Kalamity Kat hits Austria

Monday began with a Konstruieren exam in the afternoon which I was so glad to have over and done with. As it had snowed that morning quite a lot I then persuaded Sini and Scott to come out and have some fun....to celebrate finishing and to take Sini's mind off impending exams!
We began up the Schloßberg but, being lazy we took the lift up - i'm impressed that it was the first time i'd done that though! We were hoping for some beautiful snowy views but the clouds were too low and there wasn't too much to be seen.
We then walked down and went to a cafe - Baristas for a drink and something to eat before heading onto Stadtpark - being the recluse that I am, it was the first time I'd been to Stadtpark since September! There was a lot more snow there and we were able to make a snowman, taller than us (and named Sydney) leaving enough snow on the ground when we were finished to look as if we hadn't touched it at all! By this stage it had also begun to snow a little bit and as it was getting dark, it was also very cold but sosososo much fun (except for the bit where I walked under a snow covered tree in an attempt to cover Scott with snow....which spectacularly backfired on me!)
Yesterday we woke up to even more snow...although any pictures i've taken don't really show it as when i took them (quarter to 6 in the morning), all the roads had been snowploughed and gritted. Pavements and trees however, show a different story. The reason for this early (well actually normal as of christmas) wake up was for a trip to Wien with Scott.
As we left Graz on the train, the snow got even deeper and thicker - it's so weird thinking that there was this much snow here....yet with less in England EVERYTHING had come to a standstill! Although I guess Austria is pretty used to it to be fair!
Wien was snow-free when we arrived which was probably quite a good thing really. We began in Stephansdom (the cathedral) which was really beautiful and then headed over to the Natural History Museum - which is CLOSED on Tuesdays as we found out....
We then headed over to Schönbrunn to see the Palace and park there. Much as I hate to admit it, the tour (even though it was audio) was actually quite good and fun. The park itself was quite bare due to the season and weather. Large sections were also coated in ice - nice!
Then due to the coldness, we set off back to Südbahnhof to begin the 3 hour journey back to Graz - taking snow pictures on the way home
In spite of the coldness it was a really good day and was finished off with nutella back in my flat

I thought it was about time I had another entry to this blog. Since I've been back from Christmas (31st Dec onwards) I have been completely snowed under with work - i've been starting work at 6am and working until midnight ish almost every night. It did begin to get a little ridiculous but there isn't that much I could do about it.

Some classes which I have previously commented on, such as the CAD class, have actually turned out to be ok. Yeah so scripting isn't my favourite thing on earth but when it goes right it is so awesome!!!!
Some classes have been slightly more than challenging - Konstruieren seminar comes to mind here! They use a completely different drawing and bemaßung system which set us back quite a bit....and comments from the tutor such as "did you not have any free time this weekend to put the work in" after spending a good 30 ish hours on the project over said weekend really DON'T help!!!

This week I have had a Konstruieren presentation monday, german Abschlußtest tuesday, Wohnbau presentation wednesday and today Entwerfen presentation....tomorrow I have class and 3 deadlines and monday I have a konstruieren lecture exam which I can't start revising for until tomorrow!! ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!
I am pretty much up to date with work at this moment in time.....so I thought I'd actually right something here so that my "time off" wasn't being completely wasted!

So I only have 8 days left here which is the weirdest thing in the world - I have been here almost 6 months and the time has absolutely flown by. I could quite happily live here forever (well maybe not in this accommodation ) minus a few little things like how supermarkets function here - hahahaha! I haven't spoken nearly enough german here but will definitely keep it up with people I know that I'm really going to miss Graz and will def be back visiting sometime....hopefully soon
I really do wish that I could go back to September and redo the whole time (including changing some things quite a lot). There is also so much I wish I had had the time to do - places to visit....Prague and many others....I have seriously been stuck in my room working ,sleeping and eating (in that order!!!) and what I'm getting from these courses really isn't reflecting what I (and Scott and Jeannine) have put in which is a bit gutting really!

Still I have had an absolutely awesome time, met some amazing people and had so much fun
No doubt I'll write on here again before I leave....and maybe, if you're lucky, when I get back too for a bit!

So term finally ended on friday and seriously not a moment too soon! We're been so snowed under with work it has been truely awful - and tbf we've got loads to do over the holiday as well. I don't fly home for a week so the idea is that I get it all done over here first (fingers crossed) before heading home for a quite (ish) christmas of learning AutoCAD and rejigging my Maya assignment, and basically doing any other architecturally computer work I can...although I don't think there is any more than that above.
Yesterday I had an awful day of doing no work whatsoever. I went into town with Anne-Sophie which was nice - especially to leave the house for a bit but now I feel bad for not having got anything done which means to make up for it I may be doing double today. I'm also meant to be walking to church right now. and yet again I'm not going. The main reason being the fact that it is a 30 min walk away and that it is raining. A LOT. I know it's really bad of me and I really should be there. In England I never miss going to church because I love it so much but here there are just so many factors making me not want to go. I really hoped I would have met some Christians out herebut haven't at all. I wanted to go to the CU main meeting but couldn't as I have class at the same time and I haven't really heard about anything going on with the CU here at all.
Anyway I'm hoping to use the time productively to start work as I seem to work better if I start moreorless first thing (ie. without going out somewhere first).
So let's hope I actually get somewhere although I can see myself dying of boredom along the way.
It will be nice to be home for Christmas. I think I just need a break from architecture (like that's going to happen!) and from just here in general. I've been here since 1st Sept. which is an awfully long term of pure work. I know as soon as I'm back I'm going to miss it like crazy....and in February it'll be absolutely awful....but right now I just need a change of scene......

OK well it's not exactly much,and it's also pretty much melted now - but it's the first bit we've had since I've been over here. It was kinda annoying though as most of the people in my halls got a tad overexcited and spent all night screaming and having snowball fights outside etc. which just happened to be under my window Heavy snow is forecast for monday though so it could get a little worse.
No matter - it means more excuse not to go out (coldness) and instead more time to do work!! of which I am definately not short of! There is clearly more to be done here than in Lpool but I think that's mostly because we have lots of smaller projects going on at the same time instead of one big one - although all these smaller ones assumer we're going to be putting the work of the big one into each one - obviously not going to happen as there aren't enough hours in the day or week.
Yesterday I spent about 5 hours teaching myself a CAD programme as one of our projects requires the technical drawings to a given building to be presented in CAD format, something we don't do in England...so that wasted a lot of time....and will be wasting more today and tomorrow and there are some things that it is really refusing to do grrrrr. tbf I am just glad that it's even on my laptop and working! Along side that I have an assignment for a computer class to do - another CAD based programme, my design project which is a swimming pool and azora (yup sounds exactly like West Kirby to me) and brick wall to design and model...amongst other things. and no the brick wall is way not simple. for a start each layer can't have any joints in the same place...fair enough....but when the wall has to be a metre thick to support itself and the other walls, then you start having a problem with the joints plus the fact that there have to be 4 layers which alternate all the way up (having 2 would be so much easier)...so i finally worked all that out last night....then had to work out how the corners would work which took a good 3 hours....in short..they don't work but I've sort of made them work! So OK that's all well and good....but now I have to have an opening in the wall and it must only be brick (no concrete or steel supports or lintels) oh dearrrrr that's my job for today. But first I'm off to church for the 1st time in 2 weeks - bad I know. The fact that it is a good 30 minute walk in the freezing cold is not appealing
So that's about it for now I think - thought I'd just have a little bit of an update

So a month after the last post....I finally get round to posting again!
Since then I've been to Croatia with Entwerfen 1 (my design class) for 3 days which was really fun - not only was it pretty warm and sunny.....the place we stayed - Novigrad, a harbour town - was really really beautiful. Photos are on facebook if you want to have a bit of a look.
And since then if I'm being really honest - not that much has happened. The weather here is still pretty good - although it is starting to get colder now and has rained a bit.
The work load atm is pretty huge. Some of our tutors don't seem to think we have a. a life and b. other classes whichis pretty rubbish - and then we have to do stuff like make huge 1:200 site models which are costing us over €30 grrrrrrr. The whole structure of the architecture course here is different - it's more of a sort of lucky dip - choose this and that...but they are all worth virtually nothing in ECTS credits meaning that we, as erasmus students, have to take a million and one as we have so many credits we have to take out here. The austrians on the other hand can take as many or as little as they want - there are some students here in their 26th semester of architecture (yeah they work in semesters out here not years when counting....so 3rd and 4th semester are second year etc.etc.) which is absolutely ridiculous because clearly they're going to be studying for the rest of their lives at this rate!
Anyway...as you've probably gathered I really don't have that much to say....this was more to please people who keep saying "you haven't written on your blog for ages"...i won't say names.....Helen....Mum

OK well I seem to have given up on my quest to write my blog in german but nevermind the only person who is likely to be bothered (or rather pretend to be) is Tom...who now has a personal mention in the blog which is more than enough of a present for him
Anyway.....it's 6pm now. Everyone was going hiking today (and I'm guessing they're still there). I wanted to go as I haven't really been out much lately and am probably looking like quite a social recluse but never mind, I decided that it was more important for me to be at church as I haven't been for 2 weeks due to Budapest and Venice and I wanted to go. Meh it's still not like church at home. Unfortunately there were no english songs this week but we did sing Ancient of Days and Holy is the Lord in german which I find pretty amusing!!!
Anyway after the service the lady sat next to me (Greta) actually spoke to me and she has an american husband (Ted) so I got talking to them. They also introduced me to a young couple Thomas and Rebecca - Thomas is austrian and Rebecca is his american wife. I got on really well with them all and they decided to take me to see some of Graz and so we drove to Mariatrost which is just outside of Graz. We were going to go to Buschenschrank for some lunch but it was completely packed so we found a chinese restaurant. The food there was pretty nice and we had a really nice time chatting. We dropped Ted off for an american football game which he had a ticket for and continued actually to Mariatrost picking up Tom and Rebecca's friend Rebecca (confusing or what) on the way. At Mariatrost we went for a walk through some maize and into the woods - think Delamere Forest but a lot nicer!!! We walked around for a bit and then Greta and I went back via the church (also called Mariatrost)....it'S free to go in and we had a quick look inside....it's baroque and really ornately detailed - really nice......and then yeah I got dropped off back here
Today was seriously the most beautiful day. Autumn is amazing anyway with all the golden leaves but today there was a cloudless blue sky and it was so warm. All the leaves were on the ground and were really crispy and crunchy and it was so so so nice.
I had a really good time and Greta and Ted invited me to a bible study at their house on Tuesday night although it's the last one as they're moving to America soon...but it'S literally like 100 metres down my road Another thing I'm doing on Tuesday is there's a prayer breakfast every Tuesday run by the OSM (equivalent to UCCF CU in England) so I'm going to go along to that too I think - only issue is that it starts at 7am and it's not particularly near to where I live
never mind alles gut

OK so today might not be one of the greatest days I have ever had.
We got some homework yesterday from our INTRODUCTORY seminar...always nice not. The problem is that it is really really ambiguous! I mean totally and as it's in an architecture related subject...it's just worse because they don#t care what you do or how you do it! So basically we have a "title" which is.....

Alle anderen sind schlecht (in english - everything else is bad)

and it's up to us to interpret it how we want....and that may or may not be related to architecture....but you also need (i think) to link it to

Wohnen ist leben (which is hard to translate as they both mean live in english but it basically means where you live is your life...ie. your home is your life)

and also how we present the work is also up to us. it has to be in a pdf and submitted online 24hours before the next seminar and I'm pretty stuck atm!

The seminar itself wasn't too bad. It's meant to be 4 hours long but was only 2 as it was introductory....there are only 4 non german speaking erasmus students in the class - scott, jeannine, me and Ivana a girl from Slovakia. It's led in german and I can keep up and understand but the amount of concentration it takes and the fact that I need to make sure I know exactly what has been said in case the others haven't understood is just so hard. I think the tutors realised that my german isn't entirely shocking and that I was following and understanding what was going on but still. The courses themselves may not be hard but it is twice the amount of work for us to actually do them because of the langauge barrier. Hopefully as we go on it'll start to get a little easier on the german front as we learn more.
The other issue is that I told Scott that he needed to speak more german....which he apparently can only do if he keeps asking me questions and tbh after concentrating on german for so long and so hard I really don't want to have to be correcting someone's german when my own isn't even good enough to really do so. So then he gets pissed off with me because I'm not helping and that's how he learns - buy a grammar book, speak to an austrian - I'm only english and there's only so much I can do.

I found out today that the Christian Union meetings are on thursday nights at 8.30pm which is great as I really want to be a part of it as I still haven't met any Christians here really. But guess what....the ONLY night I have a lecture is a thursday night from 8-10 so I can't make it which is jsut fantastic. uurrrggghhhhh. I haven't been to church for 2 weeks now due to going to Budapest and going to Venice (although I really did want to go to church in Venice but wasn't able to). I'm not sure how I feel about the church here and was hoping that through the CU here I'd beable to meet other Christian students and maybe go to their churches or meet some who go to the one I've been going to.

It really sucks and is so annoying as I didn't join any sports courses or anything else i nthe hope (partially) that I'd beable to be part of the CU. That's probably the only thing I actually miss about Liverpool - being part of the CU and going to church there. But there isn't a lot I can actually do about that right now.

OK so in the afternoon we had an introduction to our design course. I'm pretty excited about it because the project isn't actually set in Graz - the site is a coastal town in Croatia. I mean at Lpool the best you do (in 1st yr at least) is Chester which tbf isn't that great when you come from there anyway! So next weekend I get to spend a 3 day weekend working and visiting Croatia (the place is called Novigrad). It's so weird that I've been here for jsut over a month and already visited 4 countries in that time - it's just so easy and pretty cheap too to get around everywhere!

After ranting a LOT about that homework further up....I now have an idea for it so just need to put it into action - it's pretty complex so I won't bother explaining it now but it'll be on facebook if it's any good in the end!

Thursday nights I can tell are probably going to be pretty bad - we have a class from 8-10pm. The class is a computer one (ie you sit in front of a computer and supposedly get taught!) called Digitale Methoden der Darstellung (or in english Digital Design Methods). We spent the 2 hour slot learning how to use a programme called Autodesk Maya which does 3D stuff, animation and renderings. The course is run in german like the rest of my courses which isn't a problem in general for me. Plus it's run by masters students who speak pretty good english if we do get hopelessly stuck!!! It didn't start off too badly (especially as Maya operates in English so at least we understood what was going on a bit! That was until they made us use scripts. I'm not like a complete technophobe - I can use most normal programs but because there is so much to learn it takes me ages to learn the design ones. I think it might have something to do with me not enjoying them that much too sometimes. Last year it took me forever to learn how to use sketchup - I've got that now but Maya is just weird. After a 2 hour speed through everything we could possibly need to know about it, we have an assignment due in next friday at the latest. Scott can't get the program on his mac and my computer will def not run with it on as it struggles with sketchup (old computer, didn't think about what I'd need for architecture when I bought it as I was only 17) so we're gonna have to find a computer room and do a long stint in there - hopefully get it done quite quickly, maybe!

OK so after Budapest last weekend I decided to not sit around and wait for Christmas/something interesting to happen....but to make it happen myself. I decided that now would be a good time to go to Venice - before the flood season and carnival season so I spoke to Scott and we decided to go. As we were booking quite last minute, there wasn't much choice of accommodation and it was all quite a lot more expensive than Budapest - which tbf I expected.
So Friday morning we were up and at Graz Hbf for 7.15am. It was really disgusting wet and cold weather in Graz and the forecast was for rain in Venice. We arrived at Venezia Santa Lucia at 1.30pm to bright sunshine - no sign of rain at all...and that's how it stayed for the whole 3 days. It felt more like august than october a lot of the time although out of the sun it was quite cool.
After dropping bags off at our hotel, we decided to take a walk around our side of the island. I ended up buying a sketchbook and pencil (which seemed a good idea at the time) and we stopped along the way for icecream and a late lunch for which I had a med. veg rolled up pizza (Scott ordered a hamburger - original. not.)both by Zattere and then later on some dinner - I wasn't hungry but we found a nice restaurant in Campo Santa Margherita where Scott tried to order a Hawaiian pizza and the waiter looked horrified We then went across to Giudecca and San Giorgio Maggiore to see what was there, to have a better view of Venice as a whole and to see the sunset. Haha after lunch Scott posted some postcards he had written. He'd stamped and written them....but realised that (once he'd put them in the postbox) that he hadn't addressed them!!!!!! so he then had to go and buy some more!
Saturday morning we started early. We headed over to Murano - famous for its glass. We didn't go in the glass factory but we did look in the shops full of glass ornaments and have a bit of a wander around. We spent most of the rest of the day exploring the other side of the Grand Canal, visiting Ss. Giovanni e Paolo which was really beautiful and Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, sketching around a bit, getting lost down some of the more residential areas and eventually having dinner at the same place as the friday evening as it was really nice and pretty cheap too. I (predictably) had lasagne and it was pretty good.
Sunday started early again beginning at S. Marco which of course wasn't open as it was sunday. I suggested we went to the service there thus killing two birds with one stone and being able to go to church and get "free" entry into a building that is meant to be amazing. Anyway it didn't happen and we didn't go in later either which was a real shame. As well as sketching here, there and everywhere, eating icecream and breadrolls (cleverly smuggled into my bag at breakfast at the hotel with fillings too) we also headed down to Sant'Elena to have a look around that area. There is a lot of greenery around there which was nice to see and it was really nice just to sit there in the sun and eat a MAXIBON - yup I found one in Italy Unfortunately I didn't manage to track down any orangina in the end (which was my second goal!). We went for a late-ish dinner at a random restaurant we found - the food was ok, nothing particularly special but the service was appaulingly bad! but never mind. At about 9pm we headed towards the station. We were catching a train just before 1am to Venezia Mestre and then catching one at 1.30am from there to Bruck.....getting us home for around 8am. Only it didn't happen. We got to Mestre fine....although a little bored as there wasn't much to do (ie there was nothing!)....but the train to Bruck was delayed by 110 mins.....mestre is a tiny station and at that time nothing was open, not even anywhere to sit out of the cold (and it was FREEZING). When the train finally arrived we ended up squashed in a six person compartment with 4 other randomers - a really nice young couple and a random lady and her toddler. They all put the seats together to makes beds and Scott and I were then stuck at the other end of the carriage realising that we were getting off before them - it all worked out ok though. We eventuallz got back to our halls at about 10.30 ish. It's now 2pm and I haven't slept since 7am sunday morning as I'm not that good at sleeping on transport - got a lecture soon that'll probably send me to sleep!

So thursday afternoon we had an orientation session at the university...we were sat there for about 3 hours getting more and more bored. Jaakko, a Finnish guy, asked us what we were doing at the weekend (not a lot as it happened) and he said he was going to Ljubljana with some others which got me thinking. As soon as we got out of the lecture theatre I told Scott we should be spontaneous and go away for the weekend....and he agreed after a bit of persuasion sooooo we got a few others together and "spontaneously" booked a hostel in Budapest for two nights (I say spontaneously....it actually took like 3 hours to find one which was near where we wanted to be and at a good price!).
So friday afternoon, after a short orientation session in the morning, we went down to the station and got on a train. The journey took 6 hours ish with 3 changes but as we had all packed (pretty) lightly we didn't have many problems.
We arrived in Budapest - Keleti station at 10.30pm ish and set about trying to find out hostel which was supposed to be in Baross Ter which is the square right outside the station. We eventually found it.....an old run-down Avon shop basically but the actual hostel itself was really nice. As we had only booked a room for 4 (myself, Scott, Richard and James)but Pierre had decided to join us, the guy running it gave us a 6 bed ensuite room for no extra charge and Pierre only had to pay €12 so not bad. We were all pretty hungry but there wasn't that much open at just before midnight in that area so in the end we went to McDonalds as it was really close by.
Saturday we spent exploring the "Pest" side of Budapest, grabbing cheap breakfast in Tesco (yes tesco exists there!!!) seeing the Basilika, Parliament buildings, chain bridge, Danube etc. and even going over to the zoo (which unfortunately for Richard was about to close), castle and millenium monument. For lunch we found a little pub/restuarant type place which was great.....until they added a service charge on.....which wouldn't have mattered had the service been any good!!! In the evening we went back to the tesco as it was a superstore, and bought some stuff to make our own cold meal back at the hostel (- breadrolls for the equivalent of 2p were one of the bargain purchases!!).
Sunday we spent exploring the "Buda" side of Budapest. This included climbing the mountain to Buda castle (think Schlossberg but WORSE and HIGHER) and walking down the river a bit. We also went to the "tourist trap" area for lunch - where we spent an hour looking at all the identical meal deals being advertised at diff prices, trying to find the cheapest and best! In the end we settled for one which gave us Goulash soup, ham and cheese pizza and pancakes with apricot for 1780 hungarian forint (yeah they don't have the euro yet)....which is equivalent to 6 pounds which is like nothing for a full meal! We got a direct train back in Graz at 5pm getting in at around 10.30ish which was ok although there were a few hairy moments when the train split and we thought we were on the wrong part and when the train stopped for a long while at a station and all the lights went out as if it was stopping for good!! but we all got back ok
so yeah all in all a great weekend - definitely a place worth seeing, it really is a beautiful place

Montag - also vormittag hatte ich der Deutschkurs - morgen ist die Prufung also heute war die letzte Klasse fuer uns. Wir haben ziemlich viel gemacht - viel ueber der Passiv und auch ein oesterreichisches Lied, der in Dialekt war. Es war ganz schoen aber ziemlich schwierig zu verstehen. In Oesterreich sagen sie Dinge wie "Gemma", die auf hohe Deutsch ist "Gehen wir" (ma = wir). Aber es ist sehr nutzlich fuer uns, der Dialekt zu lernen, weil so viele der Leute hier es sprechen. zum Beispiel - gestern in der Kirche, ein Mann hat der "Sermon" gemacht und er hat ein sehr starkes oesterreichisch Akzent und es war wirlich schwierig fuer mich ihn zu verstehen, weil erst muss ich in Deutsch uebersetzen! Nachmittag heute ging ich mit Anne-Sophie in Graz, um ein bisschen einzukaufen. Sie hat ein paar Geschenke gekauft und wir haben ein Nusskroene gekauft und geteilt, weil es nur 1,40 war. Es war sehr schoen - Mehlspeisen (ein oesterreichisches Wort) (Feingebaeck) mit Nusse und Zimt darin und Glasur darueber. Ich glaube, dass ich mit Scott und Anne-Sophie spaeter nach Lidl fahre, um ein bisschen Essen zu kaufen aber ich habe noch nicht etwas fuer heute Abend geplannt. Ich glaube, da die Prufung morgen ist, muss ich die Grammatik wiederholen und ein bisschen Vokabeln lernen auch

Monday - class in the morning - the last one actually as we have our examn/test thing tomorrow. We did quite a lot today - some on passive sentences and we also listened to an austrian song which was in the local dialect. It was quite hard to understand at first but really useful as most people here speak in the dialect and some don't even know "high" german. for example - yesterday at church the guy preaching had a really strong accent which made it really hard to understand as I had to translate everything he said into german This afternoon I've been shopping in Graz with Anne-Sophie. She bought a few presents as she's going back to Normandie for a few days later this week and we also bought and shared a "Nusskroene" which was really cheap and really nice It was pastry with a sort of nut and cinnamon paste inside and icing on top (it was a lot nicer than my description!). Later I'm off to Lidl with Scott and Anne-Sophie to buy a few bits and pieces but apart from that I haven't got anything planned for the evening. As the exam is tomorrow morning I need to go over some of the grammar we've learnt and maybe learn a bit more vocab as well - so looks like I've jsut planned my evening away