Back in Austria

I have been back home for 1 week now and slowly but surely I’m getting used to Austrian life again. Flight The flight back to Vienna was almost as terrible as the flight to NJ. First of all, Polish Airlines had canceled my seat, so I was on stand by and didn’t know if I could get on the plane until 15 minutes before the plane left Newark. I have to say that I was extremely proud of myself, since I made it really on time to the airport (usually I’m almost too late) and so I had thought that nothing could go wrong. But I was completely wrong. Although I told them at the airport that I had a seat assignment, they told me that didn’t matter, since I would have needed to call 3 days before to confirm my flight. However, since nobody had told me before to do that, I came to the airport without a clue and just wanted to check in. I had a bit of a shock when that LOT lady told me that I was on stand by, as were also 15 other people who were as uninformed as I was. Additionally, they told us that there were just about 5 seats left in the plane. Isn’t that crazy?? I don’t understand why they overbook the plane. Well, however, in the end, all of us miraculously had a seat and nobody had to stay at the airport. Arrived in Warsaw and ready to get on my connection flight to Vienna, I wanted to get my boarding pass. But do you know what they told me?? Believe it or not, they told me that I was canceled again! However, the good thing was that I was booked on an earlier flight with Austrian Airlines. So I only had to wait for 1 hour instead of 4 hours. And it was great to fly with Austrian Airlines. I even got Milka chocolate on the plane!! I never got used to America’s Hershey’s anyway – Milka is the best chocolate ever : ) Back in Austria My dad picked me up at the airport in Vienna, and it was a bit strange to hear all the people speaking German again. My first reverse culture shock was that all the cars were so small again. It felt so weird to open the trunk of our VW Golf and put my luggage in. Arrived in Kirchschlag, I had to discover that our kitchen was so small compared to the ones in NJ. I have to say that I was already prepared for that, since I had to experience the same thing last year. So, in fact, it wasn’t such a shock this year, since I was already a bit prepared for all the differences that awaited me in Austria. In my opinion, the most extreme difference are the refrigerators – compared to Amercian refrigerators, the ones we have in Austria are tiny. Driving in Austria What is more, on Thursday I went from Kirchschlag to Graz, because I still had to do a couple of things there for my Erasmus semester in Lyon. I have to say that the stick shift in our car gave me some trouble at first, since I was not used to it anymore. Once you get used to driving automatic cars, it feels a bit weird driving stick shift again. Another great difference from the States are the narrow, curvy roads. In New Jersey most of the roads are just straight and very wide, probably because of all the huge cars they have there ; ) But here, you really have to be careful that you don’t drive on the opposite road. When a big truck approached on the other side of the narrow road, I almost felt a bit frightened and just hoped that it would have enough space. Lyon

The week has gone by so fast, but tomorrow I’ll already go to France. The plane leaves at 10:30 am from Graz. By the way, Elisabeth will also go to Lyon and that is really great. Although I’m a bit nervous, I’m also very excited and looking forward to my time in France.

Sept 4, Labor Day & My last day in NJ

Hi guys,

How are you doing? I’m fine, a bit sad on the one hand, though, that I leave NJ and the O’Shaughnessys today, but happy on the other hand that I’ll see you soon again.... I’m already getting busy -- still haven’t packed everything -- my flight is at 11.30 PM. I still have some more hours, but I think I should be done by 4, because we have a BBQ with Rob and Roe then.

I also have to make sure that all kinds of liquid (water, lip gloss,…) are in my suitcase and not in my hand luggage, because as you know they are very strict at the airport right now.

Yesterday we went to a Japanese restaurant with Chris’ family and it was really a lot of fun. Afterward, we had some glasses of wine and I had my last night in Tinton Falls.

I can’t imagine that I have to get ready for France next week! It seems to be so unreal, because I have been here for 2 months, and now I’ll have just 1 week in Austria and then university starts in France! I just hope that my family there will be nice and that it doesn’t take me too long to get used to everything.

Here in the States I had another awesome summer and it’s a bit hard to leave the kids again, especially when I know that I won’t see them for some time. I will really miss them and they will have grown so much when I see them again. I’m sure that Finn will be potty trained when I see him again : )

I better get going now, since I still have to burn some discs, pack my suitcase, prepare everything for my flight, etc.

See you soon!

Love, Michaela

Sat, Sept 2 Saturday morning Sharon and I took a yoga class at the gym and it was so much stretching that I had a soar again the next day. In the afternoon we went to Rob and Roe and their baby John who is really a cutie. Riley and little John Conor and Riley and Rob's new Porsche In the evening Elisabeth and I went to NYC, although it had been raining all day long and hadn't stopped by the time we headed to the train station in Middletown. I didn't have closed shoes with me, just sneakers, but if I had put them on, I'm sure they wouldn't have let me enter into the clubs. So I decided to wear my golden flip flops with a little cork heel -- just perfect for heavy rain and storms, don't you think? : )

Well, once arrived at NYC Penn Station, I really had some trouble keeping my feet dry. Not only did my shoes got soaked in water, but so did my jeans!!!…. As we got lost again (what a surprise) when we tried to find Webster Hall where we met Schoko, we asked a guy for directions. He was so nice and told us how to get there and since he went into the same direction, he even accompanied us for a wile. However, after some time we had to separate and he just said something like “Keep going that way”…. I didn’t look where I was going and jumped right into a huge puddle. By the way, our umbrella also gave us some trouble, since it always bent backwards because of the strong winds. So you can imagine that we were really soaked in water by the time we arrived at the club where we had to wait for some more minutes outside before we could enter. But everything turned out to be well worth it and we had an awesome time at Webster Hall. There were about 4 or 5 floors with different kinds of music and you could just start dancing in every room! (We would really need something like that in Graz.) The only negative thing was that the drinks were a bit expensive -- one drink cost about 10 dollars!! But Schoko was so nice and paid some drinks for us which was really great of him! By the way, thanks again to Schoko for the nice evening : ) And we were also lucky and got some free champagne of some guys who had a bachelor party which was also just great! Unfortunately, time went by really fast and by 1 we had to go back to the train station since the last train to NJ left at 1:37, and by 3 we were back in Tinton Falls.

Friday, Sept 1 Here you can see a picture of my gym. I thought it would be nice to upload a picture, since I spent so much time there. By the way, Friday morning, I went there again. Here you can see me unloading the dishwasher. Sharon said that she had to take a picture like that, so that you can see that I've also been doing some work here : ) Friday evening we had a last BBQ with the O'Connors. Ashley Our "yummy" Fondue dessert -- we had fresh fruit, marshmallows, all kinds of wafers, pound cake, etc. that we dipped into hot chocolate -- and it was really delicious! ................................Messy Finn Me....................................Conor Sharon and Finn.............Kevin and Finn Me, Elisabeth, Ashley, Ryan, Kathleen, Finn, Riley (from left to right) Ashley and Ryan

My favorite pictures from our photo shooting