The hourglass, the soft tacos, and the mistake

I think that as my time in Europe is dwindling, the days and evenings I don't ever want to forget are occurring more frequently.  My time abroad always seems to be imbalanced.  The beginning is so open and slow.  I have so much time, but not enough people to fill it with.  Now that I've been lucky enough to have made such wonderful friends here, I'm scrambling to figure out how to spend as much time as I can with them.

My church has been so solid to me here.  Though the group is always shifting a little as people come and go (such is the nature of an international church), I've never felt without people who care about me in the city.

Last Sunday was an evening to rival my birthday (and that's big talk--it's hard to beat a surprise panda party).  Almost all of the YAGgers who are currently in Vienna were able to make it to an evening of Mexican food!  After church, we all headed upstairs to the church apartment to get cooking.  There were so many of us (and such a tiny kitchen area) that most of us just mingled and talked.  There were a couple of guitars laying around, so we even had our ambiance.

We ate delicious soft tacos, and kept the music going until late in the evening.  I was enjoying myself so much that I ended up taking the last train home and arriving to Hollabrunn at the most frigid hour of the night.

Which brings me to some other thoughts.  My dear friends, you can mark your calendars.  Because today, I am telling you that I've made a mistake.  There was a time when I was excited for winter, and said to the weather man, "Bring on the snow!"  But I take it all back now!  I was so, so wrong!  Make it go away!

I had to just stop and laugh at myself the other day.  You see, part of my morning ritual is to go and look at the thermometer after I eat my breakfast.  The last couple weeks, it's usually been between -15 and -7 C (which means 5-19 F).  Well on Monday, the thermometer told me it was 1 degree, and in my head, I actually got excited that it was "warming up!"  Just because the temperature was a positive number.  This Californian is very anxiously awaiting spring.

This is our garden.  I took this picture when I still liked snow.  Now imagine the sky a bright blue and sunshine.  That's what it looked like this morning.  In less than 2 minutes, the sky went dark, gusty winds started howling, and snow/hail started dumping.  Of course this was 10 minutes before I was to go pick up Elena from school.  This is what it looked like:

Not quite as picturesque.  I want the sun back.

And here's one last picture.  It's a peek at one of my February doodle pages in my journal.

Grace and peace,

Hilary