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Flight of the Writer - Caroline Brown

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Hallo! Wilkommen!

My name is Caroline and you have found the blog of my adventures in Austria - well done! I am living here in Graz for nine months on European Voluntary Service, and if you don't know anything about what that is I strongly recommend that you go right here, right now to find out all about it: http://www.britishcouncil.org/connectyouth-programmes-european-voluntary-service.htm.

In a nutshell, it means that it is costing me absolute zero to live here. I get to work in a fantastic project called Kinderbuero, which is a children's rights organisation here in Steiermark, with a really amazing group of people who basically let me choose the work I do and how much of it, and the rest of my time is mine to learn as much German as I can, meet new people and of course see as much as I possibly can!

As I start this blog I have been living in Graz for a month and just over a week. I'm going to do an entry or to of catch-up first so that we're all on the same page, and everything else you'll be reading about as and when it happens! I hope we both enjoy the experience :)

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Joined on: November 10th 2007
Last Login: February 16th 2008

Blog Entries: 7
Photos: 54

TB Code: [blogger=52285]
Status: BLOGGER

Blogs & Travel Journals

by Flight-of-the-Writer, order by Date newest first.

By Flight of the Writer
January 22nd 2008

No Pictures, Just a State of Mind

Europe » Austria » Styria » Graz

When we did our arrival training all the way back in October, we were asked to find a symbol for how we thought about our EVS experience - our hopes, our fears, our expectations, whatever we wanted. For some reason the symbol I chose came to my mind without me even having to think about it, and I knew it was exactly right for how I felt. I chose a spider, thinking about how a spider works so hard to build a perfect home and how, no matter how many times it is broken or destroyed, it rebuilds it, and it [View Full Entry]

By Flight of the Writer
January 1st 2008

Silvester!

Europe » Austria » Styria » Graz

Ah, Singstar

Just to make up for my total lack of photos yesterday, I'm going to see in the year by showing you how I saw in the new year - which was pretty darn awesomely! I joined Tanya and her cousins for raclett yesterday evening, which is kind of like fondu with grilled things, before heading to a party at Tanya's cousin's boyfriend's parents' house (:S) for a football club which I'm assuming Mikhael plays for, but I wasn't really sure - needless to say we didn't know anyone there but it didn't stop us having a great time. Mikhael's parents' house [View Full Entry]

By Flight of the Writer
December 31st 2007

Holidays and Such

Europe » Austria » Styria » Graz

Well, I'm back in Graz after a nice week back at home. A pretty quiet week to be honest, I only managed to get out to see Chris for lunch, and absolutely no pubbage :( I'd say next time, but that probably won't be for another six months. Although Mum and Dad have booked us a holiday to Center Parcs in Easter, which I'm a bit miffed about to be honest. They've booked six beds so that Naomi can bring Ben and I can bring 'someone'. Thanks. Anyway, now I'm back in the flat with just Hairy Housemate for company. He's [View Full Entry]

By Flight of the Writer
December 19th 2007

Sincerest Apologies!

Europe » Austria » Styria » Graz

Traudi Awards: Steierisch Wine
At an awards ceremony jointly organised by Kinderbuero and KiJa, our partner organisation, I couldn't help but notice the wine on offer.

Ok, I have probably now lost my entire readership by disobeying blog rule number one: Update regularly! So I hope you haven't all abandoned me :) A lot of small interesting things have happened to me recently, rather than one or two big wow type things. So I'm chiefly going to just let the photos explain what I've been up to for the past month. It has been an incredibly busy month, for various reasons, but mainly because of two major differences between my life here and my life at home. Firstly (and this may sound slightly obvious) I have a [View Full Entry]

By Flight of the Writer
November 15th 2007

Getting Things Up to Date

Europe » Austria » Styria » Graz

Antonio and Christian - My Boys
A.K.A. The housemates that I spend time with. I almost never see one of the others, and the other one . . . well, the less said about him the better to be honest.

So, it has now been over a month since I finished my training in Vienna, and it hasn't got a great deal easier. The best time that I've had in the last month was two weekends ago when I went to Melk, a little town in the middle of nowhere, for a meeting of volunteers and ex-volunteers, and got to meet up with some people I already knew and many who I'd never met before. All were lovely, and it left me feeling incredibly frustrated that there aren't more volunteers here in Graz. I just keep thinking, every time that I [View Full Entry]

By Flight of the Writer
November 10th 2007

Week number one!

Europe » Austria » Styria » Graz

My Bed.
As you will shortly see, everything in Green Box is, erm, Green!

I won't say it was a 100% easy start! On the 1st of October 2007 I arrived in Graz and was (thankfully) met by my mentor, an absolutely amazing lady called Ines. She took me to my new home, a student home called Green Box, where I found out that I am living in a flat with four boys. And it was really really dirty. Like, really. But I am a trooper and I settled down to clean my room that hadn't been cleaned by the last occupant or, you know, a CLEANER. I can't say that I slept amazingly well [View Full Entry]

By Flight of the Writer
November 10th 2007

Week Two - Training in Vienna!

Europe » Austria » Vienna State » Vienna

The (Slightly Blurry) Gang!
L-R Back Row: Cindy (France), Me (UK), Csilla (Hungary), Vita (Slovenia), Istvan (Hungary) Middle Row: Maiwen (France - Breton), Hannah (UK), Kristin (Norway), Ali (Spain) Front Row: Aniko (Hungary)... [more]

On Monday 8th October I headed to Vienna for my arrival training - four days of meeting people, learning all about Austria, EVS, myself, and the many other amazing volunteers living and working all over Austria - and these were just the ones that went to the same training as myself! This was an absolutely incredible experience, we had so much time not just to do all the official things you have to learn in order to do this kind of project, but to really think about what we're doing here and what we want to get out of our experience. [View Full Entry]

TravelBlog » Flight of the Writer

Flight of the Writer | Caroline Brown | Travel Blog

Flight of the Writer - Caroline Brown

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Blogs & Travel Journals

No Pictures, Just a State of Mind

Silvester!

Holidays and Such

Sincerest Apologies!

Getting Things Up to Date

Week number one!

Week Two - Training in Vienna!