Two Months To Go... Happy May Everyone!

The hours keep getting shorter and the minutes keep getting shorter and the days just fly by... and the weeks? Hallllloooo, my question is: What weeks? There are no weeks here. it’s just a big-no wait-small blob of time and space.

Wibbly wobbly timie wimey... stuff. 

May day pole climbing adventure

 I keep on having these flashbacks to the beginning of the year like when I was obsessed with this lame car game "gelbes Auto" (in english: yellow car) ...

and how absolutely nothing has changed.. except that my addiction has spread to the ones around me... The purple bruises will never heal.

 Do you see this picture? I don't like to brag on my blog (even though I do it constantly) BUT I think I can make another exception: these guys are in the Vienna Philharmoniker Orchestra. I shouldn't have taken this picuture. I hope I don't get arrested. See the blondie? I'm going to be playing on the same stage as him. (the story is below) I also have a slight crush on him. We're actually pretty tight, I've gotta say. I mean, I saw him twice in one week. That qualifies as friendship to me (disregarding the fact that he probably didn't notice my blushing face in the audiance.)

Oh, our future is looking bright....

 Ironically the Phil happened the week after my parents left. Sorry guys, you missed out... too bad Lufthansa found an airplane for you guys.

Here are a couple of shots of my city at night. Whoever said Vienna looked like crap is a tool.

Oh, that's right, no one said that. False alarm.

 In other news, (I wont give you a full explanination of what's been going on, I don't want your, my lovely reader, head to explode)

I have been doing well... trying to smoosh in as much fun as I possibly can in the last few moments of my exchange. On Wednesday my exchange group embarks on our ~3 week long euro tour.

Woo, euro trip!

Now it's serious time. Heart to heart time. (ok, that doesn't work on the internet) But I want to explain some funky emotional rollercoaster rides I've been going on in regards to the end of the year. Coming to the realization that I will, one day, need pack my bags, take that dreaded drive to the airport, and give that last hug before turning away for the last time and dissapearing into the crowd of what we call "security" without knowing if you will actually see these wonderful people again is terribly difficult. It's also terribly difficult for me to not think of it so dramatically. In my mind I will be a sobbing lump on the floor who will need to be physically dragged away from the scene and carried onto the plane and strapped down so I can't escape...

Of course it wont be like that, I'm stronger than that. However, dismissing those thoughts and savoring every present moment is hard to do. 

Today I have another outlook. I have known from the beginning that I only have one year. I am not ready to go yet because it's not yet time, and I will only be ready in that very moment when I need to be. The other night a friend of mine, Celeste, opened my eyes to another philosophy that helped me sizzel dowwwwwnnn. It's the idea that we skript our our lives before we're born. We plan our our challanges and our triumphs and who we will meet, good and bad, who will help us fulfill our purposes as spiritual beings. It got my head out of thinking of the NOOOIDON'TWANNAGO to thinking, "no, Cleo, this is just one stop along the way, I (spirit that I don't remember) planned all this cool stuff for you before you were born, you gotta at least tryyy it!" 

So now I'm in an optimistic mood. However, this philosophy changes the definition of "spontanious." Is there such thing anymore? If everything is preplaned... and we are just going on Autopilot...I'm sure, reader-whoeveryoumaybe, we could have a looong discussion about this.

As an ending to this blog post....

I wanted to say that I joined an orchestra! The Mödlinger Synphonisches Orchester, to be exact ;) Just out of the blue someone asked me to join! They said they needed an extra cello and... bing bam boom I got music for Beethoven's Violin concerto, (just BTW, a violinist from the Vienna Phil will be playing the solo.....) Wagner's Meistersinger and Schubert's Sym. No. 7! I feel so fortunent to have been given this oppertunity. I can officially say that I've played on the same stage as someone in the Philharmoniker. WHAAAATT???!?

OMG I JUST GOOGLED HIM AND HE IS MY BLONDIE BUDDY!

shitshitshitshitshitshit going CRAAAAZZZYYYY here. I need a paperbag. oh god oh god oh god. I am not worthy, I am not wooorrrthhyy!!!


I need to practice.

(p.s. I added that bit above after i found out. I really truely did google him in the moment before I wrote in caps, "omgijustgoogledhimandheismyblondiethatiloveverymuch")(These emotions are legit) (true story)

Oh, and here is Kalksburg (my school) from behind.

Flashback. and Travel Log Time. (This one's long, be prepared)

Hello my Leute!

Flashback post!
One year ago this happened:

This is the Cecilia and Peterborough Chamber Singers in front of the Belvedere Palace in Vienna! It definitely feels like it was 5 years ago. (p.s. if anyone in the group is reading this, I miss you guys and I can't wait to see you again!) (and come back to Vienna please, maybe you'll bring good weather)




I also looked like this about one year ago:

What has become of me!!

Don't worry, nothing has changed. 

at 8 years of age:                                                         6 years later:

Oh that picture reminds me, I was in Italy for Easter! Went to see the Pope. He's chill and says hi. We had lunch.

Ok, that didn't happen. But I'm sure that if I did see the Pope, and we did have lunch, he probably would have said hi anyways. I'm just skipping a step. 

Aren't I nice.

ITALLLYYYYYYYYYYY...

(P.S. This part is long. If you don't want to hear about Italy, skip down to the end because there I posted some videos that depict what it is like to be on exchange. )

Was so cray cool. I went with one of my host sisters, Ingrid and her two daughters, and her two daughter's friends and now we're all chill and sing "Thüringer Klöße" together. (p.s. here's the link to the video) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJe3cdM7f1c 

be prepaired to L.O.L. or rofl or pypwrofl (peeing your pants while rolling on the floor laughing) 

Here was our trip: 

• 13 hour night train to Rome
• Roam Rome for a couple of days, sleep in Freedom Traveler hostel where they give us pizza parties and pasta. And where you meet people that go to your sister's college and who know your sister's ex boyfriend. It's a cool place. I highly recommend it
• Train to Orvietto
• Play with 19 billion cats in Orvietto
• Take train to Siena 
• Eat LOTS of Gelatto in Siena
• Take train to Lucca
• have the "oh, I've been here before" moment on the city wall in Lucca
• take train to Florence
• Have the same moment in Florence, spend Easter in Florence, go to a Easter mass in the Dome...
• Take train to Venice
• Spend an hour trying to find a hostel that was 20 meters away... and shout "ciao bello!" to every passing Gondola... 

I would say it was a grand success!!

Our group would sometimes split up can explore the city in smaller groups or by ourselves. It was so good for me to explore the cities by myself. I could stop where ever I wanted, journal when I wanted, I had all the time in the world. There were no strict time limits, nobody saying where I should go and when... it made for a very relaxing trip. Exploring the tiny streets in Rome alone was quite an experience. And as easy as it is to get lost in the town, to find yourself again is so easy because on every single street corner there are signes and every 5 minutes you find yourself again by walking past a major monument or ruin. 

At the hostel I met a couple of crazy folks: A lovely Canadian family (well, dad and daughter) (absolutely wahnsinnig) who, with Alyssa (the one who goes to Ithaca College with Emily), and I went out a search to find hot chocolate, pick oranges from trees and take photos in a photobooth.  There were also these three dudes from Uruguay. (Remember these dudes, they're important) 

Then Orvietto...

Oh, it was nice to get out of the crazy city of Rome... Orvietto is beautiful and built on a dormant volcano! There's a wahnsinnig huge church, absolute massive, right in the middle of the city. The decorations on this church depict the various stories in the Bible. In incredible detail. Sculptures, man, sculpures. 

The city was actually built on top of another city which was covered in lava when the volcano erupted, which means... underground passages! There is some huge number of caves in this city, we took a tour through a couple. We saw where they mined cement, made olive oil, kept their pigeons... it was great! Surrounding the city is this huge valley. It's all green and there are cats....

Siena: 

Siena wins for best gelatto. (just a side note, there) 

In this bird's next life he will be a human.

We got to the city a little late because we accidentely forgot to change trains and we ended up an hour and a half away in Florence! whoops! but it did mean that on our way back we got to Piza's train station. 

Beautiful.

This is the time where we remember those three guys from Uruguay. I was walking around the city when all of a sudden I realized I had just taken a picture of somebody I had seen before! It was one of the dreamy Uruguayans from that hostel in Rome! After I collected my wits and screwed my head on straight I went over and said, "hii........." I'm terribly awkward. Anyway, the other guys were not far away and they greeted me with South American hospitality; asking me why on earth I was walking around alone,  and told me that I absolutely must come with them because they want to practice their english and it was just too weird that we bumped into eachother again in Italy.

So I spent my time in Siena chilling with South Americans, it was out of this world. The people one meets while traveling... 

Lucca!

Waaaaahh... It rained so hard in Lucca! I'll have to go back again sometime. I had a memory of this town from a trip I took with the Peterborough Children's Choir when I was 8! It was cool. 

Our group was a little... tired that day, ok, by a little I mean we could have slept for the entire day. And night. 

Florenz

What a great city! I'm getting lazy about typing so I'll just post pictures.

und...

Venice

Venice is so pretty... I felt like I was in some sort of romantic drama the whole time. It was awesome.  Apart from getting lost every 5 minutes and needing to ask for directions every time we turned a corner. 

 Also we found the best hot chocolate. I now have a crush on the man who made it. 

 the streets are so small! 

All in all, I took about 900 pictures, about 3/4 are terrible. but that doesn't matter. 

ONE LAST THING

I'd like to say one last thing before I go...
It's more than just a feeling, you know...


This wonderful friend of mine, Erin makes all these exchange student videos. I want to share them with you so you know what it's like to be with exchange students. 

All of them are on her youtube channel, but here is one that we all made together. It's stop motion. It's sick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9XIIn71Pyk

and here is the March video. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QOEQnhf1aM

Title Relevant to What's Been Happenin in the Land of Mozart

Hello my friendly, following crew!
It is nice to finally talk with you
Now gather 'round
For here comes the sound
Of a cray cray Exchange Student's silent blog post.

I had no idea how to finish that poem so... that's what you get.
Good, huh?

I was going to tell you about christmas and new years for the cultural benefit, but it was so long ago that, well frankly I just don't want to.

oh poohhhhh.... someday you can ask me and I will pull out my journal and tell you all about it!
Because, let me tell you something, I have been really good this year and have written almost every single day in my journal.

I'm prepairing myself for Alzheimers.

This is not the point of my blog.
What is the point?

Here:

So, ladies and Gentlemen I give you Austria: as of Feburary.

(ignore the fact that this was actually taken in January)

Some things that happened:

I could probably hide a couple of small children in there. Bad. Ass. 

 Ok, that didn't actually happen.

but this did! (taken right before we clambered into a bus to the Artzeball in the Hoffburg Palace)

And then there was the Kalksburg Schulball (omg, that made ConVal High look like a slum) and then the Red cross ball... and ommmg... it's a wonderful world...

This happened, too

Made by my lovely host sister, Veronika

19!

Dear Keene, remember Flo? Yeah, he's still cool

Oh, also this is about 2 hours away:

I gave you guys two pictures so you can drink in the goodness.

And I'm finishing up with a fantastic experience...
Bring your exchange aunt to school. HTL was very welcoming.

what a good host nephew, taking his little auntie to school with him. 

Well dudes and dudetts, this is what's up over here!
Part of it, at least.
Have a fantastic day.

I love you guys!

And to my lovely real niece: Happy birthday, my wonderful, smartie-pants rolliepollieollie Olive! And to my cool, stylin real nephew: Happy unbirthday, my super, wackball scrumpliedoop Langdon!

I Can Hear the Fireworks... A New Year update

We hopped in our bus called ‘Carl’ and drove

And drove

And drove

And then BOOM! We ended up in München. Beautiful, really. We scaled that city in 2 hours then came home, played TAK until the wee hours of the morning, slept then hopped right back into Carl and drove..

And drove

And drove

And then BOOM! We’re lost in Zurich, the biggest city in Switzerland. We found ourselves again, as well as the hotel, checked in, settled in, napped (I think, I mean, I’m not sure anymore because it was so long ago. I know how important these details are.) Then took off again into the big, bad ass Stadt.

We went to fancy restaurants,

history of med.

Circuses,

Museums,

An Opera,

On a hike,

Then we experienced New Years in the city. We danced all over the city, Emily Flemming, we all did the sea creature boogie! We were so good that some teenagers came  “sharked it out” with us. Pretty cool, huh? And then… 20 minutes after midnight we watched the fireworks… They were better than any other show I have seen in my life! Not only because they were in Switzerland, because the Papa from Yuki MADE them. CONSTRUCTED them. DESIGNED them. 

Should I keep going?

So rad. Really.

I don’t know if I can explain it further, It felt like a dream.

yeah, I ate that.

these, my friends, are fireworks. 

Sophie holding the circus program! 

traditional swiss desert, it's bigger than my head! and better than lead

part of the family on the 31st 

Then we slept for the whole day.

Then my host mum and I went to the mountains in Austria, met up with another host sister and her kids and went skiing for 4 days!

I slept it off in school.

Lots of Love!

Cleo

I Can Here The Bells..... The Christmas Update

Our "Tannenbaum"  

I think it’s time for me to fill you guys in on Christmas, New Years, and January. You have all been very patient, thank you J

An Austrian Christmas is not to be missed. Many friends of mine asked me, “Why don’t you go visit your family and friends for the holidays! That’s so unfair to you!” I reply, “and go back to see all those ugly, cheep wall-mart decorations limply hanging on trees, cars and houses? I don’t think so!” (To be fair, I did miss home- a lot. But thankfully we were all so busy I had no chance to get lethargically melodramatic) (that don’t fly with me)

We had a HUGE tree. Absolutely gigantic. My family didn’t think so because it’s usually bigger but compared to my family’s Charlie Brown style tree, it was a giant. We used only white, gold and red decorations-sometimes I tried to sneak a blue ornament under a thick, bushy branch, but I was always found out and got a scolding. “Nein, nein, nein, Cleo. Das ist blau. Das passt nicht!”

Sooner or later my host sister, Veronika went to take a nap (it was far too stressful to moderate the tree-decorating process) when suddenly a golden fairy out of nowhere came and completely took over. Golden tinsel! Golden bows! Golden everything! I thought it was absolutely magnificent. But then from above came a scream, “WAS HAST IHR GEMACHT?????” uh oh……. Veronika comes back down stairs and says, “I leave for a 10 minute nap when the tree looked great. I come back and a gold pandemic has taken over!”

Oops! I blamed Martin, one of my host sibz.

It was hilarious.

Christmas spirits start developing on the 1^st day of the Advent. Suddenly you’re walking through Vienna and BAM you bump into a punch and roasted chestnuts stand. On every street corner up sprung Christmas markets and over every street were beautiful Christmas lights hanging overhead. It’s called “walking in a winter wonderland”  minus the snow. Which we did get, eventually, and a lot of it, too! You have to watch out for Krampus, he’s coming with chains and sticks and will beat you! Really! I got a good wack on my bum. Owwa!

Table's all decked out

Christmas is celebrated on the 24^th, and we cook and clean and sing around the tree and get all dressed up fancy and finish up packing our last present and then we eat a little snack then a little bell rings then we all rush (or not rush) to the tree because the Chriskind has come! Then we sing to the glittering, golden tree and… I bet you can guess the rest of the story.

“Jingle bells” was always part of the program. They loved it. I just wish I knew the second verse…

Then we had a couple of days to digest the feast before we packed up our bags and drove off to…. Switzerland! 

An Outdated Update

Well helllloooo blog! how ya doing? I haven't updated you in God knows when so I hope your system doesn't crash with the amount of Austian amazingness I'm about to put in here!

Where did I leave off?
Thanksgiving? oh my. I've got a lot of work to do.

After Turkeyday I did things like... go for a day trip with my family to Bratislava by Boat...

weeeee!!!!!

my dear Host Oma: it was her birthday trip.

terrible quality, none the less this is Bratislava

Played ma cello in a school concert all bym'self :} hehehehehehhehehe




Spent some quality time with my 3d class (12-13 years old)











And the Great Master Grahm (art teacher)
















Saw Krampus

(I should add, Krampus is an Austrian Christmas tradition: good children get presents and bad children get hit by chains and sticks! weee!!) (of course that's a little false. everyone gets hit by Krampus, not just children! or you can pose for a picture instead.)

got lost

wo...bin...ich???

Christmas carols

and packed up my stuff in a suitcase
and a backpack
and a laundry basket
and a box
and two trips

and moved to my next host family!


I got me a biiig family: my goal is to meet all of them by the end of the year. and if I was here for two I might make it to the names as well. We'll see.

My host dad and I went to a caberet one night in Cafe L.E.O. (it was fantastic: to anyone who lives in or around Vienna... go to it!) (in an attempt to keep this blog a little contained i wont go into details. but here's a picture!

I was so close to this wailing beauty! Hardly any zoom!

Went to Salzburg with Rotary!

so many people, so little time.... it was our "goodbye to the "Oldies" trip. I'll clarify. there's two exchange groups in austria: one begins in Jan. and one in Aug. The folks that came in Jan are now starting to say their bye-byes and our big bye bye party was in salzburg. mehhh....


And lots more christmas stuff that I need to write tomorrow. Or later today. But i don't feel like it right now. I'm hungry.