Actual Pictures

These pictures are in the opposite order from the list I posted earlier. By the by, have I mentioned I have rotten luck with computers? I hope you like it anyway, Love you all
Ellyn

Pictures of Vienna

This is the view of the amusement park that I went to.

 

This is the view of Vienna from the top of the Ferris Wheel

This is little Stephanie, one of my host half sisters

The world famous Strauss statue

The Stephensdom

The inside of St. Peters kirche (church)

This church was built to commemorate the time when Emperor Franz Joseph survived an assassination attempt

This is a statue of the Empress Elizabeth, wife of Franz Joseph, better known as Sissy

This is the Austrian Parliament building. It was built to look like the original Greek Parthenon, both in style and structure

When the Austrian Parliament was bombed during WWII they took out the main meeting room, and it was rebuilt to look like this.

 

Originally, both meeting rooms looked like this, but now this one (which survived the war) is only used for special meetings

Inside the Stephensdom

The Emperess Maria Theresa, mother of Franz Joseph.

All the Canadians in front of Schonbrunn, the summer palace.

I hope you like all of the pictures, and I might put a few more up some other time.

Ellyn

Whacking my head, sore feet, and pink bunnies: a weekend in Vienna

Hey everybody!!! Happy belated Thanksgiving! You'll be happy to know that I made two pumpkins pies (one for my family, and one for my class in school) from actual pumpkins last week! It took me forever, and I have discovered that peeling pumpkins is a lot of work. It tasted really good though, and my teacher even asked me for the recipe. How's life in the cold, white north? Here's some news to make you feel better, it snowed in Vienna last Thursday, and it's so cold I can see my breathe every morning. This is freakish weather for around here, it is definitely starting to look like I brought the winter along with me.

We had another Rotary trip this weekend, we went to Vienna. It all started on last Friday when, right afterschool I caught the train to Vienna, and the metro, and the bus to the stop closest to the youth hostel I needed. That's where things got kinda interesting. Me, being the genius child that I am, managed to walk about a half an hour in the wrong direction, then having to call our rotary supervisor, Walter, and telling him that I was lost. I did eventually find it however, and got all settled in. The first evening we went to the Volksoper. That's not the famous opera house, that one is the Statoper. (yes Corrine, I know I spelt that wrong). The Statoper was were the really rich nobility went, while the Volksoper was more for the middle class. It is also quite a bit smaller, but still really impressive. We saw the musical "Guys and Dolls." It was translated into German, but I could still understand enough to follow the story line though. It wasn't exactly a deep, epic storyline, but I was too excited to care! There was a life orchestra accompanying the actors, and it was all just so amazing to believe. I still want to try to see something in the Statoper though, just to be able to say I could. After that we went for Chinese food, and I discovered that Austrian Chinese food is WAY better than Canadian Chinese food, and if you didn't know Chinese food was already one of my favourites! The only downside is they don't give out fortune cookies here. That is more than made up for however by this amazing thing that is essentially a deep fried hunk of banana. It may not sound very appetizing but trust me on this, it's divine. By the time we were all done, it was pretty much time to head back to the hostel.

Saturday we were up bright and early. In the morning we walked to the Austrian Parliament and got to go on a tour. That was really neat because the building was built as a memorial to the original democracy, and therefore has the same set up as Athens! It was also kind of interesting because in every room we got a runover of the damage that was created when it was bombed during the second world war. The guide said something that I think was actually really interesting, he said, "The bombs destroyed our parliament building, but if they hadn't, we wouldn't have had any use for it anyway." I'd never really looked at it that way, but it's interesting to think about. After that we had lunch at a Greek restaurant, and then continued walking around the inner city, and made a quick stop off in Schlonburg, the summer palace. After that dinner that evening we were given free time till our midnight curfew, leaving us with 5 and a half hours to fill. Me and a few other girls decided to walk back to the inner city (the historical part, and the shopping center) and look around a little. Of course since all the shops were closed, we were just walking, but it was still amazing. We saw a few street museums, and all the famous places lit up for the night. At around 9:30 we were tired and our feet were starting to hurt, so we stopped in one of Vienna's bazillion cafes for a snack and a warm drink. It was no nice and cozy in there! After that things really got interesting though. We were just walking down the street when Svenja starting squealing and jumping up and down clapping her hands. I was about to ask her what was going in when I heard more squealing behind me. I spun around to see what it was, and there were five guys squealing, jumping and clapping just like Svenja. What was really interesting however was that they were all wearing bright pink rabbit costumes. If you've ever seen the Friends episode with the Halloween costumes you can picture them! Once the squealing/jumping/clapping subsided we took a few pictures taken with them and managed to piece together that they were actually at a bachelor party. After they left we spent about five minutes laughing hysterically at the bizarre situation that we had managed to find ourselves in, then carried along our way. At around 10:45 Bailey rather abruptly decided that we should pursue a career as street musicians. She made us all line up in front of a big statue, stole my hat to collect money, and we sang do-re-mi from the sound of music. We didn't get any money, only a lot of wierd looks, but that's probably because we were all laughing so hard we could barely get the words out. We gave up after one song, decided to take our musical talent on the road. That worked out a little bit better and we even managed to get a little applause out of it! Then we were all tired and went back to the hostel for some much needed sleep, and to give our poor aching feet a break.

Today (it's still Sunday as I'm writing this) we went on a bus tour around Vienna. That wasn't actually very much fun. We got off every now and then to look at everything, but it was all much too fast to really appreciate. It also didn't help that the bus really didn't like me. I hit my head 5 times, banged my knee, tripped in the aisle, fell into my seat, and almost fell down the stairs (it was a double decker bus!). That was the end of the rotary planned weekend, but since some of my friends had to wait for their trains, and Daniella and I had planned everything thinking I would be getting home a little later, we decided on one last stop. We went to Demel, one of the oldest "Konditories," (Cake and Sweet shop's) in Vienna. It is world renowned, and used to prepared all of the cakes for the royal family way back in the day. We all got a piece of cake (or Apfelstruedel in my case, no icing for me!) and it was really good.

That pretty much sums up the whole weekend. No wait, I almost forgot. In Vienna there are two places that are called pi-pi points. What they are, are themed toilets. No, I am not kidding. There's the Opera Toilet, and the Toilet of Modern Art. I have now officially used the toilet in both. I only have one thing to say: It's so not worth the money to get in. Barring outhouses, I think those were the two nastiest bathrooms I've ever been in. They were both really dirty, and smelly. The opera bathrooms only cool feature was that there was opera music playing, and the Modern Art one only had coolly shaped mirrors. Not worth the 60 cents you pay to get in there, that's 10 cents more than the regular toilet!

Oh, I also learnt something really interesting that I've been wondering about for a while, why Austria has two flags. Since the big bird with the sickle and hammer is the emblem of the government, only government officials are allowed to fly it. It's actually illegal for a regular citizen to fly one! The people are only allowed to use the plain striped one.

Well, I hope life is going good for everyone there, and I'll try to get you pictures really soon,

Ellyn

Life as I know it!

Yes, yes, I know. I'm a terrible person and you're all very angry with me for not updating sooner. Well, now that that's out of the way, do you all want to hear about my awesome weekend in Vienna? Yah? Then quite grumbling and keep reading!

As I think I've already told you, the Oma and Opa from my host family live in Vienna, and last weekend (every second weekend in fact) Jasmin and I got to stay there. We walked down to the train station from the HAK (my school) and then caught the snail train to Vienna. I call it the snail train because it stops at every station, therefore it takes about three times as long as the express, which goes straight to Vienna. Oma and Opa (I'm gonna call them that because it is WAY shorter than "My host families grandparents") live in a tiny apartment right across the street from Jasmin's Father. (They are his parents, not Daniella's) The first evening was pretty quite; Jasmin did homework and I watched the second Lion King movie in German (which was awesome by the way!). The next day however, things got a little more interesting, we were descended on by the whole motley crew: Jasmin's dad Kristien, his wife Katerina, and their two daughter Isabel (7) and Stephanie (2). We went to the Prater Wien, which is a huge amusement park. It was loads of fun, and I even went on a few rollercoasters. I also made Jasmin come on the biggest Ferris wheel I have ever seen in my life, so I could get a few pictures of the view of Vienna! It was awesome (I haven't loaded it onto my computer yet, but sometime this week I'll do an update with just pictures for you guys). On the Sunday morning we went to Vienna's inner-city and I got to be really touristy and take loads of pictures. We saw the opera house, the town office, and the Austrian parliament building, the outside only though. We were able to actually go into Stephensdome Cathedral and St. Peters Kirche (church). The Stephensdome was huge, but we were also there during Sunday Mass, so you couldn't go wondering. That was also really amazing though, there was a choir singing and it was so beautiful I started crying, luckily no one noticed though! St. Peters was smaller, but I actually think it was cooler. All the walls, and even the ceiling were covered with paintings. It was also slightly less gaudy then Stephensdome.

Then, it was Monday and back to school for another week, but a little different. I started a German course at the Deutsch Academy in Vienna this week, so every day I would go to school for two hours, then go and hop a train (express, not snail!) to Vienna. I then spend about twenty minutes on the Subway, and get off at the Opera station, and go for three hours of class across from one of Vienna's most famous sights. Then I get back on the Subway, back on the train, wait a while, then get on a bus to Tulbing. All in all, I'm going from 7:15 am, till 5 pm, and that's just the work I have to do outside. When I get home I do my homework, and still always make a point to help my host mom with supper. By the time that's done, I am so knackered that it's time for an early bed for me though. It's all worth it though, my German is definitely improving!

This weekend was a quite one. Yesterday Daniella's cousin and her little boy came to visit, and today is Daniella's birthday, but I don't think we're doing anything to crazy today.

To Jamie, happy B-Day, even if it is a little late! I'll get those pictures up as soon as I can, but I hope this will keep you happy for a little while at least!

Ellyn

Hey everybody, I really suck at this updating every day thing huh? Anywho, where were we, oh yah! The third day of school!

Right, so October 9^th was the first day I had to take the bus, and a little fore warning, me and public transport in Tulln have a few issues. Now, I have my pick of two buses to go to school every day. The one is five minutes earlier then the other so we figured it was a good idea to take that one because then if we missed it, we would have a backup plan. Now, when the bus doors opened, there were so many kids that we could barely get in. In the end, the only way I fit was because the door was the type that swung out, then presses straight in to close. So that was how I ended up riding one stop, spread eagled against a bus door thinking "Oh my God, my life is turning into a Saturday morning bugs bunny cartoon!" I was still thinking this when the doors opened again and I fell out on my butt on the bus stop. After that I carried on, and after some slight confusion actually managed to get off at my school's stop! Since Wednesday was also the first day I had to be in school for the full day, it was a pretty long day, 9 hours in fact. Now, before you start freaking out and laughing that I have to be at school from 8-5 everyday, let me explain something to you. Everyday has a different length. With my current schedule, I have one day where I have 9 hours, and one day when I have 4. Most days, almost every class is done at 2. Now, on this particular Wednesday, my last class was computers. Now, I'm not sure if I've told you this before, but my schools layout is about as confusing as Hogwarts. It has a total of five levels, (I think, that's how confusing this place is, I can't even tell!). None of the hallways run the whole length of the school, Not all the hallways actually line up as level, and the rooms aren't actually numbered chronologically, they are numbered randomly since the numbers are actually the class that is in them. All in all, it's a pretty easy place to get lost in. Now, I had already figured out where class 2bk is, but the computer lab was a whole other story. Two steps out the door, I was hopelessly lost and spent the next ten minutes trying to find the exit. Now, since we hadn't figured out the bus schedule yet, I had to call my host mom, who was going to look it up during the course of the day. This was also my first day with my new cell phone. Now, for anyone who isn't clear on my technological capacity, it sucks, as does my complete lack of luck around any mechanical object. So that was how I managed to accidently turn the stupid thing off. After that I quickly discovered that you needed a pin number to open the bloody thing again, which I, of course, didn't know. So I went off looking for another phone I could use, which should have been easy, except for the fact that Daniella's number was, you guessed it, also programmed into my phone, blocked by the bloody pin. Now as I've said, mostly everyone had already cleared out by this point, which is how I found myself attempting to explain to a janitor, in incredibly mangled German, that I not only needed a phone, I also needed a phone number. Eventually he took me to the office, and the principle got me to explain in English. There still somehow managed to be a miss communication however, and he thought I was trying to call my family in Canada. He called my rotary counsellor to get that number, but then the vice-principle stepped in and cleared everything up. After that, it was a simple matter of looking up Krumpholz in their records, and calling her up, but as you may have guessed, I had long since missed my bus and she had to come in and get me.

The rest of the week went pretty well, with me only missing the bus once and getting off at the wrong stop once. Apparently, the bus doesn't stop at every stop and you have to hit a button that beeps, asking the driver to please let you off. ( If you're over there, being all "I could have told you that," You should have, because I don't understand these things!) Luckily someone else had to get off at the next stop, which was luckily still in Tulbing, or else I would have been on that bus for a long time! Saturday was fun. Kristiens kids (recap, Daniella's boyfriend, and his two kids are named Jasmin and Dominic, trust me the double Jasmin thing really gets confusing!) were up for the weekend (they come every second weekend) so we planned a day trip. We went hiking. That was fun. There was a decent path, and not too much uphill. Along the way, there was this "exotic" bird mini zoo that we went in to. ( I say "Exotic," because it was mostly owls and falcons that aren't that exciting for me, but there were still some cool ones for me too.) The place was one of the most depressing things I've ever seen in my life. The cages were small and dirty, and all of the birds looked absolutely miserable. Zoos always make me a little sad, animals in cages and all of that, but this was different, I was practically crying the entire time. It didn't help that Jasmin (Kristien's, not Daniella's) was being really mean to them. She was trying to scare them, rattling cages, and she even poked on with a stick. That was when I told her to cut it out, but she didn't listen to me. After that, we headed back to the house, and me and Daniella made supper. Oh, just a side note, I've become the official kitchen helper. It started because I was bored but now I'm really starting to enjoy it. Peeling potatoes is oddly peaceful. We made this really delicious meal called Kaisermann, that I have vowed to learn before I leave, along with a few other dishes. In Austria, some of the traditional foods are more like dessert, but they eat it as a meal, and I'm hoping to bring that tradition back, that and Wienerschnitzle. (Yes Corinne, I realize that was probably spelled wrong.) These things are delicious, but probably pretty helpful to all the weight I've been putting on lately!

Sunday however, was amazing! We spent all morning making apple plum jelly, and an apple plum cake. (There's a plum tree and an apple tree in the backyard, and the fruits were ripe and super good, so there's been a lot of apple plum stuff going on lately.) In the afternoon Kristien and Co. Came over and we played this game called activity. It's like charades, Pictionary, and whatever the game is where you have to describe the word, without using it, all thrown into one crazy board game of madness. After that is when it got really interesting though. I went to coffee with my third host family, that was what we needed the cake for by the way. They were really nice, and live in Katzelsdorf, which is maybe ten minutes walk from where I live now. It's a young family with the mom, Daniella, the dad, Stephan, and three kids. Two little girls 8 and 6, named Clara and Stephie, and a 2 year old boy who's name I can't remember. They also have a huge chocolate lab, two birds and two pet rats whose names I also can't remember. I think that that household is gonna be loads of fun, never a dull moment there!

We are now moving back into the realms of school. Now after the first week, they pulled me out of all of the hard classes, like physics, and put me into the lowest level of German (still too hard for me) and as an assistant in English classes. This is quite fun because I'm able to meet so many different people. Now everywhere I go, at least one person stops to say hi to me. They try to speak to me in English, and I try to speak to them in German, it's a great system. The week passed with no real mishaps, except the time I got on the wrong bus and ended up sitting at some random stop for an hour till the next bus came.

Now, on Friday I went to Vienna with my host mom, got on a train and went to a little town called Bad Mittendorf. At the same time, everyother exchange student in Austria was also doing the same thing. We all met up, and they took us to this hiking lodge called Linzerhouse. When we got there we were assigned rooms. I was sharing one with Chantel, Libby, Mia, Josie, Jackie, Shelby, and Racquel. And guess what, there were no beds! That's right, there were two large mattresses, a walkway in the middle, no shelves or closet space, one mirror, and the closest toilet was one floor down. We also didn't have any shower's in the whole thing. It was really exciting because we got to see each other again, but we also got to meet all of the oldies! (for anyone not in the loop, oldies are the people who come in January from Australia, New Zealand, and parts of South America). They were all really nice, and all of the Aussies were totally insane! They all also have really funny nicknames, like mum, and spider. On Saturday we hiked up a mountain, and this one guy, Kiwi, (his actual name is Kiren and he's from New Zealand) did the whole thing in Lederhosen! The hike was kinda fun. I was in the last group to finish, and we were hiking from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The entire climb was pretty scary. To any Lord of the Ring's fans, you know Emin Mull? Well, the mountain looked like that except straight up and no Gollum. There were also these crevasses everywhere. Some were little, some were big enough to put your foot in, and some were massive. Also, a lot of the rocks were loose, so you were sliding everywhere. Quite frankly, it was terrifying. I fell four time, and managed to twist both of my ankle. Also, my hands swelled up like Aunt Marges in the third Harry Potter, which was not a cool experience, let me tell you. Still it was fun. All of the exchange students kept randomly bursting into song, which was both amusing, and made them really easy to locate. The evening was a lot more interesting though. It started when we all came down at 8 o'clock, and were presented with a torch. Now, I'm not kidding, a torch as in a stick with fire on top, grab your torch and pitchforks! They ran out right at the end, so I gave mine to Kiwi who hadn't gotten one and looked like someone had just run over his puppy. We then walked for about 45 minutes, a group of teenagers carrying sticks with fire on the end. It is one of the funniest things I have ever done in my life, and no one got set on fire (really a miracle in and of itself, what were they thinking, giving us fire to play with!) and eventually we reached our destination. We were supposed to have a dance, but we were all so tired from the walk, that that was pretty much a flop. The next day, we had to get up by 8 am for breakfast, and then had nothing to do till our train at 2. Me, Mia, Libby, Josie, and Chantel eventually got so bored that we decided to force our stiff limbs into taking us for a walk. I'm sorry guys, we didn't run up a hill singing the hills are alive, we sang All Star and Skater Boi instead! The only other person we came across was this old farmer, that gave us a really wierd look, and a bunch of cows. It was awesome. Then I took the train back home with all the other Viennese students.

Now, once again we're back in school. About half way through Monday, I got paged down to the office and met with my counsellor, Dr. Bernhard Seyr. I had met him once before, and he had come to tell me that they had booked my presentation for... that evening. Since I had planned to translate my presentation that week, this was a wee bit of a problem. When I tried to explain this to him he was all, "Well of course you're going to do it in English, we don't want it in German." Well that made my life easier. And so, I found myself in my first Austrian Rotary meeting. Turns out, my club has an interesting rule, no girls allowed. There are no female members, and the whole club has to agree on a specific "Woman's Meeting," for them to be guests. This was a little bit shocking, though not quite as shocking as when they brought me my food, a fish... that still had its head, with caviar. That was so bizarre! The whole head thing was really creepy. I don't want to make eye contact with something while I'm eating it! After I was done I couldn't quit looking at it! (you're not actually supposed to eat the head). By the way, in case you're wondering, caviar doesn't taste disgusting, it tastes like nothing. My presentation itself went really well, and everyone said it was very good and interesting. They aren't exactly a party crowd though and I felt like I was talking to a bunch of robots. I know it's rude, but they didn't even nod along! All in all, it was a success.

Nothing else really interesting happened all week, uptill Friday. On Friday I once again found myself in Vienna. This time it was to take an exam. Now, my school decided that I should learn more German. They found me a course in Vienna. It's three hours a day, five days a week, for 4 weeks. I still will have to go to actual school for part of the day though. Anyway, they needed to figure out what level I would be in, thus the exam. That took all morning, but I was able to spend a few hours in Vienna's largest library. I also got a library card that works in every library in Vienna (except the national one), because you see, it was pretty cheap. The price was..FREE! Cool huh?

Yesterday me and Daniella and Jasmin went to the world's largest amethyst mine. It was fun, but I couldn't understand much, which made it a little boring. They also had this cool thing, where they had a patch of ground, gave you a pick, a shovel, and a bucket, and let you look for a few yourself. I actually managed to find a few! The funniest thing is that when you are leaving, they give you a handful of really nice ones, so it looked like you actually found something! But that's okay, I don't mind, they're really pretty!

Wow, I actually caught up! That is crazy! Well, we're making more cake today (apple, we ran out of plumsL) and doing yard work. I'll try and talk to you again soon!

 

Ellyn

P.S. I realize I kinda left you guessing with those pictures last time, so here it is,

First picture

Left to right front row:

Aiyana (again with the spelling) from somewhere in the states, Jackie from Canada, Martha from somewhere in the states, Shelby from Texas, Chantel from Canada, and Libby from Oregan. Peering over the back looking scary is Sebastien and I think he's from Argentina, but I'm not absolutely sure. They are all decked out in Maple Leafs because they did a French Canadian song for the talent show

The next picture is Svenja, then it's my dorm room, then the school, and finally the view from the school.

P.P.S. By the way, good job to Jamie Liegh, she guessed it! Tschus means see you later! Have an imaginary cookie! By the way Corinne, it must be spelt differently in Swiss German cause I looked it up!

(once again) Ellyn

Gotta love High School

Hey sorry! I'm not ussually able to use the internet stick for very long, so I ussually spend the whole time reading e-mails. Now, I could skim over the last few weeks, but that really wouldn't be fair as there were some pretty crazy happenings, or I could write everything that has happened. Neither option seems very good, so here's what I'll do, I'm going to update a little everyday (if I can) and I'll eventually catch up, now on with the story!

We are travelling through the mists of time, back to September 7th, my first day of school! I got up at 6 am, like I am recquired to do on every school day (I now have a whole new level of pity for all you bus kids that have been doing this for years!). Got dressed, had breakfast... you get the picture. Luckily, I didn't have to take the bus on my first day (we'll get to that bit later!) because Daniela had the day off and was going to drive me and Jasmin. Unluckily, my host mom has a slightly white rabbit personality, and is constantly running late. This means that I made it to school with minutes to spare. Looking back, that was probaly actually a good thing since I think the stress of waiting might have made my head explode! Upon entering the school, I was immediatly placed under the protection of a Professor Helfer (we call all of our teachers "Professor," and have to stand everytime one enters the room! Thank god we don't have a cafeteria!). He's my german and homeroom teacher. All of the desks in HAK Tulln (my new school) are double, but luckily after about thirty seconds of hyperventalating, Prof H told me where to sit. That is how I ended up sitting beside Calvin. He took it upon himself to become my official spokesperson, explaining to all the teachers that I was a foriegner and couldn't understand what they were saying. (I was actually pretty proud of myself for understanding what he was saying, but whatever.) It also turns out that since his mother comes from England, his english is very good. This has caused him to become the official translator whenever I actually need to understand something. Since he apparently knows everyone (I'm quickly learning that he actually does!) he also said if I had any problems, I had to let him know. He is also in orchestra and is trying to help me join. All in all, he's a pretty handy person to have around. The other person that I started talking to was a girl named Agnes. She is very nice, but quite and studios. (Yes Mr Letkeman, I know I spelt that wrong, and probably your name too!) She doesn't appear to have any close friends, but I like her a lot. The first two days only ran till 12 noon, so they were both very short. Sorry guys, but I'm gonna hafta cut if off there, I'll try to talk to you tomorrow.

Ellyn

Guys, this is the fifth time I spent an hour writing an update, only to have a computer malfuction and have it delete itself, so don't worry, I didn't die, and I'll try again tomorrow.

Ellyn