Surviving NaNoWriMo

I did it. I survived. I spent the month of November writing a novel.

At the end of October, before I started the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge, one of my good friends took me aside and expressed her concern: she was worried that a month of writing would send me into my own little bubble of self-absorption and selfishness...Basically, she didn't think it would be good for me. So I promised to take her words to heart and try not to fall into omphaloskepsis.

By the third week of November, she took me aside again. This time, however, it wasn't out of concern. She reminded me of what she'd said in October and then told me that those concerns couldn't be farther from the truth. She'd never seen me so driven or motivated before--and it wasn't just in writing. I had focus: I not only scheduled times for writing, but also for exercise and for quiet times and for the other things I always mean to do but tend to push aside. It wasn't until she expressed this that I saw it myself--she was right: writing changed my life, but not just because I could now call myself a novelist.

Of course there were things that got postponed...like cleaning...washing dishes...doing laundry...doing anything social... These were the minor yet predictable results. Did it bother me that my room looked like this?

Or that my dust bunnies were mulitplying by the minute and scampering around my floors whenever I walked by? Or that I used every last dish in the place until I was forced to take a break and wash up?

Well, yes, it did. But it was super convenient because my roommates came and went so much in November that I only really had one week when I didn't have the apartment to myself. (...Not to mention that that 5-hour cleaning blitz felt really good after it was over....) So I pretty much had an apartment free of distractions in which to write. My opera subscription didn't cover any operas in November, so all of my Thursday nights were free. And I started at the new school where I did a slew of introductory lessons--I didn't have to plan a single lesson (which tends to take me 4-8 hours per lesson) for the entire month!

I wouldn't have been able to put my finger on it without the helpful insight from my friend, but my month of writing was good for me--it gave me more focus and got me into some good habits.

For one thing, I made writing a priority. I made sure I wrote a minimum of 1667 words every day, striving for more if I could. Because I spent so much time writing, I got antsy. So I started running--every day. I actually got to the point where I was looking forward to my runs, and when it was raining too hard to go out I seriously felt like something essential was lacking from my day. My endurance improved, my flexibility improved...and then I got shin splints, so I had to stay in and write more whether I wanted to or not! One of the biggest discoveries of NaNoWriMo is: I write best in the mornings. Yes, that's right. My life has turned upsidedown and I am now one of those people who is most productive in the morning. This is a truly mind-boggling phenomenon, because all through high school and college I couldn't even think of writing anything before 9 p.m. My creative juices were at their peak between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. Now, I've found, I work best between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. It kind of freaks me out actually, because it seems far more grown up than my previous pattern. But so it is. I've found that a simple morning can demolish even the most stubborn case of writer's block. Amazing.

Perhaps the most amazing thing from my NaNoWriMo experience is that I feel like I've found a niche. I love writing this book. Even the tough days when writer's block drove me crazy were wonderful days spent forcing those words out like garlic from a garlic press. I find myself now fantasizing about my life as a writer--a big, big dream right now--but totally a place where I could find my groove. Janet Fitch, the author of White Oleander says, "But the essence of fiction writing is creating a character you love and, frankly, torturing him. You are both sadist and savior." And playing this role has totally driven me to write what I hope is going to be a great book.

I've writen a total of 57,768 words, or 145 pages...but I'm only halfway through my story. I've met the 50,000-word challenge, but I still have a long way to go--I've got a lot of torture still up my sleeve, and then a possible deliverance to take care of. I'm totally grateful to NaNoWriMo for getting me started on this project, and I'm excited about finishing it. And then, who knows... :)

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

I name this entry thusly, not because I'm reading Nietzsche or have any idea what this particular work of his is about, but because these were the first words on my mind when I was startled awake this morning by a grating sound outside my window.

Before going to bed last night, I had accomplished a milestone 45,676 words on my book--officially only 5000 words from the finish line. (However, I've just introduced the wolf in sheep's clothing to my protagonist, and I'd say I've got another several tens of thousands of words to go before I'm really done...) I nodded off to sleep wondering, "I'm 10,000 words ahead of schedule...I wonder what kind of little treat God's got for me as a little reward..." (Again, not a theologically sound argument, but maybe a step up from my waking thoughts of Thus Spoke Zarathustra...)

So when I woke up to Nietzsche and the scraping sound outside my window at 6 a.m., I knew. This was my reward!

I went to the window and looked out, and this is what my extra 10,000 words looked like:

(except it was 6 a.m., so it was still dark)

I was happy for my little treat, but perhaps in return for my bad theology, I couldn't fall back asleep. Instead I tossed and turned with Thus Spoke Zarathustra repeatedly running though my head with the occassional Also sprach Zarathustra (the original, untranslated title) jumping in. When I finally dragged myself out of bed two hours later, I was tired, confused (Nietzsche has that effect on people), and ready to share the first snowfall of the year with my lovely audience.

If you were an Austrian teenage girl...

...which famous people would be on your mind?

This past month, as I've mentioned before, I've been at the new school with all the girls. This has been fantastic, as most of my lessons have required little to no preparation, leaving me plenty of novel-writing time. I've done a lot of introductory lessons where I play the sentences game, introduce myself, and have a Q&A time where they can ask me anything about myself or America they can think of. (This year's highlights: What are Austrian men like compared to American men? Do you have a boyfriend? Would you get married and stay in Austria forever? ...Nary a question on war or guns and plenty of questions on boys...Yes, you can tell--I am teaching GIRLS!)

Usually this takes the whole lesson (and in one exceptional class, about 4-5 girls had their hands raised with burning questions right up until the bell rang!), but in a couple of classes the students opted for silence. Not even the usual questions such as 'Do you have brothers or sisters?' were asked. So then I turn the tables--I ask them questions. But eventually even I run dry of interesting things to ask them, and we're stuck with 10-15 minutes left in class...what to do?

I decided to play one of those time-filler games with a couple of particularly quiet classes, asking the girls to write the name of a famous person on a piece of paper, fold it in half, then pass it up to the front. Then I'd choose a student (my new favorite method, if there aren't any volunteers, is to ask, 'Is there anyone named Katharina in the class? No? How about Stefi?...' and so on...), seat her in front of the board, and then tape a name to the board behind her. She has to ask the class questions and try to figure out which famous person is behind her. (It's similar to 20 Questions, but not just yes or no questions.)

The funny thing is, this really gets into the psyche of an Austrian teenage girl. Who are they into? Who are their favorite singers/actors/etc.? I loved getting the answers because it is so telling about what's cool and in right now--and almost all of them were American! So, to give you an insight into what is on teenagers' minds today, here are some of their answers...

• Johnny Depp (Best question: 'Is he old?' They couldn't reach a consensus on this one--half of them thought he was old and half of them thought he was just kind of old!)


• Madonna (In contract to Johnny Depp, Madonna was considered 'very old.')


• Elvis Presley


• Heath Ledger


• Hillary Duff


• Bryan Adams (a surprising choice!)


• Britney Spears (by far the most popular choice, with 6 entries)


• Rihanna


• Paris Hilton (also very popular with about 4 entries)


• Orlando Bloom


• George W. Bush


• Heidi Klum (also pretty popular right now because of her show Germany's Next Top Model)


• Christiano Ronaldo (I had to look him up...)


• Brad Pitt (Britney Spears' counterpart, also entered 6 times)


• Pink


• Adam Brody (Yes, The OC has made it to Austria)


• Leonardo DiCaprio (I actually laughed out loud when I read this one, because I realized he was all the rage when I was their age too--around the time that Romeo + Juliet and Titanic came out...and after 12 years, he's still going stong in the hearts of teenage girls!)

Quick Update: The Story of My November

The last thing I want to do write now--um, I mean right now--is use the mental energy to update my blog or write a thoughtful email. Most of my mental energy is being consumed by another source, but more on that soon.


It's the second week of November, and my second week at the new school. I'm still mostly making the rounds and introducing myself to countless rounds of teenagers who somehow all look the same, but the contrast to my other school couldn't be any greater. I've seen only 3 male students since I've been at the new school--since it focuses on things like cooking, most guys go to other sorts of high schools. But these three guys and the countless girls are amazing. I love my students. They are quiet, they are well-behaved, they are attentive, and they ask questions. They're open and curious, and I've had nothing but good experiences in the classroom. Granted we're still in the honeymoon period with each other, but I'm really looking forward to spending my three week intervals with them. After one of my introductory lessons to a senior class last week, the teacher later came up to me and said, "The students told me after you left that they think you made the right decision to become a teacher." Hearing that from the students (albeit secondhand), was the biggest compliment/encouragement/affirmation I could have received.


I'm keeping this short (yes, you're allowed to cheer) because that other source of mental energy consumption is the novel I'm writing for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which I mentioned earlier. You'll notice the new NaNoWriMo badge to the right of this post--I thought I'd add some NaNoWriMo flair to the page to keep me going. I'm at 20,057 words, which is 50 pages (12 pt Garamond, 1.5 spacing to be exact) and counting. In these first ten days I've learned that no matter how much you love writing (or art, or music, or anything creative for that matter), it's still a discipline to keep it going. On a good day, I can pump out my 1667 words in a breezy two hours; if I'm not feeling the muse, it can take up to four hours. I've read pep talks (THANK YOU NANOWRIMO!!) from numerous published authors who've described the very same process. The fairy tale of the inspired author whose novel simply materializes in an endless stream of inspiration has been put to rest. And I'm okay with that. I'm in the middle of a massive creative process, and even the days where writing a few pages is like pulling teeth are valuable.


So that's it for now...I'll update again later when I need another diversion or hit an extreme case of writer's block.

My first words at midnight, November 1, 2008. ...Then I went to bed and started over in the morning.

The Advantage of a 3-Day Workweek

For anyone looking for the perfect long weekend excursion from Graz, I can highly recommend a quick trip through Salzburg and Munich. Salzburg is about 4 hours from Graz by train, but it's pretty easy to get there, with direct trains leaving every couple hours. As Austria's fourth-largest city (behind Vienna, Graz, and Linz), this UNESCO world heritage site boasts one of the best-preserved Old Towns this side of the Alps...not to mention that it embodies pretty much anything Americans think of when they think of Austria: the Alps, Mozart, and The Sound of Music. Only a short 150 km hop away is the Bavarian capital of Munich, reachable by a most affordable €29 Bavaria Ticket, on which up to 5 people can travel quite economically. Though Munich's big-city population of 1.3 million inhabitants dwarfs Salzburg's 150,000, it's the cheaper of the two cities by far. With no lack of cultural events or big-city pleasures, a perfunctory 2 days in Munich is just enough to whet the palette till a return trip.

Leaving Graz right after school on Wednesday afternoon, I arrived in Salzburg and met up with my travel buddy around dinnertime. It was already dark and we were starving, so we decided to save the sightseeing for the morning.

Our main goal for Thursday was to visit the salt mines. Salzburg, literally "Salt Castle," has been a locus of the salt industry since the Celts, some of whom are still around today, preserved in salt in collapsed mine shafts. Having read the book Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky this past summer, I was already familiar with the history of the region and intrigued with getting a closer look for myself. Our super-helpful guesthouse owner booked us on an afternoon tour of the Berchtesgaden Salt Mines just over the border in Germany, and we spent the morning exploring the Old Town of Salzburg. It didn't take long for my Sound of Music fever to set in, however, as we wandered around Maria von Trapp's (a.k.a. Julie Andrews') old stomping grounds. This is one of the few exceptions I take to being a shameless American tourist: to the shock (and disappointment) of my Austrian colleagues, I really do love The Sound of Music, and my enthusiasm tumbled out in the form of, "Oh! This is where they sang Do Re Mi!" or, "This is the cemetery where they hid from the Nazis until that sellout Rolf found them!" As we weren't taking the Sound of Music Tour, this was my form of release.

After a massive cheese and bacon pretzel for lunch, we boarded the van to the salt mines. It was an interesting trip out, passing little villages and even Hitler's mountaintop retreat, the Eagle's Nest. When we arrived at the mines, we donned a large jumpsuit that all visitors are required to wear into the mine and rode a little train through the dark and twisting tunnels deep into the mine. Once we reached a large, cavernous hall, the guide explained how the mines have been in operation since 1517 and are still in operation today--an impressive history. To save time and descend further into the mine, the visitors, like the miners of old, straddle a wooden slide and whoosh 40 m down into the next level of tunnels. During the tour we learned how salt is and was mined, learned about the qualities of salt and its uses, and crossed an underwater lake of salty brine on a flat boat. It was a great hands-on aproach to the salt mining industry, and a fascinating must for any visitor to the area.

We arrived back in Salzburg just in time for a classical guitar concert by the students of the Mozarteum, the Julliard of Austria. But we were in luck and the musical enjoyment of the evening didn't stop there--it was quite the musical weekend in Salzburg, with an extensive Jazz Fest throughout the city. Since there was no cover charge for any of the bands, we went jazz-hopping and saw about 3 or 4 great bands before turning in.

Friday was to be our castle day. Salzburg certainly has its fair share of castles and fortresses, so our first stop was at the Schloss Mirabell (Mirabell Palace), where a little more Julie-Andrews-wannabe singing and dancing was in order. Leaving the Schloss Mirabell, we took a tour of Mozart's residence before heading up to the big Salzburg fortress on the hill. This fortress, much like Graz's own Schlossberg, was impenetrable for centuries (since its original foundations were built in 1077 to be exact) until forced to surrender when Napolean came into town--again, not because he actually defeated the fortress, but because the rest of Austria fell. Shame. It's the kind of place where you can expect to spend the better part of a day looking through the museum, taking tours, and simply exploring the fortress and the hill--well worth the small entrance fee!

Friday night we took the train up to Munich, realizing upon our arrival that we'd barely eaten anything all day. And what better way to rest your weary feet and fill your empty stomach than to visit the world's most famous beer garden, the Hofbräuhaus? The visitor is greeted with a mural above the entrance to the beer hall proclaiming, "Durst ist schlimmer als Heimweh"--Thirst is worse than homesickness. Taking these words to heart, we elbowed through the crowd, managing to find an elusive couple of free seats at a long table and ordered sausage and beer from our lederhosen-clad server as the oompah band tooted out a tune in the corner. Soon our beers arrived in the classic Munich Maß, or one-liter beer stein. (This is actually the equivalent of only 2 German beers, but it looks much more impressive in a Maß.) Having this stereotypical yet necessary visit to the Hofbräuhaus out of the way, we were free to eat wherever we liked for the rest of the trip.

Saturday was an unusual combination of attractions, which sound bizarre when simpy listed off: the Potato Museum, followed by the Dachau concentratin camp, and finally an evening of swing dancing. I'd come across the Potato Museum as I was searching for tourist attractions in Munich; having been there briefly 5 years before, I had left with the impression that Munich was a mediocre city with no particular draw. Curious, and wanting to give Munich another chance, I found a list of classic and not-so-classic tourist attractions, including the Potato Museum. And it was free admission. Having visited the Coffee Museum last year in Zurich, I was all about the small and random museums--it had given a great historical, cultural, and artistic overview of coffee, and at the end we got all the free coffee we could drink. (N.b.: Not to be abused. Man, that was a jittery afternoon!) Would the Potato Museum give us all-you-can-eat potatoes?? Fortunately my friend was up for a little starchy adventure, and we made our way over to the world-famous Potato Museum. But wait--how can the Potato Museum be world famous, you ask...well, it was conveniently located in the same building as the Guatemalan Consulate. Need I say more?... Much like the coffee museum, we learned about the history of potatoes over the world, their uses, and their influence in diets the world over. But alas, no potato tastings!

About a half an hour outside of Munich is the Dachau concentration camp, located in the town of the same name. Dachau bears the distinction of being the only concentration camp in operation for all 12 years of the Third Reich, a model and a training ground for all others to come. It was primarily a work camp, as opposed to the extermination camps of Eastern Europe, but an estimated 25,000 prisoners are believed to have died within its walls. Our tour was informative and sensitive, and although it makes for a downer of an afternoon, I feel that a visit to a concentration camp is a must if you are in the area and have never visited one before--to honor the memory of those who suffered and learn from the past.




After Dachau we grabbed a beer--probably one of the best things you can do to detox from an afternoon like that--and then went out later that evening to see the Roaring Zucchinis, a swing band playing in a local jazz bar. It was the first time I'd been swing dancing in over a year, and it felt GOOD. I was glad to have my dance partner back, and glad that it all came rushing back quite easily. The highlight of the evening was when an 80-year-old German man--and incredible dancer who was dancing the fast songs I didn't even want to try--leaned in and said to me (in English), "You dance quite nice, baby!"

Sunday was our last day in Munich, and we decided to take a 3-hour walking tour of the downtown area with Free Tours, which is exactly what it sounds like: free tours! (They've got a series of city tours set up in quite a few major European cities, and now I am a total fan.) Our Aussie guide, overzealously dressed in lederhosen he'd spent too much on for Oktoberfest one year and then never wore again until he realized it'd be perfect for the tourists, gave amusing and comprehensive explainations of the city's history and sights--and by the time the tour was over, I was completely sold on Munich. Wondering how I escaped from Munich 5 years ago with no impressions at all, whether good or bad, I now had such an appreciation for the city and regretted I didn't have more time to spend there before going home!

Leaving Munich for Graz on Sunday afternoon, I reflected on the weekend well-spent. It was just the right amount of time with just the right--and delightfully varied--amount of activities...the perfect mini-break.

Two more spots to tick off my list.

Round Two

So I find myself one month into my new schoolyear in Austria. October came quickly, despite an eternal 24 days on the farm and a super-sonic 24 days in the States in September. (And to those of you I saw, stayed with, and/or got into madcap capers with--THANK YOU! It was great to refuel with you before coming back to Austria for Round Two.)

Once again I find myself at the technical high school (HTL) in Weiz with all the boys. I was glad to be placed in the same school as last year, but also a bit apprehensive about being in a place where they already know all my tricks and where I can't recycle last year's lesson plans!

I jumped right in from Day One with lessons on the U.S. elections, Ireland, and differences between the U.S. and Austria (see previous blog entry). Without the near-month of introductory lessons like last October, I had to crank my mind into gear and come up with "real" lessons right off the bat. My U.S. elections lesson received its latest facelift (originally aired to HTL audiences in January, it evolved into a series revamped and re-presented in April, May, and now October) and became a multimedia presentation analyzing the candidates through their campaign ads: a brilliant twist, if I do say so myself. I simply cannot imagine teaching before the days of the Internet and of YouTube! I've gotten into a good intstructional groove, and everything is going swimmingly. One particular plus about being back for my second year is that I am no longer the new kid on the block--the students know me, the teachers know me, and I don't have to prove myself to anyone...yet. However, all that changes next week when I go to the next school and get to be the newbie again, this time with a bunch of girls at the HLW, conveniently located in the same building!

Going to the HLW will be a complete 180 from my current situation. Right now I am teaching a bunch of technically-minded engineering boys, and next week I'll be in a school that's 99% girls learning about cooking, tourism, and economics. They even have one more hour of English required per week. I'll have 3 weeks there to learn the ropes before another 5-week stint at the technical school, and so on until the end of May.

As I begin the new schoolyear, I also begin some new endeavors in Graz. I find that being abroad really opens doors and encourages opportunities to try new things, and this year will be no different. I'll continue with the ballroom dancing lessons in the hope of being prepared for the upcoming ball season. Thanks to my sister's wedding in May, I even have another ballgown to wear! (A tip to other perpetual bridesmaids like me with heaps of only-worn-once dresses in their closets: come to Austria and go to the balls!) Overlapping with ball season is my subscription to the Graz Opera. I'm now Ms. Thursday-Night-Upper-Balcony-Row-4-Seat-8 on select Thursdays from now until June. We get to see a total of about 10 operas, having kicked off the season with Mozart's The Magic Flute and Wagner's Tannhäuser. This week's opera is the German version of My Fair Lady, which I am totally intrigued with--in this production, Eliza Doolittle speaks the local dialect and has to learn High German!

Also in the works is of course more travel (I'll post about my latest trip to Salzburg/Munich soon), for which I've made an actual list of places to go. Now all I have to do is start crossing these things off! Another long-term goal is one I've had since I arrived in Graz: to write more. With the exception of my blog, I've written nothing since I've been here. Pathetic. To this end, I've joined a writing group of other TA's in Austria, which will serve to motivate me and keep me accountable. Also, November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo: http://www.nanowrimo.org/) for which I signed up in 2006 and essentially forgot about. But this year--this year I am participating! The premise is that writing a novel is a one day activity: that "one day" you mean to get around to finally writing it! The website describes it best:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

...So don't expect to hear much from me in November--I'll be up to my neck in word count!

Finally, I'll be training for the Vienna Half Marathon in April with my new roommate who inspiringly completed the Graz Half Marathon a few weeks ago. It's incredibly risky to state this publicly because it makes it harder to back out...but that's just one more way of keeping myself committed!

So those are the plans. Exciting, yes. Ambitious, maybe. But what a blessing to be in a place where I have the time and the opportunity to take it on. You'll probably hear from me once more before Saturday, and then...I'll surface again in December!

"That's SO American!"

One of the first things that struck me when I arrived in America on September 2, was that all of the conversations I overheard on the street were in English--so weird! From that point on, I paid extra attention to all of the non-Austrian things that stuck out in America...had I really been gone so long that these very normal, everyday American things suddenly seemed like exceptions rather than the rule? I decided to photo document these things I observed in New York, Connecticut, and Virginia and then collect them into some sort of lesson for my students this coming year. So, rather than explain my comings and goings of the East Coast Tour in copious detail, I'll let these photos speak for the impressions of a young ex-pat......

STRIP MALLS

...Strip malls are an American phenomenon. For one thing, it presupposes urban sprawl--you need space for both the long strip mall and for the spacious parking lot. Secondly, it's very much a product of a car culture: they're really set up for people who drive there.


ENDURANCE ARTISTS ...This photo is of David Blaine's latest stunt in Central Park: to hang upside down for 60 hours without a safety net above Wollman Rink. [N.b.: Only hours into his stunt, he came up for medical checks and to relieve himself (apparently he was unable to drink and use a catheter upsidedown as originally planned), and proceded to do so once and hour until the end of the stunt. Even the finale didn't go as planned, which was disappointing even for skeptics such as myself.] This (and other stunts) was financed by Donald Trump; it seems so amazingly American that one could make a living by hanging upside down or standing on a pillar or remaining submerged in water for ridiculous amounts of time.

GIANT APPLIANCES...Things are generally smaller in Europe than in America, including most (large) appliances like refrigerators. This fridge happens to be particularly large (I'm in the photo for scale), which is something I'm pretty sure you wouldn't find in Austria.

WALL-TO-WALL CARPETING ...Most Austrian residences I've seen have hardwood floors with rugs. Wall-to-wall carpeting--especially on a staircase--is not something you'd really see over here.

NO ALCOHOL IN PUBLIC

...This sign indicates that there are no alcoholic beverages allowed in the park, which is true of just about every public place in America (with the exception of the Long Island Railroad!). There is no such law in Austria; however, alcohol was recently banned on Graz's main square to discourage the punks from loitering at the fountain. The mayor thinks it's working.

LARGE GROCERY STORES

...This is the size of a typical American grocery store. Austrian-sized grocery stores would maybe be the size of the produce section.

CLOSETS

...Houses and apartments in Austria do not have closets--instead you put your clothes in a wardrobe. Sometimes you can have the wardrobes built into a nook in the wall, but it's still very much a wardrobe and not a closet. This concept of each room having an actual door to a little storage space is pretty American.

DRIVE-THRU BANKING ...The first time I mentioned drive-thru banking to my students, they asked incredulously, "You mean, like McDonald's?!" They couldn't understand why you wouldn't want to go into the bank to do your business. I couldn't understand why you would. Drive-thru teller windows are such a mainstream part of everyday American life that we don't even think about it.

WAL-MART...No American community would be complete without a Wal-Mart. And amidst complaints that it takes away from local/small business, it really is more cost-effective to buy that big bottle of shampoo for the same price as the small bottle at the corner drugstore. I love Wal-Mart. So far there's nothing similar over here.

GREAT PUNS...I included this because there aren't as many puns (it seems) in the German language. At least, you don't hear them or see them quite as often as you would in English. Perhaps we're more of a punny culture.

LARGE DRINKS / FREE REFILLS

...At this barbecue chain, they serve your drink in a pitcher, presumedly because in the land of free refills you're likely to drink that much anyway! Here they just cut to the chase and give you the pitcher to drink from up front. And it really does make a difference how much you drink if you pay €2,50 for 0.2 l of Coke, or if you pay $2.50 for all-you-can-drink Coke. Or, on second thought, better make that a Diet Coke.

PARKING LOTS

...again, this is a major part of being a car culture, but the parking lots you find in America are about 3-5 times as large as the average Austrian parking lot. And the spaces are bigger--just like our cars.

HOLIDAY CONSUMERISM

...Note that you've already got the Christmas decorations (foreground) on sale with the Halloween decorations (background). Austria actually gets a bit of Halloween (thanks to America's cultural influence), but those decorations probably won't surface for another couple weeks. Christmas decorations won't surface for another couple months!

BIRTHDAY CAKES...You won't find sheet cakes here loaded with gobs of sugary icing. The cakes are also generally drier and less sweet than what the typical American palette is used to.

THE CEREAL AISLE ...The thing I love about this picture is that it's your typical American cereal aisle. Let me repeat myself: It's a cereal AISLE. Yes, the whole aisle is for cereal! So let's consider this word problem: If your average Austrian grocery store aisle is half this size, and if (maybe) half of that aisle comprises the cereal selection, then how much more of a cereal selection do Americans really have??


HAMBURGERS...You can get hamburgers in Austria, but they won't look like this! This was one of my first American meals--a taste of home!

SELECTION ...There is so much CHOICE in America. This is the selection of tomato sauce in the local market in Washington Heights--about the size of your average Austrian grocery store. Still here, the selection of tomato sauce is amazing. No wonder I have trouble making decisions, having grown up in an environment such as this!

TRASH COLLECTION...This is typical New York: the trash gets put out on the sidewalk to await collection. Alas, this is also why New York is particularly stinky in the summertime! You'd never, ever find a system like this over here: it's much too unsanitary and unpleasant, and besides--it's an eyesore!

SKEEBALL...OK, so this is a minor difference, but it's a shame nonetheless.

MAILBOX FLAGS

...This is a typical American mailbox, with the flag put up to alert the mailman (sorry--mailperson) that there is a piece of outgoing mail. In Austria, you must deliver all outgoing mail into an official street mailbox, even if you have your regular mail delivered to your home.



ROOT BEER FLOATS

...Unfortunately there is no root beer in Austria. But if there was, there is little chance that it would one day grow up to become a root beer float. The whole float idea hasn't really reached Austria yet, but when I suggested it to a select few Austrians, they wrinkled their noses in disgust.

LOCKING A BIKE

...The Austrian idea of locking a bike is vastly different from the American way! In Austria, bikes are typically propped up and the chain put through the back tire. This basically ensures that no one can roll the bike away, but it would be so simple to just pick the bike up and walk off with it! I've often marvelled that more bikes aren't stolen over here. In contrast, I took a picture of this guy in New York locking his bike the New York way: chain through the back tire, heavy-duty chain through the front tire and chained to the street sign, and removing the bike seat to take it with him.

The End

Day Twenty-Two, or Hi-Ho, the Derry-O:

I spent the morning out in the herb garden collecting blossoms for herbal tea. Around noon, the farmer called me in for lunch. I sat down at the table across from him, and he picked up a pitcher of milk that had been sitting out for two days since collecting it on the Alm.

“Want some Sauermilch [sour/curdled milk]?” he asked, extending the pitcher of chunky milk in my direction. “It’s really good.”

I looked at his mug of Sauermilch, and that’s indeed what it was: sour, curdled milk. “No thanks,” I replied as politely and unalarmed as I could. Inwardly I was feeling disgusted—he drinks curdled milk?! Without knowing the German words for “curdled” or “chunky” or “lumpy,” I tried to explain that I’d never tried milk that looks like that, and is he sure it hasn’t gone bad?

The farmer explained that the whole milk from the Alm had been sitting out for two days, which had produced some really great Sauermilch. He then emphasized this point by swigging his Sauermilch with gusto. He showed me his mug and indicated how schön the lumpiness was and how there was still liquid swimming up around the curdled parts and how good that is for you…but he failed to mention exactly how it’s good for you… “You know it’s still good,” he explained, “by the nice appearance of the Sauermilch. It hasn’t gone bad until you see mold forming on the top.”

Again, I declined. I couldn’t bring myself to drink curdled milk, no matter what old farmer wisdom says…

I spent the rest of the afternoon continuing to pluck blossoms from the herb garden. I’d learned from my time on the farm that I am NOT a gardener, however collecting the blossoms was garden work I could handle—I got to pick pretty flowers and I enjoyed watching the bees!

Mama Said…: Since I’d been on the farm, I’d learned more and more old sayings and beliefs about your health. Most of these seemed distinctly Austrian and foreign to me, since I’d not grown up hearing such things. Some of them I’ve mentioned before, like the Austrian belief that you should always, always, always wear a scarf when you are sick. (This means summer or winter, indoors or out, and even to bed!) Sometimes it makes me shake my head: The Austrians occasionally wonder that I’m so backward for not knowing these basic things, and I have to wonder where in the world they got these crazy ideas in the first place. So in the interest of bolstering intercultural awareness, I will share with you these old pieces of wisdom I learned on the farm:

• Your body can’t absorb the vitamins in carrots if you eat them raw. You need to have some sort of oil or fat with the carrots in order to get all the nutrients! (I’ve since learned that this idea exists in Hungary too.)


• It’s unhealthy to drink cold milk straight from the fridge: it’s bad for your stomach. Nevermind that there’s a whole nation of Americans raised on cold milk…even that will eventually lead to problems, of course. Yes, we will be a whole nation with stomach problems, just you wait and see.


• You shouldn’t eat raw tomatoes in the wintertime. The coldness of the tomato is a shock to your system and that’s unhealthy. Tomatoes are too cold to be winter food unless they’re cooked—so this means no salad with tomatoes in the wintertime either.


• Sauermilch—the curdled milk that’s been sitting out for days but has not yet grown mold—is good for you. The jury is still out on why…


• You can’t eat honey plain—your body can’t digest it. So when eating honey with bread and butter, you must use your knife to mix the honey together with the butter.


• Working with a cell phone in your pocket will make you tired.


• No need for bug spray on an organic farm—just rub yourself with grass, and this will keep the mosquitoes away. (Either I chose the wrong grasses, or this just didn’t work for me…)

Day Twenty-Three, or The Anticlimax:

It was my last day of work on the farm. I was grateful to have finally reached this point, and it was this thought that kept me going through another day of blossom picking. It was a rather anticlimactic end: picking blossoms until noon, breaking for lunch, and then more blossom picking until the evening and cleaning up my room.

I cleaned, I packed, and I got to a good stopping point for the evening. The farmer and the daughter came up later that evening to say goodbye, since they’d be gone the following day when I left. The farmer asked how my stay had been, and I told him how glad I was to be there and how I had learned a lot, and I thanked him for having me. He said that if I was ever in the area again, I should look them up. I still found it difficult to understand the farmer’s dialect, so when he said I was a hard worker, I nearly missed it. I didn’t quite follow everything he was saying, and it only registered after he was done talking. I realized that for him to say I was good to have around and comment on my hard work was quite a compliment—this coming from the taciturn and hard-working farmer himself! I didn’t have my wits about me enough to deny the compliment in typical Austrian fashion, so I thanked him and expressed my gratitude for the experience on the farm. Both the farmer and the daughter extended their hands, and we shook on our farewells.

Day Twenty-Four, or ‘So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye!’:

Because I was so excited about going home, I could hardly sleep. Having tossed and turned all night, I resigned myself to no more sleep and got up before 6 to finish cleaning the guest apartment where I’d spent my last week. When I went down for my last Tyrolean farmer breakfast at 8:30, the farmeress had already been up and about since the early morning hours as well. Shortly before noon she drove me to the train station, where she also expressed her sincere thanks to have such a good helper on the farm. She’d loaded me up with “payment” for my services—herbal teas, herb salt, a few other organic products, and some homemade schnapps—and I was now carrying more home than I’d arrived with. Again, a few slightly awkward but genuine thanks and goodbyes were exchanged, and I found myself on the platform, waiting for my train.

It was over. I was going home. I’d been without email or Internet for nearly a month (which nearly killed me at first), with barely any contact to the outside world. It felt somehow surreal to sit on the train in grubby farm clothes and know that I’d soon be back to life as usual back home in Graz and that all of this would step back from reality and become a memory. An experience. This prompted me to reflect on my experience…

• Would I do it again? Well, yes, but not alone. Next time I would definitely go with friends! And I would probably choose a farm where I got to work less in the field and more with farm animals...


• Do I like farming? Not gardening. I knew that going in, but I thought that on a farm setting it would be different. Despite the rigors of the hay harvest, I did really appreciate it. The time on the Alm was invaluable, and I really liked learning about and working with the cows.


• What did I learn? Aside from practical life skills like harvesting hay or driving cows or churning butter, I do now have a much greater appreciation for organic products. Not because they’re trendy and healthy, but because you know where the food is coming from and I better understand the labor that goes into producing that food. Having been a part of that process, I can really appreciate and stand behind organic products…though I still can’t afford them. I also learned that I could never be a farmer or a farmer’s wife. It’s clear that the family I worked for thrived on their livelihood, but I couldn’t. For them, the work is an unending challenge that brings a sense of satisfaction; for me, a lifetime of that work would quickly become a burden. To be a farmer, you also have to be committed to one place—the farm—and stay there. If you know me at all, that’s clearly not in my nature!


• How did I change? For one thing, I had to learn rather quickly to get used to or work in harmony with things that buzz, fly, or crawl. I also learned the value of manual labor and hard work—we could see the results of our efforts on the farm and in the products we produced (like tea), which was really cool. And whenever I felt like I didn’t like my job, I reminded myself that it was not about me—I was contributing to the farmers’ livelihood. I expanded my horizons. From New York City to a Tyrolean mountain farm…there’s just so much to life! So many different lifestyles in so many different places, each important in their own ways, and I’ve been privy to it! I feel more well-rounded to be in touch with my agrarian side, and this ironically taught me just how much of a city person I really am!


• Would I recommend WWOOFing to others? Yes, I would most certainly recommend it. And who knows, I may even do it again. But now I know more what to expect, exactly what questions to ask of a family when choosing a farm, and how farm life works. It’s a learning experience on many levels, and everyone should have the opportunity to stretch themselves and learn what life is like when you have to work for the most basic of human necessities: food, shelter, etc. For most of history, people have lived a lifestyle that demands hard work with the land and the livestock, and this is still the case today in many places in the world. It’s easy to completely overlook or avoid this fact in our society, and I think we modern city and suburb people should have the chance to learn what that means on a personal level.

To sum it up the way Mom put it: Granddad would be proud.

Alpine Mountain High

Day Nineteen, or Alm-most Perfect:

It was again surprisingly easy to wake up at 5 a.m. to go up to the Alm. The weather was cold and rainy, so at least we weren’t racing against the heat of the day for the latest novelty: butter-making!

Butter is made from cream, but we couldn’t use the fresh cream from the morning’s milking to make butter; rather, we took the cream that had been sitting in a cool, dry place for the past couple days. For obvious reasons, butter is harder to make in the heat of the day than in the cool of the morning, so ordinarily the Sennerin would have to start making the butter at about 5 a.m. if she wanted it to form in an hour…otherwise who knows how long it could take. And when you’re churning the butter by hand, an hour is already an eternity.

The farmer brought out an old butter churn—probably also 150 years old like the centrifuge—which took the form of a wooden barrel that rests on a frame and is turned with a crank. When the cream, which has been sitting out for a couple days in a cool dry place, is cooled to exactly 12°C (54°F) in a pot of cold water—no more and no less—it is ready to be churned. The farmer poured about 10 liters of cream into the barrel and sealed the top shut; we were ready to begin.

Churning butter takes about an hour of cranking the barrel around and around by hand. The cream inside the barrel sloshes back and forth as the barrel tumbles in endless circles—but always in a clockwise direction! For some reason, which remained unexplained but firmly assumed, butter does not churn as well in a counter-clockwise direction. Go figure. After awhile, the sloshing should gradually turn to thudding, and when the thudding ceases: voila! You have butter. Churning was hard work, and the cream and the barrel were heavy enough and create enough resistance that it was an hour-long arms workout. The novelty of churning butter faded drastically within the first 15 minutes, and then I just felt sorry for the Sennerin, who would have to undertake this long, laborious, and rather boring process every other day. Fortunately, she had an MP3 player.

After an hour, which we all agreed felt like 3 hours, we still heard sloshing. Something wasn’t right. Giving our churn the benefit of the doubt, we cranked for another 20 minutes. Still no thudding. The Sennerin stopped churning and the farmer OK’ed us to look inside. We screwed off the vices keeping the lid in place, peeled off the foam seal, and looked inside: a lumpy mess. Swimming in milk was a porridge-like mess of failed butter. In theory, we should have at least produced buttermilk with the leftover liquid, but even the milk wasn’t sour enough to be buttermilk! It was decided that the cream had not actually been 12°C all the way through, and that’s why the butter was not, well, butter. However, we could still salvage it. We drained the milk and drew out the semi-solid cream, placing it in cold water to harden into quasi-butter. But our quasi-butter was basically glorified whipped cream. (…Later we discovered that we had not cranked the centrifuge fast enough, and that the cream we used for churning was not completely pure and still had a milk content that was too high for butter-making…)

Cowabunga, Dude!: Being alone on the Alm with the Sennerin allowed me to ditch all pretenses and ask all my ignorant and embarrassing questions about cows. Fortunately she not only knew a lot about her companions on the Alm but she was enthusiastic about sharing her knowledge. Through her patient tutelage I learned:

• Cows give birth to only one calf at a time, although, like people, bearing twins is a trait that tends to run in the family. The gestation period is about 7 months and one week, and cows can give birth as early as 2 years old.


• It’s true that if you don’t milk a cow, it will be in pain. The cows are milked twice a day, and if you don’t milk the cow, the udders will leak. Again, there are parallels here to people…


• Although it’s safe to drink fresh milk straight from the cow, it does have more bacteria than pasteurized milk; for this reason you shouldn’t give fresh milk to children under the age of 2.


• Why do cows wear cowbells? So you can find them again! They’re not just quaint alpine bling—if the cows wander off to graze in foggy or rainy weather, you can find them again by the sound of their bells. And often the Senner/in can recognize a particular cow by the sound of its bell!


• The cows stay inside the stable all day because they want to. It’s too hot outside, and the bugs are too annoying. So the cows wander off to graze at night.


• A talented milker can milk a cow by hand in 5 minutes. A less accomplished milker could take half an hour!


• Yes, even female cows have horns! However, sometimes the horns are removed to protect the other cows in close proximity in the stable from poking an eye out. Ha.

Day Twenty, or Till the Cows Come Home:

I never really thought about the origin of this expression, but on the Alm I finally got it: the cows are let out at night to graze and then they come home in the morning, all of their own accord! They can sense the heat of the day coming on, and that milk that’s been building up all night is getting uncomfortable, so they go back to the stable to chill and get milked.

The only downside to having the cows out grazing all night is that you can hear the ding-ding-dinging of their bells all night long. Fortunately I’d come prepared with earplugs, and that seemed to do the trick until about 6 a.m. when they came back to the alpine hut. It was crisp outside—I’d slept under a down blanket with a hot water bottle under the covers—and I decided to don every layer I’d brought with me: a tank top, a tee shirt, a long-sleeved shirt, a fleece sweater, and a fleece jacket. By the time I was dressed and made it out to the stable, the Sennerin was milking the last cow. She paused and then asked if I’d like to try…I’d been looking forward to this part for days!

First, she handed me a paper towel to clean off the udders, especially taking care that the area around the teat was free of gunk. Then we should have milked a few squirts by hand to get the impurities out before attaching the milking machine…but she forgot. Oops. Instead, the Sennerin brought out the milking machine and instructed me how to attach it to each of the four udders. Like a vacuum, it sucked right onto the udders; we watched the udder for the appearance of wrinkles (much like the wrinkles that appear when vacuum sucking the air out of a space-saving travel bag), indicating that it was sufficiently “deflated.” Finally, we disconnected the machine and milked the udders by hand one last time to make sure that the milk was out.

This was the part I’d been waiting for—I couldn’t wait to milk the cow by hand! The Sennerin took a teat and drew out a thin spray of milk. I knew that this was more than just a squeezing motion; you had to squeeze and draw down, and…who knows. I watched her technique, and then I gave it a try: nothing. Again, I reached high on the teat, squeezing and pulling down as I went. Still nothing. The Sennerin suggested a circular motion, wrapping my fingers around the teat and simultaneously squeezing; she demonstrated, drawing a stream of milk. I tried: nothing. She suggested squeezing harder, so I did: nothing. Finally, on my 5th try, I squeezed hard, pulled hard, and twisted the tip to see if anything was coming out; and finally—a drop! Success!

Udder Madness: Apparently, cow-tipping is an urban legend! I asked the Sennerin about it, and her expression was simultaneously confused and dumbfounded—she’d never heard of such a thing! She explained that she grew up with cows, and all the ones she’s ever known have slept lying down…thereby making cow-tipping impossible! This led me to ask about cud: cows actually chew their cud, right? Well not only do they chew their cud, but they have 7 different stomachs from which they can regurgitate it again and again! An old farmer saying goes that a healthy cow chews its cud at least 40 times…if not, there’s a problem!

Alm By Myself: When the weather finally cleared up, I decided to go up the mountain and see the summit. The Sennerin had to stay behind with the cows, but she told me I couldn’t get lost: just go up until I reach the ridge, then hang a right and keep going until I reach the summit cross…it sounded easy enough, but little did she know how poor my sense of direction can sometimes be—I was still getting lost in the school building during my last week of school! But I started up the mountain and towards the summit.

I’d never climbed a mountain alone or without a hiking trail, and it was an incredible sense of freedom as I neared the tree line. Up on the ridge the trees gave way to little alpine flowers and mosses and scattered white rocks. It was green and gently undulating, and the higher I went the more amazing the view became. I stopped along the way to take pictures and do a little alpine twirl a la Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music”…I am in the Alps, after all!

Soon I saw the summit cross up ahead and was surprised at how quickly I’d reached the summit. Something about being all alone on the green and rolling mountaintop without any paths to guide me filled me with an irrepressible urge to romp. So I frolicked up to the cross, bounding over rocks and alpine flora.

The view from the summit was fantastic. Being up there was reward enough for my time on the farm, and it made up for the difficulties I’d had up until then. Never before had I been alone on a mountaintop. It was just me and God’s great grandeur spreading out in every direction. What a feeling…and what an experience!

I stayed up on the mountain as long as the good weather would allow. I slowly made my way back down as the clouds rolled in again, taking over an hour to reach the pasture as I explored the macro details of the nature around me: a moth on a thistle, a bustling anthill, the bees pollinating the tiny alpine flowers. I could have stayed a long, long time up on that mountain with nothing but my eyes and my heart to keep me busy.

Alma Matter: Life on the Alm has a different flavor than life on the farm. The Sennerin was worried that I was bored, but I was actually quite content just to sit with the cat on my lap, looking out at the mountains. How could I not constantly look at the mountains up there? It was better than television.
The Sennerin loves her job and is clearly cut out for it. She really loves the cows. If the cows are happy, she’s happy—everything else is secondary. She brings the knowledge of having grown up on a small farm but has the worldly balance of having traveled and living in the city. We got on well together, and it was there on the Alm that I learned the most. It’s the thing that made the whole experience worth it. Totally worth it.



Day Twenty-One, or Say Cheese!:

I awoke once again to the tingling of cowbells through my earplugs. I could hear the repetitive thump-thump-thump of the butter churn, and I knew it must be about 5:30 or so. Not long after, I heard the farmer’s voice—I was surprised to hear him so early, but then I realized that he was here to teach us the next trick: cheese-making!

As the Sennerin finished up with the butter, the farmer explained how to finish this more successful batch. This time the cream had been pure, chilled to perfection, and left out an ideal 24 hours. And this time, after an hour, the Sennerin had a solid series of butter blobs thumping around in the churn. This time the butter had a nice, buttery consistency, and the Sennerin formed it into respectable butter shapes by molding it into a ball with her hands and then tossing it, omelette-style, in a wooden bowl. By flipping the butter, it should take a nice, smooth shape, force out any extra buttermilk, and ensure that it is nicely clumped together. Then the butter is wrapped in butter-paper or pressed into a butter mold.

Since driving the cows up to the high Alm, we’d already filled two 100-liter containers of milk! The first container was 3 or 4 days old and had been sitting out in the alpine hut to curdle. Now that the milk had soured for several days and a bucket places on the surface didn’t sink an inch, it was ready to use for cheese!

Every 10-12 liters of curdled, soured milk will produce about 1 kilogram of cheese. We scooped the chunky milk into a large pot and set it over the wood-burning stove. It was a bit revolting to see (and smell) all of the curdled milk, and I couldn’t help but wonder that mankind invented cheese at all! [For the story of how cheese came to be and other interesting matters involving salt, I would recommend the book Salt by Mark Kurlansky…] The sour milk is then heated on the stove to a temperature of 40°C (104°F); at 40°C, it is removed from the heat and allowed to sit for half a day. (When heated, some of the curdled milk separates and breaks down to become liquid again; this liquid is the whey, as in curds and whey.) Then, the chunky bits of the heated milk are collected into a cheesecloth with some salt and pepper, and the mixture is squeezed to get all the extra liquid out; the cloth is then regularly squeezed and turned and placed in a mold for the next several days until it forms and becomes real cheese.

Sadly, I wouldn’t be around to taste the first of the cheese. I left with the farmer and went back to the farm, where an afternoon of work in the herb garden awaited me. That evening I stepped under the showerhead for the first time in 72 hours. Although I hadn’t missed indoor plumbing or showers while up on the Alm, I was highly appreciative of it when I got back!

Movin’ On Up

Day Fifteen, or Guest Apartment Sweet Guest Apartment:

The nice couple I’d befriended left for home, and I promptly moved back into the guest apartment. Earlier that day I’d arranged a departure date myself with the farmeress, and it felt good knowing exactly how long I had left of the farm.

What George Lucas Jacked from the Herb Garden: While working in the herb garden, I realized that flying beetles sound like light sabers as they whiz past your face. This new discovery was rather exciting to me, so when I spoke to a friend on the phone later that night, I asked: “Did you know that flying beetles sound like light sabers?” There was a slight pause before she repeated, “Flying beetles taste like Life Savers?!”


Day Sixteen, or Alm-most There:

A week earlier, the Sennerin (remember that word from our vocab lesson?) had said I could come and help drive the cows from the low Alm (remember that word?) to the high Alm. Most of the day was spent in preparation for the next day’s cattle drive. I amused myself with the thought that driving the cows makes me a cowherd, or rather a cowherdess, which sounds almost like “cowardess”…but my little pun was of course in English, which saved me from the embarrassing situation of actually uttering it aloud. (And now that I’m putting it out there, I can properly share an embarrassingly awful pun! Enjoy!)

Day Seventeen, or A Farewell to Alms:

When my alarm went off at 5:20 in the morning, I was already wide awake. I’d slept terribly—if at all—in anticipation of driving the cows from the low Alm to the high Alm. It was a distance of 11.5 km (7.2 miles) that we’d be driving the cows on foot, using sticks as prods to keep them all in line. It was such a novelty for me that I could hardly contain my excitement!

When we reached the low Alm, the Sennerin was waiting for us with the cows. Apparently I wasn’t alone in my excitement, as the Sennerin had also hardly slept at all in anticipation of the drive! But for her it was also a move to a new alpine hut for the next 5-6 weeks until they return again to the low Alm, and it also meant transporting all of her belongings up to the high Alm later by Jeep.

I had no idea what to expect, and I was given absolutely no instructions as the cows began to exit the stable. I was given a long stick to use as a cattle prod and watched as the farmer’s sons and daughters began to drive the cattle down the lane. There were 12 cows to be herded, and we scattered ourselves throughout the line of cows to keep them moving and together on the path. I had only my camera and my “cattle prod” with me, and at the risk of being labeled a tourist (because, let’s face it, I was!) I faithfully documented the experience.

Fortunately for us, cows are pack animals with a herd mentality. Driving cattle is much easier than, say, driving cats. Cats (oh what a nightmare!) would scatter when pushed in one direction; cows, for the most part, follow the leader. The challenge arises when one cow decides to stray from the pack and the others inevitably follow suit. When one or many wander off, you must jump into the woods or scamper up the hill or do whatever is necessary to bring those misguided souls back to the (not so) straight and narrow path. The trick, I discovered through trial and error, is to approach the cow from the side. Cows, I learned, are fast. They can gallop. It’s a lumbering gallop, but a gallop nonetheless. If they see you running up behind them, they’ll simply run away from you in whatever direction they happen to be facing. If you can approach from the side, you can use your prod to urge them back to the right direction.

Some cows seemed to respond well to a simple tap with the stick, while others required an all-out whack across the back. It was relatively simple to drive them up to the high Alm, with only a few exceptions that required the strategic roundup skills of a fledgling cowherdess.

As we were slowly driving the cows up the mountain, I thought of all the agrarian Scripture passages that were becoming so much more real to me as I worked on the farm. As much of the Old Testament is concerned with figures who worked the land, I now felt much more of a connection or an understanding for those who had to work the field or attend the flocks. That, after the Fall, man was punished to work the land by the sweat of his brow—I know that sweat! That people were constantly tending their herds and flocks—totally! That Jesus talks about the one lost sheep that goes astray and the shepherd who leaves the other 99 to go and look for it—I understand why the illustration wasn’t with cows instead! (Though I know absolutely nothing about herding sheep, I now realize that if the one cow had gone astray, the other 99 would have followed…and that would have been a totally different lesson!) Even the Psalms became more alive to me—after all, David spent a bunch of time out in nature with his flocks too!

It took about 3-3½ hours to reach the high Alm. It didn’t feel like we had gone 7.2 miles uphill, since the grade was gradual and, since it was essentially hiking with cows, it was slow going. Ambling, even. When we reached the alpine hut, we all sat around and snacked, just as the cows seemed to be doing in the pasture below. The view from the alpine hut was spectacular—from that elevation you could finally see the mighty Alps stretching out as far as the eye could see. Layer upon layer of rocky, craggy mountain ranges stretched out in a gently receding snow-covered panorama. For the first time since being in Tyrol I really felt like I was indeed in the Alps. In fact, I could hardly tear my eyes away from the view.

Most of the others left the Alm at midday, but I remained until the evening and got to observe the Sennerin for the first time as she milked the cows with a machine that looked like a giant metal octopus. First, she cleaned the udders and milked each one a bit by hand to get the impurities out. Then she attached the milking machine, which vacuum sucks a tube to each of the four udders and then pumps out more milk than I ever thought could come from a cow! (Two cows can fill a knee-high container, which must hold at least 5-7 gallons of milk.) Then, once the milk stops flowing and wrinkles appear around eat teat indicating empty udders, the milking machine is removed and the udders are rubbed down with a Vaseline-like ointment to moisturize, prevent chapping, keep clean, and repel flies. I watched on in “udder” amazement and hoped that I’d be able to help one of these days!

After all the cows had been milked, the farmer demonstrated how to use the 150-year-old centrifuge that separates the milk from the cream. This contraption is cranked quickly by hand and it separates the heavier cream from the milk—for every 10 liters of milk, you can get about 1 liter of cream. (The cream is then used to make butter and the milk is used to make cheese.)

As the farmer was pouring the milk, still warm from the cows, into the centrifuge, I asked if the milk would have to be pasteurized before drinking. To my surprise he responded that it was drinkable already. “Really??” I asked in astonishment. I mean, I know that back in the day people had to get milk straight from the cow, but I really though that nowadays milk was unhealthy to drink before it’s been pasteurized. That’s what illogical city girls think, anyway.

The farmer offered me a glass of fresh milk. With some degree of trepidation, I took a sip…and it was amazing! So rich and so pure—whole milk with the cream still in it, and pleasantly warm from the cow. (There’s a word for this in German, actually: cow-warm-milk.) I drank the whole glass and I could feel the creaminess coating the inside of my cheeks and the roof of my mouth.

My first impression of getting up to the high Alm and seeing the view was: This makes it all worth everything and worth coming to Tyrol just to come up here and be in this awesome creation. This is gonna be good.

I had quite a day with the cows. I observed, I learned, and I amused myself at their expense….

Highlights: Herding cattle requires more than just a strong hand with the cattle prodding stick. It requires many a sharp yet encouraging word to drive them on. While the others were able to get the cows moving with a few choice words in dialect, when I uttered those same words they just came out sounding weak and silly. What better chance, I thought, to use all the cowboy slang I’d picked up from all those old Westerns my mom watched when I was a kid? If I was going to sound silly yelling at cows, I was going to sound silly in my own language! I took to yelling things out, such as:

Head ‘em up, move ‘em out!

Move along!

Move yer cowhide!

These all, of course, came out with a cowboy accent. If yer gonna herd them cows, ya better herd ‘em proper!

Observations: Cows are simple creatures. They don’t seem to think independently that much. They seem content to go with the flow. They’re powerful yet gentle. They don’t seem to know their own strength, but you get the impression they wouldn’t exploit it if they did. Cows have kind, gentle eyes. They seem almost huggable at times…but they also have a lot of gooey snot. They can be kept clear of a field with an inch-thick band of plastic tape strung from spike to spike—they don’t necessarily need a whole fence to keep them out; they see the barrier and they accept it. I’ve decided I like cows.

Scooping up the field mice and bopping them on the head: I finally learned what Little Bunny Foo Foo was onto: field mice sound just like squeaky toys! When the cat caught a field mouse out in the pasture, it made the same noise as when you whack the gophers with a mallet in that carnival game. Go figure!

On Tyrolean Farmhouses: I didn’t realize until I got to Tyrol why Austrian farmhouses look so big: because they’re a house and a stable all in one! The farmer’s house is also like that, and even the alpine hut opens straight from the kitchen into the stable. As far as I know, American farmhouses are not like that!


Day Eighteen, or Buying Time:

The Sennerin agreed that I could come and stay with her on the Alm for a couple of nights. After the day of the cattle drive, I went back to the farm for a day off, buying time as I prepared my things for the next 2-3 days on the high Alm.

The high Alm is situated at 1400 m (about 4600 ft) above sea level. But don’t let that fool you—although it lacks the base elevation of Rockies, it’s just as spectacular, and the treeline is much lower in the Alps. The alpine hut is a wooden structure about 300 years old, in typical Austrian style: a tiny one-room hut with a bed and a wood-burning stove (with storage rooms to either side) and a door opening from the main room into the stable. The WC is an outhouse to the rear of the hut, and the water comes from a hose outside connected to a natural spring on the mountain. The generator provides electricity at night, and the wood stove heats the hut. It was rustic and sweet and I couldn’t wait to take a mini-break from the farm and work on the Alm.