Hello I’m Emily Albanese and I’m living in Austria for a
whole exchange year.
I’m doing a blog so that my friends and family can stop
stalking me on Facebook and asking me a million question about the same thing.
But also for the benefit of other new exchange students to see what it really
means to be an exchange student and what kind of adventures i find along the
way.
So right now i have been in Austria for 3 weeks and it feels
like i have been here for 2 days. It’s going by so fast it’s crazy. I’m living
in a beautiful town called Ried Im Innkreis, in Upper Austria. I’m living with
my first amazing host family The Demmelbauer's. I have 2 brothers Florian and
Christian who take me out everywhere and are so amazing to me and my host
parents that do so much for me are Klaus and Marlies!
So in my blog I’m also going to be talking about the
challenges, the differences and the adventures that i come across on my
exchange year. So i have just gotten home from a crazy two week language
camp with 72 other exchange students from all over the world. Language camp was
fun after 3pm every day. Why i say after 3...because we sat in a classroom from
8-3 every day and learned German grammar. That was very hard to do. But when i
got back to my host family, sitting in class for all those hours was well worth
it. Note future exchange students learn language a little more than i did
before you get to the country because every day i felt stressed about not
knowing how to do anything. I only knew how to say "Hallo ich bin emily,
ich komme aus kanada. Wie Gehts?"....that will get you by for 2 seconds in
a conversation until someone starts wanting to have a long conversation with
you and all you find yourself saying is "ja" smiling and nodding your
head saying “ich bin aüsslander” (im a foreigner) . In the 2 weeks we had a lot of free time
after our classes. Me and my amazing friends/roommates from Florida would walk
to town or walk to the mall. Emily and i one day wanted to go to the mall so we
got a taxi there and the taxi driver was so happy to have 6 exchange students
in his car he was taking pictures of us …oh ya as he was driving and did I mention
he was driving standard, scared for my life. Than on the way back Emily and I had
a fat joke and wanted to get McDonalds…yes they have McDonalds in Austria, but a
lot cheaper and cleaner. We called a taxi on our OWN! This was a huge moment
for us because the taxi company doesn’t talk any English. So we were jumping up
and down in excitement knowing that we just did that ourselves. That week we didn’t have on Saturday or Sunday so we one of
the days we went to the most beautiful towns Hallsatt, the home of the salt
mines. We got to go into the salt mines and tour around the city it was so
amazing. Than the next day they told us we were going for a short walk to see
some scenery…UHM SHORT? Yeah right….we ended up walking an hour and a half up a
mountain on the hottest day that week….i have never felt pain until this day. But
for Austrians that’s a normal everyday walk. I better be in good shape after
this year. I have to admit it was beautiful when we got to the top though.
Always that was most of my adventures of the first couple
weeks and im sure I have many more to come
xo emmy
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