Today I saw my first real (ie. not in captivity) snake.
I also ran over it. With my bike.
It gave me quite a shock to say the least.


While I'm hear. heer. here. -ahem- I'd just like to say something about smoking (as Todd so kindly noted the cigarette in my hand in the previous photo) in Austria.

Austria doesn't have any 'Smoke Free' ads. On my first day at school, I was schocked by the number of people standing around infront of the school smoking. What an entrance: the school was hardly visible through the cloud of smoke hanging above the students' heads. The first time I went into a bar, I had to take frequent trips outside, simply because of the amount of smoke in there. Teachers put their stinking coats on my chair when they come into the classroom, students and teachers alike pop outside every break to have a quick ciggie out the back. People who I never expected to see smoking, smoked.

Now, ten months later, I'm used to it. Most of my friends smoke, or, if they don't smoke, they at least smoke when they drink. I've grown to like smokey bars.. there's something more atmospheric about a bar when it's clouded in smoke. And I don't even notice the smoke outside school anymore. Yes, people know that it's unhealthy, and dangerous for both themselves and the small (small, mind) number of people in the world who don't smoke. But really, Austrians don't give a damn.

So. Being little Keldalein/Neuseeland, who plonked herself right in the middle of this smoking manifest, I was faced with a difficult decision. The first time someone offered me a smoke, i declined. And the next time, and the next one. Then, one day I thought 'why not? One cigarrette isn't going to do any more damage than all the second hand smoke that I've been inhaling for who knows how long'
These days, I tend to go out alot (it's summer! And I'm 18. All the more reason!). When I go out, I drink, and when we drink, many, many people smoke. When I'm offered a cigarrette, sometimes I take it sometimes I don't. For the record, I would never buy myself a pack of cigarettes. And when I come back to NZ, I'm not intending to continue this trend.
Perhaps, for some of you-especially you who have never been to Europe before- it's a little difficult to understand. I'm not a bad person because I smoke occasionally. I don't stink of smoke, I wash my hair of the smell after every evening that I go out (it stinks regardless of whether You have smoked or not) and I'm not addicted, I'm simply fitting into my Austrian life, and culture.

Now, what IS a problem is this dammed Austrian chocolate...

well, it's saturday night, and I think I need a break (and sleep!), except I'm kinda procrastinating, so I've decided to put a few photos from yesterday up.

Here we go!

Waiting for the bus to Landek: Igor, Priska and Matze

The start of the *borat voice* 'High Five!'s from Tobi

Priska and her bike lock (broken)

from 9M: Liz, Rebe, Marco and Olivia

Oli and Igor

Liz and her stamp book from her Happy Meal at Maccas

Tobi and Igor with Tobi's tuba

Judith, Bambi and Karina

Tobi and Sarah

Me and Hannah (yay almost matching birthdays!)

Hannah, Tobi and I

Bambi and Karina

Tobiiiiiiii!

Me and Hannah. again.

Ok. So Bambi was complaining about his shoes, because they're really fancy and italian and they hurt, so I let him wear my shoes instead

He couldn't really walk in them though. So he changed back.

Tobi and I found poster for Borgfesl. yay dr. biene!

People! At busstop! (friends of Tobis)


Tobi and some random

People!

ps. I'm leaving innsbruck in six weeks!!! And I'll be home in exactly ten.
eep. Don't want to go home. Already home. Not leaving Tirol!!!

NB: Some of these photos are really bad. But I put them up anyway. You have been warned.

Birthday! Hurrah! I'm 18!
I won't go into details, because there's far too much to say, and I always somehow make things three times longer than they need to be anyway.
So! On wednesday (day before my birthday), we had school, and then in the evening we had our Borg orchester and choir concert. (I went to the wrong place.. i thought it was at Congress, but turned out to be in the konzertsaal). Bambi was the star of the show (Priska and I pretended to be squeeling fan girls, and shyly asked him for his autograph) (although he had enough squeeling fangirls there to last a lifetime and a half, i swear). First was the choir, who sang baroque, mostly church music (I think), with a baroque chamber group inbetween the pieces. Then came the orchestra.
The Mendelsohn went pretty well, although Bambi screwed up the third movement of the Bruch, but the audience still loved it. After the break was the wind band, who played something 20th century, by an american composer who's name I have momentarially vergessen. Forgotten.


Anyway, after the concert, Priska, Matze, Anna-Maria and I went back to Matze's (he lives in the old town, which is 3 mins away from the centre of town), left our instruments and concert clothes at his, and then went to Borgfest.
Borgfestl (it's not actually called that.. but it's what everyone from Borg says) is a bit like rockquest i guess. Except not. There were four bands from borg, and two bands from another school, and it was just a huge gig. thing. Tobi, who plays the tuba, has a band called Dr Biene (look them up on myspace- the band is made up of a tuba, sax, guitar and drums. they're amazing) who played as well. Anyway, before I get to that, we had a bit of trouble with transport, as Borgfestl was on the other side of town (near to where i live, but on the other side of the airport), and it was so late that the busses hardly went at all. So we ended up with three bikes (another Matthias was there as well), for five people, and me on the back of priska's bike. (Priska's bike, by the way, is.. broken. I ended up sitting on the metal thing above the back wheel, holding onto the seat, which isn't at All stable, for dear life. Oh and we didn't have a light either. Which.. is illegal. But.. hrm.) anyway!

Got to the place, and realised I didn't have a ticket. The Other Matthias didn't have one either, but he knew the security guy, who snuck us two tickets (hurrah!). After about ten minutes, Tobi's band started playing, and after the second song, the saxaphonist said 'it's just after mindnight, so for anyone who has a birthday, this is for you' and tobi played happy birthday (for me!) on his tuba. Not a huge amount happened that night, we just danced and danced and danced and danced, and then bambi turned up with a few of his squeeling fangirls (they're quite nice squeeling fangirls though) and we danced and danced and then I dislocated my knee, so I sat out for a bit, and then we danced more, and finally at about three we left, nikki, peter (really hippy guy from our school, who plays the accordian) and I hitched a lift with priska matze and anna on their bikes to the bridge, and then we all walked home. Got home at four, went to sleep at six (the birds had started singing) and for some reason, woke up at 9am.



The morning was filled with cooking. I'd thought it was a 'family lunch', but Hanni called Bambi (without asking me!) and invited him, and then i couldn't have just one friend for lunch, so I called nikki, woke her up and invited her too! (Stress!)Then Isl and her boyfriend Kevin(cousin) didn't have a car, except then they found a car, so everything actually turned out quite well!
Should I tell you about the food (I said I wouldn't go into detail didn't I...hrm)? First was griesknokelsuppe, which is soup with balls made up of some sort of flour thing (it's reaaaally good), then salad, which I had made, followed by chicken wrapped around bacon with a few vegies inside, which andrea had made. For desert there was pavlova. (somehow it turned out really well! Yuss!), which I'm happy to report that everyone Loved!


Oh and you'll all want to know what I got as well i suppose.
From mum: a big new, red/brown scarf, a pack of conte crayons, jaffas and whittakers chocolate (!!), along with a beautiful card, with paper that she'd made herself, and photos of me when i was little (by far the biggest surpsie!)
From Hanni: a tshirt for the football world cup (or europeans cup or whatever it is), green with 'Tiroooooooool' written across the front, and a pair of underwear (also football supportery stuff, special edition - red, white and red), Lindt chocolate, and bubble blowing stuff
From Jörg: a cd of the Vienna Philharmonic playing Mahler's symphonie no. 5, and a cd of the Vienna Philharmonic playing lots of really austrian, Strauß pieces.
From Andrea: a box of mozartkügeln, in a box shaped like a violin
From Matze: still to come..... (oh the suspense!)
From Isl and Kevin: a lemon and lime Radler (apparently the best there is) and..something else alcoholy. Can't remember what.



Then, after Hanni had tried and failed at getting Bambi to play something on his violin (as he was going back to südtirol that night), Nicola, Andrea and I were picked up by Nikki's dad, and Bambi and Matze went by bike, to the goldene dachl, where there was a flash mob... a huge pillow fight! It was great fun! Lost Matze and Andrea, but found Matze (from school) and Priska (that's four different Matthias's in the space of 24 hours people!). Near the end, the police came and took down Matze's details (apparently it was an unofficial pillow fight, and therefore illegal. Oh the illegal things I've done in the past few days), which we all found pretty ridiculous, and Bambi toddled off to the trainstation to catch his bus back to Italy, and Nikki, Matze Priska and I went to Treibhaus, before I picked my violin up from Matze's just as it started raining, and fell asleep in the bus on the way home.

So! That was what I've been doing for the past couple of days. Today I slept in, woke up, realised it was 8.10, and I should be at school, raced to school, and then found that there was none. Tonight we're playing the same concert in Landeck ( an hour or so away), and. yes!
I think that's all I had to say really.


tata!

Ohgosh. I just got a letter from AFS.

'Liebe Kelda

Dein Austauschaufenthalf neigt sich schön langsam dem Ende zu. In wenigen Wochen wirst du dich von Österreich verabschieden müssen un zurück in dein Heimatland fliegen. Das heißt, dein letztes offizielles (und verpflichtendes) AFS-Camp in Österreich steht an.'

'Dear Kelda

Your exchange year is coming slowly to an end. In not too many weeks, you will be flying back to your homeland. This means that your last, official AFS camp in austria is coming up.'
[Badly translated, but you get the idea]

Isn't that horrible?
Nine months already!? I don't want to leave Tirol! I'm a Tirolian now! It's horrible to think that I won't be living in Innsbruck anymore. And that the only german that I'll be able to speak is Hochdeutsch, not beautiful dialekt. And after so much blood and sweat and tears, I'll simply toddle off back to New Zealand and attempt to pick up my life over there again. I need more time!

Apologies for New Zealanders who would kinda like to see me again. I'm completely torn. I've been thinking about this for the past month or so, and I get butterflies in my stomach every time I think about it..

ack
anyhu. Got a concert tonight. Musikschulorchester with the Tiroler Symphonie Orchester. Got told off last night (eek) by some scary management guy, who said that I was supposed to be On the Stage at 6.30, when Walter definately said that we should be On the Stage between 6.30-6.45. I still had five minutes!

anyhu. Take care y'all. (I'm 18 in a week! Hurrah!)
toodles

I went to Italy on sunday!

Actually first, quickly .. on saturday I played at a wedding (it was Gorgeous. Hopefully I'll get some photos) The bride and groom were Alessandra and Alexander, which is quite funny. Their last names are really similar too, but I can't remember them. Anyway. The weather was perfect, and it was in this kinda. barn thing with biiiiig windows, overlooking ibk, and her dress so So pretty! Anyway. oh and we played austrian music, and the waiters were in lederhosen. XD


Anyhu. Then I went to Nikki's birthday party, which was cool. And on sunday (after four hours sleep) we went to südtirol! Ahhh! Südtirol is so pretty (it's northern italy. by the way)! To start with, we went to Brixen, where Bambi lives, and it was Such gorgeous hot weather!


We went first to a lake, and ate lunch there, and dangled our feet in the water. Then we went to town. We were in the marketplace, and looking at this big fountain thing,outside the cathedral, and the sun was blazing down, and people were eating pasta and icecream under umbrellas, and bambi just rode across the marktplatz (he looked so friggin italian, in his tight white tshirt and old jeans and chucks. I don't know How, he just Did) and said hello, and I introduced him to the Jürg and Hanni (we'd arranged it though.. it wasn't by chance), and he showed us around the church and the dome and all the really really old paintings, and then he thought he had to go, so he went, except then he came back again cos it turned out he didn't need to go yet. So we went to buy icecream, and walked along through the town (it's So cute.. flowerboxes in all the windows...) and we found the 'elefant hotel' which was really famous, but when i asked Why it was famous nobody knew. Bambi thought that Hannibal had once stayed there overnight. So we asked (or.. bambi asked. In italian) and it turned out that some famous king had once stayed there overnight, in the 16th century. So yes. Anyway. Then it started raining, so we went to bambi's so he could get a jacket, and I've always wanted to meet him dog, so hanni and jürg stayed outside, and I went in with Bambi, and met his dog and his whole family. And then Bambi had to go, so he went. And then his parents saw that hanni and jürg had been outside the whole time,a dn they invited us in, and we talked and ate and talked and talked and talked for ages. And yeah.
Eventually we left, and went to another village.. i forget the name, where Ilsa, a friend of Hanni's lives. She has two sons (16 and 19) and two grown up daughters, one of whom is at university in Rotterdam, Holland. However, Bruno (the 19yr old) was the only one at home during our stay there. Their house was sooo typically Italian! Their front yard was taken entirely up by grape vines, as were the back yards of all the neighbours, and there was a balcony, where you could look out over the hills (also covered in grapevines) and it was so hot, and everything was so green, and the sky was so blue..
We ate and talked and played guitar until 11ish, and after everyone else had gone to bed me and Bruno played guitar and xbox till 1am. The next morning I woke up to sunlight streaming into my white room from the balcony. We ate breakfast (strawberries, lots of bread and cheeses and jams, with coffee and fresh sweet grape juice)and then went on a walk, to the ruins of a really really old church. Afterwards, we walked more, past lots of waterfalls, where it was nice and shady under all the trees. Me and Bruno talked lots. In Italy they do Matura in each of the 12 subjects that they take (unlike in austria, with just four). He taught me a bit of italian, and I taught him a bit of maori.
Oh yeah! Südtirol has been passed back and forward from austria and italy so many times that half the people there speak italian and half speak german (tirolian german mind. For me it's no problem at all, but any german would have a bit of trouble with it). So, for example, Bambi's dad speaks only italian, (though he speaks a tiny bit of german. About as much as I could speak before I came to Austria), so Bambi's family all speak italian at home, whereas Ilsa can speak both perfect german and italian, but her children speak only german fluently, and learn italian at school, just like we learn french or spanish. The household items are all half german half italian too.. so the soap label might be all in italian, while the toothpaste might be in german. Oh and then there's the place names. All the villages have two names: the german name and the italien name, so, for example 'Brixen' is the german name for Bambi's town, and in Italian it's 'Bressanone'. Or.. 'Kaltern' (german) and 'Caldaro' (italian). It's pretty crazy.

Anyway. After that we came home, ate, talked, and went about seven we said goodbye to Bruno (he's doing Matura in a month or so, and was supposed to be studying History the whole day... didn't Really get around to it though!) and dropped by to Ilsa's mother, before we headed back to innsbruck.

I didn't want to leave. At all. It was like. The most Perfect weekend. But on coming out of the tunnel, and seeing all the lights of innsbruck, surrounded by mountains, I had this strange, comforting feeling of home.

Anyway. This week I'm busy with lots and lots of rehearsals. At school we have no classes, as it's 'probe woche' (Rehearsal week). We've got two concerts, on May 21st (in Innsbruck) and 23rd (in Landek.. a smaller town two hours or so out of Innsbruck), where we're playing Mendelsohn's first Symphonie, Brahm's Violin Concerto in G major (I think) and the choir and the brass are both doing other stuff as well.
Tomorrow night the Musikschulorchester have a concert with the Tiroler Symphonie Orchester (the same idea as the Wellington Youth Sinfonietta/ NZSO), playing Tchaikovsky's Seranade for Strings.

Unfortunately I've managed to catch a cold, so while we're surrounded by beautiful weather, (I bike into town in just a tshirt- and it's only the start of spring!) i'm coughing and sneezing. Which I'm not too happy about.

Anyway. Off to another rehearsal now!
tschußala!