Hump Day

So today is not only hump day as in Wednesday but also the half-way point for my program in Austria. I have been here for 10 days and I have 10 days to go. I feel like I should start packing, but I won't.

So lets see, what has happened since Monday? Well I had class. I absolutely love my listening and speaking class but the reading and writing class is awful. 1) It is at 9 AM, 2) it is really boring, and 3) the teacher is mean/rude.

So lets see, yesterday was interesting. I barely survived my first class. In my second class I gave a short presentation on US history. My teacher was impressed by the vocabulary I used but said I make things more complicated than they need to be. After that we played a game where the teacher would go through the alphabet in his head and an assigned person would say stop at some point. Whatever letter he was on was the letter we used. So he selected a country that started with that letter and for that country we had to write a city, river or mountain, important person, important date in history, and a specialty (food or drink) from that country. The winner got a real Mozart kugel (famous handmade Salzburg chocolate ball). It wasn't much motivation for me since I can't it them but it was fun anyway. The winner was the person with the most points...so basically the person who got an answer for all of those things first said stop and read their answers...they got 5 points for every answer they had that was correct. Then the rest of the class got 5 points for any answer they had that was correct and not the same as any of the original person's answers.

So today we played a variation of that. We only played with Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. We didn't play for speed and we got 10 points for every answer we got that no one else had and 5 points for every answer someone else also had. I did really well. Out of a possible 180 points (which would be if you got every answer and you were the only one with every answer) I got 130 which was the second highest score, only beat by 135. So I did surprisingly well. But I was the only one that could name an actual Austrian composer. Mozart was born in Salzburg in 1756 and died in 1791...Salzburg wasn't part of Austria until 1818 so technically he is not Austrian.

Then we went on to talk about Mozart, which also made me feel smart. I know all about his family and his life cause I just did a presentation on him last fall...worked out. Also, our professor asked about his operas and which ones he wrote...someone else said the magic flute "die Zauberfloete" and I said le nozze di figaro, which I was apparently supposed to translate to German (die Hochzeit des Figaro) but I didn't and the Italian people were excited that I said it in Italian. They are funny. They are older too but not obnoxious like Radomir, the middle-aged guy in my class who thinks he knows everything.

Ok. So after class we had an excursion. It was supposed to be to an art museum and the music school, Mozarteum, in Salzburg but I bailed 2 hours early. Our tour guide likes to talk to much and rather than going to see what we were supposed to see we stood outside in the 90 degree weather and sun for 30 mins. When she was done rambling for like 5 minutes she told one of the young Irish girls that she had to repeat everything she had said. I was like umm...I couldn't even do that I am am in a much more advanced level. These excursions are supposed to be fun and instead we all hate them. Then we went in the cathedral where she tried to the basin that Mozart was baptised is modern art. Mozart was baptized in 1756...I'm pretty sure that is not modern. So then I left and came back to my dorm.

I just hung out here the rest of the night, watched some shows, talked to my friends, took a nap, and ate dinner.

Today I had class and then I went to an art museum with Jenn and Sarah. It was nice. They decided to stay in the city and read for a little while but I was too hot so I decided to come home. I stopped at the grocery store to pick up some more pasta and sauce, and some oil and pudding. Now I am going to do some organizing and maybe study for a while.

We leave our windows open during the day cause otherwise it is horribly hot when we get home and today there is a strong breeze coming through the window so it blew stuff off our desks and all over our room.

So tomorrow is more class, including a test which is much better than sitting through an entire class with that man. then we have an excursion which will hopefully be better than the one yesterday. Tomorrow we are going to Mozart's birth-house and the house where he lived when he was older. We should be able to wander off and look around by ourselves so it won't be so bad.

Well that is all for now. I'll probably write again Friday or Saturday.

Sarah