Guest Blog from Mom

Hello everyone!!  We have been very busy and having lots of fun.  While Alisha is at a class (the last before her break begins) I thought I’d sit down and do write on her blog.  So much has happened already!

The trip over was very long and I was very relieved when I finally reached my destination.  As some of you know, my flight from Frankfort to Salzburg was cancelled due to a strike at the airline I was supposed to fly on.  They had me fly to Munich and then go by bus to Salzburg.  The Lufthansa airline was very helpful because when I got off the plane in Munich there were two airline women waiting with a sign that said Salzburg. The group gathered (about 12 of us), got our luggage and headed out to the bus.  It was a two hour bus ride to Salzburg and I wouldn’t have chosen to go by bus.  However, it was quite a treat to see the country-side of Austria.  The season is a bit ahead of us so everything was green and blossoming.   Villages of houses would be grouped around farmland (I’m guessing lots of haying because the ground wasn’t dug up).  There were also the houses way up on the sides of the mountains…picture Heidi….just not in the Alps….smaller mountains.  There were long winding roads that lead to them.  They must have good plowing here!  The farms were very neat…much like Canadian farms.  Not a rusting car or truck to be seen!!!! 

Alisha was a very welcome sight when I got off the bus!  We headed right to her place on the city bus.  Once we got my suitcase taken care of we went for lunch.   We chose to walk and went along the river and I saw the scene of the picture of the fortress on the hill.  It’s so big and amazing.  We had decided on pizza and it was delicious.  Picture this…sharing a pizza in a small restaurant…finishing and paying…and me tripping and turning my foot as I exit the place on a little step down that I missed!! Yes, it’s true! In Salzburg for about an hour and a half and I go and do that! The very good news is that it could’ve been so much worse!  It feels much better after an icing and a couple of days. It turns out to be bruised.  My Clarks sandals have been a footsaver!

Alisha took me to her grocery store and we watched Survivor on her computer.  I struggled to stay awake towards the end of that but it was a fun evening.

Wednesday morning we visited St. Peter’s Church (the one Alisha told us about with the six organs) and had some yummy pastries for breakfast.   The weather was very cold and was still spitting rain.  The day before had been steady wind and rain so we were glad that had passed.  We spent quite a bit of time at the church so it was time to head to Alisha’s class.  I had intended to go to class but ended up a small café on the next street.  I was there for about an hour and a half writing in my journal and nursing a hot chocolate.  I was worried I’d overstay my welcome and would’ve braved the cold but took my cue from two women that were there when I arrived.  They left only ten minutes before Alisha came back to get me.  I felt very European!!!

We ended up going into some shops that Alisha wanted me to see and then we went back to her room until it was time go to IKEA and then meet up with Erin and her mother and sister. They arrived on Wed.  We met to go to an authentic Austrian restaurant.  I had the traditional Wiener-Schnitzel with potatoes and Alisha had bacon wrapped pork and potato wedges.  I tried a white wine spritzer and Alisha had Radler that is half beer and half lemonade.  I wasn’t crazy about either one…too much after taste.  The meat dishes and potatoes were very good with lots of salt as Alisha has told us.  For dessert we ordered a Salzburg Nockerl.  It was awful!!!  It smelled like egg and was the texture of custard with the meringue on top.  We’ve decided to stick with the other delicious pastries and chocolate!!!  One thing to note, here the server doesn’t bring your check until you ask for it!  He had checked in to see if we were doing good but we ended up sitting a while until we asked for the check!

We ended our day skyping with Fred and gabbing. 

This morning, Thursday, Alisha had a class so I did some much needed stretching and wrote in my journal.  When she got back we went to the Farmer’s Market they have on Thursdays.  It was a cross between our traditional markets and the Fryeburg Fair.  There were food booths selling hot cooked food like the fair, cheese, sausage (many, many kinds of both cheese and sausage), fish, pastries and loads of fresh flowers and plants.  We shared a cream roll and a pretzel.  This is a great (?) place for me because I love pastry and bread!  After this we walked back up to the Altstadt where we went into the church and visited the St. Peter's Cemetery and the shops.  It’s a bit warmer today and so it was much more pleasant.  I saw Mozart’s birthplace and some other statues and interesting tourist spots like a giant chess set in the square. We also stopped at St. Peter's Bakery, the oldest in Salzburg, and got some warm straight out of the oven bread!

Alisha helped get me back to her room before her class.  I’d wanted to go by myself but she insisted.  I would’ve had a little extra ride because I think I would’ve gotten on bus one instead of bus three.  I would’ve noticed what I’d done but it’s just as well she helped me!!!

A few more random thoughts…we saw Stephen King, Agatha Christie, and Mary Higgins Clark books (to name a few) in German.  There were English books and I thought it might be fun to buy one here but they’re more expensive plus the exchange!!!

The people here do not say excuse me…we’ve been in three different grocery stores and we hadn’t moved out of the way as they came up behind us we might’ve been run over!!!!

I don’t want my gravestone/marker to say RIP.

Bottled water isn’t too expensive when you buy it in the grocery store.

            I’d say most of the people have initially spoken to me/us as we’ve been out and about in German but have no trouble switching to English when they see my blank look!!!

            I know we are all aware of the good head on Alisha’s shoulders.  She continues to use it.   Now that I’m here, I’m even more aware of how much she’s had to learn and adjust to in a very short time.  She’s done extremely well and I’m very impressed!!!  What they say is proving true…the young lady we sent to Austria will not be the one that comes home!!   She’s doing GREAT!!!!

            We’ll be back to blog again before I leave.  The next three days will be busy as there’s still a lot we’d like to do together.  Today we decided not to take the time to do a day trip to Munich because I can say I’ve been there (Ahem!) and we’re hoping the weather will warm up, the rain will go away and we’ll get to do the many other things on our Salzburg list!!!

Friday, Saturday, Sunday!

This has been both a lazy AND a productive weekend at the same time! Friday I didn't really do much in the morning (that I remember as significant or worth mentioning), in the afternoon I went to the park and took pictures of the cherry blossoms and walked around to enjoy it all, that was really nice and I got pictures of the cherry blossoms while they were looking gorgeous! I also ended up meeting up with Paige and Lindsay there and we went to the playground, where we ended up playing on the seesaw with a little Austrian girl and her mom! That was a lot of fun, it's an awesome playground..they have a huge slide that is literally scary to go down..even though I'm not in elementary school anymore..

After that I skyped with Mom and Dad for a bit, and Ashley and I went to the grocery store to get hamburger meat and food for our Friday night party! This involved a trip to two grocery stores because the first one we went to didn't have hamburger meat..odd? I think so. Anyway, we got hamburger buns, hamburger, pickles, veggies, chips and a delicious bundt cake for dessert :) the 5 of us girls all got together and cooked some delicious food! Of course none of us had experience cooking burgers before, but Ashley and I manned the grill (or the stovetop) and they came out excellent! Then we ended up having a fun night just hanging out as a group after eating, highlighting Erin's hair and listening to music. It was a great time !

Saturday, I spent the morning watching a movie for class, it's a 3 HOUR long movie called "Sisi" which is a more modern version to the Sissi movie we watched in class last week. I watched it ahead because I won't be in class Tuesday (mom will be here!!) Actually it was a pretty good movie but it got boring just because I watched all 3 hours at once. So I lazed around all day in my room and watched that movie, planned out some mini trips for when mom is here (looking up ticket prices) and besides that did nothing, which was ok but I got really antsy from sitting around, so I went running in the late afternoon and explored the Altstadt some more..Saturday night I was going to go out and do something but ended up really hungry, making pasta for dinner and catching up on a Survivor episode (it was a pretty dull day overall, but I did some necessities).

Unfortunately, Sunday has been dull as well..because I've been doing homework ALL DAY! I set my alarm this morning, woke up, and wrote two essays..and edited another one. Then I did sentences for DaF class, looked up verbs and looked up some other grammar stuff I didn't understand. I'm trying to stay caught up with everything so I won't do really awful on the midterm. I feel a lot better now that I've done a huge chunk of work, but it was a pretty boring day and I literally stayed in my pajamas all day! So I think I might go on a walk or a run now, because once again I've been sitting around a lot. I'll be glad I did though when I have very little work to do this week when I have company! :)

So for the first time in a while, I'm not disappointed that the weekend is ending, because Mom is here on Tuesday! Then she's here for a whole week, and there are only four more days of classes until..two weeks of spring break!!! I'm so excited to have a spring break in Austria, Barcelona, and Mallorca..doesn't get much better than this!

Well, I'm about to go running and get some action in my life..too much sitting around, but I have been very productive and pretty proud of myself :) bye for now!

Thursday!

Today was a good day. I woke up early, before 6, to do laundry early before anyone else got up and used the washer and dryer (I wanted to wash my bedding and definitely needed to use the dryer, but the cool thing is they have clotheslines strung up in the basement for your clothes). Anyway, I did that and when my clothes were in the dryer I went on a little run, it was nice to see the city in the earlier morning, and have the Mirabell Gardens all to myself! AND the cherry blossoms are in bloom, I have to take a picture tomorrow!

I had DaF class in the morning and that was pretty boring but at least it went by pretty fast today. Then I went home and actually took a little nap after I made lunch because I was suddenly really tired. Then I got up and hung out before my other class at 4:30, and it was so nice out that our resident director decided to have class outside and bought us all a drink at the restaurant area we were sitting at, it was very nice and like in the 70's and sunny outside, so it made for a better class than sitting inside!

After class, we stopped at the grocery store, and I was standing waiting for my friends to grab food, and an older lady had a button fall off her sweater and roll a little ways under a display. So I bent down to get it and gave it to her and she thanked me. So then 10 minutes later we were all standing outside the grocery store getting ready to leave and the lady walked up to me and gave me this big bar of chocolate and said "für früher.." which means for earlier! It was soo nice of her! I said thankyou very much and she just smiled and said bye! That was sweet and made my day.

We went back to Mozart (my dorm) and I made my bed because I had just washed all my bedding, and then we made KRAFT MAC AND CHEESE for dinner because Ashley's mom mailed her some! it was wonderful..I really missed macaroni and cheese...then Erin, Ashley and I watched Anchorman after eating the macaroni and cheese, which is a funny movie. We also had cream puffs that Ashley bought as well as Wheat Thins and honey mustard pretzels which her Mom also mailed..ahh snack foods..

well, this weekend I hope to have some fun but also want to get a lot of work done to get it over with! I will have to balance the two together :) so glad I've made it to the weekend again!

Wednesday

Today was an average day. I didn't have class until 1pm today, but I got up in the morning and did some homework and cleaning. My room gets messy as fast as I clean it because I have to eat in my room (there is no kitchen in my apartment). So I'm always having to sweep and clean things up constantly. 

I had class at 1pm and that seemed to drag on for a while, it's the film class on Wednesdays, so we just talked about the film that we watched yesterday (Sissi). I won't be there for the film next week because that's the day mom comes!! so she burned me a DVD of the movie for next week (another Sissi film, but a more modern version) so I can watch it this weekend. It's 3 hours long..so I hope it's at least semi interesting.

After class, I took the bus back to my room, ate a banana because I was super hungry, did my German homework, went on a long run (went exploring and ended up on the hill above Salzburg, that was pretty fun), came back to my room and did an ab workout in my room. Then I ate dinner, took a shower, and watched an episode of one of my shows..and now I'm typing this! 

Everything is blooming here and it's really beautiful right now! I hope it lasts for a while until mom gets here next week! Now I only have to get through Thursday classes, and the weekend will be here :)

Tuesday!

Tuesday is usually my busiest day. Today, I woke up, ate breakfast in my room as usually, and went to class from 11:30-1. It was my DaF German class again, and we just went over more grammar stuff, she literally just talked for an hour and a half about grammar and it was really boring today!

After class, Erin and I went to the grocery store and bought a little frozen pizza to share for lunch, so we walked back to her dorm and cooked it, which was enjoyable, plus a little piece of cake for dessert :) then we had to take the bus back out to the other side of the city for our other Tuesday classes: Literature, where we talked about Kafka, and Film. On Tuesday's we actually watch the film. Today we watched the film Sissi about an Austrian queen..both classes are always held in my resident director's apartment, and back to back from each other. It got a little boring but the film was pretty interesting.

After class I came back to my room, talked myself out of running because it was chilly today and I was drained of energy from sitting down for such a long time..weird but true how sitting still makes you tired. So I made pasta instead for dinner, and then tonight I booked a TRIP TO PARIS FRANCE in May! I'm going with my friends Erin and Paige and then Kris is meeting us there! It should be a lot of fun!!! Paris was at the top of my list for places to see!

Now it's late and I'm about to head to bed, I didn't sleep very well last night, but I'll try to do more entries all this week!

Oh, and this is a super weird random fact, but we are looking at a map of the Paris metro right now and talking about how complicated it is, and it reminded me of how I wanted to comment that in Rome, the metro only has TWO lines on it..because they have so many ruins and things under the city, I guess they can't build a very complex metro system. But it was very surprising that for such a large city they have such a simple metro. They do have buses though. Oh well... :) bye for now!

Monday..

I figured I will try to do a blog entry every day this week so you can get an idea of what I do every week. Just to begin, Monday always comes so quickly, the weekend always flies by. Sunday afternoon was pretty nice, I relaxed down by the river with my friends Erin, Ashley and Lindsay and listened to some music and did a regular journal entry. It was such a GORGEOUS day yesterday.

Today I got up at around 10, had some breakfast and hung out in my room. It's raining today unfortunately, not really hard but enough that I wore my rain jacket and got wet on my way to the bus stop. Luckily it's not far away. On Mondays I only have one class, DaF, so I took the bus to class at 12, and it went pretty well today, it went by quickly (it's an hour and a half 3 days a week, so sometimes it feels really long). Today we went over more grammar and had a mini surprise quiz at the end of class...

After class I headed directly to the grocery store and hunted out some sales, definitely saving some money for the week. I usually do my grocery shopping on Mondays. Fact of the day: mayonnaise and mustard come in tubes here. I got a tube of mustard for 0,39 cents! Oh and just as a side note my bus pass finally got checked for the first time today, they use an honors system here, so you buy a bus pass and then they check it at random. I bought a semester bus pass so I'm all set, but this was the first time since I got here in February that I've been asked to show it.

Then I came back and made mashed potatoes and a piece of white sausage for lunch. I'm getting slightly better at cooking living here, but not much. I really need a meat thermometer so I can know for sure when things are done, I'm not good with cooking meat at all. I had to go online and look up how to cook "white sausage" because I had no idea. It's a Bavarian, southern German sausage. I only had a little piece but it was good. Otherwise I was proud of myself for making my own mashed potatoes. They turned out pretty good and then I added a little bit of garlic powder, salt and pepper to season them, so I think I did a decent job! I guess I have to learn how to cook real food sometime, but as always pasta is still the cheapest thing you can find!

Mondays are usually pretty mundane..right now I should be doing some DaF sentences for homework, we have to write them out to practice different types of grammar, so I guess I will get that over with. After that, maybe do a little reading for German and then call it a night, and probably catch up on some Survivor episodes! I think I'm 4 or 5 behind...I want to know what's going on!

Well, as long as I remember I'll do an entry for Tuesday tomorrow! :) hope all is well with everyone!

another great weekend!

Well, this has been a really great weekend! Thursday night (which is when my weekend starts) we went out to dinner at a pizza/Italian restaurant in Salzburg. It was spontaneous and very delicious! We also got dessert crepes which were pretty yummy but kindof a ripoff (not worth the price at all, but worth a try I guess). Thursday night I caught up on some tv shows which was pretty fun.

Friday I went running with Lindsay (she's in my group), did a couple quick errands, and then Erin and I cooked dinner (omelets and homefries, which were super delicious). Friday night we hung out with our resident director Gabriella outside of class which was pretty fun! She took us to a cafe/restaurant on the roof of a hotel with a great view of the city below. I want to take Mom there when she comes :)

On Saturday I had the best day so far almost!! With Erin, Josh, his roommate Tyler, a kid Bobby I met, and these girls Shannon and April hiked the Gaisberg and it was such a gorgeous day..and a challenging hike! I guess we ended up taking the "hard" path up the mountain rather than the easy one..little did we know. By the top of the mountain my legs were basically numb, but I felt so accomplished. It was such a great workout with the most amazing views I have seen so far in Salzburg. It looked just like the Sound of Music mountains, green hills and huge Alps..we could see mountains that were over the border in Germany. Then at the top Josh had packed cookies for us, plus a piece of cake. It was SUCH a great day. And when we got back we made homeade alfredo sauce for pasta..it felt well deserved after such a great hike!

It's another beautiful day in Salzburg today (it's 71 degrees!!) so I might go down to the river and do some homework. My German as a foreign language class is a little harder than I would have expected, so I need to study little by little if I want to do well in it. I feel so lucky that I get to see this beautiful country and live here for study abroad! It was a great decision to experience this and to already have seen Italy and a few other cities in Austria. I'm also going to Barcelona and Mallorca (island off of Spain) to visit Kris, and want to book a trip to Paris today!!

I'm so excited because Mom is here in a little over a week, and my spring break is also a little bit after that! There should be some fun times ahead :) :)