A Few Surprises

It's Saturday again, and I figured I should write before another week runs away. I have been busy this week playing catch up in my classes. When I picked up my new Studentplan after the Easter break I found out I was moved up a class! Yeah! I am smart. Well at least smarter than my test said I was. Anyways, I of course had tests this week in my new classes. Luckily they are not going to count toward my final grade, but at the same time it was a little nerve racking because I didn't have the same preparation as the others. I think I did alright, but I guess we will see next week.

My new Studentplan is much better. I still have to go to school on Fridays and it is a little later in the morning than it was before, but I am still home by 2 so I have plenty of day left. For the rest of the week however I don't think it could be any better. I start pretty much every day at 8:15 and am done by 1:15 at the latest. I is really nice having the afternoons free. I don't particularly like waking up at 5:30, but I know I will get used to it pretty soon. :)  My classmates are really friendly and there are a few who speak English which is good and bad. It is good that I can talk to them easily, but at the same time it is bad because we say things in English that we could have said in German. Nonetheless I enjoy having someone else to help translate or understand a word.

I have noticed that my German is getting better. I don't always know every word that I want to say or that I hear, but it is getting better. The other day Chris and I went to the bank by ourselves and that was a bit of an adventure. We started out alright speaking German. I didn't exactly know how to say what I wanted to in the best way, but I got my point across. Then the teller asked me something that I thought I understood, but I guess I didn't because she switched to English. I was kinda glad, and disappointed at the same time. I wanted to be able to say that we did it all, in German. At any rate I learned that I can do some of these harder errands on my own. I was also glad the teller spoke English because I didn't remember the word for transferring money. She knew what I want to do though and got it all worked out for me. I like that we live in a small town. The lady at the bank was the one who opened our accounts and so she knew who we were and that our German wasn't very good to begin with. She was patient and listened to me attempting to describe my problem in what I am sure was almost incoherent grammar. At least the trip was successful and I know that if I need to go back I can. :)


Last night we had a bit of an adventure. It was around 1130, I had just gone to bed. I was lying on my bed, in the dark obviously, listening to my book. I listen to a book on the train when I am by myself. Right now I am listening to Wives and Daughters. So, there I am and without any noise I see a light flashing in my window. I am on the second floor, so I don't see lights of cars driving by or anything, and it was raining so I thought perhaps it was lightening. We haven't had any storms bad enough for lightening and thunder yet, so I was a little excited at the prospect of seeing some lightning. It's one of my favorite natural phenomenons.  Unfortunately, the flash was too regular and frequent. So I look out the window. Now I have to tell you that this is a bit of a feat in itself. The ceiling of my room follows the lines of the roof. In other words, I have slanted ceilings, and the windows are a little high. What I have to do to see out the window well is to open it and stick my head out; oh and I have to stand on my tippy toes. 

I look out the window and there is a firetruck blocking the road right outside the house. I couldn't see why they were there or what they were doing, but they werem't running about, nor could I smell smoke, so I wasn't too worried, but at the same time fire trucks don't just block the road for no reason. I look around a bit and down the street to the right are a few more lights. By this time Chris had come into my room to see if I had seen the lights. We looked out of all of our windows, and even tried the veranda to see if we could get a better view of what was going on, but we couldn't see anything. By where the lights were we guessed the action was taking place in front of our friend Jan's house. Chris sent him a text asking what is going on. He said it was a car accident. 


We had kinda figured that is what had happened, but Ben and Iris weren't home. They had gone to Iris's brother's for dinner. I had texted Iris a few minutes before and we hadn't heard back from her yet. Of course we start to worry a bit that it might have been them. Jan however didn't say anything about seeing Ben's car, and so we were pretty sure it wasn't them. He would have said something otherwise. Then we got a text back from Iris. Everything was fine and they were coming home soon. 


 At one point while we were watching the lights on the firetruck and straining to see what we already knew we weren't going to see, we saw a tow truck drive by. We were hoping he would drive back the way he came so we could see what kind of accident and how bad it was, but it never came. I finally decided I would just have to find out what happened in the morning and went back to bed. It was 1230 or so. 


This morning we discovered the accident was a head-on collision and the one guy at least attempted to flee the scene. Our source of information was Facebook, so we don't know for sure, or how the people involved are faring right now. We didn't hear any sirens last night, so I am going to assume that means things turned out just about as good as the could considering the circumstances. 


I don't have a video this week. I really wanted to have Trier done for you, but I just have so many clips and photos to arrange and choose between it is getting a little on the overwhelming side.  I want the videos to be good and entertaining, so I have put a lot of pressure on myself. I think I am going to try and do this one a little different again. Instead of trying to show you everything in 15 minutes I am just going to take the highlights. So it might be a little shorter and I will probably leave somethings out, but I will at least have something to share with you in a more timely manner. I still have all of the raw footage, so I can always compile it later into something else. That will be the plan for now.  I have so much to say, but this post is getting on the long side, so there will be more coming soon. Right now I need to go do some research for an oral presentation on Monday!

What a crazy week!

Chris and I on our way to Trier. My very first train ride!

Awesome graffiti in Trier

I promised I would have a new post by Saturday, and boy do I have things to talk about.

A fountain in the Palace garden

Courtyard between the Dom and Liebefraunen Kirche

The trip to Trier was fantastic! It was like we were on a private tour of the town, and it really is a beautiful city. It would have been nice to spend another day looking at the rest of the town and spending more time with my new,  Chris's old, friends.

The group, minus me, out side the Basilika

The whole group in font of the Porta Nigra

 I will be writing a blog this up coming week devoted to Trier. :) Oh and I will have a video too, but in the meantime here are a few pictures.

The first thing you see walking into the Liebefrauen Kirche

When I checked my email after getting home from Trier, I had an email from the American Austrian Education Commission... I GOT THE SCHOLARSHIP!!! I am moving to Austria this fall for a year. Out of all the different applicants I was chosen to teach English to Austrian middle schoolers.

Kaiser Thermine

 I am super honored. I will technically be a teaching assistant, but from what I understand I will be doing a lot of teaching. I have three schools in Bad Aussee, I will be working in. It is a small rural town in the mountains!

Glockenspiel in Munich

 All I need to do now is, well a lot, but first I need to make sure I will be a college graduate by August 15th at the latest. I think I can make it happen! I will be filling you all in more on this very exciting development as well. Lots to do, and lots of decisions to make. One of the biggest is if I should or can afford to go back to the states for a month before I head off to Austria. 

A little waterfall on the way down from Neuschwanstein

Just after I got that super exciting news we all, Ben, Iris, Chris, and I, headed off to München (Munich). Let me tell you being a tourist is a lot of work! Lots and lots and lots of walking. The three days were wonderful, and of course I wish we had another day or two to spend looking at the sites and museums and things. I think that is always going to be the way things are.

looking good girl!

It so beautiful it looks fake!

 I am always going to want to spend more time, seeing more things. But on the upside München isn't very far from Bad Aussee, so it will be easy for me to go back. :) I will be dedicating at least one post to München as well soon. I have lots of videos to work on and posts to write... Till then...

Chinese tower in the English gardens

One night at dinner

Hofbräuhaus

The face of Chris in front of his favorite Castle...?

Hornschwangau

Neuschwanstein

Some observations

One of my curses as a writer is how slow I think. At least that is my excuse. I will "think" about something for an extended period of time, which really means occasionally actively thinking about what I will write, but mostly continually reminding myself I need to write something. When it gets to crunch time I will sit down and actually write more than a few sentences or disjointed thoughts, and come up with something decent. So that is my excuse for not having posted more frequently. If I were to really think about the truth of it. If I don't tell myself I am going to write about this at this time, I just wont do it. So with that in mind I am giving you all a deadline for my next blog. I will post my next Saturday :) Hopefully that works. 

I have spent almost two months now in Germany. Two months!!! Oh the time has gone too fast...  Anyways, for the most part life is the same. I wake up go to school, come home to do homework and chores, and then go to bed. I haven't done any traveling yet, but plan to this weekend and next week. However occasionally I see something or we do something that reminds me I am not in the states anymore. I know I have talked about a few of them already, but I thought I might share a few others. 

One of the first things we notice when we got here was the size of the cars. Here are pictures of Ben and Iris's cars:  Ben's car would be a mid-sized, and Iris's is small, but a very common size. There are bigger cars, Ben's parents is a four door and bigger than the most we have seen, but not the biggest. Where the cars are smaller it is natural that the parking spaces and garages are going to be smaller as well. And they are, they are very small. 

Another thing is the old ladies' hair. Yes of course that is something I would notice. Like in the states, most of the older ladies wear their hair short, but here they color their hair the same way a teenager would in the states. The other day, I wish I had a picture of it, I saw a lady with purple hair and pink highlights! I am not making this up. I would just say, oh she is a little eccentric and leave it at that, if I didn't see others with "abnormal" hair colors. One lady, and I actually liked this look, but didn't really think it was age appropriate, either left her hair white or bleached it platinum and then had a wide red streak in her bangs. I have seen a lot of different versions of funky hair colors. I will have to remember to take some pictures for you all. 

Sorry this post is sort of random. I will work on another for next week. My travels will help with that. But please enjoy the very cheesy video of a parking garage! :)

oh public transit

I sat on the tram this morning eating my French yogurt, traveling from my small rural village to the industrial city of Saarbrücken, thinking about what I could blog about. There have been a lot of different things on my mind lately, but I just haven't taken the time to write them all down for you. I am sure in time they will be told.


Life using public transportation has been interesting. There are times when I miss having my car, but for the most part I haven't minded taking the tram and buses. This morning it would have been nice to have a car as a backup, just because I didn't want to get out of bed. :P The first time I took the tram it was exciting. It was only the second time I had ever used a tram or public transit for the matter. I guess that is a blessing or a curse growing up in rural areas.

When I was in high school my Dad, brother, sister and I went on a trip to California to celebrate my brother's graduation. We went to San Diego, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Despite all the car problems we had along the way, like overheating in the Mohave, and the radiator breaking, we never took public transit. I thought it would have been really fun to take the street car in San Francisco, but it really wasn't practical. And even then the trolley is a little different from a tram.

The tram in Salt Lake City is a little more similar. The first and only time I rode it was a lot of fun. Megan and I went to visit a friend,Becky, and go to another friends' (Kyl and Jake) wedding. We were staying in Sandy and decided to spend the day in the city shopping and looking around. Becky didn't want to drive in and neither did I, so we took the tram. It was going to be cheaper than paying for parking all day as well.  We bought our tickets and went into town. It turned out the trolley was free that day.At one point we realized it was the 24th of July-- Pioneer Day-- the day Salt Lake, and most of Utah and Idaho, celebrate the Pioneers who settled the Salt Lake Valley. The city was filled to the brim with people. We had a lot of fun that day. Even though there were a ton of people the train wasn't crowded as it was for me the other day.

A couple of weeks ago, it had to have been a Friday, because it was an early train, there was no extra room to breathe on the tram.It was the first time I had taken the early tram, at least by myself-- no it was the first time I had to take the 7:04. As is usual with morning trams quite a few school kids got on as well as adults, presumably on their way to school or work. more and more and more people got on the tram, but it seemed as if no one was getting off. It was getting quite crowded by now ans we were only a couple of stops away from the Hauptbahnhof, my usual stop. Usually quite a few people will get off and from what I have seen not a ton of people will get on. I wasn't in the best position to get off the tram here, so I decided to take one of the next stops, where I could also get a bus to the university. Mistake! Big Mistake!

If I didn't think there was breathing room before I was sadly mistaken. People got off at the Hauptbahnhof, but  more people got on than got off. I usually sit in one of the end cars so it is easier to get on and off the train, and to be honest I can people watch better from there. I had however decided to sit in the middle car, in one of the first rows. When it came to the last stop I could take I could barely get to the door. I had to climb, yes climb over the person sitting next to me and then squeeze down the aisle, just to push my way through the crowd standing at the doors to get off. Luckily the bus wasn't super crowded like it was the day before.

I wont go into all the details of the trip, just think about the amount of people on the train and then shove them all into a bus. Yep, that's about right. I was reading the maximum capacity in the bus and most of them can seat about 50 people sitting down and then they say upwards of 90 people can safely stand! That is just about 150 people in a little tiny space. Too close of quarters for me.

These two back to back days made me realize I am a bit claustrophobic. I never would have thought I would claim this phobia because you can stick me in dark and tight places all by myself all you want and I will be just fine, but once you start shoving people in with me and then ask me to move around I will freak out just a bit. I always knew I didn't like crowds but now I know why.

What's in a name?

Would a rose by any other name still smell as sweet? I am not sure, but what I do know is: I have never thought so much about my name than I have this past week. I like my name and always have. I've never wanted to be called anything else, except for that one time in the third grade, but that had nothing to do with not liking my name.


I was the only Heather in my class, but there was a Hillary. My teacher kept getting our names confused so I told her she could start calling me my my middle name-- Marie. She tried later that same day, but I wouldn't answer, so we quickly went back to Heather and Hillary and confusion.

I've never really even had a nickname that has stuck. In high school my friends would write notes to Pyro, but they hardly called me that in person. Although occasionally I still get an I M or email addressed to Pyro, I am still Heather. I remember thinking at one point in time I wish I had a good nickname, but no one has ever found one that sticks.

There was the few years I went by a different name while I worked at Fantastic Sams, but that wasn't really a nickname. When I was hired at the salon there was another Heather already working there. The owner decided it would be too difficult and confusing for the clients to have two Heather's. The other Heather's clients would have to start asking for Heather S, and my incoming clients would have to ask for Heather D. She had lots of faith in the intelligence and loyalty of our clients. At any rate my name got shortened to D. Talk about confusing. I now had to tell people who had known me for years only as Heather to ask for D. And then later after the first Heather left I had to explain to my clients, who now knew my real name was Heather, why I went by D here, but no where else. I guess it didn't help that two of my good friends (Jodi and Tallia) were hired at the salon and would call me by my actual name. As soon as I stopped working at the salon I went back to being Heather full time.

Now I am in Germany, still in love with my name, but surrounded by people who can't pronounce it. German doesn't have the diphthong ea, not the consonant sound th, and well that is most of my name. At church on Sunday people tried to get it right, but most of them pronounced my name Header, as do most children, or with a z: Heazer. I am used to that so it isn't so bad. At school on Monday however was a different story. My first teacher had us all introduce ourselves. I repeated my name about 3 times before she gave up on pronouncing it properly. Maybe it is time to go by a different name again. If I were to translate my name it would become Heide. I may not answer to it right away, but at least people would be able to pronounce my name!

Back to the real world...

My vacation is over. I am finally starting school again. It has been 3 months, and I am excited to have a schedule to help keep me productive again. And oh what a schedule it is going to be.

 I have four classes: Leseverstehen, Hörverstehen, Grammatik, and Mündliche Kommunikation. In English that is: Reading, Listening, Grammar, and Conversation respectively. I have Leseverstehn three times a week, Grammatik and Hörverstehen twice, and Kommunikation once. I have classes Monday through Friday, and despite being a little disappointed about having classes on Friday that isn't so bad. It is the times I have classes that is difficult. I start at 11.45 on Monday, have a two hour and fifteen minute break before my next class which doesn't  end until 17.45! That means I wont be home until about 7. On Tuesday I start at 10.45 only have an 45 minute break, which will be perfect for lunch, and I will finish up at 15.30. On Wednesday I only have one class, and it doesn't even start until 15.30 and doesn't end until 17.45. Thursday is about the same from 14.00 to 16.15. Friday is the best day schedule wise, starting at 8.15 and ending at 11.30. Even though I will have to go to class on Friday, I will still be able to do some traveling on the weekends. We will just have to wait until around noon to leave.  Classes start on Monday, and so we will see how things go.

Chris and I are not in the same class so we wont be able to help each other with what has happened in class. He has a much better schedule than I do, and I must say that I am a little jealous. His classes run from about 8 to 1130 Monday through Thursday. I do so much better in morning classes than I do in the afternoons. I have finally admitted to myself that I really am a morning person. I don't however have any control whatsoever over my schedules so fretting about it isn't going to do me any good, and I will just have to get used to it I guess.

I didn't do a well on the test as I thought I was going to so I am sure I am going to have to do some actual, honest to goodness studying. I have never really studied before, that is more than just doing my homework and skimming through my notes before the test. Perhaps I will be able to study in the mornings when I am at home still and alert. Then I would still be able to have my evenings free. That is going to be a good lesson in both studying and self discipline!

I am getting used to traveling back and forth on the tram and buses. I will be going to campus alone most of the time, so that is a good thing. I am also getting used to the time it takes-- just about an hour. I am trying to figure out ways to stay productive during this time, like today I drafted this blog post. I know that I can always read, and that might be what I end up doing.

Tomorrow I am going to attempt to go to church for the first time since I have been here. I have figured out the bus route, I think and the times. I will leave the house about 9.30 and I will return about 14.30. All for an hour of church. But it will be worth it. I for sure wont be complaining when I get back to the states about getting up on time to go to church only 5 minutes away. Tomorrow will also be the first time I will be taking the tram and buses by myself. I am afraid I might end up lost, but hopefully not. Only tomorrow will tell :)

Fasching Videos

This was the first one. It is a little smaller than the other. The second one (below) was much bigger.