The day after Thorin and I had our FOTC night, I got up bright and early for a hike up the Austrian alps (pics above)! Yeah, typical Jessie kinda maybe sorta forgot it was daylight savings and got to the train station a whole hour earlier than I needed to! I can imagine no one is surprised I did such a thing. Anyway, that was all good because I got some croissants from the bakery and chatted away with some people who were there early too (only, they were early on purpose haha). So it was organised by the people who organise excursions for exchange students and they were such sweethearts stuffing us with bretzels and apple juice. A big group of us took a train ride (well actually, 3 changes) for a few hours to the Austrian town on Lake Konstanz called 'Bregenz'. We then started our hike up to the 'Pfaender' which is one of the best lookouts over the Switzerland, Germany and Austria and of course, lake constance and the alps in between! So they advertised this trip as 'gemuetlich' which pretty much translates to 'comfortable/leisurely'. Haha well they lied just a little bit. I think it took most people between 2 and 3 hours to get to the top but we were all fine and the scenery was totally worth any sore muscles the next day. This place has the most amazing autumn ever (much like Christchurch but more trees/leaves falling from trees on hills as well). A really stunningly beautiful place! We got to the top and awwwwww the view of the snowy alps was so pretty. We stayed up the top there for a long time just taking in the scenery. Luckily it was a pretty nice day too. Then we went to have a look at the 'wildlife park' which was pretty much a bunch of mountain goats, hogs and sheep but there were some fairly entertaining moments none the less. Then took a very big gondola back down, getting some pretty autumn views and spent the rest of teh day/evening exploring the town of Bregenz. My friend Chandni and I went off on our own and found a lovely church where we were so in luck as a really fantastic choir/orchestra were practicing for some sort of performance and so we just sat and enjoyed the beautiful music (somehow it made me ever so slightly miss Carol Service at school....NAHHH). We then went to check out the Austrian side of the lake and came across a uni-cycling, fire-juggling busker who was mostly entertaining for his use of the very common language here - 'ginglish'(german-english) or 'dinglish'(deutsch-english). Stayed and watched him for a bit and then went to a really cute bar/cafe in town where we had a hot choc and some lovely conversation (thanks Chandni!). Train back was sooo tiring but hey, Monday was a public holiday!! Can't remember what I did but it involved homework and maybe met up with some people. Uh oh, my days have run into each other now..I hope I havn't mentioned this already but later that week I...WENT FOR A RUN, haha, yeah shocking, I know. But it was actually so enjoyable as when you run around teh pretty lake, it really all just looks so nice you forget your running anyway. Might do that again, probs in a month ;)
Anyway so at some point that week (or the week before), I went to dinner with the aussie/nz/american people at this pancake restaurant. WOW, they were huge, more like big crepes. I actually got a dessert one with a bunch of banana, syrup, icing sugar etc. Then we went to a Gluehwein (typical german xmas muleld wine) party at Europahaus (one of the halls of residence here which ashamedly was my first time going there!) where some people had bought like 40L of gluehwein. Thought it was gonna be crappy budget stuff but NOPE, it was goooooood! (Don't worry Ryan, ours was so better!). Anyway that was fun! Then...Ive stuffed up my days but let's pretend that.....on Thursday us kiwis and NZer's met up and cooked typical NZ/Aussie food for honestly hours for the International dinner that night. Matt did some mini pavalovas, we had afghans which Rebecca stuffed up the first round and so we put it in the cheery ripe, there was an impressive meat pie, hokey pokey and honey comb and aha my lolly cake completely failed and looked like a lovely log of vomit but I'm gonna blame it on lack of real malt biscuits and fruit puffs (we didn't exactly take this to the dinner). The dinner was entertaining but sadly a bit of a weak turnout. Us kiwi/aussies were as always nice and loud and potentially scared the europeans but hey, that's what we do best. There was however, italian, finnish, romanian, german, american food etc which was delicious! We spent most of that night planning our big harry potter extravaganza for next weekend. I did also get confronted by an angry german when I attempted to sneakily take a beer for the road..no such luck :( But, good night all round!!
Ok so then on Friday I started my first 'tandem learning' lesson with my Polish friend Diana. Tandem pretty much means that (because her german is waaaayyy better than mine), she teaches/helps me improve my german and I teach her english. No idea how to teach english but she asked if I'd be interested and I didn't see why not. First tandem-successful and fun! I met up with my nz friend Gina at night for some wine and a general yarn which was great fun! I did something saturday....can't remember what...oh yeah! Thorin and I went into town for a wander and got ice cream. My mission of trying every ice cream flavour at german ice cream cafes is slowly getting accomplished. I personally love 'snickers' and 'tirimasu'. Ok then I went to my french friend Natacha's appartment for a really really sweet french dinner/wine/cheese party as her sister and boyfriend were vsiting for the weekend. A great mix of cultures and languages always makes for an excellent night! As does french cooking and of course, Drews brownies :)
Ok so then Sunday (almost near the end guys, promise!). So Diana's boyfriend is here for the week and quite convieniently has a car! So on Sunday, Diana, Karin, Iida, Diana's bf and I went on a trip to the Swiss alps at a place called Saentis. Journey through the Swiss countryside was absolutely gorgeous! But I am still insistant that the bottom of germany has hands down, the best scenery ever. Saw a few lovely swiss towns here and there which were WONDERFUL (but again, Germany is better!). Ok so copied from wikipedia: "
Säntis (2,502 m) is a mountain in the Alpstein sub-range of the Appenzell Alps in Switzerland. It can be reached by aerial tramway from Schwägalp". We went up by this gondola thing and wow, it sure felt HIGH! Sadly the day was a bit foggy so most of our exploring of the Saentis involved getting lost in the fog but EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE SNOW!!!!! First time I have seen snow in a really long time and it eventually cleared up a bit for some views of snow covered mountains.
Well we had the rest of the day ahead of us and a car, so what better place to go than Liechtenstein! Yeah, thats right, that tiny country that is barely a country it's so tiny! Well we went to the capital city Vaduz and had an absolutely hilarious time pretty much just laughing that we were in Liechtenstein. Well, as none of us knew anything about th place, we went to tourist info and learned about their prince and saw his castle on the hill, we found out they really like their postage stamps and really strange street sculptures and that they are just as expensive as Switzerland. A really great day thanks Diana and bf! Slept all the way home :)
So then, I guess this week...oh yeah on Tuesday night Diana, her bf, Thorin and I had some Polish vodka drinks and some brilliant yet intense economic/political discussions haha (amazed that this happened without the presence of a german!). And we shall 'make a party' (as the germans say it) tonight again with quite a few more people, should be great! Havn't done much else, just a shocking presentation (*erases from memory*) and got my first essay result back, not too bad at all considering how crap the lecturer said the class did (yeah, she's a lovely sort, that one). But last night my Yael, Thorin and I went a very Wellington-esque bar in town and I tried something I really don't know what it was but it was good! Well, that's definately enough for now. But I really truly hope exams went ok/well/amazing for you all and that your summer job issues have been sorted and that guy fawkes was a blast (haha, oh so funny am I)...though stories tell me it was as mental as always. Party hard, especially you mum and dad ;)
Ok, love to you all xoxo
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