Steigl Brewery& Babysitting

Brewery: So we have these excursions for my Understanding Austria class. Normally they’re to castles, or museums, places like that. This week, we went to the Stiegel Brewery. Konrad’s idea, not Phoebe’s. Stiegl is the ultimate Austrian beer. The brewery was established in 1492 (yeah, like the year Columbus sailed the ocean blue) and has been going strong ever since. I hadn’t known a lot about brewing beer, but after that tour I’ve got a pretty firm grasp on it. All it takes is water, hops, malt and _____. And some steps to process. (Just kidding, I have no idea how to brew beer, but it seems like it takes kind of a long time. I think I’ll stick to drinking it). They had a ‘beer tower’ of all the different types of beers they’ve ever brewed& I was most amused with the labels. They were very creative with the names and the drawings on the labels. It was interesting to see the progression of labels as technology progressed as well. After the tour we got to sample some, and the cool thing about that is what we were drinking was some of the freshest beer they had; it had just come out of the brewery!

Babysitting: Not exactly related to the brewery… Apparently people sometimes approach Phoebe (the program director) with small jobs for students. One of them was to tutor a 9year old in English. Well, I love little kids and I love teaching so I jumped on that. Turns out, really all I have to do is play with him for an hour or 2 each week and speak English. The mother wants August (the kid) to become more fluent in English. He has 2 older siblings, a 16yr old sister, and an 18yr old brother. The entire family speaks English incredibly well. But, I’m doing what I can with him. And honestly, playing pick-up sticks for an hour each week is more relaxing than I thought. It gives me an opportunity to teach, and make a little money while I’m here, which is never a bad thing. I’ve met with him twice so far, and it’s a little difficult to get him to talk sometimes, but hopefully as he grows to trust me more, it’ll come a little easier.

Life: Overall I’m doing alright, but I get thrown into funks sometimes. It’s easiest to keep busy, hence the babysitting& joining a band, but there are some things from home that can’t be replaced. Like understanding what people around me are saying. The amount I haven’t talked in the last month is more than the amount of the time I’ve spent silent my entire life combined. (stop laughing Mom& Dad!). It’s hard work trying to dissect a conversation to try and find a word or 2 that I know. And forget trying to respond- stringing together a sentence is completely out of my league (for the time being). I’m still having an incredible time here, regardless of the language& cultural barriers. I’m trying to stay positive, and for the most part I can. And when I can’t, I just think of everyone at home who is wishing the best for me, and I get myself back on track. I think of everyone often however, not just when I’m homesick, and I miss and love you all so much.

Lovelovelove

Saturday Feb 3: Coldest day of my life.

So, like I said in my previous post, Jenna and her boyfriend Colin convinced me to go to skiing at St. Anton the day after Mathausen. Google ‘St. Anton’. Yeah, it’s really big. Every Austrian that hears I’ve skied it is impressed, which is cool. I have a feeling like I would have enjoyed it a liiiitle more if it wasn’t -30o Celsius. Which is about -25o Fahrenheit. I’m glad I’m from MA, and not TX or FL like some of the other kids, and I’m more used to cold. I don’t think I’ve ever skied in that severe cold though. And probably never will again. (Unless I come across an opportunity like St. Anton). Alright, enough about the cold. So we got on a train at 6:50, which meant I had to get up before 5am to catch a few different busses to get to the train station. So worth it. It was a 3 hr ride to the mountain, which is in Tirol, a different province than Salzburg. There are 9 provinces in the country, and I was in 3 within 2 days: Salzburg (where I’m living), Upper Austria (on Fri), and Tirol (Sat-Sun). So we got off the train at St. Anton, and our first goal was to find out how to get to the mountain, since we assumed we were in the center of the town, like the other train stations are. We found a nice English speaking person and asked them how to get to the mountain. Their response: “Dudes, look behind you. You’re here man!” (They were a pretty laid back bunch of skiers). Sure enough, the train was directly next to the mountain! All we had to do was cross the street, get rentals (Seth, I got a pair of sick Line twintips), tickets, and get on the gondola. We could still see the station as we got on the tram. So convenient! Unfortunately we could only ski a half day, because the train ride was 3hours long, and late. But the amount of terrain we covered was impressive. The mountains here are way different than home (aside the obviousness of them being the Alps). They don’t have trail names, just a color to designate it’s difficulty and what chairlift it leads down to. Also, a bunch of mountains are always connected, so you never really know exactly what mountain you’re on, but as long as you can find what rental shop you started at, you’re good. We took a super scary gondola up to the tippy top of the mountain (Mom would have hated it), along with a bunch of people who had avalanche packs. We did not have avalanche packs. I think that’s the first time I’ve been scared of any terrain. Jenna and I decided that whichever way the guys with the avalanche packs went, we were going the direct opposite way. It worked out well for us. And it was all worth it for the incredible, amazing, breathtaking, *insert a bazillion other adjectives here* view we were rewarded with. We made it down the mountain safely enough, and had a got a few more runs in before the lifts shut down. We then caught a train to Innsbruck, which is the capital of Tirol.

We stayed in the cutest hotel in Innsbruck. It wasn’t very close to town, but we were exhausted and couldn’t have gone out if we wanted to. It was a little family run place, and they ran a restaurant as well. It was a picturesque old fashioned inn, and the owners were super sweet although they didn’t speak much English. I discovered never to let Jenna touch the heaters; she always turns it off when she thinks she’s turning it up. Again, with the cold. The next morning we caught a bus into the city center and wandered around the old town. Highlight: we saw some of the Olympic arenas, mainly the outdoor ones. Innsbruck has held the Olympics twice, and junior Olympics once, this past January. Innsbruck was a nice place, but I’m biased towards Salzburg. If I returned with more time, less cold, and a plan of tourist things to do, I might enjoy it a little more. Eventually we caught a train back to Salzburg, and thus ended the coldest weekend of my entire life.

Missing everyone so much

Lovelovelove

Friday: After Mathausen

So there were some parts of Friday that weren’t depressing as heck. After Mathausen, we went to St. Florian Monastery. St. Florian is the Saint of Firefighters or something like that, and there were pictures and statues everywhere of him with a water bucket, ready to distinguish flames. It was a pretty neat place, but not much different than the other monasteries we’ve been to. (How different can you make a monastery?) There were a few things that set this one apart however. Firstly, I found my favorite room in the whole wide world. Imagine the library from Beauty& the Beast, take away the rolling staircase, add a few gorgeous antique tables, and a wicked cool ceiling painting. I could have stayed there forever. Well, maybe with a different collection of books. These were all research books but they were available to the public!! Secondly, the Florian Cathedral houses the Bruckner Organ. It was very very large and the most ornate and impressive organ I’ve ever seen. Which is saying a lot, because in the last few weeks I have seen my fair share of organs. Lastly, and one of the creepiest places I’ve ever been: the crypt. Bruckner wanted to be buried directly underneath his organ, so he was. But in the process of digging to bury him, they found that where they were digging was a previous burial site for lots of other people. So, skulls and bones surround his casket. SO CREEPY!!! On the way into the hallway that let to the crypt was a casket that was partially open. Jenna, Kerrie and I booked it out of there as soon as we could.

Next we went to Hallstead. Hallstead is the picture after the Austrian flag if you Google ‘Austria’. (PS- found out in German class that ‘Google’ was added to the German dictionary as a verb. Try conjugating that. No fun.) Anyways, Hallstead is GORGEOUS! It’s a lakeside village that directly faces the Alps, and it’s just breathtaking looking at the mountains, and the lake, and the adorable houses all at the same time. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, most shops were closed so we couldn’t poke around, and it was FREEZING. Pretty sure I was wearing 5 or 6 layers. One of the places Konrad took us in Hallstad was the ‘Bone House’. We were thinking it was some kind of restaurant or museum…no. It was a little shack…filled with skulls. The town is super tiny, and when people died, they ran out of room in the graveyard, so they built a little house, and people can say they want their skulls to go in there. Family members can paint the skulls, usually flowers since none can be put at a nonexistent gravesite, and the skull is put on a shelf with a bunch of others. Again, SO CREEPY!!! But a good idea for a place that has absolutely no room for further development. After that we wandered around, Kerrie, Jenna, Jesse& I found the quintessential Austrian bakery to warm up in, and then we got back on the bus for the 2 hour ride home.

That night, I went to my first Red Bulls hockey game. Everyone else had already been a few times, but the games are on Dinestage (Tuesday), and that’s when I have band practice. It was so much fun!! We got standing room tickets, which are right next to the ice, so you’re on the players lever which is cool. We could bang on the glass, and yell, and be generally distracting, loud, and obnoxious. It was a fun time. And an unfortunately late night. Jenna’s boyfriend Colin was here for a few days, and somehow they convinced me it would be a good idea to go skiing the next day. That required me to get up at 4:45am. More on that in my next post. Overall, Friday was an emotionally exhausting, but completely rewarding day. The things I saw, especially at Mauthausen will stick with me for the rest of my life, which isn’t a bad thing necessarily, but will definitely keep me thankful for the people in my life, and the incredible opportunities I have been presented.

I miss all of you, and hopefully will get a chance to catch up with some of you I haven’t had a chance to lately, soon.

Lovelovelove

Friday 2/3: Mauthausen. And some better points of the day that will be covered in another post.

Last Friday (Feb 3) was the first time I've cried on this trip. And surprisingly enough, it wasn't from being homesick. (Although that is creeping up on me.) Friday, we went to Mauthausen. Which is the largest concentration camp in Austria. As hard as I tried to mentally prepare for it, there is nothing you can really do to prepare yourself to see one of the places that caused so much horror to the world, not that long ago. It seems like WWII was forever ago when you talk about it in the classroom, but if you really think about it, it really wasn't that long ago. Which didn't help my mental state. Anyways, we started by walking around the outside of the camp to see the memorials set up by the different countries and different groups of people. I learned that a Jewish tradition is to place stones at a memorial instead of flowers, which was interesting. We couldn't even see all of the memorials because they were roped off, and from the sheer number of them. Every country who had prisoners from that camp had their own memorials. The reason there was a camp in Mauthausen, is that there is a stone quary, which is where the majority of the workforce was sent to. There were these stairs they called the "Death Staircase" because it was 120 steps and the prisoners would have to carry 100+lbs rocks on their backs, up and down the stairs, no matter what the weather was.

When we went into the walls of the camp, we saw the wailing wall, where the prisoners were made to strip down, and basically wait there for someone already in camp to die so that there was an open bed. We saw the living quarters, 3 or 4 toilets and 2 showering places.... for 300+ people. It was so haunting to be standing and walking around the buildings, an indescribable feeling (and not in the good, Aladdin way). After the living quarters came the hardest 45 minutes, not that the last hour had been anything close to easy. We went to where they burned the clothes they took from the prisoners, and where they were shaved and showered. The tour guide told us that the age that was considered 'useful' was 12yrs+ up, anyone under that, or who couldn't convincingly lie that they were 12, were immediately executed. In the shower room, there was only burning hot, or ice cold water that would come out, and sometimes the water would switch really quickly, called a 'shock shower'.

At Mauthausen, there were 3 types of execution: hanging, gassing, and being shot. We didn't see the area where the hangings happened, that had been destroyed, but we saw the others. (Right about now is when I started crying). The gas room looked like a mini version of the shower room, but there were no windows. At Mauthausen, the gas room was experimental, although many people were killed that way. It was seeing if a larger version would work in other camps. It did. So, there would be a ton of people crammed into the room, thinking they were going in for a shower because they were being moved to another camp, or freed, and then the Nazis would kill the lights, and release the gas. The shower heads that the prisoners saw were only to clean the room afterwords. The next room: the prisoners were told that they were being moved, but had to be catalogued, which meant they had to give their names and have their picture taken. That was the cover story, so that they would think they could have hope, and so they wouldn't scream. Behind the 'camera' was a gun. The worst room: the crematory. Well, it was the best, and worst room. The 'best' part only comes from that there were tons of plaques and pictures, and memorials from families and countries. The worst part was seeing the ovens.

Obviously I had learned about concentration camps, and WWII though school, but nothing, absolutely nothing, could prepare me, or compare to, standing in a camp in person. It was one of the most moving experiences of my life, and something that I will always carry with me.

More to come on the rest of Friday, but this post is overwhelming enough for now. Lovelovelove.

Actually Settling In

The more I'm exploring the city, whether on my own, or with friends, or as a class field trip, I am falling in love with this place. Which I was warned would happen, from people who had visited Salzburg before, and from that orientation thing at school that said: Step 1- fall in love with your new home. Step 2- become horribly miserable and homesick. Step 3- Get over both of those (that's a modified version of the powerpoint). So I assume I'd classify under the Step 1 at the moment, and I'm kind of hoping to skip over Step 2. I could just stay in Step 1 until the end of April and be perfectly fine. I think it helps that I am still in very good contact with people from home, so I'm balancing both worlds well (I hope).

Classes: Ha.

Ok no really, I do go to class, contradictory to what Mom might think. It's just, I only have 2. Next semester (they split the semester into 2 halves) I'll have 3. Right now I'm only taking German I, and Understanding Austria. German is hard. German is really really hard. I can read things pretty well, between the words that look English, and the German that I do know, but speaking it, I'm hopeless. Our teacher, Konrad (the really cool guy that's the academic head or whatever), is so nice and helpful, but that doesn't exactly form the words for me. That is by far what I am struggling with the most. We have quizzes every Thursday on the chapter from the week, and quizzes every Monday on vocab lists. I studied with friends last time, I think I'll take my work home and study with Alexandra this time. As her mother says "She's a perfectionist". So hopefully that will help.

Understanding Austria is really neat. It's an awesome class to have for first semester to help us learn about the city we're living in, and to understand the people. The downside: twice a week there are lectures. The lectures last for 2 1/2 hours and make me want to jump out the window. It's interesting information, but really, unless it's a Harry Potter movie, making me sit still for 2 1/2 hrs is near impossible. The days we don't have lectures we have "excursions". That's the awesome part. Yesterday we hiked up the Monchsberg, which is the mountain our school is built into (not in front of, or on.. into.), the Fortress, Hohensalzburg, (the big castle thing that is in every picture ever taken of Salzburg), and Nunberg Abby (Maria's from The Sound of Music!!!) On Thurs we don't have class, because on Friday we're going to Upper Austria. Upper Austria is where the largest concentration camp in Austria is located. It's going to be an emotional day. And next Tue, we're going on a tour of a brewery. So yeah, my classes are like that. The excursions come along with essays (good thing I'm remembering that now), but they're only 250 words, which doesn't induce too much stress (hahaa).

Everyone is still getting along really well, which is incredible, because we spend sooo much time together. We've definitely formed smaller groups, but really, everyone is up for anything. My smaller group consist of Kerrie, Jesse& Jenna. Kerrie and Jesse are from Texas, and Jenna is from MA. She's the one that skis. Which is wicked sick, and we're planning on taking a weekend trip soon to a big mountain so we can stay for a few days and not have to worry about anything (like busses and homework). Everyone has been talking about spring break already, and I am totally lost for what I want to do. Everywhere would be incredible, I already know that, so it's just.. figuring out what will be best for me, and convincing someone else to come with me (I'm more comfortable in the city, but nooo way would go traveling on my own). So overall, I'm having an amazing time, but I think of everyone often, and I really really miss y'all. Hope everything is going well at home, I can't wait to hear about rehearsals and everything. Love you soso much <3

The List's

Continued from previous post-

Herr List met me at the train station, and first impression: intimidating. He's not much for chitchat, but I think that because he's not very good at English. The more I've talked to him over the last few days though, he's opened up a bit. He brought me home in his (new, gorgeous) BMW to meet Frau List and Alexandra. Frau List is super sweet. And Alexandra is one of the cutest, most energetic little girls I've ever seen. She's 8 years old and never stops bouncing. Which is fine for me, but I'm sure it tires her parents out. The List's have 2 older children as well, a 23yr old son who is studying in Vienna and a 25 yr old daughter who lives somewhere else in Salzburg with her boyfriend. She just graduated med school. I haven't met either of them yet, but I'm sure I will. Alexandra's first communion is this Sunday and the family invited me to go with them. It should be very interesting since 1) I'm not Catholic & 2) Everything is going to be in German. A double whammy. I'm looking forward to it, and I know it means a lot to Alexandra that I'm going.

My room: My room is in the entry hallway, which isn't really as weird as it sounds. There's a hallway where they put their coats, shoes etc, and then a door that leads to the living/dining room. My room is off of the hallway, so I'm separated, but have easy access to the main house. The room is fairly small, but that's totally fine since I don't have even 1/10 of what I have in my room at home to fit in there, but there's a bed that's half of a couch, a desk& closet with a few other storage spaces around. There's a door that leads out to (my personal) terrace, which will be awesome in the spring. That door is my window as well, but the view is of the next door house. I'm not in my room during the daylight hours very much though, so I don't particularly mind. I have my own bathroom; the only other person that uses it is Alexandra, but that's only if she's downstairs.

Herr List is starting a new job in Feb, so he's been around a lot, which apparently isn't the norm. He said that he's been bored at home, and is anxious to start work again. Frau List works for a leasing company (I don't know what she leases), but she works mostly from home. Apparently she has an office upstairs. I haven't been upstairs yet, but I think that's their personal space and that's totally fine. Once a month she goes to Vienna for 3 days. She left on Monday and is getting back late Thursday nights, so it's awkward breakfasts and garbled dinners for me& Herr List until Thurs. Alexandra is home for dinner every night, but has left for school by the time I have breakfast. Herr List is really nice, and we try to talk, but conversations don't last very long. Hopefully as I get further into my German classes, it will get easier.

More to tell, but that's a general overview of my family. After talking to a bunch of the other students, I definitely lucked out with my housing placement. I'm really excited to get to know them better of the next few months (:

Lovelovelove

PS- it was snowing when I got up this morning. IT'S SO GORGEOUS! Although it's kind of like living in a bubble/ snowglobe because I can't really see anything past the buildings in the city, but when it clears up on Friday, everything will be stunning. I'm so excited (:

Post first week settling in (Catch up post about Munich)

Sorry I haven't written in foreverrrr, if anyone didn't know already, I was bad at communicating when I was at home, I'm just as bad overseas (I was thinking the time change would make me better or something...) But, I'll backtrack and go through my week at Munich because it was incredible. (Sorry for the length of this post, but everything was just so cool)

Monday: In last blog (I think)

Tuesday: Walking tour of Munich- We walked for about 4 hours straight and it was bitterly cold which took away from the awesomeness (yes awesomeness) of the city, but not by much. We saw a ton of churches (and church organs!!) and every single one had breathtaking architecture. There was a wicked cool one that had the "Devil's footprint" in it- the story is that the architect needed help building the church, so he made a deal with the Devil that the Devil would help him build a church, but the Devil said there couldn't be any windows in it. He (Devil) assumed the church would fail without windows, but it didn't. So the Devil went inside the church one day and saw that there was light, and assumed that the church was illuminated by God, so he stamped in the ground really hard and left a footprint. In actuality, the windows were just set very far back in the walls. It was a neat story. We learned a lot about the different forms of architecture that was used in building the churches, the Royal Home and other places, which was really interesting to see the variety all within a few km of each other.

That same day we went to the Deutcheus (sp?) Museum which had literally every exhibit you could think of in it. We had a tour of a few of them, and then Jesse (the other music major) and I went to the instrument exhibit. AHHHH!!!!! I have about 70 pictures from the exhibit. I didn't post all of them on my facebook for those who have seen my album. It had every instrument family, and an example of each, from basically the time it was created (including bagpipes, bassoons, others that I didn't even know existed.) THERE WAS A GIRAFFE PIANO! Probably my new favorite instrument. So anyways, that museum was wicked sick. Then we wandered back to our hostel and went out to Augustina, the oldest brewery in Munich.

Wednesday: Fussen, Castles& Clubbing. We started the day off with a train ride to a Medieval village called Fussen. More on that later. The cool part of the day was when we went to the castles a bit north of Fussen. They were the "Fantasy Castles" or something like that. Turns out that the guy that built the castle only lived there for ~132 days before he died. There were only 13 rooms finished in the entire castle, but man, they were the most detailed, elaborate rooms I've ever seen, or will ever see in my entire life. Nevermind the stunning views out the windows, the paintings and decorations alone were incredible. We weren't allowed to take pictures unfortunately, but we had the coolest tour guide. There was another castle in that area, but we didn't go into that one. We found a gorgeous lake and hung out there for a little while before returning to Fussen. (That was when Jesse fell through the ice and had to deal with wet shoes and shins for the rest of the day.) When we got to Fussen, we all split up, but the girls followed Konrad around because he knows what he's talking about and always has interesting tidbits. Konrad is the academic advisor/ professor/ cool guy at the college. He's been working for Salzburg College for about a year, but he always seems to know everything. He showed us another church, which was attached to a monastery, (all medieval) and some other views. That night, we went to a club since it was our last night in Munich. I don't know if I'll be visiting clubs much, and that's all I have to say on that topic (:

Thursday: Moving day! We went to the Olympic Park in the morning, which was really cool. Unfortunately it was raining, but you could tell that on sunny days it's an awesome place. (Sorry I use so many generic adjectives for everything, just imagine my excited face and flapping hands to get the point across about how much I am loving everything haha). We went up in the needle in the middle of the park and you could see everythinggg. I would assume it's sort of like the needle in Seattle, but with probably a lot more churches to be seen from this one. There are churches every 100m around here. After the park, we went to the BMW factory. The tour we took was super secretive, I'm afraid if I write about it my computer will get confiscated or something. Everything there was really fancy and... clean. Very clean. The tour seemed to take forever, but after all the walking we had done the entire week, we were ready for the train ride to Salzburg. The train ride was 2 hours, and all but 15 minutes of it was in Germany. Germany is 2km away from Salzburg. I finished reading "The Help" while on the train- for anyone who hasn't read it, get on that now. So good. Anyways, we had a long train ride, and then our host families met us at the train station. I'll pick up my next blog there. (I promise I won't wait so long to write it!)

I miss everyone so much, and those of you who are starting second semester, good luck!! Lovelovelove