Wednesday, August 29, 2012

While I'm abroad...

I've made a list of goals for my time in Austria. I don't like to use the word goal; I’m calling them my "aims."
  • Try not to say no to any invitation.
  • Visit Greece. There are so many places I could visit in Europe. Why Greece? When I was a child living in Lubbock, Texas, my elementary school had an event every year called "Brotherhood Day." Each grade studied a country, learned about the culture, and then presented the country and culture to the rest of the school by decorating the rooms and invited other classes to take "field trips” to our country. In Kindergarten, our country was Kenya; we performed a Kenyan folktale. In 1st grade, our country was Denmark. We used Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales to decorate our room. (Interestingly enough, I can't stand Andersen as an adult.) In 2nd grade, our country was Greece. I ate lentils for the first time, and we decorated the room to look like the Greek myths. Then my family moved; I no longer was able to experience other countries through Brotherhood Day. But even then, I knew that someday I wanted to visit these three countries. In 2010, I visited my first of the three, Denmark. I didn’t get to see the Little Mermaid statue; it was in China! But I was able to stand outside of Tivoli Gardens. While in Austria, I will be so close to Greece, I might as well visit the 2nd! Kenya will have to wait.
  • Buy a dirndl. Ever since I read this blog posting, I've wanted to buy a dirndl. This desire was sealed when I saw that many of the girls at one of my schools wear dirndls at school events. I love that teen aged girls want to wear traditional Austrian costumes, and even though I'm not Austrian, I want to "blend in."
  • Continue running and exercising. My goal is to be able to run a half marathon. 
  • Improve my German! Duh!
  • Improve my teaching skills and techniques. I will be a teaching assistant after all!
  •  Learn to ski, either cross country or downhill, if it's not too expensive! This isn't a primary goal, but if I have the means, I would love to try. I already have someone willing to teach me.
  • Document my little village of Bischofshofen. Including possibly editing the Wikitravel page. When I was assigned to schools in this village, I found that there was almost nothing, NOTHING online about this village. I've already started the Wikitravel page.
  • Eat Belgian waffles. I am hopefully visiting Belgium for Christmas and I plan on only eating waffles, fries and chocolate, but I'm looking forward to the waffles the most.
  • Speaking of Christmas, I'd like to go to a Krampusnacht/laufen. Krampus is a mythical creature that is the Alpine equivalent of getting goal for Christmas, except multiplied a million times. I've heard this night is more fun in small villages, and as I'll be living in an Alpine village, I want to experience this, though from what I've heard, I may regret it! If you want more information about Krampus, go here.
  • Try to continually update this blog. This one might be the hardest of all.
I'm sure this list will grow, and I will continually update it as it does.

9 comments:

  1. Another one: Email your mother on a regular basis. Ha. Ha.

    cfw

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  2. You will have ZERO problem learning to ski in Austria - if you make a friend with the same shoe size I'm sure they'd even let you borrow. Austrians and Germans all own skis and sometimes several sets.

    Dirndl is also a must! I suggest trying some on and then ordering from ebay.de (or whatever the Austrian one is) once you know your size to save some money!

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    1. Oh that's a good idea for buying a dirndl!

      I was telling a friend in Germany that I am making sure to bring lots of shoes because I have big feet. She told me buying shoes for big feet is not a problem in Europe and then I told her my shoe size and she agreed that I must bring enough shoes. I don't know if I will be able to befriend someone with my shoe size that has skis! But I still want to try skiing, but I think I might be really bad at it.

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  3. wow!
    i'm jealous. austria's so much fun!
    can't wait to read your adventure there :)

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    1. Thanks! I'm super excited!

      I've never been to Austria, but it looks amazing.

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  4. Great list of goals! Looks like you'll be living in the mountains (at least according to google), so you should have plenty of opportunity for skiing.

    So you attended the University of Minnesota? Which year did you graduate? It will be great to have another UofM alum in Austria!

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    1. Yeah, the village is in the mountains. I think I might be able to see the mountains from my window? I've never been skiing, so I'm a little nervous about it, but I might as well try it.

      I graduated in 2008, and I swear we had a class together, maybe the Germany History/Culture class? I can't remember for sure!

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  5. A couple of Fulbrighters in my Bulgaria cohort are planning to do the Athens Classic Marathon in November. I don't know if the timing would make sense for you, but you could knock two of those babies off your list in one fell swoop! http://www.athensclassicmarathon.gr

    Greece is on my list of goals as well. My town is on the border with Greece, but (perhaps due to the mountains here) there are no border crossings in my province. And Greece had to shut down its international trains for lack of funds. Even so, Thessaloniki is so close, I'll have to give it a go by bus one of these days.

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