Merry Christmas

Hello everyone!

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a stupendous New Year!

Let's see what's new in Alicia's side of the world...

Well, last weekend it snowed. Yay. It's offical, snow is very cool. No pun intended. I was so excited. And the forecast said it would be a white Christmas, as in, it would snow on Christmas. But they lied!!! It stopped snowing a few days ago and so now most of the snow has become brown mush, and this morning it was so hot (5 degrees) that the rest of it melted. So I have a patchy White Christmas. Yay. Christmas is celebrated here on the 24th (today), not on the 25th. Today the whole family will be here for Kaffee, which is like afternoon tea/coffee with cake, and dinner. and then later, at 10pm we're going to a Church Service.

But when it was snowing, and after it snowed, I made the most of it....no, I didn't make a snow angel, or a snowman, or a snow fight (but I will, you can count on it).... i went for walks in the forest which is just down the road and went to the village, which was nice. The river was semi-frozen and very beautiful. And I didn't know it, but on the other side of the river is the next state, Waden-Buddenburg. The spellings wrong, but I'll change it when I see how it's actually spelt.

Yesterday was the last day of school, and during German, our second class, we had a bit of a party with tea and punch and cakes and pretzles and biscuits and lollies (all the good things) and then I went with another girl from the orchestra to the church to rehearse and then the whole school, well, not the actual school, but the students and teachers came and there was a service and the choir sang (very well; it's nice to hear some guys sing) and the orchestra played and it all went very well. And progress! My violin didn't break any strings or go out of tune because of the cold. But the bridge was wonky so I spent all of this morning fixing that up. And this morning I also called my family. WHOM HUNG UP ON ME!!! Thanks, Mum, I love you too. And then Ellen and Josie. I would've called you all, but the phone bill... Alex, I tried to call, but to no avail. And the phone card is still not working...

But I have details about my Language and Culture Camp, thanks mum. It sounds very good, so that's something I'll be doing these holidays. I get to go to Munich, and go to the art museum, the largest Technical Museum, castles (yay), and bowling and movies and 'discover Munich' trips. And ofcourse, learn some German, which will be a very good thing.

Ah, the Opera Discothek. hahahaha. It was so ... different. Very cool experience, though. Imagine very loud dico music (duf-duf-duf stuff) and then people in fluro/neon colours under the black light, with huuuuuge flared pants, and matching shirts, with 10-20cm spiked hair and 10cm platform shoes which they rightly call 'towers' and then with black eye liner. They can dance, though nothing like I have ever seen ... I had a great time. Very different from Ischgl : )

Congratulations on everyone's OPs, from the sounds of it, everyone did pretty well. And Ellen, yay, you have a host family!

Hmmmm, what else? Ah! All those funky groovers going to Woodford, have an awesome time. I want to hear about the your Woodford Experiences.

Happy Birthday Coridyn!! I didn't get to say that on the phone, because someone HUNG UP!!!!! But yes, Happy 19th.

I think that's about all. I'll send you guys an email with a photo of me in Ischgl and one of me in snow, and maybe one of Munich. I'll see how big it is.

Again, have a great Christmas and New Year.

Love, Alicia

P.S: Nathaniel! I can't believe what you've done to my room!!!!!

Quick Update

Hello, All!

This one will be a VERY quick update because I have dinner in less than 5 minutes.

ok! first things first, I found out my OP today (although the website says it's not official) and I got a 2. I wanted between a 1-5, so I'm happy. You others don't have to tell me what you got, but I hope you're all satisified.

Ah, yes! Today I bought a German CD learning thing. And school stuff. Ellen, chaos sister, newsagencies rock, don't they?!!! I loved your email, too. Snail mail.....yay!

Most importantly, I went out with Hannah, Jan and their friend Julia to a German discothek, called Der Opera. One word: wow. Totally worth it's own blog.

Gotta dash, dinner's ready.

Love you all. Missed you particularly today, for some reason. : )

Skiing!!! In Austria!!!

Well, hello everyone!!

Time for an update, methinks!!

First and foremost, on Saturday we went to Ischgl, which is in Austria (actually borders with Switzerland, too) where I sat and admired the Alps. Absolutely breathtaking. Fantastic. Awe-inspiring. One of the most beautiful things I will ever see. And I sat on the snow, sun baking, listening to music. It was (almost) toasty warm, strangely enough. And then we went to the sauna. Well Peter and Gabby did, Hannah and I went to the hot-tub and the swimming pool. And then we had a very delicious dinner at the hotel. It was 5 courses, and kept us busy for 2 hours! And then we went out. And so did everyone else in Ischgl! So Hannah, Valeska and myself went to the Kuhstall, which translates to the 'Cow Shed' (I know!!) which was a bar/disco and totally packed. It was sub-zero temperatures outside, but soo hot inside, and there were so many people you could barely move. And (don't be too alarmed, Mum!) everyone was sooooo drunk, and there were about 5 men for every 1 girl. Except the majority of the men were 30 years and over. And the music they played was mostly German drinking songs, and English songs disco-ed up. I pissed myself laughing for the first haf an hour, at least. And there were this group of men with the same shirts (with an amusing message *ahem*) and they found out I was Australian. They were all like 'EYYYYY!!!!! You're from Australia??' And I replied, 'Yes', and they were like, 'Nooooo!! You're from Australia??' and again, 'Yes!'
'I LOOOOOOVE AUSTRALIA! You're Kylie Minoge, right?'
'Sure,'
'What are you doing in Austria? You're crazy! I love Australia. I live in Sydney. Australia is so much better than ANYWHERE here!!'
And for the rest of the night, whenever I turned around there would be this, 'EYYY!!!! AUSTRALIA!!!!'
Yes. An amusing bunch of people, nevertheless.
And then on Sunday, I skiied. At least I attempted to ski. Now that was amusing for all the other people! And I might add there's hundreds of people there. I have some funny photos that I'll send later. And that was good. Except when I went by myself and fell over (quite spectacularly, I might add) and I couldn't get up!! And it just so happened to be right under the chair lift, so I was a bit comedic entertainment for everyone. I think I hurt my hand on my crash landing. But it was the bestest fun. And my hand doesn't hurt anymore.

Oh yeah. School. Sorry, Schule, is okay. Things are still very....German! And I still can't read our History teacher's writing. I manage to copy the stuff from the board from the people I sit next too. This week I'm sitting next to Max and Patrick. And next week that'll change. And Social Lesson is another name for Politics; I got it confused with History. I went to orchestra today. In a church. It was cold. My violin chucked a hissy fit (again) - it's very finicky about the cold, it's told me. I broke my second E string in as many times as I've tried to play the damn thing. The music's fine (that is, playable)....and yeah. In art, I met another Australian exchange student. Her name's Emma and she's here for 6 weeks. She's having a ball, too.

JOSIE!!!!!!! What is this I hear about a car crash!!!! Amo wrote me 'Jos had a car crash, which isn't good' and I nearly picked up the phone to call you and find out what happened. But I won't/didn't because it's 6am for you guys....WHAT HAPPENED? Are you okay?? Is everyone else okay?? Don't ever scare me like that again, you hear??

Amo...the music scene. Well, everyday we listen to the radio 'high and dry' and it plays everything: I've heard Jason Mraz, Taxiride, Kylie, waaay too much Ashlee Simpson, John Farhnam (how do you spell it?), heaps of Christmas songs. And then, there's, ofcourse, techno dance stuff. But there's some cool alternative-rock songs in German that I've heard. And you heard about my experience in my first bar/disco in Ischgl. And that place where I went to, I might add, is very famous in Germany/Austria because of it's night life. They have the saying, 'What happens in Ischgl stays in Ischgl ' if it gives you guys some idea. Hannah and I met these two Austrian guys who were the closest to our age in the whole disco, they said they were 25, but they so totally were not. Ummmm, yeah.

Lauren, the food. It'S soooo yummy. Gabby is a very good cook. There hasn't been one thing that I haven't liked. And it's quite healthy, too. Alot of bread, but I like bread. I think I should rename this blog, 'Bread and Apfel Saft' because that's what everyone eats/drinks! Apfel Saft, by the way, is Apple soft drink. And tea. Very big tea drinkers. I have 3 or 4 cups a day. But no water.... that's one thing I miss. Plain old water. All these crazy Germans have have mineral water, dammit. hahaha, but I'm getting used to it.

FERGUS!! Happy 18th!! I know it's belated, but I didn't have the chance to get to a computer. I was sending good vibes, though. I'm sure you celebrated in style, House Bitch!! hahaha

I miss you guys heaps. I want to call, but I know I can't otherwise I'll get incredibly homesick.... Josie..... thankyou for the call, all the same. And Mum the cards still haven't arrived (!!!), and can you give me Alex's mobile number. Missing you and dad, and Harry, and the Others very much. Though the Kleidermann's are incredible people. Hello, First-Born, how's work?? : P I miss your pizzas. And Coridyn, stop downloading and get to bed! : ) and the ipod's great. Alex, everytime I see something beautiful I think of you, and I want to put it in a bottle and send it to you, because that's what you deserve. Amo, music fanatic : D I think of you everytime there's a joke, because you always make me laugh, and there's so many moments only you would appreciate!! I miss your hugs, Dad and Mum.

Loving you all heaps. Gotta go, been on here waaaay too long.

Tschüs,
Alicia xxx

I can't think of a title...

I know I wrote on Montag (Monday, in case some of you needed clarification :P ), but eh, exciting things keep happening. Just not to me, but I'll give you all the boring details anyway. Well, okay, not all of them are boring. For starters, I'm going to Münich this weekend. And I might be going to Austria next weekend to go skiing. hahaha, I still can't get over the fact that you can just pop over to Switzerland or Austria for the day. But Austria is only 1.5-2 hours by car. It hasn't snowed yet, but this morning guess what temperature it was.... -1.5C!! But for some reason when I walk out of the school at home-time, and it's 2C, it feels much, much colder.

I think I've had all of my classes now. They are: art, politik, social lesson, Deutsch, physik, math, biologie, geometrie, religion, Spanish, French, sport und Englisch. (Am I wowing you all with my Germman?) So far these classes are just for this week. I see the deputy principal to Freitag to make any changes. I'm probably changing art for music and religion to world religion (I can't remember the actual name for it) where you learn about all the different religions. But I don't know. I've had religion only once and it was hilarious. We went to the 'Room of Silence' and we got these nice blankets and lay on the floor. Then the teacher played this music which was just so weird and in this other language (there was a German translation, but that didn't help me much) and Hannah and Jan were being very funny. It was a thoroughly enjoyable lesson, though they say it usually isn't quite as entertaining. In biology we're learning about the eye, but the teacher dictates to the class, so I'm quite lost. Like I am in French and Spanish. I can't remember if it's advanced French and easy Spanish, or advanced Spanish and easy French....it's all the same. In French yesterday the teacher wrote 3 sentences on the board and told the class to translate them into French....I sat there translating it into English so I could understand them!! Math, geomety and physics are still very confusing for me because I hear snippets of stuff I know and then the rest is unrelated. In physics this afternoon all I heard was 'Kelvin' (temperature), 'Kelvin'! But that was more confusing, because the graph was in Celsius!! (a little discourse there for the science peeps! Rock on Senior English!) I freeze my butt of in sport because we're in the gym and, yeah, it's cold! I had English for the first time today, and the teacher made me stand up in front of the class and introduce myself and say a little about me -- I was very quick! She then asked me if I would talk to the class in the next week or two about my school. Though it's not my school anymore (sniff, sniff). So I have that to look forward to.

And while I'm still on the topic of lessons, I'm about to go to my first German lesson at the Women's Centre, and soon I might be able to talk to the people in my class. Some are very reluctant to talk to me, because of their English. That and maybe they don't want to talk to me, hahaha. A Japanese exchange student at the school was fluent in German after only 2 months! I'll see how I go, huh?

Well, this blog turned out to be bigger than I anticipated, so I'll end it.

Now.