"We're going on a school trip to Germany"

Yep, you read the title right, we went on a school trip to Germany.  I guess Europeans would be like, yeah, cool, let's go.  It's just another trip for them; but for an Australian, that is pretty bloody awesome.

On Sunday June 23rd, the class of 4PB boarded the train excitedly awaiting the beginning of the journey to Hamburg, Germany.  The train trip would take roughly 12 to 13 hours during the night.  You could say that the train wasn't the most ideal of nights that you could have; we scored some pretty bad luck with the fact that we didn't get sleeping cabins, just normal sitting ones and the air-conditioner in our whole carriage wasn't working.  In spite of this though, we kept up high spirits, because, well, we were going to another country instead of going to school for the next three days.

Train journey

We arrived in Hamburg around 9.30 on Monday morning.  Our first job was to find our hostel and leave our luggage there.  After quite a bit of walking, and taking the wrong exit from the subway station, we found our hostel; or what we thought was our hostel.  Turns out that we were at the wrong one and we had to go to the opposite end of the street we were on.  Off we set again until we finally came across the correct hostel.  I wasn't complaining, the second one looked a lot nicer than the first one.  Leaving our luggage in the storage room, we all headed off for our walking tour around part of the city.  This is where our mini photo war started between me, Sassy and Milli.  What it was, was whenever someone went to take a photo of you, you put your camera up and took a photo of them instead.  I got some pretty hilarious photo's from doing that.

Photo war!!

Afterwards we had free time, so we split off into smaller groups and went and had lunch before doing some shopping.  Meeting back with the whole class, we went back to the hostel (after taking the wrong exit out of the subway station) and went to our rooms.  It took us forever to find our rooms as, the easiest way to explain this, the hostel was like a maze with heaps of different turns and levels and twists and passages.  It was interesting anyway.  That night we were allowed some more free time, so Sassy, Michelle and I went to a bar after walking around for a while.  It was finally time to lie down and get some rest at about midnight.

Tuesday started with breakfast at the hostel and then a visit to a small museum and looking at some buildings and a church before being allowed more free time.  There was a group of about nine of us who went to Hard Rock Cafe (I bought a shirt) and then souvenir shop hopping down one of the main tourist areas of Hamburg.  This is where I got my flag from Germany! (I collect flags from the countries that I visit).  Meeting up with the rest of the class again, we did a boat tour around part of the city and the harbour.  It was so nice to be able to sit and still see a lot of things.

Boat Tour

When the boat ride was finished, everyone except five of us went off to get ready for the musical.  Alissa, Johanna, Linda, Isabella and I went to Maccas for coffee and then walked down the famous 'whore' street in Hamburg.  When they explained to me where we were going, they were like, 'it's a street where all the whores go'; it was so funny.  Heading back to the hostel, we showered before upstairs to the bar; we were right in time for happy hour.  Here we toasted to our last night in Hamburg and having a great summer break.  It was a really nice night spending time with those girls.  Once again it was a late night in bed and my body clock is now officially screwed up.  It doesn't help that it is still light at around 10.30 at night!!  What is this Europe?

Friends and good times

Waking up on Wednesday, a sadness hit us because we knew it was our last day before going home to Austria.  As our school is a design and product management sort of school, so we visited one while we were in Hamburg.  It was so cool to see some of the things that these people do at school.  Afterwards we looked at some other buildings as well as an art museum and then had our last bit of free time before meeting back at the hostel where we picked up our stuff and went back to the train station.  I know that I really shouldn't have, but when your classmates ask you to teach them some Australian slang, you really can't resist teaching them 'wanker' and 'tosser'.  That's what we did while waiting for the train.  Oh and I also threw in 'platypus' and 'bugger'.  We also had a debate about the names of the star signs in English and the pictures that went with them.  I now know that 'the water man' is Aquarius and 'the bow and arrow man' is Sagittarius and 'the little crab' is Cancer.  Our conversation took many strange and different turns while we waited for that train.

Time to go home =(

It is safe to say that we got even less sleep on the way back than what we did on our way to Germany.  There was a lot of laughter in our cabin and it was a really good way to end such a great trip.  Thank you 4PB for another very memorable moment of my exchange year =D

Tomorrow another adventure starts when I head to Finland for almost three weeks to be finally reunited with my evil sister!!!!  Words cannot explain how excited I am.  You will surely hear all about my time there; well, maybe not all about it ;)

I would also like to say Happy Birthday to my Dad for today (Australian time) and tomorrow (my time).  Hope you have a good one.

Until Next Post.

Adios Amigos.

Tyarna xx

Believe you can and you're halfway there

May was a busy month and this also meant that it was great; full of laughter and smiles.  Lots of things happened and one of the events that had the most impact was the German course that Elliott and I attended.  It may have had the biggest impact because it took up the whole month, but it was still really good.

Basically we were in a class of ten people and we were the only Australians, and the youngest.  The other members of the group were from South Korea, Serbia, Japan, China and Iran.  The course was a lot of hard work, and I am sure we laughed a hell of a lot more than what we should have; but it was really fun.  We had a lot of 'blonde' moments when we didn't know the words for things, so we created our own.  The most memorable one was talking about a broken foot and we didn't know the German word, so we used 'kranken fuß', which would literally translate to 'sick foot'.  Or another one was when I had a headache one day and we didn't know the word, so we said that 'mein kopf ist kaputt', which is 'my head is broken'.  The whole course was in German, so explaining words was sometimes a little difficult; we always managed though.  One of the best explanations was for the word 'Unfall', which means 'accident'.  The only student in the class who knew the meaning of the word picked up a pen in each hand and went 'auto, auto, booooossssshhhhh' and crashed them together.  It was a pretty good explanation.  If exchange has taught me anything, it's how to play charades really well.

One of the best classes was when we were in our food unit and Elliott and I decided to introduce our class to Vegemite.  The reactions never get old; they're funny every single time.  Although one of my favourite is still my host mum's ;) and then when she told her friend that 'it tastes like nutella' (I know, evil right?  Not even I did that this time!); but that was another brilliant reaction.  Anyway, we had mixed reactions this time.  Some liked it, and then others clearly did not.

The course seemed to go very quickly and I am a little bit sad that I most likely won't see those people again.  I have great memories from there though and I wouldn't go back and change anything about the past four weeks.

Working hard, or hardly working?

Another memorable event in May was when Sarah and I went to Madame Tussauds.  It is a wax museum at Prater and it was a lot of fun.  You go in and see all of the figures and they have costumes that you can dress up in and take pictures with the 'celebrities'.  There was a lot of laughter that day and we got some pretty hilarious pictures.  A very short list of the 'people' that we saw include Nicole Kidman, Sissy, Elvis Presley, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Barack Obama, Albert Einstein, Gustav Klimt, James Bond, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Katy Perry, Audrey Hepburn, Pope Benedict, Angelina Jolie, George Clooney; the list goes on and on.

We danced 'Thriller' with Michael Jackson; Sarah got a kiss with James Bond; as did I with Elvis Presley and Leonardo DiCaprio; we read scripts with Brad Pitt and sat down and had a talk over coffee with George Clooney.  As it was absolutely pouring down rain, it was the perfect indoor activity.  The saddest part of the day was when Sarah told me that she had started her last month in Austria countdown before she goes back to America.  Everyone is leaving =(  I am so happy to have made these memories with people though.  This, is living the exchange life.

Until Next Post.

Adios Amigos.

Tyarna xx