Day 5 & 6: lazing around...

Day 5

On Friday I didn't have classes, so in true Lindsey fashion, I decided to laze about all day. :D Which means I got up at around 8:30 for breakfast (sadly, it ends at 9) and then I went back to bed and spent pretty much the rest of the day on the Internet. :D Lazy days! They are fun.

In the evening, we were more productive. Kevin (my fellow Erasmusser from Bruges) had sent 'round an e-mail to all the Erasmus students to meet up and go for a drink. :D Fun was definitely had, we went to a local bar (recommended by one of our housemates) and it was a typical student bar! Almost like being home again. :D

Not to mention: the drinks are cheaper! Okay, no, I'm lying. The *wine* is a lot cheaper. € 1,80 for a glass! Hooray! :D :D And also € 1,80 euros for a Coke, also cheaper. :)

Unfortunately, we had to cut the evening short sooner than we wanted, as most of the girls wanted to go skiing in the morning. (Knowing my knee troubles, I decided it might be wise to not risk that particular adventure...) So at around 10:30pm we were home, watched some TV and at 11pm I went to bed. That's got to be some sort of a record. It's very hard to make myself go to bed early when there's no one knocking on my door and frowning at me to go to bed. ;)

Day 6

Saturday started with an unexpected surprise. No breakfast! I came down and was all "...but. :(" So I just snagged a bowl of cereal and headed back to my room. :)

I had big plans for Saturday: clean my room, explore the huge mall nearby, go for a long walk now that the weather is so nice. Unfortunately the lure of the bed was too much... But! I did get up eventually, took a shower and headed to the mall. :D Did some shopping, explored some (not all, definitely not all. Did I mention that place is huge?) and then came back home. The weather today was great, clear blue skies and sunshine all around. So I took my camera and snapped some pictures of the mountains. The mountains that I, by the way, am completely in love with. So beautiful. ♥_♥







When I came back from the mall, I took a moment to cool down. It was actually *hot* outside! I'm seriously missing my sunglasses right now. :/ Hope Mom's package will arrive soon!

Anyhow, I did ended up doing some cleaning. And tomorrow I will vacuum, because there's crumbs on the floor and such. (Mom, you'll be pleased to know that's the *only* thing on my floor! ;) )

Now it's dinnertimez! Then a movie, most probably. Or two. Unless there's something fun going on in the common room. :D

Auf wiederhören! ;)

Fia/Lindsey

Day 3 and 4

Guten Abend! :)

Wie geht's? (Meaning, how are you all doing?) We're doing good! :) Let's see, what's been going on these past few days.

Day 3

Yesterday was, as all our days here have been lately, pretty quiet. :) We walked to the school with Marketa, Eva and Bohunka, 3 other Erasmus students from the Czech Republic who also stay in our house. We'd been invited by Frau Egger, the Erasmus coördinator of the Pädagogische Hochschule (ie: the school we'll be attending while we are here) to a few English lessons and they showed us the way to walk to the school. It's quite a way from here, at least a half an hour walk! Kevin and I will probably be investing in a bicycle. :p

An advantage to the walk, though, is the sights. The mountains are truly amazing to see, I've added some pictures below here. :)







The class was interesting, if a little dull, since it was mostly about things we'd already seen before with Mr. Leys. :)

Afterwards we got a general explanation about how to make our schedule. It turns out we get to make it ourselves! Meaning, we get to choose whatever modukes we want! Of course we have to be practical: stick to things that finish before we leave, make sure they are not on Tuesday morning, since we have Obzervations Praxis (observation training)then and other things. :)

They're trying really hard to put us into special modules, like educational trips, that are 3 days with some extra work, but no actual classes. :) That way we can definitely finish them before we leave. All in all we should definitely be able to start our actual classes next week's Monday! Exciting!

Day 4

Like day 3, today was pretty uneventful. We walked a lot! From the house to the school, to attend another class. (The teacher, Frau Kratzlinger, is a tiny woman with enough energy to bounce off the walls! :D It was a lot of fun!) Afterwards we had to go to the Rathaus (City Hall) to fill in some papers. Austrian bureaucrats? Scary people. :( And they were all annoyed that our German was so bad. :/ But, we managed to get everything sorted, so yay for us! :D

After the Rathaus, we headed back to the school for a meeting with Anna (the Erasmus-buddy, to help us around), to finalize our schedule. Of course, due to several problems, we couldn't. I swear, these people are more chaotic than at KHBO. :p But, they are more easygoing about it, if something is wrong, you just fix it. :) Nonetheless, Kevin and I are somewhat annoyed, wishing for *something* to be fixed. :p

All in all, I think Kevin and I walked between 10 and 15km today. Impressive, right? :D

After the school, we hung out with the housemates in the common room! It was nice, it turns out that (when you get over the whole German thing), they're very curious about us and Belgium and they're all very nice. Well, those that I've met anyway. :)

So, only positive points! And despite our many swearing at the language, we keep trying to speak German! :)

I think that's all for today. I'll keep you posted. :)

Tschüss und auf Wiedersehen!

Fia/Lindsey

Day 2

Güten Abend!

That's about the only German you're going to get, apart from the goodbye, though sorry. :)

Day 2 has passed as well! :) First of all, my apologies for the depressed sound of yesterday's entry. I was somewhat overwhelmed, but I've adapted by now. :D

Today in a nutshell:

- Breakfast here runs from 7am till 9am, we arrived at 'round 8:30 to find a fairly large selection. :) There's 2 sorts of bread, rolls, Nutella, 3 kinds of jam, coffee, tea and orange juice. :)

At breakfast we also met Marguetta and Eva, two Czech Erasmus students that are also staying at our house. :) It's a good thing that we did, because they were more than happy to show us around here. :)

- After breakfast we heading to a truly immense shopping centre close to our home. Kevin and I still needed plenty of things, so we headed into the Interspar and shopped for food and other stuff. :) I'm looking forward to exploring that center, definitely. :D

- After the store we went back to the house for lunch, and after lunch we went to the carnival! :D There was big parade, it was pretty cool. You can see pictures here. Just click on little pictures (thumbnails) on the right to see them larger, and click on the arrow to go to the next few pictures. :)

It was fairly cold though, so we went to a pub (Irish Pub, where they had no hot drinks, it was AWFUL!), had one drink and returned home. :)

- Back at the house, Kevin and I got the grand tour, got some explanations about the fridge, kitchen and laundry. (Mom, I'm going to need your help with that! :p)

- After the tour, I cooked, and then fiddled online forever. :)

Jetzt bin ich sehr, uh, tired. Meaning: I'm exhausted! :) Tomorrow Kevin and I are going shopping again, and then to the school for our first classes! Exciting!

Oh, and one last thing: in the sidebar you can see some new links: I made a guestbook since Blogger doesn't seem to allow comments, or so I've been told. :) Feel free to leave me a message! :)

Tschüss und auf Wiedersehen! :)

Fia/Lindsey

Day 1 (or better: Evening 1 :D)

When I arrived last night the Internet wasn't working yet, so I wrote a blog entry in a word doc and now that I have conquered the Interwebs, I present it to you! :)

Day 1 (or, Evening 1)

So, first blog entry! Not even being written in the actual blogsphere, because the Internet doesn’t seem to be working, huh. Let’s hope that sorts itself out, ey? I’m writing this in Word for the time being. :)

It’s a little strange being here all by myself, I will admit to feeling somewhat lonely. :) Nobody seems to take into account that our (Kevin and mine) German is kind of bad and they just ramble on anyway. Makes for a lot of confusion and blank faces, and a lot of trying to make ourselves understood. :p I guess that means we’ll be fluent by the time we get back, huh? There’s something I didn’t expect would ever happen, fluency in German. :p

The flight was good, we arrived here half an hour too early. Hardly any turbulence, it felt like we had barely been settled by the time the pilot announced we were starting to land. Some stunning views while we were landing too. We decided against trying to figure out the busthings, mostly because it was dark and late and raining, so we took a taxi to the house we’re staying.

The guy running this place wasn’t at home, so we had to make it clear to a little boy that we were new students and if we could please come in. Was confusing. We got to wait in the “Gesellschaftszimmer” which I’m assuming would be the common room. :) Met two girls there, Regina and Kirsten (I think?). They were nice, if a little confused. But then, they don’t know us, so.

The room itself (which we eventually got to go to) is very nice. (See picture!) It’s really spacious (bigger than my room at home! :p) and has a desk, a bed, a closet and a few cupboards. I’ve also got my own bathroom! Very nice, indeed. :) I’ve already unpacked everything and am now getting settled. :) Kevin is less lucky, his room isn’t free yet, so he has to stay in a different room for the first week. His temporary room is bigger, which is a plus, but he can’t really unpack or get comfy because he has to leave after a week.

That’s it so far, I’m going to freshen up a bit and then I promised Kevin I’d meet him down in the common room for badly dubbed television. Yay!

Tschüss!

Linsdsey/Fia

Exciting!

Tomorrow's the day! :D I'm all packed (though I did go over the limit, woops), and everything's (more or less) ready. :D

Goodbye party last night was awesome, by the way. ^-^ Thank you to everyone that graced me with their presence! :D

My flight leaves at 4:30pm, arrives there at 6:30pm. Then I'll get to see the room and get settled!

See you on the flipside, folks! ;)

<3

Almost there!

It's getting more and more towards that day!

This time 8 days from now, Kevin and I will be in the beautiful (and really damn cold: -5°C this morning, Jesus!) Tirol! :) I am ridiculously excited, though I have to teach for another 4 days before.

Also ridic. excited about the goodbye party, which is lame, I know this. Whatever. :D

Uh, to report some actual news: Kevin and I have finally secured ourselves a place to stay! It looks a little like our student rooms in Belgium do: a lot of rooms in one building, one kitchen per floor. Not too clear on the bathroom presence yet, but I can deal with sharing a shower. I think. :p

Still no news as to what we'll actually be DOING there, though. You gotta love KHBO and their superb ways of keeping you informed. :D /sarcasm

That's it for now. For those whose training starts tomorrow: good luck! We can do this. :)

Tchüss!

Fia/Lindsey