How can it already be 2011? How can my exchange be almost half over? How is it even remotely possible that I haven’t posted in 10 weeks? It feels like days. I’m here to tell you I haven’t forgotten everyone back home-I just crack under pressure. It has come to my attention in the recent weeks that people actually read this thing- which makes me shocked, grateful, and nervous about my writing, all rolled into one. I know that isn’t remotely close to an excuse, but I do worry quite a bit about exactly how to write these, so I’m sorry it took so long!
I made a New Year’s resolution (actually I made a lot: Drink more water, work more on German, have an awesome school year) that I would keep the followers of this blog as happy as possible. So I’m hopping back on the bandwagon, and we’re going to have a great six months! From now on it may not be every week (I am a busy girl) but it’s going to be more like the very beginning. But lets not talk about the future, lets talk about the past-the last ten weeks of past.
I apologize if you have access to my newspaper articles because I imagine at times this will get a little repetitive, but it seems like now I’ve got blog followers worldwide (if they haven’t all ditched me by now) so I’m going to do an overview of everything.
On the first of November I found myself alone in Vienna- but not for long. I was soon met by my friend Brita from Estonia and we spent the day walking around, seeing sights, eating, and my personal favorite: visiting the Museum of Modern Art before heading to our friend-and YFU staff member, Loni’s house for the night. She cooked us up some wiener schnitzel (the tradition food of Vienna) before sending us on our way, with directions in hand, out into the city for the evening. We got to experience the beauty and fun of Vienna in a whole new light. The next day we were joined by a few other YFU friends and then spent the day going to places like Naschmarkt-a giant outdoor market - and St Stevens Cathedral-the tallest and most extraordinary church in Vienna, complete with catacombs. Even though it was only two days, our time in Vienna was packed with adventures so by the time we all bored our train that afternoon we were exhausted.
A few days later I started school with my new class, a group of kids (and I don’t know if any of them read this, so I’m going to say this the best I can without embarrassing myself) that are completely awesome. We hit it off immediately-bonding over a mutual love of books; specifically Harry Potter-and later that month went to see the 7th film together. And then, just like that, November was gone-and there I was still trying to write my post about Vienna.
December, it seems to me, happened even faster because the entire month was beautiful and exciting. If you’re in search of a classic Christmas, Austria is the place to be. From the 1st to the 24th there are markets in most main city squares (I went to the one on Hauptplatz in Linz) where you can buy gifts for the holidays and an abundance of winter food like a punch that’s a lot like apple cider and a cheese bread where they melt cheese off of a giant cheese wheel and slather it on bread. Almost needless to say, I spent a lot of time visiting the market.
December 6th is also Nicholas day; it celebrates the day when St Nicholas (a version of Santa) comes to visit all the good children and bring them fruit and chocolate but instead of coal the bad children get something much, much worse. It’s a thing called the Krampus, and it is a monster that lives in the Alps and travels with Nicholas so that he can punish the bad children. It would be interesting and even kind of cool, if they didn’t actually “exist”, but they do. Young men in every town dress up like the Krampus and visit the neighborhood children with switches and sacks to carry them away in and they can actually be mildly dangerous. In the week before the 6th, I heard horror stories about when my host mom had been put in a sack and left in a field and of people getting paddled. I personally think it’s a bit extreme, but I was still happy to see them…..from a distance.
As it got closer to Christmas we started cooking Christmas cookies and didn’t stop until the day after Christmas. From cinnamon stars to jam cookies to gingerbread, we cooked them all. When we were finished we had baked over 2000 cookies and we are still enjoying them.
Christmas then came with snow-lots of it. We spent Christmas Eve morning known as Weihnachten (the real celebration of Christmas) picking out a tree and decorating it. We then went to Church where we watched a performance of the Christmas story put on by the children of the church and later went home to enjoy an indoor barbeque and an Austrian Christmas story before opening the presents that the “Christkind” had brought. We then headed off to bed, because we had to wake up early for a day of skiing on Christmas Day.
And just like November, December left with little warning and took 2010 with it. I’ve said since I got here that exchanging is like climbing a mountain and the holidays are the last few feet to the summit, and its weird to think that its halfway down. I only hope that the next few months don’t go nearly as fast as these have, because I’m scared it will be over before I know it. Time slips by so quickly that I have to grab onto every opportunity and every experience.
One last note: I read a study today that said in the 2009-2010 year 28,000 students came to do high school exchange in America and only 1,980 left from the US. There are millions of Americans eligible for high school exchange, and I feel sorry for them because they don’t jump at the chance. What they don’t know is that they’re missing out on the trip of a lifetime.
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