Today was a LONG but AWESOME day. I woke up this morning at 6 o'clock and was on the bus by 6:30. As I rode to school, the sun was just starting to come up, so that shows you just how early it was! I made it to the Treffpunkt Sprachen by 7 and took my place sitting at the top of the stairs, #4 in line for course registration. After finding out that the workers had actually stayed open 'til 2 yesterday, thus screwing over all the kids they'd sent away, I was a little bit annoyed. A lot of the classes were full, which is pretty ridiculous. I was talking to a girl named Petra, from Slovenia, who said a friend of hers speaks absolutely no German and wasn't allowed to register for the ... read more

Don't get any impressions, the title is there for irony. Today I woke up at approximately 6:46am in order to be at school for class at 8:15, giving myself ample time to get lost along the way. Well, I made it up to school at about 7:45 after being packed so tightly into the bus I was leaning on the doors. When I finally found the classroom, I was a wee bit confused. It was in the section of the university's main building for the Institut für Theologie. Even the sign above the door said it. There were, however, about 30 kids mulling around waiting, and I overheard them saying the name of the class, so I knew I was in the right place. Well, 8:15 came and went. 8:20 came and went. 8:25 came and ... read more

Nothing to talk about today, was really really boring and I didn't do anything. Though I did make myself a new form of pasta for dinner, which was good. However, just one quick thing, I start school tomorrow, ah! Bright and early at 8:15 I begin with, "Sprache und Gesellschaft: Sprachliche Merkmale der nationalen Varietäten des Deutschen." Or, if you prefer, "Language and Society: Linguistic Differences of the National Varieties of German." It compares the German of Austria to that of Germany and Switzerland. I'm pretty excited for it, it should be my most interesting class, but also my most difficult. It requires a 15-page paper, which is going to be difficult alles auf Deutsch, but I'll survive, I guess. That's it for now, though. I'll let you know how it goes!... read more

Tag! It's only about 3 o'clock here right now, and I'm inbetween the two major events of the day, so thought I'd give a little update. Today I woke up to head out to the Schokofest, a part of Graz's celebration of Steirischer Herbst. It was fantastic! After meeting up with Libor and heading to the Franziskanerplatz, we met up with Elizabeth, Meghan, and Dietlinde. Franziskanerplatz is a small little square that connects into the Hauptplatz. It's right next to a Franciscan Monastery that is actually still active. There were even some monks roaming around. The place was packed, though, everyone ready to celebrate and sample some awesome Austrian chocolate. There was a designed route that took you in a circle around the square. You had to first purchase a Löffel, or spoon, which then allowed ... read more

In case you couldn't tell from the title, it's raining and pouring and the old man is snoring in Austria. I woke up this morning at 7:30 to get ready for a last-minute planned day-trip to Klagenfurt, the capital of Carinthia, the state right next to Graz. It's only about 2 hours away by bus & train, so Elizabeth, Meghan, and I had decided to go since we had nothing to do today. It was, however, torrentially downpouring, and, after consulting the weather online, we decided to take a literal rain check on the trip. It's a bit of a bummer, since it would've been great to see Klagenfurt, but nice at the same time since I was exhausted and thus slept until 11. When I finally dragged myself away from my bed, I made plans ... read more

Servus. I'm currently in the midst of my lazy two weeks off between DeutschIntensiv and actual classes. Sure sure, it sounds great, two weeks to hang around in Europe, but it's actually rather dull. Not too much going on, so not too much to write about. All my friends and I start classes at different times, so we're now all over the place, so there's not much to do during the days. For instance, Libor and Elizabeth started today, but Orla and I still have another week, so she actually went back to Ireland today. Oh well. I've been finding little ways to keep busy, though, fear not. Yesterday was pretty low-key in the morning, went up to school and talked to one of the ladies in the international office about my schedule to see if ... read more

Szia! Yes, I know that's not German, but we'll keep with the theme. I'm going to Hungary in 9 hours! More on that later. Yesterday was a pretty good day. I had my oral exam for DeutschIntensiv, and it's still so weird to think that it's over! We were put into groups of three and had to go in together and have a 20 minute conversation with Eva. I got paired with Meghan and Libor, which was good, nice being fed to the wolves with friends. We were the 4th group to go, and each group before us used all 20 minutes. Topics ranged from discussing career possibilities after college to comparing our home country's school system to Austria's. We really had no idea what to expect. The moment arrived, and we entered the dungeon previously ... read more