Spring Break 2016 - Austrian Alps!

Last week (March 7-11) we were able to spend 5 days in the Austrian town of Kaprun, and it was amazing!
For the last year and a half we have done a lot of traveling, but all of it has been to busy cities with lots of tourist attractions, and we are tired! So this spring break we decided we wanted to go somewhere that was not a big city, didn't have many tourist attractions, and was just a beautiful place to relax. Kaprun was perfect.
It's a skiing town surrounded by mountains with lots of hotels, restaurants, and ski lifts in the Salzburg province, and about 70km from the city of Salzburg.

We took 3 trains to get there & 4 trains to get home. About 8-9 hours of travel each way. We watched a lot of movies.

When we first arrived in Kaprun, we explored the hotel and discovered it was one of those fabulous places where if you didn't want to leave, you didn't have to. There was a restaurant, bar, cafe, pool, sauna, masseuse, etc. all without going outside. And so on our first day, we didn't go outside. And it was wonderful.

The view from our favorite cafe spot!

On Tuesday, we decided to explore the town. It was a cloudy day, but not too cold, and we walked around Kaprun, discovering some of it's fun places. There was a castle (though only open on Mondays at 4pm), a church (which you had to pilgrim up at least 100 stairs to get to), and a riverside walk through the heart of the town. For us the highlight was really seeing the different views of the town with the mountains. As flatland Midwesterners, we are excited by hills, so mountains are really amazing!

Beautiful view of Kaprun from the castle.

Wednesday we decided to get really adventurous and try an Alpine Roller Coaster! It was not a 6 Flags type coaster. It was a single seater, and you controlled your speed yourself. Which for some of us (Brittany), made the trip much scarier and much slower than was originally anticipated. The views on the way up were really beautiful, especially since it was a sunny day, and it was definitely a fun bucket list type of experience.

Brittany coming into the end of the coaster.

And, going up!

Thursday was our biggest day. On Thursday we took a bus to the base of the nearby peak: Kitzsteinhorn. This is (obviously) a very popular skiing spot, but there is also a ticket you can buy to get to the top via ski lifts that doesn't involve the actually skiing pass, so that is what we did. We took three different ski lifts, and about 40 minutes later we made it to the top.

The second ski lift & beautiful view!

The views from the top were amazing. There were many moments of just pure awe as we stood there looking down on the town where we were staying, as well as looking out over other mountain peaks. In moments like these, God's majesty, creativity, and just "big"ness are so obvious. It was really fantastic, and pulling ourselves away from the views was probably the most difficult part of the day.

We were blessed with such gorgeous weather - we could see so far! This is the view into Kaprun from way up high.

Aside from these bigger events, most of our week consisted of drinking coffee, eating, doing crosswords, watching movies, sitting in saunas, getting massages, and just finally taking a real, relaxing vacation. It was fantastic.
To see the rest of our pictures, click here!

Prayer Requests:
- English Drama Club! The performance is in less than 4 weeks, so prayers for our students and ourselves as we continue to prepare.
- We will be traveling again next week for our Easter holidays, so prayers for easy & safe travels. 

Praises:
- We are getting glimpses of spring, and are really looking forward to the warmer weather & sunshine heading our way!
- We had such smooth travels to & from Austria that easily could have been much more stressful. And such a relaxing, rejuvenating time. It definitely felt like a blessed week.

Ples 2016 - Seniors' Ball!

If you were following our time in Prague last year, you will remember the Seniors' Ball, in Czech called Ples, where we waltzed with our students & enjoyed celebrating their accomplishments & creativity.
This year, Ples was on February 26, and it was a fantastic experience! We were much more relaxed this year since we knew what to expect from the evening (though the waltzing still makes us very nervous!).
There is a tendency to compare Ples to Prom in the US, but really it is quite different. It is a much more organized evening, families and teachers are encouraged to attend, there is no dinner served, and the dancing is much more formal (though just as much fun). The students go to an after party at a club after Ples, and that is probably more similar to our Proms, though with more alcohol.

Here are some pictures to walk you through the fun event:

When you first arrive, you have the schedule for the evening waiting on the table. It's all in Czech (obviously), but this gives an idea of how organized the evening is.

To begin, each 4th year class does a creative walk-in with their class teachers.

Students are then given sash, a different color for each of the 5 different classes.

Group pictures are taken of each class, as well as individual pictures of each student.

Then they walk around with these giant parachutes & people throw money into them! We saved our small Czech coins all year for this event. They make a LOT of money from this, which is then used for a class party at the end of the year.

My student waltz partner, Richard. We were arguably the best dancers.

Jadon with his student dance partner, Viktoria. I love this picture! [Shout out to Tereza Karásková who took all the waltzing pictures for us!]

Then there are a few hours of dancing in this gorgeous building - which is actually underground! We danced to more waltzes, polkas, and everything in between. Such a fun time!

To end the night, each class presents a "midnight surprise" dance. We had everything from Star Wars, to Grease, to the history of dance, to an aerobics class. They are so fun & creative!

Ending the night around 11:30pm. So much fun! Definitely a highlight of both our years here!

The senior students are in school for two more months, and then in May then will take their exams. Please join us in praying for our 4th year students during this stressful time in their school year. We pray that they will be able to study and retain the information, that they can go into their exams calm and prepared, and that they will also have relaxed moments as they finish their time in high school.

Congratulations Maturita Class of '16!