Last Friday night one my classmates, Beni, invited me to go out with him, Rudi, and some other people from school that I hadn't met yet. We met in town at this placed called Alt Melk. Apparently people from school are here EVERY weekend and I also got to see two of the other American exchange students that are here from Minnesota, Simon and Dan. I met at least 7 or 8 people that night and I only rememeber half the names. But that is partly because there were two sets of the same name... it's so much easier when they are called the same thing. Except then they come up with nicknames that I never recognize because people introduce themselves with their real name. I just now realized that two guys in my class are called by their last name. I had a great time with everyone though. The people here are so friendly and hospitable. Rudi's dad came to pick him up around midnight so he offered to take me home as well.
Saturday was the day of the Matura Ball. I had absolutely no idea what to expect, but it wasn't anything that I could have imagined. The only other experience I could think about was Prom and it is totally different from Prom. We arrived at 7:45 so that we could get a good spot in the Kolomanisaal in order to watch the Matura Dance which began at 8:30. When the students were finished dancing their was a band that played music all night long and people waltzed the entire time. Marlene Kienast found me and so we decided to walk around to see who we could find. We ran into Kathi and Chi Chi (two girls from my class) who joined our group and we spent the majority of the evening together. I had such a great time with them! They were all so much fun and really excited that I had never seen anything like that before. At Prom we have one big ballroom with a dancefloor where everyone is pretty much. Then there are some tables set up around and some light refreshments. Here they had the ballroom which was strictly for the waltz, tables set up along an entire hallway, at least 5 different bars and snack bars set up in the school, another room with more recent music (but still not hip-hop, or rap, or pop, or anything like we have at Prom). Then there was an outside beer bar in the courtyard as well as a HUGE room in the cellar set up where people could order food and drink. There were also much more people than at Prom. The entire community is invited so there were parents, teachers, younger siblings, students, everyone. And since the drinking age is 16 over here they were pretty much all drinking. It was really different to see the teachers serving their students drinks. By the end of the night so many people were drunk, it was really funny. But nobody thinks anything about it. It's accepted completely without even a second thought. The ball was scheduled to end at 3:00 am however when we left at 3:45 there were still quite a few people there and the music hadn't stopped.
On Sunday I am very ashamed to say that I slept until 3:00 in the afternoon and that is only because my host father woke me up. We went to Krems that afternoon to have dinner with Lukas, Kristina, and her parents. We ate at this thing called a Heurigen and had a drink called Sturm. It was really different, but I liked it a lot. That evening when we got back to the house, I had an email from my mom saying that I had received my acceptance letter to A&M! I was super excited and I was kinda sad that there wasn't anyone to celebrate with. My host parents and classmates were happy for me, but they don't completely understand the thrill like my friends and family back home would have. Sunday was also my first full month in Austria. I was sad to think that I had already been here for a month because it went by far too quickly. I only have 10 months left and for the majority of one of those I will be on Euro Tour. That means I only have 9 months left to spend with all my new friends here in Melk. It is really disappointing, but I am trying my hardest to do everything and anything that people suggest.
Monday we had a "Wandertag" or off-day from school. Every Monday after Matura Ball the school is closed so that they can clean up the buildings from the festivities which is really cool I think. All the classes make plans to do something together and our original plans had been to go walking through the city and then play beach volleyball and soccer by the Danube. However the weather was not good so we ended up staying in the school gyms and playing different games. It was still A LOT of fun and it was nice to get to spend that much time with the class outside of our lessons. At 12:30 we were allowed to go home. As I was walking out Beni and Rudi invited me to go hang out with them and "Schmatza" (Stefan, a student in our class) for the afternoon. It was a nice change from just going home and working on homework and I really had a great time with them. They tried to teach me things that I should know how to say in Austrian dialect and then asked me what things were like back home.
Yesterday (Wednesday) I went to Ulli's (my counselor) house for lunch. I was able to meet her kids Johanna who is 11 and Valentin who is 8. After lunch Ulli showed me her apothoke and asked me what differences there were compared to the ones in the USA. There are quite a few, but it's a completely different setting so it's hard to compare the two. Next we went into town for an eis (ice cream) and then some shopping! When we reached her flat again it was nearly 6:00 pm so Ulli and her husband invited me to stay for dinner as well, which I was happy to accept. I played with Valentin and Johanna for a while and we tried to have conversations, but they weren't very advanced. Johanna's English is better than my German, but still not very advanced and Valentin's English is about equal to my German. All afternoon we would point things out to each other and ask how to say them in each language. It was really funny! After dinner they took me back home so that I could work on my homework and then get some sleep. I'm already starting to miss precious hours :)
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