It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow! We are finally getting some of the white stuff around here. I have never been so happy to see those little white flakes before in my life! Yesterday morning was the when it made its first appearance. First I tried to take a picture of it, but there wasn’t enough that we could actually see it, so then I just did a happy dance. Course, by the time I finished it had already stopped again, but who cares? Today it is once again snowing, and for a little bit longer and everything! You can actually see some evidence of it on the ground and everything. It’s all very exciting.
Anyway, on to stuff you lot actually want to hear about!
So, two weeks ago, to the date actually, I moved out of my first host family. I’m not sure if I told you all but there was a small problem with my second host family, so I will be living with my Rotary counsellor until January 30th. So that was how I found myself loading all of my bags, (after repacking them three times I might add, trying to fit in all of the things I had forgotten.) into the back of my counsellors big white car, and driving off to yet another new life. The town where I currently live is called Baumgarten. This town is kind of cool because it is actually a very little village. Now, one day this very little village decided that they wanted to be bigger, so they joined forces with three other tinee, tiny villages, to create a kind of coalition small town. Therefore, Baumgarten, Zofing, Freundorf, and Jedenau are the super town team.
My new host family is Giti and Bernhard Seyr. ( I’m pretty sure I spelt Giti wrong though.) They are both (supposedly) retired and have 4 kids all grown up and moved out. The neighbours here are also extended family. Andrea, Giti’s little sister, lives right across the street with her husband and 3 boys. One boy is almost 16, one is 18, and one is 21. Since Andrea works full time, Giti feeds everyone so I see quite a lot of them. Also, they have a beautiful piano that they let me play on.
So, on the first night I was there, we went to something called an Horigen (I also spelt that wrong,) It is a special restaurant here in Austria. It is run by farmers who make wine as well as other things. These are places, only open for a few weeks every year where they sell their own wine and, in the case of the one I went to, pork. It is actually a very interesting place. I drank a special grape juice, called Traumsaft, that is really good, and ate something called a manga-burger. It was a bun with a piece of meat from a specially bred pig, and horseradish. There were probably some other things too, but I can’t really remember what. All I know, is that it tasted pretty good and really burned the eyes and nose.
For the rest of the week, I went to school every day, same old same old. On the Monday morning I went to the Rotary meeting. That is always interesting, although as the only girl there I always feel kind of like I’m invading on a boys club. They also made me make a speech, and I was blushing bright red the entire time.
The week went by in a mostly quiet manner. On Friday evening I learnt something rather interesting though. Even though my host father is supposed to retired, he is actually working as a politician on our local village counsel, and it is election year. Therefore, we have to make an appearance at all of the town functions, making sure that people like his party. That is quite interesting, and I do get to meet a lot of local people.
The second weekend I was at the Seyrs was actually a holiday here in Austria. One thing that we don’t have around Christmas is St. Nicholas. He’s pretty much the Austrian version of Santa Claus. Every year, on December 6th St. Nicholas comes and gives all the good children presents. What is really exciting is that St. Nicholas has a side kick: Krampus. The Krampus is actually a little devil, that deals with the notty children. The story is that St. Nicholas comes and reads everything you did wrong or right out of a huge book, and then decides whether you were good enough for your presents. Here in the village, apparently they have a neighbour dressed up as Nicholas come to the door with a script written by the parents. Another neighbour is the Krampus, but you don’t let him in your house. He walks around the house, trying to get in and clanking his chains as he goes. It is too bad that there are no little kids here because I didn’t actually get to see is, only hear it second hand. On St. Nicholas my host family was actually in Vienna. We spent most of the day there and went to three separate Kriskindlemarkts. It was a lot of fun, and it was really funny when at one stall a native American man cornered me and started to explain all of the native art he was selling. It was kind of ironic that I go all the way over the ocean and then people are trying to sell me spirit stones!
We also had both Monday and Tuesday off of school due to the 8th being a holiday as it is the day they celebrate the virgin conception of Jesus. Monday was a quiet day, just stayed around at home, but on Tuesday my host father decided that I needed to see more countries so we went on a day trip to Slovakia. We went to the city of Bratislava. Way back when, back when there was a monarchy, Austria was actually called the Austro-Hungarian empire and included most of present day Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. The rulers where both Emperors of Austria and Kings of Hungary. The church where they were crowned Kings of Hungary is actually located in Bratislava, so it was pretty cool to see that. One thing about Austria is that all of the historical sites have been expertly preserved and restored. They look as if they could have been built yesterday. When we got to Bratislava, you could see right away that that wasn’t the case there. Things that were old, looked old, and although some things had been restored, it had been done rather cheaply and was already falling apart again. Dr. Seyr kept saying how it was such a waste, but I found it really interesting. In all of the restored places, it is hard to believe how old things are, but there it was practically screaming at you. You could see how the passage of hundreds of years, and thousands of people had worn the rock, weathered it down. I really like that, when you can feel the history seeping out of the walls. Maybe that’s why one of my favourite places in the whole wide world is an old castle ruin. Either way, I thought Bratislava was pretty cool. The only downside was that it was raining the entire time, so we didn’t get to see very much. On the way back, we drove through Hungary, but I don’t think that really counts since it was dark and we only stopped at the grocery store!
Anyway, on Wednesday it was back to school for me. On Thursday evening I did get to have a little bit of fun though! Since Dr. Seyr used to be involved with the provincial government he was invited to an art exhibition at the parliament building. It was actually the art from a special school for artistically talented children. That was fun. I got to get all dressed up, and then listen to a bunch of speeches. I also got to meet some cool people. I met the Mayor of Krems, a large city in the area, a bunch of people Dr. Seyr used to work with, and the deputy premier of lower Austria. It was nice, but by the end I was starting to feel a bit like a show horse! Look, I’ve got a foreign girl. Ah well. After the exhibition we decided to have a look around while we were there anyway. The only problem was, when we got to the meeting chamber a session was just ending. We figured maybe we could catch the last minute or so, and that was why I ended up charging full tilt up three flights of stairs in my nice dress, and nice shoes just in time to catch a glimpse of everyone walking out the door. We also most likely semi-illegally went into the now empty chamber and got a few pictures of the now empty chamber.
Since then life has been relatively uneventful. Although it would appear that Christmas is my high season, because if I can ever find the time to write it all down you”ll get a hell of a tale in two weeks!
I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,
Ellyn

A 15 Above Winter Wonderland

This is an update I wrote a while ago, but never got around to posting, sorry but here it is.
Hey cookies, sorry I took so long to update. I have been taking a bit of a communication sabbatical while I got over a rough bit of homesickness, but now that it’s eased up a little bit, I’m backing and working to answer my bazillion backlogged e-mails, so hopefully you’ll be getting those too.
Well, in one week it’ll be December, and I wasn’t wearing my coat outside today. It has been sunny and warm for about a week now, which is a little bit strange compared to the snow I’ve grown so accustomed too. With the coming of winter, also comes the beginning of an awesome tradition here on Austria, the Christmas markets. These open anytime from mid November to December and are night markets selling ornaments, gifts, and special seasonal drinks and foods. I was able to go to one in Vienna only last week with my host sister and her Grandparents. It was so amazing. There were lights (and people) everywhere! It was all so Christmassy that I was bouncing off the walls! If you don’t know this about me, I LOVE Christmas, and get really excited in this season! I got a little snow globe (cause I REALLY want some snow!!!!) and some lieberkuchen (their version of gingerbread) and, of course, and little bag of freshly roasted maroni (chestnuts!). Then it was time to check out what makes the markets so famous, the punch. Now, every second stand was selling warm drinks: hot wine, and punch. Punch is some bizarre mixture of fruit juice and rum, but before you panic, Tim and Wayne and Sally, I was a good girl had a cup of good, wholesome, kinderpunch (the little kids version, ergo, not rum.) And it was good. I did try one sip of the actual punch from my host sister, and it was actually a little bit too strong for me. But it was fun anyway.
On that same weekend I also went to the Sissy museum in Vienna. That was fun, but we went in the wrong door and ended up spending an hour and a half looking at the imperial silverware collection first, which was pretty boring. I learnt a lot in the Sissy part of the museum though. Turns out the romanticized “Sissy,” we all know and love actually has very little to do with the actual person! The actual Elisabeth was actually severely depressed and payed little regard to her two older children and husband. I actually feel very sorry for the Emperor Franz Joseph (Sissy’s husband), he was a good guy, but his life kinda sucked. What I find really interesting though, is that, even here, so many people continue to remember a made up person rather than a real one, and nobody is ever going to convince them otherwise.
Other than that I haven’t really done anything of real interest. School, life, not really that exciting. I am finally in some real classes full time, but I’m still not really doing very much in them. I am also starting to work as a “language assistant,” in a few of my English groups. Our school also got an actual language assistant, who comes in every Friday. His name is Nick, he comes from Florida, and overall he seems like a nice enough guy, but I think everyone thinks that we’re gonna get in a fight or something, cause they pulled me out of all English classes on Friday, weird, but whatever.
I change host families this Sunday, which I am really nervous about. Due to some complications my second host family can’t take me till February, so I have to go and live with my counsellor for two months, which should be interesting.
I hope everything is going well over there, and I’ll write again soon.
Jealous of your snow
Ellyn