First Few Days

Well, I arrived safely in Austria!  

I struggled to find the exit at the airport but when I did, my host family was there waiting!

My host family is so nice and helped me settle right in.  I spent the morning that I arrived unpacking and the afternoon taking a nap.  The evening I spent playing with the boys.  The boys do not speak English, only a few words.  We mostly communicate through smiles and a few German and English words.  They have been so patient with me.  Sometimes they ask me something and I have to ask my host mother what it means and how to answer.  They know a few English phrases that their mom taught them like "Do you want to come with me?" and "Good night.  Sleep well."  

We play a lot of Fußball and we like to jump on their trampoline. 

Sometimes I will point to random things and ask them what it is and they tell me what it is in German.  They will also do they same thing and I tell them what it is in English.  So far, I have learned a few phrases and words here and there.

I have only had a couple days at school.  So far, the school days have been really short.  They have been only from 8:00 until 11:45, 12:45, or 13:40 at the latest.  The classes rotate each day of the week.  So one class  I will have once a week and another I will have first on Tuesday and third on Wednesday.  I stay in the same room with the same students for most all the classes, except for chemistry where we go to a lab and foreign language where some students leave for another language and some others come in for a specific language.  Right now I use this time to study German because the foreign language (Latin for me) is taught in German and I speak neither.  For now, I am totally fine staying in one room all day, it is one less thing to worry about.  

Mostly, I have had to just observe and repeat what other students do to figure out kind of what goes on at school.  Like that we all stand whenever a teacher walks in, that there are short breaks after every class, and that we can eat in class.

The first day was pretty overwhelming.  Half of my teachers teach in German while the other half teach in English.  The only class that I really understood anything on the first day was English (as a second language).  All but one of the students in my class speak both German and English and default to German.  The other one is another exchange student (who came by a different program than me) who is from the Quebec area of Canada and is French-Canadian.  She only speaks English and French right now, but is trying to learn German as well.  Neither of us really know what is going on in class half the time.  We communicate a lot through confused facial expressions across the classroom. 

I'm sure the days will get a little easier as they go on and as I get into a rhythm.  It has only been a few days so far so things are a bit chaotic.  Time goes by pretty slow for now.  It feels like I have been here for over a week.  I say that now but I'm sure I will look back and see just how fast they did go.  I am definitely looking forward to what is to come! 

Thanks for reading!

Tschüß!