OZ 08

Thank you all for your patience and also for your gentle nudges for me to finally tell you about Australia! I've now been back from Oz (Australia) for three weeks, and I've finally unpacked my bags, cleaned my room, and uploaded my pictures to Flickr. (Hint: See the Flickr link to the right. The easiest way to view my photos is by clicking on the albums to the right of the Flickr page and viewing as a slideshow--they're broken up into albums for each leg of the journey.) So now, dear friends, it is time to tell my stories. So now, without further ado, I give you...OZ 08!

Phase 1: Melbourne (late Christmas Eve - Dec. 28)


The concept of OZ 08 was developed exactly a year before my arrival in Australia, on Christmas Day 2006. On that day, I received a phone call from my long-lost friend James in Australia--a friend I'd met while visiting Jess for 2½ weeks in June 2005 but hadn't really kept in touch with until a call on Christmas Day 2006. (N.b.: To prove how noteworthy this phone call was and also how amazingly meticulous my Flickr archiving skills are, you may view the photographic proof of said call at this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hontsr/334916211/in/set-72157594442288676/.) As I caught up with him, it came up in conversation that I would love to go back to Australia some day, as I didn't really see much of it when I was there in 2005. He concurred--as an Australian, he hadn't seen much of Australia either! It was then that the idea of OZ 08 was born...we'd take a trip around Australia together and see all of those wonderful places we'd never seen before! And, due to some sort of fluke in the space-time continuum or a glitch in the Matrix or something, this theoretical "we-should-maybe-do-this-someday"-idea-that-is-never-actually-realized-in-real-life became reality.

I left Vienna at dawn on Dec. 23 and arrived, after 30 sleepless hours of travel, in Melbourne shortly before midnight on Christmas Eve. Fortunately, the Aussies celebrate Christmas on the 25th like Americans (as opposed to the Austrians), so technically I hadn't missed anything. Except the Christmas Eve service. However, we showed up at the church in style, fashionably late and right after the service ended, but just in time to join in the tradition of a late night post-service Christmas Eve meal. Since the traditional 2 am souvlaki place was closed, we got Chinese noodles--a close second. By the time I went to bed at whatever obscene early morning hour, I was ready to sleep a good night's sleep and thus forfeit any jetlag, as is my custom.

When I awoke on Christmas morning, I was alive and fit and soooo ready for breakfast. I warily put on my capri pants and short sleeved shirt and thought to myself what a strange phenomenon this Christmas in the southern hemisphere was turning out to be. It was sunny, it was bright, and as Christmas orphans in a foreign summery land, Jess and I decided to have a Christmas brekkie (breakfast) in the park. Nevermind that by the time we bought breakfast food at the gas station and got to the park it was already 2 pm--it was breakfast nonetheless. We spent the afternoon lolling around on the grass and experiencing was was to be my first brush with the evil, evil Australian sun. (This variety of Turbo Sun was to become my rival the further north we travelled.)

Later that evening, Jess put her blossoming culinary skills to work and prepared her famous roast chicken. Several people had described this roast chicken to me in terms usually reserved for obsessions or for lovers. By the time our dinner crowd of 7 trickled in, the birds were looking mighty fine. It was an impressive feast of chicken and various creative forms of salad, made even more impressive to me by the fact that Jess had chosen and prepared it all herself. Selfishly, I couldn't help thinking, "Where was this love of cooking when we were roommates, huh?!" but I of course kept that to myself and promised never to tell her directly...I'd say the blog suffices for that. Also noteworthy of that Christmas evening was the Christmas present I received from James, a book entitled "Australia's Most Dangerous: Spiders, Snakes and Marine Creatures." This was to become my reading for the next couple weeks, until I'd read cover-to-cover that Australia's most dangerous everything was going to be in all the areas we would be travelling to. I like to think I kept myself to a healthy level of paranoia, but James might have his own opinion on the subject...

The next day, on Boxing Day (which, amusingly, was orginally a day for the rich British folks to re-gift the stuff they didn't want to the poor, a day that has now become a national holiday), several of us travelled about an hour south of Melbourne to a peninsula, like many places in Australia, with a totally unpronouncable name. On this Peninsula of The Impossible Name we took a trail ride through the coastal bush and down to the beach. Amazingly enough, we were in the middle of nowhere Australia, and our trail guide turned out to be Austrian! She was just as astounded as I was to meet someone living in Austria, which led to all of our conversation being in German and my accidental confession that, yes, I had taken riding lessons in the past. When, in fact, I have never taken riding lessons in the past. But it was one of those embarrassing conversational blunders where I responded without thinking and only afterwards did the real meaning of her words sink in. This convesational blunder was indeed an unfortunate one, as the warning following it had to do with my horse's propensity to race and thus break into a gallop when we canter. As the experienced rider that I apparently was, I was to rein him in and make sure that he didn't race the other horses. I was successful, but also contributing largely to this feeling of success was that: a) I remained on the horse, and my bum remained in the general vicinity of the saddle; b) I didn't lose the sunglasses I was borrowing from Jess; and c) my feet didn't slip out of the stirrups when I was frantically holding the sunglasses to my face with one hand, pulling back on the reins with the other hand and simultaneously trying to keep my balance on the horse in this awkward position. This dash of adventure complimented the scenery very well, and all in all it was quite an experience.

Phase 2: Sydney (Dec 28 - Jan. 1)


Our first stop in Sydney was Bondi Beach, a beautiful beach with another typically tricky Aussie pronunciation. To the American eye, the name of the beach looks something like "Bondee." Yet to the American ear, it sounds something like "Bondoh." When in reality it is pronounced "Bond-eye." I think this was the first of many, many times I asked James, "Sorry?....Come again?....Pardon?....Can you repeat that?....Can you repeat that slowly?....I still don't understand what you're saying...."

The stay in Sydney signalled the beginning of much wonderful food. Most of the food we ate was Asian food--Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, you name it. Coming from a country where Asian food is hard to find, and good Asian food is even harder to find, I used the opportunity to take full advantage of my environs. All of this food was within walking distance, and in fact most of our travel within Sydney was done on foot. It's actually somewhat difficult for me to pinpoint exactly what we did in Sydney, even though we were there for 4 days, but I do know that we walked around quite a bit and got to see a lot of downtown, and in particular of places like Darling Harbour.

Sydney has several markets, and Paddy Market is certainly the largest. As we were walking through Paddy's Market, we passed a booth advertising fake tatoos. Airbrushed on in mere minutes and water-resistant for up to a week, they are becoming very popular accessories to a day out on the beach. Still in full-on OZ 08 enthusiasm, James was struck with an idea: What if we got OZ 08 tatoos?! This registered on stroke-of-genious level, and we spent quite some time deciding what to get an where. Finally, we decided on matching OZ 08 tatoos on opposite arms (so that, standing side by side, they would line up): James' tatoo was to have a scary shark with "OZ 08" below it, and mine was to have a funny shark with the words "OZ 08" below. The juxtaposition of agressive shark with silly shark was just another brilliant facet of this enticing plan. We had speculated about making tee shirts, but this was just so much better!!

One thing I'd never considered until I was in Sydney is why a hot air balloon is called a hot air balloon. It's because it's HOT. Of course, making a giant balloon capable of lifting 13 people in a basket float into the air has to be powered by the legal equivalent of a flame thrower. Somehow I'd never equated the two. So when we took a hot air balloon ride above Sydney one morning, we were advised to leave our jackets behind; even in the 6 am cool and the altitude gained, they would be unnecessary. Lift-off made me think of being in the Wonka-Vator as it soared out of the chocolate factory. However, to my knowledge, the Wonka-Vator didn't make every dog within a 2 mile radius howl and bark at the mysterious flying object in the sky--or at least the sound was dubbed out of that part! It was a truly unusual phenomenon that our balloon should make entire neighborhood of dogs bark, and I couldn't help but feel sorry for those poor suburban Aussies who never invited that hot air balloon into their skies anyway. After an aborted landing attempt at a local airstrip, we finally touched down on a driving range some ways outside of town. We passengers then helped pack up the hot air balloon for transport back to the hangar, which--for all practical purposes--was equivalent to the eternal torture of rolling up and packing in the world's largest sleeping bag in one of Dante's levels of Hell.

We should have been excited to spend New Year's Eve in Sydney--after all, the fireworks above the Harbour Bridge are always the first ones shown on the "New Year's Eve Across the World" section of Dick Clark's countdown. But by that point we were really ready to be out of the city and up to the tropics. Our plan was to stash our bags in a locker and then--since it was New Year's Eve and all--stay out the whole night, as that eliminated the need for accomodations. Our flight to Cairns left at 7 am on Jan. 1, so it didn't seem like it'd be a problem. Fortunately for Facebook, I was in touch with an old colleague of mine from artnet who was now getting her Master's in Sydney. Since we didn't have any particular plans, she was gracious enough to invite us up to the North Shore with her and her friends to watch the firework from a park. From our location we could see 4 different sets of simultaneous fireworks across the water--both beautiful and an opportunity to use the handy dandy fireworks setting on my camera. We headed back into the city at about 2 am and spent the next couple hours circumnavigating the Sydney Opera House (the long way, of course) in the hopes of finding a way in through the security and cleanup crews and up to the building. Feeling somewhat like spies, we were able to find an unpatrolled way over and finally saw the Opera House up close, albeit at 3:30 in the morning. It seems we weren't the only ones wandering the streets all night--the streets were quite full of people, even until 5 am when we retrieved our bags and headed to the airport. Driven by the saying, "You can sleep when you're dead!" we somehow made it to the airport and to Cairns before crashing at a very dodgy, but affordable, hostel.

Phase 3: Cairns (Jan. 1 - Jan. 6)



Cairns also has one of those dangerously simple yet deceiving names. During the planning stages of OZ 08, my references to "Kay-rns" were met with bemused laughter on the part of James. In true Aussie style, he was having much too much fun with it to actually tell me how to say the name of the city properly, and even all of my Aussie friends had been forwarned not to speak the name of the city "up north." We talked around the subject for weeks, even up until the day we borded the plane for "up north." And it wasn't until I heard the natives say our destination 2 or 3 times that I learned that the city we were visiting next was "Cans"--as in, "cans" of baked beans. But it soon became apparent that the proper pronunciation of this place was of very little importance in the big picture. In the grand scheme of things, I thought of this last leg of our journey less as "Cans" and something more like "Paradise."

After our night of sleepless wandering through the center of Sydney, we were bushed. Never before has a lumpy hostel mattress with questionable stains felt or looked so appealing. Despite the shock of suddenly arriving in the balmy tropics, we slept quite soundly in our stuffy little room. Finally venturing into the city in the late afternoon, we wandered around from tourist office to tourist office until we found a hidden gem in Didier, our star reservation booker. Didier, originally from France but since the last decade or so from Cairns, listened to our vague ideas of what we'd like to do in the area--mainly diving and rainforesting--and gave his suggestions on what we may want to try. He wasn't trying to sell us on anything, and he seemed more interested in talking with us than actually making a commission. We asked about certain trips or tours, and he would tell us which ones were more for the locals and which more for the tourists. After we left Didier, we got about 2 blocks before we realized that it was fruitless to try and top that in any other travel office, so we went back and booked up the next four days of boating, diving, tours, and islands. Certainly not expecting the sudden windfall we gave him, he even gave us the underwater camera I was about to buy as a gratis perk. Walking through the night market later that evening, in good spirits about the day ahead, we stopped along a row of Asian massage enterprises and got what was to become the first of four 40-minute full-body massages for $15; every night we were in Cairns we went back to the night market and tried a different massage establishment until we had found the best--the green one. And for $15 a pop, we felt less like indulgent travellers and more like verrry relaxed beach bums.

My biggest goal for Cairns was to go diving on the Great Barrier Reef. Shortly before leaving for Australia, I ran into an Austrian friend on the tram who told me how, when she was in Australia, she'd spent several nights on a boat diving out on the reef. Didier saw to it that we were able to book a similar endeavor, a 2 day 1 night package 65 km out on the Great Barrier Reef. Since I didn't have diving certification, I was required to always go down with an instructor. This of course was no biggie, as my only previous diving experience was my one diving with the sharks and the sting rays in the Melbourne Aquarium in 2005. This time I was out in the Ocean--no containing walls and no handlers to feed the dangerous marine animals on a regular basis--so I was more than happy for my escort. I made a total of 6 dives over the next two days, and after figuring out the best way to equalize the pressure in my ears (after a rather painful experience on my first trip down and my first time using the "I'm not ok and there's a problem"' hand signal) and figuring out how NOT to float to the surface again (anyone remember the part in "The Sword in the Stone" when Wart is turned into a fish and the frog keeps kicking him down as he bobs to the surface? Yeah...), I began to feel quite at home under da sea. The first thing that struck me was just how AMAZING it was in real life--I honestly thought to myself, "It looks just like it does in 'Finding Nemo!'" The colors are brilliant. The variety and diversity of marine life are staggering. And no matter how many anemones or corals or reef fish you've seen, the Reef is always going to be different, with different nooks and different crannies and different creatures patroling their turf. It made me wish (and not for the first time in my life, as my parents can tell you) that I was born the Little Mermaid and never had to come up for air again. By my 3rd dive, the instructors were saying how they'd heard what a natural I was and that they only had to go down with me as a formality because I didn't have my certification--and they all recommended I get my Open Water Certification. By the time we left the Reef, I'd taken that suggestion to heart, and I was seriously considering the merits of moving to Australia and becoming a dive instructor. Seriously. And having looked into the requirements of joining the crew of the boat we were on, don't be surprised when you hear of my next career change...


James' big wish was to see the rainforest. And with the Daintree Rainforest just next door, it was just a quick hour to the world's oldest continuous rainforest. We took a tour that would take us up the coast and through the Daintree up to Cape Tribulation, with a crocodile cruise on the Daintree river along the way. Our tour guide was there as his first day on the job, but he far surpassed anything I ever could have expected. Paul, our infinite fountain of Australian knowledge, was able to answer any question we posed to him. Having lived in the rainforest for 2 years in a symbiotic relationship with a rafter-dwelling python lovingly deemed Monty, he was the curator of an aboriginal cultural site before he took up his current gig as a tour guide. So impressive was his knowledge that, when I came back from the outhouse with pictures of a spider the size of my hand that I was convinced I'd seen in my "Australia's Most Dangerous" book, Paul was able to tell me not only what type of spider that was (not poisonous), but that it had the strongest web of any spider and was even the first spider to be sent up in space. And that's the abridged version. He took us through the rainforest, where he shared with us the most fascinating details of the rainforest and its complicated vegetation. We took a crocodile cruise on the Daintree river before lunch, and even spotted 2 crocs carefully submerged and lying in wait. Although it was called the "crocodile cruise," my favorite part was seeing the colony of flying foxes, or fruit bats, hanging upsidedown in the trees along the river. They were the size of small cats, or maybe bunny rabbits, and although it was daytime, they were fidgeting and screeching up in the branches. Although they were incredibly ugly, they were cute in a pugs-are-also-cute sort of way. After a barbecued barramundi lunch and a dip in an ice-cold watering hole, we travelled further up to Cape Tribulation, the location that receives the second most rainfall in all Australia. On the way back to Cairns we got the opportunity to experience this rainfall firsthand--made better by the homemade passion fruit ice cream we stopped to get along the way.

Our final day in Cairns was to be our relaxing beach day. And to go to a relaxing beach, we took a trip out to Fitzroy Island, where the rainforest meets the reef. The island itself is far less touristy than the other local islands, and 96% of it is covered in national park. The island is, literally, a giant rainforest. And the Great Barrier Reef does, literally, come all the way up to the beach--incredible. This is the kind of place that is shown on inspirational posters. This is the kind of place that you know will make all your friends jealous through a single photograph. This is the kind of place, in short, that embodies the idea of tropical paradise. When we arrived on the island, we first picked up our stinger suits (a head-to-toe suit somewhat like a wetsuit that only leaves the mouth exposed) and flippers, a must for snorkelling during jeallyfish season. And since Australia is home to several very grisly varieties of jellyfish, I was more than happy to leave a very tiny target of exposed skin for these marine stingers. We hiked through the rainforest--a naturally hot and humid endeavor--down to Nudey Beach, the only beach on the island with sand. All of the other beaches are coral beaches, lined by bits of dead coral that have washed up on shore. Although this may sound cool and pretty, it's actually rather painful to walk on! We spent the day snorkeling around the island, finding new and exciting bits of reef. Unfortunately the water wasn't as clear as it usually is, but it was a spectacular view nonetheless. Completing our day trip with a ride on the glass bottom boat, we then rode the 4 km back to the mainland where we celebrated our last day with a big seafood dinner.


Phase 4: Departure (Jan. 6 - Jan. 7)

We flew back to Melbourne on Jan. 6. As I was flying out the next day--on my birthday--we decided to celebrate in Melbourne my last night in Oz. Jess made me an amazingly mouthwatering cake, which we ate as an evening appetizer. Then, having rounded up a group of 10 Aussie friends and acquaintences, we went out for Japanese food to celebrate. Having the unfortunate luck of travelling on my birthday, it was a wonderful way for me to feel the love, especially in a land so far, far away. And having to say my goodbyes at the end of the night, I thought of how soon I'd see them all again if I did come back soon as a dive instructor...


The flight back to Vienna was a sleepless 40-hour nightmare, complete with delays and missed flights. I arrived back in Graz at 11 pm on Tuesday, Jan. 8, and I had to get up at 5 am the next morning for my first day at the new school in Birkfeld! ...Talk about hitting the ground running! Now I'm in the final stages of settling into my new school, and I'll have more to report on that later. But for now, I will summarize my trip with the following sentiment...

OZ 08, baby! Yeah!!

A brief cyber-pulse to show that I'm still alive!

It's been ages since you've heard from me, so I just wanted to check in and say that, yes, I'm alive. I didn't have time to post anything before I left Austria for Christmas/New Year's/my birthday (so much for a post on Austrian Christmas traditions...you can email me if you're curious!), and I just got back last night from my 2-week trip to Australia. I just did the math, and I was surprised to realize that my super-long trip back--complete with major delays and consequently missed flights--was a total of 40 hours, from Melbourne to Graz. Those of you who know me well also know that I can't sleep on things like planes and trains, so it was a loooong 40 hours. Unfortunately, I had to get up at 5:45 am this morning for my first day at the new school (caffeine and adrenaline are quite possibly God's greatest creations), but surprisingly I'm not a zombie. I have what I like to call "the gift of travel"--that is, I never (ever) suffer from jetlag, simply because my sleeping patterns get too wacked out during travel to get confused by time zones! I still need some time to unpack and organize my photos and stories into a coherent blog entry, so you can look forward to something later in the week. Many greetings from Austria, and you'll hear from me again soon!

Idyllic Switzerland

I am now quickly approaching the 3-month mark for my stay in Graz. Amazingly enough, it has been exactly that--my stay in Graz. When I was a study abroad student, I travelled outside of Graz about once a month....this go around, I've been quite content to stay put. I've had a good while to settle in here, and now the travel bug is biting once again.

So when I heard that a friend of mine was going to be in Switzerland for a business trip, I jumped at the chance for a weekend getaway. I'd been to Switzerland once before in February 2004, and I remember being deeply impressed by the amazing landscapes and spectacular Alps that the country has to offer. With this in mind, we decided to meet up and see exactly that. As I was researching the trip online, I found a particular mountain not too far from Lucerne where visitors could ride a rotating gondola up to the summit and see a glacier park and glacier cave. The glacier cave was really the thing that tipped the scales, and this was exactly where we decided to go.

As most of my travels go, this one was not without a dramatic start--this time involving illegal entry into the country of Switzerland! As a standing offer, there are really cheap night trains that run from Graz to Zurich. I discovered the day before my trip that a girl from my small group was also going on the same train, so we decided to meet up and travel together. She had a seat, and I was in a sleeping car, so as the train took off I sat in the free seat next to her and chatted for awhile. When the conductor came around to check the tickets, he looked at mine and told me I was in the wrong seat. We told him that I was just back there visiting with her for awhile, and without anything further, he moved on. However, as I was sitting in the wrong seat, he did not validate my ticket. Around midnight I decided to head back to my sleeping car. By the time I got there, it was pitch black and everyone in the car was already asleep. My bed was the top bunk in a stack of 3, and as I tried to climb up, I discovered that someone had placed a large and rather heavy suitcase on the bed. Struggling to bring it down in the dark and not make too much noise, I pulled it from the bunk and plunked it down on the floor. I struggled up the ladder and onto the top bunk, taking extra care not to accidentally step on the other passengers, and then realized that I had to make the bed in the dark. I was making quite a racket and struggling with the sheets when the guy in the top bunk across from me turned on his light and indicated that I should do the same....there was a light! I thanked him, got my act together, and settled in for a night of bumpy rest (i.e., no sleep). In the morning, the conductor woman appeared at the door with the passengers' tickets and passports she had collected the night before. (Note: Switzerland is NOT in the EU. In keeping with the whole neutrality thing, they are autonomous and--it would appear--rather proud of their independent economy as well. Therefore, passports are needed when crossing the border into Switzerland.) She redistributed the passports and then looked up in shock at my bunk and asked, "Who are you and what are you doing here?!" I apologized and explained to her that I was visiting with a friend in the car up front when they came around last night, so she hadn't collected my ticket or my passport; then I offered to get them out and show them to her right away. She gave me an exasperasted look and said that now it was too late for that. She didn't need to see it anymore. And, on top of all that, she didn't know I was there, so I wouldn't get any breakfast! As she went away the Light Guy on the bunk across from me offered me his breakfast. I declined, but he insisted he wasn't going to eat it, so I should. So I accepted the bootleg breakfast. A few minutes later the conductor lady came back, and in a nicer but still somewhat exasperated tone said, "Well I could get you some coffee or tea. Do you want a coffee or tea?" Thanking her, I said that a coffee would be very nice. When we arrived in Zurich, I met my friend on the platform and explained to her my illegal entry into Switzerland--no passport check, no validation of my ticket...technically I wasn't even there!

When we arrived in Zurich on Friday hostel, we found the hostel and dropped off my stuff. The hostel was delightfully close to the train station in the trendy pedestrian area, but it was also located three flights up a twisty wooden staircase above a restaurant that smelled like dirty dishwater. Being the cheapest hostel in Zurich, I couldn't really complain. We then went out for a Swiss breakfast of granola, fruit and cheese, and then my friend from Graz went on her way. Not long thereafter, my friend Ed arrived in Zurich. It was about lunchtime by the time he got there, so the first thing we did was go to the grocery store and buy bread, cheese, and mineral water--this was to become our staple food for the weekend, eating out in a restaurant only for dinner. After sampling the first of our Swiss bread and cheese, the reception at the stinky hostel was closed. We then decided to visit the Landesmuseum, a museum for Swiss history and culture. This museum was in an old castle-y looking building, complete with turrets. By the time we'd walked through ancient Swiss history to the present, the museum was about to close. Ready to leave, we started following the exit signs...however, every exit sign led to a closed door or in circles to other exit signs that led nowhere! After awhile, it became almost a game to see if we could, indeed, find the exit. By this time we had been (literally) directed in circles, to locked doors, cordoned-off staircases and the like--and we were too far in to even consider asking for directions! Gradually I got the sense that there was a security guard up there somewhere, staring at his CCTV screens and laughing at the hapless American tourists running around in circles in search of the exit. Finally, after passing a particular security guard for the 4th or 5th time, she asked us if we were looking for anything in particular. Conceding defeat, I said we were trying to find the exit. She escorted us out of the museum, but I can say rather confidently that we would NOT have arrived at the same exit door she showed us!

After checking in to the hostel, we decided to go out and explore the city of Zurich. Ed had seen free bicycles advertised near the train station and suggested we take out a couple of bikes. This never, ever would have occurred to me, since a) it was winter, and b) it was nighttime. But it seemed like a fun idea, so we decided to "rent" them for a returnable deposit of 20 Swiss Francs and Ed's passport. When we took out the bikes, I figured we'd take them for a spin around Lake Zurich like every other tourist; however, Ed suggested we bike up. Biking uphill, again, never would have occurred to me. But Zurich--as a city surrounded by hills--was sure to be a pretty sight from atop the hills. I hadn't actually been on a bike since my century ride in June 2005, so getting up the little hills of Zurich was a bit embarrassing and involved me dismounting and walking my bike...twice! But by the time we made it to the top, it was worth it--the city was sparkling with lights, and it was a wonderful view.

The next morning, we boarded a train for Engelberg, a tiny town (or what German-speakers would indubitably call a "village") about 50 minutes outside of Lucerne. Engelberg was tiny and quaint--exactly what you would expect a Swiss village nestled in the mountains to be. From there, we found the gondola that would take us up to the summit of Mt. Titlis. We boarded the gondola among tourists and skiiers alike, since apparently there are also ski runs down this particular mountain. Halfway up the mountain, you transfer from a regular gondola to the world's only rotating gondola. On the [tightly-packed] rotating gondola, you then continue the journey up the mountain to the summit. We started to get excited as we passed outcroppings of glacier--chunks of the mountain that were clearly ice, not rock. By the time we got to the summit, we (along with the 30 other people packed into the gondola) were itching to get out and check out this glacier for ourselves. Once on the summit, I couldn't help but think to myself in wonder, "I'm on a Swiss Alp." It was just as before--the mountains in that area are majestic and spectacular and dramatic and breathtaking in a way that I can't properly describe and that the pictures cannot really do justice. We stayed out there as long as our not-yet-frostbitten fingers would allow, and then went down to check out the glacier cave, or ice grotto. Carved into the glacier on the mountain and lit with colored lights, the glacier cave was definitely a very cool highlight. I'd never been into an ice cave before, but it was both cosy (gemütlich) and fascinating. It was particularly difficult to stop taking pictures in the ice grotto. When we came back out, it was snowing and there was zero visibility on the mountaintop. Grateful for being one step ahead of the weather, we headed back down the mountain. By the time we arrived back in Engelberg, the cheese factory (in an old monastery) that we wanted to visit was closed, so we headed back to Lucerne.

Lucerne, by comparison, seemed a lot like Zurich. By the time we had explored the ins and outs of Lucerne, it was much harder to distinguish the two cities in our heads. Lucerne, though smaller and quainter, held the same perfect Swiss I'm-a-beautiful-city-on-a-beautiful-lake-surrounded-by-mountains feel that Zurich did. That evening, we ate an amazingly yummy dinner in a nice little restaurant (that called themselves a "wine cave") by the wooden bridge. I particularly wanted to get some Spätzli (spaetzle), and the Spätzli I ordered was the best I'd had. Likewise, Ed got the wild boar (intriguing, huh?) that was also very tasty. Coupled with some wine and an apple torte for dessert, it was inarguably the best meal of the trip. Sunday morning, we walked through town and got to see in the daylight what we had explored the night before. I had been to Lucerne for one day in 2004, but it was so rainy and gray that I couldn't tell that it was also surrounded by mountains! Sunday morning, the mountains had a blue haze that matched the water of Lake Lucerne, and again the descriptor that came to mind was simply "idyllic."

Sunday morning we went back to Zurich, where our first stop was the Coffee Museum. For only 5 Swiss Francs, you get to see the coffee museum AND drink as much coffee as you can! For some, this would be considered paradise. The exhibits at the coffee museum were quite interesting and interactive--over the history of coffee, the coffee-making process, coffee's role in society and social interaction, coffee in fine art, and the marketing of coffee. It was a small museum, but totally worth seeing. For the rest of the evening, we ambled around town, wandering aimlessly from one church or historic building to another. On our last stop into the Grossmünster church, they were preparing to hold a public singing event for the first Sunday of advent. Intrigued by the opportunity to sing Swiss Christmas carols, we came back when the carol singing was to begin. A choir director stood up front with the choir but directed us, the audience, in how to sing the songs. He took his job very seriously, making us practice certain lines over and over again until we got it right and then instructing how the songs should be sung and when. There were a couple songs in the program that were in Swiss German--which is really like it's own language. However, I found it very difficult to sing along with these songs because I was giggling so hard at the Swiss German! We left the church after a particularly unfamiliar version of "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" in which the verses were completely different than the verses I've ever sung, and went out for a last hearty Swiss dinner. We chose a restaurant in a building from the 1400s, which boasted its own sausage menu and a generous mix of locals and tourists alike. Taking advantage of the sausage menu and local beer list, I filled up before my train ride back to Graz.

The trip back to Graz was not nearly as exciting (or illegal) as the trip there. But coming away from this 3-day weekend in Switzerland, we had to agree--the best overall word to describe everything we saw was indeed IDYLLIC. The landscape was idyllic. The cities were idyllic. Even the swans were idyllic! It was the perfect long weekend getaway from Graz, and the first of what I hope will be many more exciting travels. (The next of which will be my trip to Australia for Chrismas/New Year's/Birthday, so stay tuned!!)

**The idyllic photos of Switzerland can be found on the Flickr link on the righthand column.... :)

The General State of Affairs and Minor Victories at the 2-Month Mark

**While walking along the main shopping street in Graz, I saw a window display in a clothing store being changed. The box full of random mannequin arms was delightfully random and struck me as pictureworthy!

I've officially been in Austria for 2 months and 2 days. I thought now would be a good time to check in with you, maybe revisit some of my older thoughts and posts, and let you know where I stand thus far!

• My first week of teaching, I reported my schedule of teaching 12 hours a week only 3 days a week--Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. As relaxing as this sounds, I've discovered that it's surprisingly tiring to teach "so much"! It's a really active job to stand in front of a group of teenage boys and attempt to enage them and capture their attention for 50 long minutes at a time. It requires being prepared...like dogs, I'm convinced that students can smell fear. If I'm not comfortable in my topic, they'll know it. I spend an average of 5-8 hours preparing my lessons (3-4 hours on a good day); then, I will study the finished lesson plan and learn any new information or facts by heart--in this way, teaching a lesson on a new subject is much like giving an oral report. The only way to really keep them engaged is to speak directly to them--not to read from a sheet or keep checking my notes. In my class, I am the expert on everything. It has to be this way, I've learned, for a successful lesson. Talking so much is also tiring--by the end of the school day I am totally ready to disengage. My schedule has just changed again for the end of the semester...I now work a highly desirable Monday-Wednesday block, giving me a 4-day weekend every week from now until Christmas. Ahhhhh.....


• Attentive readers of my blog may recall my reference to Frank McCourt's Teacher Man and my aspirations to be that teacher who gets by (and ends up teaching the students something along the way) by telling stories. Today I gave a lesson on Thanksgiving to a class of 16-year-olds. We started with the history of Thanksgiving and an explanation of the Pilgrims, etc., and then we moved on to a narrated slide show showing everything prototypically Thankgiving-y: all of the Thanksgiving foods, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Thanksgiving Day football, Black Friday, and even the Simpsons Thanksgiving special. I ended with an explanation of my own family's Thanksgiving Day traditions--a huge feast with all of the extended family, the rigid table manners enforced at my grandmother's house, and the annual weight-gaining competition. Every family has their oddities, and the weight-gaining competition, taken quite seriously by some, happens to be one of ours. I described how one cousin, whose strategy was to drink uncomfortable amounts of water, usually won the contest. One year my grandmother decided to help me win. She took my grandfather's velcro wrist weights (for power walking) and strapped them around my legs under my dress. When I got onto the scale, there was a general outcry of shock as it was discovered that 10-year-old Rebecca had somehow gained an impressive 12 pounds! As I was revelling in the certainty of my victory, I felt one of the weights loosen and start to slip down my leg. I tried to keep my legs tight together, but as I stepped off the scale, the weight slid to the floor and betrayed me. I was naturally banned from the contest and my cousin the water-drinker won again that year. As we were leaving class, the teacher told me, "You really are such a good storyteller! The kids were hanging on every word--you tell stories really well!" ...Perhaps I'll make Frank McCourt proud after all...


• You may also recall how my German has good days and bad days. This is still the case, but things are getting brighter. Well, perhaps. When my German is good, it's really really good; when it's bad, it's just embarassing. (See previous post!) While I still struggle with something I call Morgen-Deutsch (morning German, a term applied to any German before 12 noon), occassionally I do reach the point where (like in a previous blog) I can be mistaken--if only for a little while--for a native. Recently I was speaking to a teacher, and he was asking about how I learned German. He complemented me on my German and said that I had "a 0.1% accent...No! Actually a 0.01% accent." I also went to see "Ratatouille" in German not too long ago, and there were a couple of girls giving out free coffee samples from a new Nescafe coffee machine. As I was asking for my particular type of coffee, one of the people I was with addressed me in English. The girls, unusually outgoing for Austrians, started a conversation with me, asking me where I was from and noting that I spoke exceptional German. This led to another conversation on how and where I learned German. These girls were from Vienna and thought it was funny that I learned the local German; I explained to them that I didn't know any better, since Graz is really where I learned German in the first place, so I don't necessarily know which words are local and which are not. This led to a long and interesting conversation about their take on the Styrian dialect and my experience with it as a foreigner that lasted until I was literally dragged into the movie. All in all, my German is going really well. Aside from the absolutely terrifying incident of playing a game of "Telephone" in a circle full of Austrian teenagers at a birthday party--irrationally fearful that whatever was whispered in my ear would be either in dialect or words I don't know, causing great embarrassment and a suddent halt to the game--I'd say I'm doing pretty well.


• My lessons are still pretty darn awesome, and amazingly enough the kids are actually retaining information! It was a really big moment for me last week when one of the teachers told me how the kids corrected her in class: for some activity or other, she declared, "I'll be the referee, and I'll decide what's right or wrong." Then the students spoke up and said, "But we had Rebecca earlier today and she told us about baseball--it's not called a referee, it's called an umpire!" None of the students had heard of the word "umpire" until they had the baseball lesson...they actually learned something!


• I can also check off one item on the list of things I wanted to accomplish in my free time: learning ballroom dancing! I've started taking private dance lessons with another language assistant in preparation for the ball season. The balls (just to remind you, these are balls in the fairy tale sense of the word) have already begun and will continue for the next few months. We've decided to tackle some of the typical dances one would find at a ball--slow waltz, Viennese waltz, foxtrot, cha cha cha, and other random assortments of ballroom dance. So far we've done the cha cha cha (a ballroom favorite, since it does not require much space on the dancefloor) and tomorrow we begin with the waltz! It feels really good to be dancing again (as there is no swing dancing in all of Austria it seems, it's nice to get out dancing again) and I'm already looking forward to showing off at a ball!

And just to reiterate, I love love love getting your comments. Thanks so much for taking the time to read the blog--even if it's a one-sided activity, it makes me feel more connected to everyone so far away!

Happy Thanksgiving!

First Snow!

It's official...winter is here! It started snowing this morning when I woke up, and it's been alternating between pretty fluffy snow and wet icky snow ever since. It's sticking more up in the area where Iive, and it looked so pretty that I had to take pictures. As I'm a huge fan of snow, it's a happy day for me.



(Note: The rest of Austria has already gotten a bunch of snow, but Graz was like the black hole of all the wintery weather patterns. We're finally on board!)

Pardon me, but the machine devoured my money!

*Fall in Austria

A couple days ago, I went to the train station to buy a train ticket. My intention was to simultaneously get a Vorteilscard, which would give me half price on all train travel within Austria until I turn 26, and then purchase the discounted ticket.



I already had the application for my Vorteilscard ready and filled out; the only thing I needed to do was affix a passport-sized photo. Since I didn't have any extra passport-sized photos lying around, I decided to get some made in the photo machine at the train station. So upon arriving at the train station, I immediately went down to the area with the photo machines boasting passport photos, funny photos to give out to your friends, and photo business cards (among other things), and inserted my €5 into the slot, selecting the Passport Photos option. Taking a seat in the booth and pulling the curtain closed behind me, I was impressed with the kindly female voice walking me through all the steps. As the photo was being taken 4 times (from which I could choose my favorite photo to print), I couldn't help but think of the movie "Amelie"--of all the photos made in such booths in train stations, and also of the photo machine ghost that Amelie and Nino track through the city. I was instructed by the female voice to leave the booth and retrieve my photos from the slot on the outside of the machine. But when I went out there...no photos. So I waited, allowing them to print some more...still no photos. I went back inside the booth and started jiggling things and then went out to check again...still no photos.



Realizing that I was going to remain photoless until I did something about it, I decided to go up and buy my ticket. I didn't have the first clue who to seek out as the person to talk to about the malfunctioning machine and get my money back, but I figured the guy at the ticket counter would know. So I went back upstairs and purchased a ticket for travel outside of Austria which, thankfully, did not require a Vorteilscard. Before I left the counter, I explained to him that the machine downstairs was broken and asked who I should talk to about that. He checked in the computer and saw that the photo machine people wouldn't be coming to the train station for another two weeks, and so he told me to go call the phone number on the outside of the machine and that they would be able to help me.



With a feeling of dread, I went back downstairs. Calling the number on the automat is something I would hate to do in English, let alone in German. And what was I going to say when I called?!--"Hello...a machine...it is broken...help please...." I found the number on the outside of the booth, and with a here-goes-nothing attitude, I made the call. After a couple rings, a voice at the other end picked up and said something that was completely unintelligible to me. Barging right on ahead, I greeted the voice and explained that I was in the Graz train station with a broken photo machine that took my money but would not give me the photos. As I spoke, I was surprised at how well all of this was coming out, and I did not have the nervous phone stutter that I often have! The man asked me for a few more details about the machine (does it take your money? does it take the photos? do you receive the photos? so it takes the photos--i.e., it's working--but you don't get the photos?) and then told me he'd look into that particular machine and send me the €5 by bank transfer; all he needed was my bank information and account number. Since I didn't have that information with me (or memorized), I told him I'd have to get back to him later. He said that I could send him my name and bank information in a text message and he'd take care of it.



The next day I located my bank information and sat down to write the text message. I wrote a short message introducing myself and explaining that I had spoken to him the day before about the machine that....that what? That was broken? In English, I would say that the machine ate my money. I thought about this for a few moments, weighing the appropriateness of the phrase "ate my money" and also the implications of this phrase in the German language. After some deliberation, I concluded that it would be a lively and clever way of saying that the machine was broken if I said that it ate my money. And because German has two words for "to eat"--essen, which is what humans do, and fressen, which is what animals do (and is more akin to "devour")--I could use the non-human term and further indicate in a cute and clever way that the machine devoured my money. Satisfied with this conclusion, I proofread the text message about 5 times and then sent it, feeling confident and clever with my mastery of this awkward and unusual situation.



Within seconds, my phone was ringing. I looked down at the number displayed and saw that it was the photo machine guy. Thinking that he must be calling just to confirm that he received the text, I answered the phone confidently and self-assured. He then introduced himself and said that he had received my text, but that it was unclear what I meant by "the machine devoured my money." My feeling of confidence immediately deflated like a balloon. And the stuttering, ineloquent Phone Rebecca appeared. He wanted to know: So when you say that the machine ate your money, does that mean it took your money and didn't do anything? Or did it take your money and take your picture? Or did it take your money and take your picture but not give you your picture? Humbled and not feeling like a master of the German language anymore, I explained to him that, yes, the machine worked fine and took the pictures, it just didn't give me the pictures. He clarified the situation about two more times, and when he was absolutely certain that the machine did not, in fact, devour my money--that it simply did not produce the pictures--he thanked me and told me he'd take care of it.



A day later, I was discussing this situation with an Austrian friend. I told her about my clever text and the photo machine guy's confusion, and it was then that she explained to me that machines in Austria do not devour or eat one's money....they swallow one's money!



With this small lesson learned, I can confidently say that I will never forget that German-speaking machines swallow (as opposed to eat) one's money. Embarassment is truly an effective teaching tool.

Knock, knock!...

...Who's there?

Nobel.

Nobel who?

There's no bell, that's why I'm knocking!

....But in Graz there are bells, as I've mentioned in one of my first blog entries. A couple days ago it was one of those perfect fall days where the air is crisp yet comfortingly warm and the sun is actually shining. The trees were ablaze with the fall colors and it was just too nice of a day to stay inside, so I went up on the Schlossberg (a hill in the middle of town upon which a fortress and clock tower were built) to write some letters and enjoy the weather. Then the bells all around town all started to sound simultaneously, so I whipped out my camera and took a video of the view with the sound of the bells for your viewing pleasure...