Still enjoying the good life :)

Hello everyone, Jazz again!! :)

As you may have seen on Toms blog we now only have two weeks left.., this is soo sad but it makes me want to enjoy everything and take it all in more than usual.

On the weekend my host mum, Jojo and I went to a market in Bad Feilnbach. Everything there was handmade by women and sold by them too. It was so nice and all of the women are so creative and talented to be able to make all of the stuff they were selling. There was everything from clothes, soaps, food and drinks, little bits and pieces to put around your house, jewellery and even some drums. It was really cool.

After this we went back home and had some lunch. Later on in the afternoon Jojo and I went to Lukas and Tom's house and played Just dance 4 on the X-box and watched a movie. It was so much fun and watching each other dance was hilarious. Overall I had a fun relaxed day. (:

On Sunday my whole host family except my host sister and I went back to Bad Feilnbach and went to see the Moor’s. We stayed here for at least an hour and it was really nice and refreshing. A Moor is translated into English as a swamp but it was more like a wetlands; this area where the Moor’s were is sooo big and open. Surrounding the area are mountains so it is such a nice view. The Moor’s are there because many years ago people dug large trenches, for example maybe 5metres deep and they were filled with mud so people could sit in them to relax and the dirt/soil in this area is special for the human body and helps to relieve body aches and cleanses skin. It has all washed over a bit now so you can see why it is called a 'swamp' but it still looks and feels like it’s a wet land.

Once we got back to the car we drove to Rosenheim to see an exhibition about the deep sea. It was very interesting but there was so much information to take in. I enjoyed my days again and by the end of it my head was full of information about mud and life in the sea. :)

I’ll be back again on Sunday! Ciao. :D

The lady at this stall made jewellery and other things out of forks and spoons.

These toys were made from wool.



Half of the Market, there was some indoors aswell.

These hats were made from wool also.



Just because he was wearing a Bright P-12 College jacket on the weekend.



The Moor



The moor' view.











2 weeks left!!!

Hello everyone, its Tom again.......
   Now that we are coming into the last two weeks of the exchange, it's starting to get to the point where I'm trying to savour every moment more and more. And not only that but I'm also starting to reflect on everything that has happened in the past two and a half months, and also what the next two weeks will bring. It's hard to believe all the things I've had the opportunity to see and experience all thanks to having the opportunity to go on exchange. I think these memories will be with me for the rest of my life.
  
This week we had school as usual but Wednesday was a student free day so I had a sleep in and later Lukas and I went to a city called Kufstein in Austria to look at the castle there and the city itself. Sadly, we were too late and the castle closed 15 mins after we got there and wasn't worth the money to go in for probably what would end up being five or ten mins. So we just got some food and ate it down on the river, and then bought a dance game for the X-Box Kinect.
  
Saturday was much the same, I had a sleep in and didn't do much for the morning, and then in the afternoon, Jazz and Jojo came over to play the dance game and watch a movie. That was pretty fun and we had some laughs.

Today we went for a drive up through the mountains above Oberaudorf, all the way to a ski resort called Sudelfeld. Along the way we saw some massive waterfalls of the creek that runs just behind our house called the Auerbach. They were pretty cool. Once we got to the top we had some good views of a mountain called the Wendelstein, of the valley we drove up and the mountains surrounding the Sudelfeld. So I got some good pics and then we headed home.

Later in the afternoon we went for a swim in Kiefersfelden at the outdoor/indoor heated pools. I had a pretty cruisy week this week, but that was good for a change and it gave me a chance to catch up on some sleep and also some time to reflect. I can't wait to see what the last two weeks will bring.


Kufstein Castle



Eating on the River

One of many Auerbach waterfalls



The Wendelstein (on the far left)



The view to the west from Sudelfeld

Hello Everyone, Jazz again! :)
I am now in my 3rd to last week here in Germany and it is starting to get so cold!
On Saturday it was Jojo's Oma and Opa's 50th Anniversary and the family went out for the day to a nice Bavarian restaurant. There were only about 14 of us so it was a nice and quiet day.
To start off this celebration we had our first entrée; we had a pancake soup with some other 'foods' in it but I’m not 100% sure what but it was very yummy. After this we had our second entrée; this time we had a salad with orange and walnuts. Once we finished it was time for our main, for this one we had 4 options to pick from, I had a piece of fish with some fettuccini noodles and vegetables; it was really yummy but after all the food I could only manage to squeeze in the fish and some noodles.
After everyone had finished it was time for dessert, most people had some ice cream or chocolate mousse but it was too much for me so I saved room for the cake later on.
My host mum, dad, Jojo and I then went for a nice little walk around the town to get some fresh air and walk off a little bit of the food, but it was so cold so Jojo went back to the restaurant before us because she was in a dress. This was a nice time for me to talk to my host parents together and they told me about traditional Bavarian weddings and how they start drinking and celebrating at 4-5am and stop later on and then the bride goes away and gets dressed and prettied up and then they have the ceremony and reception. It sounds much different to a traditional Australian wedding but just as much fun.
When we returned to the restaurant we had coffee, tea and cake. We had three cakes to choose from; one of them Jojo and I made which was a cream cheese sponge cake with peaches in it. There was also an apple cake with cream and a chocolate and cherry cake. Jojo and I had half a piece of our cake and the apple cake each, they were both very yummy.
It is such an amazing thing to reach 50 years of happiness with someone you love and their day was very nice and all of the family was happy and sharing love all day. (:
The day after on Sunday was Jojo's Opa’s 86th birthday, so in one weekend he had his 50th anniversary and 86th birthday :)
To celebrate this my host dad, brother, Jojo and I went to her Oma and Opa's house and had coffee and cakes with them and her other Oma and Opa. This was very nice and so cute; it was like having a little tea party with loved ones.
This time I had the cherry and chocolate cake and Jojo had ours again. By the end of this day there were only a few pieces of the cakes left.
After coffee and cakes Jojo's Oma had made dinner for us so we stayed for that. They had Leberkäse with breads, sweet and savoury mustard, grapes, cheeses, salmon and garlic bread. But I didn’t like the Leberkäse so I just had some grapes, cheese, breads and sweet mustard.
This day was also nice and spent with fun loving people. Over my time here I have got to know most of Jojo's family pretty well and it is so nice to spend time with them. :)
Over all I had a fun, happy, loving, full of food and smiles weekend and I enjoy it very much. I also got to try some foods I hadn’t tried yet, which most of it I liked.

That’s all for now, but i will be back again soon! Ciao, Jazz (:

The three cakes!
Top right- Mine and Jojo's cream cheese sponge cake with peaches cake
top left- apple and cream cake
and bottom-cherry and chocolate cake.

Jojo's Opa with a traditional 50th anniversary sign. It gets hung above the couples front door for them to see when they leave their house.  



My host mum with her parents on their 50th anniversary.

Salzburg and Mountain hike

Hey people it's Tom again...
This week it was back to normal classes and the good thing was that we had all the teachers back again and therefore no free classes. Also this week, Jazz and I started a class with one of the teachers to learn some things about working in an office, and that will continue for the next three weeks. And again, this weekend I did some things with the family.
   On Saturday just after lunch, Lukas, Klaus and I went for a mountain hike of sorts. Where we went was in Austria, about half an hour from Oberaudorf. The walk took us up through a valley between two huge mountains called the Wilder Kaiser and the Zahmer Kaiser. We walked for about an hour and ended up at a little church that had its 300th birthday last year, so that was pretty cool. Whilst walking we had some pretty amazing views of the valley and of  the two mountains. This valley is not accessible to the public by car because to get there you either go through a tunnel which is strictly for the use of rescue services and the residents that live up there. The only other way in is to climb up 316 steps (I counted them myself), straight up an almost vertical ridge. So it was relatively quiet in the valley and on the walk.

And today Lukas, Klaus, Lukas's friend Marco and I went to Salzburg. Salzburg was amazing, as with a lot of the cities I've been to since getting here in Germany. We went staright to the old city where all the sight seeing places are and started to have a look around. We went to the Salzburg Dom, a huge cathedral there, Mozart's birth place and then to the Hohensalzburg, Salzburg's biggest castle. This was seriously cool, from there we got some of the best views od the city and got to see what a real castle looked like. But getting to see the views of Salzburg was definitely the highlight of the day.

The little church



View over Kufstein from the ridge



The old city of Salzburg

Hohensalzburg

ONLY 4 WEEKS LEFT!!!!!!! NOT FAIR!!!!!

Tom agian.......
This week was the first week back from the holidays and it was a strange one to say the least.

On almost everyday Lukas's class had free periods because of teachers being away sick. And for a lot of the classes they didn't even have a teacher because there were so few teachers in the school that they had none left to fill the gaps. So we did a lot of doing nothing this week. But we did to two things that were of significance.

On Thursday afternoon, Lukas, Jazz, Johanna and one of their friends Bubsi went to an ice skating rink in Austria, about 10-15 mins from Oberaudorf.. To start with I was awful but got the hang of it and by the end I was keeping up with all the others, and I'm proud to say that I didn't fall over once. I hope we get to go ice skating again, it was serious fun.

And today Lukas, Korbi, Jazz, Johanna, Julia, Lukas and Korbi's mum and I went to a salt mine in a town called Berchtesgaden in the most southern point of Germany, about 30 kms south of Salzburg. We got to do some cool things in the mine like going down a long wooden slide and going in an underground cable car sort of thing, but I think the best of all was when we crossed an underground lake called the Mirror lake, aptly named for the fact that there is a perfect mirror image of the roof on the lake surface. It was amazing. It took me a while to realise it was even a lake!! While in the mine we also learned a lot about the mining techniques used by the miners to extract the salt deposits. It was especially good for me because I did one week of work experience at a gold mine earlier this year, so it was good to compare the two completely different techniques.

After the saltmine we went for a short drive to lake Koenigsee. We went for a short walk from the car park to a viewing area and from there we got to see one of the most amazing views ever. This lake is both majestic and beautifully postioned in a small valley. It was breath taking. We then started to make our way back to the car but on the way we stopped of at the Bobsled/Luge run, and we were lucky enough to see some athletes running the course on luges. That was seriously cool, and I still can't believe how fast they go around the course, just ask Jazz and she'd give you a good description.

So that's about it for this week. Although a bit boring at school, I still had an enjoyable week. Tom

Bits and peices of fun :)

Hey, Jazz again :)

This blog is a pretty random one and I will tell you about a few different little things that happened.

First of all on Wednesday school finished at 12.00 o'clock because one of our teachers was sick so Jojo and I went to our friends Babsi house for the afternoon and a bit of the night. For lunch we took the train from school to Rosenheim and then we stayed in Rosenheim and just near the train station, literally right next to it there is an Asian restaurant. Babsi and Jojo love it there so we had lunch there. We each got the same meal and they were so huge and only 4.90 Euro! It was really yummy and sooo filling.

After lunch we caught the train to Raubling and we went to Babsi's house. She lives on a little farm and has 2 Donkeys, many cows and round about 20 baby cows, chickens and 3 cats. I think out of all the animals I loved the sound of the Donkeys but the cuuteness of the Baby cows. As I patted their head they kept liking my hands and they were soo adorable when they "moo'd" (:

On Thursday, school finished at 12 because it always does on this day, so Tom, Lukas, Jojo, Babsi and I went Ice skating in Austria. It was only about a 15 minute drive from Lukas and Tom's house; so not that far, which is crazy because it’s another country. Ice skating was heaps of fun and we stayed there for about 1 1/2 hours. Afterwards when we got home though I had a shower and I realised my skates had given me a blister on my foot, it wasn’t that big though. :P

Today I went to Salzburg with Lukas, Korbi, their mum, Tom, Jojo and Julia. We went to a salt mining cave and went on a tour for an hour through the cave. It was pretty cool because we had to go down 2 slides during it, in an elevator type transport thing, on a sort of train to go in and out of the cave and halfway through the tour was my favourite part; We got to an area called the mirror lake and as we looked at it because the water was so still and the water was so reflective with the cave roof it looked like there was no floor at all, it was amazing and people could have just walked straight into the water if they didn’t know better. We went on a boat across the lake, as we went across there was a little light and sound show which was really pretty; we then continued the tour on the other side.

This week has been fairly strange but really nice and i am still enjoying my time in Germany and savouring every moment before I go home.

Stay in touch for next weeks! :D

Europa Park and Venice

Tom again.
This week was a week of holidays and Jazz and I got to have the week to ourselves and our host families. But my host family and I spent little more than a couple of days at home in Oberaudorf.

First of all on the Tuesday, Lukas (my host brother), Korbi (my host brothers brother), and Klaus (my host brother's father), went on a road trip in the direction of Stuttgart, Strassburg, France and Europa Park, a huge theme park on the border of France and Germany. From Oberaudorf it's about 6 hrs so we left at about 6 am and arrived in Strassburg at about two in the afternoon. Strassburg is the city in which the European Parliament is situated and being on the border of two countries, France and Germany, it has had many different swaps of ownership from France to Germany and back again, but is now situated in France.

We had a good look around the city and the cathedral there and then bought tickets to go on a panorama boat that took us around the canals of Strassburg. That was really interesting and the fact that we did it in the twilight made it even better, and shed a whole new light on the attractions of Strassburg. We then hopped in the car again and travelled back into Germany to a town called Ruest, where the Europa Park is found. Ruest is little more than a town so don't bother asking me the significance of putting a theme park in this spot, because I don't know.

Anyway, the next whole day we spent taking in the park, quite literally from head to toe. We got there at nine in the morning and didn't leave again until about 8:30 at night when all the rides closed. We went on about 15 different rides and about twenty in total throughout the day. Most of these were rollercoasters, big and small but also a couple of water rides, etc. Overall we spent probably an hour on the actual rides, and the other 10 hours were spent either waiting in queues or walking around from ride too ride  and around the park in general. So that gives you an idea of how busy it was on the day. So in Europa Park, if you're looking for a thrill then the three key rides are the Blue Fire, The Timber Coaster and the Silver Star. All of these have their own attributes and they are all rollercoasters. My favourite was the Timber Coaster because it was the fastest of the three. If you want to see what the coasters are like I'm sure there's videos on Youtube.

Whilst at the park we also went to some of the shows and the like. The next day we travelled back to Oberaudorf and stayed for the night.  Another early start but this time we were headed south to Venice.

Once we arrived in Venice we went to the hotel and then out into the city. It is amazing! It all looks quite surreal for a while until you get used to the fact that you are completely surrounded by water. The first thing we did was travel by boat down the Grande Canale to San Marco, the heart of Venice. We then went to another islsnd called Lido, and then back to San Marco again. San Marco was by far the busiest place in the whole city, there were people everywhere. So we kept on walking all the way back to the hotel, looking at shops and souvenirs and thinking about what souvenirs I will buy.

The next day we got on the water bus again and travelled to San Marco again, but this time we had a really good look around the main attraction there, The Basilica di San Marco. When you see it you begin to understand why it is so popular. The intricacy in the decorations is amazing. So from there we travelled to another island called Murano. The big attraction on Murano is the glass blowing factories they have on this island, there are literally hundreds of individual businesses that each blow their own glass and sell it to the tourists, some pieces costing anything up to 4000 euros! And again the intricacy that is in the glass statues and jewellery and also the effort put into making them is astonishing.

We then travelled back to the main city and did some more exploration of the city before dinner and then bed. In the morning Korbi, Lukas and I did all of our souvenir shopping. We all bought carnavale masks which are pretty cool.

Venice for me was amazing and has always been on my list of things to do in my life, but I never expected it to be so much of a zoo. You could almost say its just one great big tourist park. But even still, it was one of most facinating places I've visited in my life. On the way back we visited Verona, the site of the real life Romeo and Juliette. So that was a pretty cool way to finish an awesome trip.

Basilica di San Marco

Carnavale Masks

Holidays and outings :)

Hello everybody! its Jazz again and this time I’m telling you about what i got up to in the holidays. (We had a week off) (:
To begin with on Monday My host mum, host brother and his friend, Jojo and our friend and I went to a swimming place called the Erdinger Therma for a few hours during the day and it was the craziest and weirdest thing ever, but pretty fun! The section we went into is a huge swimming centre with, Sauners, A few pools, Lots of slides, some restaurant’s and showers and stuff. Most of the time Jojo, Anna and I were on the slides and they were pretty cool. I think we went on about 6 different ones and my favourite one was when we had to sit in a tube and we went down a big wide slide, it was so fun. The slide I can remember most and disliked quiet a lot was a big wide white one; I disliked it because it was soo crazy and I hurt my hip when we went on it the first time because the walls of it are straight up and plastic (so they were hard) and at the top there isn’t an instructor to say go or not, people just got when they want to, so as you can imagine it’s pretty hectic! After we got sick of the slides we went into a pool and did a little bit of an aerobic water dance class that was happening. It was fun. After about an hour of this we went back on the slides for the last few times and then it was time to have a shower and go home. By the end of the day we were all so tired and had had heaps of fun. It was a day to remember.
On Wednesday Jojo, our friend Bubsi, my host dad and I went up a little bit of a mountain and we went Tobogganing. This was sooo much fun even though I couldn’t get the hang of it so well and kept stopping.., the snow had melted away a little bit but there was still enough to play and Toboggan in. The sky was blue, the sun was out and it wasn’t to cold. After we had done this enough and
On Saturday The Huber family and I went to Salzburg and we went to Markus Sittikus's Palace. This was sooo cool because we went on a tour through his palace garden and saw all of his water features and sculptures. He loved water because it is so calming and so all over the garden are secret holes that water came out of. During the tour the guide kept turning them all on unexpectedly and it was so much fun but scary at the same time as we didn’t know what would happen next. After the tour we had lunch in the park in the larger garden of his palace, it was really huge and soo pretty. After lunch we went into the city of Salzburg and saw another castle and all of the shops in the lanes. It was really different to a normal city but heaps prettier and old fashioned. Salzburg is an amazing city for how different it is and how it has kept its history intact. While we were looking at the different types of shops we also saw Mozart’s home. I really Enjoyed this day and loved Salzburg, it was so pretty and memorable. :)

That is all I have to tell you about this time but stay tunned for next weeks!
Ciao! :)

                                                    

Take off!

Landing!

Biscuits!!

At the palace where Archbishop Markus and his friends drank wine on hot sunny days.

Farewell Short Termers

 Tom again...This being the end of the fourth week, (even though its Thursday in the fifth week, haven't had access to the internet for 4 days), was the week that the short termers travelled home.
  
On the Wednesday we had first of all the Farewell evening/Impressions project presentation night with all the host families. It was held at a shooting range in a town called Kiefersfelden, near the border to Austria. We had a buffet style dinner then presented our projects, after that we did some traditional dancing with a dance group from Kiefersfelden and then had a chance to try some shooting with air rifles.

For the project I was in a group with Matt and Sam and we presented it in the form of a movie with some short dialogs and some funny bloopers and videos of things that have happened during the exchange both in Aus and in Germany. It went really well, mostly according to plan :) This night was particaularly enjoyable and a great way to finish the trip for the short term travellers. Also cool about the night was the fact that I got to wear a full traditional lederhosen, and I might just add that they are suprisingly comfortable.
  
The next day we had presentations again, this time it was to the Year 8's, the potential candidates for the exchange, both short and long, in 2013/2014. It ran really smoothly again and when asked who was interested, about half of the students' hands went up. So that was good to see. The special thing about that Thursday was it was the last day of German school for the short termers and so lots of pictures were taken and shirts signed. No tears were shed just yet though.
  
The next day was just a normal school day for me and Jazz, apart from the fact that we were without the others. But we both decided to go and see them off at the airport, so we had to leave school an hour earlier. Once everyone had their bags checked in and they were heading for the first security check, the goodbyes started to be said and hugs given. For me and Jazz it wasn't such a big thing because we know that wee will see them again, but for the other Aussies and all the Germans it was emotional and it made me start to think of what it's going to be like when we leave, I'm not looking foward to it.
  
Anyway, so that's it for this week, got some big things to talk about next week (actually just 3 days).
Until then Ciaio.

P.S.  If you want to see pics from the night look at Jazz's last post.