Deutschlandsberg

Orientation time, baby!

Where shall we go? How about a tiny little town called Deutschlandsberg in the Lower Alps, in an area called Styria. Cute town, surrounded by small mountains/big hills covered in snow, and up the hill a little bit what would you expect to find but a castle? Obviously. The orientation was a bit of a blur, spurred on by my jet lag and the fact that I was sick the first couple of days. That obviously made it much easier to meet people and make lots of friends and figure out the roommate situation right off the back...wait. No. All I did the first 2 days was sleep or think about sleeping. No worries, though. It all got better.

THURSDAY - Met at Westbahnhof (west train station) - just look for the Americans in bright colors with lots of luggage and looking lost/overwhelmed. Note: know where you are going when you have lots of heavy luggage, as walking around with suitcases in tow leaves your arms achy. Fell asleep while the cute old man tried telling us all about the history of IES Vienna. Whoops!

FRIDAY - More speeches on IES, Vienna, Austrian culture, IES Vienna, etc. Had a "German Survival Session" for those of us who hadn't ever had any German. So, no worries - we learned how to count, say hello, and that we speak German (which was obviously a lie). Score. After lunch, went on a tour of the Castle - Castlemuseum Deutschlandsberg. Very cool, but WAY longer than necessary, especially since obviously there is NO CENTRAL HEAT and thus we stood there for the 3 hour tour shivering violently. Running downhill from the Castle back to the hostel when you can't feel your toes = a little bit dangerous and frightening. Just fyi for next time you plan on doing something silly like that. I finally started feeling a little better by that evening, which was good because we had a 'traditional Austrian evening' which ended up meaning some German/Austrian dancing. SO much fun. And hilarious.

SATURDAY - Wake up and TA DA! Feel like a normal person. Got our housing done - 12 girls in one apartment, only know 4 others. Hmmm should be interesting. After lunch, Whit and I walked into town. Night's activities - waltzing, bowling, then a dance party...aka: pretty much the best night one could ever plan for me to be a part of. WOO! Soooo much fun. I got complimented on my waltzing by Grete, one of the older women who work with IES. I was pretty stoked.

SUNDAY - Wrap up with what I came to refer to as the Helmut and Tobi show. They're our 2 resident Austrians on staff. We love them. Then it was back to Vienna to the craziness of Westbahnhof and the taxi frenzy to our apartment, where we meet our German RA, Nina, who is so completely awesome.

A few pictures of Deutschlandsberg:

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