School 2 - BORG Straßwalchen

My month living in Salzburg was very very very long. My whole experience there is a mystery to basically everyone, including myself sometimes, because I was so miserable I didn't write in my diary for 2 weeks! But that's not what I'm here to write about just now. Onto school number 2!

By the end of my stay, school was the best thing while I was living in Salzburg. I think there's always a place for exchange students (at least at some point) which is so much better than anywhere else. A place where they feel a bit more comfortable than anywhere else and they can escape there - something to look forward to and that was kind of school for me. Even though it still wasn't amazingly great and pretty difficult, it was a way in which to be distracted from brooding in my own thoughts and as I mentioned in my last school post, an easy way to meet people.

So there I was, living in my little village Henndorf am Wallersee. The city of Salzburg is about 15km south and the town of Straßwalchen is about 11km north, which is where I went to school for the month or so I was living there. Getting myself out of bed every morning was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Because every morning I had to wake up between 5:30-5:45am to get ready for school. Horrible. Now, I never really considered myself a 'morning' or 'night' person, but by being here I've come to realise I'm definitely more of a night person. I used to adore mornings, especially getting up at sparrow's fart to go on some exciting adventure (i.e. band tours, school trips, balloon festival, travelling), but the thing is that wasn't EVERY DAY and I was generally in a wonderful mood! Anyway. Here I would drag myself out of bed, groggily cursing at the unfairness of it all but always managing to get ready in time to crunch my way through the snow in order to catch the bus at 6:30am. BECAUSE SCHOOL STARTED AT 7:30 (and finished at 1pm - MADNESS!), and the next bus was (supposedly) too late. Twas a long month. It was always dark (and note: I love and live for sun), it was always cold (see previous) and there was always someone smoking at the bus stop. But it wasn't all bad. I would appreciate the drive to school, listening to music, staring out the window into the strangely dark recesses of snow and fog. It was definitely a thing of beauty.

My afternoon bus stop

No photos of mystery and fog, but this was on my way home from school :)

My school was BORG Straßwalchen. BORG Straßwalchen is also a Gymnasium (Austrian/German Secondary College) and has two streams within it - arts and natural sciences. I was in the arts stream and was initially very excited about it because I thought "WOW an arts school in Austria must be super awesome!!" But it turned out just to be a pretty normal school which happened to have arts subjects. I have come to understand that all students in Austria have roughly the same curriculum, consisting of subjects such as Maths, German, History, Chemistry and English, but then depending on the stream in the Gymnasium they also have extra subjects. So in this case my normal classes were: Maths, English, Physics, Psychology, Philosophy, History, Chemistry, German, Geography and Sport, but also Music, Art and Latin in addition. Latin was definitely my favourite subject and I looked forward to it more than anything else. Gosh I'm such a nerd! But I will explain myself.

I have always been fascinated with languages, a love I caught from my mother! Learning German has been challenging, but I always find the similarities it and English amazing. English is a Germanic language, so really they are quite similar, and both of them have large parts derived from Latin. So by learning Latin I could see the similarities a lot more clearly and the history behind certain words! For example: "Servus" in Austria is a casual greeting to say "hello" or "goodbye" obviously depending which context you use it in. But "Servus" in Latin is the equivalent of the English "slave" or "servant". So essentially this greeting originated in Austria by people offering their services - "I am your servant". Just something I found really fascinating. Plus most people in Australia don't learn any Latin! The other classes were reasonable, but I generally kept to myself quite a bit and would just try my best to get through the day. My class was full of girls - with only four boys out of about 20 of us - and they were all really lovely and welcoming. They were interested in me straight away and wanted to include me in everything they did. I now realise how special that was, because it's often hard to find a group of people so willing to include you so quickly. And now I actually miss that school and the friends I made there!

Straßwalchen, nearing the end of Winter

MY SCHOOL! At the beginning, there was lots of snow around... But this was taken on my last day (end of Feb)

I have one last funny story. On the last day we were meant to have sport, instead of going to the gym, we went out as a class to breakfast. The sport classes were split into separate girls and boys classes which I found kind of strange, seeing as that stopped for me in year 8. We went to one of the local cafés - which was always really wonderfully yum! At this point, I still wasn't too great at German, but I was good enough to get the general jist of what was in the menu. I decided to order the "Lady's Breakfast" which consisted of toast with ham, cream cheese, salmon and a bit of capsicum and onion on the side, a hot chocolate (or coffee - but hot chocolates in Austria are heaven), a pastry and to my great surprise:

A glass of champagne...

Not one of my best photos, but you get the general idea!

 I was so unbelievably shocked because I was not expecting that AT ALL. And as far as I know, you don't get anything like that in Australia (at least not in my experiences...!). Everyone thought it was absolutely hilarious, and although I was a little taken aback and embarrassed at the time, looking back it's just one of those moments which makes you laugh! A wise friend here once told me that often the hardest and most horrible things to go through here are the ones you remember the most and look back in the greatest amusement. This is just an example of how sometimes language can really get the better of you!

And yes, I drank it :)

Re-Entry And Reflections

As I said in my last post, I spent last weekend at my 'half-way' seminar for exchange. I was thinking about writing a nitty-gritty re-cap of the whole weekend, but I decided that wouldn't necessarily be the best way to look over it and it probably wouldn't be all that enthralling for the majority of people reading it!

So I want to talk about the highlights and my feelings about it all and reflect over the weekend and the past few months I've been here.

Arriving at the station in Micheldorf, we were faced with a hike up the mountain to the beautiful castle Burg Altpernstein. It was a really cloudy day, but the castle floating in the clouds looked so romantic! It's a pretty strenuous walk but like last time it was beautiful, plus the hour gives us a wonderful chance to talk with the other students and see some of the country side.

An amazing sunset from the castle looking over the valley...

Our home for the weekend! Burg Altpernstein

A bit more of the castle

Over the weekend, I was lucky enough to meet the rest of the exchange students here in Austria from my organisation. It was wonderful to become friends with them and get to know each of them a little better, but also to strengthen the friendships I already had. The connection that exchange students have with each other is literally beyond words. I can't describe it. Thrown together from all corners of the world all speaking different languages, you have this ginormous part of your lives in common with each other. For me, the feeling of connection I have with some of these people is stronger than the connection I feel with some of the people back home, whom I have known for years. Being in this group, you know what is going through the hearts and minds of these people. You know the hardships, the joys, the huge mountains which feel like you'll never be able to slowly climb over. And they'll always be there to lend an ear, a shoulder, a hug. Some of these people I would probably have never had become friends with if we'd met in a "normal" situation. Sometimes they can be frustrating. Sometimes you want to hit your head against the wall from the things that they say or do. But other times it's like you have this magical connection. They know when words just aren't enough and you just need a hug. They know that if you want to do something, there's no point in being scared doing it, because the worst thing that can happen isn't actually of any consequence. Running down hills crazily. Talking to people in another language. Asking questions. Proudly acting like a kid. Living life to the fullest.

Awesome new friends!

Because that's what life (and Austria) is for!

One of my favourite things of the weekend was realising the power of language. I know I mentioned something like that briefly in my Croatia blog post, but it really hit so much more over this weekend. There were students represented from the following countries:

• Australia - 3
• America - 1
• Estonia - 2
• Finland - 2
• Mexico - 1
• Brazil - 1
• Moldova - 2
• Sweden - 1
• Japan - 2
• Switzerland - 1
• Belgium - 1
• Norway - 1
• Thailand - 1
• (And of course Austria) - Many!

And our one main language in common was (and is) German. For some reason everyone could speak English as well (seems like the whole world can - almost literally...) but the best way to communicate with each other was German. And what an amazing feeling. I now have friends who have come from all over the world, and being able to communicate with them through a language, which isn’t our own, is just unbelievable. The longer I am here the more I realise the immense power that language has on the world and communication, and the more excited I am about learning.

Because it was a re-entry seminar for the majority of the exchange students, that was the topic we focused on the whole weekend. Each day we were rotated into separate groups to talk, and complete different activities. We asked and answered questions, we wrote down thoughts and beliefs, we learnt how to keep going. In one of the first groups we each had to write down 10 things we want to take with us from this year in our imaginary suitcase. Then we got into pairs and had to narrow it down to 10 together, then 5, then 10 as a whole group. My 10 things were:

1. Language
2. Friendships
3. Independence
4. Positivity
5. Memories and Stories
6. Music
7. Confidence
8. Understanding
9. Patience
10. God

It was interesting to see the things other people came up with, and our final list consisted of Relationships, Culture, Language, Experiences and Self Development. In another group we had to draw a river of our year (although, only 5 months for us Aussies). Rocks were struggles, maybe there was a dam, maybe the rocks were bigger at some points and smaller at others. Maybe there was rain, but then came beautiful flowers, trees and like a fish in water, we would keep swimming. We compared ourselves with how we were at the beginning, to how we are now and how our attitudes and tastes have changed. It was things as simple as our favourite foods and drinks, way to dress, music, subjects, hobbies, down to how we interact with our family(/ies), who the people who most inspire us are, those who's opinions we value the most and our "life philosophy". And we learnt how to say thank you to all our families and friends, and places we have come to know. Of course I'm not saying goodbye quite yet, but it really opened my eyes as to what this year is all about, and how I can make the next however many months really work for me.

Words can't describe... One of the castle terraces.

A lot of the weekend wasn't spent in complete seriousness and we had quite a lot of free time together, which was so much fun. I had the strangest feeling at some points. I remembered what it was like to have friends. Before you scorn - read. A lot of you probably know that it's been difficult for me to make friends and that I often feel lonely. Well lately I've just come to accept that feeling and it's not as hard for me to be away from everyone and spend so much time on my own. But this weekend I was able to be myself, feeling like I didn't have to impress anyone - that I could be sad if I wanted, or as mad as a hatter. Admittedly I chose the latter, and I felt like myself for one of the first times this year. It was a nice feeling.

Another roaring sunset

Free time was spent talking, playing crazy 'drama' games - as well as chess, cards, table tennis and soccer, basketball (... the ball may or may not have been thrown over the cliff...), listening to music, playing guitar, singing, dancing, and on Friday I went for a wonderful walk with Molly in the woods. It was awesome to have someone with talk to about anything we wanted, and I think she's a really special person :) It was a BEAUTIFUL walk and the area is absolutely amazing. The woods are so beautiful, and we even stumbled across WILD STRAWBERRIES (they don't exist in Australia!), lots of snails, and a snake (but we don't know if it was actually a snake... that was just while we were poking round in the strawberries, so we left it alone). Awesome.

Just casually playing basketball in a castle courtyard

Hut in the woods; proudly adorned with an Austrian flag (aka a trail marker)

WILD STRAWBERRIES!!

I never thought I would have the chance to see something so beautiful.

"It's 2am here now. DEFINITELY sleep time. But I wish I could stay here with these people forever. I'm in a castle. In the middle of Austria. The moonlight's washing in through the windows and I can hear a bunch of the kids still downstairs screaming with laughter. Life is so beautiful."

Me on the terrace - long live living!

School 1 - Ödenburger Straße

Ödenburger Straße was my first school in Vienna. If you've read my first couple of blog posts you will know that I spent one of my first days in Vienna in hospital (which you can read more about here), so I didn't actually get to start school with the new term. But that was ok really, because I was going to be the new girl no matter what!

Here's a brief overview of the Austrian School System. It may be boring so you can skip this paragraph if you like!
It is compulsory for all children who are permanent residents of Austria to go to school from the school year following their sixth birthday, with their education lasting at least nine years. Primary education (Volksschule) lasts for 4 years. Lower secondary education lasts for another four years and at this level there are two streams of schooling to choose from - Hauptschule or Allgemeinbildende Höhere Schule (or AHS-Unterstufe). Both the lower secondary branches offer basic general education preparing students for their transfer to their final years of schooling in upper secondary education, however Hauptschule (as far as I can tell) teaches at a slower pace. Upper secondary school has a lot of options! Students start there when they're about 14, and education goes for another four to five years. At this point, students from the Hauptschule have the choice to study VET (Vocational Education and Training) programs with apprenticeship training and students attending AHS-Unterstufe will often branch into different specialist Gymnasiums (Yes, high school is called 'Gymnasium'!) preparing them for university study. Gymnasiums have focuses such as Languages (inc. Latin and Ancient Greek), Maths and Geometry or Economics (among other things). So now you are knowledgeable!

Ödenburger Straße is one of the biggest schools in Vienna and has 3 different streams within it - Languages, Arts and Maths/Science. I was in the Arts stream but I only attended this school for three very very cold, foggy weeks before moving!

A typical afternoon - my bus stop outside school

Every morning I had to catch the bus at 7:40am - still in the dark - which was about the same time I had to in Australia. School went from 8:10 until 1pm everyday which meant it usually went quite quickly and I always free afternoons! It is AMAZING the amount of subjects students must attend here and I found it quite strange because school hours were a lot shorter than in Australia and yet I had eleven different classes. Yes. ELEVEN. They were German, Geography, Psychology, Physics, Chemistry, English, History, Maths, Italian, Music and Religion. Students don't get a choice in which subjects they have, and the majority of subjects were only 2-3 hours a week.

A typical, foggy walk home from the bus stop

Now onto the general school and class. As I think most people know, it is very daunting starting at a new school. Everything feels so big and confusing and you don't know where anything is. Well, let me just tell you this: it is absolutely TERRIFYING starting at a new school, in a new language, with thousands of students, all the ones in your class having known eachother for the last 10 years or so, and with everyone you know on the other side of the world. The first day I started school I was totally bewildered with where I was and what I was doing. But to be honest this feeling stayed for the three weeks I was there! The first day I walked into the class with my new teacher and was announced to the class. I don't actually remember much about it and I didn't write in my diary that day (which I do regret now) because I was so overwhelmed. I know that from that day though, I was pretty well ignored by the teachers because I understood very little of what they were saying. I spent most of my days trying to catch words out of the air and pin them down in my memory after translating them. So. Many. Words.

My first (and crazy) proper snow fall! Walking up my street, home from school.

The class was ok. It seemed to me that none of the students really payed all that much attention to the teachers and would often do their own thing - playing on their phones or iPods, talking, doodling... but after thinking about it, there's always students doing that and even more so in the back row, which was where my seat was! I was incredibly shy so didn't really make any friends, plus they all always had work to do. That's another thing - we had only one 15 minute break between 9:50 and 10:05 in which I would usually just stare into space, scared out of my wits. A very productive use of time, even if I do say so myself! But by the end of the three weeks I was starting to settle in a little more and found some people in the class who were more like myself (rather than the outgoing back-row smokers, which of course are good in their own way... but who wants to go out into the snow to smoke every break?). And then there were the teachers. I don't remember all of them but here goes. My German teacher was also my 'class' teacher (like tutor group) and was the first one I met. She gave me her email address and phone number straight away (which seems to be pretty normal here!) so if I had any problems I could talk to her. She was pretty nice.
My English teacher was a bit of an old fart (sorry, but it's true!) and always came up really close to talk to you. He always had lots of questions for me which were often difficult to answer (such as how my school and grades worked EXACTLY. That's hard enough to explain to people living in Australia!). I remember a particularly interesting conversation with him one lesson while the rest of the class was taking a test. He was determined to try and teach me some German, which was very nice of him but his method of doing it wasn't really the best. This consisted of him asking me questions very slowly in German in a whisper, which made it even more impossible for me to understand! He wanted to know all about my life, and this particular exchange was about what I want to do next year at university. We resorted to English and I told him that I wasn't really sure what I wanted, but maybe visual arts, music, science or historical conservation. I told him I'd already been accepted into ceramics and glass making, to which he wanted to know what the point of that was. The cheek! His argument was that there is absolutely no purpose in being a glass artist and it gives no contribution to the world so why on Earth do it? I told him it's like any art, and all for the enjoyment of others. I asked him if he thought the same about music. His answer was no, that music actually contributed to society in a greater way and that we wouldn't be able to live without it. "But why?" I asked. I pointed out to him that we live with glass around us every day - windows, jars, glasses, computers, bottles... That everything we see was originally someone's art. I was getting really pretentious at this point but I would not back down! In the end I don't think he was really convinced with my argument and it never really got resolved, but after that point I would keep looking forward to English classes just so I could talk my native tongue, and maybe just wind him up a little...
The last teacher I remember was my physics teacher and was the EPITOME of mad scientist. He had this absolutely hilarious Austrian dialect and spoke really really slowly. He wore crazy woollen jumpers (sweatshirts or pullovers for those who don't understand Australian!), huge round glasses and pulled the craziest faces. He seemed to hold a certain delight in demonstrating crazy and dangerous pracs, and there was one particular lesson which he just spent blowing bubbles... I'm sure there was a point to it all, but as an outsider looking in without understanding a word, it was simply hilarious.

A beautiful, unusually clear sunrise at my bus stop one morning

So there you have it. My first school. I didn't get an overly large impression of it because it was really big and I only attended there for three weeks. New schools are always hard, but I was looking forward to leaving and starting at the next one... who knew what would face me there?

That Small Thing Called School

Judging by all my previous blog posts, it would appear that all I do here is whine, travel around and celebrate various occasions - and never actually go to school. But on the contrary, that is how most of my time is occupied and of course, I wouldn't be an exchange student without it! The main reason I AM an exchange student is to go to school and experience the life of an average teenager in Austria. Plus going to school gives me something to do every day - a way to get out the house, but most importantly provides me an easy environment to meet people my own age and to learn lots of German in a HUGE variety of subjects! So as I'm sure you're all able to guess, this is going to be a post about one of the biggest aspects of my life here.


Because I've moved around quite a bit, I am already at my third school within four months, and they haven't been easy transitions. I'll start with this.
I always wanted to be the new girl. You watch all these American movies or TV shows about the new girl going to high school. Sure, she may have some difficulties at first, but it's always exciting. She's interesting, no one knows where she came from, where she fits in. I always thought it would be an exciting adventure to be "the new girl" as they always make it out to be (yes, you may think I'm a little ridiculous). And I think in some ways it IS (and has been) exciting, but once again I may have had a few over-the-top expectations, and a few things that were not expected, or simply didn't exist:

•  I'm not going to an English-speaking school. In a lot of ways that makes me MORE interesting, but it also makes it REALLY hard to make friends. You're of interest to people for the first couple of days, maybe weeks, but then it becomes normal, they have better things to do than try and strike up conversations. YOU have to talk to people. And when you literally don't know how to talk to people, that gives you a great disadvantage.
  I thought I would be the same person when I came here. I would have called myself happy, positive, outgoing and friendly. Ready to talk to people if they wanted to, and ready to strike up a conversation. When I left I realised just how many people cared for me though, and started wondering why I was actually leaving. But then I remembered: I've watched exchange students before - being the centre of attention, supposedly so happy, surrounded by 'friends' - and I'm sure some of them were! But some of them were probably just crying inside wishing for their own friends, their own school, their own language. It's amazing how well some people can hide their emotions.
• Too much of a good thing. Being the new girl once was pretty exciting. Very daunting at the same time, but still exciting. Twice was pretty good because I knew more of what to expect, but it was really hard to do everything all over again. Three times was horrible. I knew I wouldn't make instantaneous friends, I'd already made friends in my last school and didn't want to leave them and the comfort I was just starting to find with them. It's not fun.
• I never realised just how much of an impact being a twin would make on my life. I was never the girl alone in the corner - I always had Tim. I never had to figure out how to make friends quickly - I always had Tim to wait with me until the time came. And it's simply a lot easier when EVERYONE'S new (i.e. Primary School [but as if that even counts] and High School). So I never really formed this survival technique of making friends for myself without the support of another. And that's been the hardest part for me.
  I've never spent so much time "on my own" before. I've never had to catch the bus home without knowing there was someone to share my day with somewhere. I've always had someone to laugh at teachers or fellow students with, to help with homework, to just be there. And that's a huge thing to be without so suddenly after 18 years, when I now need to speak German with everyone and when all of my family is on the other side of the world. I know that having to experience that all by yourself is just totally normal life for basically everyone else my age - and I am well aware that we wouldn't have spent the rest of our lives together, but that doesn't mean it's not hard!

This blog post could go on forever. But I'm going to end it there as an introduction, and do separate ones for each of my schools:

• School One: BG Ödenburger Straße
• School Two: BORG Straßwalchen
• School Three: BORG 20 Brigittenauer Gymnasium

Woooooooooooooooooooooo School!

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

Being Orientated...

I have so many other things to write about which happened before this weekend, but I think at the moment it's really important for me to write all this down. Be prepared for a very long post! This last weekend - from Friday night 18/2 till Sunday arvo 20/2, I went to a YFU orientation seminar in Micheldorf, Upper Austria. So I caught the train from Salzburg to Linz about 2pm on Friday, then in Linz I met up with Jess - one of the other Aussie exchange students, and we rode to Micheldorf together, arriving at the train station about 4.45.

I was in a compartment (LIKE IN HARRY POTTER!) by myself from Salzburg to Linz, until this guy came along with a mate of his. They were pretty amusing, but got frustrating because they started playing their German hip-hop and were being very loud. This guy was playing doodle jump on his phone though, which amused me!

In Micheldorf we met the other two Aussie exchange students - Katherine and Brandon, the four Austrian returnees who had come back from exchange 6 weeks ago, and a couple of the 'orientation coordinators', who are all pretty young, and went on exchange a few years ago.

We chucked our bags in the car, then all walked for about an hour up a lovely hill. Slash Alp. While it was snowing. It was actually quite nice, but exhausting. I hadn't realised how much I miss going for long walks, with a purpose - rather than just wandering around villages... So I actually didn't mind. Our destination was ... Burg Altpernstein! Burg Altperstein is a really awesome old castle where our orientation was held. Which, you know, parts of are from the 1300s... It's been totally renovated in the inside, and is now used for orientations and the such, but mostly as a Catholic youth centre kind of thing... So we rushed in and went straight to dinner, which was garlic soup, something unidentifiable but delicious, and salads. Then we went up many, many steps and sat around talking and generally meeting each other. Lisa (one of the leaders - more on her later :P ) brought a guitar, so there was a bit of singing, which was good, but... They started playing 'Take Me Home, Country Roads', and I just had to get up and leave. I just started crying and crying. That song really means a lot to me, and my family, but I can't explain.

The Saturday was really great. I didn't sleep very well at all on Friday night (ever since I moved to Salzburg, I wake up a few times each night. It's really draining.) so I was really tired, but it was ok. After brekkie, we split up into two groups - the inbounds and the rebounds - to talk about stuff. The first thing we did was get into pairs and write down 5 facts about each other in German, and then read them out to the group. Then we each drew an 'Energie Kuchen' or an 'energy pie chart', splitting up our days into what took up all our energy. So things like sleeping, school, walking, family, friends, hobbies, computer etc. Then we had to do one with the same kind of idea, except for from when we were in Australia. It was really interesting to see the difference, and I would suggest to other exchange students to do this! I slept a LOT less in Australia, but was always less tired. I spent a large majority of time playing music, dancing, going out with friends and things in Australia, but now I hardly do ANY music, have gone to salsa once, and have basically no friends. It's a huge difference, and really makes you see where the problems lie. The next thing we did was a little 'mood graph', where we graphed our moods from since before we left Australia, then up to the current point. I was amazed at how SUPER up and down it was. Australia was like 'WOOOOOHHHH' way up there. And then the flight was way down the bottom. Then I arrived and was excited, so it went up to halfway. And then I collapsed and it went down again... I went to school and had my final days in Vienna and it climbed! Then I became really homesick and culture shocked, and it hit rock bottom. No wonder I'm so tired. No one can deal with such a rollercoaster ride of emotions. It's so hard to handle.

We had a little lunch, and admired the castle and the view a little bit after that:

View out one of the castle windows. AMAZING, oder? We walked up that hill...

This is Winter. Don't complain about being cold in Australia!

So I do feel pretty lucky for being able to see these things. It's a beautiful country - but I can only really see it when I'm happy!

In the next session we had write down all our problems and difficulties and differences on individual little pieces of paper. We then took it in turns (often in a very messed up order!) to read out one of our pieces, explaining it, and occasionally discussing it. It didn't matter how small or ridiculous it was - they were all there! I wrote everyone's down on my own piece of paper for my own reference - and they were:

• Toilets - most of the toilets here have a kind of shelf, instead of going straight into the water... It was a little weird at first, but doesn't really bother me... :P
• Jesus and Maria are EVERYWHERE! Seriously. You'll be walking along, minding your own business, when suddenly - there's Jesus, chilling on a cross! Or Maria, praying in a cage... It's kind of cool, but was hard to get used to at first!
• Feeling stupid in school
• Drinking milk - I drink A LOT of milk in Australia... and not so much here :(
• Shop trading hours - no shops are open on Sunday, bank times are inconvenient, and a lot of the small shops close for an hour around lunch.
• Pressure on appearances and weight - it's a lot bigger in Europe...
• Really salty food, strong flavours, lots of meat and TONS of butter. I'm surprised not everyone's dying of high cholesterol here...
• Maturity levels and how different they are, and how much they can vary. Most people seem to be a lot older than their Aussie counterparts
• Same goes for age, really...
• Various host family problems...
• Misconceptions about Australia (but I just find these hilarious) - I will do more on this some other time...
• Making friends
• Having nothing to say or talk about - lack of communication and expressing yourself!
• Dialects! Drivin' me a'crazy! And Austrian slang under these...
• Meal times! They're super strict. Breakfast not so much, but no matter what time you end up having breakfast (even if it's at 10), lunch is at 12. Dinner is at 7. Everywhere. Too much organisation!
• Bluntness and openness about personal issues/whatever. They don't care about their bodies (well, they do) but they'll happily strip in the change rooms like nothings different, carrying on conversations. Or talk and ask about your weight. It's rather blunt...!
• Language... so many things...
• Understanding and miscommunication
• Trying to balance on the line of doing lots of things, but still being able to sit in your room, relax and do nothing.
• HUGS. This is a HUGE issue for all us students. Austrians just don't hug. They like to talk about their feelings, but not express them physically. I never realised it was such a huge difference, but I've spoken about my feelings more here than ever before. In Australia, you just have a big, long, understanding hug, and it's ok. And I really miss that. 
• Radio: On: All the time. And everyone knows all the songs. I can now say I know all the words to 'Barbra Streisand'. Oh wait... But they play everything from the latest, dreadful pop songs, to the golden oldies like Dire Straights...
• Having the motivation to learn German. It's hard. You spend a whole day surrounded by it, that by the time you get home, you just don't want to learn any more...
• Having the patience to get along with a lot of different people
• Smoking and drinking. There's a lot of it. Especially smoking. Everywhere.
• The Austrian rubbish system. I really don't understand what's so confusing about it, but everyone else thought it was...
• The difficulties of catching public transport when you have NO idea where you're going or how to speak German. Fun!
• Waking up so damned early for school! In the dark! Grr.
• Still feeling like such a tourist and feeling ashamed about it. Yup.

So it's a very long list. But it was great to get it out, and talk all the problems through with people who could totally empathise. That evening, we had a 'free' evening to bond, have fun, chat, sing, go for a walk and do nothing. The walk was amazing, in the snow, in the dark. And we built some snowmen! (Sally... :D)

Me looking a little scary, building my snowman :)

SNOWMEN! Mine's the one in the middle. I didn't have time to find a mouth :( I was too busy making perfect spheres!

 I am in love with these Austrians:

I spent a lot of the evening talking to a 17-year-old girl called Lisa, who is from Austria and went to Australia for exchange two years ago. She is one of the most (and absolutely) inspiring people I've ever met. She's so Aussie now, that I almost forgot she was Austrian! She told me about a lot of her experiences and about a lot of troubles which she had. I felt like she really, really understood what I was going through and talking about, because she'd actually been to Australia and knows the huge differences there can be. She spoke about understanding. She said the first few weeks were awesome, but for about 3 months afterwards she hit rock bottom, then of course it went up because it couldn't go anywhere else. Of course there were still ups and downs, but it was overall an upward curve. She said the first 6 months are work. They really are. They're harder than any job you'll ever do in your whole entire life. And they can really, really suck. It's hard. "It's really shit, bloody hard!" But the last 6 months are awesome. She said people won't come to you, and you need to throw yourself in there. She really understood some of the HUGE differences - how laid back and outgoing Aussies are, the huge change in school and subjects, the way boys hang out with girls in Australia, the love of sport. It was hard hearing it all. It kind of made me more homesick. But I just can't wait to get back. Australia's the best!

No matter how alone I feel, now more than ever before, I'm not. I have the support of people who are here and understand - which makes all the difference. EVERYONE believes in me. They're ALL sure I can get through, even people I've only known for 2 days. I'm honestly amazed they can still see that strength in me, because I've kind of lost sight of it. I need to find it again.

In the end. This was the best time I've had since my farewell party in Australia on the 3rd of Jan. I didn't want to go home. It was great being with people I could REALLY talk to, and reminded me of the old days of school camps in Oz. It was just so much fun, and I miss it all. I know my exchange needs to continue though...

Bis Später...