lazy sundays

As I'm preparing myself for this post, wondering what I should write about that might hold your attention, I'm eating chocolate. I'm always eating chocolate. I wrote about that before, but it deserves to be written about again. The chocolate here is so much better than anything you can buy in Hy-Vee or Safeway. Seriously, it's so good here. There is a word is German that is kind of similar to the word addicted in English. It's called süchtig. Our professor sometimes asks us what our süchtig is. Three or four of us say schokoladesüchtig. We are addicted to chocolate. We're trying to get help, but it seems like nobody really cares about our addiction. Everybody just keeps giving us more. For real, everywhere you go, people give you chocolate; especially in class.

I'm sorry I just wrote about that for so long, but I didn't know what else to write about. Now, I think I have an idea. Often, though, my idea of what I should write about at the beginning of my typing is nowhere near what I actually write about. That's because writing is thinking. Writing is a journey into the unknown. I say that a lot. You don't have to believe it, but I think you would discover it for yourself if you tried it.

Ok, so today is Sunday. Austria, as a country, is closed on Sundays. The only thing open in Klagenfurt, other than churches for morning services, is a grocery store on the far side of town that is too far to get to by foot. That means that you have to find something to do outside of going anywhere in the city. In my case, I have to find something to do in my little dorm room. Let me tell you, there aren't a lot of options of things to do in this room. I have my computer, some books, a journal, a bed, and some fruit. Lucky for me, there is also a common room with a television that receives 5 or 6 channels. So what did I do?

I woke up this morning around 8 am in order to shower and eat breakfast before setting off to find a church that I had never seen. All I knew was that it was an evangelical church somewhere near the city center. I also knew that the service started at 9:30, so I gave myself about 45 minutes to get there because I was going to be walking. The walk to the church took almost the whole 45 minutes because I was slowed down a little bit by the snowfall from last night. Like I said before, nobody shovels here. I walked along a bike path next to the land canal that separates part of the town into two portions. It was a nice, cold, snowy walk, but eventually I found the old cathedral. I walked in the large wooden doors, and realized that I was the youngest person in the building by about 30 years. The service was nice, but I didn't understand a thing because of the dialect. I found myself sitting down when everybody was standing up and never knowing which page to turn the hymnal to. It was fun, though, and I was happy to get out of my room. I passed on communion because I get nervous enough when I take communion at an unfamiliar church in America. I never know how I'm supposed to respond to the person handing me the bread. That's in America, this is the southernmost province of Austria. They barely speak German here, and you should know that I was never taught words in my university classes like Savior, worship, peace be with you, and so on. All of this was going through my mind, so I decided just to stay sitting in my back row pew.

After church, I walked home through the snow again and ended up sitting in the TV room. I found Germany's version of American Idol, and it held my entertainment for awhile before I switched to a handball game. I can only watch TV for so long, though, so I headed back up to my room. My roommate disappeared after I left for church, so I had the room to myself. I decided to read one of the few books I brought with: Searching for God Knows What. It's a book by Donald Miller. You should read it. You should read all of his books. They are interesting. He says a lot of great things, and the reason they are great is because many of them are things that have passed through my mind at one point or another. They are simple ideas, usually ones that we look right past, but they are important. So I read, and I snacked (chocolate). Most of my afternoon was spent reading and listening to music. Sundays are so lazy. I guess it's good, though. Remember I wrote about the Sabbath? It's almost like I'm forced to observe the Sabbath every Sunday if I'm going to be in Austria.

Tomorrow, I start my second week of intensive German. We flew through so much information last week. It was all stuff that I had already learned in high school or at UNI, but so much of it had to be dug out of a dusty corner somewhere in my brain. I'm excited to get back into class tomorrow. The weekends are nice to relax, but they seem a little long and lonely. This building is so quiet, like a ghost town. It's good to get out and socialize with people, and it's fun because it's in German. Our class is like a little family, too. We spend every day together. We're planning trips together and times to cook together. It's great. It's really helpful to have connections with other people who are totally new. We are basically the only people we know here, so we hang out with each other. It's cool because most of the people who I'm spending time with are not necessarily people I would be spending time with if I was in Cedar Falls. Some of them are quite a bit older, and most of them are girls. Not saying that's bad, just describing the group. In fact, there are only 3 of us guys in the whole group. In the group, there are so many nationalities and languages it's unbelievable.

I think I'll stop writing now. I don't really feel like this was a successful post, but more like it was an obligation. I don't want my posts to be obligations. I apologize to anybody who read this and thought it was boring. I thought it was boring too. I promise not to write about boring things anymore. I'll talk to you soon. Send me an email this week thomaspanicucci@gmail.com. Tell me what you are doing in your life. Ask me a question. Say anything. I'd love to get a message just saying hi. Ok, Guten Nacht. Go Saints.