Thank You's (also a note to Juan Valdez)

I appreciate all the supportive (and sympathetic) comments I've gotten the last few days. Admittedly, that day I spent home sick I was feeling sorry for myself, so I was definitely fishing for some sympathy when writing those posts.

But life isn't that bad. I mean hey, I'm studying in Europe for 5 months! I can take a weekend train trip to Venice if I want. I can fly to Turkey in a matter of hours. Same for Greece, Poland, London, etc. Europe is at my fingertips. And as much as I complained about my living conditions recently, I still like where I live. My roommates are good people, with sweet hookups (aka, they've got connections). After hearing several horror stories from other exchange students on their living conditions, I feel very fortunate to have landed in the situation I did.

My posts having been turning introspective lately. Maybe it's from being sick, maybe it's from being homesick, maybe it's the weather. Before leaving for Europe I expected (and hoped) that coming here would be a chance for me to grow and learn more about myself. At the same time, I wanted to do all the touristy stuff that exchange students "simply must" do while in Europe.

What I'm saying is, not all my posts will be "Photo of Scott Standing Next to Landmark XXX in country YYY". Those will be posted here too, but there will also be some navel-gazing posts in which I attempt to sort my thoughts. I enjoy posting pictures and stories so everyone can see what I'm doing. At the same time, capturing my thoughts in words helps me to understand them. If the introspection bores you, I apologize.

Anyway, thank you all for the kind words and support. And Juan Valdez, whoever you are, keep posting comments!

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On Language, Roommates, and Inertia

I don't hang out with my roommates much. They are four Austrians, three male and one female. We live in this tiny suite where we all have our own individual rooms with a shared kitchen and bathroom. That is all for living space. The only common area is the kitchen table, a rectangular thing that seats 5 people maximum:

The countertops in the right background is all we have for food preparation space. Two electric burners and an electric oven. Apparently my roommates are bigwigs in the Hafnerriegel, because it is unusual to have ovens. They told me when I first moved in about this customization, rather proudly I might add. Food storage is on the shelves at the end of the tables.

When I first moved in I tried to get to know my roommates, and on several nights sat at that table drinking a few beers with them, while they talked to me in English, and after they got tired of that, to each other in German. Roland has the best English, and studied in the U.S. for a while. Christian probably has the next best English, followed by Jörg and Bettina. Bettina, the one woman in our suite, and I have said less than 10 words to each other I think. My German was horrible when I came here and I didn't want to embarrass myself with it. She probably feels the same way about her English. It's intimidating, because in my mind once you don't talk someone much, it becomes the norm, and it's difficult to break that habit.

The kitchen is at the end of a long hallway on which lies each of our rooms and the bathroom:

Bedrooms are on the right side of the hallway, and bathroom on the left side. That fridge in the foreground is the one I share with Roland. Way at the other end of the hall are two more fridges of the same size. Normally each suite only gets one fridge of that size, for 5 or 6 people to share. Again, being the "Kings of Hafnerriegel" as they are, my roommates got two more. I can't imagine sharing one fridge that size with four other people. Behind the first fridge you can also see a tower of yellow beer cases. That is a big part of the major social activity that goes on at the kitchen table. Here's another look at it from my room:

Beer is BIG in Austria. The standard bottle size is a 0.5 liter, not this wussy 12oz (0.35 liter) used in the U.S. And they don't drink light beer either. Roland is about 6 foot 4 inches and probably 280 pounds. He can put those bottles away quickly.

As I'm typing this, my roommates are all having dinner with each other, minus Jörg who is at his parents for semester break. In addition to Roland, Christian, and Bettina are Helmut, who is Bettina's brother, and some guy from several floors below who comes up often for dinner and drinking. I think he is Croatian, but don't know for sure. Helmut lives with Bettina's parents in a town nearby and comes over every week, at least once a week. He sleeps in Bettina's room.

Helmut and I got off on the wrong foot, because the second night I saw him he projectile vomited in the kitchen. We were staying up late drinking beer and sampling the different types of schnapps that Jörg's father makes. One minute he was fine, the next he was covering his mouth and coughing out a mix of food, schnapps, and beer. Yes, it was very disgusting. Roland cleaned up most of it. Admittedly, we had all had a lot to drink. But for all the boasting I heard them say about how they were gonna teach me to drink "like an Austrian" it was a bit disappointing to see one of them puking like an 18-year-old American college kid. Several weeks later Helmut came by for his weekly sleepover after midnight when I was the only one home, and in bed. He kept pushing the doorbell, and I was pretty irked to have to get out of bed to let him in. The sleepover thing bugs me, because I know that when he comes over there will be noise until late at night. In addition, it's like having a 5th roommate. I guess Jörg isn't around much because he usually stays at his girlfriend's place, so that balances out.

So I don't hang out with my roommates much. The language barrier is one big reason. I don't want them to have to switch English just for my sake. I told them early on to not speak English just so I could understand. That backfired a bit because at the few times that I shared dinner with them they just sat around talking German to each other. A slang-filled Austrian dialect of German, no less. I understood about every 50th word. After this Intensive German course, though, I feel a lot more comfortable with it. Yesterday I was eating dinner and understood a lot of what they were saying to each other. Granted it was little stuff like "come up here to eat in half an hour", but I felt good for recognizing it. I want to start talking to them in German more and hanging out with them, but it's like what I said earlier. I have this habit now of keeping to myself. Breaking it seems scary. It's inertia.

I spend most of my social time with other exchange students from my Intensive German course. I am in A1, the lowest level, so none of my fellow classmates are comfortable conversing in German. They come from Turkey, Australia, Italy, Finland, Mexico, Columbia, Japan, and the U.S. We hang out outside of class, and it's great. Everyone gets along very well. Last Saturday night some of us went to Maria's apartment for dinner. Maria is from Italy, and in my class. Virpi, from Finland, made the sauce for the pasta (odd, considering it was PASTA. Delicious, though!) and we all ate and drank and talked. Mostly in English, but we also tried talking to each other in German. Since they are all at the same knowledge level as me, it doesn't feel as intimidating to talk with them.

So one day soon perhaps, I will greet Bettina with a "Servus!" and a "Wie geht's?". I'll keep you posted.

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Home Sick

I'm home sick. Not the kind where I miss my place in America, although I do feel that way many times. Today I have been home all day in my tiny apartment. Yesterday morning I woke up with a sore throat after a night of restless sleep. It was the kind of sleep where I wake up repeatedly and have these weird, obsessive dreams. Like I keep dreaming about the same thing and it doesn't stop. Obviously, this is much different from the normal obsessive thoughts I have. I can always tell when I am going to be sick after a night of sleep like that.

But yesterday I went to my German class anyway, which runs from 9am to 12:05pm. I was tired and achy and having trouble swallowing, the usual stuff. When some of my classmates wanted to go to a local bar for lunch, I declined. This bar has cheap pizzas, only 3 Euros for a meal, but it also has tons of students in there smoking. That situation is unpleasant enough when you are feeling healthy, but I absolutely didn't want to experience that while being sick. So, I went to the Karl-Franzen's University cafeteria, which has a non-smoking section. It also has this weird artificial apple tree in the middle of the dining area with fake outdoor-looking tables and benches around it. I think the intent is to make you feel like you're dining outside.

I went to bed around 9pm last night in hopes of breaking the sickness spell with a night of serious sleeping. I put my earplugs in so my socializing roommates wouldn't keep me awake, turned on my fan for added noise blocking, and put on extra layers of clothes to ward off the chills I was getting. The sleep was as fitful and restless as the night before, maybe worse. I woke up having to pee and thinking I had slept the whole night, and that it was close to morning. It turned out it was only midnight, so went back to bed to give it another go.

After sleeping and waking for another 6 hours, I decided that going to class was out of the question. I turned off my alarm and stayed in bed until about 9:30. My day has been spent napping, surfing the Internet, listening to music, and playing video games. I'm getting tired of being in here, but every time I stand up I just want to sit down again. Right now I have a load of laundry in the washers downstairs (finally figured out the system), and just starting that was exhausting.

Why am I writing all this? Why am I writing in minute detail of these uneventful days? I think I'm feeling sorry for myself for being sick and want some sympathy. That and I'm bored out of my skull. I think I have surfed the entire Internet. There are no more pages left for me to look at. I've listened to all my music (not much there), played all my videogames (again, lacking), and don't feel motivated to do some serious (aka, school) work.

So there you have it.

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Pictures from 2006 Ghent IP: Photos de Michael

In the absence of a well-written and entertaining narrative, I am going to post a whole mess of photos. Mike from ISU took a bunch, and I think he did a great job capturing the human side of the program in Ghent. Or at least, the hanging out and socializing part of it:

The first night Mike arrived, he told me he had a cousin who looked like me. That photo was taken for comparison.

Sweet sweet beer. Kerry conducts a deep conversation in the background.

Matthieu (from France) taking a picture of the picture-taker. Like two mirrors facing each other....

Me, Sara, and Caroline. For some reason I felt the need to stick my head into a lot Mike's photos.



I don't know anything about those last two photos, since I wasn't there. Judging by the tray full of beers, a good time was had by all.

I believe the name of that bar above was Limonada. It was decorated in this retro looking furniture. Lots of cube shaped chairs/footstool things.

Alex (from Germany) and I are having a serious conversation while Sara (from USA) closes her eyes to keep the room from spinning. I'm not sure how Mike's camera was able to make the lights look that way, but I think it is pretty cool.

I had a drink with absinthe in it, since you can't get it in the United States. In the photo above, you can see it on the table in front of me. It was green, and didn't taste very good. After hearing from people in Austria that absinthe contains high amounts of methanol and can make you blind, I don't have much desire to try it again.

Above: Another night. Denis from Austria dancing with a couple of Polish girls, Aga and Ewelina.

Caroline, Brian, and Mike in a group photo.

Brian, Sarah, Sara, and Kerry, all from the USA. Either Brian is in mid-blink or this photo was taken quite late in the evening.

Funky photo. How does his camera do this? I love it.

Fabien (France), Denis (Austria), Ana (France but actually Spain), and Brian (USA).

Finally, we have Kirsten from The Netherlands and Mike, Master Photographer.

Hope you enjoyed the photos. Soon I hope to post some scenic shots of Ghent, courtesy of Barbara!

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Update Coming....

Hello all, I haven't posted anything in a while and apologize for it. I started my Intensive German program last week, which keeps my busy during the days. Tonight I can't post anything right now, because the students are getting together for a drink at 20:00. Hopefully something later this week. Gotta go!

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Sunset

I just looked away from my computer screen and saw the sun was setting. Here's a photo:
The colors in of the clouds and sky were beautiful. I will have to practice taking sunset photos from my window.

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Laundry

As I type this, I am sitting in my room shirtless. Sorry, not trying to titillate anyone. I just washed 2 t-shirts and one pair of underwear in the bathroom sink. The t-shirts are drying on the radiator in my room, while the underwear waits its turn. In my shirtless state, I am more desperate for clean t-shirts right now than I am for clean underwear.

I like the building I live in. My roommates are good people, I have lightning fast wireless internet, it's close to the office where I do my research, and the view is spectacular. Of course, everything cannot be perfect. Living on the top floor means you hear the elevator motors constantly. You can (kinda) get used to that. Another annoyance is that there are hardly enough washers and dryers to accomodate all the residents. In this building live about 366 people. In the basement are 4 washing machines. That's right. Four regular capacity washing machines. My calculator tells me that works out to be 91.5 people for each machine.

Here's where things get nerdy: These are European washers, which means they have longer wash cycles than American machines. The shortest cycle you can have is 1 hour. The longest is 2 hours. Let's assume that the average cycle length is 1.5 hours, and that each person in the building washes one load of laundry per week. That doesn't seem too unreasonable. Let's figure out how often these machines would be in use each week with those numbers. Here's the math:

(1 load per person per week) * (1.5 hours per load) * (366 people) = 549 HOURS PER WEEK

How many hours are in a week, you ask? Why 168 of course!

There are also six regular capacity dryers in the basement, but one is broken so it's really only five. Seventy three point two people per dryer. Since dryers take twice as long as washers, it's actually worse with dryers if you do the math. I now realize why I see my roommate Bettina setting up a drying rack in her room every week.

So this laundry situation is really not working out. I've tried doing laundry three different nights of the week, hoping to find that magical day when everybody else has clean clothes. None of them have worked yet. Sunday's a big laundry night. Thursday is too. And now, Tuesday also appears to be a big laundry night. I managed to get some clothes in last week Sunday, but had to dry them in my room by stringing rope around like a drunken spider's web. So I'm pushing on a week and a half without doing laundry, and that's tough when you can count the number of t-shirts you have on one hand.

Summary: Scott is going to find a laundromat. Not tonight, though. The students from my Intensive German course are meeting for a beer tonight, so I gotta join them The intructors will be there too, so it's almost mandatory in way....

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Graz Exchange Student Outing

Last week sometime, the other exchange students from the U.S. arrived in Graz. There are about ten of us total, from about 6 different universities. For some reason the University of Arkansas is heavily represented on this exchange program. They must have an enthusiastic and organized director of their exchange programs. On Saturday (yesterday) we all went along with our mentors to the Hauptplatz for a tour around town. The Hauptplatz is a marketplace/open area in front of the Rathaus, the main government building in Graz.

We first walked over to the Kunsthaus, to check out its funky exterior. Since it was cold outside, we went in for a bit to warm up. Next stop, was the mysterious Schlossberg. It turns out that the entire mountain was not closed as I previously thought. It was just the steps on one side were closed for safety reasons. I guess the steps get icy in the winter and they don't want people falling down and cracking their skulls open. Wusses. We walked through a tunnel from one side of the Schlossberg to the other and up a cobblestone road, which was pretty darn slippery itself thanks to the fresh layer of frost that morning. Here are some pictures from the top:

That's the clock tower on top of the Schlossberg. You can see American exchange students on the left milling about, probably wondering where the gift shop is.

That last photo showed a bit of the view from the mountain, but my favorite part is what's happening in the front left of the picture. My mentor Elisabeth and her boyfriend Thomas are having a debate about the directions of landmarks.

It was hazy out yesterday, but if you look closely in the center of the above photo you can see the majestic Hafnerriegel, my home away from home.

Here I convinced Thomas to take my picture with the Kunsthaus in the background.

Finally, a group photo under the clocktower. After the Schlossberg, we walked around the Old City a bit and over to the Glockenspiel, which was supposed to perform at 3pm. But something wasn't working on the clock, so we didn't get to see the mechanical musical show. Sorry, no pictures of that.... yet.

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Pictures from 2006 Ghent IP, Part 3D (or: Oostende)

That same Saturday in January that we went to Brugge we also went to Oostende. This is a town on the Northwestern coast of Belgium, on the North Sea. It was about a 20 minute train ride from Brugge, which itself was a 20 minute train ride from Ghent. My favorite part of the town was walking on the beach, so here are some photos if it. Here's the moon rising over the pier:


Here's Kerry looking all shadowy in front of the setting sun:
Kerry took a group photo of us with the setting sun in the background, but I have yet to see it. Rumor has it that Kerry has some amazing photos from Belgium, but he only shows them to certain people. Share your pictures, Kerry!

Sara and Alex were in Oostende the same day as we were, but earlier. Here's one of Sara's photos of a sailboat:


And one of Aga's photos of the train station:


After we walked on the beach, we found a restaurant and ate some seafood for supper. By the time we were finished, it was getting late so we took the train back to Ghent. A fun, and very busy, day.

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Pictures from Ghent 2006 IP, Group Photo!

I just received these in my inbox today from Aga:

Aren't those just precious? That is almost all of the students who were in the Intensive Program, and if you look closely you can see a few Iowa State professors in the back row.

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Pictures from 2006 Ghent IP, Part 3C (or: Brugge:The Belfry)

The last landmark we visited in Brugge was The Belfry. It’s huge clocktower looking over the entire city, which also contains a 47 bell carillon:

This was interesting to me, because at Iowa State University I played a carillon there also. At ISU, it is known as the Campanile, and stands in central campus:
(photo courtesy of Iowa State)

I took music lessons in grade school and high school, so I had some music ability. The carillon as a musical instrument appeals to me because it is very obviously mechanical. The playing consoles for these instruments are typically open so you can see the linkages connecting foot pedals to batons (the parts your hands move) with wires going out the ceiling to the bell chamber above. You can also climb around the bell chamber looking at all the wires leading to clappers for the various bells. When I saw the Campanile as a freshman I decided I wanted to play it, so I found the right person in the Music Department and signed up for lessons.

I don’t know much about the history of the Belfry in Brugge, so I will show these pictures without much description:

Compliments of Sara, that is a much more imposing view of The Belfry, showing its height.
Above is a close up of the barrel which plays the mechanical tunes for the carillon. If you have ever taken apart a music box (like I have), this is simply a larger version of what you find there. The small protrusions on the barrel trigger hammers up in the bell tower to strike various bells.

That is an excellent picture of the clock mechanism, courtesy of Alex. I was surprised to learn that the clock movements on the bell tower in Brugge were still mechanical. On the Campanile at Iowa State, they have been updated to electrical clock movements.

We had 366 steps to climb from ground level to the bell chamber, and while we were doing this, the carillonneur (person who plays the carillon) was giving a concert:

I don't know how Sara managed to get that photo, because the door was closed to the playing room, with only a plexiglass window looking in. It came out great.

That's another of Sara's pictures once we reached the bell chamber.

The photo above shows the large hammers on the outside of the bells used for the mechanical chimes. The next photo is of the infamous Sara who took so many good pictures of the Belfry:

She's standing in the bell chamber next to the array of wires leading from the playing console below to the bells above. In case you were wondering what the view from the bell chamber was like, check out the next two pictures:


Courtesy of Alex and Sara respectively. After all this time in tower we naturally had to go downstairs, 366 steps, to ground level:

Sara took a picture of me trying to count all 366 steps from the top to the bottom in German. I wasn't very good at it. Once we got close to the bottom it was time for a group photo:

From left to right is Kerry, Sara, Sarah, Sara, Scott, and Alex. If you found that confusing, here is a picture of just Sara, Sarah, and Sara:

I will end this post with the last picture I have of Brugge. As we were walking back to the train station I snapped a picture of Sarah walking in front of this unknown mansion:

That's all I have for now. Enjoy!

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I'm Loving It....

So, I lied about posting more pictures from Belgium yesterday, and didn't get any done this morning either. Our Internet was down here, forcing me to read my low tech book.

I ran some errands today. The bronchial tea that smells like black licorice ran out, so I went to the Apotheke (pharmacy in the U.S.) to get some more. It appears that in Austria, any medicine for cold, allergies, cough, etc is sold at an Apotheke where you have to ask the person at the counter for the specific medicine. You can't just go to a drug store and look up and down the aisles on your own for the medicine you need. This is difficult if you don't speak German well, and don't really know how to describe what you are looking for. For the tea, I simply brought along the old container and asked for more of it.

I also went to an English Bookstore because I'm getting to the end of my current book, I Am Charlotte Simmons, by Tom Wolfe. I picked up a paperback by Nick Hornby, About A Boy. The movie really struck a chord with me, and I'm hoping to get even more out of the book.

Finally, I went back to Leiner and bought a pillow. For the last week and a half, I've been using a pilowcase stuffed with two fleece pullovers, and it's just not quite comfy enough. Oh, the little luxuries...

After all that shopping, I was hungry, and felt like some American comfort food, and McDonald's was on the way home. Perfect. Well, as perfect as food from there can be. It's amazing how McDonald's can make their food taste the same in every single restaurant in the world.

My next post will be more pictures of Ghent. Seriously.

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Back to Blogging

Life has been crazy and confusing these last few days, so I took a brief break from blogging. On Monday I went to see a doctor in Graz, because I've been unable to kick a cold for the last few weeks. He gave me some antibiotics, prescribed some cough medicine, and told me to drink some special kind of tea. I don't know exactly what's in this tea, but it tastes alot like black licorice, and makes the entire apartment smell that same. Since I have no sense of taste or smell right now, I'm relying on my roommates for that information.

One thing I accomplished today was rearranging my room. Check out the before photo:

Wow that's blurry. I must have been hyped up on caffeine that day. Here's the after:

Sharp-eyed readers will notice that I switched around the desk and bed. Why? Because in the far right corner of the room is a radiator that the bed was resting against. It made my head really hot while sleeping. I'd wake up sweating, and not because I was having nightmares about being chased by wolves (again).

To give you an idea of the size and shape of my room, here's photo from the other direction:

That's me in the mirror taking the picture, not some portal to another dimension.

Anyway, I have more pictures from Belgium to post and will get more up today and tomorrow!

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