Meet the Russians

Well I am once again an entire month behind on my blog. I keep a journal of hand written dot points of interesting things that happened. However, I’ve been so busy with uni work, travelling and sightseeing that it’s been difficult to sit down and write my blog. I could of course upload some really poorly written account but I want it to be coherent which requires more time and effort.

After my trip around Austria I had a couple really busy weeks which I spent in Vienna. I had a lot of interesting adventures and it was good to spend some quality time in the city that’s become my second home. Firstly, I finally made it to a cinema in Europe. Back in February some friends and I attempted to go but failed because of the different customs here in Europe. This time I went with my tandem-learning buddy Roland, a local, and he was able to teach me the way of movies in Europe. We arrived at the cinema 30 minutes before the film started in order to buy tickets and reserve seats. I think seats should only be set if the movie and time slot are popular because there were 10 people in the entire cinema but due to set seats were all sitting next to one another. I’m sure this didn’t bother the locals because Europeans are not used to having space, but personally I just wanted to stretch out and thought it ridiculous to be sitting next to a stranger when there was so much space. Roland and I watched Nachts im Museum 2 or the 2nd movie of Night at the Museum in German. I understood the plot and most of the dialogue. In fact, there were only a few things I could not figure out. However, I missed out on some of the jokes due to the language difficulty. Roland and I also went to see Angels and Demons in English and I think he understood more of the movie than me because he has studied science in English and I have not!

My whinge at this time was that ATMs in Europe only give you 100 Euro notes, unless you enter an amount ending in 50 in which case you will get one 50 Euro note. Due to ATM fees I get out 300 Euro at a time and then keep money in my room. The problem is this means I only get 100 Euro notes but businesses do not stock 20 Euro notes in their tills. They only have 10s and 5s. So this means businesses either turn me away and I cannot buy something because they cannot give me change or I get 8 or 9 10Euro notes. It’s ridiculous. I had similar problems in Switzerland, Czech Republic and Poland where the ATMs give you high notes which no one can change. This is exacerbated by the fact that I’m normally not making any large purchases above 20 Euro.

In these couple weeks I explored more of Vienna. I went to the zoo where the highlight was the polar bears which were so cute playing around and fighting each other. The monkeys hanging around were also fun to watch and as I said at the time they have ‘cute buts’. But the most interesting thing was walking through a cave full of bats. That’s right you are actually in with the bats and of course it is pitch black dark inside so you cannot see, you can just hear and feel them. I was scared and Gwen and I ran through the cave screaming.

I also checked out the Neue Burg museums. These museums have lots of interesting old fashioned instruments including an instrument called the ‘hurty gurty’, a brilliant collection of armour for all sorts of occasions and artefacts from the Ephesus which is an archaeological site in Turkey. Personally, I think it’s wrong that Austrian archaeologists go to Turkey and remove these ancient ruins to show in their own museum. I would recommend these museums and my friend and I easily spent a couple hours looking at all of these things.

As it was nearing the end of everyone’s time in Vienna a group of us visited the Donau Tower which is a tower overlooking the river of Vienna. At the top there is a viewing platform where you can look out over the entire city. It really showed that none of us knew the geography of the city very well as we struggled to find landmarks. There is a rotating restaurant at the top where we stayed for a few hours so we got to see the view in daylight and at night. The view was nice but the real highlight was the conversation. I was with 2 exchange students from America, 1 from Finland and 1 Austrian who had previously been on exchange to America. We discussed all of the bad things that happened when we first arrived in Vienna because we didn’t know where things were, or have things or know how to do things. It turns out I wasn’t the only one who ate their first meal with their fingers!

Between us we had experienced a range of problems in the new city from local students asking someone to move rooms as soon as they arrived because they wanted to stay with their friend to not being able to find the university. But the interesting thing was because of this all of us wanted to find out more about the services our home universities have for exchange students and get involved and help new exchange students when they arrive in our home cities. Basically we want to pay it forward. Now we know what really could have helped at the time and what simple things we could do that would make a huge difference to a new person in town. For example, all of us had our university assigned buddy who asked us if we needed anything, but having just arrived in a new city and country none of us knew what to ask for. This issue is one that I need to follow up on once I start back at UniSA.

During these couple weeks I also had a group assignment to complete for German class. I formed a group with 2 Russians. They were so friendly and we chatted a great deal about life in Russia compared to Austria and Australia. I learnt that university in Russia is a lot more personalised. All of the teachers know the students names and they do not have student ID numbers. I was amused to hear that they felt having ID numbers was like being in prison. An advantage of university in Russia is that the teachers personally take you through your exams and assignments to tell you where you went wrong. Russian elections are crazy! There used to be an option for ‘no one’ because people did not support any of the politicians but they took it away because this option was too popular.

Our assignment was to interview Austrians in German about a given topic and I convinced the Russians to choose smoking because I wanted to know why people seem to want to kill themselves with smoking in Austria. It was an extremely interesting experience. Firstly, we struggled to find men to ask. Secondly, it was a great anthropological experiment to listen to the basis on which we decided who to ask. Our reasons not to ask someone included:
· They’re not Austrian!
· He’s drunk.
· They’re sucking face.
· Too old
· Too young
· ‘I don’t like the look of him’
· They’re busy

My Great Austrian Adventure: 'I am the Mountain, I am the sea' (Hallstatt)

On Sunday Gwen and I took the train from Salzburg to Hallstatt, which involved changing trains and a total journey of around 2.5 hours. The last part of this train ride was great because we got to see numerous lakes. I’ve heard that Austria has over 500 lakes and on that train ride we only saw around 10 but they were magnificent. With all the rain we had seen that weekend, somehow the day was perfect, no wind, no rain, no clouds, just blue skies and around 25 degrees. We exited the train to be greeted by the biggest lake I’ve ever seen. It was huge and in every direction surrounding it there were mountains. Some still had snow capped peaks while the others were bright green with trees. It was beautiful. The water itself did not move. It was so still and clear that it offered perfect reflections of the surrounding mountains. It is a very beautiful place, well worth visiting.

The town of Hallstatt is actually on the opposite side of the lake, so we had to take a ferry across the lake. Once there, we realised that people’s backyards were on the lake. It was amazing. They had boat garages, so they could step out of the house and be on a boat on the lake. We even saw people washing their clothes in the lake. It was like being in another world. The town was small but cute and I was very excited to see crystal clear water rushing down from above in a waterfall. The water was flowing so fast that I could not believe it continued the few hours we were there. There must be a lot of water at the top of the mountain for it to be like that, coming from a drought ridden state, I could not believe it and I wondered if we could reach some kind of agreement with Austria to have some of their water!

We didn’t do much in Hallstatt other than take in the beauty surrounding us. We hired a pedal boat for only 10 euro (5 each) and pedalled out into the middle of the lake and just sunbaked there. It was amazing. We could see all around us and realised that we were the only people on this huge lake. What an experience! We tried some traditional Austrian foods and drinks for lunch and just spent the day sitting in the sun. (Yes, I got sunburnt.) The place was so relaxing and I could have laid there for hours.

Our final day of our Austrian trip was spent in Salzburg, where it was still pouring with rain. We tried to get to the fortress in the pouring rain, but it was a public holiday so we had to wait a long time for a bus and by the time we reached the fortress we didn’t have enough time to go in. So instead we just caught the train back to Vienna, both with assignments waiting. I was disappointed however to run into a father and son from Sydney because I didn’t even recognise that they were Australian. By chance we started chatting to them at McDonalds were Gwen and I translated the menu and ordered in German for them. They asked me where I was from in the states! I was shocked and to be honest displeased. I said I was from Adelaide and then the son proceeded to ask me how long I had been hanging out with the Americans to which he then responded ‘wow, but you’ve picked up an American accent so quickly!’ I really hope that is not the case, but I guess we all find out when I come home in a couple weeks!