Semester Break

This past week (18th - 24th February) we have been on semester break from school.  I had a busy week but it was really good.  I was glad to get away from school; as most people are!!

The first Saturday my host mum, sister and I spent the day shopping in Linz.  I love shopping.  It is so great.  I was happy with my purchases for the day.  Chocolate.  Is.  So.  Cheap.  Here.  We ate lunch at this AMAZING restaurant where you picked everything you wanted, then gave it to the cook and he cooked it for you.  And you could eat as much as you want!  It was so good.  The food tasted amazing and you left nothing on your plate because you got to pick what you put on there; therefore you had nothing you didn't like.  I felt like a whale walking out of there, but it was so worth it.

"No kangaroos in Austria" =D
The block of chocolate was only 1.99 euro!!!!

On Sunday, Maria and I went ice skating.  Now I suck at ice skating.  Majorly.  There were five year olds who could have literally skated rings around me.  However, it is so much fun.  I had a great time.  I think that I did ok considering it was only the third time ever that I have been on the ice =)

Monday bought forward a day of skiing.  Well my host family skiing while I walked around the mountain and took pictures of the absolutely GORGEOUS views.  It was so incredibly cold, but looking at the mountains and the fog that surrounded them was totally worth it.

The gorgeous mountains

Tuesday was a day where I did nothing and curled up with my latest book; "Eat, Pray, Love".

Wednesday afternoon, my host mum took me to Mauthausen Concentration camp from during the WWII period.  It was quite great to see.  I am almost certain that you could feel the presence of the people who were there.  The gas chamber was one of the worst parts.  It took people between 15-20 minutes to die in the gas chambers.  That would have been so incredibly horrible.  I can't even begin to imagine what they had to go through.  I am glad that I saw the camp but sad to hear of all of the things that the prisoners had to live through.  They have this massive stair case that they called the "Stairs of Death".  The prisoners would have to pick up a large rock; run up the stairs with the rock; through it back down to the bottom; go down; and do it all over again until they literally dropped dead.  I was glad when we drove away from the place where so many people were killed; but glad that I saw it.

Thursday saw a day where I did a couple of things.  I went into Wels with my host mum and did a bit of looking around and shopping while she went to the travel agent to organise our upcoming family holiday that only two out of five members of the family know about...  Later that afternoon, my host sister and I went ice skating with a couple of friends.  I thought I might have improved since I had done it only a couple of days ago; but I am almost 100% certain that I was worse than what I was.  Afterwards we walked in town and went to a cafe for a while before going home.

I then had the night to get everything ready for our STS orientation meeting that was starting the next day!  Orientation will have its own special blog post which will be published very soon!!

Before I go, I just want to say a happy 18th birthday to my gorgeous friend Emily for Thursday!! Hope you had a great day gorgeous!

Until Next Post.

Adios Amigos.

Tyarna xx

This & That

My sharing and caring host mother has decided that I need to experience a European cold, so for the past three days, that's what I've been doing!  I must say though, it isn't as fun as you think it would be.  I'm hoping it goes away very soon.

In two weeks, STS students have their orientation weekend and I'm really looking forward to that and being able to see everyone again.  I get to see my other Toowoomba girl, Emilie!

Last weekend, we had a girl’s day shopping in Linz.  It was really great and I hope that we get to have lots of them.  I bought this really, really pretty handbag (as I didn’t have one because Mum ditched mine from my suitcase the morning I left).  But hey, what better excuse than that do you need to buy a new one?!  Granted, it was expensive, but it is so totally worth it.  I wasn’t going to buy it, but after the third time I came back to look at it, I was like “stuff it, it’s mine”.  We also went to the biggest shoe store I have ever seen in my life!  I was in Heaven.  I found this one extremely nice pair of shoes, but I didn’t end up buying them because they cost too much.  Maria bought them though.  However, now that I keep thinking about them, the next time we go back to that shopping centre, I am buying them.  There are a couple of things that I need to buy for orientation weekend anyway, so hopefully we will go back soon!  We went to this little café and I had this delicious piece of chocolate cake with strawberries and jelly on top.  Yuuuumm.  Austria has so many amazing cakes and sweet things, but nothing will ever, EVER, beat my Mum’s double decker chocolate sponge cake with chocolate icing and chocolate sprinkles.  O.O What am I going to do when I’m back in Australia and my Mum still lives over ten hours away?  Shock realisation that I’m still not going to get my cake -_-

My gorgeous bag!! =D

One day, they WILL be mine

Biggest shoe store!

Monday afternoon when we got home from school, I was treated with a true Austrian dish for lunch.  Now, I have completely forgotten what they were called, but they were a massive size dumpling with a vanilla custard kinda thing and poppy seeds with sugar.  They were DELICIOUS.

Charming picture, isn't it?

Was so good!!!!

After eating, there was enough snow that I could go out and make a snowman!!  His name was Bill and he looked pretty cool if I do say so myself.  The next morning though, he looked pretty spastic, as he had melted quite a lot.  There wasn’t enough snow to make a snow angel though.

Roll

Almost done

Me and my man

Bill Snowman

Poor Bill the next day....

I have bought an early birthday present, yes I know my birthday isn’t until April, but this one just couldn’t wait.  I bought a new Canon EOS 1100D camera with an extra lense!  It is just amazing and takes the best pictures.

Camera!!!!!

First picture taken on the new camera of my lovely host sister

Toni

Photo's from the new camera

On to school.  It is very different than Australia.  Here, you don’t change classrooms, your teachers come to you.  Everyone does the same subjects, except you choose between either Spanish or French, and Art or Music.  I have my own timetable at school so that I can be in lower level German classes and therefore, hopefully, help me with my German.

On Thursday night Maria and I went to a Chinese exchange students place to celebrate the beginning of spring in China.  It was really great.  She cooked Chinese food for us and the sweet and sour pork was absolutely amazing!  She is so lovely and is going to help me out with my German as she knows exactly what I’m feeling like when it comes to learning a new language.

Yesterday afternoon we went shopping for something to wear to the festival that is happening at the moment.  I bought a really lovely top and a new bikini.  Just to be clear, the bikini is not for the festival....

I am out of Milo.  It is so tragic.  I don’t know how this could have happened.  I mean, three weeks ago, I had a full tin, and now, nothing.  Empty.  Gone.  Null.  Zilch.  Zero.  I’m going to be a few weeks without any Milo at all.

How could that be?!? O.O

Out shopping at one point and we came across this chocolate shop and I just had to take pictures of all of the chocolate.  It looked too good to resist =D

HAMBURGER!!!

 One afternoon we decided to go for a walk and the next pictures are just views that we came across.  From standing on top of the hill, you could see the Czech boarder.  It should not physically be possible to see another countries border!!! Someone from Australia can just not fathom that...

Maria & I

Now for some pictures of my lovely host family!!

Host Mum & Sister

The Family

Yeah, I live with them

Host parents

And, I really just couldn't help myself because the light switches are fascinating me!  They are a lot different to the light switches in Australia.  Same with the power points.  These things are just so easy to turn on.  There is no fumbling around trying to find the tiny little switch in the middle of the big bit of plastic.

Hope my Aussie friends and family are enjoying the summer.  I would just like to wish my little cousin Jespar happy birthday for Friday and Matt happy birthday for today/tomorrow (Aussie time/time here).  I'm sure you had a great party!

Until Next Post.

Adios Amigos.

Tyarna x