Month number 4. This month has flown by. I can't believe how quickly it has gone. Today is the first of December and everywhere there are signs of Christmas. My host mother has the house decorated and there are advent calendars all over the place and an advent wreath on the table. Everything is so pretty! I can't wait until Christmas, although it means less time with my family. I change on January 18 or 19 and I am not looking forward to it. But it also means that Jamie(the new exchange student from Australia, who will be living with my family until April) comes. I am starting to think more in German. Its so hard to write the required reports in English because of all the German in my head. Half of what I write is in German or German word order and I have to go back and rewrite it all again haha.
At the beginning of this month I had a Rotary outing with the other host families and I went to Hungary for about an hour and bought a pin, just to get a receipt to prove I had left the country..which didn't count anyways, and so then I took a short trip to London, because my Visa was not quite finished and my 90 days here in Austria were almost up. The people at the Visa place told me I needed to leave the country for another 90 days if I didn't have my Visa yet after my initial 90 days were up, so I had to leave beforehand and get a stamp to prove that I had left to restart my time before I could get my Visa and stay here. Just so happens that my cousins, Jenna and Kayla, were in London and had a hotel at the same time all this was happening, so I stayed with them for a day, and it was really nice to see them again. I booked the flight at 3 am the day of the flight, then I missed the flight by ten minutes because it was finished boarding early, and then I had to wait in the airport for ten hours until the next one.. But luckily the man at the check-in counter didn't charge me for the flight change.
This month everyone in my family had their birthday (except my host father, who's birthday is in May near mine), and so there were birthday parties and family birthday meals about once a week for almost the entire month. It was pretty cool, and the house was full of flowers for the whole month. ^^
I started Math with my 5th grade class (9th grade back home) because the math in the 8th grade here (12th grade back home) is way ahead of the math that we learn in Mt. Blue. I just got my book today, so maybe I can finally follow along. My 5th grade German class is also going well, so I would say that school is good. (:
A couple of weeks ago my family went to my host mom's sister's house, and we baked tons of cookies, and I met my host cousin, which was pretty cool, and they want me to come back and visit sometime, so I get to see them again soon. I'm excited for Christmas when we actually get to eat the cookies we spent the entire day baking. (: And the other day I went to a concert with my host mom, in which my host aunt sang, which was so cool, actually knowing someone in a real concert that people pay 35€ to see.
I have been taking a dance class, and now I can actually dance a little. We learn the basic step to a bunch of dances, and then gradually learn a little more and a little more until we know a third of each dance.. we're getting there, although a little slowly. Soon I will be able to dance like in the movies! I'm really excited. I have met so many new people through dance school. Now I have friends from tons of different schools, and not just mine. Here there are schools all over the place, and in the city I bet there are a hundred or so. When you finish 4th grade (8th grade back home), you get the chance to choose which school you want to attend for the rest of high school, so not everyone is in the same school. I am in the same school (and class) as my host sister, Haizingergasse, and my host brothers (and host sister who is currently in America) go to Gymnasiumstrasse, about a 10 minute walk away.
I went to my first ball the other night, and although it was a school ball, everyone got all dressed up as though they were going to a real ball like in movies, and there was an area with new music and an area with dancing music. It was really cool. There were so many people there, and even parents could buy a ticket, because adults were allowed too. In America, when someone's parents are at their school dance, its like the most embarrassing thing ever, even if they're not dancing, but here it was completely normal for a friend of mine to have her mom and aunt there taking pictures and dancing like regular people.
The trams are a bit of a problem in the snow, so today I waited 20 minutes for a strassenbahn (tram) which normally comes every 5 or 6 minutes. Kind of annoying if the whole winter is going to be like this.
Thanksgiving was really weird here. It was like nobody acknowledged it (and righly so because its an American holiday), and I went about my business feeling weird like I was having a secret, private holiday that nobody knew about and that I was somehow keeping it from them. It was a little awkward, like I should be telling them, but no one cared. I was hoping to cook dinner for my host family on Thanksgiving, with a turkey and stuffing, but then everyone made plans last minute, so I went to a friend's house and ended up Skyping my family back home right before their big meal. It was nice to see everyone (almost) together even though I wasn't there.
I have not spent as much time with the other exchange students this past month, but I guess thats alright because I will see them in 2 weeks, and I'm not here to hang out with other exchange students, but rather to meet as many different people as possible and to learn the culture of here. Not that its not nice to see them and hang out with them as well when time allows.
I have gone again to Interact with my host brother, Thomas, and our club has started a handful of projects already. We are selling stuffed animals for St. Anna's Hospital for Children, collecting clothing for Haiti victims, and taking turns running a Punsch stand to raise money for our club (which we will spend on some other sort of charity or volunteer event), to name the couple I remember. Thomas and I are working on Saturday in the Punsch stand, and we will try to sell a few stuffed animals then. My brother is so outgoing, he sold two stuffed animals on the way home from Interact the day we started selling!
In the middle of November the Christkindlmarkts opened, and they are SOOOO pretty. I recommend googling photos as the second best way to finding out for yourself (the first would be to get on a plane and come visit PJ in Vienna ^^) There are stands filling a large open space, and they are selling all sorts of things like toys, candy, holiday decorations, and Punsch. Tomorrow I am going back to one of them to eat crepes with a friend of mine (:
Hopefully next month won't fly by so quickly, because that means I have to move, and that Christmas is by, and my time will be half over. That is one of the saddest thoughts ever. I am dreading having to move and leave my family, who I love so much, and live with strangers who are not my brothers. I know they're nice, but they aren't mine. They are David's (the exchange student from Ecuador who lives near me and is in the same Rotary Club and will live with my family after Jamie, in April.