First Out of Graz Adventure

So I am leaving tomorrow on my first adventure here in Graz. Italy and Slovenia are my destinations and I am sure that it is going to be a blast. Teddy is in his spot in the backpack and he cant wait to head on out! I probably wont be able to do m,uch blogging while I am away, so dont be shocked if there's nothing till later.
Talk soon,
Tiny

New Bikes and Nutella

Saturday was the used bike sale here in Graz. They had something like 400 bikes there to sell throughout the day. My German teacher had said that it would start at 8 so be there by 7, but the newspaper said it started at 10. So I split the difference and went at 8:30. It was a really early start as it didn't open until 10 but that meant that I was able to scope out some of the bikes. I'm not sure it is the best quality given all of the looks I've been getting from my friends, but it works, it's pink and in two months of not needing a bus pass it will have paid for itself!
It was after the bike sale that was the fun part though, cause we had N, M and A over for brunch! We were all starving from our biking adventures, so we had scrambled eggs with cheese and tomatoes and fresh raspberries from the Market! We also had these wonderful pastries (kind of like mini cannolies except they had a soft meringue filling) that M (from Finland) bought at the Market which we ate with the raspberries. Then we had some bread that M (my roommate) bought. Now in this apartment you can't have bread without Nutella, so we got out the Nutella. This led to the most amazing creation of the pastries covered in Nutella with a raspberry smushed on top! It was like heaven in your mouth!! Teddy says it's his new Favourite food!

In an update about my computer, it should be better by Tuesday/Wednesday (I’m on M’s computer) and thanks to P it won’t be as much of a pain as it could have been.

Just started the laundry (no mishaps yet) so that I can start packing for our trip on Wednesday! I'm so excited.

Keep you posted,

Tiny

PS This song has been a real help to me today, look it up! Carrie Underwood's "Don't Forget to Remember Me"

Last Day of German

So the first three weeks here in Graz are over. It is a sad thing because all of Japanese friends are all going back to Japan soon, but it is also a happy time because it means that courses will be starting soon. Today on our last day we had an ‘oral exam’, I put it in quotations because it was like five minutes long for the whole class and then our teacher said she was impressed and we went to the Market. We went so that we could learn how to ask for food and for the most part it was a lot of fun and the people in the Market answered us in German. The market itself was beautiful, full of all sort of different food. We had lots of fun and I hope that the group of us that are staying here will see each other again.
In other news, my computer is kaput, or at least that is what it keeps telling me, so until I can figure out what exactly is wrong with it I may not be blogging very much. I’m sorry as I know many people are staying updated by this but I’ll get it fixed I promise!
As for the week break, well I originally had written that nothing too exciting was happening, but since writing that my friends came over, (M was giving free hair cuts) and we now have a trip through Slovenia to Italy planned. We're going to rent a car cause it is cheaper than taking the train and then we can sleep in tents instead of paying for hostels!! It should be awesome! Keep you posted.
Tiny

Buschenshank

Today my German class went to a Buschenshank, or rather a buschenshank that serves hot food, that is called something else but I can’t remember. It was wonderful! We had amazing food and wine (I have found that Welschriesling is fast becoming my favourite) and great company. We all ordered something different and we shared all around, so even though I got the goulash (I was craving beef) I got to try the Schnitzel, Cordon Bleu, Turkey Salad with Pumpkin seed oil, Knodels (which in English are dumplings) and also some bread. My Goulash plate became the ‘community plate’ because everyone was using the sauce to dip their bread in, and one girl scooped it into her rice. We took tons of pictures and laughed and laughed. Then came dessert and of course I got the chocolate cake. Everyone thought I was crazy because after so much food how could I want dessert, I was like “Come on, it’s Chocolate Cake!” It was awesome and the whole class was jealous so I passed it around and everyone had a bite! (Even the other kids who had ordered dessert :) ) While we were paying the picture I have of my brother fell out of my wallet. The girl sitting next to me asked who he was, I explained, and the next thing I know the picture is also being passed around the table. The Japanese girls all agreed that he looks like Harry Potter, which made me laugh, because just this morning my brother sent me the video in the clip below. If you like Harry Potter you should check it out. It took a whole 5 minutes out of M and my morning (which when you only have ½ an hour is a long time). Everyone said we must have a pretty good relationship because we were so close in the picture and you can’t fake that! Then I ended up walking home, it took an hour and a half which was good seeing how much I ate.

Tomorrow is the last day of our German course and I am going to miss all of the Japanese girls but luckily most of the rest of the class is taking the next German course in the semester so I’ll get to see them.

Bis Morgen (Until tomorrow)
Tiny

The Buschenshank

Some members of my Class, we all ended up doing the
peace sign by then end of the day!

Another Dessert, but the girl who ordered it
liked the cake better! :)

The Chocolate Cake (mit Schlag)

Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWXEF_K_b-Q&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Post-it-Notes

Let me start this off with a HUGE thanks to E & P who helped me get through yesterday and this darn ear infection. I really appreciate everything you did!

And now onto the importance of Post-it-Notes. A long time ago someone, somewhere, decided that it would be a good idea to make tiny pieces of paper with a sticky side to them. This person was brilliant. Then came another person who decided that these pieces of paper needed to be made in many different colours. This person was also brilliant! To these people, whoever they are/were, I thank you. There is one simple reason for this and it is that the walls in our apartment are white. Just white, no hint of beige, or even taupe ... white. We of course bought colourful bedding and plates to make the place feel much more homey, but still this did not help the white walls. However, these brilliant people before mentioned have allowed me to Post-it-Note the apartment. This means that there are Post-it-Notes with German words for certain objects around the room, but also there is one wall that I am hereby calling the Wall of Inspiration! So far I have around 10 quotes, some single words (Smile), others inspirational statements made by my German Teacher (Ich bin besser als ich glaube, "I am better than I think"). I even have some song lyrics up there, and this has become my Wall of Inspiration! If anyone has any quotes; funny, cute, inspirational, or otherwise, in any language (that I speak) I would love to add them to the wall. Just leave a comment! When my masterpiece is finished I’ll post a picture for the world to see, or at least the people reading my blog!

A Very Inspired Tiny

Aufsteirern

Today was the big festival here in Graz and it was pretty awesome!! We started off the day going over to E and P’s to do our hair, mine took forever cause it never does what you want, luckily Teddy’s was easy. I explained what happened to my lovely blue shirt, and everyone agreed that it looked good. We also got to meet P’s parents who went to the festival with us. They were so nice, very little English, so we made do with very simple sentences and lots of hand motions. ;) There was so much lederhosen! The dirdls were also amazing, so many different colours. We met up with A&M from Finland and we walked around the whole area. Got to try some Strum (this pre wine drink, very tasty), and bratwurst and we tried this bloodwurst stuff (which really wasn’t all that bad, once you stopped thinking about it). We walked a lot and by the end of the day I think everyone was tired, but we had had a great time! Lots of happy people, lots of really awesome colours, really cool music and all around an amazing day in Graz! Teddy thought so too (he was hidden in my purse)!

Tiny and Teddy

Me and Teddy in Traditional Outfits!

A & M in their Dirndls!

M & P & E & me & Teddy

E & P's dad dancing to the awesome music!

Laundry #3

Well I did say that there would be many posts about laundry and here is another one. Today as I mentioned earlier was a laundry day. And it was a very productive laundry day too, almost everything except some hand washing clothes got finished. There was even this incredibly helpful paper left in the room by some other English speaking 'Flatmates' which made doing all of the various loads much easier to handle! But as I mentioned in an earlier post, no matter how hard you try you always forget something. Today it was my Dirndl shirt, and I didn't necessarily forget to wash it, I just happened to forget it in the washing machine. Now most people would say that is perfectly alright, someone would have seen it and left it out. And in our apartment they would have. However, it wasn't someone else to do a load afterwards, it was me. And the load was my jeans. So now my beautiful white dirndl shirt is a lovely shade of blue. It still goes very well with my outfit and it is going to stay that colour, but it is just another adventure in the life of a student.

Laundry Machine 1, Tiny 0

Saturday

Well it is already Saturday, not quite sure where the week went. At this rate it'll be June before I know it. Took some pictures of the Dirndls, but they were on M's camera and so to make things easy, I have just posted a link to her blog on the day with the pictures on it! It's been an exciting week, lots of German, wrote the midterm yesterday and I think it went well. (Fingers crossed) Had a great time with M&A from Finland and N from England on Thursday and Friday, cause they were also looking for/adding to their dirdls. Last night we just had a quiet night, watched a movie and came up with cool roller derby names. lol I'm Short Fuse, M is Tall Roller! Today should be pretty quiet, laundry and what not. Making sure we're all ready for tomorrow and the Festival!

Oh and as a random side note, when commenting it just comes to me as 'anonymous' so if you could leave a little something so that I know who you are, that would rock! I do love getting the comments too!

Hope everyone back home had a good first week of classes!
Tiny

Here's the Link:
http://m-msadventuresinaustria.blogspot.com/2011/09/dirndl-pictures-with-aprons.html

Ich habe einen Kopweh

Directly translated this means "I have a headache." However, my German teacher told us that it can also mean “I have a hangover!” (Not that I do) But today was probably the coolest German course ever. It started out normally; we were learning how to ask, "What did you have for breakfast this morning?" The usual stuff. This naturally led us to talking about food and the different names. Once we got to grapes, however, we had the best time ever. The name for grapes is Weintrauben, or more accurately wine grapes. Naturally, this lead to a conversation about wine. And when talking about wine you need to learn how to order some in a restaurant. Just teaching us this wasn't enough for out teacher, she said "What is the point if you don't get some practice?" This of course then became the organization of a trip to a Buschenshank, the 'not a restaurant' which we will be going to next Wednesday! Of course not everyone likes wine so for the entire rest of the class we learned the different names of all the drinks we could ever want to order here in Austria!

Best Class Ever!!!

Tiny

Just a Random Update

Not too much is going on here. It is freakishly hot like 30+ with humidity, Canadians were not made to withstand this heat. lol. The German Intensive Course is going well and I am getting more confident in my speaking, though the vocab needs a lot of work. Went shopping for a Drindl yesterday, it is the typical Austrain outfit from 400 years ago, and it looks pretty awesome. There is a huge festival here on Sunday where everyone dresses up in old fashioned clothes and partys. Tonight is pub quiz night, which should be pretty fun too. The really cool thing that happened yesterday was that we found beef in the store! We made a meat sauce to go with our pasta and it was delicious! It is too hot, I'm going to try to sleep it off. Teddy says that he is taking an early hibernation to avoid this heat. We'll post pictures in the clothes when it gets cool enough to wear them.
Auf Wiedersehen,
Tiny

Lake Day

Today a bunch of us went to this lake in the northern part of Graz, or at least it felt like we were going north, when I looked at a map we had really just gone west, but there was this mountain we had to go around. I went with my friend N from England and we met up with some girls there. Now we must remember that Lake here and Lake at home do mean very different things. Although it was lovely, it was nowhere near the size of the even the lake near my cousin S. We swam for an hour then we all said we were just going dry off a little and get back in. 45min later when we all woke up I was as red as a lobster all of the places I hadn’t put sunscreen, and we all had to laugh because we all knew it was the German course that is making us so tired.

Had the best lemon ice cream there but when we went to catch the bus home it drove away without us. The next one didn’t come for another hour, so we decided to walk it. I have blisters now ‘cause I was wearing my red sandals, but we beat the next bus! Came home made supper that didn’t involve pasta (yay) and am now waiting on a Skype conversation. Overall a perfect day following a perfect day before.

Tiny

Pictures

So the most awesome thing has happened. WE GOT INTERNET!!!!! This means that this blog post will be much longer than my normal ones, because a picture is worth a thousand words and I have eight that I am posting!!!! In other news it's been fun here, we've had people over for supper and today we are just relaxing.
Hope you Enjoy,
Tiny and Teddy

Teddy and my Suitcase

Our New Apartment (That's M)

Teddy's riding spot!

My bed

The Kitchen

The Dinner from the 'Not a Restaurant'

Our Finnish Friends over for Supper!

E and P with Teddy!

Random Information

Started out German Intensive Course and it rocks. I have met this one girl L from Australia who has done 11 years of German and she keeps quizing me on everything I have learned. (No she is not in the same level as me) First excursion into a grocery store today, also the first use of our kitchen for dinner purposes! Went well, just waiting for the water to boil now. On that not there have been many firsts in this apartment and as tomorrow is the 1 week mark I figured I would share some tidbits about living in a new place. 1) The shower is a foot tall, when stepping out be careful and dont run into the radiator as you fall. 2) When rushing out the door all objects, including the kitchen counter, with sharp edges will jump out at you so you get bruises. 3) Burners do not like it when you forget to put the frying pan down when making toast. And finally 4) You will always leave at least one piece of clothing behind when doing laundry no matter what.
And yes these are all coming from personal experience ;)
Tiny
Oh and PS thank you to P who pointed out that the Lady I was talkin about was really Maria Theresia, not Maria Theresa (they are different people) And also for telling me the German name for the "not a restaurant' which I have already forgotten. ;)

Laundry #2

I have a feeling I will have lots of posts about Laundry. Only today I will actually talk a little about it. There are two washing machines in our apartment and 2pm on a Monday is not the day that you are doing laundry, unless you are the first one there. Man was I lucky. Because there are only two and they are all in German it can take a while to do your laundry, at least I only had to do two loads. M finally wrote down all of the words on the machines and translated them and then I stole the piece of paper so I could figure it out. All my clothes are clean and smell good, so I must have done something right. Lol. In the meantime this morning we had to stand in line for two hours to pay for our Intensive German Course. Fortunately standing in line that long allows you to make lots of new friends who all want something to do while waiting. I have already met so many wonderful people and many of them I already consider to be my friends. We are all in the same situation and were swapping notes on what to do. We are having a movie night and then a quiz night this week and then some of the German Line group are going to hopefully meet for dinner. Keep you updated on what’s going on over here!

Tiny (PS There will be pictures soon I promise.)

The last few days in 300 Words

So the last few days in my self chosen 300 word limit. Yikes…

Firstly, a HUGE thanks to E and P who helped me with my culture shock, phone and have been looking after me and M while we get settled here in Graz. (And looking after just about everything else too J )

Second, Culture Shock stinks. I have never cried so much in my life and for no reason at all. If anyone ever tells me that they didn’t go through it I’m going to be worried. Luckily I’m over the crying part now and am getting better. Thanks to everyone who helped me through, especially mom, who let me cry.

Third, My apartment rocks!!! My roommate ‘M’ and I have our own kitchen and bathroom and waaay more space than we thought that we would get. We also did an Ikea run with mom so we have sheets, dishes, towels, soaps and other useful stuff that you need to have an apartment. Teddy loves it here and has already stolen part of the bed.

Fourth, went on this amazing tour of the Styrian Wine country Saturday. It was really cool. We got to go to three different Vineyards with three different types of wine which were all pretty amazing. Although they kept saying that the third place ‘isn’t a restaurant’ the amount of food that we had was huge.

Fifth, today mom and I met with Eva and Ernst, family of friends from home, and they took us to some fabulous places. First we went to this place that showed the old fashioned houses from the 1600’s which were amazing. They gave a great insight into the way life was back then. We also learned about this lady Maria Theresa, look her up, she was amazing. Then we went to the most beautiful church I have ever seen and finally dinner.

306 words not too bad!! Overall a roller coaster of a week and the month is just beginning!

Tiny