Orientation Weekend!!!!!!!

Where do I start talking about such an amazing weekend?!  Well I guess that I should start from the beginning.  So here it goes...

Friday was the start of our orientation weekend for all of the new STS exchange students.  My host family drove me to Bad Ischl in the morning as they themselves were going to spend the day skiing.  I got there at around 10am, but other people would not start arriving until lunch time; so I took a walk into town to have a look around.  Bad Ischl is a small but gorgeous old town.  I took pictures around town and went to the oldest cafe in the world.  I had a hot chocolate at the cafe, and I am very proud to say that I ordered it in German.  Granted it was a very simple conversation to have and was quite short; BUT, it was still in German and five weeks ago, I could not have ordered for myself.  Progress is slow, but it is improving.  After the cafe, I came across some markets set up in the street.  They were all food stores and, naturally, I headed over to the bakery van.  I picked something that I had not yet tried (yes, I have tried a LOT of bakery things since I have been here).  Admittedly, this ordering was done with sign language, and not German.  This was mainly because I had no idea what I was buying.  Honestly, I still don't know what I bought.  I kept walking around for a bit longer and came across this beautiful creek that was flowing through the town.  The water was crystal clear and looked very pretty with all of the snow around it.  I was quite cold after this and decided to go back to the youth hostel and read my book for a bit.

Oldest cafe in the world

Pretty river <3

About half an hour later, Katrin arrived with the first of the other students; Candy (Taiwan), Sarah (USA) and Catherine (Canada).  We were given our room keys and then a couple of others turned up.  Being the first to arrive in my room, I got first choice of beds.  Score!  The room was also room 21, my favourite and lucky number!!  We then went for a walk to the train station to pick up the rest of the students arriving.  Meeting everyone at the station was great and getting into conversations straight away with the people you already knew; and also meeting the ones that you didn't.  When we got back to the hostel, we helped everyone else sort out their rooms.  My room consisted of myself (obviously), Chelci (Australian!!!), Hannah (Australian!!) and Eve (New Zealand but we have now claimed as Australian!!).  

Lunch time.  Which was pretty good because I was kinda starving.  We became the Australia table, which really did nothing for our reputation.  Without realising it, Australians have been given the reputation of mischief makers, chatters, and things along those lines.  Let's just leave it at, we lived up to that reputation.  Our lunch table was full on into a very fast paced, slang conversation; something that we had not had since we broke up from each other at the airport five weeks before.  It was so incredibly nice to have a conversation where we didn't have to think about what words we used and the pronunciation of them, as well all understood everything.  We found out the schedule for the rest of weekend.  I guess we really should have known that this was going to be in German, and we scouted out someone to help us decipher it.

The first activity was a tour of the King's Summer Palace.  It was interesting I guess, but I couldn't really concentrate on it because of the amount of animal horns and heads that were mounted on all the walls.  It was really quite creepy.  

Let me just say; 

Australians; 

Reputation.  

That is all.

Back at the hostel, we had our actual orientation meeting for the new students.  Honestly it was like the meetings that we had before we left home.  This time though we got to ask questions that apply to us while we are actually here.  Getting things clarified was pretty good.  Oh, and we got free pens!! I love free pens.

After dinner, we were meant to go ice skating, but the place was closed, so we did a night walking tour around the town.  We had these stick thingys that you lit on fire and used them as torches.  The walk was so gorgeous, even though it was so cold!!

Free time!  A group of us decided to play Spoons.  Although we had to play with tongues because we didn't have any spoons.  If you have not played this game before, then you have not lived.  It is amazing.  But be warned, it can actually get quite violent.  Anyway, that was all going well.  I won, by the way.  Emilie and I decided to head to bed, so we went upstairs.  I planned to have a shower and hit the sack.  There was one problem though; my room door was locked; I didn't have the key; and my roommates were out at Maccas.  That blew that plan.  I then just went and chilled in the other girls room until the rest of them got back.  That was actually really good as I got to talk to them and joke around a bit.

I got to bed at about 11.30.  We planned to get up at 7am in time to be at breakfast at 7.30; that didn't happen.  We misjudged how much time it would take three girls to get ready and do their make-up.  Saturday was the designated skiing day, so after breakfast we got on a bus and headed up the mountain!  The drive up was going ok until the bus just stopped halfway up the mountain for twenty minutes and we had no idea why.  When we finally got up to the mountain, everyone split up into the activities we were doing for the day.

The day consisted of a snow ball fight, lots of hot chocolate and sliding down the massive snow pile.  Chelci and I found that the furtherest cafe slash restaurant thing had the best hot chocolate.  We also tried the strudel that they had there.

Me & Gemma =)

Chelci!!

Chelci & Jarrad

Selfies!

The children wrestling

Chelci & Sam

Catching snowflakes!! Wish this was a better picture though

When we got back from the ski trip, I had a long talk with Katrin which really helped me to sort everything out and think everything over; which was really good!!  I'm glad that we had that chat.

After dinner that night, we went to a thermal bath.  That was so awesome!! We spent the majority of the night in the whirl pool which was outside.  The water was so lovely and the jets to make the actual whirl pool part were really cool.  We were swimming outside while it was snowing!! That is actually the coolest feeling ever.  It was great.

There was more free time afterwards so five of us went to Maccas to chill out for a bit.  We had some weird conversations to say the least.  Heading back to the hostel, we found a stereotypical London red phone box and we just had to take pictures in it!!  We squished five people in as best we could.  Basically, we kinda got stuck.  That's our story and we're sticking to it.

That night we had a bit of fun with a few practical jokes; namely locking a group of people in a room for half an hour.  There was also some great conversations had and a lot of laughing.  

Hehehehehe

The weekend was really great and I am totally looking forward to the German course at the end of March and the Vienna weekend at the beginning of May!!  It was so amazing to meet so many people from so many different countries all over the world!! Hope we all get to catch up again before everyone goes home.

Until Next Post.

Adios Amigos.

Tyarna xx