Highlights of my European Christmas Vacation

Favorites/Best:
Free thing-sauna’s and huge bathtub in Finland and Sweden
Place stayed-Rothenburg hotel because it had a tub and I relaxed in it for 2 hours! Also because the bed and bedding here was amazing!! I slept so well!
View-the mountains during our drive to Austria, then to Fussen
Meal-chicken sandwich of some sort in a café in Stockholm
Dessert-dessert platter in Munich, included apple strudel, caramel ice cream, and cinnamon filled puff balls
Most authentic meal-bratwurst and sauerkraut in Rothenburg, Germany
Best purchase-wool mittens in Finland, they kept my fingers from freezing and my hat from Stockholm which helped my ears and head to stay warm
Coolest person met-Raja from Geinburg Suites, the hotel we stayed at in the middle of nowhere Austria.
Most touristy thing we did-Sound of Music bus tour in Salzburg, Austria
Best short flight-Helsinki to Stockholm (a 45 minute flight and they gave us a drink a little sandwich that was really good)
Best long flight-Frankfurt to Madrid, I flew with Lan air, which I thought would be a smaller plane without food. But they surprised me, I flew on a nice sized plane, got a meal, and had a video screen in front of me. I could choose from movies, tv shows or music. I decided to watch the E! True Hollywood story on Charlize Theron, I think she is one of the most beautiful people in Hollywood and I learned that she took Flamenco dance classes when she was a teen. After that, I watched some tv shows. And this flight was great because I was on my way home after a long, chilly vacation. I was ready to stop living out of a suitcase.

Worst/Least Favorites:
Moment-driving to Frankfurt, missing our exit to downtown Frankfurt then having to drive about 30 more minutes before finally turning around, then not finding the correct roads to our hostel for a while, and going into the hostel and our room smelling smokey

Did the most walking-we walked soo much everyday, but I think Christmas day in Helsinki, Finland we walked for 4 hours straight. Thank God for one coffee shop being open near the harbor.

Felt independent once again while I drove on the open highways of Germany!

Most expensive meal (that I didn’t have to pay for)-Christmas eve dinner, we had various types of salmon along with two types of caviar! And I ate caviar for the first and probably last time in my life (it was good because they put it on toast with some sort of sour cream and onions, so I didn’t even taste the caviar). In the airport I saw little jars of caviar for quite an expensive amount (between 100 and 400 euros!!)

What I would’ve liked to purchase-most of the home décor and dinnerware in all of the Finnish and Swedish stores. They have some great designers!! But it was all way too expensive and I didn’t need it.

Fly For Good!

www.flyforgood.com

Wow, AFC Travel (who I have used many times for purchasing my plane tickets to go on missions trips and come to Spain) continues to come up with amazing ideas and ways to allow others to serve the world for less cost! Fly for Good is their newest program, which is focused on "Voluntourism," a fast growing industry that ties together being a tourist, but also giving back and getting involved in the community you vacation in! This is so cool! How come I didn't come up with that idea?!

In other news: we have a new president. May God guide President Obama and his administration through this difficult times. And, I made the last step in getting Spanish residency today by going to the police station to get my fingerprints taken. In 40 days or so, I will have my official card! 

2 Years!

Today is the 2 year anniversary of the day that the Lord gave me the sign I asked him for about what to do with my life. At the Chi Alpha SALT conference in Rochester two years ago, I talked with  missionary John Koeshall at a seminar. He gave me a missionary card of John Merrell, the director of IMM at the time, and said the Lord told him to keep it because he would be giving it to someone in Rochester who would be going to IMM! That person was me! I am so thankful and blessed for this confirmation in my life! I asked God to give me a "really clear sign" and He did! I think it's very cool how the Lord uses various people in our lives, whether almost strangers, friends or family, to speak to us.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asked receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." Matthew 7:7-8 NIV

Of course, we also need to remember to ask for His will to be done in our lives, not what we want. He knows much better than we do, even if it's difficult for us to see how any other way than what we want is better for us.  I'm thankful today that I serve a Lord who is gracious and loving and wants us to talk to him in all circumstances in life, not just when we are down and need help.  

The last 2 years have been challenging, exciting, faith building and very busy. Now, I've been working at IMM and living in "Little America," Spain for 5 1/2 months. The last 5 months have gone by SO fast. In just 2 weeks, my time here will be one fourth over, with only 18 months left! That is so crazy to me. I'm happy that they request I come for 2 years instead of a one year commitment, which I originally thought about. More about what I've learned and other things on my 6 month blog.

Video and more photos

First, check out this video by clicking on the link http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=6504959

this is what Christmas (and every day of our lives) should be all about. It is a video about how we all can make a huge difference by giving through charity's like World Vision. This talks about their gift catalog, which I have purchased some items from because it is the gift that keeps on giving.

Also, I uploaded 2 more photo albums from my recent travels, see the links to the right.

Links to photos

There are 3 new links for photos of my trip (on the upper, right of blog). I still have a couple of albums to upload, but so far Christmas in Finland, Weekend in Sweden, and Munich/Austria New Year's pictures are ready for you to view! These are just a sampling of my images...I took over 1000 pictures! Enjoy!

Christmas Eve in Finland!

In the morning, Christina and I went into Helsinki (the capital of Finland) for a couple of hours to walk around and see if any markets were open. Some were, and I made one of the best purchases of my trip—wool mittens! Those mittens kept my little fingers from freezing! After that, we went to the aunt and uncles house (of the kids Christina nanny’s for) for some traditional Christmas Eve porridge! The tradition is, whoever gets the almond in their bowl of porridge will supposedly get married next! Christina and I were both hoping for the special almond, but we didn’t have luck. It ended up being in one of the boys’ bowls. Oh well, better luck next year. After lunch, the kids and some of the adults had a sing off on their Wii to the soundtrack of "Mama Mia." The girls were really good. I was tone deaf! The Lord did not bless me with the gift of singing...oh well, I take great pictures! Here's the porridge. 

Here is a small taste of my Swedish/Finnish Christmas Eve celebration. I wanted to upload more photos but I'm having issues and it's taking so long. I will just upload some of them to my Picassa Album, it's so much easier.

Here are the kids singing the Lucia Christmas song. Traditional Swedish!

Santa even came to hand out gifts.

Me with baby Amanda. She is a darling! It was good to get a little bit of being with kids since I don't get that here and I miss my nephew and nieces! 

Christina y yo.

Our Christmas Eve dinner, course 1: seafood. salmon. caviar-yep, I ate caviar! It was actually not bad because they eat it on toast mixed with onions and sour cream. I will probably never eat like that again, because I saw the price of caviar on the airport and it ranged from 100 to 400 euros! I know airports are over priced, but wow!! That's a lot of hard earned money!

Dinner, round 2 was ham with about 5 different sides like sweet potatoes, veggie casserole thing, potatoes with anchovies, etc.  Round 3 was my favorite: cookies and dessert! That's all for this blog. I think I just need to work on getting a whole Christmas photo album put together, uploading them separately is time consuming and annoying after a while. Thanks to my Swedish friends (and Christina) for the great Christmas! I will always remember my Swedish Christmas in 2008!

Snow in Spain!!

I thought the only "winter" I would get while living in Spain was during my recent Christmas vacation to Germany and other countries (and there wasn't even much snow in the places I traveled to, only in Bavaria, Germany). However, Friday morning I woke up and opened up the persianas (shades over the windows and doors) and to my surprise saw that it was SNOWING!! I could not believe it! This never happens (so I've heard). At least it never snowed so much that it stayed. I wanted to and still want to go play in the snow since this may be my only chance to, but was not feeling well this weekend. And, I don't really have any playmates because Vino and Erin didn't want to go sledding with me (if I had a sled to go sledding, that would also be nice!) Plus, Friday afternoon, Vino hurt his ankle while walking to the store, so now he's gimpy and can't do anything! 

I guess it was an okay weekend to be ill at home, sleeping and watching movies. The buses didn't come up the hill (to the little town I live in) Friday and I don't know about today, so I couldn't go anywhere if I wanted to. Watching it snow reminded me of being back home, in MN during winter. How nice. But I still enjoy the a lot warmer than MN weather here!

Christmas letters!!

Yeah! IMM just got a big pile of mail, and in it were 8 letters for me!! 7 Christmas greetings from friends and 1 letter about tax preparation...it's about that time again. Well, thank you to those who put a little extra postage on the letters to send me some friendly greetings! I love hearing about your lives and seeing pictures!