As I write this post it is snowing outside for the first time this year, at least where I am.

Anyway, I wish I would have got that snow a couple of days earlier. I was at a birthday party for a french guy, when I realized that I wanted to go skiing. So I asked around until I was able to convince someone that this was a good idea. So at 2 am my venezualen friend and I headed back to my room to make plans. By 3:30 we had found a ski resort and a train however we had to wake up at 4:15 to get on the train. Therefore it didnt really make any sense to go to sleep so I just talked to Ab for a bit while he went home to get his stuff ready. We eventually made it on the train but not without a quarter-mile sprint carrying and 6-foot long Boardbag. When we finally made it, we did the only thing you can think to do when you have a 3 hour train ride and you are exhausted and tired and have a big day ahead of you...have a three long conversation. So we pulled into Öbersdorf sleepless. We found things as they were predicted: near snowless. If I remember correctly, only 1 of 20 lifts were running and it was way up on top of the mountain. So we did what we had to do and headed to the top. Once there, I was totally awestruck at the mountains. They were totally different than mountains that I have been in. They were incredibly steep, treeless and they felt like they were so close together. I don't know if the pictures really show it properly. As for the skiing, I've had better, but the clear sunny day, discounted ticket, and rugged beauty of the Alps made it all worth it. Especially when the other option was sitting at home doing my project. My friend from Venezuela was great to hang out with and get to know better. I just realized that I forgot to do that in the Top 3 way. Oops.

Like I said, I am trying to update my blog on a regular basis. So here goes, even thought it is something from the past.

Thanksgiving was the crappiest day I have had all year.

I stayed up all night working on an architecture studio project, only to find out that it was "total scheisse" when I came time to present. I know this may not sound that bad since I said it all in one sentence; but I was sleep deprived, exhausted, utterly disappointed at one of the first really bad project reviews that I have ever had, and most of all missing out on perhaps my favorite holiday of the year. No football, no family, no pilgrams and indians, no nothing. I left the room to go for a walk. I just wanted to be somewhere else.

After 5 more hours of presentations I made my way to church for a much needed thanksgiving dinner. It was there, as we were giving thanks, that I realized that even when my real family is miles away and nothing is going right, I have brothers and sisters in the family of the church that are always there for me. The community of christ is truly a blessing, both when things are good and crappy.

On a lighter note, the next night we had a thanksgiving party in the student apartments with several americans, french people, germans, well lots of people, and of course a thanks giving must-have was our mexican friend belting out "la Bamba" and playing his guitar.

Christmas Eve was by far one of the best nights of my life. Abbey and her family came over to our house after the candle light church service. It was a day after I had arrived from being away from the States for 7 months . While our families were in the hearth room, Ab and I spent a beautiful moment by the fire and the Christmas tree on the Eve of the celebration day of our Savior’s birth. We exchanged handmade gifts and then I asked Abbey, my love, my best friend, and my companion in faith to spend the rest of her life with me.

As I checked my baggage in Stuttgart the x-ray camera-surveyor-man started laughing at all the delicate glass and german craftsmanship items in my suitcase. What a Dumkopf. But Dumkopf had a point, it was going to be a miracle if I made it across the atlantic with all that stuff. It was almost a miracle since everything (minus one glass) made it home. I too after 36 hours, 5 flights, and lost baggage made it home to a wonderful greeting party. This was the start of my winter break “in den Vereinigte Staaten”(US) Normally I do the Top 3, but this break was good enough to get an extra two top ratings, so here’s the top 5.

5. My KU roommate and friend stopped by on their way to Branson. We had great conversations in the hot tub and acted like little kids at the city museum. Overall it was awesome to get a feel for what is going on in KU with my friends.

4. On new years Ab and I got to see our friends from highschool at the Trainwreck Saloon. It was awesome to see everyone and how they’ve changed and are still the same. Even though we have went our separate ways since highschool, I always treasure the times we get to meet like new years and the annual float trip.

3. Yes, by the time of the Wards Christmas Party my mustache had reached its full potential. Once I was there, it was just awesome to see Ab’s parents brothers, sisters, and their kids. It was really cool to see how much Blake and Alex had grown since I was at their baseball games with Kelly and Abbey almost 8 months ago. Kayla was still in need of little people hugs and Steve was the Champion at Pop-a-shot (loser, who takes pride in that?), It was awesome to see Heidi and Andy on a regular basis at the Wards and Lilly and Hannah always have some new sport or performance going on but are especially talented in Karaoke. I also met a new person this time at the family Christmas party, a little man called Tate. He smiles a lot but I am not really quite sure why. Maybe he’ll tell us when he can talk. Tim and Robyn, the Hosts have a wonderful new house and throughout the break were fun to hang out with. From Christmas Eve to welcoming me at the airport to seeing me off on the last day, it was great to spend time with Ray and Joyce.

2. Of course its is awesome to see my whole family on Christmas, but it had been an especially long time since I had seen my brother and sister. My brother gave me an incredible video that he made. In one way it shows to me how much he has learned at Brehm but in another way it shows me one of many reasons he is returning to Westminster next year. That makes me extremely proud for more reasons than I could write here, but I am probably embarrassing him, so I’ll stop now. I received a KU T-shirt from my sister for Christmas and being the prideful loser that I am, I pretended like I would never wear it because I am a Mizzou fan. Well, I must say that it is complicated. Actually, I must say it again, It’s complicated, but as I sit here wearing her KU shirt and writing these entries, I think of her first semester at KU and how much I enjoyed the sunny spring days when we went to Mass Street to eat together. So for that reason I am proud to wear this shirt. And I guess it is kind of ironic: I am a mizzou fan and partially influenced her to come to Kansas University, then she became a KU fan and partially influenced me to wear KU appareal in addition to my wardrobe of mizzou clothes. I am more that aware that noone reading this respects me. KU fans hate me for being a mizzou fan and Mizzou fans hate me for wearing KU apparel, and the rest hate me for my mixed feelings. Well a word to you all, you don’t know what it’s like, so deal with it.

1. See Next entry

So I called my friend on a Wednesday and asked him if he wanted to travel over the weekend. He said it sounded great but he couldn’t because he had to work. Then I said, take off work and bring your travel stuff to Bible study Tomorrow and we’ll leave from there and then I hung up because it costs 25 cents per minute to talk to german cellphones. I was sure that he wouldn’t go and had even forgot what I told him so when I saw him the next evening with his travel stuff I was surprised to say the least but nevertheless was obligated to join in. So at 11 oclock direct after bible study we stopped by my apartment on our way to the main train station. Here’s the Top 3

3. We show up at the train station an decide that the 1:30 am train to Amsterdam is a pretty good idea. We wait for 2 hours….Ok so the train is 1 hour late, lets invent a game…..Okay it is going to be 2 hours late…We’ll just play 1 on 1 poker….. Ok what is going on? 2 and a half hours late… we’ll just stare at the wall………….Finally, It’s here….. What???? Its full??? but the desk said….. At this point we looked at the train schedule and saw that there was a train for France leaving at 4:30 am. Of course we decided to try and board. We were successful and ended up waking up in Paris at 9 am.

2. Sacre Coeur was a beautiful church that overlooks the city of Paris from the high hill on which it is located. It is worth seeing anyway but if you show up at around 5 oclock they have a beautiful service that takes place about everyday. I think I might have written previously about being in churches and cathedrals and feeling a certain sadness that they were merely tourist and architectural sites and no longer places of worship except for locals during Christmas and Easter. However when I was at Sacre Coeur during the daily service, there was a amazing sense of awe and mystery as the caroling voices made their way through the aisles. It was truly beautiful.

1. I know that the Eiffel Tower is cliché and overly iconic but I really thought it was awesome. Maybe it was because it was fun to photograph, maybe it was because of the atmosphere created by all the people who flock to it daily, maybe it was just the idea that I was seeing something in real life that I have seen over and over again in books and movies. Whatever it was I truly enjoyed it. I would be lying if I tried to be cool and say it was over-rated. It was really worth seeing.

I try to do an update on classes and school everytime I write so here it is. It has gotten much easier, easier in the sense that I have become content with not understanding everything. I realized that the set up of the school system is quite different from America. How? Well I will take a stab at it but this is only from a half year experience and what I say is only applicable to the architecture school.


In Europe it seems to be more about learning whereas in America the university system seems to be more about success. A learning environment geared toward success seems to be set on proving that you can accomplish the learning goals of the course regardless of whether you want to be there everyday. I think a learning environment, like the one here, is geared toward providing the ideal learning situation, for those who are really interested in learning, which doesn’t have so much to do with proving that you learned the subject. There is both a problem and advantage to this setup. The problem is that people can slip by with out understanding everything since they are not forced to show that they have learned. However the advantage is that I can slip by without understanding everything. But in all seriousness, both systems have many advantages and I am happy to be able to experience them.

There is a phrase that makes its way to the front of my mind about once every week while I am trying to talk with my professors. This phrase is something I always want to say but ultimately and wisely decide to hold back. It is probably an idea that every person who has ever studied abroad has considered explaining to someone who they are talking to. This is the phrase, “I am not really this dumb at home and most of the time I am good at what I do.” For some reason I feel like this phrase would explain all the shortcomings of my presentation or project but in the end I realize that it is only an excuse.

And that is an extremely important realization that I have learned in terms of architecture: I will not have the opportunity to explain with perfect articulation the intentions and concepts intended in my architecture to all the users or clients involved in project selection. Furthermore most of the people who enter a building don’t ask for a recitation of the architects design process, they just go in and live, work, shop, or whatever without much thought. So through my in ability to communicate precisely with words what I have intended, I learned that the idea that the architecture should be clear enough to speak for itself is the ultimate goal when I consider the users of a building. (I am sorry if that was too architecture specific, deal with it)

There’s more but I will save it for next time.

I must say that I feel kind of funny writing in mid Janurary about something that happened in early November. However from now on I am going to start making entries sooner after they happen, then again I think that after everytime I make an entry. But this time I wrote this thought down so maybe that will compel me to stick to my word.

In November I went on an English binge. It was exhilarating to understand every word that people were saying and then to respond in what I considered to be an intelligent manner (statement possibly debatable). It reminded me of when I used to be a real person.

What was the reason for indulging in my former ways? Well, apparently by participating in the Stuttgart study abroad program I had also agreed to participate in something called the Neukloster Academy. This is something that 7 KU architecture students are selected to participate in every year along with about 30 other students from Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, and of course Kentucky. It happens in a small German town called Neukloster which is near the Baltic sea. So here’s the top 3:

3. One of the best parts of the conference was the challenge of the task. Not only did we have people from about 5 different countries, we also had people from many different fields of study: architects, interior planners, historical preservationists, civil engineers, art students, and urban space designers (whatever that means). We were mixed into groups of about 5 and given the broad task of making the harbor city of Wismar better. It was quite a challenge to figure out the group dynamic with so many different majors, backgrounds, and no appointed leader. And it was actually quite stressful and confrontational at times but we actually came out with a decent project at the end of the week and it was really awesome to have that experience of dealing with the challenges of teamwork and problem solving.

2. I have not really been to any architecture conferences in America, but I must say that the set up of this one was pretty awesome. I took place at a small lodge-chateau type place on a quiet lake. We worked in a refinished barn with lots of exposed structural wood. Furthermore the only time structure of the conference was really that you have dinner at 6pm and a lecture at 7pm and as for the rest of the time, just do what you have to do to get the task done. And to top it all off, there was always wine. Most of the work took place after the lectures from about 9pm on, so a glass wine became an essential part of the architectural toolbox.

1. Due to the fact that much of the work took place in the afternoon and after 9pm we wouldn’t usually have a chance to hang out and stop working in the evening till about midnight. Nevertheless, most of the time a couple of us ended up on the dock talking until about 3 or 4 am. And due to the facts that I was deprived of english and my roommate was a good conversationalist, we were usually still talking until 5 or 6 in the morning. Out on the dock the full-moonlight was enough to light up everyone’s faces since as we were many miles from any city lights. We even made it out on the lake one night on a rowboat that almost capsized. So overall that conference was an unexpected awesome experience.