Two months

Wow. Well, I’m still alive for those of you who may have had your doubts. I’m doing perfectly fine with essentially no problems, but for some reason I was unable to write a blog post until today. I have now officially been in Austria for more than two months and truth be told it had been FANTASTIC. I am happy; I am healthy; I am learning German; but most of all, I am really, really exhausted. I know its not a valid excuse for not writing, and I’m deeply sorry, but in a lot of ways these two months have been spent trying to get a hold on things and finish getting settled. I like to compare being an exchange student to climbing a big mountain, because in a lot of ways they’re similar. I feel like I’ve spent my last two months setting my stride and getting acclimated. Now that I feel like I’ve got those things figured out, I feel like I’m ready to handle the day to day aspects of this life, and I promise, one of my priorities is getting back on track with this blog.

This time though, I think the three things just doesn’t cover what I want to say, so I figured I’d just write an update instead. So what do I have to say about the month where my blog sat in limbo? Well, for one I’ve never had a month more physically and intellectually straining. I know that seems silly, because back home I played basketball and managed a full plate of schoolwork, but this is a whole other story. I go biking, or on a hike, or unicycling, or Nordic walking, or to aerobics, or to the gym every day. I am also starting to pick up conversational German, so I’m always straining my brain to understand what others are saying. At the moment, it’s been difficult to actually do any of the schoolwork because I never understand 100% of the lessons, but I’m trying my hardest to do what I can and keep working. Mostly I have been working out of a learn German book my school provided for me, and I think its helping a lot. I am also working which my younger sisters who help me by reading books or making flashcards, and I’m also doing the Rosetta Stone program, which I think is amazing. I was told before I left Ocracoke (and I’ll sadly admit I don’t recall who it was who said it), that each language is like a different dance and to fully understand the tempo you have to have it surround you for a while and here, two months later I feel like I finally understand how to tango; now all I need is vocabulary.

Also this month, I spent a week in a town called Faak in southern Austria, just 10 miles from the Italians and Slovenian borders). Faak is a lakeside town and I traveled there with my school class for a sport week. We all had a choice of sport and I chose kayak, thinking that my experience from home would help me. As it turns out kayaking in a lake in the Alps in mid-October is quite different than summer kayaking on Ocracoke, which I learned the hard way, toppling into the 45-degree water more than once during the week. Regardless, I had a really great time and even got a taste of white water kayaking the last day, when we traveled to a nearby river for our lesson.

Directly after my sport week I traveled to Micheldorf, Austria where I met up with YFU (Youth For Understanding, my exchange program) for a weekend in a 1000-year-old castle with all of the other exchange students. It was amazing to see everyone again after we had had some time to settle in to our lives here. We slept an ungodly small amount over the weekend (I think I got about six or seven hours total) but had an amazing time. We also got a lot of advice from past exchange students who were our leaders over the weekend. On Saturday we shared songs and dances from our home countries and then stayed in the common room for hours playing Uno, listening to music, and making paper cranes. On Sunday it was sad to see everyone go, but we’re looking forward to our next castle seminar in January and we also started planning an unofficial meet up in Vienna, which I will attend within the next couple of weeks. YFU is a like a built-in family for all of us here, and I can’t wait to see them all again.

Just a small list about my life here:

1. I've started to play guitar!!! I am taking lessons from a twenty something in my town and I absolutely love it. I’m learning songs in both English and German too!

2. My favorite TV show here is called Bauer Sucht Frau (which translates to Farmer Seeks Woman) but it’s basically a dating show about farmers looking for a wife. We typically watch it as a family about once a week and I think it’s hysterical.

3. Over the past few weeks I’ve found myself loving a few foods that I came here disliking, like sauerkraut, cooked potatoes, and brown bread. After really trying it, I’ve grown to actually like them a lot.

4. Basketball is not a popular sport in Austria, which makes me and my Japanese YFU friend Chito, a little sad because we both played at home. I’ve heard that there are club teams around, but so far I haven’t been able to find a women’s teams to play on here.

5. I LOVE SCHNITZEL. I just don’t think I could ever say that enough. It is so delicious. I’m looking forward to making it for potlucks when I return.

So, I don’t think I could leave you hanging without a song of the week or month, basically because its my favorite part of this blog, but I’ve recently been a little disappointed by the Austrian pop charts because they are essentially the same as the US. The number 1 song here is Love The Way You Lie, which came from the US. I will say that there are songs that we don’t have at home, but typically they are all sung in English; musicians in Europe, rather logically, decided that they could appeal to a larger audience that way. So I wish I had a very Austrian song for you, but for right now I don’t, so I had to fall back on one of my pre-departure favorites. I’ve been listening to it a lot in the past few weeks, and with my trip to Vienna creeping up on me and looking back on how overwhelmed I’ve been in the past month, it seemed fitting enough. So the song, for this week and this month is Vienna by Billy Joel.

A few days ago, on my two-month anniversary I waltzed into school and beaming, told a classmate that I had officially been in Austria for two months. A few minutes later, she asked me if I could go back to before I decided to become an exchange student, and change my mind, would I. It took me a moment to realize that it was a serious question and when I finally did all I could do was laugh and tell her that yes, if I could go back I would change my mind, I would have learned German years before and started saving money, but I would never ever take back the fact that I came to Austria. Here in this supposed foreign country, I found a home I never knew I had. I wouldn’t trade the experiences I’ve had here for anything. It has honestly been the best two months of my life.