But, now, while it’s fresh on my mind, I’ll give you a little update on life here around Innsbruck… So I’ve been here for a little over a week and for whatever reason, maybe it’s the giant mountains on either side that are walling us in, or the fact that all of the streets curve while they seem to be straight, but I get so turned around in this city. Its really frustrating because after about one walk through Salzburg and its immediate surroundings, I pretty much had everything’s location down.
Rössl in der Au is the name of our dorm, my address, btw is
Charlie Vogelheim
Höttinger Au 34, Zimmer 321
6020 Innsbruck
Austria
The dorm is situated a nice 10-15 minute walk from the Goldenes Dachal, the city’s most famous landmark and the center of town. I was really quite disappointed with this sight, imagine a wooden balcony on the second story of an old building with a golden roof and frescos of poorly drawn warriors overlooking something that’s supposed to be a square but is really a wide, cobblestone street. Don’t get me wrong, I love the city and everything is so close and we walk everywhere and it’s the perfect college town, but it seems that this town could have maybe something more going for it for tourisms sake. Well I guess that’s the cue for the world-class ski resorts and high mountains towering 5000 feet above the city to step in. But it is fun walking through the throngs of Japanese tourists and doing my best to secretly make it into as many pictures as possible as I walk by the Goldenes Dachal on my way to class.
Me and the less-than-imposing Goldenes Dachal
But back to Rössl. I believe it houses about 400 students, and while most of them are Austrian or German, I think there are some other international students here. I think there’s a pretty sizable Sweedish group since I did walk into our kitchen one night and a bunch of people had decorated the room with balloons and small paper sweedish IKEA flags and they were making tacos while listening to ABBA. They seemed nice, but I didn’t want to get into another awkward conversation where start speaking German to me in some crazy fast dialect and I have no idea what they’re telling me but the only words I can understand are ‘dishtowel’ and ‘pickle’ and I have to use my imagination as to how they both could be related. Then they would ask me a question and I would nod and then I get a ‘are you retarded?’ kind of stare. Sometimes its best not to ask. Not to say I’ve been avoiding the other people on my floor, I will converse with the Austrians if they start the convo or if there’s nobody else in the room and there’s awkward kitchen silence, the worst kind.
Home Sweet Home
Its probably one of the uglier buildings in the city, but it’s a pretty nice place to live. The ND kids are kind of scattered around, but it hasn’t been a problem, the dorm’s not too big. We also have to get used to weird things like always closing/locking doors, no talking in hallways, actually using our dorm kitchen, and doing homework (I still feel like I’m on vacation…). Also, I strangely miss having a public bathroom, I didn’t have to worry about it getting dirty or getting half the shower-water on the floor because since maniacal shower-curtain comes up with a new plan every day as to how it can make my mornings more interesting. The one negative thing about the dorm is that our internet is really faulty. I wish they would just give us Ethernet cables, we have to use wireless. It seems to be survival of the fittest, my poor machine will have a string of connection, in the middle of emailing a professor, and in comes my roommate with his dandy new iBook and signs on and steals all of my internet, causing my computer to freak out and start doing all kinds of crazy things. Once it froze, I don’t think a computer’s done that for at least 5 years. This is also why there’s a lack of pictures, I’m afraid if I try uploading something, the computer will give up and implode.
Our room
Last week, the Büro was finally opened to us, its essentially the ND Innsbruck home base. It has a few computers with internet (allowing me to upload photos) a printer and other goodies. On the day it was opened, there lying at our feet were all of the things that previous students had left behind. Imagine a really small thrift store that was free and EVERYTHING in it was something you really needed or didn’t know you needed until that moment. Everyone went crazy and it was a kind of a Oklahoma Land Rush as everything/anything was for the taking. People were fighting over pillows and pots and the Gürtlers were having fun watching us and would start even egging us on. Over the huge mass confusion of us trying to stuff everything in sight into our backpacks and Spar grocery bags, you would hear them yell, “Wer braucht Regnenshirmen??” (who needs umbrellas?) and then about 7 people would madly dash to that corner of the room, almost tackling Anita in the process to fight over the 4 umbrellas. While everyone was distracted with the basics you could buy cheaply at the nearby stores, I got away with some gems, including a small but surprisingly working Guitar, Ski boots, and one of the few table lamps, it definitely was a success.
Gürtler and Betsy excited about her find
So in the midst of trying to get settled and getting used to the city, our classes finally started last week. They are anywhere from a 5-20 minute walk through the altstadt away from Rössl, and I find it really fun being a university student here. It’s very unlike in other cities where even though we were speaking German, they could tell we were American and we were treated as tourists. Here, though I’m sure they can sense my American accent through my German, they know that we are actually students and treat us in a different more cordial way. And (hopefully its out of politeness) those that speak English actually speak back to us in German and only resort to English when asked to repeat themselves multiple times (which often seems to be the case).
The classes themselves will prove to be interesting. Most are in the university’s oldest building, about 400 years old which allows one to feel all scholarly and whatnot when walking old baroque hallways. Here are my first impressions:
-German: Our professor is the most laid-back person I’ve ever met. He always wears some blindingly colorful outfit plucked from the early ninties. Our favorite has been a multicolored sweater with patterns of seashells. Its nice because he keeps working on our pronunciation, but I’m afraid he’s making us all have crazy Tyrolean accents. Plus when you get something wrong, or make a joke he sticks his tongue out at you in a silly way.
-CSEM: Roots of Reason: Prof Kennedy is a crazy little Scottish man who is very funny and very frank. He’ll randomly stop class when someone coughs and say “Coughs and sneezes bring diseases…” He seems like a Mr. Rhodes with a more normal sense of humor and high off of caffeine. I knew I was going to enjoy the class when on the first day he pretty much threw the syllabus out the window and said, “this is just to make Notre Dame happy.” I think I’m really going to enjoy the discussions here and the subject matter as we attempt to discover the basis of our values.
-Art History: Our professor can only be described as a cool metrosexual European with his long hair and Italian leather boots. Last year’s group described him as “seeming like he just had a quickie in his office” and having a “catwalk-like strut” and this description cannot be more spot on. His class will be interesting, but like all of our other classes, is entirely in German, and I’m not too familiar with vocabulary relating to art too well, so hopefully it’ll get easier as the year wears on. He seems to get on a roll when lecturing and has this, “I know so much more about everything than you could ever imagine so its probably not worth even asking” kind of look when you ask a question and interrupt his lecturing groove.
-Political Science: I hate this subject in English and hate it even more in German; I can tell already this class will be difficult. Our teacher has an extremely thick Tyrolean accent and talks very fast and I cannot understand a word he is saying. When he finally writes points on the board, he does a little twirl and what results on the board seems to be the result of somebody holding chalk while falling down a staircase. He also assumes we have a wide German vocabulary pertaining to all things political and when I finally got the guts to ask him what a certain word means, he explained the role of the voters in that specific context rather than just tell me “it means ‘voter.’”
-Theology: This subject doesn’t seem like its going to be too painful, the most difficult thing about it will be trying to stay awake during the class, especially when the class is after lunch during which most of us had eaten something quick and greasy and the sun shines in the room making it feel like an armpit. He speaks slow so is much easier to understand which is a plus, but he’ll give out 40+ pages of old German Theology to read for homework.
Last Thursday, I met my Gastfamilie. In our program, they set us up with a host-family who lives in town but they aren’t paid anything and we aren’t living at their house. It’s merely a family away from home since we will be without one for a while. It’s also another great venue to practice German. We had a really nice dinner at an old restaurant in the altstadt (thanks again ND) where we each met our different families. The meeting of them was strange since the students arrived early and the families arrived a little later. It was seriously like being picked for a team in gym class, a family would arrive and Anita would announce who’s their Gahstsohn or Gastdochter. As my fellow students got called off to sit with their families, the slowly lessening number of us left nervously huddled together in support as we wondered if our families even cared enough to show up… Finally my family arrived, and we sat down for dinner together. They are unbelievably nice. I was nervous my family wouldn’t be too friendly since my family got changed, randomly at the last moment (long story) allowing for Anita to beg this family to host me but they have been unbelievably nice.
Gabi and Hermann work at a nearby mall (not in retail, but I’m not exactly sure what). They are all vegetarians (I didn’t quite understand why) but I’m pretty excited about it. And Hermann is a huge cycler. They have a 31 year old son who is a drummer and he has a really nice girlfriend who is a university student studying ancient history. They also have a 17 year old son who’s nice but doesn’t talk much. I haven’t known them for more than a week and already they’ve taken me hiking and had me over for dinner. The hiking trip was amazing, we hiked to a little random bar halfway up one of the mountains near Innsbruck and the only way to get there is to hike or bike. There we ate Knödl (Tyrolean dumplings, a fried patty of cheese and potato) and drank beer. The Knödl looked really good, but when I tasted it, I realized it was full of Bergkäse or Mountain cheese, a Tyrolean specialty. This was my first and hopefully last experience with this cheese. I love trying new things and enjoy most culture’s specialties, but this cheese seriously had an overpowering aftertaste of cow crap. Okay so I’ve never tasted cow crap, but it tasted like the smell of it. My Gastfamilie had paid for my meal so I felt bad not finishing it so I forced myself to eat what now seems like a gooey, fried, white cow patty. The worst thing was is that now that I had this image of cow crap in my head, every bite made me gag. I finally got through one and a half of the 2 Knödle before I had to stop, I told my Gastfamilie that it was extremely heavy and I was full (it was and I was). Otherwise, the day was really pleasant and they told me we would go back there to hike up to the same spot, drink Gluwein, Austrian spiced wine, and go back down on sleds! When they had me over for dinner, they had told me how they were researching things that I had been asking them earlier, such as where I can buy guitar strings or if I could find a place to go swing dancing in town (I have searched and searched, and come to the conclusion that it is nowhere to be found here, I had hope since its popular in Germany but I guess not in Tyrol). They are actually taking me to a music shop to get guitar strings on Friday, I am trying my hardest not to get too much in their way but they keep insisting.
My Familie and me
Okay so that’s a lot, there may be pictures coming up too. Look forward to our eastern Europe adventures…
When you walk inside, there is a series of rooms (one specifically to park bikes), each one different but funkily furnished and each having a bar. Finally at the end of the building, a large open courtyard opens up before you full of young people (this was on a Monday night). It’s surrounded by crumbling buildings covered in ivy. When we arrived, many of the Hungarians we had met the previous two days greeted us and had saved us some tables in the middle of the courtyard. We all enjoyed a thoroughly magical evening, chillin in this courtyard under the stars. Since the place was a little more expensive than the pub near the university, it was obvious that it was a treat for the Hungarians to go there and they were really excited about taking us there. It was really unfortunate when we had to leave, but we had to make the last train back to the University, and so begins one of my strangest experiences using public transportation in my life:
People were going in so I figured it was okay (note that my seat was literally 2 feet in front of this door so I got a front row ticket to the evening’s events). I patiently waited my turn to use the bathroom while others went in front of me. Hayley, who was right before me came out and for whatever reason, her pants were soaked up to her ankles in God knows what toilet water. As we were laughing on how she managed to accomplish this, two of the creepiest men shove in front of me and both go into the small, wet, dripping bathroom in front of me. Together! I was so shocked and yet amused by the situation that I could not be angry. We were hysterical with laughter by this point. But it gets better… After 10 minutes of us nearly wetting our pants, a young Hungarian woman comes in and doesn’t realize that there are two men, together, in the bathroom, she then opens the door (no lock, I guess that’s what the sign said) and since we were all facing the bathroom, in a fit of giggles, we got a full view on what was going on inside! Fortunately, they were just awkwardly standing in there, I don’t really know what was going on, but when she opened the door they just kind of walked out, and she went in to use the bathroom. Finally she leaves, and I have the toilet for myself, and I calm myself down enough to pee. When I’m finished with my business, wary of what would happen after seeing Hayley’s pants, I opened the door, pressed the flush button and we watched what happened. The contents of the toilet all disappeared suddenly after a few seconds in a huge suction noise (as is normal in trains) but then after a beat as if dissatisfied with what it just consumed, the suction noise sounded again and we all watched as the toilet spit back up the contents about 2 feet in all directions around the bathroom. It was a good thing I had just relieved my bladder because I would have peed my pants in laughter right there. Perhaps that’s what the orange sign was about. Well after my little adventure with the toilet, in go Chuck and Larry AGAIN together for another 15 minutes! When they finally emerged in a cloud of smoke, I guess that they weren’t doing anything more than smoking. By the end of the ride, after multiple uses, the contents of the toilet had spilled out into the train compartment and the whole floor of our car was soaking. 
The whole situation now seems so surreal since we were cracking up the entire 45 minute ride back. Goofiness continued until we arrived at our station.