Niederösterreich -- Second Arrival Camp

This weekend AFS had Second Arrival Camp in Neu-Nagelberg, Niederösterreich. It was about two hours away by train, and our youth hostel was right next to the border to the Czech Republic. Good...
It was really nice to get away from my host family for a weekend. Does that sound weird? I mean it to say, it was refreshing and re-encouraging. In a sense. There were a lot of parts this weekend, especially when the AFS-veterans were speaking to us, I was thinking "Oh my God, I am not doing a good job at being Austrian or an exchange student." But I think they were trying to make us feel this way, because they want us to work harder. Or something..

So we all met at the train station in Vienna at 16.30 on Friday. We got to the youth hostel pretty late, and we went outside in the dark and played random circle games. The entire camp was run by no one older than 20. It was mostly Austrians who had done a year in South America, and since mostly South Americans live in Vienna, you can imagine it was mostly spanish. Mostly a group of English mother speakers and those who speak neither German or Spanish huddled together, but then we would get disbanded because of speaking English. And then the leaders would go back and speak Spanish, and we would slowly start speaking English once more.
Anyway, we learned some childrens games in German in the dark, and then we went inside and drank some really bad soup. Then, as we were getting ready to go to sleep, it turns out one of the South Americans brought a bunch of music, so we all crammed into this absolutely tiny hostel bedroom and danced until 1 am. It was so much fun! The south americans told me I could dance really well, which was cool. Maybe it is because everyone else was too self concious to go ahead and do it, but I did! A boy called Felipe who doesn't speak English well taught me this Argentinian swing dance. The only thing we say to each other is "Felipe, Bitte!" or "Julia, bitte!" and then we do that fake Euro kiss on both cheek goodbye thing...
Speaking of which, I am totally pro at that now. I can pretend to kiss people's cheeks hello and goodbye like nobody's business.

The bad thing about this party was that we had to wake up really early to play more games on Saturday. After breakfast and games, we broke off into groups by language. I volunteered myself for the German group. There were only four others. Of the 30 kids who live in Vienna, only four know enough German to participate in a conversation. The leaders of the camp were really shocked by this. Whenever they yelled at us for speaking English they would say, "In America, the German and Austrian kids would speak English together even though they had the same mother language! You are here to speak German, so speak it!"
Unfortunately my group had a degree of unpleasantness to it, because one would just talk and talk the entire time and no one really wanted to listen. We were supposed to talk about my problems, and somehow I had a lot. For instance, being graded in math, having a mother in the house, continuing a relationship during my exchange, and the biggest: being a replacement daugther/sister/classmate. I guess I never really thought of how hard it is to be here, but I think that's a good thing. Because I am always enjoying myself, and if you are constantly thinking of the difficulty involved, it leaves no room to believe: "hey, I am having a lot of fun right now"
My dad wrote me a very wise email that said "I am constantly surprised by how people here tend to think of your trip so glamourously. There is so much work involved in living in a new culture." He's right, but I'm not trying to preach about how noblely self sacrificing I'm being. But what this really is, is creating a new home for yourself somewhere. I was sitting on the U-Bahn today and I was like, wow, this is normal. I know how to connect to the next line and I know how to get home, and I recognize exactly where I am. There is nothing foreign about it. And really, that is the whole purpose of this experience.
And only after six weeks!

We went walking in the woods and I talked more with Jordyn about our problems. (This is beginning to sound more like a support group for some kind of severe condition...) I ended up feeling really down for most of the afternoon. This was my first time in the Austrian country side and forests, and oh my goodness, they are really beautiful. There is green moss all over the ground where we walked and it was really squishy to walk in. The trees were a lot of evergreens and there were many wild flowers. I even saw a Butte plant, which is this weird fruit that they take the seeds from in fall a brew a tea out of it. This tea is one of the things initially I REALLY disliked about my diet, but now I just take it when I have to and don't even taste it anymore. Another fine example of this is salad, which they cover in like 1 part oil and 3 parts vinegar. Ick...

ANYWAY, that night, I don't really remember what but we were all sitting in Cory's room, and I ate all of his haribo, so today I had to buy him some more. Jordyn was trying to teach us how to speak with a New Zealand accent and say "I drove in my car to Auckland." Auckland is really hard to say. Don't even try, because you'll be wrong. Cory can say "Get in the chopper now" in a really amazing Arnold Schwarzenegger voice. (PS-- Austrians don't really have an accent like this). There was another party in the South American room, but we didn't feel like going. I ended up crashing pretty early. I got to know kind of a girl from Thailand who I really liked though, so that was good.

Sunday we mostly wrapped up wirth more games and group discussions. I got home at around 6 or 7 all by myself, which I find amazing. I can take a train two hours away into the city and then the subway to my house and my host family doesn't even have to do anything. I just come when I want! I don't know why this strikes me so much, probably because Kevin or my dad drive me everywhere I need to go back home.

Monday night the AFS people met in a cafe at night in this slightly shady part of Vienna. There were about 35 people there, since many veterans came. It was fun, but I can't think of anything to write about it. It was just a party, I suppose!
Tuesday was a tour for us of the Rathaus (town hall) and then we went out to ice cream after, because it was Livia's birthday. A boy from Japan, Kosei, who is kind of our pet, got lost and had to call me, but didn't know enough English or German that he could understand that he should stay where he is, and that I would come find him. That was frustrating. I ended up leaving early anyway, because my host brother and his girlfriend Eli took me to the English theatre. We saw this really sarcastic two man musical about a woman who thinks she has the most beautiful voice in the world, but everyone actually hates it and comes to laugh at her. It was called Souvenir, and I ended up crying a lot at the end. I'm crazy.

Other points of interest is I finally learned how to weigh myself in kilograms. I am not becoming another fat student (ha, AFS) but I have in fact lost five pounds. Probably because I don't remember the last time my family ate meat.

School vacation for a week comes after next week, and then I am going to Kärnten in the mountains by a lake in my family's vacation house!! I am so excited.

That's all, keep in touch. Baba.

//fake euro kiss.