Yesterday was pretty relaxing - I slept in for quite a long time, about nine hours, and woke up feeling extremely refreshed. Following that I went to mass, lunch, and then felt restless, so I decided I'd go for another hike.
This time I was accompanied by Christine Canavan and Jessica Schuster, who are both Sacred Music majors and are both in Honors. I was planning on going exploring somewhere else, but they said they hadn't been to the waterfall yet, so I took them up there. Both of them were homeschooled for quite a while, and seem more on the reclusive side a little like Clare and myself. I think they were both planning on going to get kabobs tonight and I was invited, but I've settled down downstairs now and I told them to go knock on our door to find me, so... that might not fly.
Talking with them was pretty nice, and they're nice girls. I don't think I really click with them, but regardless it was fun to have company.
Coming back to the Kartause, I was informed by Clare that the Bibliotek was open again - which meant that the gorgeous grand piano was available for me to play. I immediately rushed from dinner over to the Bibliotek to get my hands on it. I love playing that piano. It makes me sort of really want to save up money so that one day I can afford a Yamaha grand piano. In that big room, the acoustics are heavenly.
I took a video, so I'll try to see if I can upload it after dinner.
Clare and I actually stayed in there for about two hours. I was kind of surprised about that, mostly that Clare would want to stick around for two hours while I tinked around on the keys playing bits of songs I don't remember all the way through. Either way, it was incredibly relaxing.
After coming back, I grabbed a shower and went downstairs to join the card game that Clare had organized, with Jenny, Christine, Jessica, John, Kakha. We played BS, Egyptian Rat Race, and then Kakha taught us a Georgian card game called Ponti.
Following that, the RA on duty this weekend came and invited us all to watch a movie in the Audi-Max (the name for the larger classroom). They had moved couches into the room and I helped Christian set up the speakers. I guess all those times hooking my laptop up with HDMI to the TV has given me at least one useful skill.
Today I slept in again and then ended up going to my first Byzantine mass. I really don't like it much. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I knew the tunes of everything that was sung, because the entire mass is sung, but it was also a little long and just frustrating because I wanted to sing along, but I couldn't follow with what was going on, even with the booklet they gave us, because their accents were so strong I couldn't figure out what was being sung.
Following mass and lunch, I decided to take a hike up Book Mountain on my own. I was hoping to go with some people, but Clare was off with Kristin Boutross, who is visiting from the ITI (another school in Austria) and both Christine and Jessica were studying, and besides, the hike up to the waterfall exhausted them, so I was figuring that making the trek up the highest mountain in the area to the steel cross wasn't going to be on their list of things to do.
Plus, I think most of the hiker types around here have already been up there, as well as to the caves. In the end I took a couple of wrong turns, but I followed my instincts and my general sense of direction, and I made it to what apparently is a pilgrimage spot for a lot of Franciscan students.
I can see why. It didn't seem like a particularly long or strenuous hike to me, but I was also running part of the way up, and when I got there I was looking out over all of Gaming and I could easily see the Kartause in the distance. Looking at everything with the bare eye is so much more impressive than pictures, but I did take a couple.
Up there I said some pretty serious prayers. Being closer to the sky just makes it feel so much more ... spiritual? Maybe I'm being ridiculous for saying that it's easier to pray in certain places. Anyway, I came back down and now I figure I probably ought to do some schoolwork tonight. I have a quiz in philosophy on Monday, and some of us found one of the old history tests from last semester, and man, they are incredibly nitpicky about the things you have to know. I'm not even sure where to start memorizing.
So yeah, that looks like tonight.
I have felt weirdly off today so maybe I'll do some journaling too and go to bed early. This weekend feels ridiculously long and I think I'll be glad for my debit card to get here, and for the other students to come back. Like, it's nice having less students here because I've gotten more comfortable with all of the people that stuck around, but it just feels like I'm not going anywhere really. I want to go travel.
"Dropping school to focus on adventures."
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| Gaming, Austria |
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| The building with the cross on the right is the Gaming parish. |
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