Weekend and Krankenfeier

This weekend was Iris's birthday. Friday was a pretty ordinary Friday, I think Cory came over, because it was snowing a ton and he was out in the cold all day. I had dance class and that was well. We're finally learning Wiener walzing and it's about time, since my ball is this Saturday! Ahhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For Iris's birthday on Saturday we all slept in until noon. The night before her parents took her to see for about the thousandth time (more like 10th or 11th...) to see the musical Rebecca. Claudius taught me how to make schnitzel which I discovered really isn't made out of veal? For the longest time I thought I was eating veal... shows how much I know. It's actually turkey, I think. I'm not really sure if we understood each other when they told me that. Iris didn't want it fried in oil though, she wanted it fried in butter. I had two pieces at lunch and thought my heart might stop. Reina from Panama came first with her children and her only-Spanish-speaking mother. Reina's story is hard to explain and will have to be something told at home. We ate cake, there was a Topfentorte, which is pretty much cheese cake. I don't know why they made it though, since Iris doesn't like it. They made her a nut bread with yogurt and whipped cream and strawberries on top. I ate some of this, sort of interesting. They took Iris to the theatre again that night, and told me to go have fun doing something.

It was also Adriano from Argentina's birthday, and everyone in Vienna got together at the night club Empire. Only a few of them had been there before, but had promised it was amazing. Girls got in for free, but we all had some trouble getting in. Most of us had brought only our school IDs, and when they realized that we were all foreign said we needed passports too? They let us in anyway, but I think that's weird, since we all have either a visa or a resident permit to be here. I was getting really sick for the first time that night and I really didn't enjoy myself and wanted to get out as soon as possible. This turned out harder than I thought, since everyone was going to take the night buses home between 1 and 4, and I wanted to take the subway before it stopped running at half past twelve. However I didn't want to be walking alone a couple of blocks to the station, really weird people about. Cory and Jordyn finally wanted to leave too, but then Cory had to get his coat out of the hat check, and he had to wait behind all the people waiting to go in for fourty minutes. It was packed. Melissa had come upstairs to go home too, and she said she would take me to the subway. It turned out to be a really good idea not to walk alone through Stephansplatz at night.

The next morning I was pretty sick when I woke up. I turned down the invitation to go to the first day of the Christkindelmarkt, which opened all over Vienna on Saturday. It's these wooden stands where they sell crafts and hot punch (with or without rum) and hot chestnuts. There are also really pretty lights and it smells like Christmas. I stayed in bed, and my host paretns came in and told me that maybe some air would make me better, so we went to one of the Christkindelmarkts in the first district. It started snowing while we were outside =) I think this probably is what made me sicker though. While we were in the first district, we visited the apartment where Claudius grew up and his parents still live. It's across the street from a palace apparently, but it all looks like apartments to me. There are a lot of palaces here. I guess I don't have the eyes for them! The apartment was old and smelt like cats, (There were two), but the basement was super cool. It had two floors and it was very old and made of bricks and had awesome ceilings. My host dad told me all the ghost stories that he had seen here. So cool.
His mother makes very good homemade bread and we ate some and salami, and tea that had been made far too strong. It was so funny, watching me Iris and my host mother all pretend to enjoy it. We all went to church at Stephansdom after, which is also old. I realized I've gone to church there more than I have my real church here. Even though it's cold, really really cold, it's cool knowing I'm sitting in a place that's 800 years old. Also the priest gives a sermon thats about 30 minutes long and I never understand any of it, and Austrians bow at all these strange places. Church is church.

There are a lot of tourists around Vienna right now, and lots of Americans. And it's funny, because I don't go a day without hearing someone speak my language natively. But I look at them and I don't feel a bit like them. They're here to enjoy themselves and go home whenever they want to, and I can't. It seems to me like we could be looking at the same exact things and I am seeing something completley different than they are.

I called my Dad and Brian that night for the first time, they were the only ones home. Eric was running the marathon in Philadelphia and Sue was out in LP. Sounds like Thanksgiving is going to be pretty crazy there this year. I'll miss it. I realized what apparently all exchange students are supposed to realize. Home is always going to be there, and things will always have some kind of normalness there. Right now I am not supposed to be there, I am supposed to be here. And that's okay, because after only a little bit, I'm going right back to that old place. And in the meantime, it's pretty great here. I told my host family that, and they told me they had been waiting for me to say something like this and that they were really glad.

So, Monday I went to Math for the first period. Then, I was sent home by my friends and my math teacher. They all said I looked horrible. My host sister called my host dad and signed me out. This made me worried because I had sort of gotten in the way, but everyone was so nice to me and didn't scold me for anything. My host dad set up a table next to my bed and made me drink two pots of greek mountain herbal tea. I couldn't taste anything, and apparently that was a good thing. After a while I really couldn't sleep anymore, and I found catcher in the rye on the bookshelves. In English. I read that in about two hours, and then my host mother found out I was sick and brought me home 4 copies of Newsweek international from her school. I am also not allowed to go to school today, even though I feel fine. They keep telling me being sick should be lovely and it should be a krankenfeier, a party of sickness.

The good news is that I have a dance partner for the ball this weekend. His name is Ferdinand? I meet him tomorrow, because there are three rehearsals for this ball. Ohhhh my god. At least I will know my date a little before I go, but still. We'll see how it goes though?

Until next time, xo julia