I love talking.

Spring is here. The days are sunny, warm-ish, and the birds are singing. Tagging along with the arrival of Spring is the Easter Break. I'm fortunate enough to be studying in Austria right now, where the Easter holiday is much different than in the US. I mean, maybe the holiday isn't much different, but we get a break from school. Not just any break. It's nothing like Spring Break. It's two weeks; much better. My break started two days ago after my Thursday morning Linguistics course, and since then, I've had nothing to do except move to a new room in a new building. Let me tell you, there are no dorms at UNI as nice as the dorm I just moved into here. It's very high-tech, like I'm living with the Jetson's or something.

Other than moving, I've spent a lot of my time with friends. Today, we sat outside together, enjoying the beautiful weather and a couple cups of coffee. I was sitting at a table with a girl from Austria and a boy from Portugal when a very common theme found it's way to our conversation: languages. I say this is a very common theme because it is a topic that comes up in nearly every conversation; reason being, we are all from different countries with different languages. Conversations at one table at one time can be in English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and so on, therefore, it's a common theme. We are always comparing our own languages to the other languages we know, and our own abilities to speak each of them. We talk about the differences between American English and British English, German and Dutch, Spanish and Italian, so on and so forth. In short, the conversation is always interesting because it's comparing not only languages but cultures and people, and in the end, we all agree that the most important aspect of any language is simply communication. It doesn't matter how great or poor you speak a language, rather, what's important is communication.

This is the answer that we come to time and time again. I love the topic, though, because it proves to me that somewhere inside all of us is a commonality. No matter how different we are, no matter where we come from, what we study, what we speak, or anything else, there is a commonality. That commonality manifests itself in these conversations.

Let me tell you, since I've been in Europe, I can't tell you how many people have told me that I'm not like the Americans they see in the movies or on television. Every time I talk to people, stereotypes that were created by music, television, films, and newspapers are broken. It's not just for me, either. In the same conversations as the language ones, people are saying, "Wow, you really aren't like the Italians I've heard about from my friends" or "You know, I always thought Germans were a lot meaner, but you seem to be different." Through communication, prejudices and false ideas seem to be tossed aside and replaced by truth. It's amazing how many ideas we have built up in our heads about people who are different than us just because of what we see in the media, or what our family and friends tell us. If your cousin told you that he met an Austrian one time who was the ugliest person he had ever seen, it wouldn't make sense to believe that the ugliest people in the world all congregated in Austria hundreds of years ago in order keep the ugly gene in their gene pool. That's not how it works, people are individuals and it is impossible to define a single person from a potentially far off idea you heard somewhere. How many people are there in the world with the potential to change your life, or you there's, because of an idea you have stuck in your head?

Take this down to an even smaller step. A couple weeks ago, I met a guy from Germany. The first question he asked me was where I was from. I answered, "America." He proceeded to tell me that wasn't possible because America is a continent, not a country. I figured that he was a jerk, so I turned around and stopped talking to him. Three days ago, I went to the kitchen to ask for help with a German grammar exercise. I asked a friend of mine who was in the kitchen, but when she didn't know the answer, it came from someone else in the room. The guy, who I had previously written off for a jerk, helped me with my homework, and showed me that he could not be defined by one line in one conversation. My earlier idea of him and who he was, restricted our current friendship from being several weeks older than it is now.

How many other people in my life have I written off because of something they said or did to me once? How many people have you stopped talking to because of one particular incident, or something one of your friends told you about them? I think it's a shame that we could go so long, even our entire lives, with thoughts about people that are entirely false just because of our refusal to seek the actual truth about them. It sucks to think that we could go so long missing something so good as a friendship because of a stupid idea that turns out to be false.

That thought scares me because I wonder the same thing about God. How many times has He been falsely represented by people? How many people are turned away completely from the only Person who knows anything because of something they heard or saw that isn't actually True? Think about it. How many people do you see on TV or in the news saying that they are doing something in God's name, but turn out to only be acting in the name of themselves? It's scary to think. Millions of people are turned away from eternal salvation because of prejudices and lies. People are not only turned away from Christ by the falsehoods, but they start to spread the lies themselves when they see people in city squares or college campuses preaching condemnation in the name of their savior. How many people are being saved by people showing signs saying Jesus hates gays, liberals, fornicators, liars, and so on? I would bet the answer is slim to none. I've seen those signs, and I've heard people preaching from benches saying that we all need to repent for our sins. But why not talk about forgiveness? Why not tell people about the compassion of Jesus? I think it would be so much better. Think of how many people would be brought closer rather than pushed away.

As always, I hope that this makes sense to you. I write in every blog that these are just my ideas, and that I hope you think in your own way, not mine. I am filled with prejudices, just like most of you, but I am trying to let them go. I want to give everybody a chance, and I want to make sure I'm not spreading lies like the ones I've written about. The most important thing, though, in not spreading lies, is knowing the Truth. We can't help people if we don't know that first. Try to point people in the right direction this upcoming week. Rather than telling them the negative things you just heard from your friend, tell them about something positive. We have to stay positive. We have to stop spreading lies. It's the only way for the Truth to be known.

Heimwehlos...oder?

This week was a very busy week. My friend Danny came last Saturday. Throughout the week, I tried to show him Klagenfurt's finest: the city center, lake, mountains, and all of my friends. Every time I introduced him to new people, they asked him how long he'd be staying in Europe. He'd answer, "One week." Their next question was where he was going to visit next, and when he answered, every person was shocked. Everybody was amazed that he was coming to Europe for only one week, and that he'd only be visiting Klagenfurt. Maybe they didn't understand that we are very good friends. After all, how many people can say that they got to Austria for Spring Break? I sent him packing Friday afternoon, and this morning, I received confirmation that he made it home safely.

School, of course, also happened this week. My classes are starting to really kick-off, which I love because it gives me something to do. I find it difficult, however, to study my grammar book or do my exercises for my speaking course because I'd much rather learn from the people I talk to daily. One of my greatest friends here comes from Germany. Talking to him teaches me more than most of the exercises from a grammar book. I like school, though, just not the homework. I think that's ok. (Don't worry Mom, I'm getting all of my work done that needs to be done.)

Not only did I welcome Danny to Klagenfurt this week, I also welcomed Spring. The weather all week was absolutely wonderful. I feel tacky writing about the weather, but it's beauty is worth noting. I enjoyed sitting down with my friends several times in the city center at an outdoor cafe. I tell you what, drinking coffee in the Alps during the beginning of Spring is one of the most relaxing things you can ever experience. That's enough about the weather; it was really nice, and it's getting warmer everyday.

Another important part of the week was sport. Yesterday, I went to an Austrian League soccer game. The local team plays in one of the nicest stadiums in all of Europe, but their play on the field doesn't exactly match the quality of the gigantic UFO-like structure. They are really bad. The last time the team won a game was in September. They are bad. Lucky for us, they won yesterday too. All 2000 of the fans in the stands built for 40,000 people were going nuts. It was actually really exciting, but I think that Cedar Falls High School might be able to give the club a good match. Not only did I get to see my local soccer team win, I also watched UNI take down Kansas in the NCAA tournament. Well, I didn't actually watch them win, rather, I was on a website where the score refreshed every couple seconds. It was, nevertheless, very exciting.

You see, this week was a busy week. More important than sport, weather, visits, school, or anything else that happened this week was an idea that I've had in my head for awhile that continues to concrete itself more and more each day. That idea, one that I've spoken of before, is the idea of home.

What is home?
Where is home?
Is there actually such a thing as home?

I don't know if I have any answers to those questions, but I have opinions. The cliche is that home is where the heart is, but where is the heart? I mean, is home just a house, or a city, or a country, or a person, or a language? I don't think so.

I watched a movie this week called Garden State. You may have seen it. It's good. If you haven't seen it, watch it. In the movie, the main character says, "You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore?...It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist." I think that he has something going there. It's the same thing that Herman Hesse says through the Steppenwolf and Ernesto de la Serna writes about in his diaries.

Maybe home isn't here?

We certainly have houses and communities, families and friends, but I don't think that is actually our home. When I left Cedar Falls, I wrote something in my diary. I wrote, "During take-off, I said goodbye to the country, but I felt more like I was going home than leaving it. Maybe I won't actually find home, but I'll get to search for it...Someday, I will find it, but until then, my only guide is my homesickness."

I don't know if any of this is making sense to you. I guess what I'm trying to say is that no matter how perfect things seem to be in my life at one moment or another, there is always some little thing missing. That's ok, though. That little void in my life is a constant reminder that there is more waiting for me. There is more than just what I eat, touch, see, hear, or smell. This life is more than just this earth. My Home is somewhere else. I forget that too often, but the idea of where my Home brings me back to the truth.

That's a lot of writing about something that may not be interesting to you at all. I just wanted to write about it because it's always in my head. This week is going to be much quieter than last week, I hope. Sometime soon, I'm going to be moving to a new building, which happens to be right next door. There, I'll live without a roommate. I'm excited, but I'm really going to miss the community. I hope you have a great week this week. I also hope that all of you welcome Spring into your city this week. Tschüss.

Mitbewohner

So, it's been awhile. Sorry. Sorry Mom, but, as I've said before, it's really a good thing that I'm not updating this blog. That means that I'm actually doing other things. This past week, school started. Can you believe that? It's the second week of March, and I just started school. Classes were...interesting. I can just say that they are much different than UNI. First, they are in German. Second, you never know exactly what room you're going to be in. Third, everything in general is crazy. Lastly, they are extremely long. I went to several different classes, including the Life of Literature, Lyric Translation, Linguistics, Survey of Austrian Culture, Phonetics, Grammar, and a general speaking class. Some were great. Others were totally boring. Let me tell you, when a course is in another language, you have to really concentrate and pay attention. When a class is very boring, it's very difficult to pay attention. When a class is in another language and is very boring, it's impossible. That's how a couple of my classes went. Another class, Lyric Translation, saw me in my most nervous state I've ever been in. I was the only male student in the class. I was also the only student not in my master's program. I was also the only student from outside of Austria. The point of the class is to pick pieces in a foreign language and translate them back into your own language, namely German. We were all told to introduce ourselves, state our focus of studies, and tell the professor what languages we could translate from. The students ahead of me introduced themselves. They said they could translate from English (of course because everybody speaks English), Slovenian, Italian, French, Spanish, Russian, Polish, pretty much any language you can think of. The thing that made me really nervous was that they all said three or four languages. I was sitting there, alone by the fact that I was a male from a different country who could only halfway speak two languages. So, I was nervous when it was my turn to talk. Luckily, it went ok. The class giggled a little when I said that I was from the US (for some reason that's always funny to people), but I made it. The rest of my classes throughout the week went well. It's going to be a very different semester than any other I've ever had. I'm excited for it, though. More important than the beginning of my classes, was the arrival of a friendly face from Cedar Falls. My former roommate Dan Rieger came to visit me. He flew all the way from Chicago to Austria just to spend time with me over spring break. What a great friend, right? That's what I say. I also say that all of my other so-called friends who decided to save their money by not taking a week out of their schedules to visit me halfway around the world could learn something from Danny, haha. Just kidding. I think it's absolutely great that he came here to visit. It's crazy to hang out with friends in a different country. I don't know what it is about it, it's just surreal. I picked him up from the train station yesterday. We got a local delicacy to eat, then headed over to my friends' dorm to spend the evening with them. This morning, we got up to walk to the city center. The weather was beautiful, so we sat down at an outdoor cafe in the middle of the Neuer Platz. If you google Klagenfurt, you will see pictures of a statue of a dragon. We were sitting right next to that dragon drinking coffee in the warm spring sun. It was really unbelievable because we used to sit at our dirty kitchen table at the corner of 22nd and Walnut drinking coffee together. There's a big difference in location there. After the city center, some friends came over to my dorm. All of us went on a walk to the lake. The sun was shining off the surface of the lake which reflected on our faces. The mountains are still covered in snow, which makes for a proper beautiful picture. The whole day was spent outside, walking in the wonderful weather. I love the mix of my friends from all over Europe with my friend from Cedar Falls. It really is simply surreal. Friendships are truly magical, and I believe the ones I have here, back in Iowa, in Germany, in San Francisco, in Colorado, or wherever else you may be are some of the best imaginable. I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday and let that continue throughout the whole week. Peace.

Fußball

Today was monumental in my European career. I played my first soccer game. Last night, a friend of mine from Germany invited me to play in a soccer league on campus, so today I went to the student rec center and signed up. I had no clue what to expect. So, I went to the rec center again around 8:30 with my friend Linus. We walked around the building aimlessly because we didn't know where to go. Eventually, we found a locker room filled with men the size of giants who looked like they were ready to stop a fire or do something like kill a bear with their bare hands. That means that they were huge, at first glance. Maybe just because it was a really small locker room. We played for a couple hours, and let me tell you, it's almost impossible to think in a foreign language when you're out of shape and kaput. It was a lot of fun, though. I met some nice guys, all of them coming from Germany. We were on a team together. I think that the 15 euro I paid for the league is going to worth it at the end, not only because I get the chance to play, but also because I can see some good friends in the group. Other than learning a couple key words to use on the field, I also learned that I am entirely out of shape. I was dead. Time to stop eating so much chocolate, I guess. Tomorrow is Friday. TGIF.

Sometimes I like Che Guevara

I watched a movie called The Motorcycle Diaries a couple months ago. It's a great movie, very inspiring. The reason I like it is because throughout the entire movie, the main character, Ernesto de la Serna, is dedicated to bringing change to a world that went wrong a long time ago. His biggest passion is to unite all of South America; to create one body. That passion takes him across the entire continent on a motorcycle and later a floating raft with his friend. He meets people who are poor, sick, dying, communist, Catholic, and you can see that he leaves a large impact on each and everyone of them. He's all about starting a revolution to unite everybody.

I went through the whole movie thinking, "Wow, this guy is great. I want to be a revolutionary like him." That is, until the end of the movie. In the end, I, the person who didn't know who Ernesto de la Serna was, found out that the movie is actually the true story of Che Guevara.

Take a couple minutes to read this. It's an article written by a person I don't know about starting a revolution, one that I like a little more than Che's revolution. It comes from a website full of essays written by people like you and me. The writers are just people, and their words are just that, their words, nothing else. It's good to hear what people are thinking, though. That's why you are reading this. Ok, that's enough. Check it out.

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/worldview/features/19693-how-to-start-a-revolution

"A revolution without guns? It would never work." -Ernesto de la Serna

This statement was where Che Guevara went wrong.

I want to ride my bicycle

That's right. I have a bicycle. Today, after a full afternoon of tours through the campus where we've already been studying for 4 weeks, I went with some of my friends to rent bikes. The whole day was spent listening to the history of the campus, hearing why the buildings are called the way they are, listening to welcome information we should've heard 1 month ago, and doing a lot of other silly stuff. After all of that, we decided that we needed bikes. Actually, first, we sat down to have some coffee because the weather was beautiful today. It's been sunny and 50 degrees lately, but I'm afraid the snow is going to come again, soon. So, after coffee, we walked to another part of town where we heard was a legendary/super secret bike shop that rents bikes for only 25 euro. That's pretty cheap for this expensive continent. Turns out, there were only 2 bikes that were that cheap, so only 2 of us got bikes. One of the bikes was too big for the other girl who wanted a bike, so, naturally, I took it with pride. It's a beauty. The gears are a bit dysfunctional, and the colors are awful. There are wheel protectors, a kickstand, headlight and taillight, pump, back wheel rack, and much more. It's fully equipped, and it appears like it's been fully equipped for a number of years now. Maybe something like 20 or 30, but I love it. I can get around so much faster than walking. It's wonderful. I'm off now to go make some dinner with some friends at a dorm on the other side of town. It's only possible because of my new bicycle. I love riding my bicycle, especially in the nice Austrian spring sunshine. This was short, but sweet. Auf wiedersehen!