The Trip of a Lifetime

Die U-Bahn

2010-05-26T12:48:00.002-05:00

For those of you who don't know, Vienna has a top notch Public Transportation system complete with busses, undergrounds and street cars. I am going to give you a few helpful things t expect in the subway (U-Bahn, short for Untergrundbahn).

-No one makes eye contact with anyone else, most of the time not even with people in your own group.
-Women hold their purses in their laps and clutch the strap.
-You also cling to your electronics
-It is very quiet. Very rarely do people talk and never to strangers.
-You keep your music quiet so other people cant hear it.
-There are always the old women that think they're still 20 and therefore dress like it. It's creepy and tragic and funny. Including, but not limited to, the following,
-Bright lipstick
-Bright red, pink, purple etc hair color
-Huge bug-eye sunglasses
-Brandname designer bags
-Fake tans
-Bleached hair
-Dark and dramatic eye make up
-There's the emo scary guy in the corner, looking... Punky.
-There can sometimes be the creepy old guy you catch staring at you and the other women on the train.
-The free newspaper "Heute" is everywhere
-And there is a surprising amount of Nuns. Makes me think of the sound of music everytime.

Das Ende Ist Nahe!!!!

2010-05-26T10:19:00.011-05:00

Hi all! I'm entering the end of my trip. My remaining weeks can be counted on one hand and the number of days are frighteningly few.

As I blunder closer and closer to the end of my trip the more I'm heart broken to know I have to leave it. It feels... Right here. Like home. I finally figured out how to work what I need and how to accomplish what I need, and what I want, and all of a sudden I'm running out of time! Its so scary to think that I have 1 or 2 free weekends left and that my dad will be here in less then a month, and I'm going to see my mom in about a month and a half and I'm going to see my home and my friends and that thought is crazy. It's going to be so.... Bittersweet. I don't know that I'm quite ready to go home yet.

Lets see, what did I do this month... It was kinda busy. I had my second AFS camp and that was just a blast! All the Austrian kids that are going abroad next year were there and it was way fun! It was different from my last camp. It was so nice to know all the people and have friends. I'm so much more confident. It takes being put into a situation that would have made you nervous and want to curl up into a ball and not talk to anyone, and now finding yourself thriving in it, making new friends and laughing and having fun to see how much you've grown. Its something else. It's a nice feeling. It was part of what I was hoping to achieve.

I also saw my bffl Chris a few times this month as well. He stayed with my host family for a few days in Wien (<-Vienna auf deutsch) and then the following weekend I was with his family in Bregenz. It was so much fun to see the other side of Austria. The train ride through the mountains 100 % blew my mind (although 8+ hours on a train alone was a bit intense). It was absolutely mind-blowingly beautiful. And it was really cute to see his little town (little compared to Wien.) And I finally went to Germany and had some magically delicious Spaghetti Eis (pretty much just ice cream through a play dough mold with random sauces and toppings and deliciousness on top.) We also went swimming for the first time this year! Well if you could call jumping in and gasping and running back out again swimming. But I did finally get some color so I don't look quite so bioluminescent. =) I also saw the caves that are in Bregenz and that was absolutely beautiful. We did a lot of hiking and biking and that kind of thing and it was a ton of fun.

I also started taking ballroom dance lessons and I got my nose pierced (with the blessing of both biological and host parents, everything was sterile and the guy who did it had a degree. It was totally within regulation and I'm thrilled I did it! It's super cute!) and I joined my friend in her art class which was a ton of fun!

As I run toward my last month in Austria I'm starting to take stalk of what I've done and what I have yet to do. It's something amazing when you can confidently walk through a once-foreign city with your head held high and know exactly where you are and where your going. It makes you feel old, and mature, and like a whole new person.

Enjoy your adventure and enjoy you ride!

In der Mitte

2010-04-28T13:17:00.002-05:00

Hey! This month I passed my half way point in my trip. And that was a bit of a shock. I honestly don't know where the time went. It's weird to think that there is now more time behind me than there is in front. It's sad really.

But this month was both calm and relaxing and exciting. And if your planning an exchange, try to have your birthday fall within the time your abroad. Cause quite honestly, it rules. And now for the rest of my life I can say that I turned 17 in at a ball in Vienna doing some ridiculous dance that no one knew laughing my butt off. My oldest host brother is like my dream dance partner, despite our height difference, he is hilarious to dance with! It was a blast cause the steps didn't really matter, he just kinda spun me around the dance floor laughing the whole time. It was hilariously fun. And I've gotta say, balls were not really what I was expecting. Now I don't know exactly what I was expecting but that was not it. I guess I was expecting something like Homecoming back in the states which is all the kids packed into our schools cafeteria with loud music blasting. This was not it. It was in a Marriott and there were two rooms one with a live band that was playing classical music that the kids were partner dancing too. And that was also where the parents were. I found their presence both confusing and mildly disturbing. School dances, in my book at least, should always remain a parent free zone. But that wasn't the case here. The parents were Waltzing right along with their kids. And the other room they were just playing really, really bad techno music. It was called the Disco room. It was hilariously empty the whole time. And the formal dance room was also hilariously full. The total opposite from what I would have thought from my own school. It was a lot of fun. I brought the Lawn Mower to Austria. It was hilarious. And the next day, my actual birthday, I spent the vast majority of the day in the oldest Zoo in the world which was which was WICKED cool. And then I met up with a bunch of AFS friends and had cake and brownies and muffins in the park. It was a really good time. And the next day in school my class sang to me twice, once when I walked in the door, the second when my favorite teacher (she teaches english. Shall we all take a moment to wonder why that's my favorite class =P) had them all sing it. It was really sweet and really funny.

There are two things I've found that can make or break your trip if you let them. One is your Host family. And in that category I totally lucked out. Not only do I have the opportunity to live in downtown Vienna, but I am incredibly well suited for life with my host family. They are a lot like my own family (but all boys and quieter) and they give me lots of freedom, and my host mom could not be anymore supportive and sweet if she tried. And the rest of my host family is just as great. Although my host brothers are getting very strict about dialectal differences (Viennese is not High German. I don't care what anyone says.) and that does get a bit tricky cause what learned in school is not always correct here. And that gets a bit frustrating sometimes. But I know they just wan't me to learn so I try my darndest to be patient and diligently repeat the new phrase or corrected grammar. I talked to a friend of mine for the first time since I've been here and he told me that I had an accent. I was totally shocked cause I couldn't hear it myself, but he assured me it was there. It made me smile really. The second one is your school, which itself can be split up into two categories, the actual academics and the kids. One, for me is ENDLESSLY frustrating, the second vastly improving. The frustrating one, is the academics. With the school I was placed in none of the teachers are giving me "notes" aka grades so there really is no need for me to do the school work (I'm just nerdy enough to do it anyway, a fact my friend here mocks me mercilessly for) and I'm not actually in a class every time its being held, which makes doing the work impossible. And that complicates my life because school (and marching band I know, I'm nerdy.) was just about all I did, and now with school here I have Z.E.R.O. motivation, which is gunna be a bugger next year. On the other hand I'm learning to navigate the kids of my class, making better friends, tighter bonds with the other AFSers and the kids in my class it's becoming easier. Everything is becoming easier.

And another really REALLY cool opportunity came up. I get to travel to Rome with my class in June! And I couldn't be more excited. It's going to be crazy cool! So I'm totally thrilled. Truly I couldn't be happier about that!

So anyone planning a trip of their own, any exchange student who tells you the downs don't exist is a liar. But any who says the ups aren't worth it, is a bigger one.

See you next month!!

Ein Drittle?!?! (1/3)

2010-03-25T15:25:00.009-05:00

I just wanna start out by saying thanks for reading! I had no idea that people would actually read this thing and the fact that you do is really super cool. So thank you!

And I want to give you a heads up that I'm really not planning on sugar coating what I'm thinking or feeling. I think a lot of the exchange students I talked to before I came did quite a bit, and so when I got here and it was so much harder than they all said it would be I was totally thrown and thought that because I was still homesick in my second month I was doing something totally wrong. So I'm going to tell you exactly how I'm feeling every month, I wont lie and say that I now speak fluent german, (although it is MUCH better.) or that I'm not homesick anymore (although that too has gotten much better). Cause I am. I still think about home all the time. I think about my family and friends and miss them like crazy. And I now know that's ok. I went to an AFS camp (which was totally awesome. I love AFS people. Well not ALL AFS people. But most of them. =P) and met a ton of really great people and made a ton of really, really good friends and they all told me that they were the exact same way. That the first bit is hard and they were still homesick 3, 4 months in and that they put themselves to sleep thinking about their families and walking through their houses in their heads and thought about the first reunion with their families. That is more comforting to think about than you realize. When so much is different and changing and there's so much to adjust to, knowing that everything and everyone will be there waiting for you... For me anyway, it always makes me feel better. And I know that it'll get better. That as time passes and Austria becomes more of a home than it already is everything will be fine. It'll all work out. It always does. But I have come to 2 conclusions; either Americans going abroad are really attached to home, or people coming to the US are freakishly adaptable and ready to leave their families at 16. I dunno which. =)

But its really weird to think that I've already been here for 2 months. As I said before time is so funny here. One second it's flying and there's no way I have enough time to do anything, and the next I've been here forever and I still have FOREVER to go. But those times are becoming increasingly less frequent. But I feel like I've experienced so much in the past 2 months that its unbelievable. And it's not like I can list off all these things I've done that have changed me, but all of it together, the combined force of it all is really amazing to think about. It still shocks me that I'm even here sometimes. Like I'll be walking down the street and glance up and see a sign that says "Hilton Vienna" or "Hotel Imperial" and I'll just start laughing cause I'd forgotten where I was. Or not forgotten, just didn't realize almost that I was so far from home. That I'm not in Minnesota anymore. Its amazing how this place just kinda became home. My favorite example is when I got home from my AFS camp and walked into my apartment and my room and threw my bag on my bed and went "Ah, home." then gasped and laughed cause I hadn't realized thatI felt that way about this place. It was comforting and really rather strange.

Also there's the people. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly you can become really, really good friends with other AFSers. Or just other exchange students! Cause there's such a bond there, like they know exactly what your going through and they know how it feels to be scared and homesick and to just want to go home. But they also know that it'll be worth it. I love my AFS friends. And it's so funny that I'm already making plans to fly all over the US to visit them this summer, and trying to figure out the next time I can get to Europe to visit people in Finland and Denmark and all over the place. It's also hilarious how the people I came over with are like my family. Like last weekend I spent the day in Innsbruck with my best friend Chris and a friend of his from Finland (there are a surprising amount of Finns here. It makes me smile really =D) and we spent the day playing tourist. And it was awesome to see him again and still shocks me that I've only known him 2 months and seen him for less than 5 days of those 2 months.

But that's not to say that now all is right in my little Austrian world. Now although everything is much better than it was the first month (Wisconsin, AFS Wisconsin lied to you. The second month is not the hardest. It's more or less down hill after the first.) I am still homesick. I miss my friends like you wouldn't believe, and after a little..."misadventure" with a group Skype date, it was pretty bad. Cause one of my admittedly-irrational fears of being here, is that my friends back home will forget about me, and that when I go home I wont be able to fit back into my old group, and the Skype thing that never was really didn't help with said irrational fear. But I'm not mad anymore and it almost helped in an awful way to take the edge off the homesickness that came later. (Cause I'm sure [or at least hoping] you guys will read this, don't worry I still love you, just text it next time k?) I still miss my family of course. And may I just say that the change in relationship between siblings is remarkable after one leaves the house? For instance my sisters and I fought CONSTANTLY. Ok not constantly, thats exaggerated, and fought is too a bit, but we did bicker a lot. But now that I've been gone and there's an ocean between us we get along much better. My little sister and I actually talk occasionally without being forced to. She even said she missed me. (Yes Gillian, I'm putting it online! Even putting your name with it =P ahhahaha! Lols you know I loves you.) So I'm just going to assume that'll b better when I go home. Maybe for a while anyway. =P But I miss my parents of course. My mom and dad... Almost more than I was anticipating. Its strange that I haven't seen them in 2 months. And that it'll be another 4 until I do....

Oh! That's another thing that I do that I thought was bad until I made AFS friends and found out was normal!! I count EVERYTHING. Everything is just one less till I see my family and friends. Now, I know that sounds like I hate it here and can't wait to go home but I don't! Again, its just comforting for me. It makes it feel less oppressing. Like it's more doable when I get homesick. So if your abroad and start doing it, it's ok, your not alone. Just try not to forget to go and do!

And if you didn't know already the big joke in AFS USA (and maybe AFS everywhere I don't really know...) is that they say AFS really stands for Another Fat Student. And its tragically true. Now it probably doesn't help that the food here is great or that my host mom is an AMAZING cook but still. All the girls just laugh and say that we have made a conscious decision to ignore it until we get home. So if your worried about it, that is my sound and heartfelt advice to you. Following it may be easier said than done. But if your ever in Vienna, get to an Anker or Stück Brot and order the chocolate croissant thing. Thank me later.

I think that's just about all I have to say... Again thanks so much for reading and If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment!

~Morgan~

Ein Unten (Shoot I Forgot Something!!)

2010-02-27T07:59:00.003-06:00

Just in case you underestimate the horrific power of that NYC orientation, let me point out that my room mate, the one who spent that whole first night throwing up, left. She was my best friend here and the only one of my AFS family (the kids that I crossed the ocean with) that I could visit without buying a 70 euro ticket and waiting till easter. It crushed me. It crushed us. Especially because she didn't tell us that she was going home. We found it on her Facebook. But I still love Wisconsin. But I'm gunna miss her. I do miss her. Do underestimate the power your words and actions can have on people. They can take an experience like this away from someone.

Just thought you should know.

Later!

Morgan

Ein Unten

2010-02-27T05:34:00.002-06:00

Ok so I have now been away from home for a month and thats so wired. Time here is so strange. Sometimes I think I've already been here 6 months and that its time for me to go home, and other times it feels like I just got here. It makes everything very difficult to keep track of. Everything got easier after school started. And the sun came out. (The weather usually plays a heavy hand in how I'm feeling.) The city is now even more beautiful. I love Vienna. It has the perks of every city and is like no other city. It has that big city feel but its clean and easy to navigate, and doesn't feel dark and daunting and dirty like cities like NYC do for me.

But now I kinda hate NYC for another reason; the orientation that I had there before I left. The people were awful and unhelpful and discouraging and honestly I did not feel at all taken care of or even cared about there. Shoving me in to a ballroom in a dirty little hotel and telling me how hard and scary and difficult its going to be but not telling me how to get over the challenges. Or showing kids that were JUST separated from their families a video of kids being separated from their families, hating their experience and then being gratefully reunited with their families. I don't care what anyone says, the Kiwi Video was just awful. Or telling me how often you have to find new host families for kids that offended theirs so badly. I realize that some kids needed to be warned about such things but there are far better ways to present them to a group of anxious teenagers. There would have been 100 better ways to do that. I still want to cry when I think about how they ripped my dad away from me. I got no closure. No real goodbye. I was not happy about that. And it continues to be upsetting really. But my parents (host and natural) say that everything will be fine. And all I can do is hope to the high heavens that their right. And of course write scathingly about it in my blog (hey I have it, I'm gunna use it!!). Cause Honestly it was the worst 2 days of my life. And something that I'm really, really struggling to put behind me.

Things are better now though. With my host family sitting in my comfy chair in the sunshine in my super cute room (thanks Eva!!!) in the sunshine with my window open getting blown by a warm breeze. Its good. And school isn't so bad anymore really. I'm starting to be able to understand more and more of what the teachers are saying. Although for the most part it feels like those listening tests that you always have in language classes when you really have no idea whats going on and your just desperately listening for one or 2 words that you know in the desperate hope that you can follow the answer key. Except I do't have an answer key. But its getting a little easier. I think I've gotten lax on how much german I speak though. I'm just in so many english classes!!!! I asked to get switched out of most of them though because it is so bad for my german. And the languages get all jumbled in my memory so when my host dad asks if they were speaking english or german I'm not really sure. When I understand all the german it just kinda is assumed to be in the language that I understand and the kids try to speak english with me so often that it all just kinda smooshes together. I do kinda miss adjectives though. And having any kind of real vocabulary. Cause my german one is VERY incredibly ridiculously tragically limited. You don't think about how many words you know in your own language until your trying to speak another one. Everyone says that I have so much german training with two and a half years, but honestly it feels like nothing. Everyone is impressed with my broken grammatically incorrect german as they speak elegantly worded perfect english. It makes me feel very bad about myself really. Or at least about my language skills. But that was really expected. I'm not really sure that I speak any language well anymore really. My english is getting worse from lack of use and my german is not improving fast enough to compensate for it. So I now speak very proficient body language, otherwise known as charades.

I feel like a creep sometimes cause I spend so much time just watching people. I'm always trying to see what the other kids are doing in class, whats acceptable whats taboo, what they talk about, how my brothers interact with my host parents, whats crossing boundaries, and whats fine. Everything needs to be figured out. All the things that you don't think about doing you have to watch here. You have to be careful with everything. But that might just be my super paranoid state of mind after NYC.

The class I was put in at school has made my life much better and much more complicated. Better because they are all super nice and friendly and sweet but 100 times more complicated because there are two distinct and strictly defined cliques. That complicates everything for me. I don't want it to seem like I pick one over the other for fear of offending the other. I therefore can't make any really close friends because that would be clearly picking a side. Which means I spend a lot of afternoons (which stretch from about noon or one to six, seven, or even eight in the evening) by myself while my brothers are in their rooms and I'm in mine. I'm starting to get out with them though. I just don't really know how to like invite myself to come along though. I don't want to seem rude. But I don't wanna be alone anymore either.

There have only been two times in my month here that I have felt even mildly offended by some American stereotype and both times were this Monday. A kid in one of my english classes said that all Americans just want to sue each other too get money without working and I was called a prude by my english teacher of all people. That was a weird day. But i was assured by a girl in the english class that the teacher was only trying to prove how cool he was. Yeah. Effective method.

But I think that's really all I have to say. I have to run and get some stuff for my sisters and mom and for a party tonight. And I'm sorry if there are any grammar or spelling mistakes... Not much english practice here remember?

Thanks as always for reading!

Morgan

Erste Woche

2010-02-07T11:28:00.003-06:00

So I have been with my family now for a week even though it doesn't feel like its been a week. It feel like a blink and much much longer. I'm happier now though. There were a few hours that were really tough. And I have come up with another "D" for AFS in case you don't know AFS has the 2 big "D"s that will get you sent home in a heartbeat, they are driving and drugs (and hitch-hiking and drinking if your under the legal age of your host country.) But my D is Downtime. Thats dangerous. It's in the downtime that you get homesick, when you think about your friends and family and pets and bed and all those things that you miss about home. But when I'm doing something, like walking around Vienna or shopping or "skiing" (the quotes are there because I don't think you can call what I do skiing. its more like desperately trying now to "kiss the snow") or in a museum (only spent a few hours in the natural history museum and i want to build a cot in that place!!! it was wonderful!!! Better yet, I got in free cause I'm a student =D) or doing ANYTHING for that mater its so much better. thats when I feel happy and confidant about my decision. Downtime = danger for me I think.

But I love my family. After you get over the awkward beginning, and the guys started to get used to me and I got used to them, it all got much easier. But I'm not my any means perfectly adjusted. There is a lot that takes a lot of getting used to. I could write a book. But everything is getting better. I'm not as homesick, and I really like my family and I love my room (thank you Eva!!!) and all that is good. My only real problem at the moment is that I don't really have any friends. Tomorrow is my first day of school so I haven't been able to meet anyone, and thats been hard, but I know I will. My german is getting better after that initial shock of not knowing the dialect and slang and extra r-rolling and everything is through the back of your throat which i can't do. Well ok my SPEAKING german is not much better, my understanding is. But I'll take any kind of progression. I don't know why I was thinking I would be fluent after a week. That was a foolish thought if I've ever had one.

I think I miss my friends and animals the most. And my mommy but that goes with out saying. But I think just cause I don't know anyone within 20 miles of me. I made really, really great AFS friends at the hell that was NYC orientation, but they're all miles and miles away, which sucks, but they're coming to visit this weekend! Well some of them. Which makes me really very happy. But I both can't wait and am soooo nervous about school tomorrow. But It'll be ok.... I Just have to keep repeating that.

Sigh. Bed time.
Thanks for reading!

Tag Eins

2010-01-31T11:17:00.002-06:00

So I made it! But just so you know getting here was no picnic. First the awful NYC orientation shattered all my confidence, then my room mate gets so homesick that she doesn't want to stay long enough to meet her host family, and then I saw Vienna which made everything good again. Then I start to panic when the host families start showing up, but I think I did pretty well with my first meeting. So all day I have been speaking germish (germish-a mixture of grammatically incorrect german and english vocab that is beyond my 2 and a half years of german) while trying to make small talk with my host family, who by the way are great.

I truly have never been more exhausted in my entire life.

I was shown the google earth image of my house and started to cry. I need some sleep doncha think?

On My Way Out the Door

2010-01-25T20:28:00.005-06:00

So all of a sudden I'm on my way out the door, and I'm kinda freaking out. Well ok not freaking out but I'm getting a little anxious. I think the worst part of the thing is the waiting. Its just that I have been waiting for over 3 years for this big adventure, and now all of a sudden its time for me to get on a plane. Everyone says that the time before your trip will just fly by and you'll be there before you know it and I guess their half right at least. The days themselves took forever, but the overall was just gone.

I've found that there are a lot of things that you really don't think about until that date is staring you in the face. Things like what is it going to be like when you walk through the airport terminal and have to look back through the security gate to wave at your mom for the last time is half a year. Or what its going to be like to have one of those I-want-my-mommy moments and have your mommy be on the other side of the world. Or when you think of all the little things that you really only can do to your family, like stealing food off their plates or run into your moms room and cry about all the boy problems that your having. Your forced to think about what your going to do to replace those things. The people that your going to have to find to fill the voids that those people in your life filled. And then you throw the language into the mix and you think about all the things that you wont know how to say. all the ways you can't express yourself.

And then the fact that I've never been the new kid. I've gone from Rosemount Elementary to Rosemount Middle to Rosemount High. Always with the same core group behind me. My circle of friends just seemed to morph and expand to the needs of the time. But all of a sudden I have to learn to start from scratch. And I don't quite know how to do that. But that's kind of why I did this right? To learn how to make new people, to form new bonds without the normal crutches I've relied on forever.

I'm not that worried. I'm just ready for this adventure to begin. Cause thats what it is. My first big adventure.

Thanks for reading everyone!

Morgan

Lets Get Started Shall We?

2009-12-04T13:31:00.004-06:00

Hi all! I'm Morgan Wychor, I'm 16 and in just over 50 days I will be leaving for 6 months to live in Vienna Austria. The program I choose after weeks of painstaking search over a year was AFS. I choose them because of the price, the people and the places. In my first phone call to them, I was forwarded to this very, very kind woman who, after giving me clear easy instructions on how to get started on this whole project, told me how they were having a bring your kids to work day on Halloween to Trick-or-Treat around the office. I'll always remember how that one woman made me feel as though I were already a member of her organization, and that she really cared about the experience that I would have with them. I've wanted to be an exchange student since 7th grade, and AFS was just the best fit for me.

When you really get goin' on this experience one thing people ask all the time is what do you expect to gain? My question for all those askers is whats not to gain?! You get this chance to be 100% independent, meet all new people, live in a different culture, find this whole new place from the eyes of the people that live there everyday. The harder question is , what will you do for them in return? That, my friends is the question. I'm hoping that I can give them a better outlook on my home country, a friend in the USA and a place to visit. What to give them is harder than what they give you. I'm just hoping 1) they like me, 2) I'm a suitable house guest, 3) I can understand what they're saying in the first month, 4) and that I can make some friends at school. I don't know how I could ever do enough in return.

Another thing you are often asked is what you friends and family think. All you can really say is their sad of course, they don't want to see me leave them for so long, but they're also so happy for me, so excited, that they know this will be a truly amazing. I hear that people are envious too. That they never could have been brave enough to do this at my age. They tell me I'm brave and that doesn't make sense to me. I don't see it as being brave. I see it as doing what I have to. I would have spent the rest of my life wondering had I not done this.

One of the main barriers in going Abroad is the money. I have already raised just under 400 dollars with my local frud-raiser, and have been trying to figure out how to do more. I'm really truly hoping raise over 1,000 dollars for my trip. I'm trying to find other ways to fundraise but its not something I've very good at... So any advice would be endlessly helpful.

Thanks for reading!
TTFN
Auf Wiedersehen!
Morgan