Thanksgiving in Austria!

Hai all! 

Thanksgiving, as you might know, is not celebrated in Austria. But right now I feel as though I couldn't have celebrated thanksgiving any much more better than I did these past two days.

I'll tell you about it.

on the 22nd I hung out with a bunch of American exchange students in a German course, then afterwards I was suppose to meet up with some more friends and prance around Vienna for a couple more hours. It was a little harder to find these peeps as I had thought, so I wandered aimlessly through the streets of Vienna (it is so pretty at night) and came apon Cafe Central. 

OMGAELFAKLJH 

it's really pretty.

and kind of expensive.

but I thought, hey, it's thanksgiving. why not? So I ordered a whopping big slice of Apfel Strudel and a kleiner Kaffee, sat down with my Pooh Bear book and read. 

On the way home I came across this wicked cool dude named Flo on the train, he had the craziest dreadlocks and just seemed so chill with the world. raaasssttaaa sstttyyyllleee 

I must say, I was a little intimadated at first because when random men come up to me and start in on conversations, I am trained to try to ignore them because they will probably rape me. I need to stop doing this because the stories that come out of these random people on the train are fantasticly inspirational and they probably wont rape me. Anyway He works in a firm for people with mental disorders and loves it, he has a deep appreciation for music and art... anyway, he was rad and heard my story, too. And. was interrested in it. whoooaaaa....

then I skyped with my family! and it was a lovely surprise because it wasn't just mums and pops and sister, it was mums and pops and sister and cousin and cousin and aunt and aunt and uncle and aunt and cousin and baby cousin and uncle and cousin and VICKY LI (my dear exchange student from 3 years ago) and bird and turkey and the WHOLE GANG! (well, not the whooollle gang, we were missing those from the mid to western side of the country...) oh and friend and friend. I love them!

Today we had another thanksgiving! but this one involved real food, not just a video of my dad's super professionally fried turkey. I chilled with my Host aunt, Oma and Opa, organized a slideshow of pictures, talked and talked about family history, the different dialekts of austria, how my host Opa's grandfather dined with the austiran emperor... it was great! then we ate and it was the best that I could have asked for. I am so fortunent... 

That's ma story! 

luve ya!

oh, and don't forget to read the post that came right before this, it's a new one, too. 

LIEBE GRÜßE

Cleo

A Turnen Experience

Here's what they said, "ok. so you throw the ball at someone and try not to get hit. when you do get hit you go outside the box. to get back inside you have to hit someone on the opposite team with said ball."

this is what I heard, "ok, du -------------- ball----------------------- run--------------------get out-----------------------------ball------hit---"

And then we started playing a type of dodgeball-fight-to-death game!  I don't think I need to explain it more :)

But you learn by experience! next time, watch out, Austria, you ain't gunna win on me!

HHHHHHHAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaLLLooooaoOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Well, now, what has been going on here?

I’ll tell you, they don’t lie when they say that one day it will click. I’m waiting on the german part to click, but culturally I feel awesome. I actually had a panic attack the other day thinking about how I was already in my 4th month and haven’t really EXPLORED a city that lies 30 minutes away from my house. So, to compensate I wrote a long (and it’s getting longer) list of all the places yet to be explored in Vienna. I don’t know If I’ll finish by the end of the year, but I’ll at least have scratched the surface. The list includes:

• ·      A visit to the chocolate museum
• ·      Eat my way through a menu at a café (not literally, of course I’m not a fan of digesting paper)
• ·      Climbing up Stefansdom
• ·      Visiting every district in Vienna
• ·      Stopping at every stop on the u-bahn
• ·      Take cooking/baking courses so I can eat sachertorte for the rest of my life
• ·      Learn traditional folk songs

·      And that’s only 7 of the manny things to do in Vienna. 

S  So. I gotta get in on that. An adventure a day. Let’s go.

     Here are the pictures from the week! 

More things: Perchtoldsdorf is so cool. so so cool. They have this harvest festival to thank God for the grapes to make wine. The history behind this particular festival is that a long, long time ago poor men worked to guard the vinyard from evil people trying to steal grapes. 

 One time one of the guards was beaten! And almost died! He was taken to one (of the maaaannnnyyy) heurigers (restaurants serving local food and wine- in P-dorf there are about 40 heurigers.)  in P-dorf (whooh, sorry about all of the interruptions!) and was SAVED!

 So now, every year there is a small parade that marches from that heuriger to the church and for the entire weekend people drink, eat and are merry.

 HERE. is the Weihnachtsmarkt infront of the Rathaus. we were there for the opening, where they light up the tree, then the burgermeister sings or speaks, there's music, food, drink, things to buy, and lots and lots of people.

 and things to buy

 and cute little people on their daddy's shoulders

Going around Vienna at night is the way to do things, it's so pretty. 

What I didn't say in the last post today :P

ok, but really some cool things have happened this week so I do want to share with you. I mean, I kind of left you hanging with the whole Prague, Dresden, Berlin and Salzburg thing to talk about silly homesickness (how lame of me!) so I'll fill you in.

Auto Rally: In Horn there was a cray cray Car Race!

This is my car. but they spelled my name wrong. 

I don't know anything about cars, but I'm pretty sure this engine is cool. 

 It lasted the whole weekend, it was cold, but man it was cool seeing all those fast cars, I felt so masculine! Wee!


Salzburg: I went to visit my friend Tobi in the salty burg!

Vienna and Salzburg are so different in culture. I was kind of expecting that, naturally, but it was stil shocking. Salzburg is more rural, the people move slower, and have lots of time to say hello to random passerbys. I took advantage of this and said hi to errrybody!

Prague: hopped in a bus with a bunch of crazy exchange students and drove to Prague! My friend Celeste and I sang, "walking in Prague... with you" and had a jolly time.

Dresden: hopped in the bus again and drove to dresden...

then...

Berlin: had a jolly time roaming the streets in Berlin. I made up a song with Tobi about the berlin wall here are the lyrics:

there once was a big wall in Berlin that sepperated east and west
it was constructed by the soviets who thought it would be for the best
those selfish bitches were very wrong about what they thought would occure
for people were starving in the east while feeding the soviet's war.

while in the west was not so bad
but still people didnt have fun
for families were sepperated
in this shitty show.

However in 1989 things began to look hopeful
the wall came down and now tourist can buy the dust on cheap postcards.

you can buy the dust on post cards!

The tune is to the Harry Potter theme.

on the way back, a 9 hour bus ride to austria, I made up a cool poem game where we would write funny poems/ tell a joke/ story/ whatever in the mic to the entire bus. it was quite fun. here are the poems that I wrote:

Schade Schade Marmelade: (auf Deutsch)

Schade, schade Marmelade
wir sind in ein Auto flabeflabe
du neben mir
ich neben dir
und wir singen zusammen
Schade schade Marmelade.

(auf englisch)
pity pity Marmelade
we are in a car flaba flaba
you next to me
me next to you
and we sing together
pity pity marmelade.

Driving Driving Driving: 

driving driving drivng
Oh how I love to drive
driving driving driving
it makes me feel so alive
moving this way and that
like a giant bat
when I think to myself
why am I not a cat?

then my friends Crash and Celeste wrote me a poem that made my heart melt..... and whenever I look at it I feel sooo good and happy. merrr....

OK that's pretty much all.

This one goes out to my Almond Joy

Wow, hello blog! Nice to see you again! I should be updating this more often because of all the crazy stuff i’ve been doing like going to an auto rally, finishing my application to University of Wisconsim Madison, traveling to Salzburg to visit my old friend Tobias Pablik, touring Prague, Dresden and Berlin with Rotary... but I haven’t been writing because frankly, I’ve had too much of the "3rd month blues" to even want to go near a word processer.

However, for the next generation of exchange students and even those exchanging today, I believe that this post will give you a little bit of hope for coping with homesickness. 

And sorry for potential grammatical and spelling errors, my auto correct is in German so every word is underlined in red right now which makes self-correcting a pain in the bum.

Homesickness is real! Oh lordy lord! For some reason I thought I could battle it and make it though this year unscathed. No. No no no no no.  That is impossible. BUT. It’s not all terrible. It’s quite bittersweet actually. Homesickness is only a way to realize how lucky you are to have something to be homesick for. For instance, how lame my dad’s jokes are, or when my parents and sister dropped me off at the airport they stuck with me in the security line until the last possible moment. Then instead of turning their backs and leaving for good they stayed right outside the security gate until I was completely out of sight.

At the time it seemed like the most annoying thing. „why don’t you guys just llleeeaavvee already!" but no, they stayed there and waited and watched and waited andd..... waited. (it was a long line.)

Now I look back on that afternoon thinking about how fortunant I am that they didn’t just leave like their haughty, impatient daughter wanted because it proved they are going to stick with me and support me though the bitter end and then more. I can’t ask for more than that.

So danke, mumzie and popzie and embilz for not leaving me at the airport to fend for myself because even though I thought I could, I know now I couldn’t. if that makes any sense.

To any parent who’s reading this who’s kid is going on exchange, don’t leave them at the airport. No matter how much they try to push you away, come the 3rd month they’ll really appreciate the last seconds they had with you.

Well shoot, I should stop writing because I don’t want insue water damage on my computer.

I love you my crazy, funkey, weird, smelly, lame, annoying, sing-songie, music-playie, punny, family! I’m happy i’m homesick because now I know how you’re actually kind of cool!