A Night of Separation

April 15
The pastor and his wife had us over for dinner and we had a wonderful time, with both laughs and deep thoughts. It was a pleasant though not particularly romantic way to celebrate three months of marriage, with a couple that still has a Christ-centered marriage decades later. We were a little surprised that we had to eventually request to be excused around 12:30! I still had to pack for my trip the next day.

April 16
Today was a strange day as it is the first night I've ever spent away from my life. I suppose it was good practice for the week of separation we'll have when we go to the states at different times. I joined some of the guys she works with for a quick ski trip to Austria. It's strange that in the same amount of time it would take me to drive from Midland to Lubbock, I can be in the Alps. Salzburg is a very pleasant town, and is much cleaner than other cities like say Venice. We grabbed some bratwurst and sauerkraut (sp!) and then hiked up to a castle at the top of a steep hill. Being the cheapskates that we are and seeing as how I would be spending quite a bit the next day to ski, we decided not to pay 8 euros to go inside. We saw Mozart's birthplace, again from the outside. Then we made the drive up to Bad Gestein and checked into a bed and breakfast. It was interesting to be somewhere that not everyone spoke English. Most of the time they understood us, but didn't respond. I had my German grammar book with me, but it's too much work! Bad Gastein has a beautiful waterfall in the middle of town and the pizzeria we tested for dinner was superb.

April 17
I love skiing. I don't even know how to describe it, but I love the wind blowing on my face. I love looking at the mountains while I'm on the lift. And I love being able to say I've skied the Alps, though hopefully not for the last time. Ben and I used to recite the passage about all the trees of the field clapping their hands before him while we were on the lift. I've certainly had a number of great ski trips in the past - Copper Mountain with Crestview over Y2K, Santa Fe with FBC Abilene, and Copper again with CBC College Station. They're always so refreshing, though we didn't have praise & worship on this trip.

For those of you worried about me leaving Bree at this point, never fear, for I was scouting out a potential location for our one year anniversary.

Royal Couple

April 9
I got free tickets to a taste of Italy festival - it's a good thing they were free because we were sorely disappointed. I thought everything would be free once you were in the door, but it wasn't.

The bigger news of the day was that yes, Prince Charles got married. We watched the coverage long enough to see them enter the chapel. For all the apathy people claim to have toward the whole affair, it sure is a big deal over here.

We met up with some other couples for dinner.

April 8
24 night! It's so intense and Chloe is so bizarre. We're actually relatively caught up on our chores. We watched the first part of the pope's funeral before heading off to work.

Just a normal week...

April 7
Late night working, but the weekend's close. Two years ago we were standing out at Sul Ross waiting for election results. It's hard to believe! Cheers to all the incredible people who were a part of that team.

April 6
I'm no longer the new guy in the office. Bree's no longer subscribed to Cingular. Last night we had three contacts on Skype at the same time. We talked to Sharon, who had given us shoutouts on her blog http://thesharester.blogspot.com, mentioning that she'd gotten a headset just to talk to us. Blood is thicker than water - some of our friends haven't forked over the dough yet.

April 5
We caught an episode of 24 - the current season. It was almost too intense. Lots of cleaning up and laundry - somehow it seems that you can't ever get ahead on those things. Imagine all the people driving in front of you during rush hour suddenly wedged into your vehicle with you - that's what it's like riding the train if you're not ambitious enough to go to work early. But at least if someone makes you mad, you can extract revenge with a well placed elbow or a misplaced foot. It can be under the cover of annonimity or openly under the ruse of accidentally losing your balance.

April 4
The thing about cafeterias is that no matter how good they are they get old after awhile. I just have to keep reminding myself that I'm saving 4 pounds per day on the free lunch - which is a significant increase to my effective salary over the course of a year.

April 3
Church, a meeting with the pastor, a run in the park ,a good Sunday nap, cleaning house, skype.

April 2
As Bree was at work, I was the only one able to head to Battersea park with the youth group. We had a great picnic and football match. Except the birthday girl (2) made a mess on her mother and it wasn't her drink. And my boss made us some wonderful hamburgers tonight as we awaited the tipoff of the Final Four. Ideally you watch the last two minutes of a basketball game, but at least we saw something.

April 1
They got me pretty good at work, convincing me that a mistake had been found and that we'd have to redo all the work we'd been doing the last two weeks. But hats off to Mark for the best/worse fools joke.