by love i sail: Turkey Day in Gaming, take two.

Every month we try to take a "Desert Day"--a day for prayer, silence, fasting, and simply spending time being with God, recuperating, meditating and letting the experiences and lessons and growth of the past month ruminate.

Well, in November I asked permission to spend my "Desert Day" in Gaming, for Thanksgiving (the second time in my life actually!) - so there was definitely no fasting, or silence, but a lot of time to enjoy the peace of this mountain town, the joy of spending Thanksgiving with Americans while still being in Austria (including one of my dearest friends-B. Guess), hiking, praying (an English mass, finally), eating (even though I've never liked Thanksgiving dinner), and simply letting my heart be at ease, truly rest in the company of dearly loved friends, and taking time to stop and be so thankful for all that I have lived in the past year, for all that is to come, and for all that I could enjoy in that weekend!

Special thanks to the Kalpakgian family!!! and Tony for the hike! and B. Guess for just being you!

can't believe I got to study and live here...how blessed I was to live that experience during University!

one of my favorites. I think we spent about 10 hours talking during the two days we were together--I've never had a better "Desert" day/weekend.

I walked into Brittany's room, saw her bookshelf (plato, aristotle, asci, more aristotle, etc.) and immediately wanted to take her place. Im such a geek--seeing ancient greek literature makes me want to go back to school.

Brittany's two dear roommates! I've never laughed so hard at a Thanksgiving dinner!

Day after Thanksgiving hike with Tony (a friend of mine from college who is currently working for the Austria Program as the men's residence director). He was wonderful enough to offer to take me hiking up Book Mountain (a mountain in town which has a book at the top in which you write your name once you have climbed the mountain) because I never got to do it the semester I studied there.

Waiting for Tony I spotted some killer spider webs captured by the beautiful crystals of the first frost!

Walking through the Gaming cemetery in order to get to the base of the mountain

this is about as far as I got before I realized I forgot my inhaler (what a wussy thing to say) because I was practically collapsing due to lack of breath. It was really pathetic and I was so embarrassed, but Tony was awesome and said it was no big deal--so we hiked only a third of the way up the mountain to an awesome overlook of the town. One day I will climb you Book Mountain, when I don't forget my inhaler :)