When the AirBerlin flight I took landed in Vienna, I strode straight through a massive airport, headed in one direct way immediately finding my bags and heading through the door to the welcoming area. There I met my host brother Philipp Dumfarth, an older sibling of my host family in Gutau and a lawyer in Vienna. Finally meeting a member of my Austrian family brought the relief and excitement of the travel and the reality of my exchange on. We swiftly went headed off so that I could catch my train to Linz, picking up a convenient Austrian lunch, a sandwhich on Semmel bread: made with the bread twisted in a manner and covered in poppy seed. On the way, we drove directly into the absolute heart of the capital city, so I could spot the European metropolis' grandeur on my first sunny summer day there. The most known street in Vienna, the Ringstraße, illustrated that wonder as we passed a handful of the most important buildings and sites to be seen: I glanced at the Hofburg Palace, where the President of Austria resides and the famous Spanish Riding school is located as well, the Vienna State Opera, which plays host to the famous Vienna Opera Ball (the biggest social event in the Austrian year), and also the Parliament building with it's statue of Athena guarding the front terrace. From there we arrived at the Westbahnhof train station so that I could get on my way to Linz, the capital city of Upper Austria, my home Bundesland. After meeting my most gracious host brother in Vienna, I had a chance to sit back, relax, observe the pleasant Austrian countryside from the train, and fight the sleep that then tried to come. Once at the Linz platform I met the Mayrs, the Rotarian couple who took me in for my first days here before camp, as my host family had been on vacation in Croatia at the time of my arrival. We first explored Linz shortly to have a lunch, which was a type of pizza with a different sort of ingredients: eggs, artichoke, and ham amongst others. The road to Gutau wound through rolling hills, passing by neat rural farms, hamlet-like Dorf(s), and wooded forests Wald(s) to our destination. Nestled in the hills with the forests, and farms around it, lies the tidy, pretty little place that is my new home: Gutau. A picture of the land called Mühlviertel, the northern quarter of the state. Complete with little Kapelle temples on paths and small churches sitting high on the hill, the image is topped by a yellow-painted castle, a Schloss cresting an adjacent hill, overlooking the town. Now privately owned, the place has a level of mystery, at least for me, helping to form the village into the image of a fairytale hamlet. Often foggy here, by the time we arrived and I unpacked they took me to a Gasthaus, a sort of Austrian culture pub or restaurant in a place called Erdmannsdorf, the tiniest of villages on another hill wrapped in the evening clouds. Since then I have come to know the place well for it's quality evening snacking and socialization. The next day, my first full day on exchange in Austria, was spent at a garden party welcoming back a woman from Gutau who had worked for two years in Papua New Guinea. A great chance to meet those who live here, and to try the quality foods, Gasthaus catered and traditional down to the Wurst, Schnitzel, and many varieties of cakes. Amongst the quests was a mother and daughter from Australia, the mom living in Austria as an opera singer in Linz, many members of the local Kapelle village band, including their director, the sister of the woman for whom the party was held. The moment I showed up they offered to have me play with them, giving me a way to continue my hobby for the year readily. Now having attended a practice with them, I know just how amazing this will be of an experience and how I much cultural transfer that can easily take place there. The following morning I met with my Rotary counselor Franz and his wife Ingrid at the home of the Mayrs for a brunch together. After this we headed off to the Salzkammergut, the lake region in the south of Upper Austria, to Gmunden to visit my first true castle, Schloss Ort on the Traunsee lake near the city of Gmunden, before traveling along the long lake to Altmünster where we had our language camp. That early afternoon I had a delicious ice cream outside of the castle, which is located on an island in the water, looking out at the clear waters, and then began the long anticipated summer camp of sorts! For two absolutely incredible, difficult, fantastic, semi-stressful and wunderschön weeks, I had the opportunity to get to know the other sixty plus exchangers here in Austria arriving in August like myself, with whom I will share a year of experiences. They immediately split us into classes by level of percieved German knowledge, when the teachers came around to speak to us shortly and try our skills. I was placed in the second-to-top class for those who had studied it in school for a year or two, or otherwise had managed to study independently as I had. Our teacher, Martina was a Rotarian from Graz and a teacher at a international school for Spanish and Italian. She had gone on a short-term summer exchange to the Pennsylvania/Maryland area and then a year in Argentina with Rotary where she learned Spanish. At camp she was the Spanish translator for those students who needed it, and so in class I heard bits of it that sometimes fortified what I was taught in German. We were hosted at an international school, located adjacent to a castle that hosted an international children's choir. On a daily basis we all had the opportunity to go down into the village of Altmünster to explore and swim at the clear waters of the lake off docks facing the great Traunstein, a massive cliff face and rock of a mountain. Later during the camp we would venture by foot down the road as it followed the shoreline to Gmunden, where we could visit the castle and the mall as well. The classes themselves were a form of crash course, to lay out loads of important German, giving us a grammar and overall language base to go off of post camp. Over the weekend we hiked on Saturday with the rebound exchange students, those who spent their years abroad and came back to Austria in the summer, along with the Rotex, the students who help run exchange after theirs is over, up the mountains from Altmünster to overlook it all and take massive group photos with the Traunstein for a backdrop. That Sunday we bussed out to Hallstatt, that oh-so-famous village on the lake with the mountains walling it in to the water, also known as the backdrop image to my blog :D Known for it's ancient salt mine, tied to the old Hallstatt mining culture, we took a cable car up for the tour of it all. After we had lunch and walked out to a high observation point from which we took pictures and could view the fjord-like lake, with it's hightowering mountains. Then came the hiking descent, and into the village we went. Clearly a tourist destination, you could find so many trinkets, as would be expected. The churches, narrow alleys and old homes, flowers hanging from the balconies all made it that cute pictured image, but the peak moment was when we swam. I headed out into the icey waters with two other American friends from Pennsylvania and Texas, practically to the middle of the lake where one could turn around, float, and observe Hallstatt from the water in all it's photogenic glory. At the end of the second week the students conducted a talent show, during which the Canadians and Americans separately sang their national anthems, with several other acts following including an interesting dance party with most of the "guys" and a skit I did with several friends making fun out of the weeks events and exchange life. Camp came to a close, we said our farewells and I finally met my host family! My host mother Gabi and host father Christian Dumfarth picked me up, and we headed home. So began life in Gutau. My first weeks I met many of my host brother Tobias's friends, along with other family members living in Gutau. I watched their soccer games, wandered around Gutau exploring, and made trips into Freistadt. I am not the only Rotary student hosted here in Freistadt, my dear friend Genevieve van den Bosch, an oldie student here January-January from Tasmania lives in neary Neumarkt and attends the same class in Gymnasium as I do. She and I met so that I could see the old town, and later we went with Max, our Rotarian friend to a historical show in the main square. There they had music and multiple regiments of military guards from Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Germany. Demonstrations of firing and other "acts" were done. The both of us had also gone to a Rotary that first Thursday to meet our host club, a truly wonderful, helpful and graciously accessible club of Rotarians from the area. Later we headed to Linz and then Salzburg, seeing the great dome cathedrals in both cities, the old town centers, and meeting exchange friends. In Salzburg we also visited the famous Mirabell Gardens and walked past Mozart's birthplace. They was a "lock bridge" over the Salzach river, holding all the loves of so many people on it's rails. I had time to travel around and to meet many new people, but finally, after a very long summer, I started school on the ninth of September, after one month in Austria. Now having attended nearly three weeks of school, at a place called Gymnasium Freistadt I am a fairly settled in student. I am in the Sieben B or Seven B class with my sixteen year old host brother Tobi, as well as Gen and a third exchange student here with AFS from Venezuela named Oriannyd Duran. Our class is the equivalent "junior" class level, with eight years of school at this particular gymnasium, the common setup. However they are relatively offset a year younger than my class back home, having them graduate earlier by a year than we do. This however is particular to this school, as Austria has many different types of schools for music, art, technology, tourism and others. The gymnasium is the equivalent high school general knowledge deal. My class itself, the more language and art focused than the Sieben A class, has seventeen students now counting the three exchangers. Not counting myself we have three boys, one being my host brother and then two others along with eleven girls making the healthy majority. I am happy to say that I scored a quite satisfactory, sufficient, or one can say awesome class! Guided by these new friends my life here runs smoothly. On the weekends I have been busy, we have had a large family get together where I met the extended relatives of my host family. The have somewhat two halves, those in or from Gutau that they style "Berg" (mountain) and those from farther south in Upper Austria called the "Tal" (valley). Similar to how my mother's family meets once a year on the Fourth of July in either Centerville or Keokuk, they meet however they enjoy taking it up a notch with organized competition. I particated in this two-part game, where I we played the game "Fox & Hen", which I quite frankly am not sure if I should know from home or not. I unfortunately lost to my more experienced Austrian counterpart, but when it came to the second challenge, a sort of trashbag hop/race, I claimed a victory for the Bergers. Here we finally gathered the entire Dumfarth family, my host parents, my brother Tobias, as well as my older brother Philipp from Vienna and also our sister Julia who was on a trip during a break from her studies at Yale where she is a heart surgeon. At this sort of family event, we were accompanied by many of the friends I met in Gutau, as amongst several of Tobi's friends are his cousins. That Sunday I helped Rotary provide refreshments at a local "Duathlon" a running and biking race in the nearby dorf of Waldburg. There I met my second host mother, Helga Honeder who was participating herself as a member of the "Honeder Dream Team". That evening she drove me home, and we first stopped by what will become my second Austrian home in Weitersfelden, a village to the east of Gutau and in the heart of the Mühlviertel. We picked up her sons Johannes, 15, and Franz, 20, so I met them as well. This weekend I look forward to a planned meeting with them again to meet my host father Reinhard as well. Beyond all this news, it is arranged that I will dance in a ball this October, specifically the Matura Ball. This would be the Prom equivalent for the top class of students in Austria, a land of ballroom dancing. I have begun practices with those dancing, at another school in Freistadt. I will gladly mention more of this after I have had the experience. Another practice I have started is the one with the Kapelle, which is fascinating in how different a band practice is over here from what I know back home in class, and perhaps even more so how things just our the same. Some of the dynamics we experience, the waiting on the director to be satisfied with a certain part, the awkward resting and then not playing after being ready for a long period, and others remain similar. It is an experience to be had, but one that truly can only be felt through the eyes of a musician. I am honored and grateful to join them. This past weekend all the Rotary students, those here January-January as well as the August-July students met together on a hiking weekend we had in the Alps at a place called Tauplitz. With a total between 80 or 90, it's quite a load of people. We ventured through the relatively foggy mountains and visited a "disco" of sorts in our time together. Coming at the end of the next month, is our first big trip that Austrian Rotary is providing, a four day city tour of Prague, Dresden and Berlin. Definitely an experience I have awaited, it shall be fantastic. In the mean time I will practice with the Kapelle, dance the Matura, befriend some more Austrians, and continue to tackle this German language. At this point, I really am in the process of leaving behind English, speaking only my infantile German and managing to still be decently talkative on a regular basis. Soon we will have a lesson with the school in Freistadt to learn German with the other exchange students, and I pray this helps me immensely along my way. Both my laptop and I are tired, so it is time for me to say: "Tschüss, fertig, tschau!"
Here is a shot of my host family/Gastfamilie, the Dumfarths! From left to right: Tobias, Philipp, Christian, Gabriele, Julia, and myself. My life with them is amazing, they have welcomed me as one of their own and for that I am so dearly grateful, as they are here helping to make this year for me! Vielen dank für alles!!
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