#spetzle

We found heaven. I mean heaven. I mean heaven. I mean… a haven.

Today we dragged ourselves out of bed, loaded a new batch of 700 roses in the car, and three of us took roses and luggage in the car to Mautthausen, Austria while the rest of the team took luggage and trains. I slept half the way there, and woke up to a field of yellow dandelions staring me in the face. For the rest of the trip I was seeing little seas and mountains and forests and fields of what we guessed were mustard blossoms. I didn't take photos, because to me some of these things are hard to capture for me. I'm not so good with photos, but if the team posts any, I'll swipe some to put up later.

So, we arrived in heaven. I mean the haven. Open country and farmland, and we are staying in the guest house--did I say house? I mean building. Guest building. Cause you see, guest house in America usually means a one to two bedroom tiny little affair, not much larger than a studio apartment. This is a three story affair with a cellar, a dining area, full kitchen, and multiple bedrooms, each with its own bathroom. Ours has a bathTUB so I can gratefully soak away my physical stress, and soak my puffball foot too.

I don't know how to describe this place. Green grass everywhere, a tree house, a main building for the family that lives here, our building, free range chickens, pigs that I haven't seen yet, a carefully tended garden, small chapel I haven't seen yet, trees everywhere, just… light, and green, and beauty, and gentle soul-soothing sights and silence…. I hate silence, but I wonder if I hate silence because it isn't really silence, there's always something thrumming or buzzing or wailing in the background and now there is truly silence. And it is something I want to just wash and soak and revel in. I fell over into the bed under the duvet, my head sinking into a feather pillow, and I didn't fall asleep for awhile--not because I wasn't tired, but because I couldn't stop appreciating the beautiful sunshine and green outside my window.

I woke up, and sort of zombie-shuffled downstairs as I slowly came back to full cognitive capabilities (I'm just not a get-up-and-think-clearly person if you haven't noticed). By the way, I'm only using crutches to get around faster lately. I can basically shuffle around carefully and even walk up stairs carefully, but it's very slow, and I still don't know what's going on inside my foot where I can't see how things are shifting or aligning, so, a little worrisome. But I'll find out May 5 how it's going.

Anyway, I got downstairs and after writing down three pages of stories for the team and sending them off to my Dad, we settled down to eat Beate's home made cheese-and-onion Spetzle. My gosh! And REAL tiramisu. MY GOSH. I don't think I've ever had real tiramisu, and the restaurant spetzle I had on Saturday has NOTHING on Beate's Spetzle. *air-kiss*

Now we're winding down, having cleaned most of the roses. After cleaning and carding about 3000 roses, 700 is nothing. But another thousand is coming on Wednesday. *rolls up sleeves*

Seriously though? If we get to stay here all week, last week's overly frenetic pace will have been totally worth it. This is our rest, even though we are still working, this is our rest.