This post should have been written DAYS AGO. But I wasn’t sure if it was worth a post, and frankly I just didn’t feel like writing about it.
But I sat down to write about my trip to Salzburg (which will also be up today) and decided that since I’m here, I can take some time to write this. And so I shall!
Welcome to FH Steyr, where you can take the class “Austrian Culture and Civilization” and go on fun (and yummy) field trips and it counts for credit 🙂
Jealous?
On Monday we had ACC presentations, where every member of the class (in groups) had to present a topic related to the class that wasn’t expressly touched on in the lectures. Some presentations included: Austria after WWII, Franz Joseph I, information about famous Austrian composers, etc.
ACC is divided into 2 classes because the original group was too big. The 2 classes go one after the other on monday afternoons. Because this was a special monday class, we were combined for presentations. After the presentations, a group of us signed up for a special trip to a farm.
We are required to do a certain amount of extra out-of-class activities organized by our teacher, with all the activities designed to give us new insight or experience more of Austrian culture first hand. There was an Austrian Wine Tasting, a hike up a local mountain, the BMW Factory tour (see a post about that here), a school visit (which I also did), and this farm trip that I will talk about now!
Now my teacher seems to be extremely well known and connected. And she definitely knows what she’s doing.
After the presentations we walked to the FH parking lot where we were met by several strangers and their cars. The farm we ere going to was about 20 minutes by car, and so we figured we would take a bus or something. Nope. My teacher got half a dozen of her friends to drive us to the farm!
Haha, that’s definitely unconventional! But I was talking to the guy who drove myself, Andrzej, Niamh and Hazel, and he said that he drives a group of kids to the farm every semester. I guess they kind of turn it into a friend gathering – they all hang out together and help out my teacher – she maybe pays for their beers or something haha.
So we all divide up into the stranger’s cars and drive to this farm.
This farm also has a Mostbauer. I’ve spoken about this before when we visited one after our trip to Mauthausen (see here). These kind of restaurants only are legally allowed to be open on certain days, serve certain kinds of alcohol and such, so we went on the monday because they weren’t actually open. The family who owns the farm are good friends with my teacher, which is how we got the hook-up!
We went to Fassl Farm.
We could order cider (with alcohol), juices, and the specialty – Elderberry juice.
This stuff is gooooooooooood. It’s very light and sweet, and slightly carbonated, so its bubbly too 🙂 It is the PERFECT summertime drink – I need to get my hands on some form of it when I get home.
We got our juice and Jausse. It was really fun. And a really nice way to spend classtime haha.
After dinner but before dessert, our teacher gave us a sheet with questions and tasks to do around the farm. We saw the cows and pigs and chickens and new kittens.
The farm was ontop of a huge hill, so it also came with a great view 🙂
After running around outside we went inside for dessert. I’m not sure what its called in Deutsche, but its very similar to the scones my mom makes – essentially its fried dough. It was covered in icing sugar and came with apricot jam on the side. We also ordered them as we came in, so we got them hot!
We also had the most fun table, I’m sure of it 🙂
After eating and paying we loaded back up into the cars and headed home. This was the best homework I’ve ever had! 🙂
And I know this post is just going to give more fuel to people back home thinking my schooling here is a joke. And maybe its unconventional and different, but from talking with Austrian students, classes are sometimes run a little unconventionally.
My ACC final is worth 70% of my final grade. How many of you have written a test that big? So maybe it seems like I don’t ever work, but I have to study a lot too. That stuff usually doesn’t make a very interesting post material.
Hope everyone at home is doing alright!! Less than a month and I’ll be home.
emma.k
Wandering Miss Emma.K 