Denmark, Matura ball, Tutoring, Run, Choir, Ski Trip, Buddhism, Films

so on thursday i took a train to vienna to begin my travels to denmark. The train ride was beautiful, with lots of winding and beautiful fall tree colors along the way. trains are far superior to airplanes! once at the vienna train station i took a bus to the airport where i took a 1.5 hour flight to denmark. when i arrived, the barons were there waiting for me! the trip there was very very easy and not stressful at all which was nice.

we had a good time together. we went to the Louisiana modern art exhibit, where the best exhibit was (depending on your taste) either a photography exhibit showing the "darker" side of america (mostly taken in the 70's of poor people living in shacks, under bridges, gun toting americans, kkk, etc.). It was quite shocking and also sobering that we have such things (even still!) in america. another cool exhibit was about the future of architecture in a "green" world. the best model buildings had trees growing on them. i can't wait for those!

forgive my lack of capitalization. i am being quite lazy right now, perhaps it is this delicious beer that i am drinking called Stiegel, from Salzburg. The smallest bottles of beer you can buy at the grocery store is .5 liters, which is about .2 liters more than the bottles in america. lulz.

anywho, we also had a great dinner at the museum and the barons even got me a piece of delicious carrot cake for my birthday. the next day we went to the carlsberg brewery which was quite interesting and we had some great beer as well. om nom nom. we also had dinner at a great italian restaurant.

i left saturday morning and came back to graz where i got home and promptly got ready for my first matura ball ever! this was definitely a cultural experience.

I took the train to Deutschlandsberg where it was located. a matura ball is basically for the "seniors" (which is the 5th class at the technical school who was hosting this ball). they have this ball mostly to raise money so that they can go on a trip together somewhere. that being said, they invite as many people as possible so that they can get ticket revenue. so there are teachers, parents, grandparents, little kids, and friends there. everyone dresses up really nice. the ball is opened with a polonaise, which is a dance that they have all been working on for weeks. each person has a partner. there were actually 2 classes that had the matura ball together. the first class' dance was ok, the second classes was awesome! you could tell they practiced a lot. all the maturanten (males) wore the same colored tie and/or shirt and the maturantinnen (girls) all wore the same color/cut of dress.

they also have bars that they serve food and alcohol at. the 'seniors' are the ones working at the bars, while the guests enjoy themselves at the main dance floor (live band, and live styrian band with accordian and lederhosen!) and the younger people go downstairs to one of 2 discos.

there is also a midnight show where the seniors do little skits and dances.

all the decorations are made by the students themselves, and they arrive early to set them up and stay late to take them down and clean up (which usually lasts until 5 or 6 in the morning!).

i had fun with the students and teachers and wine. on sunday i just relaxed and hung around and watched a movie and cooked beans and tortillas.

on tuesday i went to the house of sabine, the woman who directed our hike to mariazelle, to help her daughter with english. she was working on the past tense. tutoring english was harder than i envisoned because i know what is right, but i don't always know the rules why. but it was worth it because i taught her the question words and what type of answers go with each question word (like people for the word who). i also made 50 euro for 1.5 hours of tutoring. Not Bad.

that night i also was thinking about going to a bar for quiz night, but no one i called wanted to go, so instead i went for a run (which is much healthier) i just followed some other runner and ended up exploring this running forest, which is aawesome and i will definitely go back when i get that feeling to run again (maybe in a month, lol).

on wednesday i went to a meeting for a graz chorus. i don't have anything better to do with my time, so why not. they were actually not having practice when i went, but rather a celebration for st. martin's day, aka martini fest. they had prepared a really ornate meal in the beautiful cellar of the evangelical church. the meal was very traditional for st. martins day, including a "martini ganse" (st. martin's goose) and cabbage and knödel which is like really hearty bready stuffing. i had goose! i figured, hell, its tradition, i will try a bit. it tasted just like turkey to me. next week we are going to practice though, for a christmas show of Bach's Weihnachts Oratorium. (maybe you will see me sing in an austrian chorus fam!)

today at school i found out that there are 2 ski trips that the school goes on in march and that i am invited to go on one of those, so i am really excited! one is in corinthia, and one is in salzburg.

i also talked to one of the teachers in the teachers' lounge and he was a religion teacher. i told him i also studied religion in college and he invited me to speak about buddhism in a few weeks with his religion class. i am really excited about this also!

finally, tonight i am going to go watch some movies at the graz congress and convention center about mountainns, nature, various cultures, animals, etc. as part of the berg und abenteuer film fest. it is free! woo hoo! the venue looks beautiful.

Graveyard, Dinner at Monika's, off to denmark!

Hi everyone!

On Sunday i went to the local graveyard to check out the grave decorations for all saint's day. this is the day when austrians visit loved ones and light candles and bring lots of flowers and branches to decorate the graves. the graves themselves are way cooler than any other graves i've seen before. they are more like plots of ground with little beds of grass/flowers/plants growing on them. so you can really feel that death also brings life. i went with jameson and colleen, a couple of americans that i invited. we talked about how we would like our bodies to be dealt with after death, which was interesting.

on monday i went to monika's for dinner, which was of course delicious. one thing about this meeting that was interesting is that we were talking about Bio Markts, organic food stores, and jeff (an old teaching assistant that was also at michaela's house for dinner when i was there) reccommended that I check out a place called matzer. i thought he said Matza so i was like, "is it spelled like the jewish bread?" and michaela's son was like 'what is jewish bread?' and i explained matza bread and matza balls. they told me that they know no jewish people personally. i was thinking how many jews i know! it's just so crazy when something like this comes up and you realize how different the place you are living is actually is. damn you hitler!

anywho i am drinking some coffee and getting ready to go to denmark this morning to see auntie M and uncle ephe and Andrea. Woo hoo! family!

i love you all

Halloween classes, Sturm Graz

Servus!

This past week I was teaching at the HTL in Kaindorf. I didn't work on monday because it was the austrian national holiday which celebrates austria gaining independence from occupation after ww2 and also their signing of a permanent neutrality document, which means they cannot fight in wars unless they are attacked themselves. i was still hiking in mariazell on monday.

On tuesday I spent my classes talking about the similarities and differences in how america and austria celebrate their national holidays and had them get into small groups and make up their own holidays, which amounted to some pretty cute answers. many celebrated alcohol but some celebrated friendship and pizza and movies.

On wednesday my teacher baked me a whole cake for my birthday! that was really nice of her. she also invited me to her house for dinner on monday, which i am quite looking forward to. i love austrian cooking. a few of my classes sang me happy birthday too, in german and english. my hiking leaders sabine and peter also sent me a really nice email with a german poem in it wishing me a happy birthday and successful future. So even though i was away from friends and family this birthday, i still felt loved and i really appreciated that.

on wednesday and thursday i talked with my classes about halloween, which the kids seemed to like. we talked about trick or treating, costumes, halloween tricks, haunted houses, and I even made a jack o' lantern out of a butternut squash to show them how to make them. we also talked about similar celebrations in austria. they don't really celebrate halloween here, although it is becoming more and more popular (my guess is in about 5-10 years kids will be celebrating it). some things that they mentioned to me that were similar were:
-Laternenlaufen am St. Martinstag (Nov. 11) where little kids go around with lanterns that they make in kindergarten and sing a cute little song (which they all remembered and almost every class sang it to me of their own accord which was cute)

"Ich gehe mit meiner Laterne, und meine Laterne mit mir.
Da oben leuchten die Sterne, und unten leuchten wir.
Ein Lichtermeer zu Martins Ehre, rabimmel rabammel rabum."

I go with my lantern, my lantern goes with me.
Above the stars shine, below we shine.
A sea of lights in honor of St. Martin, rabimmel rabammel rabum.

-Fasching, where people of all ages dress up and parade through the streets, this is in february.
-Weihrauchtag ( i think that's what it's called) where people take special mushrooms that grow on trees in the forest and they are blessed by a priest and they light the mushrooms on fire and go from house to house to bless the houses.
-Unschuldige Kinder Tag (Innocent children day) where little kids go around with branches and hit people with them and say "frisch und gesund" (fresh and healthy) which is supposed to bring people luck and health in the next year. usually kids get money for this.

on thursday i gave out candy and dressed up as a black cat at school, which basically amounted to wearing all black and little cat ears, a feather boa as a tail, and painting whiskers and a black nose on my face. the kids in the hall would look at me weird but it was fun and i think they liked it. my teachers told me i was brave.

on friday i also went into school at leibnitz because next week i am going to denmark to visit andrea and uncle ephe and auntie m! i am leaving on thursday morning, so i worked an extra day this week to get my hours in.

last night i went to go see a sturm graz soccer game. it was really fun. they kicked the other teams asses. i went with some other americans. i learned a few cheers and although it was pretty darn cold i had lots of fun. i want to go to more and sit in the hardcore fan section and drink some Most (warm alcoholic cider). By the way, i tried mead the other day (called Met here), something I feel like i've only heard about in fantasy books. it was pretty delicious.