![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kitewithfishOkay, we have established that my German is not that great. I can understand a lot, but there's a lot of information flying around me in German that I just cannot grasp. Fortunately, a great deal of it is repeated endlessly, so that's good.
I find myself going "Vienna is like Boston, except....." at least five times a day. And, it's true, there are some similarities. Like the absence of trees, the presence of large amounts of people, and oddly paved streets. I am aware this is a coping mechanism.
Here's what's not like Boston: All the buildings are fantastically old. Vienna's largest population was almost two hundred years ago, at the height of a global empire. There's been really no need to build more houses, so things just sort of get maintained. There are new things (like eerie-ass sliding glass doors without any frames), but they are generally in incredibly old buildings. They are also firm believers in buildings as pieces of art. Personal space is smaller. There are streets that are seven hundred years old. There are no black people, though there are a few Asians and brown people of unknown variety (wearing hijab, possibly Turkish). There are children begging in the streets in the main pedestrian-only areas, which is just upsetting. Apparently they are generally not homeless, but rather the children of immigrants who won't send them to school. Again, upsetting, but I'm not sure if it's accurate.
I went on a guided walk of the inner part of Vienna, where I will be going to school and am currently living. It's like a museum: everything is white and hundreds of years old. There's a level of well-maintained shabbiness that pervades the area and most of the buildings. I am generally the shortest person that I can see in any group, minus children and Asians.
I need to get a water bottle, paper, notebooks, and a better sense of the area.
I am vividly aware that if I were not trying to function in German, but just gave it up and let myself enjoy this without focus, I would be having a better time.
The jet lag is strange, and seems to be affecting my appetite. I just don't really feel all that hungry unless I let myself starve, and then I'm okay. I feel just sort of drained, though I have flashes of decently levels of functioning. I need to figure out how to find landmarks, because "the big white building" does not *work* here.
As to my fellow Americans in exile: they have way more German than me. Colleen's got four years, Ana (who is actually Croatian, not American) has six. Colleen seems to be going around with a vaguely panicked look on her face; when we went grocery shopping, she said that it was really the first time that she had gone shopping for herself alone. I think that my brief stint at Wellesley during Wintersession will serve me well in the self-supporting field. Ana is just astoundingly competent and focused.
I find myself going "Vienna is like Boston, except....." at least five times a day. And, it's true, there are some similarities. Like the absence of trees, the presence of large amounts of people, and oddly paved streets. I am aware this is a coping mechanism.
Here's what's not like Boston: All the buildings are fantastically old. Vienna's largest population was almost two hundred years ago, at the height of a global empire. There's been really no need to build more houses, so things just sort of get maintained. There are new things (like eerie-ass sliding glass doors without any frames), but they are generally in incredibly old buildings. They are also firm believers in buildings as pieces of art. Personal space is smaller. There are streets that are seven hundred years old. There are no black people, though there are a few Asians and brown people of unknown variety (wearing hijab, possibly Turkish). There are children begging in the streets in the main pedestrian-only areas, which is just upsetting. Apparently they are generally not homeless, but rather the children of immigrants who won't send them to school. Again, upsetting, but I'm not sure if it's accurate.
I went on a guided walk of the inner part of Vienna, where I will be going to school and am currently living. It's like a museum: everything is white and hundreds of years old. There's a level of well-maintained shabbiness that pervades the area and most of the buildings. I am generally the shortest person that I can see in any group, minus children and Asians.
I need to get a water bottle, paper, notebooks, and a better sense of the area.
I am vividly aware that if I were not trying to function in German, but just gave it up and let myself enjoy this without focus, I would be having a better time.
The jet lag is strange, and seems to be affecting my appetite. I just don't really feel all that hungry unless I let myself starve, and then I'm okay. I feel just sort of drained, though I have flashes of decently levels of functioning. I need to figure out how to find landmarks, because "the big white building" does not *work* here.
As to my fellow Americans in exile: they have way more German than me. Colleen's got four years, Ana (who is actually Croatian, not American) has six. Colleen seems to be going around with a vaguely panicked look on her face; when we went grocery shopping, she said that it was really the first time that she had gone shopping for herself alone. I think that my brief stint at Wellesley during Wintersession will serve me well in the self-supporting field. Ana is just astoundingly competent and focused.
