The Neverending Story

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog outlining my experiences on a semester student exchange to Vienna, Austria.

So yesterday my journey began with 34 hours travelling from Adelaide to Singapore, London and then my final destination the Haus Erasmus student dorimitory in Vienna. I’ve actually already learnt a lot about myself and have been able to see how I have started to act more independently. This is my first international trip that I am undertaking on my own. On previous occasions including a 2004 student exchange to Germany, I did EVERYTHING with other people. So I am proud of myself for asking questions when I was not sure, finding my way around the terminal and gate systems at major airports and finding food and drinks. Simple tasks but in a foreign environment and done all on my own. But I feel that my biggest achievement so far was to stay calm through potentially stressful and frustrating situations including several hours of turbulence, a flight delay of 90 minutes and watching the plane land in severe fog. We went from seeing white...white to TREES only metres below!

Call me a loser, but I was so excited to finally see heathrow airport in London and land there. The scale of the airport was amazing, the lights just kept going in each direction. I had to transfer terminals, and I’m glad that I had to because the bus ride there was about 20 minutes and took us through underground tunnels and major intersections. The airport was its only little city, I even noticed its own telephone exchange and power station. The size was not the only thing to leave my jaw at my feet, but the fact that at 4am on a Friday morning these roads inside the airport were busy highways. I really enjoyed that bus ride looking around in surprise and awe. Even more so was how entertaining I found British accents. I had never been to the UK before so to hear so many of them talking about random things was hilarious. I felt like I was in an episode of the Bill. Ironically, my flight to Vienna was delayed due to fog in Vienna, but the longer we waited at Heathrow the slimmer the chance became that we would be able to take off at all. Anyway all’s well that end’s well I suppose.

I was quite concerned about security before undertaking this trip because I have several bags to carry and I am travelling alone. However, I felt safe the entire way. On each flight, in each airport and especially at each security check point which is what I was most concerned about because of having to leave your bags unattended. All airport staff and in flight crew were friendly and helpful. I did feel unsure of where to go at first, but I managed to figure it out quickly and without too much hassle.

Once I arrived in Vienna there was only one word to describe my mood – disgusted. My hair was so greasy to look at let alone feel, unbrushed teeth, unwashed face and huge bags under my eyes. So imagine my amusement and embarrassment to see two strangers holding up a cardboard sign with my full name on it. My Austrian ‘buddy’ set up by the university, Susanne, was supposed to pick me up, but she had sent her parents instead. They were very friendly and I spoke more German to them in the drive to my student dorm than I did in the entire two months of my last exchange. The difference is confidence, last time I was too scared to try. This time I don’t care if I make no grammatical sense at all, or use English words in a german sentence but I give it a go, let them correct me and if they do not understand then resort to English. I hope I can keep this strategy going because this is the main reason I’m here (or at least on paper it is).

And after all my success getting here smoothly, my sleep deprivation has exacerbated the frustration of trying to complete simple tasks here. I don’t know where anything is, there is no cutlery (ate my first meal here with my fingers), no linen and the roads are a massive jumble with no seeming direction or plan at all. I went for a walk around the block and returned 45 minutes later having gotten lost! I don’t have internet set up here yet so I have not even be able to contact home, which is frustrating. And of course my phone has not worked since I left Australia because it has no signal! Stupid! When I want to throw something in the bin, I need a committee, there are 6 different bin types in the kitchen and 4 in my bedroom, because everything is sorted for recycling here. I live on the 7th floor so I’ve already done many stairs today and without a car, I imagine I will be developing lots of leg muscles and improving my fitness in my stay here. If I can resist the urge to use the lift :P

So that’s the start of my trip. I have lots to look forward to, but many hurdles along the way too. Expect an update soon!