Well hello. It’s me again.

Side note: its pronounced “Sh-tire”. (Steyr)

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The past couple days we (all the exchange students) have been in class – Professional Performance in a Globalised World.

It sounds pretty dry, but we didn’t actually do much “learning” – it was all group work.

Yesterday morning we started by doing a “Speed Dating” excersize. There are ~65 international students, and 20+ countries represented.

Our biggest group is from China (Hong Kong) with 9 students. Taiwan is close behind with 7. Then there is Japan with 5, Columbia with 4, USA with 4, Canada with 3, Finland with 3, Czech Republic with 5, Slovakia with 3, Ireland with 3, Norway with 1, and Mexico with 2. There are some more, but those are the ones I remember. There are students from Romania, Russia, Holland, Korea, Uruguay, Belgium and Ecuador as well. I may have some of the numbers wrong, but you get the idea. So in this speed dating excersize we were divided up, and had 30-50 seconds to introduce ourselves, where we were from, some things about us, etc. The Columbians and the Asians were all very cold that morning, whereas I was wearing my green jacket that only has half sleeves, and it wasn’t zipped (it wasn’t very cold for me). So when I introduced myself as a Canadian, lots of people said “Ohh that makes sense” and “Now I understand why you’re not wearing a coat”.

It was above zero people. Get it together.

The American kids all understood me well, as they were also wearing pretty thin jackets. 3 of them are from upstate NY, and 1 from Minnesota. The Nordic students have similar weather to us as well, although most of them complained about the cold too.

That activity took a lot of time.

That morning we also divided up into random groups to discuss things like “What we expected to get out of our exchange”, “What did you notice that is different about Austria from where you come from”, things like that. All basic exchange-type questions.

In the afternoon, we were divided/mixed by nationality into groups of 5, and were given a small list of tasks we had to go out and accomplish. My group was made up of Japan, Mexico, Taiwan, China, and Canada (me). Our tasks were: ask someone how to get to City Pointe (the mall) and go there, count the number of bakeries in the Stadtplatz (city center) and buy something to bring back, find a first aid/medical help clinic place, and ask 3 young people what they do in their free time. We had 1 hour.

So we bundled up all the Asians and South Americans and went walking. As we crossed the river, a man in a scooter (the kind for people who have trouble walking) was coming towards us. I kind of stepped out in the path with my hands up saying “Excuse me?!” because I was going to ask him one of our questions. He stared at me, looked straight ahead, and zoomed past us, nearly catching my foot under his scooter wheels. 4

So we didn’t start well.

As we neared the Stadtplatz, we stopped a girl in her 20s and asked her about the mall. She was super nice and helpful. She gave us really good directions. We also asked her what she did in her spare time, to complete another task on our list. One thing we discovered is that most students and YA tend to take the bus or train to the bigger cities like Linz or St. Valentine rather than stay in Steyr, because there isn’t much to do in Steyr. Its an older, smaller town, so there isn’t much to occupy time.

We completed our tasks successfully, and headed back to school.

We then had to do a reflection discussion about the experience, and was given a posterboard sized piece of paper we were supposed to use to give a short presentation about our experiences.

One continuous topic that came up is that the people in Steyr are really friendly, even though they may look/seem distant. In our introductory course on Wednesday, that was drilled into us. We also learned quickly that a good majority of people speak fairly good english. More adults than kids, actually, which surprised us. But one important thing to do is to always start your conversations with “English?” or “Do you speak english?” because people can get annoyed if you just start talking when they can’t understand you – its a waste of time.

Our presentations continued on in today’s class because we ran out of time yesterday. After an hour or so of presentations, we were given our next task.

We were divided up by nationality again (different groups) and were set the task to create a “cradle” for a raw egg. This cradle/box/object would be dropped from the top floor of the university, and the goal was for the egg to not break. Many of you have probably done something similar in a science class. It’s called “Flying Eggs” or “Eggs in Space”.The trick was that instead of using tape/glue/straws/Popsicle sticks, we had to use “things in nature”.  There’s a park across the river and up the hill that our teacher suggested we go.

Our group was Canadian, American, Taiwanese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Czech.

When we got to the park, we began collecting bendy sticks and leaves from the ground, and threading them together to create some kind of nest. It wasn’t holding together well, so we needed a new plan.

If you follow me on intagram (@ekpattz_ in case you don’t – go follow me now!) you’ll have seen that I made a post about how lots of the buildings here are covered in vines. Well, there is a stone wall in the park that has vines growing/hanging off of it. So we began pulling them down, and wove them around to create this nest-type thing. We also used sticks and lots of leaves as cushion.

It ended up looking something like this:

It was massive, but we thought that was to our advantage. The wider it was the more resistance it would have, the easier it would land!

The American student in our group is currently studying engineering (or some kind? I don’t remember) and so he was kind of the leader of our project.

We were also getting marked on our presentation of our contraption (every group had to give their object a name and give a short presentation on their strategy, materials, etc.) and our creativity. While we were working on our nest, we had some left over vines that we used in a creative way.

Aren’t our crowns beautiful?! We named our nest “Egg Natural” (like Au Natural, ya know?).

I also took a video of our drop: (please ignore my weird voice/noises)

VIDEO

(it’s not super exciting of a video, so you don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to)

As is obvious, our egg didn’t survive. However, it wasn’t all bad because not 1 group’s egg lasted. Except for 1 group – but they boiled their egg at home during lunch. So they were disqualified. Our group joked about doing that, but we didn’t because we’re real winners. There were some pretty creative projects, and many of them seemed like they would work. However, we didn’t know from how high we were dropping it from, the the 4th floor was higher than most people had assumed.

BUT our group won 3rd place for our creativity, and got a bag of candy to share for it. So I guess we’re really winners.

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So our first class was pretty much about getting us awkward international kids out of our comfort zones and mingling with other nationalities and cultures. It was actually a pretty successful class! I’m glad it wasn’t a boring lecture, and everyone seemed to be very kind and intelligent, so everyone got along really well. It was a nice way to start the semester.

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Now onto some notes about my first week in Austria.

1. I hangout with too many Asians, as I bought a bunch of Haribo candy and made sticky rice for dinner.
2. No matter how hard you try, you pick up accents easily. Some of those students who come from a more distinctive/harsh accent (Czech Republic, Ireland, Slovakia) won’t probably experience this, but as a Canadian with a soft-sounding accents, I am susceptible to picking up an accent. I find myself sometimes talking in a combination of Canadian, Japanese and Austrian/German accent, because those are the ones I hear most often. It’s not all the time, but I have noticed it for sure.
3. I seem to buy groceries all the time.
4. I’m hungry ALL THE TIME. I’m not sure if its the excersize, or the portion size. I live with Asian flatmates, and they are used to eating very small portions. So that’s what they do here. For me, I’m used to eating a whole salad, not half or a third like they do. And so there a little bit of pressure to eat smaller meals. But I never really feel full, no matter how much I eat. I’m sure its the excersize as well – I walk everywhere. There is a flight of 100 stairs that I take to school everyday (we call them the Stairs of  Doom), and everything is on an incline, so you’re either doing stairs or hills. Also, the grocery store is about 15 minutes away, and you have to walk there with an empty backpack, and then fill it up and carry it back up the hills home. I brought a pair of pants with me that I bought with my mom that didn’t quite fit right. I wore them the other day – they fit. So I think this will be good for me.
5. The cobblestones don’t hurt so much anymore. I can wear my sneakers around now without much trouble, rather than my trainers.
6. I am now connected!! I have an Austrian SIM card with calling/texting/data. So now I can text all my non-existent Austrian friends. Yay for me.
7. My schedule is complete. And I have ALOT of free time. My classes mostly fall on mondays and tuesdays, and only for a couple hours. I am taking 4 classes, 1 of which is only 4 lectures. Most of the exchange students are taking anywhere from 7-12 classes (my flatmate Saki is taking 12) because the classes are really spread out and short, and lots are only a few lectures. One of my classes has a lecture next tuesday, and then not again until April. So they’re weird that way. I was originally only going to take 3 classes, but I felt bad for having so much time, so I took a short class with 4/5 lectures that is based on international business case studies. So that should be an asset. The problem is that many of the classes, due to their length, do not qualify for transfer credits back in Edmonton. So there isn’t a point taking classes that won’t show up on my transcript. Plus, now I have no excuse to not go places and see things – I have a crapload of free time.
8. Things here tend to be cheaper than home, but don’t get too comfortable and always check the conversion. Things that are only 6euro are like $9 canadian. So while 6euro seems cheap, its not $6, its 9$. So you have to watch out.
9. Exchange boys will try to get with anyone and everyone. I learned that from my flatmates who went out to the pub the other night (see previous post).
10. You never realize how much you rely on a microwave until you don’t have one anymore. IT’S DRIVING ME CRAZY. Even to just warm up leftovers – you have to warm it up in a pot or pan, and end up cooking it a little, and making more dishes to do because we also don’t have a dishwasher. We also have a small frying pan that doesn’t have a handle. What good is that?!

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It’s only been a week, but it feels like much longer. I think I have adjusted here pretty easily. The weather is unpredictable, but nothing I haven’t seen. The other day there were some flurries falling, and most of the Asian students freaked out because it was the first time they’ve seen snow. That seems crazy to me, but everyone comes from different places.

Tomorrow we are doing a walking tour of Steyr, and Sunday is our city tour of Linz. So there will be at least 1 (maybe 2) posts this weekend. So look forward to that! Next week the semester starts as well, so we’ll see how that goes.

I sleep well, I feel well (and hungry), and my mind is well. The sun is currently setting outside my open window and everything is wonderful. My flatmates are kind, the other students are friendly, and I’m feeling very at peace with the world.

I wish to you all the same feelings, and hope you are doing well!

emma.k