Kelda in Österreich

2008-07-06T19:49:00.006+02:00

It's sunday.
I'm leaving on tuesday for vienna.

no. I still haven't packed yet.

Monday, like I think I've already said, was spent walking and BBQing with my class. It was a gorgeous day.

Afterwards I had dinner in a nice restaraunt with Anna and Franz,
who I babysit, and their mother (also called Anna).

On wednesday I had my last Salon Orchester rehearsal, and we had our last AFS meeting (it's not actually a 'meeting', we just go for drinks and talk), and I said goodbye to Peter, who's off to Boston (or Huston? I forget which. Texas somewhere I think), before heading to Poland to do his compulsory military service.

Friday night was my kinda.. leaving party. Tobi, Priska, Matze, Peter (in the photo), Olivia and I went to a japanese restaraunt and ate sushi, before heading into town. Andrea and Bambi both turned up too, which was nice. Unfortunately, we lost Tobi, and I hadn't realised that he was travelling to Oberösterreich on saturday morning, so I left without finding him and saying goodbye, which I got quite upset about when I found out. However, the other goodbyes (Priska and Matze are now in Germany, looking after little kids) went as well as goodbyes can go. They took me up to the dome after school on friday, except not to the dome itself, but onto the rooves, where we had to sneak through offices and climb through windows to get to. We watched the silver lady standing on her collumn, twirling her silver rose and blowing kisses to the tourists.

Saturday morning, after four hours sleep, was spent in Tux with Andrea and Hanni. It was Beautiful. Afterwards, I was dropped off in Hall, near to where Michi lives, for his leaving party. We went to a bbq, with all his friends, which was lovely, and then went to sing karaoke. It was the first time I'd ever tried karaoke, and I can report back that it was as bad as I thought it'd be (it was bad. the singing i mean. Ok.. most of the singing. Including me.) , and as fun as I thought it'd be (it was really fun!).

I don't have the photos from saturday night yet, as my camera ran out of battery, but this is Michi, Kristen and Stefan (Stefan is Michi's brother, and he and Kirsten have a one year old daughter called Alissa) practising, from last week.

I slept overnight at Michi's because the busses didn't run back to Innsbruck at that time of the night, and then today we had to wake up at 6am (struggle!!! and after only two hours sleep!). At 7.30 we left the house, and I was dropped off at my busstop, where I said goodbye. I've just talked with Michi on skype, who is finding London very .. different, and strange, especially after only four hours sleep since Friday. He'll be staying there for five weeks, doing an englisch course for uni. I'm sure he'll have a wonderful time though, once he's gotten over the strangeness of being away from home.

This afternoon I was supposed to be going swimming with nicola and hannah in the baggersee, but then I lay down for a couple of minutes, meaning to start packing after a little break, and woke up a few hours later. I briefly caught up with Bambi in Technik, who was on his way back to Südtirol from his girlfriend's house somwhere furthur northwest of Innsbruck I think.
It was really strange saying goodbye to Bambi. I was really.. fidgity, and nervous I guess. From all of my friends that I've made in Austria, Bambi has been around the longest, and has really helped me the most, and been among the most patient of people (I'll talk about Andrea when I finally say goodbye to her. Ohgosh. not thinking about saying goodbye to andrea!).
I didn't want to say goodbye to Bambi. It didn't feel right saying goodbye to him.

anyway. So that's it. Tomorrow I'll hopefully meet up with Nici, give my fencing clothes back, and then Andrea, Matze and I are going to a concert in the evening.
Tuesday's train leaves at 9.30am. I'll be back, of course, next week but only to see Andrea, Matze, Jürg Hanni and hopefully Sabbi if she's around. So this, for me is really the end.

And I hate endings. Look, I don't know how to finish this post.

hrm..

2008-06-30T17:25:00.003+02:00

Starting to get homesick for Austria. Even though I haven't left it yet. The past few days have been the Most Perfect days. The sun is shining, and when it's not, it's raining warm rain, and the sky flashes purple and the mountains turn blue. On Friday Michi, his mum and I took the horses way up into the mountains, where they'll stay running wild until September. There were Alpenrosen, Highland cows stood in the middle of the road and stared at us, and all the other ponys, cows and horses were galloping about everywhere. Afterwards was Jürg's birthday dinner at a fancy hotel. Saturday was spent eating icecream with Sabbi, and then BBQing at Michi's brother Stephan's house, where I met his girlfriend and daughter who's just turned one year old. Sunday was spent swimming, lazing about in the sun and then watching the football world cup with Bambi and Betti, before going out with a few other 9M people. I said my first goodbyes on sunday night.
It was weird. Really weird.
Today was our 'wandertag'. Our class walked from town up through the woods to Kathi's house, where we BBQed (again) and lazed about (again) and enjoyed the sun and company. And right now I'm late to another dinner- from the two kids who I babysit and english-help-with, and their mother.

Eight days to go...

2008-06-26T11:24:00.002+02:00

Thought I'd do another post, just because I'm at school and have nothing to do, and more importantly because I've only got 12 days left in Innsbruck!
At the start of my exchange, I couldn't imagine actually still exisiting in the last few days of my year in Austria. There was just so much to think about that I hadn't thought about coming home. Yet here I am, still alive and better than ever before, and preparing myself to say goodbye to the country that I've grown to love.

I have to admit, that the first eight months or so were spent with the attitude that 'yeah, Austria's really cool, but I Want to go Home'. Then, with 12 weeks to go, it suddenly hit me that here I am in this amazing country, that I have friends, family, school, and a whole life here. The past 10 weeks have been crazy- full on in every aspect. The bonds that I have with my friends have grown tighter, I talk more, interact more with the people around me, and generally just give life everything I have. It's great. You should try it.

The school year is almost over, and since our marks are now fixed, there's not really much point to school anymore. The classroom is now for sleeping and eating- everyone turns up (or not) looking very, very tired, with bed-hair and odd socks and lots of coffee, and all we do is sleep while the teachers attempt to ramble on about something dull (I took a video of my history teacher rambling on yesterday I was so bored. I'll put it up when I get home), and complain about the weather. Every night is something different and usually spontaneous.
The weather, by the way, is well. Hot. On average it's a little above 30°, though today is (thankgod!) a little cooler. Everyone moves slowly, and if you stop and stare in one direction for long enough, you can see the heat waves swirling around off the streets. The classrooms are horrible- with so many people, they're not only hot, but really really stuffy, even though we have huge big celings, and cool tiled and wooden floors.
I, Kelda Morris, am proud to say that I have a tan. Although the rest of Tirol are Really, really ridiculously brown, so I feel just as white as I ever did. (also, everyone else seems to be getting sunburnt, but I haven't got sunburnt at all- erste mal in mein lebens!)

In saying that, there have also been quite a number of thunderstorms lately. On monday I was in the hofgarten with Hannah, and it was a lovely day- we were eating icecream under a huge tree- when suddenly it started raining lightly, and the next thing we know, its raining, and there's thunder and lightning- lots of it! 20 minutes later, after we'd run back into town for shelter (the water on the ground was Hot! I was in barefeet), it was nice and sunny again. Last night I was in town watching football with Michi and Mario again, and all of a sudden it started Hailing-hard- AND there was Thunder and Lightning. Poor Michi had to haul his motorbike into the shelter of a shop window to save it from the hail, and then drive all the way back to Absam in the pouring rain a little while later.

Anyway.
What to say. I'm really nervous about coming home. Right now I'm trying not to think about it too much. Infact, I haven't even started packing yet- that's how much I haven't been thinking about it! For those of you who don't know, I'm meeting mum in vienna on the 9th, and we're doing a quick 4 week backpacking trip around austria, italy and greece before heading back to NZ in early august.

So, I'd better be off. Maybe I'll start packing today. Or maybe I'll do that tomorrow... who knows!
Hope everyone's doing well
ganz liebe grüße
kelda

2008-06-21T12:37:00.007+02:00

Hadn't posted in a while, and don't really know where to start, so I thought I'd post up a couple of photos again.
Lately, Innsbruck has been invaded by the Spanish, the Russian, the Sweedish, and a whole lot of other people too... The EM 08 is on right now: for all you kiwis, that the European football Manschaft. Soccer, in other words.

This year it's being held in Austria and Switzerland (hurrah!) There are two games every single day (or rather, night) and three have been held in Innsbruck, at our Olympic stadium (where I do fencing). In town there are at least three large screens, where people flock to watch the football, as well as a huuuuuge screen in Bergiesel, at the Skijump (we sit on one side of the skijump, and the screen is on the other side)

I've watched quite a few games, but for most of my friends, the EM is brilliant because of all the beer and parties and nightlife. There are tonnes of free concerts, and crazy people on the streets to go and talk to. (this is me and a brezel by the way. Despite the look on my face, it was actually really good)

This is Hannah, Tom, Mario and Michael
at the Austria-Germany game on monday. We lost 1-0

Getting into the spirit of things

Hannah wrote 'Love USA' on my arm, and attacked my forehead as well.

Austrian Savages
(by the way, that flag is a tirolian flag, with the Tirolian mascot thing on it. And it's mine :D )

The really cool thing about EM is the amount of people from other countries who come here. And they're all really friendly too- you can just go up and talk to anyone.
The guy on the right is a Sweed who we met(we think he looks scottish), and the hat that Hannah is wearing I stole off another Sweed.

Fresh Kebap. Mmmm...

And this my friends, is my trusty bike. I love my bike. I go Everywhere with my bike. On monday night Hannah decided that she can ride bikes (she really, really can't), and we met some more austrians, who helped her out a bit.

The security is tight. This is last friday- Tobi, his hat, and a security man.

Blowing bubbles..

(Zipfer is our cheepest decent beer. If you go into a bar and say 'a bier bitte', you'll get a zipfer)

2008-06-08T11:13:00.008+02:00

This is a glimpse of my week. Enjoy!

AFS camp

I took relatively few, and bad photos, I'm not sure why. But I'm stealing other people's later.

The Aussies: lisa and Matthias (both in Australia 06/07)
by the way. Matthias is my evil, long lost twin. Our reasoning is that we are the same age (give or take two days >_> ) and the same hair. Oooh! And he can do the haka! (his version of which involves sticking his tongue out and saying 'BLLAAARGH!', while waving his hands around in the air. Bloody aussies.)

View from my room in the nunnery where we were staying

All us afsers (there are better photos. I just don't have them on the computer yet)

Johannes (Finnland), Sara (paraguay) and Peter, my support person

Hannah, Siiri and Mariana (chile)

Matura

Monday morning: Rebe, Oli and Prof. Payr, before oral Matura. Nervous.

Maria and Bambi

Then I went back to Bambi, to learn for his English Matura the next day, and in one of our breaks, he played me a beautiful song about learning to ride a bike (in english)

Our principal and 9M maturantins on tuesday night

One of the presents that 9M presented to their form teacher Payr. They also gave him a book, filled with all the stupid, funny things that people said in class in the five years that they've been together. I'll post some of them up later.
no i won't. Here's some now (I couldn't decide which ones to write, and which ones not to write, so there's quite a few. Skip them if you feel the need):

German and Geography with Prof. Payr:

Payr: Who from the girls hasn't brought their excuse note yet?
Bambi: Me!

Marco: Herr Proffesor, do you know who from the class is sleeping with who?

What is the Capital of the Netherlands?
Andy:Amsterdam
Bambi: Na, that's the capital of Holland, you doodle!

Are the southern Kalkalps north or south from the central alps?
Bambi: -thoughtpause-, south of course. you don't need to ask me such stupid questions. I'm not that dumb!

Bambi has toilet paper stuck up his nose
Payr: you have something stuck up your..
Bambi: Yeah. I know.
Payr: Do you have a bleeding nose again?
Bambi: yeah
Payr: There are more elegant methods...
Bambi: ok ok, -turns to the girls- does anyone have a tampon?

The topic: aliens
Marco:I don't think that we're the only intelligent life in the universe
Payr: Yes, there's a neighbouring class to ours.

Payr reads out the marks from the exam:
[Austrian school marks are a scale from one to five. 5= fail, 1= excellent ]
Igor: Herr Professor, what do i get?
Payr: 4
Igor:What? 4? Why?
Payr: Due to incompitence.

Payr: What's an engagement?
Andy: A climax
Payr: na. That's an oragasm.

Christina reads, Makus chats
Payr: Markus, did you hear?
Markus: Ja
Payr: What did she say then?
Markus: I don't know! But you asked me if I heard, and yeah, I heard her. Doesn't mean I understand what she said!

Payr gives us a sheet about Austria in Geography. It has one (unintended) mistake. Task: find the mistake.
Long silence, while everyone searches...
Bambi: Is it perhaps that Austria doesn't have nine States..?
Payr: Yes! Exactly! Austria has 17 states... how could something like that happen...

Payr: Bring me an excuse note
Olivia: Written or spoken?
Markus: Oral

Since Kelda, a New Zealand exchange student came to our class, Prof. Payr translated, from time to time, a few words into english:

'des ist mehr als exakt!'= 'It is more exact... exactly... It is more exactlier!!'

'Ihnen sollten die Haare zu Berge stehen!' = 'The hair should stand them up to the mountain!'

'... des is irgenwas.' = 'It is anywhat'

'Da passiert was' = 'There happens what'

Maths with Professor Kühberger:

Bambi goes through the Maths homework on the OHP. For one answer, he writes 15.666666666667
Elisabeth: Bambi, that's reoccuring...
Bambi: Na it's not. Cos on the calculator, right at the end there's a 7!

Kühberger: Then there's Ultraviolet, and infrared...
Igor: and bluetooth.

Olivia: (at the blackboard) And now I'll draw a blue line in..
-takes the yellow chalk and draws a line-
Kühberger: because you're not colourblind at all!!

Latin:

Markus has to translate a sentence: Ma schiße, there's no commas at all!

Bambi: Frau Professor, I want to ask if I can leave 10 minutes early, cos I have a violin lesson. You could say 'no' and then I'd just go 5 minutes early.

Religion:

Markus: Can I ask something? Is there an M-preis [local supermarket, like New World in NZ] in the Vatican City?

Topic: Marriage and it's symbols
Mayr: What are the symbols of marriage?
Laiminger: Rings
Mayr: Yes, what else?
Alex: Easter candles!!!

Markus: Maria [girl in our class] is the mother mary, and is therefore the granny of Jesus.

Chemistry:

Dechant: The whole of Tirol has the same population as München
Bambi: na.. na... is Tirol really as big as München?

General:

Elisabeth: You're so arrogant!!
Markus: I'm not arrogant!... what does arrogant mean?

Sophia: Has anyone got anything to write with?
Maria: Nah.. I've only got a pen

Betti and Bambi at the dinner/party afterwards

Me and Maria

18th Birthday!

Me and Andrea spazzed out on the floor, waiting for people

Andrea and Matze

That's nici. And matze. Matze and Priska biked through pouring rain from town to get to my house.

Hannah, Siiri, Priska and Nici

Uhh.. this is a charades-y board game we started (and never finished) playing. This is Priska's rendition of 'Thunderstorm'

Priska, Sara, Lis, Oli and Anna-Maria

Matze, Hannah, Siiri, Priska, Nici, Andrea and Yasmin.

Not strange.

Me and tobi (I wasn't quite ready for this photo. Even though I took it)

Spontaneous sandwiching of Priska
(Priska is tiny, and tobi is huge, which made it all the more funny.)

Then the circus began. Johannes, Matze, Priska and Matze all juggling at the same time.

Tobi wasn't particularly interested.

So he dreaded Yasmin's hair instead.

Afterwards, Yasmin, Priska, Matze, Oli and I went into town. It was still pouring with rain. Yasmin caught her last bahn home, Matze, Priska and Oli were exhausted, and I realised on the bus to town that I'd left my key at home. So we wandered around, sang stupid songs, danced, and I realised that my rain jacket wasn't as waterproof as I'd thought it was; proof being that my phone, which was in my pocket, was drenched (including the sim card- eek!), and didn't work anymore.
Saying of the night (supplied by Tobi):

'Endlich wochenende, endlich drouge consumieren'

ps. The european football cup Thing is being held in Austria this week. Everything is crazy. There's free Everything. So far, I've been to a free concert (by 'Juli', from germany, held at the Skijump), and on sunday I watched the Austria vs. Croatia game on a huuuuge tv at the skijump, where we lost 1-0. Tonight off to the skijump again, to watch Italy vs Holland with Bettina and Elizabeth, and tomorrow we have no school, because there's a game being held in Innsbruck. I'll chuck some photos up in a bit.

bussal!

2008-05-26T18:42:00.003+02:00

Today I saw my first real (ie. not in captivity) snake.
I also ran over it. With my bike.
It gave me quite a shock to say the least.

While I'm hear. heer. here. -ahem- I'd just like to say something about smoking (as Todd so kindly noted the cigarette in my hand in the previous photo) in Austria.

Austria doesn't have any 'Smoke Free' ads. On my first day at school, I was schocked by the number of people standing around infront of the school smoking. What an entrance: the school was hardly visible through the cloud of smoke hanging above the students' heads. The first time I went into a bar, I had to take frequent trips outside, simply because of the amount of smoke in there. Teachers put their stinking coats on my chair when they come into the classroom, students and teachers alike pop outside every break to have a quick ciggie out the back. People who I never expected to see smoking, smoked.

Now, ten months later, I'm used to it. Most of my friends smoke, or, if they don't smoke, they at least smoke when they drink. I've grown to like smokey bars.. there's something more atmospheric about a bar when it's clouded in smoke. And I don't even notice the smoke outside school anymore. Yes, people know that it's unhealthy, and dangerous for both themselves and the small (small, mind) number of people in the world who don't smoke. But really, Austrians don't give a damn.

So. Being little Keldalein/Neuseeland, who plonked herself right in the middle of this smoking manifest, I was faced with a difficult decision. The first time someone offered me a smoke, i declined. And the next time, and the next one. Then, one day I thought 'why not? One cigarrette isn't going to do any more damage than all the second hand smoke that I've been inhaling for who knows how long'
These days, I tend to go out alot (it's summer! And I'm 18. All the more reason!). When I go out, I drink, and when we drink, many, many people smoke. When I'm offered a cigarrette, sometimes I take it sometimes I don't. For the record, I would never buy myself a pack of cigarettes. And when I come back to NZ, I'm not intending to continue this trend.
Perhaps, for some of you-especially you who have never been to Europe before- it's a little difficult to understand. I'm not a bad person because I smoke occasionally. I don't stink of smoke, I wash my hair of the smell after every evening that I go out (it stinks regardless of whether You have smoked or not) and I'm not addicted, I'm simply fitting into my Austrian life, and culture.

Now, what IS a problem is this dammed Austrian chocolate...

2008-05-24T21:36:00.007+02:00

well, it's saturday night, and I think I need a break (and sleep!), except I'm kinda procrastinating, so I've decided to put a few photos from yesterday up.

Here we go!

Waiting for the bus to Landek: Igor, Priska and Matze

The start of the *borat voice* 'High Five!'s from Tobi

Priska and her bike lock (broken)

from 9M: Liz, Rebe, Marco and Olivia

Oli and Igor

Liz and her stamp book from her Happy Meal at Maccas

Tobi and Igor with Tobi's tuba

Judith, Bambi and Karina

Tobi and Sarah

Me and Hannah (yay almost matching birthdays!)

Hannah, Tobi and I

Bambi and Karina

Tobiiiiiiii!

Me and Hannah. again.

Ok. So Bambi was complaining about his shoes, because they're really fancy and italian and they hurt, so I let him wear my shoes instead

He couldn't really walk in them though. So he changed back.

Tobi and I found poster for Borgfesl. yay dr. biene!

People! At busstop! (friends of Tobis)

Tobi and some random

People!

ps. I'm leaving innsbruck in six weeks!!! And I'll be home in exactly ten.
eep. Don't want to go home. Already home. Not leaving Tirol!!!

2008-05-23T10:27:00.008+02:00

NB: Some of these photos are really bad. But I put them up anyway. You have been warned.

Birthday! Hurrah! I'm 18!
I won't go into details, because there's far too much to say, and I always somehow make things three times longer than they need to be anyway.
So! On wednesday (day before my birthday), we had school, and then in the evening we had our Borg orchester and choir concert. (I went to the wrong place.. i thought it was at Congress, but turned out to be in the konzertsaal). Bambi was the star of the show (Priska and I pretended to be squeeling fan girls, and shyly asked him for his autograph) (although he had enough squeeling fangirls there to last a lifetime and a half, i swear). First was the choir, who sang baroque, mostly church music (I think), with a baroque chamber group inbetween the pieces. Then came the orchestra.
The Mendelsohn went pretty well, although Bambi screwed up the third movement of the Bruch, but the audience still loved it. After the break was the wind band, who played something 20th century, by an american composer who's name I have momentarially vergessen. Forgotten.

Anyway, after the concert, Priska, Matze, Anna-Maria and I went back to Matze's (he lives in the old town, which is 3 mins away from the centre of town), left our instruments and concert clothes at his, and then went to Borgfest.
Borgfestl (it's not actually called that.. but it's what everyone from Borg says) is a bit like rockquest i guess. Except not. There were four bands from borg, and two bands from another school, and it was just a huge gig. thing. Tobi, who plays the tuba, has a band called Dr Biene (look them up on myspace- the band is made up of a tuba, sax, guitar and drums. they're amazing) who played as well. Anyway, before I get to that, we had a bit of trouble with transport, as Borgfestl was on the other side of town (near to where i live, but on the other side of the airport), and it was so late that the busses hardly went at all. So we ended up with three bikes (another Matthias was there as well), for five people, and me on the back of priska's bike. (Priska's bike, by the way, is.. broken. I ended up sitting on the metal thing above the back wheel, holding onto the seat, which isn't at All stable, for dear life. Oh and we didn't have a light either. Which.. is illegal. But.. hrm.) anyway!

Got to the place, and realised I didn't have a ticket. The Other Matthias didn't have one either, but he knew the security guy, who snuck us two tickets (hurrah!). After about ten minutes, Tobi's band started playing, and after the second song, the saxaphonist said 'it's just after mindnight, so for anyone who has a birthday, this is for you' and tobi played happy birthday (for me!) on his tuba. Not a huge amount happened that night, we just danced and danced and danced and danced, and then bambi turned up with a few of his squeeling fangirls (they're quite nice squeeling fangirls though) and we danced and danced and then I dislocated my knee, so I sat out for a bit, and then we danced more, and finally at about three we left, nikki, peter (really hippy guy from our school, who plays the accordian) and I hitched a lift with priska matze and anna on their bikes to the bridge, and then we all walked home. Got home at four, went to sleep at six (the birds had started singing) and for some reason, woke up at 9am.

The morning was filled with cooking. I'd thought it was a 'family lunch', but Hanni called Bambi (without asking me!) and invited him, and then i couldn't have just one friend for lunch, so I called nikki, woke her up and invited her too! (Stress!)Then Isl and her boyfriend Kevin(cousin) didn't have a car, except then they found a car, so everything actually turned out quite well!
Should I tell you about the food (I said I wouldn't go into detail didn't I...hrm)? First was griesknokelsuppe, which is soup with balls made up of some sort of flour thing (it's reaaaally good), then salad, which I had made, followed by chicken wrapped around bacon with a few vegies inside, which andrea had made. For desert there was pavlova. (somehow it turned out really well! Yuss!), which I'm happy to report that everyone Loved!

Oh and you'll all want to know what I got as well i suppose.
From mum: a big new, red/brown scarf, a pack of conte crayons, jaffas and whittakers chocolate (!!), along with a beautiful card, with paper that she'd made herself, and photos of me when i was little (by far the biggest surpsie!)
From Hanni: a tshirt for the football world cup (or europeans cup or whatever it is), green with 'Tiroooooooool' written across the front, and a pair of underwear (also football supportery stuff, special edition - red, white and red), Lindt chocolate, and bubble blowing stuff
From Jörg: a cd of the Vienna Philharmonic playing Mahler's symphonie no. 5, and a cd of the Vienna Philharmonic playing lots of really austrian, Strauß pieces.
From Andrea: a box of mozartkügeln, in a box shaped like a violin
From Matze: still to come..... (oh the suspense!)
From Isl and Kevin: a lemon and lime Radler (apparently the best there is) and..something else alcoholy. Can't remember what.

Then, after Hanni had tried and failed at getting Bambi to play something on his violin (as he was going back to südtirol that night), Nicola, Andrea and I were picked up by Nikki's dad, and Bambi and Matze went by bike, to the goldene dachl, where there was a flash mob... a huge pillow fight! It was great fun! Lost Matze and Andrea, but found Matze (from school) and Priska (that's four different Matthias's in the space of 24 hours people!). Near the end, the police came and took down Matze's details (apparently it was an unofficial pillow fight, and therefore illegal. Oh the illegal things I've done in the past few days), which we all found pretty ridiculous, and Bambi toddled off to the trainstation to catch his bus back to Italy, and Nikki, Matze Priska and I went to Treibhaus, before I picked my violin up from Matze's just as it started raining, and fell asleep in the bus on the way home.

So! That was what I've been doing for the past couple of days. Today I slept in, woke up, realised it was 8.10, and I should be at school, raced to school, and then found that there was none. Tonight we're playing the same concert in Landeck ( an hour or so away), and. yes!
I think that's all I had to say really.

tata!

2008-05-15T16:14:00.002+02:00

Ohgosh. I just got a letter from AFS.

'Liebe Kelda

Dein Austauschaufenthalf neigt sich schön langsam dem Ende zu. In wenigen Wochen wirst du dich von Österreich verabschieden müssen un zurück in dein Heimatland fliegen. Das heißt, dein letztes offizielles (und verpflichtendes) AFS-Camp in Österreich steht an.'

'Dear Kelda

Your exchange year is coming slowly to an end. In not too many weeks, you will be flying back to your homeland. This means that your last, official AFS camp in austria is coming up.'
[Badly translated, but you get the idea]

Isn't that horrible?
Nine months already!? I don't want to leave Tirol! I'm a Tirolian now! It's horrible to think that I won't be living in Innsbruck anymore. And that the only german that I'll be able to speak is Hochdeutsch, not beautiful dialekt. And after so much blood and sweat and tears, I'll simply toddle off back to New Zealand and attempt to pick up my life over there again. I need more time!

Apologies for New Zealanders who would kinda like to see me again. I'm completely torn. I've been thinking about this for the past month or so, and I get butterflies in my stomach every time I think about it..

ack
anyhu. Got a concert tonight. Musikschulorchester with the Tiroler Symphonie Orchester. Got told off last night (eek) by some scary management guy, who said that I was supposed to be On the Stage at 6.30, when Walter definately said that we should be On the Stage between 6.30-6.45. I still had five minutes!

anyhu. Take care y'all. (I'm 18 in a week! Hurrah!)
toodles

2008-05-14T13:11:00.015+02:00

I went to Italy on sunday!

Actually first, quickly .. on saturday I played at a wedding (it was Gorgeous. Hopefully I'll get some photos) The bride and groom were Alessandra and Alexander, which is quite funny. Their last names are really similar too, but I can't remember them. Anyway. The weather was perfect, and it was in this kinda. barn thing with biiiiig windows, overlooking ibk, and her dress so So pretty! Anyway. oh and we played austrian music, and the waiters were in lederhosen. XD

Anyhu. Then I went to Nikki's birthday party, which was cool. And on sunday (after four hours sleep) we went to südtirol! Ahhh! Südtirol is so pretty (it's northern italy. by the way)! To start with, we went to Brixen, where Bambi lives, and it was Such gorgeous hot weather!

We went first to a lake, and ate lunch there, and dangled our feet in the water. Then we went to town. We were in the marketplace, and looking at this big fountain thing,outside the cathedral, and the sun was blazing down, and people were eating pasta and icecream under umbrellas, and bambi just rode across the marktplatz (he looked so friggin italian, in his tight white tshirt and old jeans and chucks. I don't know How, he just Did) and said hello, and I introduced him to the Jürg and Hanni (we'd arranged it though.. it wasn't by chance), and he showed us around the church and the dome and all the really really old paintings, and then he thought he had to go, so he went, except then he came back again cos it turned out he didn't need to go yet. So we went to buy icecream, and walked along through the town (it's So cute.. flowerboxes in all the windows...) and we found the 'elefant hotel' which was really famous, but when i asked Why it was famous nobody knew. Bambi thought that Hannibal had once stayed there overnight. So we asked (or.. bambi asked. In italian) and it turned out that some famous king had once stayed there overnight, in the 16th century. So yes. Anyway. Then it started raining, so we went to bambi's so he could get a jacket, and I've always wanted to meet him dog, so hanni and jürg stayed outside, and I went in with Bambi, and met his dog and his whole family. And then Bambi had to go, so he went. And then his parents saw that hanni and jürg had been outside the whole time,a dn they invited us in, and we talked and ate and talked and talked and talked for ages. And yeah.
Eventually we left, and went to another village.. i forget the name, where Ilsa, a friend of Hanni's lives. She has two sons (16 and 19) and two grown up daughters, one of whom is at university in Rotterdam, Holland. However, Bruno (the 19yr old) was the only one at home during our stay there. Their house was sooo typically Italian! Their front yard was taken entirely up by grape vines, as were the back yards of all the neighbours, and there was a balcony, where you could look out over the hills (also covered in grapevines) and it was so hot, and everything was so green, and the sky was so blue..
We ate and talked and played guitar until 11ish, and after everyone else had gone to bed me and Bruno played guitar and xbox till 1am. The next morning I woke up to sunlight streaming into my white room from the balcony. We ate breakfast (strawberries, lots of bread and cheeses and jams, with coffee and fresh sweet grape juice)and then went on a walk, to the ruins of a really really old church. Afterwards, we walked more, past lots of waterfalls, where it was nice and shady under all the trees. Me and Bruno talked lots. In Italy they do Matura in each of the 12 subjects that they take (unlike in austria, with just four). He taught me a bit of italian, and I taught him a bit of maori.
Oh yeah! Südtirol has been passed back and forward from austria and italy so many times that half the people there speak italian and half speak german (tirolian german mind. For me it's no problem at all, but any german would have a bit of trouble with it). So, for example, Bambi's dad speaks only italian, (though he speaks a tiny bit of german. About as much as I could speak before I came to Austria), so Bambi's family all speak italian at home, whereas Ilsa can speak both perfect german and italian, but her children speak only german fluently, and learn italian at school, just like we learn french or spanish. The household items are all half german half italian too.. so the soap label might be all in italian, while the toothpaste might be in german. Oh and then there's the place names. All the villages have two names: the german name and the italien name, so, for example 'Brixen' is the german name for Bambi's town, and in Italian it's 'Bressanone'. Or.. 'Kaltern' (german) and 'Caldaro' (italian). It's pretty crazy.

Anyway. After that we came home, ate, talked, and went about seven we said goodbye to Bruno (he's doing Matura in a month or so, and was supposed to be studying History the whole day... didn't Really get around to it though!) and dropped by to Ilsa's mother, before we headed back to innsbruck.

I didn't want to leave. At all. It was like. The most Perfect weekend. But on coming out of the tunnel, and seeing all the lights of innsbruck, surrounded by mountains, I had this strange, comforting feeling of home.

Anyway. This week I'm busy with lots and lots of rehearsals. At school we have no classes, as it's 'probe woche' (Rehearsal week). We've got two concerts, on May 21st (in Innsbruck) and 23rd (in Landek.. a smaller town two hours or so out of Innsbruck), where we're playing Mendelsohn's first Symphonie, Brahm's Violin Concerto in G major (I think) and the choir and the brass are both doing other stuff as well.
Tomorrow night the Musikschulorchester have a concert with the Tiroler Symphonie Orchester (the same idea as the Wellington Youth Sinfonietta/ NZSO), playing Tchaikovsky's Seranade for Strings.

Unfortunately I've managed to catch a cold, so while we're surrounded by beautiful weather, (I bike into town in just a tshirt- and it's only the start of spring!) i'm coughing and sneezing. Which I'm not too happy about.

Anyway. Off to another rehearsal now!
tschußala!

2008-04-18T14:33:00.002+02:00

Hello there! Yes, I'm still in the land of the living, and summer is on it's way!

I have no idea when I last updated, so I'll start from.. oh I don't know. Berlin! I went to Berlin over the easter holidays with Miriam and her family, which was amazing. We stayed with her grandparents, in a biiiiiig house out in the country, and on easter sunday they had an easter egg hunt, and all of us (me, miriam, her parents, grandparents, great grandmother, aunt, uncle, cousin, and the neighbours) went searching for chocolate. By the end we had a huge dining room table FULL of chocolate. We also had a bonfire that weekend, which is some sort of tradition.. I've forgotten now.
Berlin is the most Amazing city. I urge every one of you to visit it sometime. Plus it's a lot cheaper than Innsbruck!

Almost finished with 9M. Next week is their last week ever of school, and today we spent the whole of english trying to think up crazy things to do before they leave forever.Still not sure what class I'll be going to next (by the end of my exchange i will have had three 'last day of school ever's.

Other than that there's not toooo much going on really. I'm off to an orchestra rehearsal now though. so. yes. ask me questions! Cos I don't know what to write about anymore!!
Oh and I tried putting some photos up, but then the computer crashed.. so. maybe next time...

take care all!
tschuß!

2008-04-08T17:32:00.002+02:00

Home in THREE MONTHS!

That's my update for today. Sorry I've been so slack. Again. I'll try update in the weekend.
Like anyone reads this.

2008-03-11T21:57:00.003+01:00

Well, I figured that I haven't updated in a while. I've been pretty busy actually. Though, if someone was to ask me, I couldn't quite answer exactly what I've been up to lately. Just... school and rehearsals and everything else seems to be eating away at all my time. Time time time. It's going so fast! I've already been here for almost eight months. Can you believe it? In only four months I'll be back home cursing the wellington wind and rain and bus services.
Anyway, so it's tuesday night. I was thinking of making a video actually. But the last one took so long to edit out all the ums and ahs (purely to make it more bearable), and then I couldn't figure out how to convert it back. Anyway.

Umm. Things I've been up to lately. Well, while I try to think of something interesting, the weather's been pretty crazy. It was really really warm last week. Like, Andrea and I walked out of the house one afternoon and it was Warmer outside than in! Then, two days later it snowed. A lot. And then on saturday it started getting warm again. In a way it's really frustrating , as I'm kinda getting a bit sick of the whole winter thing (especially coming straight from NZ winter, then heading into Austrian winter, and with the knowledge that I'll be coming right back to my NZ winter again). On the other hand it's quite nice. On Thursday Matze went skiing on fresh snow, and I had time on Saturday to go skiing as well. We went to a new place (might take a few years to get through All the ski slopes in Innsbruck), and I went on the easy slopes, as per normal, which turned out not to be easy At All. But I did them all! And I'm still alive and living to tell the tale. Actually it was really good. I can't believe how much better I am at skiing after only ten ish days on the slopes.
But enough about skiing and snow (it's gone now.. in the city at least. Can still go skiing of course).

I'm off to Berlin next week, where I'm staying with Miriam (our exchange student in NZ from Norway) and her family, which I'm really excited about. Ummm school is going well. We have a Music exam on thursday, which I'm kinda freaking out about because we have to do all the history stuff as well as harmonising stuff, which I hate. But we'll see. I'm really enjoying my German classes at the moment actually. We're studying German impressionist and expressionist writers, which is really challenging, but really interesting.

The language is good. I have really good days and really bad days and everything else.. well, it's kinda in the middle innit? Today's one of my not-so-good-days re language, but I have no difficulties whatsoever in communicating, and yeah. I've found a new english library though! A friend of mine, Christina, from my class LOVES books (and soccer. She's writing her English essay thing for Matura on football), and has a whole lot of English 'Chick Lit' as it is apparently now called. Just finished The Devil Wears Prada, and am onto another one at the moment. In saying this, I AM reading german books as well. At the moment I'm still half way through the first Harry Potter, and also a children's novel called 'momo', which Sara picked at random for me from the school library shelves.

Aaanyway. Umm. What else. Ooh music. Well, I went to get my violin checked last week. It was sounding terrible. Turns out the bridge was on the verge of collapsing, and the soundpost was completely out, so I now have a beautiful new bridge and soundpost to remember Austria by, all for the lovely, painful sum of €150. It's sounding really good though, and I guess that's what matters. Anyway, two concerts in May to work towards, as well as a wedding that I'm playing at. Oh and I asked Bambi the other day if he wants to start a chamber group (just for fun, as he doesn't have much time what with Matura and all). Planning on asking Edda. Or is it Etta? (eek!), who plays viola to join us (she travels to Salzburg every week for lessons, and has the least amount of time of anyone I know, so I'll have to keep all my fingers and toes crossed that she'll say yes), and we're still looking for a cellist to join us. So here's hoping it'll all work out!
Oh and I'm working frantically on my NYO excerpts as well at the moment. I find it quite astonishing that Nobody I know seems to have a CD of Stravinsky's The Fire Bird, let alone the overture of it (rather than the Opera). Anyway, it's not as hard as I had expected (very hard), so we'll see how it goes.

Oh and I started fencing two weeks ago. It's great. Mondays foil and Thursdays epee. Looking forward to fitting my skinny jeans again.

So yeah. It's now twenty past eleven and ooooh it's raining outside! I should head off to bed so I can somehow manage to lure myself out of bed tomorrow morning.
Take care, and I'd love to hear from you all!
Kelda

ps. I taught myself some flamenco guitar the other day. Maybe I'll pick up some jazz guitar too. Like I have time for it..

2008-02-17T22:10:00.001+01:00

by the way..
there are lots and lots of photos here, in the 'Austria' folders (you have to scroll down a bit)
enjoy! :)

2008-02-16T11:10:00.003+01:00

This is me and Melissa on new years eve day. Melissa is another kiwi, who was staying in Vienna, and who's now back home in Kiwiland!

And this is new years at the party at Matze's house. We stayed up till 5am playing poker. Enjoy the tirolian dialect :P

2008-01-30T20:11:00.000+01:00

Wow. I'm finally posting! Are you proud?
Well, now that I'm here I'm not quite sure what to write about.
Christmas? New years? HAve I talked about them already? I don't think so. Christmas was good! It was quiet. Andrea doesn't do christmas, so it was just hanni, jürg and me. We had a little christmas tree, and opened the presents on the 24th, after dinner and a nice walk in the dark, where we lit sparklers and sang christmas carols. I felt so european walking along carrying a little latern- just like in the picture books!

New years was spent at Matze's flat, where he and Manu (fellow flatmate) had a party. It was good fun. We watched the huge 15 min fireworks display (Matze's house is one of the highest up houses in Innsbruck, half way up one of the mountains- perfect for firework-watching!) and then went back inside, where we played poker till 5am. The next day we woke up (I got the floor. With no blanket) to a silent city, and everything was Covered in snow- it was so pretty! (a lot of the boys went sledding on new years day!)

The rest of the holidays went fairly quickly. Not a huge amount happened, although a friend of mine, Melissa came down with her host family from Vienna, and I hung out with her for a bit, which was really cool. We spoke all in english, only because we missed hearing NZ accents so much! Then, the week before school went back, was our school maturaball. It was held in Congress, which is Innsbruck's equivilent of the Michael Fowler Centre. Needless, to say, it was pretty big. ok. Very big. The BORG orchestra played from 9-11pm, and people waltzed (that was exciting. I've never played in an orchestra that people actually dance to!). At midnight the sports (Borg specialises in sport and music) people put on a gymnastics display, which may sound a bit strange, but it was quite cool anyway.
The main differences to typical wellington school balls was that alcohol was downed like water from the tap (a small heiniken was €3.90!), and everyone was smoking. There were also I think four or five different bands/DJs. At about two, people started leaving, and we tried to get into 'Irish' as everyone calls it (an Irish bar in town), but for some reason the ball was held on a Thursday, and Irish was just closing down for the night. So everyone just went home instead.

School's going really well. I love my new class, and am taking part in almost everything (chemistry included!). Actually, the only things that I don't partake in are maths, physics and latin, so I think i'm doing pretty well. We all went to a play a couple of weeks ago, which was All in Tirolian dialect, and I'm pleased to say that I understood a lot of it. My german teacher/klassenvorstand was very surprised! Keeping busy with a whole lot of orchestras, and thinking about taking up fencing again.Next weekend we have an AFS skiing day, which should be fun, aaaaand yes!

Think that's all really. So. I shall be off!
Viel spaß und liebe Grüße
Kelda

2007-12-22T21:55:00.000+01:00

A few random photos

My new class 9M- Matthias, Matthias, Jonny and Alexander with the Piano.

The christkindelmarkt on Maria- Theresienstraße

More christkindelmark

Christkindelmarkt below the golden roof

My cool austrian sock, with a drawing i was drawing for Andrea

Matze before I cut his hair :D

2007-12-20T20:35:00.000+01:00

Hey ho! It's been a pretty crazy couple of weeks, so I should probably tell you about it all before I forget.
Bullet points are easier. And perhaps (!) it won't be too long that way either :P

Montag 3rd
My BGW class and I went to the World Photography Exhibition in Congress house. For some reason it didn't elave such a huge impact on me as previous years, but it was still really good.

Dienstag 4th
Had school till 12.30 and then skipped Physiks and French to go to a first violin sctional (we're playing at the school ball in January). Then went grocery shopping with him and then I went to the Konservatorium where I had a rehearsal with Göesta and the two recorder players on the Bach Brandenburg concerto no.4, which I was to perform on Sunday. Grabbed some food in my half hour break and went to help out in the big Symphonie Orchester, which isn't very good. But mreh.

Mittwoch 5th
School till 1.30. Andrea, Hanni and I went to Völls, which is a smaller village 10 mins away by carm where Andrea, Saw Win Maw, Gudrun and I practised a Hayden for Gudrun's piano student-concert thing, and then went straight to Salon Orchestra, which finished at around 10.30

Donnerstag 6th
Had school and Borg Orchestra (school orchestra). At 8pm the orchestra which I played the Brandenburg with on Sunday had a rehearsal. I wasn't too happy with it, and I was really tired, and it went till 11pm! I got home at midnight.

Freitag 7th
Had school till 1.30 and got home at two, where Andrea was just leaving the house to get to the venue of Hanni's birthday party. Grabbed my violin and off we ewnt. Kolping Haus is kinda in a cafe/bar, which also has a big hall for various functions and meetings. I swear there were a good two or three hundred people! Andrea played her Hayden Piano Quartet with us, and then Gudrun, Saw Win Maw, Göesta and Isightread some waltzes, which went down well.
And there was food! Lots of soups and Wiener Schnitzel and lots and lots of bread and cheese and cakes. The party started at 3pm and the last guests went home at about midnight. Afterwards, we had to take everything back home, which was a huge task. Kolping Haus is only about four mins walk away from home, but we still had to carefully load up about 7 shopping trolleys (it's conveniently right next door to the supermarket) with all the presents and food, and Matze, Andrea and I wheeled them back to the house and unloaded them. Matze and I had trolley races :D (more in a 'we're so tired we have to do something fun and energetic to keep us awake' kinda way though). Finished at 2am.
Sleep :D

Oh and I forgot to mention- Andreas cousins and their mum (hanni's sister from Belgium) were there, and there were also relatives from Germany. But yeah. Ollie and someone else were their names (late 20s/early 30s) and they were really interesting to talk to! Ollie knew a lot about NZ and the company that he works for has something to do with NZ... I've forgotten now, but anyway, they were really cool.

Saturday 8th
Was a lazy day. Hanni went to her sister Tina's, and Matze, Andrea and I were landed with the huge task of opening all Hanni's presents. It was awesome at first. However, after the 20th set of cnadles, or box of chocolates, or tea mugs, it got very, very tedious. All in all it took about 2 hours straight. Matze retired to playing computer games actuall...
At 4.30 Gudrun picked me up, and Saw Win Maw and I went to a concert in a church, which was very good. I've forgotten right now what they played... Bach perhaps? Anyway. Then we went back to a different place in Völls, where the Salon Orchestra played at a Benifits Concert (which people payed €45 to see!). It went pretty well, and Dominic (a courisn. Or relative somehow) was working as a waiter there, so I talked to him a bit. Afterwards Sara and Clemence and I stayed on and talked.. Sara plays the flute, and goes to Borg, in the infamous 9M class! (Along with Matthias, Rebe Marco and the rest, which you can see in the post below). I find it crazy that she's 20 and still at school! Clemence is 28, plays the violin .. I don't know the word in English. At the moment he's building a tunnel through South Tirol. He's not an architecht, and he's not a builder... he's the one inbetween, who checks that it wont collapse and calculates the materials and things. but yes. That was fun.

Sonntag 9th
I was supposed to be doing things in the morning. Like practising. Somehow that didn't really happen. Rehearsal was in Wattens at 2, and the concert began at 5.30.
The programme was somethig like this:

Bach- Brandenburg Concerto no. 4
Vivaldi - 'Winter' from The Four Seasons (Saw Win Maw)
Pause
Vivaldi - A soprano recorder concerto. I've forgotten the name of it.
Dreyer - Symphonie No.1

Afterwards, we all went and had dinner together, which was nice. Sara and I talked a lot, and she said she'd ask if I could move into a music class the next morning (which she did). It was also Saw Win Maw's last night in Austria. He flew out on Monday, and is now happy in Thailand, trying to get a visa to live in Austria permanently.

Montag 10th
Michel's (in my class) Birthday! Other than that, nothing exciting happened. Oh wait! At 5.30, I went to help Matthias with his English, as he had an exam on Wednesday. We worked in the Konservatorium together in a practise room for an hour or so, and then went grocery shopping. Turns out that then he had a concert - it was his violin teacher's student-concert thing. However, he'd been sick, and decided not to play. So we went and watched. Then, two pieces before the end, he decided that he Would play, so off he went, and kinda just turned up at the end and said 'yeah.. I'll play this' 'This' being the slow movement from Bruch's violin concerto. It was beautiful. Afterwards we went for a drink (quickly) and then off home to bed.

Dienstag 11th
Had another 1st violin sectional for the Borg orchester. Was about the most exciting thing I did on tuesday.

Mittwoch 12th
Got home for lunch, only to be reminded (I'd completely forgotten) that Andrea and I were playing a trio (another Hayden) in a concert that afternoon with Gudrun. So that went ok. And then I raced off to an AFS christmas meeting/party/socialising thing in a nice hotel. It was good seeing everyone again, and we sang some austrian christmas carols, and they made me sing 'Christmas on the Beach' (which they find really, really weird). Nothing particularly exciting happened. Peter, Sabbi and I are supposed to be going snowboarding this weekend, but he hasn't got back to me about it yet, so I'll have to go chase him up.

Donnerstag 13th
Borg orchester! Umm.. that was about it. I think. Yeah.

Freitag 14th
Oooh ooh ooh! Freitag I got some exciting news! Professor Portugaller, who's the head of music, told me in the middle of our rehearsal that I was now to be in 9M! Eee! It was very exciting. Anyhu, the rehearsal was for the Hayden Messe again, but this time with a smaller orchestra - only three first violins, two seconds, a cello and a bass. And the organ. And a smaller choir too. That night, my french class and I went to a play in the Landestheatre (biiiiig old theatre.. it's really.. like you would expect it to be I guess) about Edith Piaf, which was amazing. There was an orchestra, and she sand, and just .. wow.

Samstag 15th
At 5pm, Hanni and I went to a traditional Tirolian christmas concert thing. It was kinda all these different music groups playing, with two children talking to their grandfather inbetween about what christmas meant and things. It was really good, although I was very tired, and the first half was very slow music and I kept nodding off - oops! But yeah.. They were all in their national costumes (yay leiderhosen!), and there were lots and lots of Real christmas trees all around to make it look like a forest, and yeah. I'm sorry I didn't take any photos.. I'll try see if I can find a link for you on the internet though. Afterwards we went to a free African drumming session (which had nothing to do with the Christmas concert thing.), where we all sat around in a big circle, each with our own african drum (!!) It was so much fun, and there were some really really good drummers there. It's amazing how good it can sound even with the simplest of rhythms. Some of the more experienced people did some improvisation and stuff overtop, and it was really really fun! After That, Hanni went home, and I met up with Andrea and Matze, and we went for a drink in Treibhaus, before heading home.

Sonntag 16th
Sleeeeeep

Montag 17th
Fifth and sixth hours we had another rehearsal for the Hayden Messe, which was good. Not really sure what else happened. Uhh. Maybe I didn't do anything. Nothing is always good!

Dienstag 18th
I had the most horrible Physiks class ever. It wasn't actually horrible.. the lesson it'self I mean. But the sun was blazing through the windows, and I was starving hungry, and when I went to the bathroom, I could hear the choir practising from one of the classrooms, and the mountains were all covered in snow, and it was quite torturous sitting there in class watching my classmates draw complicated looking weird sound wave diagram things that I didn't understand At All.
Andrea and I planned on making christmas cookies that afternoon (as she's sick. Poor andrea) Didn't end up happening though.

Gestern (Yesterday!-Mittwoch) 19th
Was my first day in 9M! Matthias had made me promise to come Before the christmas holidays, and seeing as nobody else seemed to be doing anything about it (my form teacher didn't even know till I told her on Tuesday), I went to the secratarian's office early in the morning (yes, I was actually early to school for once), and asked. Turned out the Dirktor was sick, but she said I should just go and it'd be fine. So. Off I went! First class was physiks. It was a bit awkward, as the teacher was kinda like 'hi' and i was like 'hi. um.. yeah, I'm new.' and she was like 'oh. Oh. ok then', but other than that, she seems really nice. Then Nici went and wrote up a whole lot of equationny things on the board, with lots of Qs an ts and Ws and sins and cos's and I slowly died. But not to worry. Then was English, but they switched the classes around, so we had german instead. We were looking at a text, which we had to read out, except nobody wanted to read out, and just at that point, Jakob from 8M came in to give us a notice, so we got him to read it out instead. Then was Philosophy, with the same teacher who taught me BGW (kinda arty thing) in 7B (old class), and he got me to read out this strange text, which, when you read it as if it were english (even though it doesn't make sense in english, and not even all the words are in english), it tells a funny story in an Austrian dialekt. I had no idea what I was telling them, although I found out later it was about Skiing. Fourth period was supposed to be History, but Matthias, Rebe, Olivia had another Hayden probe. Rehearsal in the kirche. Church. (eek my german will be bad tomorrow cos I'm writing so much english!) The church is a really big old one- not crazily overdecorated, but still pretty well.. Baroque. Angels on the celing flying up into the heavens and stuff. However, we were in the choir stalls. Which we were right up high next the organ at the back of the church, all squished in around a corner. It was quite uncomfortable. And cold. Churches are always freezing to play in. Anyhu, that went well. As well as it can go when you're all wrapped up in a five layers trying to play violin (it's really hard!), and trying to find space for your bow to go when you play (impossible).
Then we went back and had religion, where we did a play (the advent christmassy one). Sara and I were the two shepherds (I was second shepherd, and I had about 30 lines to read! And I got through them pretty well! Hurrah!). Olivia was God, Matthias (other matthias. we have two in our class) was Joseph, and Jonny was Mary. He was awesome- he was wearing the hood off his jacket (without the jacket) and spoke in the most ridiculous high pitched voice the whole time. It was hilarious.. even our teacher was in tears of laughter. We also had an angel who's sparkler (showing that she was an angel) ran out half way through speaking. Oh and the cake from Saint Nikolaus tag is standing proudly in the corner of the room, preventing anyone from closing the curtain or pulling the blackboard across too far. Oh, and some cool things about being in a music class: We have a piano in our class (they played a lullaby for me when i lay down on the tables during break because I was tired) And we have a mac computer and some really nice speakers :D And we have a huge piece of paper which they've counted down the days till christmas. Starting with 65.days. Till Christmas.
(four days till christmas people!)
And incase you were wondering, here is my new timetable!:

Montag- Religion- English- Musik- Latin
Dienstag- German- Musik- Maths- Chemie
Mittwoch- Physik- English- Philosophy- History- Religion- German
Donnerstag- Maths- Chemie- Musik- Latin
Freitag- Maths- German- Philosophy- Geography- Physik- English

Yes I'm doing latin. And there's no french. But it's alright. My latin homework I got today.. actually, she didn't even notice me, so I'm sure she won't mind that I didn't do it. But yeah.. it's pretty crazy. The days with only four subjects finish at 11.45, and the days with 6 subjects finish at 1.35, so I'm quite happy. And my whole class is really nice. After Religion (we'd already had german earlier in the day) on wednesday, we all went out for lunch together, except our favourite place was full, so we decided to go somewhere else, except then half of them deserted us and stayed there anyway. But it was fun without them anyway!

Today (20th)
We had the concert! Met at the church at 8am, rehearsed a bit and then played. It's strange playing in a concert where you can't see the audience at all, and have no idea how many people are there and how they're reacting to the music. But all in all it went pretty well. Even colder than Wednesday though! Eek! Got back to school in time for music and Latin. Music was really interesting- they're working through well.. everything musicy really. It's music history. Today we looked the forms that Symphonies have taken throughout the ages. And listened to some Schumann and Bruckner. And then was Latin, which was.. well, I don't really know, as I didn't understand Any of it. Then was our last Orchestra rehearsal for the year (it's lucky i'm in a music class now, as I'd completely forgotten about it!). The next rehearsal that we have will be on Jan 2nd, the day before the Ball, which we're playing in at the Congress house(which is really big and fancy). I'm really looking forward to it- it'll be a lot of fun.
Got home from school, and Andrea and I made christmas cookies with lemon creme icing stuff which taste reallly good. She's a bit better now, which is good.
Tomorrow is our last day of school before the christmas hoildays. A lot of the people in 9M are going home (many of them live in flats in Innsbruck) to other parts of Tirol or to Italy over the christmas holidays, but I'll see them all in a week or two at the ball anyway, and christmas holidays aren't that long. A friend of mine- Melissa, who's also a Kiwi on exchange here (we flew over together) is coming down to Innsbruck from Vienna where she lives on Saturday, so I'll meet up with her, which I'm looking forward too. Oh and of course there's christmas! So far I have no idea what I'm doing. Andrea doesn't do christmas. But I've been invited to Matze's house on christmas (what they call 'Christmas' here is actually Dec 24th. Dec 24th is when you have your big meal and open all the presents), and his flatmate is putting on a christmas play for little kids, and we're going to go and watch that too apparently.
Hanni went to Tux today, and bought back a whole lot of bread (mmmm bread) as well as a little christmas tree, which is very cute.
Anyhu, I'll keep you informed! (even if there is a big delay and the next post ends up being longer than this one!-Sorry!)
I'm thinking of you all and your summer weather!
Schonen Weihnachten!
Liebe Gruße
Kelda

Saint Nikolaus Tag fotos

2007-12-13T19:19:00.001+01:00

Preface:

Saint Nik came to school. With his little elves and the devils.
Matthias was the star of the show.

At first I was thinking that some of the photos are too indecent to put here, but it's not as interesting without, so prepare yourselves. I'm serious.

oh, and Enjoy!

The story begins:

The elves- Mark, someone, Marco and Johnnie down at the
front

A typical Austrian specimen, complete with Ski Goggles and Leiderhosen.

Marco gets a kiss from Angel Maria

Saint Nik and the Cake

Saint Nick (Egor)
The elves, the Cake and the Direktor
(In austria we have a very Formal relationship with our principal, just so you know)

hrmm.
That would be Matthias
9M. (The class I'm hoping to join.)
The elves and 5M

And Matthias telling them off for fratenizing with the enemy
9M attacks class 8M
The teachers (my art teacher is in the orange, and my geography teacher is the woman in black on his left.)

School people.

Johnnie trying to pull nik's beard off.
And again. In the cafe.
Trixie, the Cafe lady (she had a great time)

Matthias content after a hard day's work.

Epilogue:
Matthias cries with shame every time he sees these photos. Trixie has kindly put them up at the entrance of the cafe, where everyone who passes can see them.
The elves, Angels and Saint Nikolaus have magically disappeared. Though I saw a few people who looked distinctly elf-like in orchestra today.

2007-12-13T18:10:00.000+01:00

Hanni
Tux. The light was Actually like that.. it wasn't my camera playing tricks

Hanni and Andrea in the snow

Dresel's house

Dresel and her overn/heater thing. Her house has only cold water, a long drop, and this is the only source of heat.

Hanni and Andrea in the kitchen/dining room

Me outside Dresel's house

Me and Matze, before the ball

Andrea, Isobella (cousin), Konnie (Andreas dad) me and a family friend.

Andrea got tired.

This is the really old mill.. the water turns the wheel, which in turn, grinds up the wheat. Funny that. But yeah.. there are no screws or anything. All just wood.

Andrea sitting at the mill

Marko and Rebe after the first of our two Hayden concerts (Borg orchester and choir)

That's me on the left playing violin, and Andrea on the right in the snow (we got bored)

Snow! Hanni, Saw Win Maw and I under a cross, and Hanni with Saw Win Maw and Gösta looking over the largest part of uninhabited land in europe.

These are some of my favourite houses in Innsbruck. This is looking across the Inn river from town. My bus goes past these houses every day on the way to school.

2007-11-25T16:22:00.000+01:00

Hello there! I know, I've been a bit lazy. But, y'know.. it's my three month (!) anniversary (I didn't spell that right did I?) with Austria, so... hopefully that's a good enough excuse.

Well. The first thing to start with is last weekend, cos it's.. well, you'll see.

Last Saturday Hanni, Andrea and I went to Tux (finally learnt how to spell it!), which is the village that both of them grew up in, a few hundred metres higher than Innsbruck. And seeing as it snowed a lot in the days before, we took our.. uh, long skiis (that's what they're called in German, cos they're kinda.. skinnier, and longer than normal skis) and went Crosscountry skiing! It was very cool. If you don't know, you're only attached to the skiis by your toes, and you kinda walk, and float at the same time. It's really fun, but I have to admit that my arms and legs ached until Thursday!
We also visited a little bakery-cafe, and ate traditional Linz (one of the larger cities in Austria) cookies and bread (mmmmmmm bread), before heading furthur up the mountains. We parked the car when the snow got too demanding, and walked the rest of the way to a very old friend of Hanni's- Thresl. Her house was amazing. Can you imagine a biiiig big mountain covered in snow, with little, log huts dotted between the trees? Well, that's what Thresl lives in. The only difference being that most of the other people have modernised the insides of their houses. I'll put the photos up soon (see important information later on in this post!), and you can see for yourself. But really, it was completely magical. I don't think I can describe it well enough in words, and the pictures give you an idea, but you just have to Be there... surrounded by all this sparkling white stuff, where everythings's quite and still, and all the trees are covered in snow, and the little streams and waterfalls have frozen over, and huge icicles hang from the gutters of the houses. It's just amazing.

The other exciting thing that's happened lately is the school orchestra. I found out on monday that this weekend we had two concerts. Austrian musicians are really disorganised by the way. I didn't find out when or where today's concert was until 3 hours before the concert started! But anyway. It was the chamber orchestra (which I somehow snuck into- with 9 vlns, 2 cellos 2 basses and an organ), accompanying the big, big choir, mostly made up of music students from Borg (my school) as well as a few older people who had been invited.
We played Haydn's 'Missa brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo', as well as Mozart's Ave Verum and Großes Gott (a hymn). However we'll backtrack to Thursday night, because I'd just come out of my first violin lesson in Austria (hurrah!), (oh yeah. did I mention that I'm playing Brandenburg no.4 in a couple of weeks with an orchestra? No? Ok, well yeah. I am), and was rushing off to the rehearsal for these concerts, which I had been told were at school. So, I was just rounding the corner next to the big shopping mall, when who should I bump into but Matthias, the concert master, who was on his bike, also going to the rehearsal. Turns out the rehearsal wasn't at school at all, but at another place in the 'altstadt' (old town). So off we went, and eventually got very, very lost. We also found four other people from the choir, who were also very, very lost, so we were very, very lost together, half way up a mountain, in these tiny little, steep, cobbled streets, with no idea where we were supposed to go. It was good fun! :D (I think I'm one of those strange people who likes getting lost) Anyhu, eventually we called people who weren't very, very lost, and they came and rescued us, so that was good. (we were about an hour late though. oops)

Yesterday (Saturday) was a rather chaotic day. But fun none the less. In the morning I went to the Bauermarkt- the Farmer's market (it looks so WRONG in english!) with Hanni, as I hadn't been in a while. The Bauermarkt is quite similar to the markets that we have in nz on sunday mornings, except this one's not quite as big, and mostly they only sell food. The only difference really is that they all speak german and .. well, yeah. Oh yeah.. and the huuuug rounds of cheeses of course. I'll take a photo of them next time I go. Oh and they sell milk and cream in big glass bottles like we used to get in nz. But yeah, then came the big, looong breakfast that we have on saturdays (and sundays mostly too)- Hanni, Jurg (pronounced 'Yerg'- Hanni's boyfriend) and I. Which was good. With lots of bread, and cheeese and ahhh I love breakfast! Anyway! I'm getting distracted. Umm.. Anyway, Siiri (Finnland AFS student) and I met, and made a big card for Isobella, from Italia, who's only here on the three month programme, and is going back home on tuesday. Italy! Aghh I can't speak english in full sentences anymore-sorry!Afterwards, I rushed off to the soundcheck for our first concert. Before realising that Siiri still had my black shoes, which I had bought the night before. I ended up wearing my white chucks instead, but it didn't really matter that much, as everyone concentrated more on being warm rather than looking nice, and there were quite a few other white shoes and orange tops and things. So yes. The church, sadly wasn't one of those little, old ones. It was big, and kinda.. dull, and we were all squashed into one corner for no particular reason, which was a little disappointing. But what I found quite strange was that it wasn't a 'concert' as such. It was more of a sermon with our music inbetween, which was interesting. But the 'concert' went pretty well, and afterwards, as it was a Saturday night, we went out. I'd gotten off the bus with Nicola (another violin player) and her boyfriend, and then went to the Chriskindlemarkt. THe uh.. christmas markets, where I was spotted (more like, they called out 'Violin!' and gave me some of their food) by some other choir/orchestra people, who were all very crazy and laughy even though they hadn't had ANY gluhwein yet. Gluhwein is this hot, fruity wine that everyone drinks at christmas time. Especially in the markets! Oh and roasted chestnuts are another huge thing here at christmas. mmm.. they're so good.
I got a call from Matthias (the concert master guy) telling me to come to the trainstation, so off I hopped, and met Matthias, with a few other choir/orchestra people, and we somehow got a really cheap taxi, and went back to his house (loaded with beer and food). It was quite exciting, as I'd never been to an Austrian party yet- everybody just goes out here, cos 16 is the drinking age. Going out gets a little dull though. I think anyway. I shouldn't talk too much about my teenage drinking habits here though. Anyway, we got to Matthias's (he lives in a flat with his sister, who's hardly ever there, because he's Italian and his parents live in Südtirol.. which is essentially Italy) and Marko started playing the piano, and Matthi lit all these candles and turned out the lights, and the two of them started improvising!(romantic music... he was really into the romance and the candles and stuff. It was very funny).eventually they outdid each other, and the lights went back on, and the beer was opened, and the CDs were played, but it really was the funnest thing I've done since I've got here. We speak almost all in German, and I'm starting to learn the Innsbruck-ian (mixed with a bit of Matthi's Southern Tirol words) dialect. It's actually really hard! Some of the noises that they make I just can't get my tounge (or more, throat) around, and they're all musicians, which means that I have to get it perfect. It was a lot of fun trying though. Occassionally they'd try to copy my weird semi-kiwi accent (I don't know what sort of accent I have!) which was.. also amusing. So yeah, we had a really fun night, and I was even responsible and managed to leave at 1am with Jonnie and Igo when everyone else was staying over night.

They've all made me promise to move to their class- 9M (two years above mine.. music). It's so good to Finally find a group of like-minded people!

Anyway! The exciting/important thing is that Matthias has good internet! So hopefully (fingers crossed) I can upload all my photos soon-eeeee!!!!!

Anyhu. That's about all that's happened recently. Well, that I can remember anyway. School's going pretty good.. I'm reading the book that my german class is studying, and well, yeah. My german's really, really improving. And yusssss I must go and do homework. Sorry that that was a really blargh-y written post!
Viel Spass!
Liebe Grüsse
Kelda

2007-11-08T17:11:00.000+01:00

Today, because I'm not in such a great mood, I will tell you about all the not-so-good things about being an exchange student, and all the not-so-good things about austria. (my excuse to rant, naturally).

The one thing that really gets me is that the supermarkets close ridiculously early. We're talking 5.30pm on a saturday night. And I'm pretty sure they close at around 8pm on weeknights too. Sundays nothing except the cafes are open.
Then there are the days when you're too tired to understand anything, and you try and follow what everyone else is doing but you somehow get it wrong anyway. A good example of this is when, on Tuesday we went to the cinema to watch 'Sicko' for Ethics (good documentry.. you should go and see it.- I'm sure it's out in nz). I had no idea where it was, so I followed some of the guys from my class. Except then it turned out they were going to buy cigarretts from the supermarket before they went to the movie, so I tagged along like a lost dog until Isa and Theresa rescued me.
Of course, it goes the other way around too. One girl in my class Always speaks english to me, even when I reply in German, and there are others, who I've had perfectly normal conversations with (in german) and then will say 'Sorry' or 'excuse me' or just really simple things in english to me. Surely if I can talk about my weekend for five minutes with them, I'm able to understand what 'entshuldigung' means.
People talk really loudly. And sometimes they stand really close.
Everyone says 'Ma-pause-ori' no matter how many times you say 'Maori' back at them (once youve explained to them who the Maori actually are)
My english teacher has taught me more new english words in two months, than I've learnt in two years. Useless words that nobody ever uses (I've forgotten them all actually.. )
The days that you're in a really good mood are sometimes spoilt by family arguments, which leaves them in really bad moods and kinda ruin your really good mood.
Once people start talking, you're stuck in that spot until they've finished talking. Austrian's don't take subtle hints; if you need to go somewhere else, you have to say so (I still haven't figured out how easily they take offense).
There's no SEA! or Wind. or rain! Acutally it rained yesterday for the first time since.. well, my first week here actually.

but yes. Just because there are bad days, doesn't mean there aren't good days too.

I've cut down on my massive amount of orchestras and choirs and so forth. I now have Salon Orchestra in the golden roof building on wednesdays, BORG (that's my school) orchestra on Thursday afternoons and a kinda.. chamber orchestra out of town a bit on Thursday nights (I would be going tonight, but I'm just so tired, and they always go for a drink afterwards, which means that I'd get home at about midnight anyway that I just can't bring myself to go tonight). With this last orchestra, I'm playing Bach's Brandenburg concerto no.4. Which I'm kinda freaking out about a little!

Uuuh what else has happened. Oh yes, the snow! Well, it took a break for a bit, but it's started slowly creeping back down the mountains again! (hurrah!). Like I said, yesterday it rained for the first time in a couple of months, and my shoes are now so worn down that I could feel the water through the now very very thin soles! I think it's time to start wearing my winter shoes! It's almost completely dark by 5.30pm- which is quite often the time I finish school, which in one way I quite like, but in another way is a little disappointing- I'm still with teh New Zealand seasons! I feel like I should be donning my tshirt and Jandals, not piling on winter coats and jackets and jearsys.

It's a little weird for all of us 7th form exchange students to watch everyone leaving school back in New Zealand.. we've (Uella in Sweden, ALex in Spain, Suzy in France) talked about it quite a bit, and it's really, well.. strange, that we're missing out! (I think I'm freaking out about it just as much as everyone back home, even though technically I've already finished school. Yet still have another 9 months of it to go!

anyhu. Best be off. I'll try to be .. quicker with another update for you all! Sorry guys!
Tirrah!
ps. Photos will go up as soon as I can find a computer to upload them all from!)

2007-09-15T10:49:00.004+02:00

Hello hello, I am back. Sorry it took a while!

I've been here now for seven weeks, and am really starting to settle in. School is school- the people are all nice, but I haven't made any proper friends there still. The lessons get a little boring (hey, it's school nomatter which country you're in) sometimes, and I kinda gave up on maths and chemistry. History is horribly boring, and I can't read my Philosophy teacher's handwriting, but other than that it's pretty good. I've also started playing in the school orchestra, which is really good. We're playing one of Hayden's operas (though I keep forgetting which one), and we're also playing at the ball!As well as school orchestra, I've joined some (I've lost count of how many) other orchestras as well. A large-ish, not so good-ish orchestra on tuesday, which rehearses at my school, a Salon orchestra, which rehearses in the flat of a violinist in the golden roof building! I could probably point the window out to you on the photo on the right --> I've also joined (just last week) another orchestra (which is also quite good), and I'm also playing Bach's Brandenburg concerto with them, which should be interesting. I'm a little freaked out at having to learn and perform a whole concerto without Yury, but I'm sure it'll work out fine. The conductor of all these orchestras is Göste- the husband of Andreas piano teacher. He plays jazz bass as well as both jazz and classical piano, and is really nice. He teaches at the Music School here. His wife and him are currently hosting a student from Burma called Sawinmaw. He's 20 and has been playing the violin for nine years. He's really nice, and always smiling and has something to say, although sometimes I find him a little frustrating. We've been to a couple of concerts together, one of which was the first Symphony Orchestra Concert he's ever been to (his village in Burma has no electricity, let alone a Symphony Orchestra), so he was very excited.

Last weekend we had our second arrival camp- the first in Tirol. There were 8 of us all up, with one AFS person- Oliver, who was very nice, although we got kinda lost on the way from the train station to the monestary/youth hostel/art museum thing that we were staying at. Yes, we saw Monks- infact, we were served lunch and dinner by monks, and they showed us to our rooms and they were very nice. We spent the whole two days either eating, playing games (the communication/trust type- games), and, most importantly-talking! (in german of course). So, sadly I have to disappoint you all and say that really, all we did was talk about how things were going, although I did teach them the game 'Bang', and we have some pretty crazy photos of some other games we played, which I will put up soon! It was good fun though, and it was great to hear about what everyone else had been up to.

Nothing much else to report really, except that I've now made a good friend (from the camp). Siiri is 16 and arrived from Finnland at the same time as I did. Today was Yasmine (from Argenitnia)'s birthday, so last night we all went out into town, which was fun.
Oh, and by far the most important thing thats happened so far is that it's started snowing! Yesterday morning I looked out my window to find everything Covered in snow! It was all so pretty- and it looked like Narnia! Today there wasn't so much (it stops by about 10am, and theres no snow left by 1pm), but it's very very cold now, and everyone's rugged up in their winter clothes.

I hear that the Sport and Cultural awards night went very smoothly- it was a little sad that I couldn't be there with you all, but it sounded like a great night.

Anyhu, that's all from me,
Ciao!

Montag. 01 Oktober

2007-09-15T10:49:00.003+02:00

Ok ok I'm updating!!

Where did I leave off.. the start of school. Well, re: school, things are going really well (bar maths. But I'll get to that!). I'm getting to know my class better, and they're starting to realise that I want to learn german- not for them to practise their german! Maria is especially good. I talked to her a lot in PE today. PE was brilliant today. We did step aerobics. (I know!!) It was especially funny because we all just kinda started dancing instead. Good times. Then we played volleyball. And I'm really bad at volleyball. But everyone else is too. So its all gooood.
Oh yeah. In PE, the girls go into one class and the boys go into another class. So.. its all girls during PE, which I think is a little odd. But it's also cool because I get to know the people from another class (there's not really much time to talk to them in French and Ethics- the only other two classes that 7B (my class-woo!) splits up in. Oh yes. I'm in 7th year, which is the second to last year. However, the age span is quite wide (is age-span a phrase?). Debbie is still only 16, whilst I think about a quarter of the class is 18. Or about to turn 18. It was Simons 18th today. I, unfortunately slept in, so was five minutes late for class and missed out on the celebrations. But there were glittery streamers and these kinda marbled really colourful shiny balloons (I've never seen them before.. they're quite cool) hanging around the classroom all day. And we hung the streamers all over the OHP and the crucifix with Jesus on it. He looked very pretty. Yes, there are crucifixes in like every room and corridor at my school, and, apparently in almost every school in Austria. It's not a religious school, but because Austria has such a huge percentage of catholics, it's acceptable. Apparently in a lot of places it's hard to get a job if your papers don't say that you're catholic! Which is a little shocking for me. But I think that a lot of people are catholic only on paper, or are catholic but don't really do anything about it. That's the general idea I've gotten from my classmates anyway.

Today in English we recalled the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and then we listened to a 'politically correct' version of Little Red Riding Hood. It was quite possible the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Some parts that I can remember went kinda like this;
'One day, the girl went to visit her grandmother with a basket full of fresh fruit and mineral water. Not because her grandmother was ill - as an adult, she was quite capable of looking after herself- but because the girl wanted to be generous and blah blah blah…'
and then in the woods she met the wolf and he told her that it was dangerous to be out in the woods alone, and she replied that it was a sexist remark and all this and it was really really silly and even I didn't understand a few of the words! I'm not sure how the others were expected to do!

Anyhu. So yes. What else. Oh yes. My host mum Hanni came back from Japan on Friday. She's.. very strange. She retired from teaching, and now .. well. She stays at home. She's a perfectionist, gets tired very very easily, and talks very loudly. She gets very excited by her own ideas, and then doesn't really appreciate or understand anyone else's. She has the tendancy to annoy the hell out of me, but since Andrea's come home (she went to Madrid for a week through school- I stayed at Sabbi's house for four days while they were both gone) it's been fine. So that’s good!

On Thursday I got back from school and found Isle (Andreas cousin who lives next door) here. She had got a phone call from Matze- Andreas boyfriend- who had asked if we'd like to go for a walk up in the mountains. Soo… off we went! After about an hour and a half, we found the right transportation to get there (after getting on about three different busses, and checking about ten different timetables), somehow took the whole train journey for free and then spent another hour or so looking for the beginning of the track! We got there though. It turned out to be a canyon! It was great. We walked along a really steep narrow path that was really rocky, with sheer cliff rising upwards on one side, and a nasty looking drop down to the very strong Inn River on the other! It was a little disconcerting seeing the memorial plates for people who had fallen and died there, but it was good fun. We found a nice place next to the river, and eventually got a fire going, where we sat around and cooked some sausages and toasted some bread. By the time we had finished, it was about 7pm and we had to run all the way back before it got completely dark, which was very scary! But we're still alive, so it's all good. My jacket smelt of woodsmoke for a good few days afterwards!

On Friday (it seems like an age ago now!) Isle took me out with some of her friends into town, which was fun. There was a whole group of us, and I managed to learn all but one of their names (hurrah!). Probably the funniest part of the night was when we were waiting for the bus to go home, and Tom started pointing out the wedding dresses, and deciding which one Isle would wear to their wedding (he had jokingly decided that they had become lovers and then engaged within the space of a few hours). And then the only guy who's name I couldn't remember was talking on the phone, telling whoever it was who he was with. In German when you talk about someone you say 'die Sarah' or 'das Ben', just like you would talk about 'die Gabel' or 'das Schule' (whats the bet I didn't even get those words right). So on the phone he was like 'Ja, ich bin mit (I am with) die Isle, die Theresa, das Benny, das Tom und die Neuseeland', which was hilarious at the time. Perhaps you had to be there.
Anyhu.

Also on Friday, Hanni came home! Hanni is, as I've probably already mentioned to some of you, a little odd, to put it nicely. She talks very loudly, and is kinda a childish perfectionist. I will refrain from writing anything else here, but luckily I'm getting better at handling her. It's very exhausting being around Hanni.

On Saturday Hanni and I got up early (9am. I managed very well, I think) and went to the farmers market, which sells fruit and vegetables and meat and cheese and milk and other such things from the nearby farms. Hanni took me around the WHOLE market explaining what everything (And that’s where you can buy apples, and that’s where you can by meat, and here you can buy vegetables; see look! Theres this and that and everything else) which was thoughtful. I suppose.
After about an hour we came back home, and we went out again in the late afternoon. Hanni's church choir had a concert that evening, so we biked into town in time for her rehearsal, and then they had the concert. Her choir was kinda average, but there were also two guest choirs- both male choirs- one was .. I don’t know. but the other one was the tirolian singers. I forget what they called themselves, but it was something like that. Firstly, they were amazingly dressed- in full Austrian traditional costume! They all looked like little father christmasses, especially when they sang! Their singing was incredible.. like, it just blew you away, and they all enjoyed it so much, and their sound was amazing, and .. yeah. I'm so glad I went.

On Sunday Hanni's boyfriend came around. Jurg is his name, and he's quite nice. We drove for about half an hour south - just 30km away from Italy, and went for a walk in the mountains. On our travels we met an elderly man in a house. But like.. a proper, tiny Austrian log house. and he was wearing a hat with a feather in it, and a shirt with braces and ahhhh it was so… Austrian! He looked just like Heidi's grandfather, sitting there on his wooden bench outside his little house, with a picket fence (made out of sticks.. not bought pickets) and a water trough thing and eeeee it was very exciting!
The landscape was interesting. There was lots of last year's snow which had been covered with dirt- some of it covered a whole hillside, and you didn't even notice it was there! But other than that, there was a nice river- I don’t know if it was the Inn river or not, with really slatey looking stones. All the trees were kinda. just trees. And when there weren't trees, it was just yellowish brownish grass or, near the top of the mountains (I feel weird calling them mountains, as they're only a little higher than Tinakori Hill!) rock. But it was nice anyway. We didn't walk very far, as Hanni walks very slowly, but Jurg and I went up the river a bit further when she headed back down, and that was nice.
I'm so glad that I never have to drive with Hanni in the car. Andreas dreading it. She's the worst ever backseat driver. (except she was in the passenger seat, which meant that she actually took charge of the wheel sometimes- much to Jurgs annoyance)

Then it was back to school for another week. School is good. Maths is ridiculously hard still. Aaaaaand there's not really that much more to say about school. I talked to Maria a bit more (like a proper conversation, not just a smiley hello how are you did you have a good weekend type thing) today, and she's going to Graz this coming weekend, because her sister's studying there, and she showed me all these postcards and stuff from Graz which was cool. I think that that proves that my German's improved a bit. Maybe? Hopefully?

Anyhu. Umm.. I can't really think of anything else. Choir tomorrow! And I'm meeting up with Peter (who I haven't seen in a while) and Sabbi after school.
Oh yes! The chocolate here is good. Just thought that was important for you to know. Though I AM being careful not to eat too much!

and ja. That is all I think! Sorry that I changed writing style half way through this (if you noticed!) .. I guess.. I just write differently sometimes XD

anyhu. Take care y'all. And write me comments! I'll put a couple of photos in this post tomorrow maybe.
Tcheuss!!

ps. I've been in Austria for a month!! does it feel that long to you?

Flirting in English:

2007-09-15T10:49:00.002+02:00

Just in case you ever feel the need to flirt in english.. i mean german. These are some of the 'English Flirting tips' from our school H&M diaries that I found quite funny. Uh.. enjoy...?

You're sweet as candy Du bist so sü§
Are you seeing sometone? Hast du einen Freund?
You smell great Du riechst toll
You make me nervous Du machts mich nervös
You're amazing du bist toll
I'm crazy about you Ich bin verrückt nach dir
I like your style du bist cool
What are you doing tonight? Abends schon was vor?
You're (not) my type Du bist (nicht) mein Typ
Leave me alone Lass mich in Frieden
Let's be friends Lass uns Frende sein
crush Schwarm
cutie sü§er Typ \ Mädel
lady-killer, player Frauenschwarm
prince charming Traumprinz
girl of my dreams Frau meiner Träumer
secret admirer heimlicher Verehrer
pals, buddies Freunde, Kumpels
love bite, hickie Knutschfleck
pick-up line Anmachspruch
cute, lovely Su§
cheesy billig, geschmacklos
flirtatious kokett
ticklish kitzelig
awkward heikel, unangenehm
cold shoulder die kalte Schulter
head over heels in love total verliebt
to have a crush on someone für jemanden schwärmen
to make out knutschen
to ask s.o. out knuttchen
to totally connect auf einer Wellenlänge sein
to giggle kirchen
to blush rot werden
to fancy s.o.\ be into s.o. auf jd.stehen
to be single Single sein
to be heart-broken Liebeskummer haben
to be desperate verzweifelt sein
to make the first move den ersten Schritt machen

Nicknames (Kosenamen):
darling, sweetheart, love, pet, babe, baby, cutie pie, honey, bunny, sugar

you're as sweet as candy. No really.. you are.

15th September

2007-09-15T10:49:00.001+02:00

On Monday I went to school. Woo! I met Sabbi and Nadia (who also went to the US on an exchange) who both go to BORG, as well as Peter, who had finished his school for the day, at the bus station (Marktplatz if you so desire to know the name of the bus stop). We just had an hour of administration stuff to do on monday with our class. Peter came and was my translator which was nice.

My school is pretty big, made all out of brick and is on a street which runs parallel (I think) to Maria-Theresien strasse, which is kinda the Lambton Quay equivilent in Innsbruck. It has a big entrance, with three huge doors and marble steps (it sounds fancy, but it isn't really.. well, it could be. I'm already used to it). There are always lots of people standing outside smoking though, so you have to battle your way through them before you even get there. But yes. The corridors are really big- like twice the width of the WGC ones, and I have no idea where the lockers are, but they aren't in the corridors I've been in. All the floors are wooden and shiny and there are blackboards instead of whiteboards. It's all really well laid out- the teacher's desk has a projector built into it, and there's a sink in the corner. What else. Oh yeah- the celings are really big. And everythings really clean. No carpet. No broken windows (yes WGC has broken windows) and no holey curtains.

Yeah, so on Monday I met my form teacher, who's also my German teacher. She didn't seem to like me very much, but luckily now she's warmed to me a little more which is good. Afterwards Sabbi, Peter, Nadi and I went into town and hung around a little bit before going home. Tuesday was the same sort of thing, and on wendesday we had two proper classes, and some more on Thursday. But yes. English is nice, (Nadi and Sabbi think my teacher looks like a hampster) we had a discussion about news that's happened lately. Over the 'summer'. I didn't say much, cos that would probably make everyone else feel a bit strange. They all have pretty good english though. In History we got three sheets crammed full of notes. Which was a little daunting. I've figured out that they're about the French Revolution though (A+ for me this year in History.. eek!). My Geography teacher is really nice- we sat around in a circle and talked about what we'd done this 'summer'. She apparently really likes having exchange students in her classes, and was really interested in New Zealand and everything and she's really cool and young and everyone likes her.

I 'forgot' my PE gear (or rather, I have none), but our PE teacher ( I have no idea what any of the teachers are called by the way) seems ok. She doesn't waste much time, and she keeps us moving, so thats alright. Though she wouldn't let me play (dodgeball-yuss!) in my shoes, because apparently they're street shoes. Which means that I'll be in barefeet all year, and I got\get blisters from running around on the gym floor (which is really slippery) which isn't so great. And I'll have to think of something I can wear in PE too. What else. My Maths and Physics teacher is the same person, and he seems quite nice. In phyiscis we're doing electricity, just simple stuff that I've learnt before, so maybe I'll be alright in that. Our Chemistry teacher is new this year, so the others don't know her either. She's quite nice too though. Whoa using the word 'nice' far too much in this paragraph!

French was really funny- we have a really big class-25. Apparently when it reaches 26 they split the class in half, so the classes don't get any bigger than that. We were all sitting there talking, and the door opened and in walked this really tall guy with square, black-rimmed glasses. He took a step into the room, and then actually jumped at the size of our class, gazed around for a sec and then turned and banged his head against the blackboard. He's really cool, although french is a little difficult, as I've been working on my german all this time, and then suddenly there's french too, and the sentences in my head come out german with french words in odd places, or vice versa. But I think that the class is about the right level for me, which is great. I got one of the highest scores in the test we did yay! I forget what other subjects I do. I don't have Art or Woodworks\sculpture (yay!) till monday, so I'm looking foward to that. A lot of the teachers just talked (just like in NZ), so I got particularly bored on Friday, when I had my first full day of school - six classes in a row, with only five minute breaks inbetween. I was exhausted by the end! The teachers are much easier to understand than my classmates (who all speak ridiculously fast), so here's hoping I'll be able to understand them completely- sooner rather than later.

One more thing that I have to point out about school is the students. Austrian teenagers are very.. diverse. Perhaps that's not the word. But lots of them have crazy hair clothes. I think that you really can divide the whole school into emos, bogans, hippies and boring normal people like me. On monday I saw a girl with looong curly blonde hair and purple skinny jeans. There's a (incredibly emo) girl with blue hair that she ties back into two pigtails and theres another one who has long dreads- all brightly coloured. They're amazing, like, maybe five are bright green, five red, five orange, five blue etc. And it's really well done. I doubled back just to look at her hair again.

On Friday Andrea and I went to see a film called Vier Minuten (translated:Four minutes). It was about an old woman who goes to teach in a jail (the female part of it) in germany. It's an amazing film, incredibly intense, and has some fantastic piano playing- classical, jazz and contemporary. It was so intense that nobody said a word as they left the theatre. I urge you all to see it if you ever get the chance - I understood almost all of it, and my german is .. well perhaps better than yours, but it's so good visually that you can pick up pretty easily whats going on.

Afterwards we wandered around town a bit, and I saw three people I know! (which I thought was rather impressive). We also went back to the same bar that we went to last weekend, but we didn't buy anything, we were just there to see if the band was any good. The stage was set up with a Hammon Organ, with the words 'Mambo Kurt' written on it in a big, brown-yellow, 60'sish kinda font. On top of the organ was a disco ball thing that spun around and around, with coloured lights all over it. Then Mambo Kurt came in; a 50something year old man wearing a dirty white suit, an old yellow polo shirt, large, brown glasses and brown leather shoes. He talked for a bit (about his precious Hammon Organ) before starting to play: Queen, Sex Pistols, The Final Countdown by Europe, and the 'It's getting hot in here' song by that rapperwhosnameidontremember. He was brilliant - he even put the organ on repeat and went and waltzed with someone from the audience, and then stood on his stool dancing\rapping\singing. It was really really cheesy, and one of the funniest things I'd seen all week (another one being my classmates reading 'English Flirting Tips' out from our new H&M school diaries; 'You're sweet like candy' said in a really monochromatic voice by someone who's completely serious is well.. yeah. It was pretty epic).
We didn't stay for long, cos we were tired, but I'm so glad we went, and so gutted I left my camera at home.

Oh and did I mention that Innsbruck is full of suprises? (The traffic lights don't work at night.. did I mention that?) the other day on the way to school I saw a nun in a bakery\cafe, and yesterday I walked out of the house to see a yellow and blue hot air balloon.

Anyhu. That is that. I just made some brownies- mum sent me the recipe- and they're a little bit burnt around the edges but that's ok. They're still good.
Oh and I'm discovering the art of cooking. And I've been playing a bit of guitar- The View, Damien Rice, Dave Dobbyn and some others .. which is cool.
Anyhu. Thats all. I tend to write a lot. But that's my excuse later on for not posting so much :P
tchuess

2007-09-04T17:09:00.000+02:00

I'm back! To tell everything that I didn't get around to writing yesterday! Hurrah!

There's one thing i forgot to say about the camp..

On saturday night, we had a kind of leaving party (already.. i know!), where everyone had to do a song or dance from their culture. Us Kiwis did a haka (yes, we KNOW it's culturally insensitive and rahdy rah, but we were just SHOWING them!) and everyone really liked it and found it really interesting. Lots of other countries did dances and stuff.. there was a tango and a polka and chinese opera (it wasn't that great.. i promise) and all this other stuff. Twas good fun. Afterwards there was

a dance. Which was.. a little depressing, because it was all hip hop music, or even worse, Italian hip hop, and all the Italians and Brazilians and some of the Americans were really good at dancing, and we were just like 'oh....'
Also, I saw my first Austrian animal!

It was an Emu. Yes. An Emu. In the school grounds. Don't ask me why.

Anyhu. Then we went to the trainstation, and got on a train, and went on our way. I had the longest journey..there were only about four of us going to Tirol (the state which Innsbruck is in), and we were all in different compartments. I talked a little bit to the people in my compartment, and after 'Ich komme aus Neuseeland' they'd all sigh, and say 'ahhh! Neuseeland!!', which i found quite funny.

Arrived at the station in Innsbruck at 6.30 after a five hour train journey, and was met by Andrea (my host sister) and her aunt. Hanni (host mother) is in Japan at the moment, but she will be back in two weeks. Andrea is really really nice; she giggles a lot, and on the walls in her room are lots and lots of photos: both her own, and ones out of magazines. Out of my bedroom window I can see the other flats around the courtyard, with a background of huge mountains. Today, on the mountain (which we can see out of the kitchen window - I'll take a photo tomorrow) there was snow! Eeee!!!

Yesterday Andrea showed me around the city. It's gorgeous! Just like a postcard! We tooka bus a little way up the mountain, and then walked down again, going on a random detour (dead end) on the way. Sooooo pretty!

We also found a snail.. one that is very common in Austria. It has no shell and they're Huge, and Disgusting!

Today Andrea and I went into town and met Peter and Sabbi (Sabrina), who are my Liason\support people. Both of them went to the States for a year, and got back a few months ago. They're awesome. Both of them are really really nice and easy to get along with and really funny. We went to an italian cafe, and to H&M, and bought a phone card, and ice tea (they drink it like coke over here.. they have coke too, but Ice Tea.... mmmmmm) and yeah! Now I'm home, and we're going to make food soon and yay food!

Andrea, Mich und Peter

Andrea, Mich und Sabbi

There are a quite a few differences in Austria. Small things that you don't usually think about: the lightswitches are big and square, the toilets are different, the windows can open in two different ways (it's too complicated to explain) and at cafes you pay After you've eaten.

I'm always hungry at the moment, and usually tired. My hairs gone a bit weird, cos it's so dry here. Oh and either I've got a cold or there's something in the air that makes me constantly sneeze. Hopefully I'll adapt to that. Haven't had a huge amount of time to think about home, but that will come.

Food!

ciao xoxo

ps. Everyone here is really tanned. It's very depressing. And those photos are terrible of me. I was tired.

2007-09-03T08:56:00.000+02:00

I'm here! and still struggling with this weird keyboard!

Well, it's hard to know where to start. So lets start from the beginning.

I left Wellington at 10am on Thursday. Peter, Alex, Miriam and

Mum came to the airport which was nice. After arriving at Auckland airport we met up with all the other NZ AFSers going to Austria and France, and stepped onto our 10 hour flight to Singapore . (we found some cool foot masage-y things in Singapore).

It was a good flight. I sat next to an ex-radiologist who had lived in Wellington for a while, and who played piano, and a South African student from Cape Town who was going back home. The second flight wasn't so good however. Massive turbulence in the 1st hour, just as they had given out the first meal. It went Everywhere. Everywhere including all over my bag and my AFStshirt. Khoi and Ana talked the WHOLE 12 hours, which was really annoying and everyone got annoyed at them, but mreh. We survived.

At Frankfurt, the Austrians and the French split ways (Frankfurt Airport is scary..) and we caught a tiny plane to Vienna, where we were met by a group of AFS volunteers. We hung around in the world Trade Centre for a bit ( just casually :P ) before catching a bus through Vienna to a private, religious boarding school that we were to stay at for the next two days. It was very concretey and grey and depressing, but we had a fun time anyway. On the first afternoon, we just hung around, and waited for the last people to arrive that night. On Saturday we had a full day of orientation with the AFS volunteers (who were all returnees. They ran the whole camp and they were brilliant!) Our group was made up of the NZers, the Australians (just the two of them) and some of the Americans. We were taken by Lisa, who went to Australia, and Teresa who had gone to the US on AFS exchanges. From them we learnt a new game, which is the reson that I am now covered in bruises. It's called 'Demonstration' (like, a protest) , and you gather around on the floor in a very tight circle while the 'Police' have to try and untangle and seperate you. It's very violent and very very fun. I think I bit someone at some point.... -whistles-

Oh yes. In the school, the Australians, a few of us NZers and one or two Americans went exploring and came across a beautiful old church.

I don't really know what to say about it.. but it was amazing, and everything was so intricate and detailed.

So that was the camp. Here's a photo of all 150 of us :D

On Sunday people got picked up from the camp by their host families, and afterwards, the rest of us went to the train station. On the way, Stefan (a returnee who had gone to Peru) pointed out a Hundertwasser building. I'll try to find a photo of it somewhere. It was amazing.

anyhu. were going to town now, and i shall write more later.

Tchuess! xoxo

Montag 10 Semptember

2007-09-03T05:28:00.002+02:00

Oki doke (this blog takes willpower dontcha know?)
Here goes. Whats happened lately. Yesterday! Yesterday was Sunday and what did we do. Well.. the morning started off slowly, because I'd stayed up a little too long on Saturday night on the computer. However, at 1 Andreas dad came and we went driving again (Andrea did) and went to a practise parking place that usually costs but is free on Sundays. Afterwards, we went out of Innsbruck a little to her aunts house (another one). Maria (Andreas aunt) lives with her husband .. Harald?, and her two children David, whos 12 and Mari (I think thats how you spell it) whos 14 (though she doesnt act 14 at all.. she looks older than Andrea.) Their house is big and old and is sooooo pretty! Its on the top of a hill and theres huge fields full of really green, long grass and apple trees, and it has a almost panoramic view of all the snow covered hills and you can look over the whole of Innsbruck. And there were sunflowers!

Ok.. thats my rant about their house over. The whole family were soo nice. Always smiling and
they talked nicely for me (none of this weird Austrian accent thing) so I could understand them.I understood a lot actually. I wish everyone would speak like that. For some reason some people talk to me (like the bus driver the other night 'zehn cent!' he said like three times over, and I had NO idea what he was on about) and I can't understand them at all, but with Maria and Harald and all the rest of them were so easy to understand and so nice and friendly. While we were sitting down and having food (a sponge cake thing with fresh cream and raspberry sauce stuff) (my jeans still fit me) (and there was coffee! Yuss!! Andrea and Hanni dont drink coffee.. I think I'll die in a few months) some more of the family popped around to say hello. and then some more. and some more. Among them were two little boys.. one of whom was starting his first day of school on monday. Its custom here to give (or for the child to make) a cone, filled with lollies as a present for their first day of school. So both of them came along with their huge blue cones decorated with dinosaurs and steam trains which were filled to the brim. They all went outside with Harald and sang songs about the first day of school and learning to read and write and things (it was so cute!)while some of us stayed inside.

I've found that you can watch and listen to other people having a conversation in several different ways, you can block your ears and watch their physical movements and hand gestures, as well as their expressions and things like that. Then you can listen to the tone of their voice, how fast theyre talking, and whether they emphasize particular words, and then you can listen to the words themselves, and hopefully you can pick up the general gist of what theyre talking about from there. I find that adults and really little kids are much easier to understand in their normal talk than teenagers are (this is when they're speaking fast.. ), just because theyre so much more precise with the words, whereas Andrea is terrible, and kinda chews over her words and hardly moves her mouth at all.

Anyhu. So about 10 different parts of the family turned up and left again (the neighbour also popped in, aswell as two friends) - I have no idea what any of their names are beacause there were seriously about 30 of them, and yeah. Andrea and Maria told me about the cave man, whos name I've also forgotten (never bother trying to remember names.. you're an exchange student.. they all understand :P ) who died in the mountains somewhere on the boarder of Austria (Tirol.. the state I'm in) and Italy, and who's body was perfectly preserved because he was frozen solid. Apparently last year Andrea had a History teacher who's husband was a university lecturer, who for some reason had studied this sort of area of something. So Andrea learnt about this cave man (begins with 'U'.. still cant remember though)for a whole half a year. Mari and I fooled around on the guitar a bit, and I showed Harald and Maria and Konnie (Andreas dad) and their neighbour and probably some other people too Wellington.. on Google Earth. It was weird.. looking down on New Zealand. Just.. weird. And I explained about the snow we have on the volcanoes and the Southern Alps and Lake Taupo and lots of things.
Anyhu, we finally left at around 6, and Harald gave both me and Andrea a bar of Austrian chocolate- for our first day of school. It was really sweet.

We got home and were immediately called by Manuel - a friend and flatmate of Andrea's boyfriend (who is currently in Surrey, England) who had cancelled on us Thursday night. He wanted to know if we'd like to go to the open air Kino..uh. cinema with him and some friends, as Sunday night was the last night it was open until next summer (August.. by which time I will be home. Already!) So.. off we went. The open air Kino is in an old.. I'm not sure if battlement is the right word.. the place where they kept weapons in olden times. There was a big square courtyard, filled with white plastic garden chairs, and the screen was Huge. Manuel seemed quite nice, though we didn't have much chance to talk very much, as .. well. we were watching the film. The film being 'Zorba of Crete' or Zorba the Greek. or something like that. It was very very old, and.. very strange. In english with german subtitles.. it was just really odd. I've never seen anything like it..go and research it! We really enjoyed it though..it was just. a bit weird. There were quite a lot of people though, and although it started raining half way through, it stopped pretty quickly, and I think everyone enjoyed it. We were all huddled up in our blankets, and it was really pretty cos, because everyone smokes (I swear Manuel had about 10 cigarettes during the movie.. it was pretty ridiculous) every few minutes there'd be a spark somewhere in the audience as the lit up their smoke. It looked quite pretty.

Then there was today! Today was my first day of school. It was.. interesting. First impressions reminded me more of an American High school than anything else. Oh yeah.. I was met by Sabbi and Peter and their friend Nadia at the busstop and we walked there together, and yeah. Today was just an admin day (it's their first day back too.. after their looooong 9 week summer holidays).. sorting out timetables and things. My form teacher equivilent seems a little strange. I told her that I'd finished school in NZ and she looked at me like I was stupid and asked why I was here then. So Peter and I (who had stayed to help me out, and translate and things- he'd already finished school for the day) tried to explain AFS to her.. but she didn't really get it. It was a bit strange. Then she wanted to change me to a lower class, because my german isn't great, but 10 year olds speak the same german as 17 year olds and i would understand just as much of their german as I would of anyone else's, so I didn't think it would really make much difference. Anyhu, we went and talked to the headmaster, and he seemed really nice, and said that I should stay where I was, although I will take a lower german class. There are 18 people in my class, and most of the time we'll stick together, and be in the same classroom. Some of them came up and introduced themselves, and Peter has a friend in my class, so hopefully it'll be ok. They all seem quite nice, if a little.. well, half of them had dyed their hair black or blonde and had lip piercings and wore bright white hoodies with pink or blue stars (that seems to be the in thing at the mo) all over them. So.. we'll see. I'm sure they're nice enough. I just have no idea what they're saying. All the boys are really quiet. (are you shocked? there are boys! at my school! -gasp-)

but yes. I'm sure I forgot something. Oh yeah. I'm doing thirteen subjects.
Here they are:
Maths, Geography, Psychology(and Philosophy.. kinda mixed into one apparently), English, Art, Woodwork, Ethics, German, French, Physics, Chemistry, History and PE.
and out of all of those the only choices I could make were between French and Italian, and Ethics and Religious Studies and Woodworks and something weird that I dont understand. Crazy huh? I think I have around two or three hours of each subject a week. Which will also be different. And yes. I now have my monthly bus ticket (fourty euros! Luckily AFS pays it back) and hopefully everything will run smoothly!
Anyhu
I've been writing for ages, and yes.
Take care! Sorry.. cant seem to sort out the blog problem. but I'msure you'll cope.
Take care.
Kelda.

Freitag 7 September

2007-09-03T05:28:00.000+02:00

*the last post has somehow moved down to the bottom of the page. there are photos! Read that one first!*

Yesterday we went and did a bit of (grocery) shopping, before we were met by Andreas dad. Andrea then drove us out of town a bit, and we were surrounded by huge corn fields and tiny little villages- with lots of log houses and flower boxes at the windows and things. They were so adorable.. i didn't bring my camera though. There were no footpaths-the front door of a house would go straight out onto the cobbled street. On the top of every small hill we passed was a church with a tall spirally bell tower, and as we drove along next to the corn fields, we were chased by swallows! There were hawks on the powerlines, and horses wandering alongside the road with their owners. We went back to Andreas dads house and had tea before driving back home.
We then rushed into town to meet up with one of Andreas friends Marc. We walked along the Inn river before going into a bar. (I'm legal! woooooooo!) After a few hours of sitting and talking we were joined by Marc's friend Johannes, who greeted all of us with a kiss on each cheek. Later still, Laurig (I think thats how you spell it) came (extra kisses from Johannes.. they were taking the piss though). Johannes attempted to teach me some German slang and swear words. At about 11 we went downstairs where there was a free concert (I'll give you three guesses why it was free) (Hint: it was friday). By 12 I was exhausted, so we went out (Johannes and Laurig had already left) and waited for a bus and that was it!
Some things about Austrian bars;
They're called 'Local's. Everyone is allowed to smoke inside (which results in me still STINKING of smoke 40 hours later.) Dogs are allowed inside. Aaaand the beers are huge! I have no idea how the boys managed four each. One was enough for me! =\

Today we went out for pizza with Andreas dad. His english isn't fantastic, which is great for me, and today we spoke about 75% german! (Andrea's english is perfect). He showed us the best place for pizza (in his opinion - so far, I'm with him) which was a tiny little pizza\pasta\kebab place (they're very keen on those here.. they're everywhere) that had lots of old, black and white photographs on the red walls - things like a man rollerblading naked up a street (complete with trams) in Los Angeles. It was really cute. AND I ordered my pizza myself! Afterwards, he showed me where he worked, and then we wandered around the streets and bought icecream (it was a warm day - everyone was sitting next to the big water fountain in Maria-Theresa Strasse eating icecream). I'm slow at deciding, and a lot of the icecreams I didn't know what they were because the names of nuts and things were all in german. I finally ordered something (I have no idea what it was called) that was pretty much vanilla with chocolate bits in it, and Andrea was like '...And?' and I flustered-ly chose the first one that came to mind, being vanilla. Which was a bit silly. It tasted good anyway :P
We left Andreas dad, and wandered into the old part of the city (actually we caught a tram, and then realised it was the wrong one, so we just walked). There are a whole lot of Locals underneath a bridge where the train runs (my train from Vienna went this way too). All the houses are painted bright colours (theyre so cute!). We kept walking, throught the really rich part of Innsbruck, where there are lots of mansions (called 'Ville' in german. I think). But they're not like the mansions in NZ- they're completely rediculous- more like churches than houses. And with lots of old sculptures and little finishins in Iron over the front door, and wide, quiet streets lined with Linden(?) trees, which make the light really soft and green and nice. We also found a .. well, it was a church, but it was also an international school for priests, complete with Gargoyles! I was kinda completely in awe the whole time, cos everything was so big, and all made of brick and really oooooold and just amazing. Then we came home, and I fell asleep for two hours cos I was so tired (must've been from last night- it's the first time I've fallen asleep before 8pm since I've been here) and here I am! Tomorrow we're apparently inviting ourselves (with Andreas dad) to Aunt Marias house for.. something. I dont really know, but I'm guessing I'll find out once we're there. Andrea has a ridiculous amount of cousins and aunts and just relatives in general-did i mention that?

But yes. Now we're going to watch The Sound of Music! It's the first time Andrea's seen it, and No, I did Not pressure her into it- she wanted to watch it! (but she has her doubts about it.. I think she'll like it though. I think... hope..)

anyhu. Missing you all!
Take care and tell me whats going on in the little land of the long white cloud
Ciao! (they say ciao here! Its so cool XD )
love kelda

Donnerstag 6 Semptember

2007-09-02T19:28:00.000+02:00

Some things I've found in Austria:

A New Zealand flag, fancy that..

My bedroom (it was messier before.. sorry mum!)

Nutellaaaaaaa! I won't die now see.. I have my friend!

A lightswitch

Ice Teeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!
(you have to try it..it's sooooo goooooood)

All Austrians have messy bedrooms.

A cool bottle I found in Andreas room

Hausschuhe

All Austrians have jeans like these.

I could feel a little out of place in my skinny jeans....

Andrea is tired today. Even though we got up late. It's raining. And grey. You can't really see the snow on the mountains, and it's too cold to go out. Well, it's not. But we're lazy.

However, we are happy because I have a school!! It's an arty school - the same one that Sabbi goes to, which should be cool. I didn't get into the music part of it, but I'm in the arts part which shall be cool. It'll be interesting to see how my science and maths is, seeing as I haven't done either in two years.

We were going to go out last night, but Andrea's boyfriends' friend is silly and forgot to call us back. So we're going to go to her cousin's place (right next door) tonight to watch House on tv, and tomorrow night we'll go out with another friend of hers. Who is more organised we hope XD

No mail yet- send me postcards!!! and lots and lots of photos and I'll put them on my wall!

erm. I can't think of anything else to write. Oooh i cooked today. Be proud! I never cook.. we made stir fry. which was good.

and yes. That is all.

Ciao!

Nine Days

2007-08-21T01:30:00.000+02:00

Well, there's nine days to go, but it doesn't really feel like it. I'm cramming all my work [as usual], and now everyone but me is celebrating because mock exams are over.

I've written a list of things to pack.. my book is getting filled with writing and drawings from people, and I've decided [after talking to Miriam] that I'm too lazy to write many emails. So, a blog it is!

For those of you who don't know anything about my host family, I'm off to Innsbruck [as shown in the photos]. I'll be staying with Hanni, who nolonger works, but used to teach, and Andrea- her 18 year old daughter. Andrea is going to a different school from me, but i'm going to a very music-y school, so it should be ok. They like going for walks, Hanni does Qi-Gong, and Andrea plays the piano [i think] and guitar. They live in a flat just out of town and they bike everywhere - they even have a spare bike for me!

Innsbruck is the fourth biggest city in Austria. Austria is divided into 'States', and Innsbruck is in Tyrol- right on the German border.
Innsbruck is known around the world for it's skiing- it's right at the foot of the alps, and has hosted the Winter Olympics twice.

I had my going away party on Saturday night.. it was good. A little sad, but people are too crazy to be sad around.
Aaaaand.. i can't think of anything else to write.

Tchuess!