended up that she was doing reconnaissance work for some Dutch people. I now have a pair of authentic Dutch clogs. The German committee gave me a German soccer scarf with "DEUTSCHLAND" in large letters. Both are super swell!

Sadly, the number of applications have steadily gone down, from 100 many years ago, to 40 a couple years ago, 30 last year, and 20 this year. This fact made for a depressing meeting. We were only able to accept about 15 of the applicants. With such a small number, it is not feasible to split up the trainees. Next year, all of the trainees will come to either Germany or Switzerland, with none going to the Netherlands. Hopefully with some advertising and more vigorous word of mouth, the number of applicants will rise and things will be fine. However, if numbers keep dwindling, the program will end after the next year. So: current and former trainees who read this, do your share and help advertise! It is too late for this year, but keep talking about it and save Intermenno!

The meeting lasted well into the evening and for an hour or two after supper. In need of a happy pick-me-up, we played games like Pictionary all night. I went to bed about 3 am. After breakfast at 8:45 on Sunday, we all headed to the train station and unknowingly embarked on what would be a most excellent adventure.

We had two ICE (super fast train, 300 km/h or 186 mph) connections. One leg was between Duisburg and Mannheim. This includes a stretch between Cologne and Frankfurt where the train is able to reach 300 km/h. There were four of us on the train, but only two of us had reservations, which were at the very back of the train. Our seats looked backward into what would be the 'cockpit'. The glass was fogged up and were thinking how cool it would be if we could see out the back of the train. That thought then evolved to us wishing that we were at the front of the train. When the ticket checker came by, this remark was restated. She replied that in Cologne, the train would change directions and we'd be at the front.

Debbie, being the cool person that she is, asked the driver when he got on in Cologne if I could have my picture taken in the seat. He said sure, but only after he'd gotten his 'preflight' finished. While this was happening he pushed a button and the fogged glass separating us from him suddenly turned clear. I thought something like that could only happen in Star Trek. Then he waved us in and I got to sit at the controls. I don't have the pictures quite yet, but they'll get posted. Then he left the door open and we were able to ride in the cockpit from Cologne til we got off in Mannheim. He was explaining all the controls and screens while we were taking pictures. It was great to be able to see where the train was going and not just out the sides.

Eventually Debbie and I made it back to Basel. I decided to take today off and observe the Fasnacht celebrations. This meant I didn't have to rush back to Hemberg and spend most of my waking hours on Sunday on a train. Alyssa was back for supper and Crystal, the trainee who is in Wintersheim, came down to see what all the Fasnacht hubbub was about. The Dettweiler's hadn't forgotten about my birthday and sent a bottle of my favorite wine with Crystal, who made me guess what they sent, which I did on the first try.

We were attending the Morgastraich, or the beginning of Fasnacht. Precisely at 4 am, the lights to the street are cut. There are different groups that participate. Each group is made up of piccolo players, drummers, and people who pull giant lanterns (sadly no fire). Painted on the lanterns are normally things of political importance. In 2003, Bush was a popular face. This year it was Obama. At 4 am they all take to the streets and march, playing different melodies on the piccolos and from what I could tell they just walked. And walked. Everybody in the group is in a costume and wearing a hat with a lantern on it. I actually wasn't too enthralled by it. Perhaps it was the fact of staying up all night and getting to bed by 6. I wasn't too impressed. Here are some unimpressive pictures:

4 am, the lights are cut:

This morning, as in 1 pm, Debbie made the four of us an awesome breakfast of rösti, eggs and pancakes. Then we chatted for the rest of the afternoon until it was time to take our trains back home.

In retrospect, this was one of my more memorable birthday weekends. Perhaps because it was the first one spent without any family. There were people who made sure that my birthday did not go unnoticed and that made my spirits even higher than they already are.

Until next time,
Jon

I turn 22 today

2009-02-28T22:04:00.000+01:00

22 years ago, I was born.

Until next time,
Jon

I named the new calf Gilbert

2009-02-24T20:32:00.002+01:00

I left Friday night to head to Bern. The bus driver from Hemberg to Wattwil and I engaged in a conversation in German and I found out he knows all of the trainees that have been here. I went to Bern this last weekend to visit Eliane and had a pretty fun time. Basically a lot of time was spent catching up and planning ahead. She has lots of ideas for things to do in the future and that's great. Saturday afternoon she had a business meeting so I took public transit into Bern and spent that time wandering the streets and into different record shops. In the evening, we met up with some of her friends who were having some sort of dinner party, I didn't catch the occasion. I, however, did take the opportunity to have rosti. It was some of the best rosti ever, covered in raclette cheese with some sort of bacony meet on top. I was soooo full after it! Then in the same restaurant, we moved to the bar and one of her friends was operating a karaoke operation which took up the rest of the night. On Sunday, we went to her parents house for a lunch of schnitzel, beans and fries. Always tasty! Before I left, we had coffee with some homemade apple schnapps and then I was on my way back to Hemberg.

My train route back from Langnau had me switching trains in Luzern, with about 40 minutes to get from platform 4 to platform 5. I decided to take a little walk through the city. Here's what I found:

I came back to a normal day of work on Monday. I made a potato casserole for lunch. The sauce was a cream of spargel soup and it was tasty.

One of the cows was pregnant and began the birth process last night. Unfortunately the calf was large and had to be pulled out by it's hind legs this morning. Gilbert (my name for him) won't even drink any milk. Dirk is thinking he won't last through tonight.

Salome decided to help in the stall tonight. It lasted for about 20 minutes:

This afternoon I made bread. Here are the untested results:

Beginning yesterday I've been getting cards in the mail. Of course, I'm waiting to open them until Thursday. I'm not taking them with me to the committee meeting up in Germany and I don't want to wait until Monday night to open them.

Happy Mardi Gras! I'll be celebrating Basel's version of it, which you can read more about here. Particularly, we're going to the Morgestraich at 4 am. I'll definitely have pictures and a better description.

Until next time,
Jon

I crouch to go into my room

2009-02-19T18:31:00.002+01:00

I have a big room but it's just not very tall. I have to crouch when I walk into it. I have yet to hit my head on that specific door frame, but around the house I haven't been so lucky. Anyway, here are some pictures of my spacious room:

And here are some more pictures with a bit more sunlight on the Alps and the valley below the house:

I've been getting a lot of mail and that makes me really, really happy. Thanks for the Valentine's wishes Mom and Nana. Thanks for the birthday wish, Barb. On Tuesday I got a box in the mail from Jessica. I asked her if I should wait until my birthday to open it and she said that if she watches me open it, I can open it sooner. Plus, I won't be in Switzerland for my birthday, so I may as well just open it. So I did earlier tonight and in it is this super awesome blanket:

She made it, with the help of her mom and grandma. It has pieces of old clothes that she's worn. As she put it: This gift was made just for you out of things that have been a part of me. Being in a long distance relationship is really challenging, but if both sides of it meet in the middle (and sometimes go a bit over the middle) then you know there is a future for it. :)

I've been a bit sick recently. Yesterday I was told to sleep most of the day. I believe the bug is on its way out of me. I kept getting some headaches in my sinus region as well as a small cough and a stuffy nose.

Tomorrow I'll be heading to Bern where I'll visit Eliane. It took awhile for me to explain to Dirk how I know Eliane, so for those of you who don't know her, pay attention. A few years ago, Heidi's (my sis-in-law, Tim's wife, mother of blog-staple Gustav) parents were volunteers at the Bienenberg Bible Institute outside of Basel. There, they became friends with Peter and Lisa Kipfer who live in Langnau im Emmental. Eliane and Heidi are about the same age. One year when Heidi was in high school, Eliane came over as a foreign exchange student and lived with Heidi's family. That still doesn't explain how I know her. I met her briefly when Tim and Heidi got married. In 2006, the Hesston College European Chorale made a stop at Langnau and Eliane hosted Orp (good friend from Hesston) and I. Since I'm a bit far away for a weekend trip to Tim and Heidi's, Eliane said she'd be my family here in Switzerland. So I'll leave tomorrow night around 7 pm, to take advantage of my free travel after 7 pm, and make my way to Bern for the weekend. Should be fun.

I was bored this afternoon so I was cycling through my head what I could whip up. My in-head rolodex flipped to No-Bake Cookies. After looking up a recipe online as a refresher, I was off to the kitchen. They turned out wonderfully! Judging by the response after supper, I think I'll be making these again.

Here's the metric version:
380 g white sugar
115 g butter
115 g milk
35 g cocoa
240 g oats
vanilla (this is kind of random, but we didn't have vanilla extract so it was some sugar/vanilla mixture. however, it calls for one teaspoon of vanilla extract)

-Mix sugar, butter, milk and bring to a boil for a minute or two.
-Mix in cocoa, oatmeal, vanilla.
-Dallop onto parchment paper and let cool.
-Enjoy.

And the 'normal' version:
2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup milk
5 tbsp. cocoa
3 cups oats
1 teaspoon vanilla

-Mix sugar, butter, milk and bring to a boil for a minute or two.
-Mix in cocoa, oatmeal, vanilla.
-Dallop onto parchment paper and let cool.
-Enjoy.

Until next time,
Jon

I Love My View

2009-02-16T21:21:00.002+01:00

This is out my bedroom window:

Sunday was a day of skiing. Not feeling like I was able to tackle going only down a hill, I decided to try cross-country skiing. Maya was my teacher for the afternoon. By the time we were finished, I was actually enjoying it! Here are some views during our ski:

I'll write more next time. It's 9:30 and I'm actually really tired. Bed is in my near horizon. Perhaps I'll have a slice of fresh bread that I made this afternoon...

Until next time,
Jon

I Miss My Nephew

2009-02-14T20:36:00.001+01:00

Here's a video of everyone's favorite nephew, Gustav, from my last visit to Tim and Heidi before coming to Switzerland. The giggling should brighten your day.

Until next time,
Jon

I cook, I shovel poop, I sled

2009-02-13T21:29:00.002+01:00

That's are about how my days go, not really in that order.

Since Wednesday, the first thing in the morning is to help in the cow stable. This includes, but isn't limited to, scraping poop, shoveling poop, forking hay, letting the cows smell me, throw chalk where it's wet, and drink warm milk almost straight out of the udder. I finally learned why they have cows and it's NOT a dairy farm: they sell them for meat. Same with the sheep they have.

Part of the stall work is to go to the chicken coop, refill their water and feed, open their door to let them out and pull the eggs.

After that, between 8:30 and 9, Dirk and I eat breakfast...with the bread that I made a day or two ago. Then today, we went and cleaned out the stalls that the sheep are in.

Mind you, all this work is made just a bit harder because since I've been here it's snowed each day. There are 20-40 more centimeters on its way over the weekend, too.

The snow makes for great sledding, which is exactly what I've done each day after waking up from my mid-day nap at 2. I go sledding with Salome, the three year old. I think she enjoys getting pulled up (by me) rather than going down the hill.

After that, I help out again in the stall and that usually finishes my day. In the times I'm not doing anything, I could be splitting wood, building a fire, cooking lunch, baking bread or kuchen, playing with Salome, or doing other odd jobs.

I'm their first American trainee, all the others have been from Canada. They complemented me on how I don't 'sound American' which I think means I don't have a country drawl.

Immediately after supper earlier tonight, Dirk and the four kids and I went to a road near here. All along it are signs that say "ACHTUNG SCHLITTER", which means "warning sledders". It's a 3 km sled run and it is AWESOME. There are hairpin turns and long straightaways. Some parts of it go through a forest. It probably takes about 10-15 minutes to go down. We went down twice.

Tomorrow there's a chance I may get coaxed into skiing, but only if I'm taught properly.

I would post some pictures, but I don't have any. The skies have been a bit cloudy with all the snow so I haven't been able to snap a shot of the jagged Alps out my window.

Until next time,
Jon

I Cooked

2009-02-11T20:03:00.002+01:00

Wow. What a beautiful place:

That's the view outside my window on a day that's not even clear. If it were clear, in the first picture would be jagged Alps. But it wasn't clear because it was snowing all day. That made for great sledding with the kids, which also happened to be part of my work.

Their are four kids here, three of their own and a 'foster' child. Tim is 12, Jara (pronounced Yara) is 10, and Salome (Sal-Oh-Me) is 3. Cyrill, the foster child, is 8. My first job on Tuesday was to get Cyrill up, eat breakfast, make sure he takes his medicine so he doesn't kill anyone, and then get him off to school. I got him off on time, but he forgot his bag so he was 10 minutes late. Dirk (host-dad) said it was fault and I couldn't agree more. Next, Salome got up around 8:45 and I played with her all morning until it was time for me to cook lunch. I made rice, turkey and a sauce. It was my first time making such a sauce and it turned out wonderfully. I think Salome had 4 plates of it and the kids kept saying it tasted good. In the afternoon, I followed Dirk around showing me different jobs. First we cleaned out the chicken coop. Then he showed me how to clean the cow stall. By this time it was about 6:15 and I was done for the day.

In my blog posts I will not blatantly point out differences between here and the Dettweiler's. I know it will be different, heck, it already is. But the goal is not for comparison of the two places, but experiencing them for what they are.

Before I go on, I'll also point out that this is NOT a dairy farm. I never said that, ever. This is a farm where there just happens to BE cows. We only milk one cow and that milk is generally for a calf. So Nana, don't worry about me lifting heavy milk cans, just heavy shovels of cow poop and large pitchforks of hay.

Today I woke up a bit earlier to help clean the stalls and do some morning chores. Then I played with Salome all morning until I boiled Tortellini and warmed a sauce for lunch. I also made a salad. Then after the mid day pause, Maya (host mom) taught me how to make bread and kuchen. If only I knew how easy it was to bake bread before this. As far as I can tell, there's nothing more satisfying than eating warm bread that you made and baked yourself.

Some upcoming items of interest:
-Perhaps I'll be going to celebrate Fasnacht in Basel with the other Swiss Trainee and Debbie.
-Over my birthday weekend, I'll be going to Krefeld (border of Germany and Netherlands) for a Joint Committee Meeting where we review applications and take care of other business. Hopefully there will be more than the 14 applications that have been sent in.
-Maybe I'll try my hand at cross-country skiing tomorrow morning, it's Maya's wish for her birthday.
-Perhaps I'll go snowshoeing this weekend since there's too much snow for hiking.

Aside from that, hopefully more pictures will make their way onto here.

Until next time,
Jon

New Beginnings

2009-02-09T22:31:00.002+01:00

Thursday afternoon, I bid the Dettweiler's farewell.

I thanked them for the wonderful opportunity they provide by hosting trainees. Their farewell gifts were very thoughtful: a bottle of wine from 1987, a t-shirt from the vineyard, and a kids book about work that happens on a vineyard. Heiko took me to the train stop and helped me get my two heavy suitcases onto the train. Eventually I met up with Von at a stop and we made our way to Karlsruhe for the Mid-Term Conference.

The Mid-Term Weekend in Karlsruhe was a splendid affair. While a lot of the time was structured, it was much looser than the orientation conference in August.

Naturally, everybody just wanted to hang out and chat, share stories and have fun. One of my duties as the trainee rep was to have devotions for each night. I asked Matt, the Dutch rep, to help me out. They didn't have to be long so we elected to do songs. The first one we did was by Ben Harper, called Picture of Jesus. Since most people are changing placements, it's good to have reinforcement that you're not alone in situations you may encounter.

The chorus goes:
"I've got a picture of Jesus
In His arms my prayers rest
I've got a picture of Jesus
And with Him we shall be forever blessed"

The second devotion we did was "The Great Storm is Over" which sets a calming and relaxing tone. It was needed because earlier in the day we attended a Bundesliga match (my third) of Karlsruhe against Hamburg. Karlsruhe is in the bottom of the table while Hamburg is near the top. I elected to cheer for Karlsruhe and not just because our tickets were for Stehplatz (standing) but if Hamburg loses, that gives Hoffenheim more chances to stay at the top of the table.

Things weren't looking good for KSC as Hamburg scored within the first five minutes. (0:1) The first half wasn't too spectacular. Hamburg opened the second half in much the same fashion with another quick goal. (0:2) With Hamburg up 0:2, KSC needed to gain momentum, and they did to cut the deficit in half. (1:2) The action began to get quicker and rowdier with two red cards and each side being reduced to 10 men.

Then KSC ties the match and the crowd is singing even louder, trying to get behind their team. (2:2) As the match progresses, it looks like each side is playing to a tie. However, a KSC player is brought down on the side of the field and a free kick is awarded in the added time at the end of the half. The ball is kicked and lands at the feet of a KSC player and he nets the winning goal as the final whistle is called. (3:2) Mind you, with every goal, bad play and bad call, certain fans took to throwing their beer, cup and all, toward the field.

Luckily I was miraculously missed at each chance, though others were not as lucky and were drenched by the end of the match. This was by far one of the best matches I've seen. I enjoy a good, rowdy stehplatz.

Today, we said our last goodbyes and made our way to the train station to head to next term's placements. There's one other trainee in Switzerland with me, but she's in Basel which is about a three hour journey. She and I, along with German/Swiss committee member Debbie, rode together down to Basel. Then I had a train from Basel to Zurich and on to where I'd get picked up. However, the train going to Zurich was late and I missed my train. I don't blame this on the SBB, but rather the French TGV train that I rode on. All was not lost and I was able to get on the same trains, but just a half hour later than anticipated.

I arrived to Wattwil and that's where I met Dirk, my host dad for the next six months. (I still can't believe that it's the second half.) We got to the house and it's a typical Swiss farmhouse. There are some doors and rooms where I must crouch so I don't hit my head. I was told before that I would have Alps outside my bedroom window. This is indeed true and pictures will be coming.

Aside from that, I haven't been here long enough to thoroughly describe the house, family and area. They did ask if I wanted to take more German classes. I'd really like to, but I think if they speak it with me all the time, I'll learn a lot more than I would in a class.

Until next time,
Jon

2009-02-05T10:42:00.004+01:00

It's now Thursday the 5th. I leave where I've been for six months and head to Karlsruhe for the Mid-Term Conference. On Monday, I'll meet my 'new' family and begin settling in to the Alps. Time seems to have flown by much quicker than I would have preferred. I feel like there's so much that I haven't done but needs to be done before I leave here, but that won't happen. Oh well, such is life.

During my last week of work, I would label bottles in the morning and then head out to the vineyard's in the afternoon with Heiko. He has been out there all the time trimming the grape plants. My job was to pull the branches out of the wires and lay them in the middle of the rows. I enjoyed going out and getting fresh air and sunlight, it was a welcome change from the bottle room. The weather was good too, though it got colder as the sun got lower in the sky.

This past weekend was my last chance for the two-hour trip to visit Tim, Heidi, and Gustav in Bammental. The visit also brought a really swell birthday present. On Saturday, Tim and I travelled down to Sinsheim and the shiningly new Rhein-Neckar-Arena. We were going to Hoffenheim's first match of the second half of the Bundesliga season. It was also the first Bundesliga match in their new stadium.

The visitor's were cheering for Energie Cottbus, who come from the city of Cottbus which is almost in Poland. They were rowdy and began setting off flares. It all made for a great atmosphere.

Continuing with the momentum they carried into the winter break, they won in a dominating fashion 2:0.

On Sunday I bid them farewell and headed back to Wintersheim.

Later in the night, Kristen, who was a trainee in Kassel, came down. She and I both had some days off yet to use so it worked out well. On Monday, we went to Worms. Tuesday we went to Speyer.

Going to Switzerland, I need an entry visa since tourist status ends after 90 days of arriving in Europe. So yesterday, she and I went to Frankfurt and the Swiss Consulate. There had been some miscommunication in theh email received that had the directions of what I needed to do. For instance, the email said it would cost about 40 euros, so I took 50 along, planning to use the extra 10 for incidentals during the day. The visa cost 60 euros. Then, the email said nothing that I might have to go back the next day to pick up the finished visa. I would not have been happy to go back again, especially on a day like today. Fortunately the man understood and told us to come back at 4 that afternoon. Luckily it was finished. We spent the time waiting wondering the streets of the old city, walking along the Main River, and eating Doner Kebaps.

That should bring you all up to date. Lunch will be soon, then I head to the station for a 2:21 train. I'll meet another trainee on the way and we'll navigate our way through Karlsruhe to the conference center.

Here's my new address for those of you who missed it the last time around. Mail rocks.

Jon Huber
c/o Familie Fellmann
Ruteli <-------------- put an umlaut over the u...you know, those two dots
9633 Hemberg
SWITZERLAND

Here are some pictures of me during the ski weekend that I recently acquired.

Until next time,
Jon

How Sweet The Sound

2009-01-25T01:00:00.003+01:00

Here's the video of the "Bloos Brothers" on a train sometime before Offenburg. Be sure to watch it all the way through.

Until next time,
Jon

Hap-, Hap-, Happenin's

2009-01-22T20:46:00.006+01:00

First, I've been Internetless until last night, so here is the most recent version what's been going on.

My journey to Switzerland began Friday, soon after lunch. At the station in Alsheim, I was planning on purchasing a ticket to Mannheim and then a Baden-Wurtenburg ticket for the journey to Bammental and Switzerland after that. Tim's good friend and his fiance, Matt and Becca, were planning on arriving Friday morning into Frankfurt. I was going to meet Tim and the two of them in Mannheim and we were going to use my Baden-Wurtenburg ticket to get to Bammental. I had a box of six bottles of wine in tow that would eventually make it back to Kansas. However, Matt and Becca's plane had the same fate that my parent's plane had and they wouldn't be coming until Saturday, when I'd already be in Switzerland.

The land ticket in Germany is a wonderful idea and if you have a lot of time and some fun travelling companions, it's a great deal. The premise of the land ticket is that you pay 28 euros and up to five people can travel on that ticket for that day, anywhere in that Bundesland (state), on any regional trains. Mannheim is at the far northern reaches of Baden Wurtenburg (BW from here on out). With the BW ticket in tow, I met Von, another trainee, in Mannheim. Our journey to Basel consisted of changing trains twice, in Karlsruhe and Offenburg.

The plan almost failed at the first stop. There we were supposed to meet Crystal (trainee in Karlsruhe) and Alyssa, who was coming in on a train from Bavaria. The poor, decrepid souls of the Deutsche Bahn decided to change platforms on us. The three of us who had already found each other had discovered this, yet Alyssa hadn't seen the change. In her defense, the change was not noticeable at all. It took a last minute, no, last second effort to find her. I stayed on the platform while Von and Crystal went to other platform for one last check. I'm standing on the platfrom with everyone's stuff as I see Von running up the steps with Alyssa's suitcase above his head (he's well suited for work on a farm or warehouse). Behind him are Alyssa and Crystal. Making the train late, we are literally the last people on. The train, however, was jam-packed with people heading out of Karlsruhe for the weekend, yet we still shoved our pushy American selves onto it.

Catching our collective breath, we thought that things could only get better from here. We were far from right. For some reason, the train decided to sit for reasons unknown to its passengers on the tracks for a good half-hour. Just sitting there. Had our time between trains in Offenburg been more than 30 minutes, we would've been fine. But it wasn't. Finally arriving in Offenburg well after the train we had planned to be on left, we were left to hang out on the platform waiting for our next train, almost an hour later. We passed the time by communicating with Debbie that we would be coming in later than we had planned and by playing with a deck of cards someone thought to bring.

Once on the next train, the trip to Basel went well with time passing by quickly. Debbie, who is a Swiss Committee Member, met us on the platform and we went to her house. A happy reunion with Dutch Trainees was had and stories of the evening were shared.

We awoke on Saturday at the ungodly hour of 5 am, but all in good spirits and quickly filling up with coffee. After all, we were heading deep into the heart of the Alps, specifically to the town of Fiesch. (Good luck google mapping it, my mom had trouble.) For those of you keen on the Swiss landscape, we were south of the Jungfraujoch and east of the Matterhorn. The Swiss trains were all on time and about 9:30 am, we arrived to Fiesch. A short walk across town and we were on a gondola heading up to the ski resort area.

There were 12 of us, divided evenly by gender. There were two rooms, each with bunks that were ours. The skiers and boarders quickly dropped their stuff and headed to the renting facility to get their wares and the nonskiers walked around, dodging people on skis and boards coming down the hill. With our gondola passes good for as many times as we could stand it, we headed up to the top of the hill. There we were greeted with amazing views. Just imagine standing at the top of a mountain and in every direction are jagged, snow-covered peaks. Yeah.

We had a lunch of plates full of french fries. Soon after lunch I had an idea. I thought to myself, "I came all the way to a ski weekend...in the Alps...and I'm not skiing or snowboarding? Something's wrong." Since I have never been boarding or skiing before, and hadn't intended on it, I wasn't about to rent gear for an hour of falling down. Luckily one of the Dutch Trainees, Matt, was ready for a break and our European shoe size was extremely close. Along with my first insect sting, I have added "snowboarding in the Alps" to new experiences here in Europe. If you don't count all the falling and the inability to turn, I think I did pretty good. There are even some sweet pictures of me looking like I know what I'm doing...and not doing, but I haven't swiped them off the net yet.

That jagged peak is the Matterhorn:

Me, Debbie, Alex, Matt, Von:

Supper was in a cavernous meeting hall, which reminded me of some place like Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp, where everyone who was staying at the hostel ate as a group. Saturday happened to be Debbie's birthday and nobody had sung 'that song' to her yet. That is, until I stood on a chair and had my first (add it to the list) public-speaking-in-German experience. And the whole room sang.

After that, we stayed up the whole night, until about 11 (everyone was tired from being on the slopes all day). I think my stomach muscles were sore from all of the laughing from the stories and jokes that were being told the entire weekend.

We awoke on Sunday for a quick breakfast and the gondola ride down the hill. Another walk across town and we were on our way back out of the Alps to Basel. I was sore from the 2.5 times I went down the bunny slopes and I can't imagine what the people who had been out there all day felt like.

My goal once in Basel was to order my train card so I could use it when I move down to Switzerland in a couple of weeks. For 249 CH franc, I now have my Halb-Tax and Gleis7 card. Basically, this card allows me to cut any fare within Switzerland in half as well as travel for free anywhere in the country after 7 pm. I believe it will pay for itself throughout my six months in the country. It's also good for a whole year, so until January '10 if I find myself back there, I can still reap (I typed this word 'reap' just as it was used in a song I was listening to. Weird.) the benefits.

The four of us who were on the Friday night BW ticket got another one for an identical journey back to our respective placements. This time our trains were all on time. If I were able to upload things to the internet, I'd upload a video of a band called the Bloos Brothers (modeled down to the dress after the Blues Brothers) march onto our train and play Amazing Grace.

Great people and great scenery made for an awesome weekend. I can't wait to actually live in the country, too. The current Swiss trainee told me that I'll awake every morning, open the curtains, and outside my window will be the Alps. Speaking of which, I leave Wintersheim on February 5 and make my way to Switzerland on February 9. So if you have that postcard you've been itching to send get it out before early next week and I should still get it. My address for the next couple of days:

Jon Huber
c/o Familie Dettweiler
Haupt. 11
D-67587 Wintersheim
GERMANY

In Switzerland, you can send me those pieces of paper which make my days brighter to:
Jon Huber
c/o Familie Fellmann
Ruteli <-------------- put an umlaut over the u...you know, those two dots
9633 Hemberg
SWITZERLAND

On Monday I had my final German class. It was just a class like any other, except at the end I recieved words of luck and either handshakes or hugs from my classmates. All of them are continuing on for the next section of the class.

Tuesday was a day that I had been waiting for and after 8 long, long, long years, it finally happened. This is one of the those things where many years from now, people will ask you where you were for "The Moment". Not wanting to be alone in my room, I wanted to watch it with someone so I turned the TV on downstairs. Mind you, Obama was supposed to be sworn in at noon eastern time, which made it prime time here at 6 pm. I had on the CNN version of coverage, which I ended up despising because everything appeared at the bottom of the screen as a FACT. What? He raises his right hand while he's being sworn in? I didn't know that. Even though it was 12:02 and he hadn't been sworn in yet, he'd still been president for TWO WHOLE MINUTES! Wow! Thanks TV for telling me! Anyway, Heiko comes in and it's five minutes until America gets a reputable leader and he says he wants to change the channel. Thinking he's joking, I look at him and laugh but then he tells me to watch it in my room. Only missing half of Joe Biden's oath, I realize that he wanted to watch it in German. That's fine with me, whoever wants to understand the speech should be able to do so. The next morning at breakfast, he said he loved how Obama didn't once look at his speech notes. I thought about letting him believe how even more awesome Obama would be if he memorized a speech like that, but I brought him back down a notch, telling Heiko that it was displayed on glass so he could make eye contact with each every 1.5 million people there.

Until next time,
Jon

Happiness, Trips, Changes

2009-01-12T22:19:00.003+01:00

A lot of me likes to plan trips. A lot. Another part of me sometimes doesn't plan things. When you work Monday to Friday and have a whole continent to explore on the weekend, sometimes it's good to leave things to the last minute. On Friday, I was having Internet trouble during a chat with Tim, so I decided to call. That call turned into me leaving on a train for Bammental 20 minutes after I hung up. It was a weekend I dearly needed after what I can unfortunately call my worst week since I've been in Europe. This bad week was partly why I didn't update my blog for so long, because I didn't want my semi-depressive state to take over. Never fear, things are much, much better.

When I got there, Gustav has learned a new trick in which he twirls on one foot. He was demonstrating that for a Tim and Heidi, and Daniel and Nicole. When I walked in, Gustav was put to bed and the five of us watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

On Saturday, Tim, Heidi, Gustav and I walked to an Aldi store in a neighboring town. Like most of the country side in southwest Germany, there is still snow on the ground. Gustav had fun exploring the cold white stuff.

We had a dinner that night of Prieb Burgers, which had been dreamt up by the guys Tim lived with in Prieb House at Tabor. On a Prieb Burger are cheese, bacon, bbq sauce, and my favorite: a fried egg. They were absolutely fantastic.

Sunday we had kaese spaetzle for lunch after church. This is another of my favorite Germanish dishes. Then, after a semi-lazy Sunday afternoon, I made my way back to my home here in Wintersheim and found a happier Heiko.

Last night the low temperature got down to less than -10 Celsius, or about 14 Fahrenheit. It's very, very cold and the snow won't melt. Perhaps the next few days of highs in the 40s will change that.

It's hard to imagine, but in less than a month I'll be making my way to Hemberg, Switzerland to begin my second placement. I leave here on the fifth of February for the mid-term conference near Karlsruhe and then on the ninth, I travel to Hemberg. My Wintersheim address will only be good for a few more days (though, if any mail is sent here, I'm sure it will find its way to me in Switzerland) so I'll go ahead and post my new Swiss address. I'll post it again as time gets closer. Remember, mail is fun!!

Jon Huber
c/o Familie Fellmann
Rüteli 365
CH - 9633 Hemberg

I also was finally able to upload the rest of the Christmas pictures. The first half of the slideshow is from the previous Christmas blog, but the last half are pictures most of you haven't seen!

This weekend I'm going to a ski weekend in Switzerland. Don't worry, Nana, I'm not skiing. My knee wouldn't be able to handle it. I'm going because there will be other trainees there, some of whom I haven't seen since August. So, look forward to pictures of the Alps after the weekend.

Until next time,
Jon

It's January

2009-01-07T19:36:00.003+01:00

It's January and I'm long overdue for a post. First, Fröhe Neu Jahr und Weinachten.

About a week ago, the whole family (Mom, Dad, Tim, Heidi, Gus, me) made the trip up to the Frankfurt Airport to see Mom and Dad, as well as four suitcases off. Their trip would have been more successful had I not been nursing an unhealthy throat most of the time. It was still good to have them here and it seems like a long time to wait until I see them again in August.

I came back to a seemingly more relaxed yet constrained schedule. For instance, on Friday, I had my alarm set so I would be ready for the normal workday breakfast at 7:30. However, when I went down, nobody was up. So I went back to bed and got back up at 8:30, yet nobody was up still. I thought to myself that perhaps today is another day off and went to back to sleep without setting an alarm. Apparently 9 was the scheduled breakfast time, yet no one had failed to tell me, though Heike said she yelled up at me but those yells got lost in the floor that separates the ground floor and the top floor. Result: I now have 2.5 less hours to take time off because of no information. Whoo. The same thing happened on Monday, except Heiko was up at 8:30, so I only got an hour taken off that day. I wish people would tell me when things are different.

Heiko had gotten sick during Christmas and that prevented the family from taking their planned holiday to go ski near München. I had been wondering if there was something in this world that could slow him down, turns out there is. He still has a cough, but he's back to work...though he's extremely grumpy. The past few days I've been doing everything as I'd done it before, but now it's apparently wrong. I didn't put enough wood in the oven. I didn't arrange the boxes correctly on the pallette. I'm too slow in my labelling. I'm now careful when I ask a question because I don't want to get barked at or told I'm doing it wrong and this has caused a seeming depressed atmosphere in the house. I'm not the only one getting the 'special treatment' as he's been yelling at the kids more than usual too. Hopefully with the brightening days, attitudes will brighten as well.

There's not much else to report. I've been trying to find cheap ways to use up the rest of days off that I have. I have 4 or 5 left and a month to use them. If you've got any (cheap) ideas, leave a comment!

Until next time,
Jon

Christmas Update #2

2009-01-06T13:08:00.001+01:00

...won't be happening as I haven't been able to connect my photo program to upload pictures to the Internet.

I'll write about recent happenings a bit later though.

UNT,
Jon

Christmas Update #1

2008-12-25T22:48:00.002+01:00

Sorry, not much to write about. I am uploading some pics that have been taken since Mom and Dad got here last Friday and much family time is being had! Enjoy. There'll be more to come after the next downloading frenzy.

Christmas 2008

Until next time,
Jon

Still waiting...

2008-12-18T17:03:00.002+01:00

It's now Thursday, late afternoon. Had things gone as scheduled, Mom and Dad would be here and I wouldn't be writing. But alas, they are probably sitting in the Wichita airport waiting to board their flight to Dallas. Yesterday, they got to the airport and their flight was cancelled because the plane was being maintainced, yet there was no substitute. It's funny, because when a teacher is sick, they get a substitute. When a player on the field gets injured or tired, they get a substitute. Why not an airplane?

Now, they'll arrive tomorrow morning, a day later than scheduled. Hopefully recovery from jet lag will be quick and it'll be a great holiday.

As for my knee, I went to the orthopedic doctor on Tuesday and he believes that it's just a case of tendonitis. I now have anti-inflammatory pills and a knee brace, hoping those will remedy the problem.

Until next time,
Jon

Waiting, waiting, waiting...

2008-12-15T22:16:00.004+01:00

It seems like this might be the time of year to be waiting. Waiting on a lot of things. Waiting on trains, rides, meals, people, doctors, and many other things.

On Friday, I finally hung out with people (near) my age. Unbeknownst to me, across the street at the rivaling (not really) Dettweiler Weingut, is a girl who is 21. I don't know how the plans started, but Heike got it set up so that I would go with the girl, who is a member of the Mennonite church, and I'd join the youth group to decorate cookies. (I'll get to what the cookies were for in a bit.)

It was fun being able to practice some German I'd been learning while slapping marmalade onto cookies. It was probably a much better night than I could have had. Honestly, aside from soccer, I haven't gotten to hang out or be with anybody my age for awhile and it was starting to get kind of depressing.

On Saturday, we...and by we, I mean myself...went to Worms to try and finish Christmas shopping. I was successful in finishing for the kids, but I haven't found anything yet for Mom and Heidi. [Question of randomness: have you ever tried to make a sentence without using the word "the"?] Don't worry, Mom and Heidi, something awesome will be found. I also went to Worms to test out my knee and tried to walk more than I usually do. However, after awhile I became good friends with benches throughout the day. I will see the orthopedic doctor tomorrow and keep everyone posted with how that goes. Back to Worms. There wasn't a lunch here in Wintersheim, so I was left to fend for myself in Worms. I attempted to go to the Doner stand that I enjoyed, but it had newspaper in the window and the door was locked. So I went to the stand next door and was happily greeted by the Turkish guy with a smile AND a fist bump. He's probably happy from all the extra business he's getting. Anyway, this stand has quickly became my favorite...and not just because of the fist bump. For one, the kebap tasted much better than the one from the other stand. And two, they have a stamp card where your tenth kebap is FREE! Oh yes.

Sunday was a generally lazy day. But in the evening, the kids in the church had a Christmas program with the usual speaking parts and songs...and all the entertainment of the combination of kids, speaking parts, singing, microphones, and costumes. Daniel was still too young to participate, but Paulina and Lukas are at that ripe age. Lukas (12) a group of the older crop of kids in the program, had some narration parts. Paulina (8 or 9) also had some speaking parts, but she also played recorder in the 'band' that led the singing. Afterwards, everyone crowded in the kitchen where the cookies were spread on the table. To drink, Heike had made a Kirch Kinderpunsch...hot, spiced, non-alcoholic, cherry drink. It was tasty, as were some of the cookies.

Today, Monday, was a normal day of work. Heiko got back yesterday from delivering wine and today he was walking hunched over, although nothing ever seems to slow him down. He said that he lifted over 4 tons (not at the same time...) this weekend with all the wine. Tonight was my last German class before the christmas break, although they're meeting on Thursday (when Mom and Dad come!) but I won't be there. We had a Christmas party, which we were told to bring music and food relative to our country. I brought the leftover Kirch Kinderpunsch...not American at all but enjoyed by all who drank it. There was baklava from Turkey, some disgusting looking cabbage rolls that were spicy and tasted soooo good (also from Turkey), some magical potato portions, sekt (champagne), and some other random things. Since I don't have any blank discs here, I couldn't bring any American music...unless I brought my ukulele. Which I did. First, I played chords to all the different versions of Silent Night (German, Albanish, Turkish, Polish). Then I played Old Crow's Wagon Wheel, introducing it, "Das ist 'bluegrass'...das ist NICHT 'country'!" Then a Turkish lady sang some songs and it came back to me, so I countered with Four Strong Winds. Then a Kosovoan lady sang something and it again came back to me, so I finished with Little Boxes, or as I introduced, "Kleine Pakete".

Instead of learning the German language tonight, we learned about each other's culture (Syrian, Thai, Polish, Turkish, Kosovoan and German) and got to share about our own (American). I enjoyed it immensely. Here are some pictures.

These are the two teacher, Barbara and Jens. Jens and I sometimes chatted during breaks, usually me asking something about Worms. Tonight I learned that we shared the same musical tastes...including ein bisschen (a little bit) of bluegrass! They take turns teaching.

The two ladies are the two Turks in class which usually made for interesting conversation. The man is Czarek, who is Polish. He and his wife are who I meet up with to get a ride to class.

The three people in back are Emilia (Czarek's wife), Monika, and Christoph...the other three Poles in the class. In the front is Beo (pronounced like actor Scott Baio's last name)(Thailand), me (America), and Fadi (Syria).

Together, we are Deutsche Sprechekurs A1.

Now, all I have to do is wait until Thursday morning at 9:37, when I'll catch a train to the Frankfurt Airport. There, I'll pick up Mom and Dad who come in at 11:05.

Until next time,
Jon

Another Knee Update

2008-12-11T21:51:00.002+01:00

I'll be seeing an orthopedic doctor on Tuesday afternoon next week, so I won't really know anything until then, or soon after that appointment. Like I've said before, hopefully the doctor has seen it before and knows exactly what's going on and it can be a quick and/or easy fix.

I also thought I'd update you all on my beard growth. That's right, my beard growth. If you remember at the beginning of Intermenno, I took a picture next to Johannes, a Dutch Committee Member and Menno Simons look-a-like. Compare the no smiling of Johannes in this picture to mine:

I have not shaven or trimmed my beard since August 5. So, behold 4+ months of growth:

Until next time,
Jon

Knee Update

2008-12-10T13:54:00.002+01:00

I thought I'd update you all on my knee. Last week Heike and I went to the doctor to get my knee checked out, and the diagnosis then was that the cartilage surrounding my knee just wasn't used to the standing and working (in cold). So, homeopathic pills and some cream were prescribed and were told to come back in 8-10 days if it wasn't better.

Today is Day 9, and though some of the pain has subsided, it is not healed. So before lunch, Heike and I went back to the doctor and he took a second look at it. I believe the pain before was 'masking' another place on my left knee where there was now pain when pressure was put on a specific spot. He referred us to an orthopedic doctor in Oppenheim that I believe we'll go to tomorrow. He is a general health doctor, so he wanted us to go to someone who knows more about that area.

More updates to come.

Until next time,
Jon

Victory and a Weekend with the Family

2008-12-08T22:26:00.003+01:00

Perhaps my complaining hit home or they're just concerned for my well-being, but I consider this a small victory. The Bottle Room, the place where I spend much of my workday, is not heated. When high's don't get out of the low single digits (celsius), it gets pretty cold in there. I am unable to wear gloves because then I would lose grip and the ability to label. My tennis shoes don't do well on the cement floor. My fingers and toes end up freezing after just a few minutes. So, to remedy this problem, last Thursday as I was making my way to the bottle room, Heiko was bringing in a portable heater much to my delight. There's a small room off the side of the Bottle Room that is better insulated. In there, we moved a table and enclosed the space underneath and that's where the heater went. I now have a warm place where my body is not shivering at the end of the day:

Things on the vineyard are well. The weather is cold, sometimes rainy/snowy/windy, and normally cloudy. Heiko regularly packs up the van and performs wine tastings. He's gone to Leer, where I went to the Winefest in August, for a few days for another wine tasting.

This past weekend I went to Bammental for a weekend with Heidi and Gustav. Tim was there, but he was kind of quiet with laryngitis and not feeling well, so he kind of blended into the couch upon which he was laying. Friday night, Tim and I went to Jakob's house to watch the Bayern-Hoffenheim match. They are now tied in the table after Hoffenheim's 2-1 loss, but Hoffe is still in the lead with a superior goal differential. It was a very good match, with Hoffenheim striking first just after half-time but Bayern equalized some 20 minutes later. They then took the lead in extra time, thirty seconds from when the whistle would've blown for a tie. The boys from the village looked great, going foot for foot and at many times outplaying the perennial Bundesliga power. Amazingly, Tim refrained from yelling the entire match.

On Saturday, Heidi, Gustav and I went to Heidelberg to do some Christmas shopping and gluhwein tasting. I still have a few more gifts to get, but I think people will be happy. I had fun finding things and that's part of the fun of Christmas! Plus, Gustav was with us. Pictures? Of course!

Heidi and I had fondue when we got back, which is always a good meal. Then I got a haircut...no pics of that. Gustav has been walking for some time now, so it's fun to see him waddle across the room balancing with his arms out wide and his diaper butt sticking out.

Until next time,
Jon

A Very German Bethel Thanksgiving

2008-11-30T20:02:00.003+01:00

By Monday, I had yet to decide whether or not I would make my way up to Wuppertal for what I had dubbed "A Very Bethel Thanksgiving." Bethel College and Wuppertal University have a long history together of sharing students. Therefore it made sense to have such a gathering. It made it so much sweeter when I finally decided I would attend, that I found train tickets for half of what I thought I was going to pay. From Thursday to Sunday (today), we gathered in the apartment of Tobias, a Wuppertal student who exchanged with Bethel a year or two ago. Having just jumped into the melting pot of BC less than a year ago, there were people there who I didn't know. But that's why I like Thanksgiving: people who don't nessecarily know someone, but knows someone who knows someone who's having a Thanksgiving meal, feels welcome because of the general idea that everyone there has shared the same experience, in this case being a student at Bethel. Though reports differ, I counted 24 people around the tables.

Let the pictures ensue.

The young man on the left, Brad, won the award for coming from farthest away: Derry, Ireland. Kate came from northern Germany where she is an au pair near the city of Kiel.

This was the pie spread. Pumpkin, cherry, pecan, and carrot cake. Some were baked in cast iron skillets in the oven.

One of two turkeys finally arriving. Yes, two turkeys. Boy did we have leftovers...from sandwiches, to turkey/rice mixtures...

Gravy, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes.

One good lookin' bird.

24 people. I lugged a box of 12 bottles of wine as my contribution to the event.

The making of Turkey Soup on Saturday evening. It had about 20 different ingredients, some not so traditional for soup. It was good. That's Charles (L) and Bryce, both from Freeman, SD, and participating in Intermenno.

Finally, by Saturday night we had dismantled both birds.

Turkey soup and gluhwein. Yes, there are apple slices in both pots. Guess which one it went better in.

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out, walking around Wuppertal, visiting Christmas Markets (I now have my gluhwein mug for the season), chatting, catching up, and finally, saying goodbye.

----------------------
My Knee

I believe I'll be diving into another new experience this week. Toward the end of playing soccer last Tuesday, my left knee began acting up and restricting my running. A sharp pain shoots through, just underneath my knee cap. I do not recall a specific event where I could have injured it. However, it got worse through the evening after I got home and into the next day. Normally if my knee hurts, I take some Motrin to ease the pain. This time Motrin did not work. The pain is worst when I must go down stairs and my left leg is at the point of supporting my full body weight. Walking around Wuppertal had started to become a cumbersome act. Before I left last week, I did talk to Heike about it and we decided that if it got worse or didn't get better by today, we'd get it checked out.

That brings me to the next few days. Tomorrow we will go see the doctor and see what he says. I am getting anxious to know what will happen, because I don't know 'how bad it will be'. On one end of the treatment scale is taking pills and on the other end would be surgery. I hope that it does not come down to the right side of that scale. I am delving into a territory that I am not familiar with, and like I said earlier, am anxious and actually a little scared as to what may happen.
----------------------
Let's Play A Numbers Game

Tomorrow is December 1. From the first of December:

-I will have not seen Jessica since August 5. (117 days)
-I will have been in Europe since August 6. (116 days)
-My parents come in 18 days for a Huber Christmas.
-I will be going to Switzerland for my next placement on February 9. (71 days)
-I will turn 22 on February 28. (90 days)
-I will have many more experiences, both planned and done on a whim, good and bad, fun and boring, cold and hot, and wet and dry. I will meet up with many more friends and make even more.
-I return to the States (possibly) on August 4. (247 days)

----------------------
Also, if you have any idea what my PIN number is, let me know.

Until next time,
Jon

Swiss Bound

2008-11-22T13:37:00.002+01:00

Today I received my placement information letter in the mail, so now I'm able to pass the information on to you.

First, some Swiss pictures.

Dombresson:

Dombresson and me:

The committee (Daniel, Ruth, Dora, Johannes, Debbie):

During our break, we went up to this sweet tobaggen run. In the background are the Alps:

Somewhere in there is where I'll be going on a 'Ski Weekend' in January with other trainees:

Going up the tobaggen run:

The committee (Me, Johannes, Ruth, Dora, Debbie, Daniel):

Down to Neuchatel, my attempt at artistic wonder:

Fondue:

My placement
In February, I will be going to Hemberg, Switzerland.

View Larger Map

My sponsors are Dirk and Maya Fellmann. They have three children, Tim (12), Jara (10), Salome (3).

Here is the letter's description of my work: "The Trainee will be working on the farm, maybe is asked to help with some construction work, some cleaning in and around the house (picking weeds), look after the children when Maya is working and if interested do some cooking, teaching English and playing with the kids."

I will be a ten minute walk from the bus stop. It also says that the area is beautiful for hiking and biking.

Until next time,
Jon

A lot of things

2008-11-16T21:59:00.004+01:00

Before I get to big news, I'll do a run-down of things that I've done since the last time I posted.

For election night, four trainees gathered in Giessen for what would turn out to be the morning's festivities. Also, a fellow Bethel student who is studying in Wuppertal (northwest Germany) came down. Since the results wouldn't be known until early Wednesday morning, we had a lot of time to kill. Bryce, the trainee there, had a big pot of chilli waiting for us when we got back from the trainstation, it was by far the spiciest thing I've eaten in Germany.

This is Charles.

We watched the results stream in starting at about 1:30 am, on a streaming MSNBC feed on Bryce's laptop.

We finally went to bed at 5:30, after both McCain's Concession Speech and Obama's Acceptance Speech. It was very good to be around other Americans for something like this.

Back here at the Dätwyl vineyard, we have been busy with the Christmas season. Heiko said that they sell 50% of their wine between the beginning of November and Christmas.

I thought I'd show a picture of the room where I spend most of my time during the day. The Flaschen Raum (bottle room) is where all of the bottled wine is stored until it goes out to the masses. While it waits to be labelled, it collects dust here in one of these bins. Each bin holds between 400 and 500 bottles.

Because the dust, they need to be cleaned so they both look nice and so that labels will stick.

After they receive their labels, they are boxed and moved to a different part of the room.

Switzerland
Last weekend, I journeyed to Dombresson, Switzerland. As the trainee representative to the Intermenno Committee, I was able to take part in the meeting. I was able to offer my ideas and add another viewpoint to the many topics discussed. The main reason we gathered though was to decide the second-half placements for each trainee, including myself. Unfortunately for you, I am not able to divulge both where other trainees or I will be starting in February after the mid-term conference. I will post my placement information when I receive the letter, which should be before the end of November. Although if you really want to know where I will be, I may make an exception. But you'll have to email me and then I'll decide whether or not I can tell you. handsareme@gmail.com

We travelled down to Dombresson on Friday and met for the better part of Saturday.

Größere Kartenansicht

For part of the afternoon on Saturday, we did take a break from meetings and Daniel, the other Swiss Committee Member, showed us around. After all, we were meeting at his house. He took us up into the hills above his house and we were able to spot the Alps from our higher vantage point. They were beautiful! Dombresson is in the French area of Switzerland, so we came down from our high roost to the town of Neuchatel. We wandered the oldest part of the city and walked along the lake.

Größere Kartenansicht

We came back and met for a few more hours until 8:30, which is when we paused and had fondue. As always, it was wonderful!

After the fondue, we resumed our meeting and determined the placements.

You may be wondering to yourself why I went to Switzerland and am not showing off the pictures I snapped. Don't worry too much, I have them. However, my computer's hard-drive is experiencing problems so I've been left to use the family computer which does not have my pictures on it. I am awaiting discs in the mail from home so I can do two final tests, then we'll see what the fate of the computer will be. My computer does still turn on, but I do not know for how long that will last.

Earlier this afternoon at about 4, it snowed for about five minutes. It was above freezing and it didn't stick, but it was still fun to see the first snow falling.

Tomorrow I will be going to Worms to do some Christmas shopping. Hopefully it won't be as windy as it was today...it reminded me of a chilly, windy Kansas day!

Until next time,
Jon

The Poles, My First Bundesliga Match, Gustav

2008-11-03T22:15:00.004+01:00

Before I get to why all of you came to this blog (Gustav pictures), I will first bore you with the happenings of last week.

German class is going well. Probably the biggest story to come out of there is that a Polish couple offered to give me rides to and from class. See, what I usually do is not pay 2.60 for a one-way train ride, twice a night to get to class. Multiply that by two and you get 5.20. Because I go to class twice a week, multiply that by two and you get 10.40. That's how much I save per week by not paying for the train. I have a low chance of being caught (which would result in a 40 euro fine) because there are only two stops between my stop and Worms. But now I don't even have to worry about a 40 euro fine because all I have to do is get to a town that is about 8 minutes away, toward Worms. There, I meet up with a Polish couple, who also happen to work at a winery. Riding with them also negates the 12 minute walk to and from the train station, which could be rain or shine. So it's a pretty sweet deal. That and they listen to Polish techno music which, along with the bumps in the road, somehow puts me to sleep.

Friday after work, I headed down south to the land of Baden-Wurtenberg, where Tim and Heidi live.

I went to visit them this past weekend because Tim managed to get four tickets for Saturday's Bundesliga match pitting 1899 Hoffenheim against Karlsruhe in what was billed as a "Baden Derby".

Here is the entire stadium, all 23,600 of us, including Tim, singing "The Baden Song":

Hoffenheim earned another three points to remain atop the standings with a resounding 4:1 win. This was my first real professional European soccer match. I had a lot of fun. The only bad thing I can think of from the experience was the headache I got from standing down the way from two 16 year-old chain smoking girls. Otherwise, the atmosphere was spectacular with singing, chanting and yelling. Here are, of course, pictures.

Here is Tim telling MJ about the new Transformer news on the train:

Carl Benz Stadion:

A Karlsruhe player deservedly receives a yellow card:

Toward the end of the match, riot police were brought in as a precautionary measure in front of the Karlsruhe fans:

What's a weekend visiting Tim and Heidi without pictures of Gustav? A failure. Lucky for you, my faithful blog readers, I am not a failure.

Until next time,
Jon

Small update: If you'd like to see Jordan's pictures of his time here in Germany, click on this link.

CORRECTION!

2008-10-28T22:10:00.003+01:00

After an email and my own investigation, I have provided false information. The Jewish Cemetery in Worms does not date back to the 1600s as I previously stated, but way back to the 11th and 12th Centuries. I feel like 400-500 years of history is something worthy of a correction of this magnitude. My previous post is corrected to reflect this information.

2008-10-26T21:07:00.004+01:00

There were many activities this week so get ready for a long and pictureful blog!

On Monday, I again went to language class. Nothing really new to report on that, but it was the first class with the other teacher, Jens, who is a portly fellow. I believe I like his style better than the other lady. He's quite funny and likes to laugh.

On Tuesday, I went to soccer practice again and was informed that because I listed that I was a part of a college team that I would have to wait four weeks to play after my papers actually went through, and by then it wouldn't be worth it for the club to pay the registration fees for me to play in one or two matches. I will still continue to go to practice because that's one of my only forms of exercise and places to hang out with people in my age group.

On Wednesday I got a package in the mail from Mom and Dad. In it were some Obama-Biden buttons that I had requested so I could get into the election spirit on the side of the Atlantic. I ended up attaching them to the strap of my messenger bag.

Walking on the street, standing in a line, or even at the train ticket machine people come up and say in either German or broken English supportive things backing Obama. Apparently about 80% of the German population would support Obama. One of my favorite quotes that I've heard is that, "If Germans were allowed to vote in the election, Obama would win in a landslide." That just says to me how much people care in this election, how powerful a person the President of the US is and how many people, not just Americans, his decisions influence.

Continuing Wednesday...I usually play with the 'old men' in a form of a pick-up game, however on this night they had a match with a neighboring city's 'old man' team. Heiko and I went well before the match to rake leaves off the penalty area and lines. Here's our damage:

It was right at sunset which was beautiful:

Thursday was a day I had been looking forward to for a while. My good friend Jordan, a fellow pilot and student at Bethel, came to visit me for the weekend.

Jordan and I went to Speyer on Friday where there were many statues which we took pictures of.

Also in Speyer is a Technical Museum. What are two pilots to do when there is a museum with airplanes?! We went to it, of course. There were many things of interest here, but what caught our eye was a Lufthansa 747 that was mounted high above the ground in a take-off position. We took a slide down instead of the stairs:

Saturday was another fully planned day. Soon after a brunchish meal of omelets, we took a driving tour through the vineyard's on our way to the train station, where we headed to Worms. After departing the train, we found an old Jewish cemetery. Many of the headstones date from the 11th and 12th centuries.

We found the statue of Martin Luther. (You may also notice in this picture I got a new jacket.)

Later in the afternoon we headed back to Wintersheim for in the evening was a Wine and Cheese event put on by the vineyard. A room in the tower was set up for 35 people and Jordan and I were two of those. We literally did not know what to expect and what the process was. Seemingly planned, Heike told us to sit at a table with four other people who immediately asked me, in English, if my name was Jon. The group of four had come from Wiesbaden for the evening and they consisted of a lady born in the Netherlands, an Austrian and two Germans. The conversation was great and they were very willing to explain the different cheeses as I was happy to explain some of the wines to them.

Heiko had been busy preparing for this week. I would normally find him sitting at the kitchen table with three or four wine glasses, many wine bottles, and many different cheeses surrounding him. Still working on Friday night, he had to select which cheeses went with which wines. It looked like a long tedious process.

Here are some pictures from the evening:

Today I accompanied him back to the airport. I had read on the internet somewhere that at the Frankfurt Airport, they have an observation deck that you can go out onto and watch the action of the airport. Being the pilots we are, you can bet on it that we were out there for a solid hour, snapping pictures and plane spotting.

It was a very fun and action filled weekend.

Until next time,
Jon
---------------------------
Note to the reader: You can download the pictures I have posted here by clicking on the photo. On the page that pops up, look for the option "Download" above the picture.

To catch Jordan's version, click on this.

Cleaning the Fireplace, Language Classes, A Bike Ride, 30 cents and Free Coffee

2008-10-18T19:20:00.003+02:00

On Monday, it was time to clean the fireplace. This meant that after the ashes were shoveled out and everything was vacuumed (in the fireplace), Paulina donned old clothes and a shower cap and Heiko promptly shoved her into the fireplace while I bit my tongue stopping the comparisons of this with Nazis.

This week I began language classes in Worms. I have them twice a week on Monday and Thursday evenings from 5:30 to 9. They are a real experience. Because they are German classes, they are of course, in German. This is also because of the wide range of pupil nationality. From my count, there are between 4 and 6 Poles, a Montenegran, two Kosovoans, a couple Turks, and me. That means that German is the common language, not English, or Ibanisch or Turkish... There is a lot of motioning by the teacher and repeating of what her message is. There are actually two teachers, Barbara and Jens, who take turns teaching. It is about a ten minute walk from the train station to the school so I must be speedy to catch the 9:25 train. If I miss that, I must wait until 10:25 for the next train.

Today was Saturday, which meant I get to sleep in. Except Daniel had a friend stay the night (they're three...) and they woke up around 8 and promptly decided to run laps on the floor outside my room. I even got to shout 'AUS!' when one of them opened my door and screamed. Luckily the eye of the storm passed and I was able to sleep through the rest of the morning. I woke up in time for an amazing lunch of Spargel (white asparagus) Soup. Nothing was planned for the afternoon, so I decided to go for a bike ride through the hills around Wintersheim. Leaves are changing colors and the air is getting crisp. Oh, I brought my camera along, enjoy.

There are four windmills to the north of Wintersheim.

Later in the afternoon, I went to Worms, this time with my ukulele in hand. My mission was to panhandle. I had no goal but to play. Many people passed, but one person, who had earbuds in his ears, put 30 cents in my case as he walked by. Nice guy.

Then, I went to the doner kebap shop and had myself a doner. The doner maker, or doner king if you will, struck up a conversation with me and he's a pretty nice Turkish man who knows English. When I was finished with my doner, he asked, "Do you want some tea? My pleasure!" I'm not much of a tea person, but I didn't want to come across as a bad guy, so I asked if I could have some coffee instead. While the coffee cup did have lipstick stains on it, I put it past me as it was a free cup of coffee. I'll be frequenting this doner kebap shop again.

Tomorrow, I'll join the family for church. This will be the first time the Dettweiler's have gone to church since I got here. The service will celebrate the fruits of the harvest.

Until next time,
Jon

Foggy Communication

2008-10-12T19:12:00.003+02:00

This was week was back to the daily grind. Some of the things I did this week were the usual vacuuming, dishwasher duties, sweeping, and watering flowers. On Wednesday and Thursday, my task was to trim vines that had gotten out of control. That meant that I had to stand in a box on the forklift and be driven around by Heike, sometimes standing outside of the box reaching for whatever I could reach. It was fun.

Friday was a relatively bad day. Soon after breakfast, I was told by Heike that we would be harvesting grapes by hand Saturday afternoon and that I should take the afternoon off. Saturday I had been planning to go to Worms and walk around the city to find where my German classes will be. So, no big deal, I'll just go to Worms Friday afternoon. I had it all planned out, I would take a nap after lunch to recharge my batteries, then head to Worms and be back in time for soccer practice at 7. Or so I thought.

Apparently, Heike forgot that I would be taking the afternoon off so when Oma asked her if I could 'help' with the Dettweiler area of the cemetery, she said I could. I found this out just before lunch. After lunch, I get taken by Oma to the cemetery and my job was to pick up all the leaves in the plant beds. (The leaves are starting to change colors, so it was pointless to pick up leaves.) She then told me that she would be right back with the water hose so I could water the plants. Oma didn't come right back. I had finished picking up the leaves, taking them to the compost, and swept the walkway before she even came back. I thought that I would be 'helping' Oma, not her leaving me there to do everything when I had planned to be happily napping. Then I was left again by myself to water the plants and walk home.

Anywho, I made it to Worms on the train, even though I rode ticketless because the machine at the bahnhof wouldn't let me put my money in. It's funny that something designed to take money and give tickets was inoperative. Not a very good moneymaker for Deutsche Bahn. Worms was the city where Martin Luther was put in front of the Diet of Worms. It was easy to find the big statue.

I then went looking for the place where I begin German classes tomorrow night. After some searching, I did find it. Then I took the rest of the time to get acquainted with the area between the Worms Hauptbahnhof and the school, finding different routes to get between the two places. Soon I'll find the quickest. I was even able to have a delicious Doner Kebap! I then rode back on the train, ticketless again, and made it back for soccer practice.

Saturday I awoke to a cloudy morning, the vineyards around Wintersheim shrouded in fog.

Luckily, we set out to harvest and there was no rain to be seen through the entire day, though the fog hung around.

These vineyards were about 20 km to the north, above the town of Nierstein in the hills.

Today, the only thing on my schedule to was to go to the soccer match in Dorn Durkheim. I have been awaiting my papers to be cleared and then I will finally be ready and legal to play in the matches. I was told it will likely be another week. Hopefully. Anyway, I warmed up the goalkeeper and watched the match from the bench. It was an entertaining match with not as much violence as the last one I was at with both teams earning a point in the tables with a 0-0 draw.

Like I said, German classes will begin this week and go until January, meeting on Monday and Thursday each week. It will be interesting and I'm looking forward to it very much. It will be hard work, but I like challenges and this will be a monumental task.

I do not have anything yet planned for next weekend. I may go to Speyer, Trier, or Mainz. I'll find something to do. The weekend after that, Jordan is coming to visit. He's a good friend from Bethel who is also a pilot. He's studying for a semester in Barcelona and he found some cheap tickets to fly here. I look forward to showing him around Wintersheim, Worms and the area.

Tag der Deutschen Einheit!

2008-10-05T22:48:00.003+02:00

The title of this blog is the name of the German holiday for reunification after the Berlin Wall fell. The past weekend was a three-day weekend, so Tim and Heidi finally were able to come and visit me here in Wintersheim. They did so on Thursday night. We had zwiebel kuchen (onion cake) and neuewein (new wine). It's a traditional combination. We spent the evening sampling wines and conversing.

On Friday, we followed Heiko out to one of the vineyard's. Tim and Heidi were invited to climb on top of the harvester and take a ride to see how it works. I think they were pleasantly surprised with the opportunity.

I got to hold Gustav while they rode.

After a very quick lunch, all four of us were taken to Alsheim. The three of them were going home and I was headed to the Intermenno Fall Retreat south of Kaiserslautern. Our journey's were the same until Worms and then we were on our separate ways.

I traveled to Enkenbach, where there is another trainee and a committee person, whom I then traveled with by car to the retreat. It was a really refreshing weekend to see people again who we briefly got acquainted with at the opening conference in The Netherlands. It's amazing how for most of the trainees, the only thing other than being a Mennonite that we have in common is that we are doing Intermenno. Some of the people I knew beforehand, but even the people who I have met for a total of 5-6 days, I would feel comfortable visiting them back home. Common bonds are powerful.

The weekend was full of reflections, singing and eating. Friday night, everyone shared about their placements. Saturday morning we heard about how the committee is financed and how much money is actually involved in our experience's here in Europe. In the afternoon, we traveled to the Wissembourg, France, area and toured a Mennonite church as well as the city. We then spent the evening in a restaurant eating flammkuchen, which, though light and thin, was tasty.

Sunday morning, we had our own church service. I helped accompany some of the songs with ukulele. Then we elected a trainee who will attend the committee meetings and be a sort of liaison between the trainees and committee. The other trainees voted me to be that person and I'm glad that I'm able to have this responsibility. I will be traveling to Switzerland next month for my first meeting where second term placements will be assigned. I look forward to this opportunity!

The first weekend of Oktober is now nearing completion. In a previous entry, I had mentioned that time seemed to be flying by. I have determined that this is indeed a good thing. The more work and activities there are to do, the less bored I get and the more active I stay. At the retreat, culture shock and homesickness were discussed in some of the sessions. I don't believe that I have gone through any culture shock, but I did have an experience that could be semi-related to culture shock. I was standing in the kitchen and I just had a feeling that (for now, at least) this really feels like home and is comfortable. That happened sometime in the past two weeks. As for missing home, I think once a person realizes that they won't be in a place "they're used to" for a year, they will go through some sort of homesickness. I do indeed miss people and things at home, but I know that I'll be going back next summer, so I can put it partly out of my mind. Though, when I listen to Dad's band or look at pictures that I brought, I can't help but sigh and wish I was with those people.

Just some of the things I have to look forward to:
Jordan is coming to visit the last weekend of Oktober.
A possible gathering of most of the Bethelonians on Election Night in Wuppertal.
The committee meeting in Switzerland the third weekend of November.

Also, I hope I don't jinx myself, but I amazingly have yet to break a bottle of wine. I have witnessed Heiko break two or three bottles and it's not a big deal if one is broken, but I just want to keep that streak alive, mainly for bragging rights. One will probably break this week now that I said something.

Until next time,
Jon

Munich and Oktoberfest

2008-09-29T20:45:00.004+02:00

As I was standing on the platform, awaiting a train towards Bammental, this happened:

On Wednesday last week, I left Wintersheim and got to Bammental in the evening, in time for a photo session and feeding time with Gustav.

Why was I going to Bammental in the middle of the week? Early Thursday morning, Tim, Daniel and I left and headed to Bavaria, specifically Munich. Tim had arranged meetings pertaining to MCN work in Munich that also happened to fall in the time of Oktoberfest, sometimes called the world's largest folk festival. My sleeping bag and I were happy to be able to tag along.

We arrived to Munich and promptly walked the 3 or so kilometers from our place of lodging to the Theriesienwiese, where the festival grounds are. Tim's GPS was not needed for the last third of the trip as we just followed the droves of revelers in lederhosen and dirndles. There is a reason why this is called the world's largest folk festival and that is because the three of us were not in the majority of people who were wearing the traditional garb. It was everywhere!

Each of the main Munich breweries sets up a giant tent on the main drag. It was 1 pm and we selected the Spaten tent to find a seat. After walking around for nearly 5 minutes, someone spotted a table with one man sitting at it, so we invited ourselves to give him company. Let's review: giant tent, rows of tables and benches, 1 pm on Thursday, hardly places for three people.

Here's a video of the tent.

As you can see in the picture, in the middle of the tent is a raised stage where an entire band was set up. They played intermittently. They also played a song about every half hour called "Ein Prosete" (my spelling is wrong, I know) where everyone would sing and at the end offer to cheers to one another.

By this time it was 3 pm and we decided to leave and find out what the atmosphere was like in a different tent. Bad idea. We walked into the Augustiner tent and walked around. Then we walked outside and sat in tables set up in front of the tent. Unfortunately it started to rain before we were able to finish. This is a picture, obviously, before it started to rain on our parade.

Most of the next day had been set aside by Tim and Daniel for meetings, so after a lunch of doner kebaps, I bid them farewell for the afternoon and got on the train to go to northern Munich, my destination: Allianz Arena, the home of FC Bayern Munchen and 1860 Munchen. I arrived with no expectation whatsoever. I didn't even know if the stadium would be open. When I got off the U-Bahn and walked to the stadium, there were people walking back to the U-Bahn stop, which was either a good or bad sign. Luckily, there was a gate open and I was able to walk right into the stadium, with the seats barricaded off.

On the train, I had met a guy near my age from London who had the same idea I had. We ended up taking a tour of the stadium in German. Neither of us have had any German education, so we were just along for the visual sights. There were many.

We first went to the corner of the upper deck, which had an absolutely amazing view.

You'll see this place a little later.

Part of the tour included peaking into the FCB dressing room.

Then we were taken into the tunnel the players walk to the field through. Here's that place from earlier in the upper deck.

It was a really fun tour, even if I could only pick out tidbits of info with my limited German.

After touring Allianz Arena, I apparently hadn't gotten my fill of big stadiums, so I hopped on two more trains and went to the Olympia Stadium, home of the terrorist-marred 1972 Summer Olympics. This "self-guided" tour, 2 Euro worth, was mainly just a walk around the top of the stadium. It was all I really needed and had time for. It is always nice, though, to be in the same place where awe-inspiring moments of history have taken place. The architecture was also pretty swell.

Some people chose to go rapelling on the roof of the stadium, then drop (by rope) to the pitch. Not me (too expensive).

On Saturday, the three of us went to a town north of Munich, Freising. In this town is a brewery that makes Huber Weisses beer. Tim's GPS took us to a restaurant where we ordered Huber Beer, Huber Burgers, and Huber Fries. The burger's were excellent and the beer was superb. The fries, though, took the cake, or I guess the potato. First, they brought out a plate for the three of us. When we finished that, they brought out another plate for the three of us. When we finished the second plate, they brought out yet another plate! All you can eat fries, or anything all you can eat, are hard to come by in Europe. We found a place that whenever I'm in the Munich area again, I will be sure to go back to.

I did not get to see everything there is to see in Munich. I will definitely be trying to make it back there sometime. There are many museums and endless parks. The heart of Bavaria, though most times cold and wet, has many memories and many more to be made.

Until next time,
Jon

Harvest and a weekend in Switzerland

2008-09-22T22:23:00.000+02:00

Good evening!

Many things have happened since I last wrote here on my blog so I'll try to recount everything of the past week.

On Tuesday of last week, the harvester was finally ready. This is the front of the harvester.

By the time I woke up and made my way down to the breakfast table, Heiko was already out in the vineyards beginning. However, one of the white pieces in the picture broke and he came back to get another. The white, round pieces move back and forth and hit the vines so the clumps of grapes fall off and into a conveyor belt that hauls them up to bins.

I took Heiko back to the vineyards. After he fixed it and it was ready for more harvesting, he asked if I wanted to ride on top. The next few pictures are views from the top while harvesting.

These were the grapes being harvested. The variety is St. Laurent.

My job during harvest has only one thing to do with grapes. I have been cleaning the patio furniture. I scrub with soap and water, then when it's dry I cover it with grape seed oil so it shines nice. Here are some of the chairs.

To see what happens to the grapes after they come from the vineyards, stay tuned for my next blog...

Switzerland

On Friday, I took a half-day of vacation and left after lunch for Switzerland. There I visited Audra, who is another trainee with Intermenno. I also happened to be a year ahead of her at Hesston, so we knew each other before beginning our Intermenno terms. Her placement is outside of Basel, which is where the countries of France, Germany, and Switzerland come together. There, she works on an organic farm and lives the Eschbach's.

I had gotten my train ticket to the Deutsche Bahn Basel station and not the Swiss one, intending to just stay on the train. The Mennonite in me knows a good deal when he sees it. Had I purchased the ticket to Switzerland, I would have paid another 30-40 euro. My plan worked perfectly, because nobody was checking tickets or passports in the short 6 minute ride between stations. No Mom, I did not get arrested at the border, or anywhere, for that matter. I'm still here for another 10 months for something like that to happen. :)

I was picked up at the train station by not only Audra, but also one of the Swiss Intermenno Committee members. Debbie, who is a second grade teacher, was coming over to cook hamburgers for supper. From the train station we went to CO-OP (a Swiss grocery store) to pick things up for the meal. To give you an idea of how big the farm that Audra lives on is, she pointed out some cabbage in the produce section and said that came from the farm.

Friday evening we consumed said hamburgers, which were fantastic. The family did to me what the Dettweiler's need to do, and that's speak German to me. Granted it was very slow, but if it's slow I am able to pick up words and put things together. After the meal, I got out my ukulele, Debbie her guitar, and Andi (the father) his flute. Audra, who was a member of Bel Canto at Hesston, provided great vocals. We did some songs out of the hymnal and some other tunes. Here is a video of "Let It Be."

(A video will appear here when it gets uploaded. It could be tomorrow.)

On Saturday, Audra and I biked down to the train station where we went to Basel for the afternoon. We mainly wandered through the streets and didn't venture into many stores. We walked across the Rhein and took a ferry back. We saw the Rathaus (city hall) as well as an interesting fountain/sculpture. Here some pictures from our adventure into Basel. On the way back, what goes down, must come up.

That evening we went to a fall festival in Audra's city, which was much like a kerwe. The highlight for both of us was freshly pressed apple juice. It was absolutely splendid and extremely good. There was even a too short Alphorn concert. Later that night we went to Debbie's house for more hanging out. Debbie was an IVEPer in Oregon at the Western Mennonite School a couple of years ago.

On Sunday we went to Audra's church, which she said makes up 20% of the Mennonite contingency in Switzerland. It was big with a lot of young people who were really friendly. We also shared communion. After church we went back for a lunch of really good pumpkin soup.

The Eschbach's farm is across the valley from the Bienenberg Bible Institute, where Heidi's parents worked for MCC in the 1970s. You can see it in this picture, just to the left of the tower, the chalet looking building on the hill. This was taken from their backyard.

Andi, Audra's host father, happens to have his Private Pilot Ldicense. Had my train ticket not been for so early in the afternoon, we would have gone for a ride. The plane is based out of EuroAirport, the main airport serving the tri-country Basel area. He did oblige in showing me the sectional charts for Switzerland, which are much more colorful than Kansas' maps. I'm still trying to get my hands on some European charts for wall art in my future living quarters. This is of particular interest to me, since we have a bit more of a say in where our second-term placements are and I would have the option of going to Switzerland. Being at this placement would be quite beneficial, as he flies most anytime the weather is good. Since I am taking a hiatus from flight training to do Intermenno, I would be able to stay in the air and practice teaching, though I wouldn't be able to legally log any hours. Something is better than nothing. Plus, who wouldn't want to fly a plane through the Swiss Alps? I will definitely be visiting Audra again!

I will be going to Oktoberfest with Tim and Daniel, leaving on Thursday morning from Bammental. They will be doing some MCN meetings in Munich and were able to arrange it during Oktoberfest. I'm happy I'll be able to tag along and see what Munich has in store. The weekend after that is already the Intermenno Mid-Term Conference near Kaiserslautern. Time is flying!

Oh, and Hoffenheim is in second place of the Bundesliga tables after five matches played!

Until next time,
Jon

2008-09-14T22:04:00.002+02:00

The past week has been spent mainly with more painting of Daniel's jungle gym. It is nearing completion, however we are adding pieces to it to make it more stable. I will post pictures of it once it is actually completed and ready for Daniel to chip the paint.

Other people, like Heiko, have been spending their time getting the grape harvester ready for harvest. The weather here has not been the most optimum for the grapes. The rain gives the grapes too much water, which takes out the sugar, which helps with the fermentation process. A few nights of the past week, it has been too warm, which causes the skin of the grape to shrivel. I went to visit Heiko tonight in the garage to see the process and he said it probably won't be ready until tomorrow night, just in time for harvest.

World War III has not started, however the annual war with the birds has been ongoing for about two weeks. All day, beginning early in the morning before the sun comes up, what sounds like gunshots can be heard echoing through the vineyards. I finally found one of the noisemakers on my last bike ride.

On Friday I trekked down to Bammental for another wonderful weekend with Tim and Heidi. Heidi's parents as well as an uncle and aunt of hers were visiting. They leave on Monday. Because of the amount of visitors, I was left to the living room floor for my bed (mattress and sleeping bag) and getting awakened by Gustav each morning as he was either put onto me or crawled onto my bed. He can now pull himself up to a standing position!

On Saturday, we walked to the train station with our destination being the Wurstmarkt in Bad Durkheim. The Wurstmarkt was celebrating it's 590th year in existence and is known as the largest wine festival in the world. Here's Gustav helping clean the floor of the train on the way:

The forecast for the day was for the rain to taper off early in the afternoon giving way to partly cloudy skies. Alas, the weathermen at KSN in Wichita would be donating a heavy sum of money for failure of their 3-degree-guarantee had they given that forecast. We arrived to Bad Durkheim amid the rain and wind and left later in the afternoon to the same rain and wind. However, we not-so-quickly found an Oktoberfest-like tent and spent most of the afternoon hailing the sparse waitstaff for both food and drink. My half-chicken was worth the wait.

There were many different types of people at this festival, some in traditional German dress...

(when it came time to pay, she would sit down beside you and show off her...assets)
...and some in traditional German dress with their own little flair, I particularly liked the headphones that you can't see:

There were also revelers in the tent which were very entertaining to watch. Here, they are standing on their benches and holding up the table, all while holding a glass and singing and toasting. With as many drinks as they had, the table did not get dropped and their were no casualties.

There was even a cool fountain that I thought Dad would have taken many pictures of. I took one:

When we got back to Bammental that night, everyone was happy to change out of their wet clothes for dry ones. However, I believe Gus was happier to get a bath from Grandma Chris:

Gus was bathing to prepare for a big day that he had today. There was an outdoor church service in a barn a few towns away from Bammental. I believe the service had to do with the sun and sunbeams. The focal point of the service, at least for the Americans there, was the dedication of Gustav. I have no pictures on my camera because I took pictures with Tim and Heidi's camera for them, so stay tuned to their blog. After the dedication, there was a rousing, bilingual rendition of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." At the conclusion of the service, there was a BYOM (Bring Your Own Meat) pot-luck meal. It, like the raclette the night before, made me splendidly full. I'm glad I'll be playing soccer three times this week to make up for all the food I consumed this weekend.

All in all, it was a weekend where cups indeed did runneth over.

Until next time,
Jon

2008-09-08T16:51:00.002+02:00

This past week seemed to fly quickly by. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing quite yet.

I have been kept busy sanding paint off of Daniel's jungle gym so that it can get repainted.

From Life in another place...

On Friday it was finally ready to get the color green and I got one coat in the morning and another coat in the afternoon. Today I added two coats of blue.

Thursday afternoon we bottled two different kinds of wine. My job was to take bottles off the sanitizer and put them on the belt, where the man in the green pants is at in the photo. Here is the bottling operation.

From Life in another place...

Here's a picture of me putting bottles into boxes.

From Life in another place...

In the evenings on Tuesday's and Thursday's, I practice with the nearest soccer club, TuS Dorn Durkheim. Saturday they had a match. I did not get to play as I need to register, but I hope to do so soon. The match was back and forth, but in the end it devolved into violence. Two of our players were punched and tackles seemed to not be aimed at the ball but at legs and ankles. One of their players even got ejected, and rightly so. I think my lack of German will actually give me an advantage because I won't be able to understand what players from the other team are yelling in my direction. Dorn Durkheim did end up breaking the 3:3 deadlock and won 4:3.

There is something wrong with a muscle or nerve in my back. An area of my back, just under my left shoulder blade, chooses random times to go numb. It doesn't really hurt but I could see it suddenly turning painful. Hopefully it is something that can be fixed with light massage.

Next weekend I will be meeting Tim, Gus, Heidi, and some of Heidi's family who are visiting, in Bad Durkheim at Wurstmarkt, the worlds largest wine festival. I'll head back to Bammental with them and attend Gus' dedication next Sunday.

In two weeks, I'll be heading down to Basel, Switzerland, to visit a trainee there. Word has it that there is an apple juice festival. Other plans have not yet been made.

On Saturday night after a day full of rain (much like every day), a rainbow came out right at sunset. This picture is from the window of my room.

From Life in another place...

Until next time,
Jon

Last Minute Decisions

2008-08-31T11:56:00.002+02:00

Late in the week I hadn't made any plans yet for the weekend, so I decided to see what Tim and Heidi were doing. They, along with Daniel and Nicole (new Americans in the Hausgemeinshaft), were going to Karlsruhe on Saturday for "Bierborse." It was swell, I think Tim said there were over 300 different beers there. You could buy a small, .1 liter glass and fill it for a euro at most of the stands.

This weekend, the family loaded up and went to a wedding Nurnburg, so I was left in Wintersheim to myself. That meant to go anywhere, I needed to get myself to the train station in Alsheim. I biked the 5 km to Alsheim with great ease because it's mainly downhill leading towards the Rhein. The ride back was hard, particularly because it was dark (9:30) and uphill. I was glad for the workout.

We had figured out the trains beforehand and, if everything had gone as scheduled, I would have been on the train when they got on in Heidelberg. As you could probably guess, thing's didn't go as scheduled as we were kicked off the train a few stops before Mannheim because apparently there were children playing on the tracks. This was a particularly confusing moment for me because, of course, everything's in German. I was left to look for a younger person, because they generally know at least some English. Luckily the folks I talked to also let me use their cell phone so I could call Tim and tell him they wouldn't be finding me on the train as we had so meticulously planned.

Eventually I arrived in Karlsruhe and found my way on a tram to the Marktplatz and Schloss, where the festival was.

I experienced something I have never experienced before on this trip, aside from never having been to Karlsruhe. I felt a nuisance bothering my left temple/sideburn area on my face, so naturally I brushed it away. However, this wasn't some little fly and when I brushed it away it decided to sting my middle finger on my left hand! Because I had never before been stung by anything, I didn't know whether my face would puff up and I wouldn't be able to breathe or if no allergic reaction would happen at all. Apparently I am not allergic to stings because I did not get lightheaded nor did my face get puffy. The only reaction was my finger swelling up a bit and hurting for awhile, also adding to the difficulty of the bike ride home. Here's my finger after the fact:

I can't end this entry with a disgusting picture of my finger, so here are some Gus pictures.

Until next time,
Jon

Recent happenings

2008-08-27T22:59:00.001+02:00

Hello friends.

Right now, Heiko and I are watching Atletico Madrid (Spain) face Schalke 04 (Germany) in a qualification match for the Champions League. Although Heiko cheers for the team from Mainz, who is in the 2. Bundesliga, he cheers for any German team (except for Bayern) who are playing in an international competition. The Champions League takes the top two to four teams from each nation’s premiere league across Europe and pits them against each other. The competition lasts from the beginning of the season (two games ago) until the end of the season in May.

Earlier tonight, I played soccer for the second time with Heiko and people around his age, which is anywhere from 30 to 50. We play like we played indoor soccer at Hesston, where we don’t keep score and play until everyone was tired enough to agree that ‘next goal wins’. Last week I didn’t do so well, partly because I hadn’t played since our indoor times at Hesston, which is more than a year ago. Tonight though, I finally found some sort of a rhythm and was able to keep the game going, although I am definitely not in shape. Next week they have a game and you must be older than 30 to play, so I will join the guys my age tomorrow and next week on Tuesday and Friday.

Yesterday I had my first European driving experience. I was to follow Heiko from Wintersheim to Alzey (15 km) so he could return a van he had rented to drive to the Weinfest in Leer. The vehicle I drove was none other than the old Mercedes Sprinter. A stick-shift, top-heavy van. With a trailer. Things went relatively fine…I mean, I didn’t crash the Sprinter and no other vehicles crashed because of me. Although when we hit the first of a few traffic circles and had to stop, I stalled the van a handful of times. And another time when I thought it was right to downshift from third to second, I think I accidentally shifted from third to reverse and the whole van started to shake. Then I shifted from reverse to first and killed it again. Then we finally get to Alzey and Heiko needed to fill up the rented van with fuel before he returned it to the Mercedes dealership. Now, hills and stick-shifts don’t get along well with me quite yet, and to get to the filling station we had to make a left turn but wait for traffic, so I couldn’t quite coast into the filling station, but rather start uphill from a stand still. I killed it again a few times, pissing off some drivers behind me. Oh well, like I said before, nobody crashed and I didn’t wreck the van, so it was successful. Finally we pulled into the Mercedes dealership and Heiko took back the helm.

Today was a full day of work, which is good. I realized that after the first week I was working here that my back was sore and didn’t know why. Finally I figured that I was sore because of my inactive summer and not used to all the manual labor. Luckily after a few weeks I am getting used to the lifting of wine boxes and other random heavy things. This morning my job was to mow the backyard with an electric mower. Yes, I said electric. That meant that wherever I went, I had to always be aware of the electric cable. It also meant that it was very underpowered and very small, so I had to always reach in with my hand and clear the clippings whenever it got clogged. Mowing the backyard took me all the way until lunch, which was 4.5 hours. (Heiko is yelling at the TV in German because Schalke is wasting opportunities to score.) In the afternoon, I broke down boxes that we brought back from Leer and drove the forklift through town with a load of bottles that were unsortable to the recycling center. I always have fun breaking glass. Always.

Two years ago on the 25th of August, my girlfriend Jessica and I went to go see Ben Harper in Kansas City. It was after that first date that I could call her my girlfriend and also that the 25th of August will forever be a special day. Her birthday is three days later (tomorrow), so go ahead and wish her a happy birthday. I already did.

(Schalke is losing 0:4 and the game is in stoppage time.)

I like getting mail. So far I’ve gotten one letter (you know who you are). If you send me a letter I promise I’ll write you back. You can also leave your address as a comment, or, if you don’t feel comfortable letting the world see your address, you can send it to me via email to: handsareme@gmail.com. For those willing to send me mail first, just be sure to put your return address on it so I have your address. Don’t forget to put an airmail sticker or just write it on the envelope, then I get it quicker. Here’s my address:

Jon Huber
c/o Familie Dettweiler
Haupt. 11
D-67587 Wintersheim
GERMANY

(Schalke just got embarrassed, 0:4. Heiko is also asleep on the couch.)

Until next time,
Jon

Bammental Kerwe/Weinfest in Leer

2008-08-24T16:13:00.003+02:00

Well, I'm sitting in a farmhouse in Ostfriesland, in the northern tip of Germany. I'll get to the Weinfest happenings later. Last weekend, I made the trip to Bammental to see my brother, Tim, and his family. My nephew, Gus, is growing every day and loves to roll around (no crawling yet!) and bite people.

Cute kid.

It was a good visit with them. I'm glad that they're close. We are within the same train service area, and it only costs me 5.80 one way to see them. I think that's relatively cheap.

This week, Heiko was preparing to go to a Weinfest in Leer. I had worked through the week thinking I was going to be staying in Wintersheim for the weekend, but on Wednesday evening Heiko asked if I wanted to come. I figured it would be a good (cheap) way to see the country. I had no idea what to expect. Heiko and I loaded up the Mercedes Sprinter with loads of wine and a trailer with a fair-like stall. When we got there, two of Heiko's cousins came and helped to construct the stall and get things ready for the festival, which was Friday and Saturday. The crowd was not of the younger type and I was surprised at how busy things were.
The stall:

The festival:

The weather here in Leer is much like Seattle. In fact today was the first day that it hasn't rained (yet). I was comfortable in a hoodie and jeans, although some were comfortable in work overalls, a t-shirt, and Birkenstock's:

Until next time,
Jon

Just a short update

2008-08-14T18:31:00.003+02:00

Just thought I'd update you on my condition. The pills have started to work and I have been able to sleep through the night for a few nights in a row. I have been taking yeast pills to promote growth of bacteria in my intestines and silicon oxide pills, which taste like chalk.

Also, here some pictures. I've also added pictures to the previous entry, so scroll down to see more!

The dog's name is Riesling:

This is the courtyard. I live in the building on the right, third floor.

The views of the courtyard are from the entrance. The boxing/labeling room is on the left.

This is a big, old tower, where there is a bed and breakfast. It's not old inside.

I try to be artsy sometimes.

'Free Flowing' Possibilities

2008-08-11T22:04:00.006+02:00

It all began in the Toronto Airport, at the Martinair check-in. I believe I was the second trainee in line and behind me were about five more. The son of one of the Dutch committee members had met us there and so our journey began. The flight was uneventful for the most part; I was sitting in my least favorite seat, which is the center seat. Upon landing at Amsterdam-Schipol Airport, clearing customs and getting our luggage, we were met by the leader of Intermenno, Johannes van der Meer:

We were then taken by bus to Mennorode, an absolutely gigantic place that none of us were expecting, especially in the middle of a huge forest in the Netherlands.

For those of you who don’t know, since June I have had an ongoing battle with what can best be described in as little detail as possible as Traveler’s Stomach. It’s not fun. Somehow I made it through all the flights unscathed. My roommate, Bryce from Bethel, somehow slept through all the times I awoke in the night. Nice guy.

Anyway, while at Mennorode, we had sessions as an entire group as well as split up as Dutch and German/Swiss trainees. We did most everything together and I can say that even though we had been together there for only three days, I have already made life-long friends from both the US and Canada. For the three days, we had language, culture, and traveling sessions. For some (not me) the traveling sessions were too much and many questions were asked while a lot of people sighed in disbelief. Much bonding was had though.

The first full day, I brought my condition to the attention of some of the committee members. I, however, was not the first casualty of the weekend as a certain individual felt a high amount of exhaustion. For a while, they believed that he had appendicitis, but after some sleep he was all right. Then it was my turn. This summer I had a knack for visiting doctors in such odd places as South Dakota. The Netherlands can be added to that list, and as of a few hours ago, so can Germany. The doctor in Holland listened to what I had to say and prescribed to me the very same thing I had already been taking, which wasn’t helping. Strike one. During this time, the committee members were always asking if I was improving, which I thought was good to hear even though my condition wasn’t improving.

On the night before we left for our placements, they had a coffeehouse where trainees shared their talents. I participated twice, both with my ukulele. First, Audra and I sang Beautiful Dawn by The Wailin’ Jennys. I think it went really well. Then Bryce and I played a song from A Mighty Wind. It didn’t go very well but it was fun nonetheless.

On Saturday, the time had come for us to board a train and head to our placements, mine being on the vineyard in Wintersheim. Aside from the many, many questions from the young first time travelers, this train ride was uneventful for me, much like the flight over. I was met in Alsheim by Heike and Daniel, age three.

Though I have no idea what Daniel is saying, he is the cutest and brightest little guy to be living with for six months. When we got to the house, I met the rest of the family, father Heiko, oldest son Lukas, and middle daughter Pauline. In my next post, I’ll show pictures of the house and surrounding area.

Today was my first day on the job. First, I watered the many potted plants spread throughout the courtyard. That took about an hour. Then Heiko showed me how to box the wine and I did that before lunch. After lunch, he showed me how to wash the wine bottles to get the dust off so labels will stick better. There will be a video of that process sometime.

I was told by Johannes that I need to see a doctor on Monday when I get to my placement. So I did today. I got a rather, umm… “thorough” examination by the doctor. Apparently that meant he could easily determine what medicine he needed to prescribe. Who knew? I now have two containers of medicine that I am taking. I haven’t been taking them long enough to see any results, but I hope I can finally have a restful night.

I feel like I’ve written enough. Guten nacht.
Jon

In the Air, Leaving, Arriving, Address

2008-07-28T23:10:00.003+02:00

About 5 minutes west of our house on the highway out to Pleasantview is a grass field. The grass field normally plays host to powered parachutes and RC planes. One person who flies out there regularly goes to our church. So yesterday, I finally had the inkling to ask about the possibility of a ride before I leave for my time in Germany. So the time was set later in the afternoon to get out there at 6 pm. After preflight and starting, we were off! When I got down from my ride, Mom got to go up!

Here are a couple of movies of the fun we had:

Today is my last full day in the state of Kansas. Bright and early tomorrow morning at 5:30 am, Mom, Dad and I are leaving to go to Indiana and visit Jessica's family. She has been in Nicaragua since early May fulfilling her SST requirements for Goshen. Mom and Dad will stay for a few days and say goodbye to me on Friday and come back to Kansas. I then depart from South Bend on Tuesday morning, the 5th, with a stop in Chicago to meet up with the other trainees in Toronto, where we board a Martinair flight for Amsterdam. Outside of Amsterdam in Elspeet, we have three days of orientation at a Mennonite conference center and then on the 8th we are sent to our placements.

I will enjoy getting mail from anybody. My address in Wintersheim is:
Jon Huber
Haupt. 11
67587 Wintersheim
GERMANY

I will write you if you send me a letter!

Uncle Wally's Birthday and "Vacation"

2008-06-25T22:45:00.005+02:00

Today is Uncle Wally's Birthday. We're also on vacation in Hot Springs, AR. Check out this video, taken at Bill Clinton's Favorite BBQ joint in his boyhood town.

And a partial family picture:

And I'll update this with some more videos, taken earlier tonight.

-Jon

And now for some recent and big news...

2008-06-03T03:02:00.003+02:00

For those of you religiously watching this blog, awaiting any update about anything, aviation or Intermenno related, I apologize. This blog hasn't been at the priority of my list. Perhaps that will change as the summer wears on. Anyway, I'll go in semi-chronological order.

On Wednesday last week, I went in for my aviation medical examination. I hadn't had this exam since 2005, so it had come time to renew. The exam covers everything from eyesight and hearing to past visits to the doctor. The biggest that happened was that my eyesight improved from 20/15 (better than perfect) to 20/12.5 (even better than 20/15). I emerged with a new Second Class Medical that doesn't expire until June 30, 2011.

That brings me to Friday of that week. I flew the Piper PA-30 over to Great Bend for my multi-engine checkride. While the flight instructor (who is required by insurance to accompany every flight) waited around the FBO, I was grilled on easy and semi-hard questions for about an hour. At the very beginning of the oral exam, he asked me to work a weight and balance for the airplane. I frantically searched through 'my' Pilots Operating Handbook (POH), not finding the W&B section. My POH has certain sections copied out of the actual POH. So I went out to the airplane, but it wasn't in any place that I looked. A POH specific to the airplane is required by the Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) to be in the airplane. The examiner came back and I told him the predicament. He wanted to speak to my flight instructor (not the one who accompanied me). So I called him up and first told him about the ongoing ordeal. He then asked if I had looked underneath the front right seat. I didn't know there was a place under there so I hadn't looked. Fortunately it was there and I emerged from that unscathed, ready for any question he had. Then we flew the plane, and aside from one of the engines not wanting to start on the ground or the other engine not wanting to re-start in the air, it was pretty painless. Both engines, by the way, decided to start. On the ground, I proudly awaited the return of the examiner, who hasn't technologically evolved as other examiners have, with my typewriter typed new Airplane Multi-Engine Land Commercial License!

Updated Flight Info:
Total Time - 216.3
Total Landings - 4__
Last instrument approach: ILS 35 @ GBD, single-engine

That brings me to today. In the mail, with a sticker that said "LUFTPOST," was an envelope from the German/Swiss Intermenno Committees. Today was the day that I had been anxiously awaiting. I knew my first half placement would be on one of the papers inside that envelope. Would I be placed on a farm shoveling the fecal matter of pigs or would I be placed where I had hoped: somewhere, within a train ride or two of Tim, Heidi, and Gustav, on a vineyard? So I opened up the envelope and read the contents. Here's the placement information for me:

Hosts: Heike und Heiko Dettweiler
Place: Wintersheim, Germany
Work: Together, they own a grape farm and keep horses. On the weekends they have a bed and breakfast. Your responsibilities will involve helping in the vineyards, on the yard, label wine, wash empty wine bottles, fill new ones, some childcare with the youngest child and household chores. If you know how to drive stick, it will be helpful.

The Dettweilers have three children. Lukas, 13. Pauline, 9. Daniel, 4.

Here's a map of where I'll be, in relation to both Phillip and Tim, Heidi, and Gustav:
Phil and his family are from Rudesheim (the 'C' marker). Tim, Heidi and Gustav live in Bammental (the 'B' marker). Wintersheim is the 'A' marker.

View Larger Map

So, I look forward to being able to travel all over. I am relatively close to Luxembourg and, unfortunately, the stinky neighbor of France. Hopefully a wind from the east prevails. So, if you're planning a trip to go see Tim, Heidi and Gustav, think about stopping by to see me!

Single-engine x 2 = Multi-Engine

2008-03-15T20:41:00.007+01:00

Training for me has resumed in the PA-30. The only blank column that was in my logbook is blank no more, as time as started to accrue in the multi column.

It's a very fun plane to fly. I attribute this to a few things:
1) It has two engines.
2) The instructor isn't bored sitting there watching me practice things. He can broaden my knowledge even further.
3) It has two engines.

Because it has two engines, that means that twice as many things can go wrong but it also means if an engine quits, you don't have to reserve yourself to an unscheduled off-airport landing. On take off, there's a cockpit brief that is said before taking the runway for departure. It goes like this:
1) Lose an engine on takeoff run, throttle back and abort takeoff.
2) Lose an engine on takeoff with gear down, throttle back and land straight ahead.
3) Lose an engine on takeoff after gear up, ball centered (coordinated airplane), airspeed blue line (best single-engine climb speed), mixture-prop-throttle controls forward, identify, verify and feather the dead engine.

Sounds complicated? That's why we practice.

Here are some pictures from a recent flight. On this particular flight, all we did was stay in the traffic pattern and practice flying the plane if an engine were to fail at different points in the pattern.

Preflighting:

Being cool:

Soon after takeoff. Notice this plane is a low-wing rather than the Cessna high-wing:

On final for runway 35 at Newton:

Until next time...

A new journey

2008-03-05T02:00:00.004+01:00

At 4:27, as I was debating going out to the lounge and getting my usual fill of Jeopardy! or staying in my room and waiting for something to pop up on my screen to read that would keep me from doing homework, an email popped up. This wasn't the usual Facebook notice or aviation scheduler reminder, but a message from the Intermenno Trainee Program with the subject of "Intermenno acceptance."

Much to my happiness, it was indeed an email telling me that I had been accepted. So, I'll be leaving sometime before August 5 from the Kansas area. August 5 is when we leave Toronto for Amsterdam. I do not know where my placement is quite yet but I'm assuming I'll find out when my deposit gets sent in and I accept the acceptance invitation (kind of redundant).

In aviation news, I resume my multi-engine training tomorrow, pending whether the wind and flurries hold off. Hopefully by the end of March I'll be an IR AMEL CPL (Instrument-Rated Airplane Multi-Engine Land Commercial Pilot [License]). I'll add some pics after tomorrow's flight.

Have a plane? Need me to fly you somewhere?

2008-02-28T18:00:00.003+01:00

You can pay me.

As we taxied back after the flight yesterday, the examiner told me, "Good job."

Yesterday I passed my Commercial Checkride with great ease.

-Jon

Half-way there...

2008-02-26T01:15:00.004+01:00

It's a good feeling when you go to a checkride and ten minutes into the oral part of it, you haven't been stumped yet. I guess that's what happens when you spend the three days leading up to the examination date doing nothing but read the Oral Exam Guide, FAR/AIM, and the airplane's Operating Handbook.

I rose early this morning at 6:30 and double-checked the weather forecast I saw last night, and what do you know, nothing had changed. A seemingly wonderfully calm and sunny day turned into a late February day. I shaved off my beard and made my way out to the airport to finish up last-minute paperwork and get required information into the computer. The proper endorsement was in my logbook. I called the examiner and he said he'd been expecting my call. With the winds and skies forecast the way they were, the flying portion of the checkride was moved to a later date but I would still go up and do the oral part.

I still had to get through two classes. To be honest, I heard nothing the instructor said. Sure, I contributed to the discussion, but my mind was in aviation mode running through mnemonic devices used for recalling such information as required documents on-board the aircraft (AROW) and required instruments for VFR-day flight (TOMATO FLAMES).

Both classes finally passed and I was back in my room to put on my dress shirt, pants and tie. After all, you must be act and look professional if you want to succeed. Then I was off to get lunch and out to the airport to eat said lunch while I got my weather briefing and put finishing touches onto the flight plan (Salina-St. Louis).

While I was driving to Salina, I had one eye on the road and one eye on my FAR/AIM, as I was going over the equipment requirements one last time. I arrived right on time and walked into Bill's office. Bill is a tall man. Sometimes he's a bit crass, but he what do you expect with someone who wears cowboy boots? He's the chief pilot for the KState aviation program. That means he flies coaches and the board of director's around in the college's Citation when he's not making Private Pilot applicants shiver in their socks.

The secret to a checkride with Bill is to get him to talk about one of three things:
1) His kid who owns a dentistry in Salina.
2) His grandkids.
3) Anything to do with KState. It could mean talking about the aircraft he flies, football, basketball, or anything.
I selected option number three this time around, having exhausted the dentistry subject last time. First, we chatted about TFRs, which are temporary flight restrictions. When I mentioned that they're associated with presidential visits and large gatherings like the Super Bowl, he cut me off and said that NCAA D1 football games also have TFRs. Seeing my chance, I asked him how many doofus' flew above Manhatten on game day. "Many," was his reply and he then talked about one of my favorite subjects, "asshats," as he put it, from Oklahoma. Common ground!

One area we didn't touch in the exam was weather. While I feel competent in my weather knowledge, I didn't take the time to study this subject very hard. I mainly focused on things relating to my flight plan to St. Louis. I also studied hard about the systems in the aircraft: landing gear, hydraulic, and propeller to name a few.

Suddenly we started talking about Wednesday and what time to meet. It was over! Well, half over. I fly up on Wednesday to complete the checkride. Another entry will be written after that adventure.

-Jon

Checkride on Monday

2008-02-24T01:57:00.003+01:00

So, after more than 9 mos. of no posts on here, I figure I'll update it.

The checkride adventure first started way back in December. I had everything scheduled out and much to my disappointment, weather didn't cooperate. Weather also didn't cooperate for me leaving on a trip to Germany with Jessica on time. After I got back from Germany, things were busy at home with family visiting and making up for me not being at home over Christmas.

Then there were many attempts between the end of December and February, but those were also cancelled for reasons such as bad weather or plane maintenance issues. The plane, a complex aircraft (constant-speed prop, flaps, retractable landing gear), is the only plane that I'm able to take on the checkride. It's hard to take a test when the piece of equipment you need is gone for a month getting a new engine. Perhaps that's for the best though.

Anywho, the seventh rescheduled checkride is now due for Monday at 1. Forecasts call for partly sunny, with a high near 55. Breezy, with a south southwest wind 20 to 29 mph becoming north northwest. Winds could gust as high as 40 mph. I should be able to perform most of the maneuvers in the wind except for eights on pylons and an emergency spiraling descent. If anything, I'll be able to go up and at least get the oral portion of the practical test out of the way and just have the flying (easy) part of the test to do at a later date.

So, it's a big week. Checkride on Monday and a birthday on Thursday. Also, it's Goshen's Spring Break week. I was told by Jess not to expect her presence here with other Goshenites. I only partly believe her on this. Last October, I convinced her that I couldn't get off work, but came up with others and called her room at 4 am when we arrived and surprised her. Part of me is thinking I'll be the surprised one this time. I guess tomorrow evening will give me the answer.

No pics this time. Perhaps when I'm not studying for a checkride, I'll make a blog chronicling the trip to Germany.

-Jon

Current flight status:
Total Flight Hours - 200.6
Total landings - 384
Total PIC - 148.3
Total ME - 0.8
Last instrument approach - ILS 17 @ KEWK

Pilot or gourmet chef?

2007-06-15T05:05:00.000+02:00

Two things have kept me from flying in the past week: the rainy weather and planes in maintainance. The weather has been quite rainy here which doesn't get me the kind of weather I need to do my flights. One night that I was going to fly, I got a call before I went out to the airport that the plane I was going to be using had a mechanical failure. The ailerons stopped responding in the middle of a flight. The plane is the only one that Hesston has of its kind so I wasn't able to fly in a different plane.

The greater amount of time I've been spending here at the apartment has been hungrily acceptable to friends who drop by. Because of the rainy weather I've been able to broaden my cooking experience. Thanks to Mom, we had our first Crock Pot dinner of many.

I started out by putting the pot roast into the Crock Pot. I then chopped some celery, onions and some baby carrots and added those ingredients to the mix. After that I added four medium sized potatoes. I used two seasonings: my trusty cajun and Montreal Steak Seasoning. I filled it with water and put it in the fridge. This morning after I ate my breakfast, I simply put the Pot into the Crock and turned it on low. I started it at 7 am. When I came home for lunch there was a wonderful smell. I got off work at 3:30 and checked it, but still let it slowly cook. By the time I took it out at 5:30, it was the most tender piece of meat...the knife was almost useless! Too bad the following pictures don't have Smell-O-Vision...

Some pictures from the past 20 mos.

2007-06-09T01:49:00.000+02:00

Well, here is where you'll be able to see my life in aviation take off...as it has since I began learning how to fly in August 2005. I'll try to keep this updated once or twice a week as I fly with my camera and let you see what I get to see almost every day.

I'll also try to keep my logbook information updated on here. So here's what I have so far...
Number of instrument approaches: 84
Most recent instrument approach: Localizer Backcourse 31 @ KHUT
Number of landings: 302
Day Flight Hours: 157.3
Night Flight Hours: 8.6
Pilot-In-Command Hours: 116.9
Total Flight Hours: 167.0

January 7, 2006 - KEWK (Newton) to KHUT (Hutchinson)

Pulling into the tiedown spot at KHUT.

The Alps after departing Zurich en route to Dulles Int'l Airport after a month in Europe with the Hesston College European Chorale.

Maybe someday? The advanced cockpit of the Boeing 777, getting ready for push-back from the gate at Dulles.

Giving Nana the tour of the Hesston College Aviation Hanger.

Flying amongst the clouds on July 28, 2006 during an instrument training flight - KEWK - KSLN (Salina) - KGBD (Great Bend) - KEWK.

On final for runway 17 at Newton.

Flying above home, dad took this.

Taking off after refueling at KLBL (Liberal). We were en route to Raton, NM, for mountain flying. Because of construction, only one taxiway was open to get to this runway. With the wind the way it was, about seven planes taxied along with us and awaited their turn for takeoff...we were first in line.

Flying in a valley on our way from Raton, NM, to the ski-resort of Angelfire.

Just a cool picture...still mountain flying.

Yep, that's me.

Thanks to the Wright Bros. for putting us where we're at in the aviation world. The Wright Flyer at the National Air and Space Museum.

3O9 (Grand Lake Regional Airport, OK). I flew right seat with Grant Baker on a cross-country flight.

Boeing 737 full-motion simulator at Continental Pilot's Training Center in Houston.

The most recent picture of me in an airplane.

Absolutely gorgeous.

Hope you enjoyed it, there'll be more to come.

2006-07-07T06:14:00.000+02:00

Ok, so I created this blog to comment on Tim and Heidi's blog.
timandheidi.blogspot.com

Go there, you may learn something!