Three Months of Thoughts

So it's been a little more than three months since I've been in Austria (101 days to be exact!) and it's been three months of thoughts. Tears, laughter, grief, ecstasy, excitement, confusion, depression. I've felt it all.

My whole life has changed. It's incredible to think how much can change in so little time. It's not just that I've moved to Vienna, but it's this whole stage of my life which is just a huge turning point. Even if I had stayed in Australia things would have been really different. Being here, I've often wondered to myself why I never heard more about people my age having these huge crises about finishing school, growing up, having to be responsible and make 'life decisions'. Surely I'm not the only one? No, I know I'm not the only one. Maybe it's just that you never think about it until you're really forced to face it for yourself. I don't know. It's that whole uncertainty of whether you're a kid or an adult, when really I feel like neither. Living away from home, doing this exchange, is kind of just like moving out. It's been confusing for me because my host siblings are so young, so I'm not a kid in that respect, but over here I've felt younger and more needy than I have in a very long time.

Anyway. It's been a difficult thing for me to realise that this life I've known and lived for the past 18 years - living with my family, going to school, seeing my friends every day, sharing that all with the same people - has in a way just all gone. Everyone said to me when I was worried about going on exchange and everything, worrying about things changing, that things will be the same when I get back. Nothing will have really changed. Canberra will still be the same old, boring place. I think in a lot of ways that's true and life will still go on, but the thing is I'VE changed. It's something I don't want to admit sometimes. And it's a scary thing. It's a scary thing to face each day with more new thoughts and realisations about the world - things that I would never have learnt other than by coming here. I have so much appreciation for all the things in my life. My incredible family - each and every one of them, my wonderful, dedicated friends, my amazing education. All the things I took so much for granted. And things I would NEVER, EVER think about. Being able to speak to people, talk to them and ask them anything I wanted. Knowing how to get to and from home everyday. Knowing my way around the city, who lived where, what was what. My whole view on everything in my life has changed.

Somedays I feel really impatient. I feel like I'm just in limbo, not really doing anything useful. Like I should be out saving the world, living the life. Going to uni or working or travelling. I get impatient because there are so many things to do and so little time. Then I feel impatient because there's too MUCH time and not enough to do. Sometimes I feel like I'll never be content, I'll never be happy with where I am or what I'm doing, no matter how hard I try. Sometimes I stop trying then live in the moment, never wanting to do anything else and just loving my life as it is. And then I see something shiny in my thoughts and get distracted. It's funny - over here I've been told that I'm a very reflective person. People are impressed with some of the (rubbish) thoughts I come up with. And then I get told that I'm TOO reflective and that I'm thinking too much. I think this last part is definitely true. I spend the majority of my days thinking even when I'm doing other things. I guess I try and plan my life out in my head, constantly thinking up new scenarios of what might happen and when, and whether this or that is the right decision. And then I get frustrated when I just don't know the answer. I always thought life would be pretty clear, but it's not!

I guess this has been a bit of a rambling post. Sometimes you just need to get out all those thoughts from your head and wave them goodbye.

A Little Thing Called Faschings

Before it gets too long after this event (although it's already been more than a month - on March 8th...!) I wanted to write a bit about 'Faschings' or 'Carnival' because it was a wonderful and unique experience!

The idea behind Faschings dates back hundreds of years. It was traditionally a Roman Catholic (of which there are many in Austria) festival but is now celebrated in various countries around the world. It is essentially a big celebration to start the beginning of Lent - 6 weeks of fasting before Easter. To get rid of all the rich food and drink, communities would get together and have huge feasts and celebrations. Nowadays it's lost a bit of its traditional meaning, but is essentially a HEAP of fun and a great celebration for everyone! My Faschings was a pretty unique experience. For all of March I didn't go to school (due to moving families, lack of space/interest in schools etc.), and so instead of celebrating at school, I did something a little different - I celebrated with Carl's school instead!

I set off in the morning with Janina and Freya (and Carl) to school. There the kids all dressed up and we helped paint their faces then they helped paint ours... Interesting!

Beautiful artistry on my face... Yes, I wandered around Vienna like this for a day!

Janina went home with Freya, leaving me with the class (and the teachers) - a simply overwhelming experience. We all caught the tram, train and subway to Stephansplatz (the very centre of Vienna) to have our own little celebration - drinking fizzy drink, shoting cans of silly string all over each other and throwing confetti. Then the wonderful tradition of KRAPFENS! Krapfens are like the Austrian/German equivalent of our 'jam dounuts', but about a thousand times better. They're eaten all year round, but are particularly popular for Faschings. I'm not quite sure why but possibly because they're basically deep-fried butter, eggs and sugar with jam inside. Perfect for fattening yourself up before Lent! The day was really cold, so it was nice to have something to munch on. One of the teachers went down to the subway and bought coffees for the "adults", and asked the bakery if she could bring down the kids to warm up a little, even though they wouldn't all have money. They said it was fine, but then while we were drinking our coffee, two staff members of the bakery came up with a free krapfen for each of us! It was such a sincere, lovely surprise!

CONFETTI FIGHT!

The Ice Bear takes a krapfen

Pippi Langstrumpf (Longstockings) rather satisfied with her krapfen!

 After going back to the school, getting picked up and having 'doner' for lunch, Janina, Carl, Henrich (Carl's friend), Theo, Freya and I then continued on to Bisamberg - another town just outside of Vienna - for their Faschings celebrations! Stalls lined the main street selling food and drinks (mostly alcohol) and soon enough, the parade started. Most people come dressed up so I didn't feel (very much) out of place with my interesting face paint - at least no one else cared!

Golden Ladies

Theo was in the Polizei for the day!

Kind of crazy old man!

Gorgeous little girl and some long legs!

The parade included floats for all kinds of things - most of which I totally didn't understand. Lollies are handed out (well, more thrown out), cups of schnapps and wine, fruit, krapfens, then there was the train throwing out coal. The Austrians can be immensely silly and are rather bold and ready to laugh at themselves. This is a great characteristic which I'm looking forward to seeing more of! All in all it was really just a lot of fun and the atmosphere was great to be around.

As I said - not quite sure what the point of each of the groups was - here the women were dressed as men and the men as women - Adults mind you!

Throwing (and blowing) streamers out into the crowd

Flapping feathers out into the crowd (for some reason!)

More up-to-date news soon!

Hello World!

Just a really, really quick hello to say I'm still alive and well! And it's been 3 MONTHS. Wow.

I remember reading through other exchange students' blogs, seeing that they were mostly 'disorganised' and didn't post as often as they said they would or thought they would - always putting it down to busyness and time. I always wondered when this would happen to me... Well, it's happened! It's not about disorganisation or lack of want, but more about being SO TIRED at the end of each day, and always finding something else to do, that by the time you think of writing a blog post, you just want to sleep (like now...!).

Last week was really tough again homesickness-wise and I felt pretty lonely, but I spent the weekend in Salzburg with a bunch of other exchange students which made me feel IMMENSELY better this week. Gah, so much to write about and yet so little time! Days are slowly starting to form a routine and every day I feel a little more like I really belong in this family, which is a wonderful feeling. I've been going to school (which I'll post more about later!! I PROMISE! Really!!) which is sometimes good, sometimes bad, and sometimes incredibly boring. My favourite part of each day is coming home to play with the kids, or relax, read, watch a movie, write letters - the usual! I'm going to try really hard to get up another post this week, although tomorrow is the last day of school before the Spring Holidays next week. So who knows how I'll go!

Overall, when tomorrow comes I'm sure it will be ok. I've been reading books out of the Anne of Green Gables series (among German ones too!) - I'm currently up to Anne of Windy Willows/Poplars. Here's a quote:

"The Woman had told her that Tomorrow never comes, but Elizabeth knows better. It will come sometime. Some beautiful morning she will just wake up and find it is Tomorrow. Not Today but Tomorrow. And then things will happen . . . wonderful things."

I found this to be quite an intriguing quote, because the whole idea of tomorrow never coming had never struck me before! It kind of reminds me that BECAUSE tomorrow will never come, there's no point living for tomorrow and I may as well live for today. An easy concept to say, but these things are always a lot harder in reality! 

Spring fields of green :)

The little Church  ♥ 

[One of the] Road(s) to Hagenbrunn

Nine and I went for a ride to pick up Theo from kindergarten. This town is just down the road from us - Bisamberg

I've left you with a few pictures of my surrounding area with the hope to post more soon! Thank you to everyone for all your patience and understanding. It's a difficult thing to try and juggle my life back at home and my life here at the same time, but I've been trying to make my life here more of a priority. I know it can be frustrating if I only reply to emails weeks later - but that's why my blog's here - to keep you up to date! I try my best!!

Bussi Bussi Bussi

My Home Town is a Wedding

I've been getting quite a few questions lately about how I'm going with my new language and whether I'm fluent yet (HAH!), so I thought I'd do a post on it! A note to all those people: I think it is basically impossible to learn a language fluently in essentially two and a half months - especially without having any great amount of previous teaching.

For an exchange student, once you settle down into the general routine of life as it will be for the next however long - your new family, house, culture - the next big thing to actually LEARN is the language. I think considering all the ups and downs (particularly the downs) that I've been through the last few months, I'm doing quite a reasonable job. I'm no where NEAR fluent (like, really no where), but I'm starting to get to the point where I don't have to resort to English in heaps of situations, or ask everyone what on earth they're talking about. Of course, it still happens but I'm starting to feel like it's actually getting better. I've had a few brief very happy points this week though! On Tuesday my host Mum came upstairs and we had a decent conversation about how school was, the fact that the buses are stupid and I should just catch a later one to school, and that I needed to pick up Carl on Friday. Sure - it wasn't perfect German and I undoubtedly chose some of the wrong words - but speaking another language is essentially about communication (as a friend or two and my Mum have reminded me...) and that's what I'm doing. It's a nice feeling being able to sit at the dinner table and actually understand a little bit about what's going on.

Have a laugh.

We've all been there. Those amusing moments where you might be thinking of a particular word, then accidently let it slip out, even if you're talking about something completely different. Maybe you've just said a word that SOUNDS similar to the one you were thinking of - but has a completely different meaning... Well. To put it simply, this is SO much more likely to happen while you're learning another language. I just think it's hilarious though and often the people you're talking with will too! For example some time last week I was sitting at the dinner table with Carl, and we were naming absolutely anything that came into our heads. I ended up saying 'kuhschrank' instead of 'kühlschrank' - which translates to 'cow cupboard' instead of 'fridge' so it was no wonder Carl was laughing so much! It was pretty funny! Then there was the time where I had to explain that where Canberra is and that it's the capital city of Australia (this was a few weeks ago). I had heard the word before and was just grappling for anything I could remember, but ended up saying the word for 'wedding' (Hochzeit) instead of 'capital city' (Hauptstadt). Wonderful!

So speaking is hard. It's probably the hardest part (at least in German). For me I find that writing is pretty good, because German is written phonetically and so it's usually pretty easy to guess the correct spelling of a word (or to look things up in the dictionary!) But speaking is a whole new level of difficulty. It's amazing how much you can understand, but then to only respond with short answers gets really frustrating really quickly. There are so many emotions and feelings and opinions running through your head, which you simply just can't express. It can be as simple as going to the gelatissimo and wanting to order your ice-cream in a cup instead of a cone (I've learnt that now!). Then there are dialects. Don't get me started! I've grown up with my Mama, Oma and Opa speaking 'Hochdeutsch' (which is like the Queen's English), although never actually learnt any myself. With my ear accustomed to this, I then moved to Austria. The Viennese dialect is very, VERY different from anything spoken in Germany, and is either horribly grating or wonderfully lyrical - depending on whom you ask and/or where they're from! The family I live with are from Northeast Germany, and so have a reasonably 'clean' dialect, which is always nice to come home to, but I've also started to get used to the Viennese dialect. I couldn't say which I prefer - I love both. I think the way the Austrians talk is more fun though! 

To put another step into my learning process, in Salzburg the dialect was very different again. I found the dialect a lot 'stronger' and that they swing their words a lot more - I suppose kind of like the Scottish equivalent to English! It took at least 2 weeks there before I could understand even the most BASIC words on a regular basis. However hopefully this means I'll become more accustomed to understanding a wider variety of dialects. It's funny, because even the Austrians don't understand each other from one side of the country to the next! It will definitely be interesting to see what kind of German I end up speaking!

Ouch. Well That Hurts.

Three words: new neural pathways. It's proven that when you're younger (I'm talking around 5 years of age) it's a lot easier to learn a new language. Because I can't explain it in better words, here's a quote (yay!):

"Another reason it gets harder to learn a language as we get older is something called “neural commitment.” The idea here is that when our brain is first exposed to language, learning occurs by strengthening and weakening connections between neurons. With years of using our first language (or languages), these connections become more hard-wired and therefore harder to change later when learning a new language. Learning new languages essentially competes for some of those same neural pathways, and it’s hard to re-wire the pathways."

That's sourced from here. So basically, my brain is changing. Learning a new language is painful - literally and metaphorically. Being submersed in a new language day-in and day-out is a very difficult thing to deal with. There's no real escape and you just have to learn to cope. I am surrounded by so many new words a day, and it's impossible to remember them all. I feel stupid a lot of the time. I get headaches. I'm really tired. My brain is just simply working overtime. But the thing is, each new word I learn is one more I DON'T have to learn at another point. I'm picking up new words each day and remembering them. And that's a pretty good feeling!

Verstehst du?

One last point. Do you understand? No. But never mind. I swear I'm asked this question about 20 million times a day. People ask so many times if you understand, that you kind of get to the point where even if you have NO idea what they're talking about, you'll just say yes. Because even if someone tries to explain whatever they're talking about, it may very well just go in one ear and out the other. Something I learnt very quickly was, that at this stage I'll NEVER understand everything that someone says, so there's things you just have to let go. Understanding the main topic of conversation is the most important thing, and it just builds from there.

So that's my first post on language. I'm sure there'll be more some time, because I've always got more to talk about!