Christmas in Tirol

Christmas time is over now, so I finally have time to tell you guys about my time here in Tirol. When I arrived here,  I first had to get used to living in Tirol again. : D. Here I can use cars to get from point A to point B (while in Graz I have to walk), I'm living in a house with 2 other people so I can't decide on my own when I want to have dinner and what I want to have for dinner and I have a television in my room which can be distracting when I try to study :P.  Ok, maybe I'm a little exaggerating... actually I got used to it quite fast.
Still, I couldn't say that the first days were relaxing. Christmas was on its way and so the house had to be tidied up and decorated. It was even more work because we had  7 people over at our house for Christmas' eve. So we had to prepare dinner for 10 people..which meant a lot of washing, cutting, stiring etc. Luckily, on the 24th at about 7 pm the work came to an end and we could (more or less) relax and sit together with our family. We still had to serve food and drinks etc, which meant standing up and sitting down by turns (and not forgetting to eat). Once dinner was over, we finally were REALLY able to fully enjoy. My Grandad started telling stories about his childhood during WW2 and the way they celebrated Christmas back then. They were mostly funny stories, which made us laugh but sometimes we were shocked by the described poverty. Then, we went on to singing songs. Since one half of our guests (my aunt and cousins) are American, we sang a mixture of German and American Christmas songs. Last year some of us had the excuse that they didn't know the lyrics, so this year we decided to print them out for everyone. So nobody had an excuse anymore, which meant that eeeevery single one of us had to sing :P (although my grandparents had problems reading the English lyrics and pronouncing the English words- since they never learned English). We celebrated together until about 1 or 2 am. However, my grandparents left earlier because they wanted to go to church.
The following 2 days could be described as "from slap-up meal 1 to slap-up meal 2". haha.
On the first day we visited my grandparents. There we had lunch, dinner and something between lunch and dinner :D. In the end, we were all so full that we swore to never eat anything again.
On day 2 we somehow forgot our promise, and ate a lot...again :D. We went to visit my aunt and my other grandmother, watched a movie and played games together.

We basically celebrate like this every year, which made it somehow to a tradition. I truly enjoyed this time with my family..and those get-togethers with my family are the exact reason why I love Christmas so much.

American Christmas Dinner

Today , just like every year, we celebrated Christmas with the American part of our family. Thanksgiving and Christmas are the two holidays I'm always looking forward to. My aunt always invites my brother, my cousins, granddad (he's not really my granddad- but everyone calls him granddad) and me over to her house. This feeling when I enter the living room is nearly indescribable. Everything is beautifully decorated, candles
light the room, glasses and plates are thoroughly arranged on a long table and the smell...oh god I love the way it smells. Once everyone has arrived, we all sit down and usually the older cousins serve the meal. The rest of us enjoy the American Christmas songs played by a suuuuper old radio (looks like it's from the 60s) and chat a bit. Usually we start dinner with soup (today it was pumpkin cream soup), then continue to the main course (usually Turkey with stuffing and various side dishes). By then, most of us are aready full, so we stop eating for an hour or so and talk to granddad in the meanwhile. Granddad is a funny old man (he's like 96 years old). He's my aunt's dad (so he's American) and always switches between English and German. His German sounds really funny because he pronounces our German "r" in this funny American way -> my little cousin likes to make fun of that and imitates his accent : D. Since he's not the youngest anymore, his memory deserts him from time to time. So being asked for your name 3 to 4 times everytime he sees you is nothing unusual. Today he asked me what I do, and I told him that I'm studying Russian and English. He was like: "oh..you're studying English?" and I was like.. "yes" ...then he said: "oh.. *thinking pause*  wait, we're speaking in English right now, right?" So we all started laughing and my aunt said: "yeah, dad, you are speaking English, but that's ok" And so he smiled as well. He always gets really confused with so many people in the room...so sometimes he even asks if my cousin is my boyfriend, or if my cousins girlfriend is his sister *haha*
Granddad makes those already great evenings even better. After chatting for some time, we usually eat ice cream or cookies or some kind of pie (today it was apple pie : D ).
After this awesome dinner we help cleaning up and then everyone is so tired from eating so much that we all go home and straight to bed.

GOTTA LOVE MY AUNT! (and her cooking skills : P)

Assignment 4: US culture

What is "US culture"? Is there even something like ONE US culture? Isn't there just too much of a variety in such a huge country like the US?

In my US culture class, we had to read about US culture. The author of a very interesting article said that the US is something like a cultural melting pot. Since most of the citizens are actually not Native Americans but Irish, Spanish, French, German, Chinese people etc. it's hard to define the national character of the US. There are some features though, that fit to the majority of US citizens. However, one should keep in mind that this might not fit for all Americans and that sometimes it's a bit of a stereotypical view on US culture.


Patriotism
Patriotism- one of the key words that comes to mind when you think of the US. Americans are proud to be Americans and they love to show that they are Americans. This is why the American flag has such a high value in the States. You can see flags on almost every government or business building, and some citizens even have the American flag in front of their houses. On most national occassions (like Super Bowl) they sing the national anthem and raise their flag. In school, children have to "pledge allegience to the flag of the United States of America...". This is something we would never do in Austria....especially not after our "dark history".

Competition
Competition is another very American feature. Nothing is about being good- it's all about being the best. Even their economy and politics reflect the American desire for competition. This is why especially the Republicans don't want the government to interfere in economy and want to allow free competition.

The American Dream
People who came to the US in the past, mainly came with one single goal: achieve everything you want to achieve. America...the country without limits, where you can be whoever you want to be, where a poor farmer can become president. Americans believe that if you work hard enough you can achieve anything. This is why Republicans don't want the government to help the poor. They think everyone deserves what he gets- and if someone is poor it's probably his own fault.

Prestige
Salary and profession define who you are. This is why people talk about blue and white collar workers (blue => manual labor; white => managers etc.). Women are said to be especially class-conscious. The way you dress (and especially the money you spent buying your clothes) should show others what class you are in. Usually women are in the same class as their husbands unless they earn more than their husbands. It's always about owning the newest, biggest and most expensive. Also, in contrary to other cultures, Americans love their rich and famous. They don't judge them or want them to give their money to the poor. They hold them in high esteem... the rich and famous are like role models.

XXXL
In the USA, everything is big. No not big - it's huge!! I saw this with my own eyes when I was in Houston. Shopping malls are so big that it's actually pretty easy to lose orientation (happened to us :D ). The cars in the States are nothing compared to European cars. Big trucks are especially popular. The bigger the better. This is why not so long ago one could buy "supersize" menues in McDonalds (for those who don't know the movie "Super Size Me" -> a must-see!).

As you have probably realized, most of those American features are negative ones. I want to emphasize that a lot of them also have positive aspects. The American Dream for example made it possible for people to work their way up to a very good social position. In other countries you can never leave the class you wore born into.
Some people say that competition is the key to success. Maybe the American desire for competition is the reason why they are still the leading country in branches like technology or science.
Just like every country, America has it's positive and negative sides. But I think the cultural mix in the US makes life their sometimes very interesting, because you can meet people from all over the world.

Assignment 3: Register

Oxford Dict.: Register- a variety of a language or a level of usage, as determined by degree of formality and choice of vocabulary, pronunciation, and syntax, according to the communicative purpose, social context, and standing of the user.

In school, I didn't even know what register meant. Teachers didn't really seem to care about register, which is why we frequently used words like "hence" (extremely formal)  in the same texts as words like "and so" (less formal). In college, however, teachers focus on the correct use of formal and less formal words. I think if you want to use a language as a tool and therefore use it in a professional way, you should know the differences in formality. You should know that an email to a friend doesn't look like an email to your boss and you should know by which means you can achieve this kind of formality. Otherwise you might end up insulting people without you even knowing it.
In order to gain knowledge concerning formality, I always try to keep in mind whether a word is very formal, less formal or informal. In the glossaries we get from our teachers, words that are extremely formal or infomal are marked, which makes it way easier to remember which category a word belongs to. However, words don't always belong clearly to one category. Sometimes a word can be somewhere between two categories, and sometimes this even varies from country to country. "Fancy" for example, is considered as neutral in British English, whereas  in American English it's pretty formal.
Eventhough it is sometimes difficult to remember the different degrees of formality, I think it's something every student who wants to work with languages should get a feeling for.

Assignment 2:Travelling shapes character

Task: Write another travel-related post.

This quote by St. Agustine reflects my feelings and thoughts about travelling. I've always felt this strong wish to explore the world. Go to places you've never been before. See things you've never seen before. And meet people you've never met before. I think that travelling truly broadens your mind because you automatically get in touch with various cultures.
I see myself not only as a citizen of Austria, but also as a citizen of the world. Therefore, I need to get to know my neighbors and their customs and traditions. As far as I can remember, I've already been to Egypt, Italy, Germany, England, USA, the Netherlands and to the Balearic Islands. As a child, I travelled within Austria with my family (mostly to Styria). But as I grew older, I felt this desire to travel to places further away.
I think there is a difference between travelling as a typical tourist and travelling as someone who wants to dive deeper into different cultures. If you really want to get to know a culture, it's best if you know someone from this culture. As a total stranger you most likely just get to see what tourist agencies want you to see. As someone who has connections to a country, on the other hand, you get a deeper insight. When I was in Houston, TX, I got the deepest insight you can probably get when you don't actually live in the country. My friends showed me the different neighborhoods (from very poor to very rich, from white to black ones etc.). They showed me the places tourists most likely won't see (because they reflect the truth every government wants to hide). But you don't only see the bad places. You also get to see the truly beautiful places...those you also can't see as a tourist. You get to see families living together, people helping each other...you get to see love and joy.
If you do it right, you can learn a lot by meeting different people from different countries.You hear different stories, different perspectives and opinions.When I was in Houston, I got to meet people from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Spain etc. It was so interesting to hear their stories (sad ones as well as happy ones). And I think travelling really shapes your personality as well. It's not only about visiting sights or spending money...I think it's also about inner growth.
After visiting Russia and seeing the poverty there, I felt like the richest person on earth when I came back. The tiniest things made me happy (like warm water, or even just water you can actually drink without getting sick). You start to appreciate the things you have and you start to realize how lucky you actually are.
This is why I think especially in this century of prosperity (atleast in most parts of Europe) travelling is very important. It shapes not only your opinions and views on various matters but it also shapes your character. It teaches people modesty, which can sometimes be hard to find these days.