As I write this, I am at the end of my first week of actual school. Scholastically, I had my 4-hour German class twice, once on Monday and once on Wednesday. This class is really great, our teacher gives us a pretty even mix of grammar, reading, speaking, and listening. One part of this class that has really helped my comprehension to improve is reading Austrian newspaper articles and then writing short summaries about them in German. I also had History of the Austrian Army, regular Austrian History, a 3.5 hour class on manners and social situations, a tour of the Military Academy, and Riding Class. For the most part in these classes, I tried to keep up for as long as I could before zoning out. History of the Austrian Army was really interesting because the teacher, a colonel, had many visual aids that helped me to understand. The other classes were a little tougher, I may have started drawing a little bit in the regular history class and the class on manners was torture due to not sleeping much the night before.
The Austrians also have Körperausbildung (PT, or KA in Austria) twice a week. KA was really great because we usually warm up by playing basketball, soccer, or doing a short body weight workout, and then we generally run a 5K or so. The running trails are quite nice around the MilAk and I ran 3 or 4 times last week, which is not normal for me.
My favorite class this week was riding. We started out by brushing and saddling the horse, basically just getting used to being around a giant animal. After familiarizing ourselves with the riding equipment we brought the horses into the giant riding hall. Chris and I rode a horse named Diana, and Seth and Matt rode a horse named Tenderness. Before riding, we warmed the horses up by holding on to a rope that was connected to the bridle and having them run around us. I volunteered to ride first, while Christian held the rope. We are learning Classical Riding, so we did not use stirrups or hold on to reins, we just were working on balance. Once on the horse, we performed several different exercises, such as moving our arms in a circle, rolling our ankles, or twisting our body. These exercises all focused on improving balance. After a while, Chris and I switched and he got a chance to ride. Both of us have pretty long legs, which made a couple of the exercises a little difficult. Overall, I think we did very well for our first time. After riding, we took the horses back, took of their saddles, brushed them, and stabled them. It is now a day later and I'm still a little sore from the saddle, I think I understand where the term "tenderloins" comes from.
Last night we went bowling with about twenty Austrians from our Jahrgang. It was a blast. We split up into four teams and then the teams played each other. I bowled probably the best game of my life, before the last game the lowest amount of pins I had knocked down in a frame was 8, with mostly spares and strikes. Towards the end, my accuracy was thrown off a little by the Oktoberfest-sized beers. It was a special night at the bowling alley, and interspersed with the normal pins were orange and yellow pins. If an orange or yellow pin was the front-most pin and you got a strike, you received either a free drink or a free game; if you failed to get the strike you still received a lollipop. The best I did with a yellow in the front was a spare, but Matt got a strike with one. After a while, the bowling alley decided that our outstanding group of guys needed sombreros, which they passed out to us.
The sombreros helped us to look classy when we headed to Rox, a rock n’ roll bar. It was pretty empty, but I enjoy talking with the Austrians and in a relaxed setting such as Rox, I don’t worry too much about making mistakes. I find that in these settings my conversational German skills increase dramatically. It was a really fun (and long) night. Tomorrow we are heading to Bratislava (formerly Preßburg) right across the border in Slovakia, which promises to be a great adventure.
The Austrians also have Körperausbildung (PT, or KA in Austria) twice a week. KA was really great because we usually warm up by playing basketball, soccer, or doing a short body weight workout, and then we generally run a 5K or so. The running trails are quite nice around the MilAk and I ran 3 or 4 times last week, which is not normal for me.
My favorite class this week was riding. We started out by brushing and saddling the horse, basically just getting used to being around a giant animal. After familiarizing ourselves with the riding equipment we brought the horses into the giant riding hall. Chris and I rode a horse named Diana, and Seth and Matt rode a horse named Tenderness. Before riding, we warmed the horses up by holding on to a rope that was connected to the bridle and having them run around us. I volunteered to ride first, while Christian held the rope. We are learning Classical Riding, so we did not use stirrups or hold on to reins, we just were working on balance. Once on the horse, we performed several different exercises, such as moving our arms in a circle, rolling our ankles, or twisting our body. These exercises all focused on improving balance. After a while, Chris and I switched and he got a chance to ride. Both of us have pretty long legs, which made a couple of the exercises a little difficult. Overall, I think we did very well for our first time. After riding, we took the horses back, took of their saddles, brushed them, and stabled them. It is now a day later and I'm still a little sore from the saddle, I think I understand where the term "tenderloins" comes from.
Last night we went bowling with about twenty Austrians from our Jahrgang. It was a blast. We split up into four teams and then the teams played each other. I bowled probably the best game of my life, before the last game the lowest amount of pins I had knocked down in a frame was 8, with mostly spares and strikes. Towards the end, my accuracy was thrown off a little by the Oktoberfest-sized beers. It was a special night at the bowling alley, and interspersed with the normal pins were orange and yellow pins. If an orange or yellow pin was the front-most pin and you got a strike, you received either a free drink or a free game; if you failed to get the strike you still received a lollipop. The best I did with a yellow in the front was a spare, but Matt got a strike with one. After a while, the bowling alley decided that our outstanding group of guys needed sombreros, which they passed out to us.
The sombreros helped us to look classy when we headed to Rox, a rock n’ roll bar. It was pretty empty, but I enjoy talking with the Austrians and in a relaxed setting such as Rox, I don’t worry too much about making mistakes. I find that in these settings my conversational German skills increase dramatically. It was a really fun (and long) night. Tomorrow we are heading to Bratislava (formerly Preßburg) right across the border in Slovakia, which promises to be a great adventure.
No comments:
Post a Comment