Being Culture-ified

Europe is a fascinating place to live.

Yeah, yeah, I’ve been here for 5 days.  Whatever.  I can still claim that its fascinating.

During our orientation, we heard a talk from Eduard Habsburg (yes, of the Habsburg family… he’s incredibly far down the “royal line”, he told us).  It was a very good talk about the faith in Europe, how it’s increased and decreased over the years.  To have so much history packed into a continent is beyond the understanding of many Americans- for example, the Nativity set in the Gaming Church is older than the country of America.  Woah!!  That’s crazy!  

I’m not a huge fan of history (don’t kill me…) but I do find it interesting to learn about culture, and therefore I’m a fan of Cultural European History.  (I really have no idea why I capitalized that… maybe somewhere it’s a course of study or something.  I’m sure it is, somewhere.)  So Melk was really cool for me, because we saw really old wood floors and architecture and a Baroque Church.

Being here in Gaming is also a lesson in culture- today, I had professors with British, Columbian, and Scottish accents, the priest at Mass was German, and today I emailed a woman from Hungary (she’s the wife of my Columbian professor) as well as an American religious sister.  The children of my professors are tri-, quattro- and cinquelingual.  Oh, and the cinquelingual one?  He’s 5, almost 6.  I’m barely-not-even bilingual and I’ve got 13+ years on him!

There’s an awesome opportunity here called Ministry to Moms.  We’ve got it on main campus too, but its definitely different in Gaming.  Basically, we (the students) volunteer to help the professors wives, some of whom are professors themselves, with homeschooling, babysitting, and just playing with their kids.  It gives them a chance to have role models and people to hang out with in the students and gives us an opportunity to be with families while we’re away from home.

I will be meeting with a family next week to see if I can help them out!  I would be watching their 2-year old daughter while the Mom helps in the office.  I really hope it works out…. no one can replace my nieces and nephews, but it would be nice to have kids to play with between now and May!!

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Today was the first day of classes; They’re all so good!  I’m taking Sacraments, Theology of the Church, Christian Moral Principles, Philosophy of the Human Person, and Christian Marriage, as well as auditing Aesthetics.  (Today I had Sacraments, Church, and Aesthetics.  Deep. Beautiful. Amazing. aahhhh.)

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On another mostly unrelated note, I was told today by a guy here that he was accepted to the Northern Crossroads walk for this summer!!!!  Yay!  I’m so happy for him!

Please, start praying for the 2013 walks now!  They will need all the help you can give =)

And speaking of Crossroads, I’m off to chat with my team!  The beauty of technology….