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.

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 !

The truth about Poland

Polish people …
… drink Vodka all day long
… are dumb
… are totally religious
… never ever smile
… steal whatever they find.
True, isn't it ?

I could go on with this list of the “typical Polish man”, but let’s be honest, just because everyone believes it really is like that, doesn’t mean it’s the truth.
Let’s begin with the stereotype about Polish people being drunk day and night. It is true to a certain extend. As there are many celebrations in huge groups were people it a lot, they need a shot, or two for better digestion, doesn’t mean that they’re getting drunk. In comparison to Hungary or the Czech Republic, Poland is in a fact a sober country. If you happen to be in Poland a must-try is “Zubrowka” Vodka.
Overall the population is dumb. According to IQ tests, that is a lie. This stereotype clearly comes from Polish people living in the US and don’t speak English that well. But don’t forget, Marie Curie and Nicolaus Copernicus both were Polish : )
True is, that Poland is a Catholic country and the former Pope, who even got his own TV channel, was Polish too. Fun fact: the world’s largest statue of Jesus was built in Poland. It’s not clear how religious they live their life, but surveys say that only about 8% are so-called strong-believers.
Nobody in Poland smiles on the streets, never ever. They do! Just like in every other place on mother earth there are people that are friendly and happy and just have a smile on their face all the time and others just don’t. Nothing special there.
“Come to Poland – your car is already there!”, who hasn’t heard that joke before? Right, commonly it is believed that Polish people steal everything. But let’s be honest – again, in every country there are people stealing. I’ve been in Poland many times, half of my family lives there, but I rarely heard of stealing-Polish-people.

Now that you maybe have a different view about Poland and the people there, let me give you some fun facts about my roots…
#1 In every grocery store, the biggest section is the one with sweets and candies.
#2 The alphabet consists of 32 letters (and yes, they really need all those letters)
#3 The Polish language has the second largest number of speakers among the Slavic languages (Russian is, obviously, the most spoken Slavic language…)
#4 Beer is often mixed with raspberry or blackcurrant juice (called “Piwo z sokiem”) and it is drunk through a straw. In winter, beer is mixed with cinnamon and sweetened with honey and served heated (called “Piwo grzane”)
#5 There is a strange channel on TV in Poland, the Pope channel. Anytime you want to see the pope, you just need to turn on TV.
#6 The emblem of Warsaw, the capital, is a mermaid.
#7 About 35% of all Poles live abroad. There are large Polish communities in the US, for example.
#8 Any movies “translated” into Polish, are just read louder in Polish by one man, no matter if there are children or women speaking. This is really strange, especially because you always hear the original voices as background noise.

Many of you might wonder why I chose Poland as a topic… my mom is born in Poland and I grew up bilingual, so it is important to me, to let you people know how it really is and break-up the stereotypes many keep in mind when they hear “Poland”. Hopefully you see it a little bit different after having read this blog entry :)

And to not forget the language itself - watch this video to get an impression!

The heart of Europe – Brussels

A little flashback to my time in school...

From April 3^rd - 8^th 2011, me and my class went on a trip to Brussels, the EU’s heart-city. In the morning of April 3^rd we started our journey in Klagenfurt, Carinthia. From Cologne on we took the train to Brussels. Later in the afternoon we finally were in Brussels and checked-in at our hotel vis-à-vis the train station. The hotel itself was quite clean and very comfortable, whereas the quarter itself wasn’t what would be called “worth seeing”. The next day we visited the Atomium, which is one of the city’s emblems and it was more than amazing! The view over the city was breathtaking. 

Afterwards we went to the European Commission, where we were told many interesting facts about the EU, some of which we had already learned and discussed before. We learned, for example, that the European Commission is responsible for the political independence and has the right to propose new EU legislation. 

Subsequently we went to see the Grand Place and the old parts of the city, which both were worth seeing.

There we made a stop to eat some “frites”, which are typical for Belgium. They tasted very good and I think I’ll eat them again someday. The Grand Place is enclosed by old buildings that are beautifully decorated with gold and statues. On Tuesday we were expected at the European Parliament, there we experienced that the members sit together by parties, not by country and that most plenary sessions are hold in Strasbourg. At the parliament we were told many things, but we had bad luck – all of the delegated were in Strasbourg at a conference. On the way there we saw the King’s palace, the town-hall and the Saint-Michelle cathedral of Brussels. Directly afterwards, we visited the EU-Representation Office of Carinthia, where we were told what exactly is done there. 


Afterwards we had the chance to visit the old town again, as well the Manneken Pis, which is really small,

and some more emblems of the city. What actually was funny was a statue of a women-pis, because it wasn’t even an emblem but much bigger than the original Manneken Pis. The next day we spent in Bruges, a city with a medieval atmosphere. There we did a Grachtentour, which was enjoyable a lot! The city itself is absolutely wonderful and we all would have liked to stay there for maybe one more day. Bruges is often called the “Venice from the north” and it is really worth the title. In the evening we returned to Brussels. As our trip slowly came to an end, we spent our last few hours in Brussels. Together with our teachers we ate at a snack bar before leaving. With the train we went back to Cologne, which was really impressive. Some of us also took photos of the city during our free-time. On Friday morning we went back to Klagenfurt, where we landed at about 12 a.m.and were all happy to be back in our home-sweet-home again. All in all, this journey was a good experience for all of us. Moreover, the class got to know each other much better, which strengthened us in holding together, whatever comes. Within this trip I must say, I didn't learn only about the EU but a lot more about what I could reach one day!

I definitely enjoyed this journey :)

La Côte d’Azur

I love to visit foreign countries! One of my favorite until now is France, I must say that the lovely Cote d’Azur blew me away in terms of the expectation I had before arriving. Last spring I had the pleasure to spend one week with a host family in Antibes, a rather small village at the Cote d’Azur. Going there with my class, I thought it will be a boring journey full of visiting museums (but I kind of liked Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall) , without any free time. Surprise! We visited a lot of museums BUT had much time for ourselves as well. Together with a friend we had the nicest host family one could have! They were friendly from the first moment on and made us feel comfortable at their flat. We improved our French a lot by playing with our host siblings, they were 2 and 4 years old, so they didn’t try to be polite but just laughed when we made any mistakes – which was cute and, as I said, helped us a lot! In the mornings we attended school or let’s say, we wasted time. After lunch we visited another city every day.

From Nice to Cannes, Grasse and St.Tropez, in between we stopped by in some small villages in the middle of nowhere. As we were free to do what we

want to after having visited everything important with our 

teachers, we went shopping or walked on the seaside and enjoyed the perfect weather. I must say, it was beautiful! All the cities were great, except St.Tropez which was a little bit disappointing when you know it only from movies or songs (it didn’t seem like a party location during day, there was nothing to do or to look at…)

If I will ever have the possibility to go there again, I would surely do it. France is a lovely country with many different faces, the old monuments, the sunny seaside, enormous cities like Nice, small villages that create a special atmosphere, … And if you think about the French people as arrogant you are wrong, really. I didn’t meet anybody who wasn’t nicely smiling and helpful when we got lost (which happened way to often!) All in all, I miss France since I left, it was hard not to cry when we had to go back home, mostly because I really liked my host family and the kids cried when we said good-bye.. One day I will for sure visit them again.

Really, go to France if you can, it is gorgeous and there are so many places to be seen – fall in love with the beauty of the country and even more the people there!

Enjoy your journey :)