I went skiing. Let me tell you, being on top of a mountain in the Alps in white-out conditions is one of the biggest thrill rushes you can get. We skied down runs that were sometimes over 2 miles long, and skied on some slops where I could barely see my nose in front of me. The whole experience was a riot.
Tomorrow I leave for back home. it's a very somber feeling that i have now. I have really grown and adjusted to the culture here in Austria, and especially Vienna. I feel as though Vienna is home now. The things that I do everyday are things I see myself doing every day for a long time. The thing is, today it hit me--bam. Like a rock. I won't be seeing some of these things again for a long time, if ever.
The thing that I am going to miss the most about over here is the program and the people on it. The people I have met here are absolutly amazing. I have made some really tight friendships, especially with the Christina. However, with the flying back home, I know life will go back to what it used to be:busy and stressful.
Tomorrow I leave those from Austria and other parts of the states behind. Who knows how much contact we will have between each other. I hope a lot. I really love the people I met here.
One thing that I won't leave behind is the new me I have found while being here. I have had plenty of time to think about myself and my intentions, and where I might fit into the world. I hope that when I come home, I don't fall into the same routine as I did before. i hope I don't transform back into the person I was and leave the person I am behind.
This is my last post from Austria. I am kindof lost for words right now. I am, but then again, i am not excited to go back. I am comfortable here and i want to stay, but yet I know that I need to leave my comfort zone in order for me to grow.
Hopefully I don't cry with my goodbyes I give
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Amsterdam, Christmas, New Years
Howdy y'all!
Well the time is shortly arriving before I make it back to the US. I depart from Austria on the 22nd in the morning and arrive back in Chicago on the same day in the afternoon.
But enough about that, let's talk about my Christmas Break!
First thing that we did over Christmas break was go to Amsterdam!! Let me just say that Amsterdam is one of the prettiest cities I have seen. For those who have been to Pella, IA, it looks like the city version of Pella, plus canals. The architecture looks just like what you would imagine dutch architecture to look like. And it is huge. Although it is a big city, it has a very small town feeling to it.
To view pictures of Amsterdam, follow this link: http://miniurl.com/25991
The first day we were there, there was no snow on the ground. Everything was awesome. But then, overnight, the snow storm came. It snowed a lot! The next day, there was snow everywhere, and no plows to move the snow. So basically, we walked in slush for 2 days. That was not fun. With the snow storm, they also canceled a lot of trains and flights . Our flight was out of Germany, and the airport there had canceled a lot of things. The train that we were planning on taking was canceled, and the alternate route (trainwise) cost way too much. We ended up taking a chance and catching an airport bus (that was not canceled) and got to the airport.
Our flight was not canceled, thank god, but we were delayed because it was still snowing in Germany. first, by 30 minutes, then, by an hour. We got to the runway, and the pilot announced that the runway was unsafe for takeoff, and they needed to clean it off again. So, that delayed us an hour.
But we did do a lot of fun things in Amsterdam. We went to a couple of museums, went to the redlight district, which was actually really cool, and just walked around the city. The Anne Frank museum was very much well worth the visit. I learned a lot while going there, and actually got to see the place where Anne Frank was in hiding before she was captured. It was a lot smaller than I had imagined. I knew it was small, but all the floor plans that I saw of it made it seem bigger than it actually was.
Oh, and I broke my camera the last night I was there.... so yeah, there will be very few pictures for the rest of my adventures.
Ok got back safely. And then came Christmas! An Austrian friend of ours invited us over to her family's Christmas celebration. The traditions are mostly all on the 24th here in Austria. Before we came, the tree is put up and decorated during the day. The parents are the ones that usually do that. Then, after we got there, we went around the house with incense and holy water, prayed the rosary, and blessed every room in the house. Every room meant every room. It was actually really cool. The last room to be blessed is the room where the tree is. The tree is supposed to be seen for the first time by everyone else in the family at that time (atleast this family's tradition). It was really pretty. There were candles all on it, lit up, and some ornaments and such.
But before we opened up gifts, there was still a lot to do. We sang a bunch of traditional Christmas songs with recorder and accordion. Of course, all in German. Then we took a 'family' photo, and then, after like, 5 photos, we opened up gifts, ate chocolate, and thanked everyone for what they gave us.
Dinner was quite amazing too. Everything was home cooked. We had this soup (rindsuppe) with some egg/meat things in it for an appetizer, homemade turkey schitzel for the main course (SO DELICIOUS!!!) with salad, and then an assortment of homemade cookies for dessert. All served with wine or whatever drink you wanted.
Then we walked to church and went to a Catholic Mass, which was really awesome too.
That, my friends, was basically Christmas.
NEW YEARS
New Years was really cool. We started off the night celebrating at my place: drinking, eating, and being merry. As we were leaving, we kindof got into a tiff with each other, and the mood drastically changed. But, we went to Rathausplatz (right in front of the city hall) and watched a short concert before new years. It was there we counted down to the new year, drank champagne, and waltzed in the new year. They traditionally play the Wiener Waltz as the first song of the new year. There were homemade fireworks going off everywhere, and it was so pretty.
We all apologized and hugged for the fight we had earlier, and then left to go get some food at Happy Noodles! From there, we went home.
The end.
Well the time is shortly arriving before I make it back to the US. I depart from Austria on the 22nd in the morning and arrive back in Chicago on the same day in the afternoon.
But enough about that, let's talk about my Christmas Break!
First thing that we did over Christmas break was go to Amsterdam!! Let me just say that Amsterdam is one of the prettiest cities I have seen. For those who have been to Pella, IA, it looks like the city version of Pella, plus canals. The architecture looks just like what you would imagine dutch architecture to look like. And it is huge. Although it is a big city, it has a very small town feeling to it.
To view pictures of Amsterdam, follow this link: http://miniurl.com/25991
The first day we were there, there was no snow on the ground. Everything was awesome. But then, overnight, the snow storm came. It snowed a lot! The next day, there was snow everywhere, and no plows to move the snow. So basically, we walked in slush for 2 days. That was not fun. With the snow storm, they also canceled a lot of trains and flights . Our flight was out of Germany, and the airport there had canceled a lot of things. The train that we were planning on taking was canceled, and the alternate route (trainwise) cost way too much. We ended up taking a chance and catching an airport bus (that was not canceled) and got to the airport.
Our flight was not canceled, thank god, but we were delayed because it was still snowing in Germany. first, by 30 minutes, then, by an hour. We got to the runway, and the pilot announced that the runway was unsafe for takeoff, and they needed to clean it off again. So, that delayed us an hour.
But we did do a lot of fun things in Amsterdam. We went to a couple of museums, went to the redlight district, which was actually really cool, and just walked around the city. The Anne Frank museum was very much well worth the visit. I learned a lot while going there, and actually got to see the place where Anne Frank was in hiding before she was captured. It was a lot smaller than I had imagined. I knew it was small, but all the floor plans that I saw of it made it seem bigger than it actually was.
Oh, and I broke my camera the last night I was there.... so yeah, there will be very few pictures for the rest of my adventures.
Ok got back safely. And then came Christmas! An Austrian friend of ours invited us over to her family's Christmas celebration. The traditions are mostly all on the 24th here in Austria. Before we came, the tree is put up and decorated during the day. The parents are the ones that usually do that. Then, after we got there, we went around the house with incense and holy water, prayed the rosary, and blessed every room in the house. Every room meant every room. It was actually really cool. The last room to be blessed is the room where the tree is. The tree is supposed to be seen for the first time by everyone else in the family at that time (atleast this family's tradition). It was really pretty. There were candles all on it, lit up, and some ornaments and such.
But before we opened up gifts, there was still a lot to do. We sang a bunch of traditional Christmas songs with recorder and accordion. Of course, all in German. Then we took a 'family' photo, and then, after like, 5 photos, we opened up gifts, ate chocolate, and thanked everyone for what they gave us.
Dinner was quite amazing too. Everything was home cooked. We had this soup (rindsuppe) with some egg/meat things in it for an appetizer, homemade turkey schitzel for the main course (SO DELICIOUS!!!) with salad, and then an assortment of homemade cookies for dessert. All served with wine or whatever drink you wanted.
Then we walked to church and went to a Catholic Mass, which was really awesome too.
That, my friends, was basically Christmas.
NEW YEARS
New Years was really cool. We started off the night celebrating at my place: drinking, eating, and being merry. As we were leaving, we kindof got into a tiff with each other, and the mood drastically changed. But, we went to Rathausplatz (right in front of the city hall) and watched a short concert before new years. It was there we counted down to the new year, drank champagne, and waltzed in the new year. They traditionally play the Wiener Waltz as the first song of the new year. There were homemade fireworks going off everywhere, and it was so pretty.
We all apologized and hugged for the fight we had earlier, and then left to go get some food at Happy Noodles! From there, we went home.
The end.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Barcelona pictures
BARCELONA PICTUES (as promised)
This cool arch where the city wall used to be
This cool arch where the city wall used to be
A really famous church that we didn't get to go inside and see
Playing on the beach
Beach Photo!
Building a Sand Castle
The market in town center
Barcelona from atop the 'mountain' in town
Monday, November 30, 2009
It's time for another blog
So basically, i have been busy. I have been doing a lot of things and speaking a lot of german, which means I haven't been able to update my blog regularly.
Mid terms were last week, and even though the one midterm I had was the week before that, the stress of midterms was felt by everyone. some people still have midterms this week, but lets hope they all go well and it isn't that stressful.
let me update you about hungary and spain:
As for Hungary, we were in Budapest. we got this cheap hostel for something like €6 a night, and it was so cute of a hostel, and I really liked it. there were nice people there and everything. It was a little shock at first though. I had a stressful week, and traveling to a country that wasn't nearly as modern as western europe kindof shocked me. I really wanted to go home and relax for the first couple of hours of the trip
But, we got into town, and everything was cool
The castle at night
We basically had no plan. we walked around the city for hours, looking at things, and doing things that sounded interesting. We went to the castle, and to a statue park, and to a museum in the castle. we also did some really cheap shopping at the stores there.
The statue park was really cool. It was some old statues from the communist era, that were basically thrown out of the city when Hungary separated itself from Russia. They put the statues in this park as a sort of memorial to the older times.
The statue, and melissa pointing at the statues moldy area
Then, it was off to Barcelona over my birthday weekend! Boy, was it warm there or what! the weater was 25°C and we went swimming in the sea and everything. It was such a nice relaxing trip. Granite, there was some drama, but I didn't let that affect my birthday weekend.
The people in spain were so nice. We were sitting on a ledge, enjoying a sandwich when some nice old couple came upto us and told us to be careful with our bag. They were speaking spanish, but we figured out they were trying to help us be protected from pickpocketers. That happened about three times to us the whole weekend. That, and an old lady fell on the ground, and we got to help her until a doctor arrived (a doctor was just standing by close on the street, so we didn't have to wait long).
Barcelona pictures will be up as soon as I facebook them!
Since barcelona, I haven't done much. we went around the ringstraße, which is the main street surrounding the 1st district here in vienna. It is a beautiful street with a lot of pretty buildings. we took pictures and all that jazz. It was a lot of fun, of course, because almost everything is a lot of fun over here.
LtoR: Taking pictures of the sites, the Rathaus (city hall), Staats Oper (the state opera house)
So, yeah. some of you might be asking, 'hey Erik, what did you do for thanksgiving, since they don't celebrate it over there?' Well let me tell you!
We had a thanksgiving feast. yes, a thanksgiving feast, ladies and gentlemen. What does an Austrian/American Thanksgiving fest entail? Well, for starters, all completely homecooked food. Let me tell you this, it was one of the best thanksgiving food I have had ever. Everything was made fresh from scratch, and with products from austria (which are much more healthy/organic than in the us). Then, we enjoyed it with our friends and professors.
Mmmmm, but the fun isn't over yet! After dinner, it was time for some dancing. We did some crazy German/Austrian dance (or that is atleast what I thought it was) and had fun trying to figure out how to do that. Afterwards, we decided to do an inchworm race on the ground. It was kindof ridiculous because it was spur of the moment, and the girls decided to put something on over their dresses so no one could see their underwear
With that being said, the girls decided to sumo wrestle:
Afterwards, we sang disney songs and acted them out. Coincidentally, the theater professor was there and thought we did lovely, and now has some ideas for things to do during our Theater weekend seminar in January. :D Hopefully something really fun
My friend Ryan and his friend Paul also came to visit. We had a lot of fun while he was here.
What else happened after that? Well, not too much. We have done some exploring of the Christmas Markets some self made excursions around Vienna, etc. Mostly studying and doing the midterm thing.
But yes, we have break from December 19th until January 6th, or something like that. I plan on going to Amsterdam (tickets already bought), Krakow Poland, and some other place cool. I don't know yet, but I would love to go to Sweden, if someone will go with me. If not, I shall have to try the traveling alone thing and see how that goes
Well, until next time! Hopefully not in two months.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
yummy yummy!
Last time I updated was a long time ago, so I'll just let you know what is up-
Started classes last week. Lemmie tell you, i had a hard time finding classes to take. Over here, the austrian students test out classes for a couple of weeks before deciding if they wanna take the classes. They will enroll for more than the amount of classes they wanna take, and then drop the ones they don't wanna take before the add/drop period, which is almost two months long. For me, i went to 3 classes, dropped all three, and added two new ones that I love.
I met a bunch of Austrian students! We were VIPs at a party, and we got free drinks, free shirts, got to dance to a really cool band, and even got to meet the band! Everyone wanted to meet the cool americans that were at the bar, so henceforth, that is how we met a lot of people. BTW, I was invited by my orientation buddy, who is quite cool, i must say.
We went to Graz this weekend, and toured around wine country and the city. It was so beautiful, and I got plenty of pictures. Check facebook for these photos later this week. Our tourguide did a lot of english/german translations, and her english was terrible, and hilarious at the same time. We went to a wine tasting, went up into the mountains and had some food and more wine, and saw so many vineyards. It was beautiful.
I started my internship! I work in a middle school helping/teaching English to classes. I range from 1st year English learners to 4th year learners. This means I speak a lot of German and English on any given day. Good practice for both, actually. There have been a lot of teachers, though, that have said, 'ok, nice of you to be here, now teach us for 50 minutes. ' Doing that without a lesson plan is terribly hard, so I have just started to come up with lesson plans incase that happens again (which it will... I know it). But hey, that's what being a teacher is all about, right?
And then there is vienna. I really love the city, cause there is so much one can do here.
And then, next weekend, i think i am going to Hungary. And then the weekend after that, I am going to Barcelona for 4 days, which we found tickets for extremely cheap! That trip is going to be very cheap. I am excited for all of this traveling coming up here. Eventually, during sometime, i want to get to go skiing, go to zurich, stolkholm, and poland. should be fun.
Well, this was short, but just letting you know what was up. Here are some awesome pictures that were taken by me and others on our program
Up on the hill in the middle of the city
This stone was expensive to cut, because it was thrust into the hot soup of our earth two times... Quote from our crazy tour guide
When renovating a building, they found a lot of different roman tombstones, which had a lot of historical importance for the people of the area (by Graz)
The drummer to the VIP band show we went to
A snowman group picture!
Started classes last week. Lemmie tell you, i had a hard time finding classes to take. Over here, the austrian students test out classes for a couple of weeks before deciding if they wanna take the classes. They will enroll for more than the amount of classes they wanna take, and then drop the ones they don't wanna take before the add/drop period, which is almost two months long. For me, i went to 3 classes, dropped all three, and added two new ones that I love.
I met a bunch of Austrian students! We were VIPs at a party, and we got free drinks, free shirts, got to dance to a really cool band, and even got to meet the band! Everyone wanted to meet the cool americans that were at the bar, so henceforth, that is how we met a lot of people. BTW, I was invited by my orientation buddy, who is quite cool, i must say.
We went to Graz this weekend, and toured around wine country and the city. It was so beautiful, and I got plenty of pictures. Check facebook for these photos later this week. Our tourguide did a lot of english/german translations, and her english was terrible, and hilarious at the same time. We went to a wine tasting, went up into the mountains and had some food and more wine, and saw so many vineyards. It was beautiful.
I started my internship! I work in a middle school helping/teaching English to classes. I range from 1st year English learners to 4th year learners. This means I speak a lot of German and English on any given day. Good practice for both, actually. There have been a lot of teachers, though, that have said, 'ok, nice of you to be here, now teach us for 50 minutes. ' Doing that without a lesson plan is terribly hard, so I have just started to come up with lesson plans incase that happens again (which it will... I know it). But hey, that's what being a teacher is all about, right?
And then there is vienna. I really love the city, cause there is so much one can do here.
And then, next weekend, i think i am going to Hungary. And then the weekend after that, I am going to Barcelona for 4 days, which we found tickets for extremely cheap! That trip is going to be very cheap. I am excited for all of this traveling coming up here. Eventually, during sometime, i want to get to go skiing, go to zurich, stolkholm, and poland. should be fun.
Well, this was short, but just letting you know what was up. Here are some awesome pictures that were taken by me and others on our program
Up on the hill in the middle of the city
This stone was expensive to cut, because it was thrust into the hot soup of our earth two times... Quote from our crazy tour guide
When renovating a building, they found a lot of different roman tombstones, which had a lot of historical importance for the people of the area (by Graz)
The drummer to the VIP band show we went to
A snowman group picture!
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Vienna.. wonderful city!
Let's just say this, I love vienna- a lot. I moved into my permanetn-temporary dorm, and it's smaller, but very very homey! The people there are super nice and everyone is wonderful.
The city has so much to do. I've never lived in a city, so this is new, but then again, I feel as though Vienna has so much more to do than a lot of other cities. On saturdays, there is this huge flea market that we go to almost every week to find bargains. We also go occasionally out to IKEA to enjoy a nice cheap lunch or dinner, and then go around the store. There are also over 100 different museums to visit in Vienna. Any museum you ever wanted to visit is probably here in vienna.
Talking about museums, last night was the "Lange nacht der Museen" (Long night of the museums). 94 museums were open from 6 pm until 1 am and all you had to do was buy one entrance ticket (11 Euros for students) and you got into all the other museums for free! We went to the Schnoops museum (free shots afterwards), a museum over eastern asian culture and religion, and the natural history museum, which is world renowned for it's exhibits. It had a lot of great stuff in there.
The public transportation here is also lovely, but i did have to spend a lot of money to get a semester card. I do love going in the subway, hundreds of feet below the city and riding around town. It's awesome.
We also did a scavenger hunt with the college one day. That was a blast. There were 4 groups of us, and just running around vienna trying to find out the answers to our quest things was so much fun. We met up with other teams, ran down streets, used street cars and subways, and did all sorts of things. We had a blast and got a ton of exercise.
We've also been around a couple of night life places and found some awesome little knooks here that are away from tourists. That, and I've really learned that the mexican food here is not real mexican. It's basically many different variations on fajitas, which is yummy, but i miss real mexican.
Well, i'm just happy, but classes are starting here really soon. I'm really nervous for my math class, which i think i'm dropping anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter. I'm doing an intership in a middle school, and I have to do a lot of teaching english. Because I told the teachers that i am an aspiring teacher, i get to teach lessons and whatnot. That's all good and dandy, but when i have to make up 9 lesson a week on top of homework and college, it's a little overwhelming. I can do it though, cause it'll be a great experience. :D
In my internship, i'm working with a big range of kids. All of them are in middle school, but some of them are just begining, some are in the integration process, and some of them are being taught completely (almost) in English. It's really interesting, but the younger ones get on my nerves a little, since they don't like to pay attention. I have already learned a lot about the educational system. One thing that is totally different is that the teachers move around, and the students stay put (most of the time), which is opposite of America.
Anyway, i have pictures, but not on my computer. I'm still without internet, so i'll work on getting pictures up sometime here soon! Check out my facebook group for photos!
The city has so much to do. I've never lived in a city, so this is new, but then again, I feel as though Vienna has so much more to do than a lot of other cities. On saturdays, there is this huge flea market that we go to almost every week to find bargains. We also go occasionally out to IKEA to enjoy a nice cheap lunch or dinner, and then go around the store. There are also over 100 different museums to visit in Vienna. Any museum you ever wanted to visit is probably here in vienna.
Talking about museums, last night was the "Lange nacht der Museen" (Long night of the museums). 94 museums were open from 6 pm until 1 am and all you had to do was buy one entrance ticket (11 Euros for students) and you got into all the other museums for free! We went to the Schnoops museum (free shots afterwards), a museum over eastern asian culture and religion, and the natural history museum, which is world renowned for it's exhibits. It had a lot of great stuff in there.
The public transportation here is also lovely, but i did have to spend a lot of money to get a semester card. I do love going in the subway, hundreds of feet below the city and riding around town. It's awesome.
We also did a scavenger hunt with the college one day. That was a blast. There were 4 groups of us, and just running around vienna trying to find out the answers to our quest things was so much fun. We met up with other teams, ran down streets, used street cars and subways, and did all sorts of things. We had a blast and got a ton of exercise.
We've also been around a couple of night life places and found some awesome little knooks here that are away from tourists. That, and I've really learned that the mexican food here is not real mexican. It's basically many different variations on fajitas, which is yummy, but i miss real mexican.
Well, i'm just happy, but classes are starting here really soon. I'm really nervous for my math class, which i think i'm dropping anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter. I'm doing an intership in a middle school, and I have to do a lot of teaching english. Because I told the teachers that i am an aspiring teacher, i get to teach lessons and whatnot. That's all good and dandy, but when i have to make up 9 lesson a week on top of homework and college, it's a little overwhelming. I can do it though, cause it'll be a great experience. :D
In my internship, i'm working with a big range of kids. All of them are in middle school, but some of them are just begining, some are in the integration process, and some of them are being taught completely (almost) in English. It's really interesting, but the younger ones get on my nerves a little, since they don't like to pay attention. I have already learned a lot about the educational system. One thing that is totally different is that the teachers move around, and the students stay put (most of the time), which is opposite of America.
Anyway, i have pictures, but not on my computer. I'm still without internet, so i'll work on getting pictures up sometime here soon! Check out my facebook group for photos!
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