Friday, December 24, 2010

The Christmas Eve of Christmas Eve

First of all, I'm really sorry! I've been so busy this week and on Sunday I had to finish this massive English project... But I will tell all now.

So Monday and Tuesday last week were really quite unspectacular. Except I found out that Alex had to have an operation. Luckily all went well! But that comes later.

Then Wednesday I had dance class like always and it was the last one of the beginner course and the second to last one of the year. We learnt the basic step of disco fox and practised heaps of others and also did this turn-y thing that looked really complicated but actually wasn't too bad for the tango.

Then Thursday was really sad because it was like a little leaving party in Vienna for Flore... :'( She's already back in Belgium and will be there for 10 days before flying to Ireland for 5 months. The time has gone so fast! I can't believe it's nearly Christmas, it's so crazy. Even though we didn't do that much it was still cool to hang out and plus we went to the Rathaus Christkindlmarkt which was awesome! There are these Christmas markets all over Vienna and it was my first one and it was really cool. And on Friday I went to the one at Schönbrun with Chrissi and Flo. It was nice as well, but apparently it's more for "cultural tourists" so it wasn't as big or impressive as the one at the Rathaus.

Then on Saturday was Kekse backen Tag with AFS! First of all I went to Constanze's English lesson and enthralled them with a sort of presentation on NZ. But seriously, they all seemed to be really interested and everyone here finds it so weird that Christmas is hot in NZ! I find it weird that it's cold here... I actually can't believe that tomorrow is Christmas... It shouldn't be this cold! Plus there's way too much school... I should've had a month free but I don't even get a day before! Now that is weird. But anyways, the biscuit baking was cool and it was so relaxed and nice to just hang out the whole day. Then that night we went out punschen (read earlier... drinking punch, but it's warm and not like the gross party kind but actually nice) in Baden and we were meant to stay like 3 hours, or that was the plan, but it was so cold that everyone only stayed like an hour and a half and by then Anna and I were frozen. And she was even wearing my gloves as well. Bit of a Tauranga softie...

Saturday night she stayed the night at mine and then on Sunday we just hung out around the house, slept and such. Quite a restful weekend really.

Then on Monday we had the Stammtisch again. There were quite a few people there this time and it was really fun to see all the people that you don't see very often and for everyone to just hang out and chat.

Then Tuesday... First of all, I made Christmas mince pies, from scratch, without a food processor, the mince and the dough and they taste REALLY GOOD! Whooo! I was quite proud of myself because I thought that they would possibly by horrible or at least different... But in reality not so different from Nana's! (Although, of course, not as good Nana. :D) Then I played Monopoly with Constanze and I felt really bad because I totally bankrupt her. Even though I didn't buy any of her properties, I've just got a head for business... Well. Kind of.

Then last night I went shopping in Vienna afterschool for a few last-minute Christmas presents and managed to get everything (I hope...) so I'm all set for tomorrow! And then I had dance class and it was the first week of the new course (bronze)... Originally there must've been at least 30 of us and space was always really tight. Now... There were 7 boys who were actually taking the class and 3 who were kinda like assistants, (that was really embarrassing, I just had to look up how to spell that...) and they dance when there aren't enough guys. And there were 12 girls. Quite a dramatic reduction really! Evidently lots of people don't actually like it, they just go and do the beginner course because everyone else does... But seriously, it's such an awesome idea I don't see why not!

Then today I just had school and I still have P.E. this afternoon... Then I'm free, yay! Btw, the reason that this post is called the Christmas Eve of Christmas Eve is because here they celebrate Christmas at night on the 24th. Which is actually quite convenient because you guys will all be celebrating at the same time that I am! But it is interesting, and also that you have to wait the whole day for presents... Not sure if I'm going to like that... But yeah, today is technically the Christmas Eve of Christmas Eve!

So I shall update you all on the going-ons here after Christmas and hopefully give a detailed Christmas post on Sunday. Ciao for now!

Monday, December 13, 2010

Another Week Closer to the End...

Mini freak-out at the fact that I have less than two months! :O I feel like I've been away from home for a really long time but only here for like a few weeks... On the other hand, my German is way better than a few weeks. Yeah! :D

So Monday was a short day, as always thankfully! We finally moved on from the bloody alps in Geography... And actually it was really interesting. We're talking about society and families and things and so our homework was to find out about our family tree. It actually really interested me so I sent an email to Granddad straight away asking what he knew about Mum's side and got to work on finding out about Dad's side... And I found out so much. I knew that his grandparents on Grandpa's side had his middle name and Alex's middle name (Estelle and Allan Kincaid) and when I googled them I managed to find her mother as well which was really cool. But then, when I googled her and her husband (Alexina Boulanger and Octave Brousseau) I managed to find our family going back to the 1600's! Seriously, starting from Andre Pepin who was born in 1600. It was so awesome. And even more awesome is the fact that we have French-Canadian roots. It was seriously exciting and I'm attaching the link of the family tree for any inquisitive family members! :)

Then on Tuesday it had rained during the night and then frozen. So that meant, the paths were incredibly icy! Luckily I left really early, because it took about half an hour to get to school whereas it's usually a 20 minute walk... Plus I nearly fell over about 10 times... But all that aside, I finally got there and had a French test which I thought didn't go that well, but results come later in the post... Also on Tuesday, I dyed my hair... Brown... Not like super drastically purple or anything, but still a change when I've been blonde my whole life! It took my host family as well as me a while to get used to it! But it looks really cool and I really like the colour.

Then on Wednesday we had the day off school. A great advantage of living in a primarily Catholic nation is that you get all the Catholic holidays! It was the day of a Saint (Maria Empfängnis), so I got to sleep in and then have a really long Skype with Kate G which was really cool. Btw, Clementine we must Skype sometime. :P And then Nick, Noémie and Stefan came over and we went sledding (well, tried to. The snow wasn't the best, but still a laugh), had a snowball fight and made a snowman. So a cold but good day!

Then on Thursday it was Conny's graduation from University. Even though she's staying on to do her doctorate, it was still a big deal because she's finished with her master's and could theoretically go and get a decent job now. It was really cool (although one of the professors who spoke had a really really REALLY long speech... But still!), it was awesome to celebrate with her. And I got to meet Rudolf's two other brothers as well. The older one was a lot like Uncle Skip, man it was weird... An Austrian version of Skip, Dad! Haha.

Friday I got my results of the second French test back! Another top mark... :D Must be all that French blood... Haha.

Then Saturday I met up with Anna and Nick in Vienna and we had a great NZ Christmas shopping day together. It's weird, thinking about it, it's the first NZer day that we've had! It was great to catch up and just be around normal accents for a day... :P Plus I got pretty much all the presents that I need so very productive as well!

Then today not much, just hung around at home and ate goose for lunch... It was actually quite nice but an interesting experience... I tried not to think of little geese running around quacking... Well, now I have to go and study for my English test tomorrow... Like seriously, I have no idea how the American voting system works! Help from any American family?

Till next time!

Monday, December 6, 2010

Week of Snow

So. Experiences with the snow. It's snowed everyday for this past week which is totally freaking awesome! But, it means that the temperature hasn't been above about 3 degrees the entire time. I'm surprised I still have two hands really. Although, thanks to the gloves that Nana gave me, they've been very warmly protected!

Monday, not much happened, just the start of the snow fest... Except Rudolf drove me to school which was really nice, because it was snowing in the morning. And on Tuesday I had a French test with my 8th year class, and it actually went really well! I wasn't sure, because I never managed to finish one of the books and the other one I didn't read because I came into the class too late. But so I had three hours to write about one book and a bit of grammar and I found that I could actually do it quite well! So hopefully the mark reflects that...

Wednesday, more snow. And it was really cool, in history we were talking about like the Austrian first republic and the events leading up to WW2 and everything and we were reading this text. And the history teacher asked the class what the word "pragmatisch" meant. Now I know what you're all thinking, it looks extremely similar to an English word! But I had to think about it for a bit, how to explain it in German, and I thought for sure someone else would know. But no one did. So the teacher says, "none of you know what it means?" So I put up my hand and he bursts out laughing and says, "see, the exchange student from New Zealand knows what it means and you guys don't!" Never have I been happier for my extensive vocabulary in English than knowing that "pragmatisch" (pragmatic) means useful or practical. Then I made cookies that afternoon to celebrate. And because I wanted to, but you know.

Then on Friday I had a German test with my class of littlies who are about 10/11 years old. I had to write a story from a real life experience and it wasn't too hard so hopefully it went okay! And we got our results for the math test back. Total fail with 3 points from 48. Good thing Wellington Girls' doesn't need any marks... But then it was better in history and psychology, actually really interesting in psychology. First of all we were talking about the pre-frontal cortex of the brain and what it does (thanks dad! :D) and then we watched this movie on these people, "savants" who had all these freaky abilities. Like one guy could remember a number like 50 digits long and then do 60^33 in his head! And this other guy could be told any date and tell you the day of the week, and when it was a date on a day that he's been alive, also the weather and what he was doing... Crazy people! But, very interesting.

Then on Saturday we tried to do an AFS Flash Mob, but it failed because only 6 people showed up... And, the guy that was organising it with me was an hour late so we waited for ages in the cold! But we did actually end up having a good time and the other guy that came is a host brother of a friend of my host sister's... Kinda complicated... But so his host brother was at my house for my host sister's birthday party and so we went back together and had a really good time hanging out with 20 of Constanze's closest friends... But seriously, it was cool.

And then today was her birthday so we had a real family day and a nice lunch and cake and presents and it was really cool. Chrissi gave her some RTD's because she's legal to drink now... And I gave her a Converse shoe charm for her bracelet because she has like 4 pairs! I thought it was quite appropriate! And so another week, hopefully more snow, and I have Wednesday off, yay!

Till next week...