And so I'm back! Continuing from the past days.... (sorry for being so behind) FRIDAY! Finished school relatively early and was catching the bus home. And to my pleasant surprise I met Steffani, Tyler and two other exchange students on the bus! The two exchange students were from Rotary and were visiting this weekend to see my oldies. They were both Americans, one living in Graz and another in Linz! Nick and Tyler went to Tyler's house to settle in and have lunch, while I joined Steffani and John in her house for lunch!
We had leftovers consisting of simple spaghetti and soup! Yum soup! To Beatrix's, Steffani's host mum and my future host mum, surprise I ate all of it and still had room for dessert! I mean of course I do! So Steffani and I decided to make crepes! Well apparently to Steffani's original recipe they were pancakes but truth be told, they are crepes! John became our supervisor and then our mental support!
The food judge!
We also 'stumbled' upon Steffani's host day collection of alcohol. He has his own mini bar! He found us looking at it and then told us jokingly that it wasn't for us! :D
Took a photo for Quinlan because it brought back good memories! Haha
We later met up with Nick and Tyler to see the Wolfurt Market that's on every Friday afternoon!
Posing and waiting for the boys... with style...
The Wolfurt Market isn't very bit but still rather cool
SCHNAPS coming out of that wooden tap thing!
Apfel (Apple) Schnaps! If you don't remember what schnaps is, it's a type of alcohol which they regularly drink, usually after eating. It is good for the digestion but then some people don't just drink it just for health reasons. It's strong alcohol so everyone drinks it like in shots.
THE chicago sign!
That's Tyler looking awesome with my infamous pink bag and loving the fact that all of us wanted to take a photo of him wearing it!
That night didn't go out with them, but I stayed home and played backgammon with host parents. I also watched Sound of Music with my host parents. There actually was no subtitles in German so they had to watch it in English. Haha. I kind of started to fall asleep while watching towards the end. I have no idea how whether they liked it or not. But they pointed out the biggest mistake of Sound of Music is that Captain von Trapp couldn't be in the Marines since Austria is surrounded by other countries. Hahah... whoops :D
On Saturday, I skyped with my parents which was good since I haven't talked to them in eons through Skype. Actually technically this it the 2nd time I skyped my mum and the first time with my dad. Haha. But since I skyped with them I didn't get to go to the Dornbirn Market with Sabine, but there's always next time. In the afternoon though there was a special celebration called the Funken! It's actually not Austrian but influenced from the South of Germany. It's only celebrated in Voralberg now. It's a bonfire where there's a 'witch' at the top. You burn it to say bye to winter and hello to spring. It's a 'heathen' tradition. I didn't use the word heathen. One of then neighbours tried to say the word in English but then they translated it and it came out with heathen... so I'm not sure if that's the right word... But anyways, it's a ancient tradition and back in those days there wasn't a fake witch there, there use to be a real 'witch' as a sacrifice for spring to come. But on a lighter note, every town usually does one. Literally evey town. The bigger the town the bigger the funken!
So in the afternoon I played with the neighbour children which was so fun. They were really pro at the trampoline in the shared big backyard! They also made their own funken!
These are most of the neighbours and their children! haha It was hard getting a shot were everyone was looking! Especially the children were fidgety! haha
After they lit our funken, we played with sparklers! It was awesome and reminded me of times when people use to make letters and take photos! (Janelle's 17th Birthday). Later on, Sabine and Dietmar brought me to the Funken in Schwarze, the town in which my host grandparents live in. And the Funken there was huge! The tower of wood was around 20-25m tall. There were stalls there for food and drinks. There was another cover for a live band which were playing carnival rock Austrian music. Haha. There were fire performers which were really cool and awesome. They had like nun-chuck-like things with coals that were on fire at the end and they were circling them around!
Anyways, then there was loud music blasting out of the massive speakers and then BOOM! The fireworks began! They were so amazingly close that I could feel the vibrations of the fireworks. It was less than 40m away and simply beautiful!
And then lights flashed throughout the Funken in a crazy manner!
And it BURSTED! I think those are catherine wheels going off at the front of the tower. And this was going on while the tower somehow got lit in the middle there. I don't understand how they did that but it was flaming from the inside!
If you look probably you can see the outline of the witch at the top!
Afterwards, I met with some of my classmates. I already missed the main part of it but some of them made a fire on the rocky shores of Bodensee (Lake Constance) and were grilling things. But the time I came, the fire was dying and the failure of the apple coated in sugar just dampen their efforts to make anymore. But the hot chocolate in the thermos was still delicious as ever! We mainly just talked and admired the 'stars' which turned out to be planes in the night. Haha!
Sunday, I just rested which was good and I needed it anyways! Played a couple of backgammon games with my host parents. I 'babysitted' Maurice when they went out for dinner. Technically they didn't ask me, but at night time he called me upstairs to watch a movie. I wanted to watch the good old '27 dresses' (dubbed with german mind you) and obviously he didn't like it that much. There wasn't anything else to watch so I wanted to go downstairs, but he insisted me being there... so I had to get my laptop and just sit there while he watched Die Hard. I have no idea why I had to sit there but sit there I did. Haha
On Monday, since I didn't have French, I went down to the Bahnof to say bye to Nick and John before they left to go back home. While Emily and Sam were going to Feldkirch to go shopping! I was tempted as all I returned to later that day was school until 3.30. Haha but I think after talking the girls in my class the day before, loosen the atmosphere around us. So lunch was fun, talking and learning both about each other and how bad I COULDN'T speak german! Haha
Later that day, hung out with the neighbours in our backyard. They were burning the rest of the Funken and jumped around in style with the trampoline! How I admire how they could do that, but apparently a lot of them are able to do that! Haha! Maurice told me to take a photo of him and then 'offered and mentioned' that I could put that up on my blog! Haha!
That's Jacob who I think is around 7 and speaks nearly perfect English, because his Grandmother is South African and only speaks english to her grandchildren to teach them English. he's so smart as he translated just about everything I said to the rest of the children since they didn't or couldn't understand!
This is my failure at trying!
This me realising that I was failing pretty bad....!
This is Juri (pronouced as Yuri) who I'm presuming is around 5 years old and is already doing back flips he learnt from the pro, Maurice
So that afternoon, I also spent time talking to Linda, Jacob and Joseph's Grandmother as she looked after Emil who has the bluest eyes and just kept staring at me! And it was nice talking in English once again! Tuesday was a massive hell of a day full of fun which I'll explain another day soon!
With love, from Austria
Vivian
