A post with a whole lot of things

It's been a while since I wrote, but things had sort of been at a standstill I didn't really know what to do with myself for the past couple of weeks. Then today suddenly, I just started feeling like myself again. It's probably because I got to be with my friends and just sort of spilled everything and heard that I'm actually not alone in being stuck 4000 miles away from home and looking for a way to make oneself in a completely different place.



It's snowing here right now, and I think it will for the rest of the weekend. It's real lovely, considering how it was such a winter last year where we got NO snow whatsoever. This is also the second time it snowed, and the first time, I took photos from my bedroom window, Schau. I got real excited about this small dusting, even though it was gone by noon. And as a note, my apartment buidling is the middle one between two others. So we have no direct street access, and a view to a courtyard on both sides. Not bad I think, because it's very quiet at night and I don't have to listen to traffic when I try to sleep. Today I finally convinced myself that I do actually need all the winter things I needed to buy that I had been putting off. For instance, boots. I never actually used them in the states, but it's really slippery here when it snows, and I hate going everywhere with my jeans all wet. So I got the hat and scarves and gloves and boots I need, at deadly expensive prices, but the best I could find for Vienna.

So in a couple of weeks I'll be going to my first ball. I'm horribly nervous. I got the dress, borrowed from my host brothers girlfriend. It's white, and I told them I would get my own dress, and wear it for prom next year. However, the ball I will be going to is super formal, and you have to wear white. Now this is one reason why I'm nervous. The second is that I am very amateur at dancing. These balls are real dancing, and I have hardly learned the Wiener Waltz yet, and I know only the real basic and very slow steps that are just the beginning to all other ballroom dances. The third and biggest reason is that I do not know who my date will be. The family has gone crazy calling all male relativess who can dance. And finding someone will not be a problem. It is just certain I will be going with a stranger. I was horribly nervous to go to prom last year with someone I knew very well, and where I didn't actually have to dance for real. Americans don't dance. Speaking of which, last year Paris Hilton went to a really famous ball here for New Years, and it was a huge deal and they aired it on TV, where the Austrians found her horribly bored and she left early because she disliked it so much. I had a good laugh at this.

My host mothers birthday was last week, and we celebrated it four times. The first was the acutal birthday at her house with the family. I drew her a really nice card, spent two hours in art class drawing it that day. Then on Saturday we reorganized the house and made a huge meal and about 20 people came for an open house that day. The maid (Bla... i hate having a maid, not joking) came and ran the kitchen. I ended up going out with my friends, because with so many people, I really don't know what's going on, and no one really wants to explain everything to me. Sunday we went out to her sister's apartment for lunch, and then we had a dinner at home in the evening for her. It was Martinitag on Sunday, feast day of saint Martin. This means all Austrians eat goose. It was the first time I ate goose, and I don't reckon it's something I'll be having again. It's really greasy. They dared to compare it to Thanksgiving, but I have to say no. No one understands Thanksgiving! It's just special.

I've been working on getting closer to my host family the past couple of weeks. I stayed in a lot to spend time with them instead, which may have been the reason I was feeling off. Even though I was feeling happy and liked by them, there's something else that you need friends for. I'm not sure I really ever properly wrote about them. My host mom is pretty strict about running her house, but that's understable. She's an english and history teacher at a technical school, which is not the best subjects of all the students. She also makes an effort to explain things to me when we're at the table, and once you get her to laugh she can be pretty easy going. My host dad engineers cranes. I don't actually know what he does, but he makes us really good food, he's an awesome cook. He's very affectionate and loving, and I can tell he's one of those people who has to be loved by everyone. For instance, I know he hates cats, but when someone has a pet cat, he wants it to pay attention to him and pets it the entire time we're visiting. He is very sarcastic and loves to play on words and make puns. He speaks very heavy Vienesse, but I consider it an accomplishment of mine to have such good understanding with him. My host brother Dominik is not really home a lot, and spends him time with university where he studies applied physics and with his girlfriend Eli. He's a pretty typical older brother, and strictest with his younger sister Iris, (hi Eric!) and really enjoys teasing. My host family is always calling him Trottel (idiot) or saying he's blöd... I guess that means dumb, but it can also mean like, bull, or I have no idea. I've heard it used a lot of ways. He went to Australia with AFS. Jakob is the second and teases a lot as well, and especially me. He makes fun of the way I phrase things, and asks me dumb questions. Nonetheless I've gotten to know him better lately. I was the most shy towards him because I didn't like being picked on, and because he's fairly hard to understand. But I tried just telling him random things and he ended up being really understanding. He went to Panama with AFS. Iris is the youngest, and turns 14 this weekend. She's a musical fanatic, and also loves reading and not eating a lot and other things 14 year old girls are interested in. She can be a pretty typical youngest sibling and gets her way so often and that is such a weird age to live. She's very affectionate and loving and is only just beginning to open up to me. She misses her sister Clarissa in Argentina dearly, and Iris considers her her best friend.

I went to see Fidelio this weekend with Florentina and my host sister. It is my favorite opera so far, but maybe because it was in German. It was real cool to understand some things they were singing. I saw Americans here, and let me tell you, I really don't feel like them anymore. I used to want to always talk to tourists and ask where they're from and so on, but now, not at all. I see them and I think there is so much they don't know, and I can't even describe it. I don't feel better than them or anything, I just feel like I have an entirely different perspective on the world than they would.

I am getting fairly closer with Clara, and have met with her a few times in the past couple of weeks. Her grandfather got very sick, and I think he is now recovering. I told her she could always call on me when she needed something, which she took dearly. Her mother is also really fond of me which is nice, because she is one of those people who gets very excited in the company of people she likes. I went to church a few times with Clara, she's really involved with the youth group and altar serving (my church has over 80 altar servers..). I met some people at a youth group there, they're a bit younger but that's all right

I had a big math test monday, there were six problems and I got two right. My math teacher went crazy praising me for taking the test in the first place and even translated it for me. The english was spotless, and I later found out her husband writes international math text books. She is so cute. She has a heavy Wiener dialect as well. For instance instead of saying "Was?" (what?) with a long a, she says it with an o. and instead of pronouncing "wunderbar" as vun-der-bar, she'll say voon-der-bar. I don't know if you can hear the difference but there is. I got an A on my English test too. Surprise! I actually did make some mistakes though, so that was cool.

I know I've been a bit short lately and not really keeping in touch, but I think I just got through a rough period. Things are looking up from here defintely with the holidays around the corner. I feel optimistic, and thats a good thing.

Half time for me is in two weeks. I can't believe it.

My Crisis

Yesterday I left my house at noon to meet Cory in Stephansplatz to help him buy new shoes. He really needed new shoes, my God. I realized I probably had ought to buy my public transportatoin pass, since AFS reimburses us for this anyway. I stopped by an ATM and put in my card and code and money order, and everything was normal. It said it was processing my money order when a red box jumped up and said, "Money order cancelled. Card is being retained."
I stood there in shock for a couple of minutes, walked up and down the street a few times, but then decided to stay at the ATM in case it decided to spit out my card at any second. But it didn't. I called my host brother stumbling over German trying to explain what was happening, but I noticed I was starting to panic and that half the words I was saying were in English. He happened to be out on his moped on the same street as I was, and saw me, and came to me. He understood then what happened and told me not to worry, that it wasn't really a big deal. He called the number on the ATM and I thought, good, maybe it was just a bug, and they can get it back to me.
After he hung up, he told me my credit card number had been put on an international "black list" and that I was going to have to call VISA in the USA to figure out what had happened.
I got home and started to get all worked up. I've noticed any tendency I had towards overreacting is magnified 100x here. I am guessing because all my energy every moment is pushed towards the edge working on understanding and communicating, and then something happens and it all gets pushed over. I called VISA and realized I didn't actually know the number on my card because it wasn't the same as my bank account number. She apologized to me for losing my card in a foreign country and wished me the best and connected me to Bank of America, where the hotlines were still closed.
I got in contact with my parents, calling them for the first time since I've been here. I ended up taking away their Saturday morning with sorting everything out for me. Thank you again guys, I would have never figured out any of that myself.

The problem was that my ATM card was only a temporary and was only valid for 30 days. I've been using it from the end of August to yesterday, with my problem only being yesterday. I'm guessing VISA decided to block the number learning that it was invalid, but being a big company and everything, was sort of late. A new card had arrived for me a month ago in the States, and my Dad is going to send it rushed here.

I still have to go to the Bank on monday and ask for my card back. I am hoping someone there can speak English, because it seems risky for me to talk about say, my identity and my money, when there is still such a high level of misunderstanding in simple day to day life.

Anyway, I survived. I went to see La Traviata last night, which was wonderful, and I am leaving for my vacation in Kärnten on Tuesday still. That's all, take care.

Happenings (Life becomes normal)

It’s been a while, though I’m not really sure what’s new. I guess life here is sort of normal for me now and not worthy of writing down but then at times like these in Psychology class, when I realize that I don’t actually have to do anything in this class, I remember how different things actually are.
The big thing to write about happened last week. My host mother introduced me to two girls, Florentina and Julia. Florentina is in the year above me and Julia began University today. They were immediately friendly and a lot more down to earth than the other people I’ve met my age. Last Monday, they came over and my host mother made apple strudel. First real pastry that I’ve had here, and they eat it with this really good hot vanilla sauce. While we ate, they invited me to go with them to the opera on Saturday to see Tosca. It costs €2 to stand in the Gallery, which is not bad at all, even though it’s packed shoulder to shoulder with tourists. Considering, the most expensive seats in the opera cost over €200. There are these screens there that translate the Italian music into German/English so you can follow it even easier. The music is so beautiful and I absolutely loved it. Any tragic love story is great, but there was something so glorious about the voices and the costume and the really beautiful scenes of the Vienna State Opera (Wiener Staatsoper)that makes it an absolutely amazing experience. As my grandmother hoped, I think I will come home addicted. We waited afterwards for autographs and apparently the orchestra director (notably the most polite of all the people we met in the Opera…) is extremely famous. After, we went to Starbucks which is open late on opera nights. We stayed really late and talked and it was a lot of fun, but it was so late that the public transport stopped running. We had to walk home (me in high heels… boo…) and I got home at 12.30. I worried this was a problem and that I would be in trouble, but my host parents thought it was wonderful that I had such a nice time I had to stay out later. I think that when I come home to America some rearranging of my curfew is in order… I suspect I will have a hard time cutting it back to 11. Even this summer that was a problem.
Speaking of the theatre, I actually went to the Staatsoper for the first time two weeks ago. With my host father and sister, we went to see Romeo and Juliet as a ballet. I loved that as well. I am so glad I live in the city where going to the theatre on weekends can be a legitimate hobby and be extremely inexpensive (compared to going out to eat or going to a club).
On Friday night, I registered for dance school. One of the AFS American girls, Deirdre, is taking this class with me. That’s something to do, but it comes at a rather high price. I am currently very poor, as almost all of my money is gone. It’s a shame how little value the USD carries here! However, I am looking forward very much to this class. It’s a beginner course in all the ballroom dances – waltz, tango, foxtrot etc.
There was an AFS meeting last week. Being with these kids remains some of the funniest and most enjoyable times I’ve had in Austria. We all seem to be pretty close but we all understand each other so well. We just know. It should be easier to seem them now on weekends as my host family gave me a really old cell from (a Nokia from around 2002… still has a black and white screen). However I am only receiving calls, because I haven’t bought any minutes for it yet. That should be relatively inexpensive for my needs as cell phone service here is much, much, cheaper than landlines and also America.
The weather has been beautiful so my family often goes together to parks to enjoy the sun. Sometimes this means sitting around and reading which I like to do. However, they always strongly object to my lack of scarf. It is so European of them. They even insist that I wear a scarf to bed. Most of the time going out means taking very vigorous walks. We climbed a mountain yesterday, except not really. It was just a really, really, steep hill which led to this nice little village at the top where we stopped to read. I hadn’t expected this though, and was extremely exhausted by the walk. So steep!
And speaking of reading, I visited the city library’s main branch. It is a three story modern-art building with panoramic views of Vienna. And the resources are huge. There’s say, a section for art, but in this section there are sub-sections for art history, Austrian art, etc etc. There are many other language books too, and a good amount in every European language, and even Arabic and some Asian languages. Not just a few books either, but a few shelves. If I want to read in English, which there are the most of in foreign language, then I will have no problem. When we were here I found one of my favourite books translated into German. I understand it pretty well. Natively written German books, I am still at the second or third grade level.
That’s all for now, I have a few posts coming up on a few specific subjects so watch out for that (I’ve written them already, I just don’t like taking the time to type…)

Take care!

PS-- my first month here officially passed on Saturday. Time flies!