German Mass, Kaindorf Technical School, Mariazelle meeting

Servus!

On sunday night I went to a Catholic mass with one of the americans who is living in Graz. She is a regular church goer, and I asked her if she would mind if I came with her on sunday and she didn't. The church we went to is the oldest one in Graz. The altar was pretty cool and I liked how it was all in German. I didn't know the german versions of any of the prayers though, but that's ok. It seems like I never have a problem with what the priests say, it just those pesky prayers that get to me. There are certain things about catholic masses that I really enjoy, like the ritual cleansing of the alter and the ringing of the bells during the blessing of the eucharist and how the priest and his 2 helpers (bishops?) all kiss the altar at the very beginning together. I like the incense and the candles. I like how everyone shakes hands and offers greetings of peace. The music was nice too, although the choir was up above us and behind us so I couldn't see them singing at all. They played violin during the receiving of the eucharist too which was cool. But masses seem to drag on. It inspired me to write my own mass, which will definitely include ritual actions and objects but also lively singing and dancing! One thing which I had never seen before was the priest blessed everyone at the end of the mass. I could think of a way in which all the mass could be meaningful to me, but having to kneel down before a priest and have him bless me was a bit strange. But it was a cool experience nonetheless.

On Monday I took the train to Kaindorf an der Sulm where my second school is. It is a Technische Schule, which means it specializes in engineering and robotics and computers and programming and such. It is mostly boys, and sometimes if there are girls in the class there will only be 1 or 2 of them. I spoke about Columbus Day on monday, since it was a holiday in America on the 12th. My first class stood up and clapped for me at the end which was so awesome! Also the teachers there are so nice to me. Michaela (who is responsible for me) keeps introducing me to other teachers in the halls as "unsere Ashley" (our ashley) which is really nice. She even scheduled an appointment with me and her to talk with the director, who is awesome and has a sweet beard. She also introduced me to all the teachers hanging out in the teachers lounge during the 10 minute morning break. I felt so welcome it was crazy. The teachers at Leibnitz are nice too, but I don't feel the same sort of camaraderie. One of the classes I taught was to the highest class level, (18-19 year olds). I always introduce myself and have the students introduce themselves too with their names and couple things about themselves. One of the students was saying his name is so and so (Lukas seems to be pretty common) and his favorite painter is some Italian dude. I asked him to repeat the painters name cuz i didn't understand it and he did. I told him i didn't know who he was. He said "Sexy Girl" which I assumed was the title of some painting by this dude (although i can't find it on the internet) but everyone in the class was craaaaaacking up. I felt embarrassed because I wasn't sure if they were thinking about me or not. Either way this was only a harbinger for further embarrassment to come. I was talking about Columbus so I had to make a point that he came from europe and was trying to go around the world to India. So i drew a poor map of europe connected to india just to get the point across. I swear i had been doing this all morning with the other (younger) classes, but this one must have looked particulary phallic becuase after i drew it a roar of laughter arose in the classroom.

I could tell my face was getting red. I tried to redraw it but only made the 'shaft' part skinnier which didn't help. ugh. I tried to move on. I was talking about how Spain funded the trip and so i tried to demarcate spain from the rest of europe so I was planning to draw 2 lines, the first one to mark the boundary with portugal and the other to mark the eastern boarder of spain. after I made the first line I realized... AAGGGHH.

I guess I'm naiive or unaware, or both but I swear I HAD been doing this all morning!

I also got a really enthusiastic tour from one of the professors who showed me around the laboratory and work stations where the students learn to write programs which they then send to big machines which then create objects out of metal based on their programs (like chess pieces or cubes with designs in them, ect). I also saw where they work with metal (smash it, weld it, cut it etc) and also some finished projects they are doing. I saw the robot room where they send commands to the robot arm ( i saw the arm pick up a box and put it down perfectly on the conveyor belt). So all this is very cool and interesting. The professor was really excited that I wanted to see it all.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, although Michaela invited me to her house for dinner. OMG it was so amazing. She made a serious austrian meal. First we sat in the living room and had champagne (called "Sect" here) and macadamia nuts. I met her husband and son and also the husband and son of one of the english teachers at the technical school. I also met an american named Jeff who taught as an assistant at the technical school 5 years ago. He is from Kentucky but has been living in Graz since his assistantship doing his masters. THen we had salad with radishes olives blue cheese and tomatoes with some fresh bread. For dinner we had an amazing Pumpkin, lentil, tomato dish with mashed potatoes and Sußekraut, (not saurkraut but sweet kraut) which was awesome. She even made Apfel Strudel for dessert. I was stuffed and soo soo happy. I hope she invites me over for dinner again. We all sat around and talked for a long while, and it was nice to be around so much german and understand most of it. Even Jeff spoke really good austrian german.

Yesterday I went to a meeting at night for all the people who signed up for the hiking trip (3 nights, 4 days) to Mariazelle. It was at a wife and her husbands' house, who are leading the hike, and there were 2 other women and 1 man that came and one woman who didn't come but is also going on the hike. We are a small group but they all seem very nice and when I told them that i didn't have hiking sticks or a headlamp or a backpack suitable for 4 days of hiking from Guest house to guest house, the wife hooked me up with all of it, which was very very nice of her. All i need are some good gloves.

This morning I hitched a ride with Michaela to school. It was 0 degrees!!!!! which is 32 fahrenheit, awesome! I could see snow in the mountains but it wont snow here until november, december probably since we are in a very low region of austria. Although while walking today i saw like 5 flakes of snow fall from the sky so that was pretty exciting.

:)