So I’m going backwards here, and going to give you the first few days of my exchange. I left Canberra on Friday the 7th of January, and was seen off at Canberra airport by my wonderful, amazing family and awesome friends – Corinne, Alex and Anna.
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| My awesome friends :) - Corinne, Me, Alex and Anna |
My Mum and Claire ended up flying to Melbourne with me, because Mum basically just wanted an excuse to fly to Melbourne! But it was great having them on the flight. All in all, the flights were good, but loud. In Melbourne, I met up with another exchange student going to Austria for the year – Jess. It was really lovely to have her company for the long haul across the world. We had two stopovers –in Singapore, where we got more fuel, and Dubai, where we actually swapped planes. Dubai airport is a bit AWESOME. We got off the plane onto the tarmac, where some funky bus things came and picked us up, driving for about 15 minutes to the terminal. We spent about 4 hours in Dubai all up, and by the end of it, I was actually kind of ready to get back on the plane…
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| Funky bus-things at Dubai Airport! |
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| These guys were the best. I was waiting for Jess, and these guys were literally standing there like that for 10 minutes. Legends. |
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| I thought everyone else should share my enjoyment in this... |
The most exciting part comes now: WE SAW NUNS WHEN WE WERE GETTING ON THE PLANE TO VIENNA!! I LAUGHED SO MUCH AT THE IRONY! The fact that I was going to Austria and there were nuns just made any part of the flight that much better. Pity I didn’t get a photo!
Finally, after the long long long long journey (around 36 hours all up…), we got, to VIENNA! It wasn’t very exciting. Because it was just INCREDIBLY FOGGY, so you couldn’t actually see anything. Then it took about half an hour until we could actually ‘dock’ or whatever you call it… Then to cut a long story short – I went home (via a supermarket – which was pretty cool) with my host family. I even managed to stay up until about 7.30pm! Achievement!
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| My Bedroom... complete with European-style timber framing |
The very next day – Sunday 9/1/11, Janina and I went for a walk with Freya and Theo to show me the surrounding area. It was very foggy. As Alex so kindly pointed out at some point: “If the sky got any closer, I would drown”. The best part is though; it actually did get foggier during the week! The walk was wonderful. There was snow on the ground and ice in the trees and it was just pure beauty. It all melted within the next few days because we had a lot of rain, which was a pity. But there’s more where that came from!
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| Me in the Schnee! And one of the many vineyards... |
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| Icy trees :) |
The area is a wonderful little place, and is a wine-growing district. There are about 100 wineries in the district, which is amazing. Each one has a small tree branch out the front with a light underneath - which is only turned on when they're open. And because there are so many of them, they have to take it in turns!
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| A 'road' leading to a vineyard... |
I live right next door to a tiny tiny little winery (most of them are tiny), in the pink house, which doesn't look (at all) like much on the outside, but inside it's really lovely and homey and modern. Pretty much all the houses have no 'front door', but a big gate (like our glass one on the right), which are usually made of wood.
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| Finally - the house |
The house consists of 3 stories - a cellar underground, which contains Georg's office, a spare room, a bathroom and a SAUNA. Luxury! The ground floor has the kitchen, dining room, lounge room and Janina's office, and upstairs has another bathroom, and all the bedrooms. The kids all share a bedroom, which is a big 'L' shape, and doubles as a playroom. My room comes off theirs, and my window is the top, right-hand side (see above).
That's all for now!
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