Dear Friends and family,
I have been soooo busy the past couple of days because of orientation. They seriously have us scheduled to do things all day from 8 to 8pm. I also don't always have access to the internet (which is kind of dodgy here in the convent). Please enjoy this entry that I wrote from my day on 28. September 2009.
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today i woke up at 8am, which means I got about 9 hours of much needed rest. I left the curtains open so there was a nice morning sunshine in my room. i woke up and looked out the window onto the street below me, which was filled with cars and bicyclists in their bicycle lane. Graz is a large city, larger than I think i would like at this point. But I will see how Leibnitz looks next Monday, and hope I made the right choice by living here instead of there.
I got dressed and packed up my stuff and went down to the lobby to check out. They kept my bags for me so I wouldn't have to carry them around all day. I went first to the T-mobile store to get a cell phone so I can start calling people and asking about rooms for rent. I walked down Annengasse which seems to be a pretty major road here all the way to the Mur river, which I crossed, and then a bit further to Herrengasse which I turned on to and where the T-mobile store was located. It took me about 20-25 minutes to walk there, which is good to know since many of the houses I am looking at online seem to be about this far or further away. There were trains running all the time down this street that were going straight to the bahnhof though, which is nice if I decide to live further away. The street cars seem to be very efficient and go almost everywhere I went today.
I went to the T-mobile store because I read online about the different cell phone companies in austria and one website said that t-mobile was cheap and lots of austrians used it. It was located right next to another cell phone store which was painted all black and gold and selling really fancy looking stores. T-mobile was cute and looked more "preiswert" a nice german word which doesn't really have an equivalent in english. it means worthy of its price. It was quite a task of my skills to talk to the guy at the counter. We spoke all in German and i told him that I just moved here and that I needed a phone. He told me that the only contracts they have were 2 years and provide 500 minutes (or more) per month. I knew that I didn't need that and asked him about paying as I use minutes. Since I'm not really familiar with this concept even in English it was kind of hard to understand just what I needed to do to put money on the phone and where to refill the minutes. Plus he was using words like "Klax" which is a word I'd never heard that means the minutes you have to use, and also that I can get more minutes at the t-mobile store or at a "Trafik", which I didn't know what that meant until I saw it on a sign later in the day, which is basically a tabacco & other stuff store. I didn't have too much trouble understanding him though or telling him that i just needed the cheapest phone (39 euros) and that 9 cents a minute sounded good and that I wanted 20 euros to start. I was very proud of myself for this transaction.
After I was done I didn't want to go back to the hotel yet, as it was only like 9:45 so I wandered around a while before deciding to walk along the Mur. I really like the river. I found a staircase that went down to the river for pedestrians.
I walked along the sidewalk down there for a while passing some pretty sweet graffiti and even a little rock climbing area someone had made. (see the ones on the ceiling!?!)
I think that this might be from building that was torn down somewhere in the city.
After a while the sidewalk became a dirt path and then a small trail.
I kept walking until I saw a group of construction workers chillin under a bridge, who had signaled to a runner who went past me to go up a little trail. I just followed her lead and came up near a kindergarden where I could hear kids playing. I was near the Schlossberg and so decided to go over to it. I passed by the tram that went up the mountain, but figured I'd take it some other time. But then I came across the "Kriegstreppe" which went up the mountain.
I walked up them after reading a placard that said they were built by Russians who were being forced to work during ww1. about 200 steps later I had a great view of the city and a really cute litte garden to walk through.
I walked back to the Hotel and used their computer to look up some rooms currently being offered.
This is a cafe in the middle of the Mur river! It also acts as a bridge.
This is the Kunsthaus (art museum). It lights up at night. They call it the "Friendly Alien".
There was one which was just above Jakominiplatz, which I hadn't been to yet, but which was further down Herrengasse, where the T-mobile store was. I had seen this ad about 2 weeks ago so I thought they just reposted it and that it was probably already rented, but I called them anyways. Katharina answered the phone and told me that I could come by and look at it. So I walked all the way back there and after getting a little lost in the hustle and bustle of Jakominiplatz fou
nd the house. The door to the apartment was in a small alley which smelled like urine but I thought, meh it doesn't matter if the apartment is nice. I went up and met Katharina and her 3 roommates. She showed me the kitchen which was normal sized I guess with a window and a table with 4 spindly chairs and a stove, dishwasher, and the smallest refrigerator i have ever seen. its smaller than most personal fridges, about the size of your fridge in Santa Cruz, ben. This was also the "common" room, which kinda sucks. No TV! not that I watch it that much, but i mean i'd like to see Austrian news and tv shows every once and a while. No couch! The room I would be staying in would be right next to the shower room, which isn't inherently bad. The showers and toilets are commonly separated in Austria. inside the shower room there was also a washmachine, which is cool, and some drying racks. "My" room was not going to be furnished either, which means I would have to buy a bed, shelves, desk, AND closet, as there was none. The rooms were all right next to eachother and there was a long hallway where each of them came off of. You could hear the strassebahnen, street trains, outside and they said that they lived right above a Disco, which means loud music and drunk people on the street right under our windows. Basically this place didn't sound that great and even though the roommates were nice, I couldn't imagine living there a whole year. It didn't feel homey at all. So i told them i was going to keep looking but gave them my phone number. Katharina called me tonight and told me that they "decided to choose someone else." which was fiiiiine with me.
I decided that I should try to figure out the strassebahn that I had been avoiding all day, since i was kinda tired from walking so much. I noticed that people were just going on and it didn't seem like anyone was paying at all. maybe they all had passes, but i doubt it. I took a train that went directly to the train station and went back to the hotel. I looked at more room adds, but not with much luck. I want to live with girls, but if there are an equal number of girls and boys thats ok too. I also want to live somewhere with at least 2 other people, but maybe i'll look at something if it comes up with just one other girl.
I went downstairs to where there was some coffee and had a cup and sat down and read a little. and this, my friends is crazy. Who is the very first person I see walking down the stairs in front of me? The douchy guy from Marin!!!! I was shocked. I was like "hey I know you" and he was like "you do?" he didn't recognize me and i had to remind him. God. What a douche. I hope he doesn't find this blog. hahaha. I went outside and sat at a table with some people who were already there. There seems to be people from all over america. They were from Oregon, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Camp Pendleton, Ohio, and Bethlehem ( I forget what state that is). One of the orientation leaders (who are people who did this program last year and decided to stay for another year) was also from London. I found out that there were actually quite a few english people there, but they aren't with the Fulbright program, they are mostly students of a foreign language at a university and as part of their program they are required to do their 3rd year of study abroad in a country that speaks their language. A couple I talked to said they feel that the Americans' German is better than theirs, but this is probably becuase most of the people from America have studied abroad before.
At 5:30 a bus came to take us up to Schloß St. Martin which is a small castle where half of the participants are staying. On the bus this guy sat down next to me and we introduced ourselves. I told him I was from San Diego and he said he had a friend there who was from Scripps Ranch. I was like What? thats where I'm from! he asked me what school I went to, and I said a private one. He said his friend went to a private school too near fashion valley. At this point i was like well, he could have gone to parker or uni, maybe bishops. He said Parker, I was like what mee toO@@@@ He was like do you know Hal Cavanagh. I kind of laughed really loud and a couple people turned and looked, but I couldn't help it! HOw bizarre is it that some random person that sits next to me on a bus in my Austria Program knows HAL, a kid in my class from high school. BUt this is not the end of this bizarre "small world" story. He told me that one of his best friends at Occidental was also from san diego, GYON. holy crap. Gyon is ben's friend from elementary school that I have heard so much about. God. I almost couldn't handle it.
At the castle we mingled a bit and then had dinner. I sat at a table with a girl from Scotland, one from England, another from the States, and a guy from Michigan who had the chicago "a" accent. you know, cAAAr. We had a mushroom quiche and some chocolate-banana dessert. After we all went into a room where we were introduced to some teachers and the orientation leaders, and the woman running the orientation. We (luckily) didn't do any icebreakers, although we did do this one thing where we had to get up and talk to one person we'd never met for 5 min. and then we were shown a list of 5 questions. Do you think they are an Opera Person, a person who cares about Fashion, a Morning person, etc. Of course we didn't know any of these things about the other person, but the excercise showed us how we make assumptions about peoples character just by were they come from or what they look like, or how old they are. I think this was a good excercise.
Afterwards we went out to the courtyard and had a glass of austrian white wine. i spent the whole hour talking to 2 british people, a guy and girl from Bristol, who were really nice and interesting. I liked hearing the differences between our english and also why they were there and such. One thing that was funny is that they say "maths" instead of math and also when I asked how many german classes they have taken, they didn't understand what I meant. Apparently to take a class in british english means to teach a class. they say either " i have attended a class" or "i have sat a class" which just sounds really weird to me. they also "sit tests", rather than take tests. also the concept of taking a german class didnt make sense to them because they have to apply to college with a major in mind and their whole school career is based around that major, so to take a cognitive science class, for example, for fun is just unheard of.
The bus went back at 9:30. I went outside to catch it (i wonder if brits say "to catch a bus"?) and looked up at the night sky. It sounds cliche but I actually looked at the moon and thought of how i had just seen it the other day in America. It is the same moon. I like that. When we got back they told us to be quiet, as the nuns are sleeping. Some people were going out for drinks at 10, but we have to get up and eat and leave at 8:30 and I really wanted to leave time to write my blog tonight.
We don't have internet at the convent here, but we do have internet at the Schoß where we are meeting for the rest of the orientation, so I will check emails and post my blog there.
I love and miss you all.
Tschüss! (i'm so glad they say that here! its like bye and we used it all the time in Germany, this can be your word of the day Hilary!).
Hey, Im glad youre alive.
ReplyDeleteIts Gyan by the way, and that is just crazy-ridiculous.
sounds like it is jam-packed with fun