Guten tag!

dear friends,

I have arrived back in Germany, as I have been in Ethiopia for 2.5 months now.

It was full of crazy awesome times with the group of 16 we were, and all the Ethiopians we met along the way.

What I am most shocked about coming back here, is that it is HOTTER here in Herrnhut, than it was in Addis Ababa(the city we were in for most of the time).

Here are some things I like about Ethiopia:

1. it's the year 2002 right now, they have 13 months in their year, and it's like a week behind ours...not quite sure what that 13th month is called, it's hard for us foreigners to say.

2. a donkey cost about 400 - 500 birr, which is like 40 bucks! This I found out when I asked our driver what happens if he were to hit a donkey on the road...Donkeys, cows, sheep, goats, and horses just roam freely everywhere. I would have thought that if we were to hit one with a vehicle, the owner would just have to deal, nope, you hit it, you pay for it :)

3. The chai tea is great, super super super sweet. Sad thing is they only serve it in like a one ounce little tiny cup. the amount of sugar in it, I could have a cup the size of like 2 venti Starbucks cups(no joke, this stuff is sweet)

4. There is this great coffee shop called Kaldi's. It's basically an imitation of Starbucks. green aprons, similar sign, frapps are like 17 birr, which is one euro. So we enjoyed quite a few of those :)

5. Ferengi....is like foreigner in their amaric language. we heard it every single day, hundreds of times a day.

6. Mango's are excellent in Ethiopia. I didn't like em at home, but loved them there.

7. the van taxi's should fit 11 people, but they can cram 20 into one.

8. there are no road rules, or if there is, no one follows them...i saw 2 sets of street lights in 2.5 months. Huge, and I mean HUGE intersections, you go through, and hope you come out alive...and we did come out alive :) praise the Lord.

9. The countryside is AMAZING! beautiful African tree's.

10. The people are so friendly.

11. We are sitting in a restaurant, which is really just a tiny house, and all of a sudden these cows are trying to get through the door. As people are trying to hold the doors closed, I think oh they must be trying to keep the cows out. Nope. Well ok they were keeping them out so they could move the tables and get us out of the way for the 3 cows who have come home. They were done roaming the streets of Jinka and had to come home for the night. COWS coming through a home during supper. So weird. I am so glad I experienced this.

thats all I got for now folks. As I have just arrived home, I will now try and cure all my beautiful African bug bites, and relax.

adios.

-katie-

heart.

Alice in Wonderland...3D. I was awake for 10 minutes :) I am told it was good.

Budapest.

And again...

Love.

Hello...

Motion pictures...

Budapest at night

Somewhere in Berlin

Champagne icecream cake for Lakens 21 birthday.

80's day... :)

here I am writing an actual blog...YAY!

Life is good. Germany is great. And we have a 4 day weekend...how great is that!

Two friends and I went to Prague for one night...how lovely it was! Totally redeemed the first time we went....which I hated. Here's why I hated it....it took 13 hours round trip in the van, and we walked around the city for a total of 3 hours. And you wanna know how long it should take to get there! 2.5 hours. one way. And from what I learned 2.5 x 2 does NOT equal 13. so we took the bus this time, stayed in the city for more than 24 hours, shopped, watched 2 movies in the theatre, and ate Asian food...stuff that you just can't do in a town so small as Herrnhut, Germany....the weekend has been wonderful so far :)

Last week we all went on a mini outreach to 4 different places...my team went to Budapest, and it was an absolutely AMAZING city! My team was super duper great, and on the last night we went to the YWAM base in Budapest...where they have a coffee house ministry! This brought much joy to my life...as one of my most favorite things in life are chatting with people while drinking delicious cup(s) of coffee! good times. Met so many cool people.

AND THE EXCITING NEWS......4 weeks from now I am going to ETHIOPIA!!!!! woot woot. I am soooo very excited! there are 17 of us heading over there for 2.5 months on our outreach. what are we doing??? We are not quite sure yet...but it will be an awesome time of serving! I CANNOT WAIT!

I am alive...

just have not blogged for a long...long time. But a real one is coming soon to a computer near you!

ok, have a super duper fabulously fantastic day ya'll!

Are you Katie, Katie Suderman?...

This, a question asked to me at a little shop in a random city here in Germany. Yes I was with 9 other people who I knew, but this girl I was not travelling with. Who was she you might ask???? well you don't know her....but I do :) it was a girl I met at a bible school I went to in New Zealand, 5 YEARS AGO! and I randomly ran into here. WOAH. This still blows my mind!

It's a small world after all, it's a small world after all....

katie and Irish go skating...

and it was fun.

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS CARMEN SANDIEGO...

I'm not quite sure...but I'm still looking. Maybe she's in Budapest??? perhaps.

Guess I'll go find out.

Yup :) GOING TO BUDAPEST!

mini outreach, this is something I was not aware of before I came here. I thought 3 months in Germany and then 3 months in other countries for that outreach. So when I found out we are having a one week mini outreach, I became super excited!

The options: 4 different countries.

The question: Where do you feel called to go?

My thoughts: How am I supposed to know where I should go?

A week later: Budapest. I'm supposed to go to Budapest.

COOL. So middle of March, we divide into 4 groups and head out to our different countries. What we will be doing...we students are not quite sure yet, but great things will be done, good fun will be had, and God is gonna work in amazing ways. This I do know.

Photography stuff...it's going good. I am learning the darkroom, slowly, but learning nonetheless. It took 6 tries for my first print to look....good...ish. so can't get worse than that :) well it could, but here's to hoping it won't!

ok....gute nacht? good night.

Feels at home...

Applied 1 year ago...................So very excited.

2 months later got accepted...Even more excited.

3 months before I came...........No longer wanted to come to YWAM.

3 weeks into this DTS..............Can't see myself leaving anytime soon.

the end:)

Have a great day all you wonderful people :)

It was sooo cold out today, according to an Iowan...

and it was only -9! ahhahahaha. I laugh. That is not cold.

So I have a picture of the castle! ok, so it may not appear like a castle...well like the castles that I always imagine, or maybe you imagine, but it's called the watercastle....and so we call it the castle!

p.s. here is my address for those of you who were wondering :)

Katie Suderman

JMEM/DTS
Untere Dorfstr. 56
02747 Ruppersdorf
Germany

so here are some pics.

bed time for me!

good night!

or good morning/afternoon!

Living in a castle...

...and this castle is just minutes from the Czech border, and the Poland border! Soooo the other day we were heading into town, but we needed to refuel the van, and apparently gas is cheaper in Poland, so we just headed over there....but the line was LONG! sooo why not head over to the Czech Republic to refuel. so fun! Germany - check

Poland - check

Czech - check

I will have to go back and actually spend time in those countries...

ok the second official day is about to begin! Yesterday was AWESOME! We heard the story about how this castle came to be apart of ywam, how God totally provided a way for them to purchase this place, so they could house many many people! It was such an amazing story!

And we made pinhole cameras yesterday(Pinhole camera =homemade camera)....spent HOURS creating them out of boxes we found around here. It was a good time to get to know more people here, as there are 40 some students, and I still don't know everyones name.

I must go. I shall put some pics up soon!

have a super great day everyone!

I LOVE Heidelberg...

Here are some of my favorite things about it so far :)

#1 Most everybody rides their bicycle...EVERYWHERE.

#2 The bikes all have bells on them!

#3 And they also all have baskets on em...and cool little headlights.

#4 Bicyclists have their own little lane right on the sidewalk...I don't have to fear vehicles hitting me!

#4 The cappuccinos are fabulous!

#5 The cobblestone, old buildings, and the river...all beautiful views!

#6 AND they have dutch blitz! except it's called Ligretto

(I like bicycling...can ya tell)

And here are some of my not so favorite things.

#1 The labels on the food is ALL in German. I keep thinking it will be like Canada where we have English, and then French...so here it should be German, and then....English :) nope.

I bought some food today so I could make supper for my friend out here...and I had to pick a package of sauce, buy it, and just hope it tasted good...cause I really had no clue what it said.

Luckily it was tasty :)

So really there are no things here yet that I don't like....cause I probably won't go grocery shopping ever again...BECAUSE I START YWAM TOMORROW :) and people will be cooking for me :)

Ok it's late, I need to sleep...got a long ride ahead of me tomorrow to get to ywam base.

Gute Nacht!

So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen...

Said good-bye to Randi this morning :( .....but as she left I was greeted in the Frankfurt airport by a friend of mine here in Germany! and we drove on the autobahn to his place! I was in a car that goes 200 km/hour...isn't that great mom :) But you will be happy to know that the car could only make it to 150, sad for me....I really wanted to go FAST! but I am here in Germany for the next 3ish months, so no doubt I will have a chance! 3 days until YWAM!
ok I'm off to wander the streets of Heidelberg...
Auf Wiedersehen!

The hills are alive...

with the mocking of the sound of music, La la la laaaaa. The movie that we all know and some love, it's not so great in the eyes of an Austrian. At least the 8 that I met last night! quite unbelievable actually, cause that movie is wonderful. I do recall every single night the last time I was out here, they played the 'Sound of Music' at our hostel. So they do cator to us tourists who have a love for that movie :)
It's beautiful out here...Randi and I walked up a mountain today, and it didn't even hail or storm on us! such a relief. We have tried 2 of the traditional dishes/desserts so far...Krapfen, a delicious deep fried dough with icing sugar and apricot jam ( very much reminded me of a soft rollkucken for those of you who know what that is ) and we tried wiener schnitzel, das vas goot. Shortly we will be heading over to my friends grandma's, where she has made APPLE STRUDEL for us, and that my friends will be das beste! I had it lots when I was here the last time, but never a grandmas homemade strudel. yummmmm.
Apart from the traditional dishes, we learned the wiener waltzer(Vienna Waltz) this morning...so we can work off all the desserts we're eating :)
And it's also a good thing we climbed that mountain today...now bring on the apple strudel :)

Je parle francais mal...

The 5 words or so that I do know in french, I get them mixed up all the time....I was at the grocery store yesterday, and I got to the cashier to pay, and wanting to say hello, I instead said 'merci', which is 'thank you'. This has happened all too much, perhaps I shouldn't have copied off of Randi in all our french classes in high school...perhaps.

This is our last evening here in France at my brother's place, so

we are going out for some good French food tonight...eating at 9

pm, wow I knew they ate late out here, but 9! If I ate like this all the time I would need a pre-supper meal everyday....only 2 hours til supper now! Yay!

It has been so beautiful out here in the ALPS! I find myself always capitalizing ALPS, cause when I say/write it I am so very excited that I am actually in these beautiful ALPS! You all need to visit IRELAND, and the ALPS!

Tomorrow we have an alllll day train ride up to my friends place in Austria! Cannot wait! this will be good,

in German I know maybe 10 words :) twice as much as French.

we'll see how it goes :)

Have a great day everyone!

Survived the skiing! LOVED the skiing. will go again...

So seen as I came back in one piece from the skiing...here are just a few more photos of Ireland...my absolute favorite country on this trip so far.

My future home... :)

golden grass, green grass, and SNOW

Hiking in Connemara down a stream, in the middle of nowhere! didn't make it far, but it was pretty!

Traffic jam!

on our lovely tour bus, as it blizzards outside.

Goodbye Ireland, hello big brother...

The green green grass, the beautiful stone fences that cover the lovely green grass, all the friendly locals, sleepzone hostel in Conamara, Desmond our cute little old tour guide in Galway....these are just a few of my favorite things in Ireland.

Guinness. Had about 3 sips, Randi managed 1 sip...and allan, he finished it for us...Thanks a bunch allan! Guinness, that would have to be one of my least favorite things in Ireland.

I also could have done without the snow, but it was inevitable, the curse of us Canadians...we brought the snow WHERE EVER we went. I will be back again, in summer.

We were greeted by my big brother and snow here in France...but we are amid the ALPS! so this time I am alright with the snow, and with my brother. There is literally a chair lift right outside my window, and tomorrow I will be riding up on it :) Should be a funny day, haven't done this skiing business in a long while. We are in a little city...which is right full of ski lodges, cute little shops, some good French bakeries, and much else!

So here's hoping I walk away tomorrow injury free :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!