Breakfast consisted of a roll and an orange. And since I'm sure all of the people out there in cyberland really want to know exactly what I ate and when, but pretty much as soon as we get done with the first week, unless its something amazing, I doubt you'll hear about my meals.
Then began the waiting. Today was the day that we got assigned our housing and also had our German placement interviews. I was going to be living with the girls that wanted to speak as much German as possible. Since I had the lowest student number (030), we would all go in at the same time when my number was called. My group for German was called before my housing number, so I trooped into a little room with five other people to take our oral exam. We sat around a table and had mini-interviews with Helmut's mom and the director. We just talked about how much German we had had and some of our other interests. It didn't take long, only about 20 minutes to get through all of us. Then while I was waiting for housing with the girls, we were approached by Jeremy, the boy that had lived here in the fall, and he asked us if we would want to live with him and two other guys. After a lot of running around and interrogating him, we decided that it would be a good idea. The seven of us would live in an apartment with three double rooms and a single. Jeremy already had dibs on the single, so the rest of us were sharing. He said the apartment was really big and in good shape. It's in the 16th district, so we would have to take a bus or the S-Bahn to the city center for classes, but it was only about a 30 minute trip. Since he already lived here, we could jump the line and get our spots in the apartment before lunch, which meant we would have the rest of the day free.
Lunch was a turkey burger and mashed potatoes and gravy. The turkey burger was slightly suspicious, but with enough gravy on it, anything will taste reasonable. I ate with Ben and Sofia, who are hilarious together. (They didn't know each other before this meal) During lunch, we talked about the slappy-jumpy-dance from the night before and some of the social manners we would have to practice. Then, since it was such a nice day, we thought it would be a good idea to go for a walk in the Alps.
On the way back from picking up our jackets, we ran into Matt, Anna, and Andre, who decided to join us on our excursion. Once we got outside, we decided to head for the big mountain that you can see in the one picture behind us. Before we got to the picture area, we found a look-out post in a lumber-jacky area. Since we were all worried about bears (I'm not really sure why), we decided that it would be a good idea that if we saw one, to wave our hands in the air and sing at it. If nothing else, it would probably run away just to get away from the singing. There were also some horse turds on the trail, and Sofia became obsessed with seeing this mysterious horse. We started walking through the woods and came to a small stream, which we crossed, and continued walking along. Someone said, "Well, we'll come to the mountain eventually because we're following the stream." and I replied, "Yeah, but we're following it downstream." The stream followed a road and because it started going downhill, we got the bright idea to cut across a big field and take the way the crow flies. As we were running/walking up the hill, we started getting out of breath, but our excuse was that it was the altitude, not that we were out of shape. :-) As we were coming down the other side, still in the pasture, we saw something in the woods. Sofia was convinced that it was a horse, but it went through several transformations including a man and a wolf, before we finally decided that it was an old woman picking mushrooms. From that point on, we called it the granny-horse. Just in case it was Big Foot, Ben took a movie with his digital camera. Once we were back in the woods, avoiding the granny-horse, we started thinking about wolves. I mean, it makes sense; all the Grimm Brother Fairy Tales took place in southern Germany, which is really close to Austria. Since wolves seemed like a pretty decent threat, and there were a lot of trees, we cut through the field to a driveway and got back on the road. In doing so, we nixed the whole "let's climb a mountain" idea.
Instead of climbing mountains or going back to the hostel, we came to a sign that said we were close to Erlausee, which is an Alpine lake near Mariazell. This area was beautiful and there were a lot of Austrians hiking around the lake, so we got to practice our "Gruß Gott"'s a lot. I think it was a like a resort community or something. But people in Austria, especially in the rural areas, all greet each other, which is why we were saying "Gruß Gott." While we were walking around the lake, we saw chickens in a person's yard and wanted to watch them for a bit. They (three roosters) were chasing a raven off of their turf when there was dissention in the ranks. Two of the under-roosters started pecking the head rooster, and the charge toward the raven was dropped. Then there was a poodle in another yard that sat and barked at us the entire time we were looking at the view in front of his house. As we were walking away, an older gentleman was coming toward us with his wife and said that we were on the dog's territory, that he owned the house and the dock and the lake and that that was why he was barking at us. Now since we don't understand all that much German yet, we all just kind of laughed until we were past him and asked Matt what he had said. Then it was a lot funnier. It was getting late, and it was really time to head back because Andre still hadn't taken care of his housing. On the way to the hostel, we ran into several groups of other IES kids so we practiced more enthusiastic "Gruß Gott"s (which is short for something, but it's a greeting used in Southern Germany and Austria).
Back in the hostel, we still had some free time, so I made another round of calls to la familia and Matt. Then a bunch of us sat around and talked about the rules of squash, which is totally random, but it killed the time. FINALLY, it was time for dinner. We had schnitzel with rice and veggies and some more of the regular dessert foods.
After dinner, we filled out our Meldezettel. In Austria, each person has to register with the local (district) police where they are living. That's what these forms were for. We had to fill one out for the beginning of the semester, and then once we move out, the IES people will de-register us, which required another form.
Again, we had more meetings after dinner covering tips and hints for living in Austria; like where to do grocery shopping and where to find shampoo. We also got information on the Palais Corbelli, which is where IES is housed. The PC was built by an Italian military officer who wanted a house in Vienna for the Ball season held every January through May, with time taken our for Lent. It has been passed through the family, and one of his decendants still lives there. Apparently, she lives in the basement and the IES people say living in the basement does things to you. I saw her today, but we're not supposed to say anything to her because she doens't like American students. Her newest complaint is that we smile too much. I'll have more descriptions about the PC when we get to the post about that day -- hopefully I'll get that up here sometime tomorrow.
After our meetings, we learned how to waltz. In the ballroom class I took at PSU, the girls always stepped back first with their right foot and the boys stepped forward on their left. Here, we did the reverse, and we did what I call the turning box. It's not the one where you move around the room, but it takes four three-counts to make a complete box, and at each three-count you make a quarter turn. I'm sure that made sense to somebody out there, probably Matt. I bossed my partners around about their frames and I got to lead as much as possible, which is very bad for me because then I try to lead when I'm with someone who knows what they're doing and I get in trouble. One of the boys, Travis, who is now one of the flatties, is a good lead, but he had danced before. People started trickling out because they wanted to go out to local bars and such. Since it was only me and Travis left, we put on some swing music and he taught me some showy stuff like the death drop and the butt spin. They're both very technical names, but they're fun to do. Since we had been dancing on and off for about two hours, it was time to call it a night, but on the way back to our rooms, we started talking about our S.O.'s. It was really cute and I got to brag about Matt (who, as far as I'm concerned is like the bestest boyfriend ever).
Back in my room, Jessi was still a little bit awake, so we had a chat before I went out and called Matt again. Of course, boys became the topic of conversation because everybody is missing their boyfriends right now. But we did also talk about other stuff like Germany and Austria and music. She plays the piano.
Just before I went to bed, I called Matt again to tell him that I miss him and all that mushy, gushy stuff I don't want the whole world to read. And then I went to bed.
On a sidenote: The Pope is visiting Mariazell in September because it is the 850th anniversary of the church there.
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