This new month has carried some exciting developments with it. For one Jonathan and I will be starting our basic training with the fire department on Saturday! This Tuesday we got outfitted with all the necessary, and epic looking, gear. It was comical trying to find everything in my size. There are only three other women on the team so there isn't a surplus of lady sized jumpsuits and boots. We received heavy duty jackets and glow in the dark helmets as well. It felt exhilarating and terrifying to go out for a practice wearing everything. I experienced an intense moment of helplessness when the team started pulling out hoses and giving instructions in thick dialect. I thought "Oh man. What have I gotten myself into? I know absolutely nothing about this!" but luckily the rest of the guys with us knew this fact and helped us learn some of the basics like how to properly connect and roll hoses. Afterwards we returned to the station for a victory Leberkäse semmel, the name sounds terrifying because it literally translates to liver cheese but in reality it is a totally delicious hot meat sandwich. It feels good to be integrating more into this neat community of people.
Last week Melia and I had quite the adventure! We joined about eleven other people from the Mauthausen gospel choir and journeyed to a gospel summit near Salzburg. It was a four day long conference with several different choirs from all over Austria. We stayed at this amazing hotel/lodge in mountains. There was hiking available as well as volleyball, swimming, and trampolining! Most memorable of course was the singing. Cynthia Nunn, a well known gospel singer from Chicago, flew out and taught us her songs. In five sessions she taught our mega choir of about one hundred and fifty people six different songs. She was an amazing woman. I have never experienced such energy and intensity before. After several days of fine tuning the songs we were scheduled to perform at the local church. On Sunday we were "welcomed" in a rather unexpected way. As our massive group of singers rolled up to the church the priest promptly and a little angrily told the leaders he did not know that this performance was happening. Turns out he was the assistant or replacement priest, the main priest was out of town. He consented to having us carry on with our plan but when he introduced us to the congregation he basically said "We have a gospel choir singing for us today, I think we'll get through it." We were a little shocked and put off by his negative attitude but we passionately sang anyways and had fun. Two great things that came from this weekend was getting to know people from the Mauthausen choir and having a good dose of German submersion. Melia and I shared a room with several ladies and it was so great to chat and share meals together. There was definitely times where my brain wanted to shut down and stop struggling to form German sentences but overall I had a blast.
Thanks everyone for reading, lots of love!!
Rachael
Last week Melia and I had quite the adventure! We joined about eleven other people from the Mauthausen gospel choir and journeyed to a gospel summit near Salzburg. It was a four day long conference with several different choirs from all over Austria. We stayed at this amazing hotel/lodge in mountains. There was hiking available as well as volleyball, swimming, and trampolining! Most memorable of course was the singing. Cynthia Nunn, a well known gospel singer from Chicago, flew out and taught us her songs. In five sessions she taught our mega choir of about one hundred and fifty people six different songs. She was an amazing woman. I have never experienced such energy and intensity before. After several days of fine tuning the songs we were scheduled to perform at the local church. On Sunday we were "welcomed" in a rather unexpected way. As our massive group of singers rolled up to the church the priest promptly and a little angrily told the leaders he did not know that this performance was happening. Turns out he was the assistant or replacement priest, the main priest was out of town. He consented to having us carry on with our plan but when he introduced us to the congregation he basically said "We have a gospel choir singing for us today, I think we'll get through it." We were a little shocked and put off by his negative attitude but we passionately sang anyways and had fun. Two great things that came from this weekend was getting to know people from the Mauthausen choir and having a good dose of German submersion. Melia and I shared a room with several ladies and it was so great to chat and share meals together. There was definitely times where my brain wanted to shut down and stop struggling to form German sentences but overall I had a blast.
Thanks everyone for reading, lots of love!!
Rachael