TOMORROW is christmas eve!!

I am currently making chocolate chip cookies in Austria. You would never know how much a person could miss something like a good chocolate chip cookie once in awhile.

Chocolate CHIPS do not exist in this country, because they have no need for them because their chocolate is so good that they could probably build houses out of it.

So, I had to personally make my own chocolate chips. 15 minutes, a bread knife, a chopping block, plus a strained thumb and forefinger, as well as one TEEENY little cut later the chocolate "chips" (more like chunks) were ready!

It is impossible to measure things here, so cooking has been quite interesting... ALTHOUGH, I am very impressed, and pleased to say, that I made a DELICIOUS apple pie crust on Friday evening WITHOUT MEASURING ANYTHING!

It went like this... "hmmm... that looks about right... GOOD. annnnnnnnd FINISHED!"

The heat is slightly different here too, so things tend to "brown" a little more... I still haven't figured out what is up with that. I am converting everything right.


okay... problem solved... they just look uncooked... but they aren't... they are actually cooked!

I ROCK! am cooking MACHINE!

Krummau-Cesky Krumlov

So I went to the Czech Republic this weekend with Ben and one of the teachers I work with. Here are some photographs! If you click on the photos you can make them bigger. P.S. DOGS ARE ALLOWED EVERYWHERE IN EUROPE. Castor came into all the restaurants with us, and this morning, they even gave him a "purina" bowl with water in it.




Krummau with late afternoon sun.





























A Czech man, his dog and his Weihnachtsmarktstandl.



























Dog fighting on the streets of Krummau. (not really, they were just getting to know eachother. The dog on the right is "Castor" except I kept trying to call him "Castro" like the oil. It was really very frustrating.)




























Me and the castle tower in the background... Ben took this one... the exposure is a little off! :-D














At the top of the castle, looking out over Krummau.



























Krummau through a water drain on the top of the castle.


























Yes, this 'priest'/'pope'/'religious figure' does have a wireless metal headset welded onto his head. Someone was trying to be funny...It worked.

















THE SPACE PIG! The fire in the background was cooking a WHOLE pig. You could see the ears sticking out of the tin foil. Cool, if you could get over the fact that it once oinked and squealed.


























Our breakfast this morning. COFFFFFFFEEEEEE! (The room cost a total of 1580 Ck, which roughly is equivalent to... 65 Euro. Breakfast included.)

















Ben and myself. He needs to shave... shhhhh.

















THE GROUP, from left to right.

Me, Ben, Christoph, Castor, Nadia, Doris, Juddith, Wolfgang, and Jürgen.

so. I was fed up.

Here are the results. :)

new address

I have a new address! AND I have grenzenlos internet!


Marion Chamberlin
Brunngasse 2, Zimmer 107
3250 Wieselburg, NÖ




Here is a photograph from Thanksgiving this past weekend. I cooked for 5 hours on Sunday, from 7:00am-12:00pm, but everyone enjoyed the food, and they actually ATE turkey with cranberry sauce, which tickled me numb, because everyone was SUPER skeptical at first!



from left to right:

Oma, Gunther, Gunther's wife, Emmerich, Me, Julia, Sandra, Eva, and Erich.

oh where have I been?

After being cooped up inside for two days straight under the false name of "working on my lesson planning" I decided that I was going to take a walk.

I walked for about an hour in the snow, by myself, through a park for people, bikes, and horses, much like the W & OD Trail, except no cement/pavement/concrete.

It was beautiful. I felt as though my eyes were truly open for the first time since arriving here. My consciousness was imbued with something that I have not had in awhile. It was cold out, 27 degrees, but I was so comfortable in all of my North Face clothing. (I realized how funny I must have looked to passersby. North Face Rain Pants, North Face Jacket... even a North Face Hat.)

As I crested a rise in the trail I mentally kicked myself for not having had the patience to lug my Mamiya out of my pack. But that lasted for only a moment, because then I realized that I could just stand there and make a mental picture. It will snow again. I can go back to that same spot with my camera another time to record the beauty of that small valley amongst the pines.

For once I was so content with being alone. I was with nature. The wind was whispering through the trees casting little snow flakes off the branches. They came dancing around my face, and I turned my cheeks toward them, their cold fingertips brushing against my warm skin. I relished the cold. Walked off the trail and lay down in the snow, realizing only after a few seconds that I was talking to myself, saying "this is what I want. This is all that I want". The coldness of the ground seeped through my rain pants and my sweatpants and my long underwear into my bones. I could feel the danger in that coldness, knowing that the sun would be setting in twenty minutes or so, but the danger only made me feel comfortable and at ease. I was reminded of this past spring and our IDS Class trip to Mount Rogers. Reminded of the whining, and distress, and ill-tempers. If only those people could have opened their eyes like I was opening mine...

I now know more than ever. I have to work for EYA. I can not continue as I have. I can not work inside. It makes me insane.

Today I was hyped up on caffeine, because coffee tastes good. But snow tastes better. Austrian snow tastes just the same as American snow. A fact which gave me comfort.

We miss so much by existing in a shell, protected by wood or concrete or plastic. When I went outside I could hear children laughing and was reminded of a passage in the book I am reading right now.

"Although countless children who suffer from mental illness and attention disorders do benefit from medication, the use of nature as an alternative, additional, or preventetive therapy is being overlooked. In fact, new evidence suggests that the need for such medications is intensified by children's disconnection from nature. Although exposure to nature may have no impact on the most severe depressions, we do know that nature experiences can relieve some of the everyday pressures that may lead to childhood depression" (page 50, Last Child in the Woods Saving Our Children From Nature-Defecit Disorder, by Richard Louv)

I breathe more easily outside. My breath comes from lower in my belly, fully expanding my diaphragm. I look up and out and not just down or in front of me. I am calmed by the outdoors. The silence of the cold and snow has always filled me with awe. I hope that our society can figure out a way to preserve this great world we live in.

It begins with us though. We have to want it. We have to need it.

Winterwunderland

It snowed on Friday evening. 3 inches of beautiful white powder.

I am now living in Wieselburg, which is a town about 17 Km away from Scheibbs. I have no mailing address at the moment.

There is a little tiny cat here name Calimaro. He is quite adorable and likes to sleep and play with me. He is twelve weeks old and hilarious. Apparently he likes cooked broccoli and raddishes. He ate a whole piece of broccoli that had been cooked in butter, garlic, black pepper, and salt. I gave it to him mainly to see his reaction, but he ended up eating the entire thing, and growled at me when I tried to take it away from him. On a whim I fed him a raddish yesterday, which he also consumed. Animals are funny and hilarious. I can't wait until I can have my own.

Cali is sitting on the edge of my bed right now, cleaning himself.

I am procrastinating doing my lesson planning for tomorrow and Tuesday. I have to prepare lessons on Racism in America (specifically pertaining to Barrack Obama), and a lesson on the ENTIRE history of America... they are INSANE if they think I can even come CLOSE to teaching the history of the U.S. in 45 minutes.

Ben and I are going for a walk later today in the snow. It has turned into a beautiful day, albeit cold.

Here are my plans for next year, if I can get accepted.

http://www.eckerd.org/WorkforEYA/ycpositions.html

OI VEY!

To all of you who read this. I am moving out of the crazy house that I am now living in, because my landlady is perhaps the least respectful person I have ever met, and for some reason has decided that I can not do anything correctly.

What does this mean?

I will soon have a new address, so :-D if you for some strange reason had been planning on sending me anything in the near future, either refrain, or email me for an address which you can send things until I get a new address.

I will be suddenly much happier upon moving

Hopefully I will be able to have internet access as a part of my rent!!!!!<----this is perhaps the most exciting of all!

es regnet, es regnet...

It has been raining a lot here, so I decided to take some pictures of the rain.

:)

Also, today I have been gone exactly two months! I think that I am very well adjusted. I spent the weekend with the Hutterers, went to a Photography Exhibit, which wasn't very good because it was all Post Modern Art, which, anyone who took the American Landscape with me last year, knows... I HATE with a FIERY PASSION! But I bought 2 HUGE prezels at the Rathaus Christkindl Weinachtmarkt in Vienna. ;) I finally met Angelika, Eva's youngest sister, so now I have met the whole family! :)

Okay, onto the photographs.

stupid, stupid, stupid

I am at my wit's end with my land lady.

Yesterday she apparently thought I was gone for the weekend, even though I specifically told her the day before that I was leaving on FRIDAY for Vienna, so when I got home from Wieselburg last night I was locked out of the house. (She leaves the key in the door, so that even if you have a key, you can not get into the house from the outside... unless you break the door down... so what do I do? I go up to the front door and ring the doorbell... twice because she did not come the first time.

Upon opening the door she appologizes, then says she thought I was gone, and then asks why I didn't call, to which I respond... I wanted to check to see if someone was home first... (DUH!)

Then, I go downstairs, being polite and removing my shoes before I enter the house, so as not to get the floor muddy. I open my door to my room to find it COMPLETELY cleaned, all of my stuff rearranged... we aren't talking her just organized... NO, we are talking about things taken off of shelves, put on different shelves, jewelry moved, newpapers placed under each leg of my tripod... the coat hanger from the hall placed in my room, my clothes in my closet folded, the new sheets that are MINE that I put on my bed over the weekend taken out, new ones put in, (now I can't find my new ones... they disappeard), towels taken out of the bathroom, NO towels put back in, and EVERY SINGLE BOX I had been saving, thrown away...not to mention some newspapers I had been saving for classes.... THROWN AWAY!

ungh.

sorry for the rant.

other than the crazy lady, things are going very well. It's cold here now, averaging about 33-36 °F in the morning 2-3°C. The snow should be coming soon, which is exciting, but this also means that soon I will not be able to ride my bike to school, or the pool, or the train station which is slightly sad since it will mean I will have to wake up almost 30 minutes earlier...sigh.

On another note. The chocolate here is so good. This, I knew already, but in case you were feeling sad for me because of my landlady, I decided maybe it might be nice to make you slightly jealous too. :-)

The chocolate, the bread, the sausages.... YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Teaching is going VERY well in both schools. I know have two tutor buddies, one of whom I am meeting for the first time tonight, and I am getting two more next week! :)

Okay, I am done for now. I hope each and every one of you are doing well! :)

OBAMA

I am very proud to not only be American, but to also be Virginian today!

photographs from the weekend

I spent my four day weekend in Idolsberg with the Webers. On Saturday I became obsessed with hands, in particular the hands of four year old Maxi, who I became best friends with!

I have not very much energy to write everything that happened over the weekend... just that I had a very nice weekend away from my INSANE landlady. It was overdue and worth it.




In the beginning all was in order, and there was only a slight flurry of activity.



In the middle there was Maxi covered in "Apfelstrüdelteig".




und weiter mit den Backen.




You can see just how exciting the dough covered hands are by the shape of his mouth.



Hände waschen.



Bevor das Abendessen. Bemerken Sie die Socken.




Nach das Abendessen.


I am leaving tomorrow for Vienna. We are having a get together for all of the teaching assistants in Niederösterreich, Wien, and Steiermark. It should be fun. I will be back in Scheibbs on Saturday at some point.

In two weeks I am going to Vienna again, to stay with the Hutterers in Hütteldorf! They are taking me to two photo exhibitions. I am super excited for the photographs and also my first paycheck goes in on Saturday the 15th! THANK GOD! I am living off of pity food and love! :-)

Meh... it would not be a right of passage without some malnutrition!

Take care all of you out there!

so i found this

So I found this dead fly yesterday and decided to use the macros lens Maia lent me to take a picture of it, commemorating it's little buzzing fly life. Oh how I will miss its vivacity as I am falling asleep tonight...

enjoy.

oi.

Trapped, Almost Full Moon, Oct. 13th



Escape, Almost Full Moon, Oct. 13th

the morning i was forgotten

So, today was my first day teaching in Wieselburg, and I was very nervous when I awoke this morning... New day, new school, new set of nerves.

I spoke with a woman last night who was going to pick me up this morning at 7:15 am in front of the Hospital. We discussed that I live on Hochweinbergweg, and that I pass the Hospital on Feldgasse. We decided to meet in front of the hospital on Feldgasse. I was there at 7:15. I was there at 7:30. I was also there at 7:45. However at 7:25 I became very nervous so I called the woman who was supposed to pick me up... No answer. I then called Eva Hartman, the teacher who is in charge of making my schedule in Wieselburg who had arranged the entire me getting picked up instead of taking the train... No answer. So I left a very very long message, in German.

I then waited 5 more minutes until 7:30 am when I became very agitated because I knew that if I delayed any longer I would A. miss the 8:18 am train to Wieselburg and be late, B. miss the chance to get a hold of either teacher because class starts at 7:45. I briefly debated calling my landlady, who literally was pulling into the driveway from a long weekend away when I left, but decided against it because since she locks her kitchen and bathroom with an alarm when she leaves she probably would NOT be willing to drive me to school. So instead, I called Annelie because I did not know what to do...

She arranged for her husband to drive me to school in Wieselburg on his way into Ybbs for work. I accepted with gratitude while trying to control my heaving emotional response to the whole morning. I then proceeded to wait another 20 minutes in the cold for him to arrive.

Finally he did, and I got in the car, listened to the news in German, English, and French and became more depressed with listening to the state of the World... Apparently EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE is having a financial crisis... nice to know it's not just the U.S.

To complete the morning with a flourish, he failed to stop in time and we hit a squirrel, the slamming on of the breaks caused the gum which I was chewing to launch to the back of my throat where I proceeded to make a strangled noise while hastily trying to control my esophagus while at the same time trying not to burst into tears because we had killed the squirrel, I had been forgotten, was exhausted, and had to ride to school with someone I did not know who kept farting and intermittently rolling down and up the windows... If i had not been so upset the entire situation would have been hilarious... minus the sacrifice of the squirrel.

Alas, here I am... it's 10:07 am... I am done with my day in school, (I only taught one class, because I missed the first one, and couldn't let anyone know I was going to be late...) I have nothing to do except take the train back to Scheibbs, which I won't do until 12 because the pool does not open until 1 pm and I refuse to do anymore needless waiting around today.

And SCENE.

Okay... I am going to brag for a little bit. I think I have... hands down, the best friends anyone could possibly ask for. EVER.

Last week I received a postcard from NEW ZEALAND that said "I really like your face." (inside joke... btw. it's Dein Gesicht, Amy, just for future reference!) NEW ZEALAND! I have never gotten a postcard from New Zealand before. Thank you Amy. :-)

Today, I got the single, most wonderful package a girl like me could ever want!

I will post a picture of it.

I am so lucky, and so grateful, truly... my cup runneth over!



the box. take careful notice of the rubber duckie, and the glee gum, "Don't be glum, chew glee gum!"




triptych




I was trying to convey how I am feeling right now with these last three images.

laundry

No joke... this was what my view was as I was hanging my clothes up to dry....

Graz und wieder nach Scheibbs!

Wow. Okay. It has been a long time since I last wrote in here. Let me see if I can remember everything that has happened since I got to Scheibbs. I got my room set up. It is very cute. I have a nice big bed, a breakfast table, two bed-side table-dresser type things, a huge closet, a refrigerator, a beautiful window that I can look out and see mountains, fall foliage, and a house. My bathroom is quaint: housing a toilet, standing shower, sink, counter, mirror, and another HUGE closet so that I can store all of my necessities. I am living in the basement of a very nice woman’s house. It’s not AS private as I would have liked, but in the grande scheme of things… it is extremely nice and I am very pleased. I also have my own kitchen, which is upstairs.

I literally live on the side of a mountain… It takes me 20 to 30 minutes to walk anywhere of importance. I really need to get a bike, the knees can’t really do the vertical downhill thing every day. The town is beautiful. It is nestled in a valley, and the mountains (what the Austrian’s would call ‘hills’ because of their small stature) are about Blue Ridge size, but if I look directly from my house I can see the Ötsche Peak, which has been covered with snow since I arrived here on September 24th.

I returned from my Orientation Seminar in Graz on Friday, and have had the last two days to catch up on the sleep that I didn’t get at Orientation.

I met some amazing people at the Orientation. People from the U.K., Scottland, Ireland, and England, and people from America. Everyone was very mature, and conducted themselves in ways that diplomats should conduct themselves. We are here to give the Austrians an accurate representation of our respective countries, so it only makes sense that the program would have chosen well rounded individuals, who have a good head on their shoulders, and behave like adults. There was no excessive drinking, no wild parties the whole week we were there. It was comforting. Most people seemed to have a very healthy idea of what having a drink should mean. Even when the alcohol was given to us for free, no one abused it. I was, needless to say, very impressed. I am so over everyone getting drunk just to get drunk as fast as they can. It is disgusting, and pointless. You never end up making real friends that way, no matter what anyone claims.

I have been sleeping a lot. A LOT. We are talking about 12 hours a night and then a 2 hour nap in the middle of the day. I am finally catching up on the sleep I didn’t get while I was in school. It feels good, but I am trying, very unsuccessfully, to explain to my land lady that this actually isn’t normal for me. Hopefully starting tomorrow, she will realize that I actually do go out and do things, and that I am not a sodden lump of flesh. Moving to Austria is a huge thing, it’s stressful, lonely, and there are so many things to do, so many fees to pay, so many documents to pick up, fill out, sign, and return. They do not make it easy. Maybe once I know I am actually here legally I will stop sleeping so much.

I went grocery shopping yesterday… (weeee… Milka Bars for 89 Euro Cents, basically Austria’s Hershey Bar, except you can get it in practically every flavor imaginable!) I bought way too much food to fit in my little backpack. I felt ridiculous. It took me the better part of fifteen minutes to figure out how exactly everything was going to fit into the backpack. Then there was the whole matter of getting it zipped.

Today was absolutely gorgeous. I think it was the first day that I have seen since I got here that the only white clouds in the sky were from airplanes. The sun was shining, a little alpine breeze was blowing… I could see the Ötsche Peak in front of me in its snow capped glory. I did laundry then sat out side and read as my clothes dried on the clothesline. It was kind of idyllic in a way.

Now I am getting ready to watch Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and then go to sleep. Big day tomorrow. My first day of school!

p.s. SCHOOL was great today! all of the students are so curious, so willing to hear what a foreigner has to say, although this will probably wear off after a couple of weeks... however, it was fun. It was good to have stimulation again.









unpacking















Julia, Spiderweb, and Amber















Amber Sap












Julia























Church in Graz















Statue in Graz, inspired by the Statue of Liberty. It stands outside of the Opera House in Graz.
























I just thought this was hilarious. It reads, "Cocktails under a free Sky"

























Couple in Graz, waiting outside the opera house.

















Natural Light inside a Church in Graz.








By far the weirdest looking fountain I have ever seen, and perhaps the most unflattering angle to shoot it at. Oh well, you get the picture.













Stairs up to the top of Graz!




















Waiting for the Elevator to take us to the top. We bypassed the stairs going up.
























Graz from up top! You can see the funny, blue udder looking thing... that's the Art Museum. very strange. It lights up at night.
















If I had not been so preoccupied with my camera on the tour, I would have caught the name of this structure... oh well... it's pretty!!!!