I’ve worn these particular pants quite a bit since I’ve been here. But after this week and noticing multiple times I decided it was time to mention it. I have several pairs for several occasions (which is good because laundry is one washer for 2 floors and hang dry only) that I’ll explain.

I had to roll up my pants because it was so insanely hot that day by the lake!

The first is just rehearsal venting. My fellow dancers (or other thespians/musicians/etc.) or my friends that try to make plans with me understand that rehearsals are a long, unpredictable, and can often be painful and boring times. I’m used to that. This week’s schedule was a lot of rehearsal and not a lot of class because the shows are quickly approaching. I’ve been doing my best to take advantage of the down time but sometimes it just takes a lot of positive attitude and wearing of patience pants to get through.

More interestingly, another occasion for patience pants is queues. I prefer to refer to lines as this because it seems less annoying to wait in a queue for the loo or in this case for lunch than it does to wait in line and I’m trying to incorporate others’ fun vocabulary into my own. Anyway, I’ve noticed what is perhaps a difference in cultural expectations when it comes to these situations. Without pointing fingers, there seems to a nationality pattern to which of the other students “respect” the line of people waiting for lunch and follow in an “orderly” manner around the serving table, and which “take cuts” and don’t wait their turn or “randomly” walk up to the table/goes around “backward” and other behaviors of the like. I want to clarify that the words in quotes are because I’m guessing that the adjectives I’m using to describe their behavior is subjective to my expectations when it comes to how a queue works. It has taken a lot of self control when I’m tired and hungry to not get upset with people not acting the way I think they should. I just have to remind myself that no one is trying to ruffle my feathers on purpose and they probably think it’s silly to stand and wait for slow pokes when they are hungry and could just go around.

Thirdly, I’ve realized that some sign language/miming don’t translate. Unfortunately, I can only think of one example for you right now. When I understand what my Italian roommate is trying to communicate to me and I want to show her I agree, I’ve found I point first to myself and then hold up two fingers. Silly, “two” and “too” are not synonyms in Italian. She probably thinks I don’t understand and just smiles politely to avoid my further humiliation and her confusion.

Moment of the week:
Kelsey: “Gwen, your English has really improved!”
Gwen: “What’s ‘improved’?”
Precious 🙂

Now, this is the part where my friends, family and curious strangers should skip ahead to where it says RESUME if short on time (that is to say, the next few paragraphs are just nonsense, do not follow the blog assignment and is mostly a convenient way to tell a story to my friends).

*Catchy title that my dear Marissa (WOU roommate) would help me think of if we were together*
It all began on my very first day. I walked into the previously described, interesting bathroom here and tried to open the middle stall door.

Two open stalls and the locked one…

It was locked. I found this weird since I thought I was alone but just used a different one. Time passed and my roommates arrived and on the first morning we found out that both Gabi and I had heard the same weird banging noises in the middle of the night. They sounded like they were coming from the closet. This continued and it became a running joke that someone lived in our closet, or that there were body parts in there or ya know, whatever. Gabi also mentioned that she had heard footsteps several nights and had always assumed it was me coming in wearing squeaky sneakers. My sneakers do not squeak and I usually go to bed at the same time. I mostly ignored this since I hadn’t heard any squeaking.

I forget the exact order of events but as time went on and our joke progressed, it was decided that someone had moved into the mysterious middle stall and is living there which is why it’s always locked. Also, it is important to note that the idea of an alien in our closet was not completely rejected. In fact, the most likely explanation for all of this is that the middle bathroom stall and our wardrobes are actually vanishing cabinets (for those of you that are lost, that is a Harry Potter reference), this makes sense because we’ve yet to discover a more logical reason behind the noises and locked stall door. Besides, vanishing cabinets are logical.

Alright, 3 or 4 nights ago, I woke up in the middle of the night and heard a weird noise. The longer I listened the clearer the sound became and in a shiver, Gabi’s complaints came flooding back to me. The sneakers. Loud and clear there were footsteps in our room. I rolled over and no one was there. In a slight panic I rolled back over and tried desperately to fall asleep again, eventually the sound faded. I recounted the episode at breakfast and realized just how much it had spooked me. This wasn’t my typical it’s-dark-and-there-is-probably-a-boogie-man feeling it was a bit more of the nervous-someone-followed-me-home-at-night feeling supported by smart and sensible Gabi’s animated reaction to my finally having heard the squeaks. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, it was concluded that whoever lived in that middle stall was using the vanishing wardrobes and wandering around our room at inappropriate hours in inappropriate footwear. Two nights later I experienced the same thing and when I reported my hearings I was clarifying that the footsteps were nearer to Gabi’s bed than my own and having never discussed it before, Gabi agreed.

This has nothing to do with the story (she got her own sheets and was stuffing away the provided ones) but it shows the wardrobes and I find it interesting that some people believe the little white circle thing you see is an orb…a sign of a ghost…ooooo!

You all think I’m crazy. And paranoid. And just in case, I’d like to say this is mostly a joke causing good entertainment and making it much more interesting to be trapped inside this old, catholic, boy’s boarding school with no exposure to the outside world for many hours at a time.

One angle of the view outside the window on the boys floor. The building on the mid-right is a studio about 4 floors down.

RESUME

“Don’t blink”
The day had finally come! Our lakes and town bus tour of Austria! I’d looked forward to this since I first signed up for the program. Almost 40 people signed up for the all day excursion and we loaded a double decker bus and drove off at about 9am on 5 hours of sleep. This is the “don’t blink” part….being so tired my eye lids were heavy but the view was absolutely too spectacular to risk even blinking. I figured that the desire to glue my eye balls to the window would let up eventually and I could nap. Nope. The torturously beautiful mountains and lake was our backdrop all day long. I decided to bring the view home with me since it was pointed out that it would be hard to get one of the cute, live, ducks through customs. Scenery is obviously easier to fit in a suitcase. Anyway, the sun was shining! Our first day off when it wasn’t pouring! I even had a lovely red sun burn to prove it.
I think it will be easier to walk you through our day by pictures and captions.

This was my first glimpse of the scenery once off the bus. You can kind of see the lake and mountains and other dancers! We had about an hour here. It was incredibly hot and I bought an iced coffee and played on the swings and sat by the lake with the ducks!

Destination 2 and 3

Cont.

After a bit of a drive on the bus where our back ground started out as American pop music and slowly digressed to bad 90’s American pop music, we arrived at the second stop. I dangled my feet in the water while some friends swam and some took pictures! But the pictures simply don’t do the view justice!

Our third destination was lunch and city. We wandered a lot though the beautiful streets and buildings looking for food. We didn’t have the time for and didn’t want to pay for some of the tourist traps. Finally, hot and tired we got some food. This picture was more for the sake of “wow, look at the architecture and natural view behind lunch” but conveniently shows Gwen and Kelsey from the conversation above!

Destination 4. We didn’t actually get to stop here…

This picture was taken from the bus window as the rain that kept us from our 4th tour stop began to let up. It was so stormy so suddenly that we saw people in bikinis rushing around and boats filling with water and our bus began to leak. Those pictures didn’t really turn out. The lighting was amazing!

As compensation, we all got free cake and hot chocolate! It was fancy. Also at the cafe there was a cat and a happy atmosphere with content people having conversation with friends! It was a good way to end the trip!

This basically concludes Saturday’s adventure. It’s late and I need to rest up to get through week 4 including 4 performances! For more pictures, see Facebook within the week.

Until next time,

Emily