An adventurous day in the South of Styria

 Wildon

Yesterday my friends and I felt the need to leave Graz for half a day and go see something completely new. Following advice of my flat mates, we decided to take a train to Wildon, a small town near Leibnitz. The town surrounds the "Schloßberg"...yes, same name as the hill here in Graz. On the top of the "Wildoner Schloßberg" are super old ruins. They are the remains of castles built in the 13th century. Although we thought it was such a cool thing to see, the Wildoner decided not to use it to attract tourists. So the path up there is not really a path. You can only guess where to go and after a while it seemed like we chose wrongly. So we were standing there, trees everywhere, not knowing where to go. So we chose the fastest way up there, which basically means we climbed to the top. There were piles of leaves on the ground, which prevented us from having a good grip and caused our feed to lose easily. We had to make use of the utensils the forest offered- trees, roots, and stones (which were covered with gossamers). After having fought our way up to the ruins and getting a first glimpse of what there was to see, we were mesmerized. Huge walls of stones covered with leaves and parts of trees marked the landscape. We used the opportunity to take some really cool pictures.




On our way up and down we got to see a chamois. We'd never seen such an animal from this close, so we  were all so impressed that we couldn't stop taking pictures. The interesting thing was that the animal didn't even seem to bother. It just stood there, looking at us. On the way down we also saw some deer. But they were far to scared to come closer. Instead they jumped up the hill...the exact way we used beforehand. It seemed slightly unfair that we had to work so hard to get up there, while it took them just a few jumps to reach the top. Well, well..that's nature.
Having arrived back in town, we decided that we deserved a delicious meal. So we went to a restaurant and enjoyed pizza. Since we had walked some hours (I think it was 3-4) wthout any breakes, we were all rather exhausted afterwards.
But it was definetely worth it. My 5 friends and I had an aaawesome trip, and even got to see something new.







(Unfortunately : P) we saw this warning sign far too late. In our opinion, however, there was nothing dangerous about visiting the ruins. They looked pretty solid.

Sun and Weirdos on Schlossberg

We've been having beautiful weather the last couple of days which is why I couldn't just stay inside and study but had the desire to go out and get a nice tan. So my friends and I set out for Schlossberg. "Schloss" means castle in English while "berg" stands for mountain. As a Tyrolean, I wouldn't really define it as a mountain though...I'd say it's more like a hill. The rest of Austria might think differently about it : P.
From the top of the Schlossberg you can see the beautiful scenery of Graz. Nice old buildings with red roofs, old churches and lots of toursists mark the landscape. On the especially beautiful days when the sun shines down on the city, everyone feels this special atmosphere. Not only cute (or not so cute) little animals like salamanders, bees or butterflies enjoy the sun. People, old as well as young, leave their busy everyday lifes behind to go out, relax, and take in the first few sunrays of spring. On these days you feel the people's anticipation of the nearing summer particularly strong.
On one side of the hill are stairs that you can use to get to the top, while on the other side there's a meandering path. As walking up the stairs is faster, we decided to walk up there. Since we didn't expect it to be so hot and therfore wore warm clothes, we were pretty soon perspiring and out of breath. However, once we reached the top of the mountain, we realized that it was definitely worth the exhaustion. We lied down in a nice area of green grass and enjoyed the sun.
Aaaand: we even decided to only speak English!    (man, we are soooo nerdy : D) - but it gave us the opportunity to go over some vocab we talked about in class, like "colander".

Now the part you were all waiting for: the WEIRDO

As we were lying there, some guy in his 50s came up and stood behind one of my friends. I opened my eyes, didn't recognize him, looked over to my friend Helene and realized that she didn't know this guy either. For about 5 minutes he just stood there and said nothing. We were like: "uhm....ok?!" and then all of a sudden he just sat down between the two of us. He started asking Helene questions like where she was from, what she was studying etc., while he started to open the suitcase he carried with him. We thought he might have drugs in it, but in fact it was some kind of a weird instrument. He took it out, played on it for like two seconds, put it back in an stared at us. We had nooo clue what this guy wanted and to be honest we had no intention whatsover to talk to him. So I stood up saying: "Girls, didn't we want to get some ice cream?". Instead of the girls, the guy answered: "well, you could bring me one too". I shook my head, told him that we were about to go back home, took my stuff and hoped for the girls to do the same. Luckily, the girls also just wanted to get rid of him and got their stuff together as well. Finally, the guy left. Two of the girls stayed and enjoyed the rest of the day up there, while Helene and I took what we had said very seriously and got some delicious ice cream:P.

Review on my blogging and what I can improve

Today in class we had to look at various blog posts of people who did a really good job last semester. The assignment for this week is to find out what I could've done better and what I will do better in the future. What I really like about some of the blogs is that the way the posts are written attracts your attention from the get-go. The bloggers write vivaciously and give you the feeling that you are at the places they describe. By painting pictures with words, they give you insight into their own world (no matter how crazy it might be : D.. jk). It gives you the opportunity to get to know the writer, his hobbies, his values.Very often you sit in front of the computer and think: "omg..I wanna go there" or "omg...I wanna do this". So the purpose of their blogs is not only to get a good grade. It's about passion. It's about their love of words, of languages, of cultures, of every means of communication. It's about opening the doors to your own world and experiences to others. So that other can benefit from what they read. I think this is a big part of the reason why those blogs were so successful.
Of course good grammar and a nice layout count as well. But this all comes automatically if you're just passionate enough.

 

Last semester I tried to write only about the things I'm truly interested in...the things I get excited about. But when I browsed through the blogs of my classmates and compared it to my own, I sometimes missed more nice pictures and better organization in my own blog. Also, I was not so fond of my layout and background image so I immediately changed that. I hope that my blog will live up to all of your expecations and give you the opportunity to learn something new. Because that's what blogging is all about, right?

New term...new challenges =)

Hey everyone!

After a whole month semester break in Tyrol, I'm back in Graz and ready to take on even more challenges. A couple of days ago I had my first Russian class and I can already tell you this: it's gonna be a hell of a lot work this semester.
The teachers already started giving us vocabulary lists that we should study as soon as possible, since we're gonna have a "surprise test"every other week or so. *Yaaay*...
*sarcasm off*
Ok, I'm gonna stop whining now because seriously: that's the way to truly learn a language. I appreciate that all of our teachers try to push us to our limits because without their threats about tests and failing classes I wouldn't study so hard. Besides, they really try to tell us about tests etc in the nicest way possible.
I hope you will enjoy reading my blog throughout the semester...I will again try to make it worth your while.

Oh and one more thing: Since I really believe that writing blog posts can help you with any of your languages, I set up a Russian blog. So if you speak Russian feel free to visit http://evasrussischblog.blogspot.co.at/

Smart Plan Paragraphs- Correction

 My Master Plan

In order to do well on the vocabulary and grammar section of the first progress check and avoid the mistakes I usually tend to make, I have come up with what I think is a smart plan. Since we need to be able to define words, I will have a close look at the definitions in the glossary, which was uploaded to the Internet by our teachers. The glossary also offers valuable information like frequently made mistakes, synonyms or idioms. This information can be especially important for the progress check, which means I’ll try to keep it in mind. Furthermore, I’ll hopefully avoid grammatical mistakes concerning tenses by doing the exercises in my grammar books. My grammar books do not only offer good exercises but also very good explanations from which I gathered the most important points and wrote them down on an extra sheet to avoid confusion. In the end, I hope I’ll be an expert on tenses and vocabulary, so that I’ll not only pass the exam but also receive a good mark.

Keep in mind:

• Don't use "especially" at the beginning of a sentence
• instead of repeating words, use synonyms  => especially = in particular or particularly

The Story of Ireland: Homework Correction

The Story of Irelad

The most fascinating aspect of Irish culture that I learned about by watching the Story of Ireland was the fact that Irish history is marked by a constant fight against oppression. In the 17. century, King James, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, sent Protestant English settlers to Ulster in order to colonize the mostly Christian Ireland.  The colonization as well as the increasing immigration of Scots caused an uprising among the Irish people. The Irish had to work for the English settlers on plantations and the living conditions were very bad, which amplified the Irish desire to regain control over their own country and re-establish Christianity as the main religion.  Religious conflicts and power struggles affected not only Ireland but all of Europe. That is why countries like Spain or France were inclined to ally with the Gaelic revolutionists against the Protestant English crown. Nonetheless, for a very long time English forces were able to repress the Irish uprising by means of bloodshed and terror. Even decades after this violent period of Gaelic history it still has a tremendous effect on the Irish people and their relations to England; therefore, doing research on this particular aspect of Irish history was highly interesting.

Word count: 185

Keep in mind:

• don't use imprecise expressions (more than dramatic => very bad) 
• King James, King of England.... (King=> refers to King James, who was a concrete person with a concrete title "King") BUT: kings were fighting all over Europe => not referring to ONE specific king
• relations or relationship  (not relation)
• cause an uprising (needs article!)

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.