You do not know what you have at home, until you live elsewhere.

Hey to everyone out there reading my blog!

While you were following my posts you might have asked yourself who I am and where my hometown is… even if not, I wondered how I could have forgotten to mention that. If you want to get to know me a bit more, enjoy my last post for this term. Although I love to travel, there’s no place better than home!

My name is Nina, I’m 19 years old and study TKK at the
Department of Translation in Graz.

Why I chose to study TKK? Because I’m into languages (maybe because I grew up bilingual, I don’t know) – ‘til now I know German, English, Polish, little worse French and Russian and some words in Greek and Czech. What I like is to travel (but you know that already)…  Read on and you'll get to know what I spend my time with when I'm at home.

If you want to know anything more about me or tell me something just leave a comment : )

Carinthia is the region of Austria I come from. Since I live in Graz, I started to realize how lovely my hometown Klagenfurt and all around it actually is.

Not far away from my place there’s a little village called “Rosental” and there you have the possibility to walk up a hill  for about 2 hours until you reach the “Klagenfurter Hütte”, where you can have a rest and get typical Austrian food. As I’m not into hiking at all, I waited years before I did this trip myself – and I loved it! The view is amazing and with every step you enjoy the landscape more and more.

Another place I miss a lot is the “Kreuzbergl”, a little hill in the middle of the city. Within few minutes you find yourself in nature and have a spectacular view over the city. No matter if in summer or winter it’s always a good idea to go there and have a nice walk or do your workout, as there is a fitness path.

In summer I spend most of my time at our great lake, the “Wörthersee”. To lay at the lake, reading a book or just jumping into it and swim, it’s the best way you could enjoy summer! It is easy to reach it by bike and for those who like to cycle – you can even surround the lake within some hours only (and then cool down by jumping into the lake).

Whenever I’ve been somewhere else, I didn’t miss home or even think about it because I knew, it is where I live. Now my “home” is Graz, I live here most of the time. And I miss my hometown a lot. But I think that was enough about me and my place… 

Bye for now to everyone, thanks for having read my blog until today, and:

Enjoy your life – it is your personal journey!

All around the world

I want to see the world! Stuck in Graz, studying all day I really started to miss travelling a lot. If you’ve read my posts, you know that I’ve already visited the one or the other place. And I don’t want to stop. When in my life will there be a better time for seeing the world than now? As I looked through all the pictures I took over the last years, I thought about where I’ll go next (or where I wish to go). Let me share my planned destinations with you…

#1 Bejing

During summer this year I will go there. Not for a week or two, but for 3-4 days only.

Sure, it sounds crazy, but hey – better a short trip than nothing. I am really looking forward to that one. My curiosity concerning the culture, the language and the people there rises every day! And there are just so many question on my mind…Will it be like on television? Do they really eat rice most of the time? Is the air that badly polluted? Will they understand me, if I try some phrases in Chinese? Is it easy to get lost? Is shopping really that cheap? Are the streets overcrowded? Do they eat dogs and cats? 

#2 Zambia

Last year a friend of mine, (all the pictures underneath are taken by him) was teaching, there instead of going to the army, in a 

school and built up a library. As he showed me pictures and told me about all his excursions, I’ve fallen in love with the idea of going there too one day.  I’m sure that the cultural experience would be great and to have the chance to see the beautiful nature would be a dream coming true! Many years ago I was in Kenya and already back then I

knew that I want to see much more of that continent. Maybe not the next few years, but a dream of mine is to go to Zambia and stay there for some weeks or even a longer period of time to get to know everything about the people and the culture there, as it for sure is not comparable to ours.

#3 Prague

Some friends of mine live in the Czech Republic and send me pictures when they

visited the University of Prague. Other friends of mine went to Prague with school and again showed me pictures. It looks awesome! Moreover I am studying Czech at the moment, so it would be a good occasion to use and improve my language skills.

#4 Scotland

Why? It looks nice on pictures, especially the landscape, and I’m curious about the

language, in how far it is different to the English spoken in London and Dublin. Just an example a friend gave me, when he suggested to maybe go there “Ah dinny ken wit yur talkin aboot” (I do not know what you are talking about) As I study English I want to get to know all different varieties of the language, and I have to start somewhere, so why not Scotland?

#5 New York

I already blogged about why I wish to go there, so just scroll down a bit :) 

All in all, I dream about making a long trip all around the world, and who knows, maybe one day I will be able to fulfill my dream.

Dia dhóibh, tá fáilte romhaibh !

A great feeling when your two weeks in Ireland start this way… when our host mother

welcomed us that way, we had only one thing in mind “How should we practice our English and communicate with her if she speaks some weird we-don’t-know-what-and-understand-nothing language?” Luckily she knew English too and translated from Irish/Gaelic to English what she said “Hello and welcome!” Would you have guessed that? My first memory from Ireland still is how different their original language is, surprisingly only about 3% of Ireland’s population speaks Gaelic as first language. Although English is an official language in Ireland, their dialects can be very hard to understand, especially when Irish talk with each other. 

Let me tell you some more about my time in beautiful Ireland. We stayed in Bray, known as “The Gateway to the Garden of Ireland”, located in the North East of Wicklow. It is the third largest town in Ireland and its longest established seaside town. The town’s name means “hill, rising ground”. What I liked the most was the Cliff Walk from Bray’s beach to Dun Laoghaire, there are no words to describe Ireland’s beauty, just have a look at the pictures…

Kilmainhaim Gaol ( quit depressing to walk inside a
prison and read all the names of people that died there)

We visited a lot of sights ...

Some without pictures in this post where
Trinity College and the Book of Kells that
we had a look at, many many different
museums (of which most where not that
interesting or fascinating).

In Dublin's fair city...

Christ church (the most beautiful of all churches and
cathedrals we visited)

 

The Spire, Dublins emblem
(really fascinating how tall it is!)

Cliffs of Aonghasa, Galway (the weather was
really bad, so it was not that nice to be there)

At the beach in Bray

Not only the sights and the landscape showed something different from home, the people and their lifestyle is not the same as in Austria. Students, for example, wear uniforms (strange looking – as if they were going to the gym), and most schools are split, it’s hard to find a school were boys and girls where together (I wanted to go there for exchange, so I looked up many schools). Irish people drive on the “wrong” side, on the left. You should keep that in mind when crossing streets or waiting for the bus (unless you do it, you’ll wonder why your bus is not going the right direction…).  One thing that really surprised me was the high amount of Polish shops in Dublin, really, and they had way too many McDonald, BurgerKing and Subway chains there too. Oh and let’s not forget the typical Irish food, their butter is salted which didn’t taste delicious with jam, and then there are “Fish and Chips”, we tried them on our last day and I have to say – better don’t make the same mistake. Maybe we were just unlucky, but it didn’t taste well at all!

For me Ireland is one of the most beautiful countries I’ve ever been to! Some time passed since my journey, but when I look through the pictures, it feels like being there again. With all the photographs I hope to give you a feeling and impression of the Green Island.

Ladies and gentlemen!

It is my great honour and pleasure to welcome you most warmly at my blog... 
there we are: register :) Inappropriate and unusual beginning , isn't it ?

We all know that there’s a difference between how we talk with our friends, our parents, our boss at work, to the waiter, … and even worse, we have to learn those different varieties of speaking for every language, not only for our mother tongue. Why? Because knowing a language means to use the right register in every situation. Wait, what? Register? What is it? Definition: A variety of a language or a level of usage, as determined by degree of formality and choice of vocabulary, pronunciation, and syntax, according to the communicative purpose, social context, and standing of the user. As mentioned before, according to different situations and people we talk to, we change our choice of words, our voice and the loudness we speak in. Where for speeches, in school, at university the written, formal language is used most of the time, between friends and family colloquial language is common. Imagine talking to your teachers as you do with your friends or the other way round, wouldn’t that be weird and just strange? Think about that and you’ll see how important register really is. You just can’t talk to your boss as if he was your best friend.

Surveys show, that it doesn’t really matter what we say but HOW we say it. Something interesting I’ve read few times as I’ve worked on rhetoric a lot: there’s been a guy on a seminary with the best known doctors worldwide. He decided to speak about heart surgeries, without ever having studied medicine. All he did was research and preparing a speech. All doctors where impressed and no one realized that he wasn’t an expert at all. Now you surely ask yourself “But how is this possible?” Well, he chose the right register (some terms only used in medicine, the right serious voice,…) ! There is so much you can do with language, dare to try it and see what happens.

But all this makes it hard to really learn a language. I think, the best way to get to know foreign languages is to stay in the country where it is spoken for a certain time. If you are forced to use it you improve yourself, and hearing it all day enlarges your vocabulary. Of course it takes time, but at the end you’ll be glad to know a language with all its difficulties, and you’ll see connections as well as differences between different languages and cultures. And this might be useful for language studies.

Sightseeing weekend in London

„Within only 2 days you’ll never get to see London!“, was what everybody told me when I decided to fly there for not even 3 days. Still I booked my flight there for Friday afternoon and back on Sunday midday. Guess what, I managed to visit all

important sights. This weekend was great! Sure, more time would’ve been better, but I enjoyed every minute in London. As I arrived at my hostel, I changed and went out to start my sightseeing rally. The London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and the House of Parliament, China Town, Westminster Abbey, Tower Bridge and the Tower of London, St. Paul’s Cathedral and Piccadilly Circus within Friday night and all Saturday – you can imagine how exhausting that was, and it was worth it! There where so many impressions I caught up in a short time, taking pictures and being flashed by London’s beauty at the same time was fabulous! If you ever have the chance to visit London – do it! The city has so many different faces, from the biggest shopping malls to shabby shops around the corner, great bars to rather old-fashioned ones, nice parks and dirty streets, the flair is exceptional. When I’ve been there, the weather wasn’t as I thought (all rainy), it actually rained for some minutes only, lucky me :) There are no words to describe the feeling when you make a short trip like this for sightseeing, it is unbelievable and for sure a great experience.

What I have to add is the English spoken there – totally different from what I’ve heard in school before. The accent can be quite hard to understand sometimes, even though it is nearly clear, written English. They just pronounce words in a, for me, funny way, look up some youtube videos if you have time and just listen, it is strange! What I learned was, that the English language is not the same everywhere, ‘til then I was sure that only the Irish (read my next blog entry) had a weird way to speak English… Even when you think you are a good speaker of English it can happen that you don’t understand native speakers. Inform yourself a bit before going to Great Britain, America , Ireland or Australia :) 

The next time you don’t know what to do with your leisure time, 

visit London and : 

ENJOY YOUR JOURNEY !