Christmas was definitely different but cool. So sleep in till about 10.30/11, everything's very relaxed. Go downstairs too late for breakfast but lunch will be soon anyway. Conny and Constanze have already started decorating the tree so I join in and help them. And the tree is seriously massive, 7-8m! It took ages to set it up the night before. We need a ladder to get decorations to the top! So this goes on for a couple of hours and then it's time for lunch, but nothing too big because lunch isn't time for the 'big meal'. Then we have a couple more hours of tree decorating, hanging out and for a lot of people it's still time to wrap presents!
Then at about 6.30pm we all bring presents down and come down for dinner. Salmon for everyone (except Constanze and me because we don't like it! So we eat Wiener Schnitzel instead), potato croquette thingies, and salad and vegetables etc. After our good feed, Barbara and Rudolf light the candles on the tree and we all stand around and THEN we say "Frohe Weihnachten!". So that I find a bit strange, how it's just the night that's Christmas. But then, of course, it's time for presents!
I got a lot of presents from everyone actually, it was really cool. The presents from my parents arrived the day before, just in time, and my host parents gave me some really cool, but of course small and light things! I got presents from my nana and granddad, from my host nana and granddad, from my sister, from my host sisters and from Anna! :D Very spoilt, thank you to everyone.
Then we went to Church at 10pm and then had a massive family Skype with all of my host family and all of my family in Tauranga. Very entertaining!
Then on the 27th we went to the Oma's in Carinthia. So we spend the morning packing and getting ready and everything, and we manage to get everything in the car, and Rudolf's been driving around the whole morning trying to buy something to attach the skis to the roof because they forgot that they can't put the box thing on the roof of the new car and then can't find the keys for the box. So he manages to find a solution and we get on our way with the skis strapped to the roof. We're about 20 minutes in and just getting on the autobahn and we get up to 120kmph (legal speed limit on the autobahn! :O) and discover that the new ski attachment makes a loud, extremely high-pitched whistling noise. We still have 4 hours to Carinthia. So, we detour to the next rest stop and try to fix the problem. Now, without the ski poles, it is a bit quieter. So what we ended up doing was taking an hour longer to get to Carinthia and only going 100kmph because at that speed the whistling was bearable!
But we got there in the end and everything was fine and I met the Oma and she was really nice and everything was good. Then the next day we went skiing. Well, I can't ski, so Barbara and I went cross-country skiing (she can't ski very well either and doesn't like it). One of the most tiring things I've ever done! It's kinda like rollerblading with massive bloody skis strapped to your feet. And a good part of the track was uphill. I think we definitely deserved the Wiener Schnitzel for lunch. Then after lunch we went to the hot pools and it was really nice and relaxing. Then we go home and have dinner. Wiener Schnitzel again! We didn't want to say anything because she'd obviously gone to a lot of work making it for us, but needless to say, I don't think I'll be needing to eat Wiener Schnitzel again for a while!
We left the next day and went through Graz which was really cool, a really nice city. Then, that Friday was New Year's. Partay! Stefan (from Iceland), Sarah (from America) and Anna came to my place and we had a party for 4! It was really nice to just have a small amount of people and we still managed to have a good time and light the fireworks that Stefan brought with him!
Then on the third was the start of the two countries in one day adventure with Anna and Nick. Monday I was up at 6.30 and at the train station in Vienna at 8.30 to take the train to Bratislava. Thanks to my carefully researched plan we were at Aupark (the biggest shopping centre there) at 11.30 and started off the day with a bit of retail therapy. We then moved on to the bobsledding earlier than planned, but after not actually being able to find the place, we went to a market instead that we saw from the bus where Nick bought a hat for
€2 and Anna a handbag for €17. Then we foraged further into the city and specifically into the old city where we saw all the sights of Bratislava and went into countless tourist shops. Nick was complaining to me about how Bratislava thought that they were good enough to take credit for Mozart in one of the shops and this Australian guy standing near by goes, "yeah, that chap seems to be everywhere, doesn't he?" and we end up having a 5 minute conversation with an Australian guy and his wife on the other side of the world! Definitely a small world.
We manage to find our way back to the train station in time for the train and "spin yarns" the entire way back, much to the entertainment on the English group of three young people sitting directly opposite us! We all stayed the night in Vienna because the next day...
We got up at 5.45. Well I did. Nick was 5.30 because he's crazy and has like 10 pieces of toast for breakfast, and Anna was 6.15 because she didn't wake up till then... So after a mad dash we were out of the house at 6.30 and in time for the 7.09 train to Budapest. Cruelly early! But after 3 hours we finally arrive and as soon as we get off I realize that I've left the plan for the day on the train. So at the money exchange place (they use Hungarian Forinths-so cool! It was 220 forinths for 1 euro...) we also asked for a map and decided to wing it. We managed to find the metro okay, and it actually looked quite nice, despite being eastern Europe. And then the metro pulls up. It's seriously a tin can on wheels going about 100km an hour! It was actually quite funny. But we get to the shopping street in one piece and again start our attack on the tourist shops. We actually did a hell of a lot of walking in Budapest because we had the map and weren't entirely sure on the public transport lines.
So we walked all over the city checking out all the sights and old buildings, but after seeing the parliament Anna and I had really sore feet so we decided to take the tram back into the city and check out a market we had seen earlier. So we bought the tickets we thought that we needed and it was great to sit down. What we didn't realize was that they were the tickets for the metro and not for the trams, and having the worst luck in the world, we go through a ticket check and they inform us that we have the wrong tickets. So the short of it is, if we pay the fine then it's only 6000. Each. Now remember, that is actually only €25. But, being nearly the end of the two days, we don't have enough left between us. Luckily the controller guy saw that we really didn't know and we didn't have enough cash on us so we just paid for two people. After that, we decided to walk the whole way back to the train station and managed to scrape enough for dinner from the money that he didn't take from us!
So although it was really unfortunate, and seemed really unfair to us, not being able to speak Hungarian and all, we didn't let it ruin the day and looked upon it as an experience of being on exchange!
So a very eventful last two weeks, and unfortunately it's back to school on Monday... I'm off to enjoy the holidays while they last!
Till next time!
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