ashleylauren1289

yes. thats right ladies and gentleman. an american band in vienna, austria. and well not only one band but two bands. My Chemical Romance and Mindless Self Indulgence. and they pretty much were amazing!
after the concert we went out to stand by the buses…we being me, Caroline (flordia) and Amanda (wisconsin). and finally after a long long time Frank the bass player from MCR came out. and we had a long funny conversation with him because well…were also americans! duh!

so we traveled to vienna this weekend with all the exchange students. everything was amazingly beautiful. we did so much sightseeing. friday evening we arrived in vienna and had to find our way to the hostel. we only got lost once or twice and had to ask for directions once. but we finally made it there. we ate dinner and then had a little speech about vienna and then free time! we went out into the city and explored. everything was so different than my small town of wels. we made itback to the hostel around 12 and went straight to bed.
breakfast was at 7:15 and then we left for a walking tour of the first district. we saw the statue of Maria-Theresia between the twin museums…i went into the Naturhistorisches Museum with about half the of exchange students. after an hour we walked toward Stephensplatz and the Stephensdom…the cathedral which is over 900 years old and is now being ‘cleaned’ of the marks from the bombs of WWII. after seeing that we had lunch. and then we went to Schönbrunn Palace. it was the viennese summer residence for austrian royalty for many decades. the castle was built by the ruling Habsburgs and has 1,441 rooms. one of austrias great rulers, Maria Theresia, resided in the palace and gave birth to most of her 16 children there, including Marie Antoinette. (’If the peasants dont have bread, let them eat cake!’). after we finished the tour there it was our duty to find our way back to the hostel by ourselves. which we were successful. then we ate dinner and got ready for the opera! we saw ‘Die Zauberflöte’…the Magic Flute by Mozart. it was different. very strange and hard to follow because it was all in german. after that we went out into the city for a few hours and then back to the hostel to sleep.
sunday morning we had a bus tour of vienna. we saw so many different things. Ruprechtskirche….the oldest church in vienna…Hundertwasserhaus, the Danube River and Canal, the Secession building, the Austrian Parliament with the statue of Athena, Ringstrasse, Karlskirche, Wien Oper Haus…basically we saw just about everything.
sunday afternoon we took a train back to wels and well here i am again. in wels!

but i am going to vienna next weekend so a big update after that!

okay only a link to pictures. and they arent even my pictures but another exchange students because my host familys computer doesnt have a USB plugin thing so i cant upload my pictures

and ps the last few million pictures….like the ones at the zoo….are from vienna and i havent been there yet so look but dont think ive actually seen it. hahaha

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v248/Gartha/The%20First%20Month/

well first a little about school. today the exchange students in my school met with the headmistress and we have to take german classes everyday…lots of times a week…with the 2nd form. which the kids are like 10. and then we have whatever classes we fit into our schedules after that. so that wont be too bad. although when i walked back into my class…7B…with my 2nd form german books everyone got a laugh. but i also got a laugh today when one of the kids was reading in english and he mispronouned at least 2 words each sentence…just like he made fun on me the other day for not being able to read german. but the kid is nice so its okay.

okay now onto my tauplitz weekend with all the exchange students…yes all 71 of us. the oldies (kids who have been here since january) were there. they are mostly from australia, new zealand, brazil…and some other countries i dont remember. everyone is so nice though.

well then. we took the train to tauplitz and met up with everyone and then crammed onto a greyhound bus and started driving up this mountain. hairpin turns and everything. and we went up. and up. and up. and up. until we finally made it to the top. and then we kept driving and driving and then up a little hill and to the lodge. we got out of the bus and started playing in the snow. snowball fight against newbies and oldies! fun. hahaha we were sent to bed that night at 11 and we had breakfast the next morning at 8. we started hiking at 9:30. we walked on the road for a while and then down a stone path stream. then up a steep trail and then we were on the side of the mountain and soon there was snow on the trail. it was so snowy that we couldnt find the trail and had to head back down a way and onto a new trail. this trail was mostly flatter…meaning lots of little up and downs but not just straight up…and even though the trail was maybe 10 inches wide one side was a cliff. we hiked on that for a while and everyone fell a few times. we were walking over these roots in the middle of the trail and i fell and lucky my leg broke my fall…nice bruises from that one! and later on we were walking….wait let me reword that mountin climbing…down some rocks and i almost fell grabbed onto another kid and we both slide down the rocks. its a good thing another girl caught us or we would have been over the cliff! there were times that i didnt feel safe at all on the mountain but all in all it was a great experience because i know i would never do that on my own without being forced to. plus its a good bonding experience. hiking in the mountains for 2 days with no showers. we finally made it back to the lodge after 5 hours of hiking and i slept. we had dinner and then went to a “disco” with all the exchangers. not that much fun. bad music. please just play some rap or hiphop or r&b. but no. the next morning we woke up for breakfast and they told us we were going to go on a short walk. short walk meaning almost 3 hour hike. at one point we had to climb over fallen trees….do you know how hard that is with short legs??….and then later we had to literally cling to the side of a hill and roots to bypass falling into the lake. which i didnt! i made it! then we climbed another mountain and down the other side and finally made it back to the lodge. and this was all before lunch!

thank god im home from tauplitz in one piece.

ps. never go mountain climbing in etnies

well actually first two days. but thats too hard to write in german for me right now.

my host mom went on the bus with me in the morning of the first day. and that was good. we walked to the school (through the trainstation and then about 1k to the school) and i sat in the office with another exchange student, antoine, for almost an hour. and then the headmistress took us to our classes. 7B. heck yeah! lots of nice people so it was okay. we got out at 11:30am and my host aunt picked me up from school. and then my host mom took me to the police station and we started applying for my visa. and man is that guy mean. he does NOT like americans.

second day of school…i took the bus by myself and it was so packed that i had to stand…and then more and more people got on. we made it to the trainstation and i had to run to school cause i was gonna be late cause the bus got stuck in traffic

now thats its been a week of school things arent so bad. we are just now getting into our actual schedule…which changes weekly so thats going to be confusing for a while. the classes im hoping to take are english, german, art, history, religion, geography, and another one that i cant remember right now. hmmm nope still cant remember. ohhh yeahhh latin.

if i took all of the subjects there would be days that i would have to stay at school till 6pm so im happy that i only have to take half of the subjects.

my classmates are really nice. class 7B!

ps. my latin teacher asked me where i lived and i told him fischlham and the first thing he says is do you know where the church is. i was like yeah why. he says because the house beside the church is where Hitler went to elementary school for 6 years. i was like wow….thanks for the knowledge!

amanda! (another exchange student from wisconsin)

well yesterday amanda and her host family took me into linz and we…being only amanda and i….stayed in linz by ourselves for a few hours. we knew the last bus home was at 6:30 from wels. so around 2:30 we took a train from linz to wels…and that was easy compared to the rest of the trip. so we got to wels. and decided to check out the bus system. we ended up asking a local for help and then we still had trouble…we took a bus back to the trainstation and figured out we had a few hours to kill. so we walked around and walked around. and got back to the bus at 5:30. ohh look theres a bus leaving for home in 5 minutes! so we get on. and we drive. and we drive. ohh and that way…the opposite way we are going…is home. utohh. finally amanda finally goes to ask the bus driver where we are going. by this time we are in kremsmünster. and he tells us to get off and wait 6 minutes for the bus back to wels. so we wait and we get on. and we decide its a shorter walk home from statteldt than from wels. so we get off at statteldt. and its 8 km to steinerkirchen. we walk. and we walk and we walk and we walk. about 5 km. and then a miracle! my host mom and sister just happen to drive by and recognize us! so we run to the car. and by this time i was so happy that i was going back to the farm that it was a miracle! so then amanda spent the night here last night and…..she snores. lets just say amandas my slave for a while! hahahaha

 

ps. the pope is in vienna!

well today was butchering day…and man are the pigs fat!

but thats not what i wanted to talk about. last night my host cousin, elisabeth, took me into wels for coffee with two of her friends. and after coffee we went to a bar and then two clubs. its was fun. disco/techno clubs that is!

everythings been kinda boring lately till school starts. my couselor took me with her and her son and his friend to the zoo the other day. and truth be told i thought animals were the same everywhere. but nope. there were so many differnet kinds that we dont have in american zoos. and i got to pet a giraffe! plus a saw a scarlet ibis…and if you havent read the short story titled after the bird…well then you should!

 

i saw piglets for the first time last night.

i didnt get to take any pictures cause my camera is dead and the adapter i brought with me doesnt fit so i have to wait till we go into town to get one. but anyway…there are about 10 or 15 babies with each mother and about 8 or 9 mothers that i saw. one mother just had her babies yesterday and they were so small…and about 5 didnt make it but the others are all alright.