9/30/2013

Tea, tea and once more tea

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For a person who has just moved to another country, I have an extremely busy social life. That's why I even have difficulties writing things here, into my blog. But now I've snapped some time from my German study materials and just give another update.
So, what does the tea tea tea mean? I have met many people during the last weekend I had.
My first full week here involved a lot of stay-at home housewife work- cooking cleaning, watching TV and that's about it. Looking for a job as well, of course. I also started to make a carpet myself. With crochet' needle. It still takes some time 'til I finish it, but as soon as it's done, I will upload it here :)
I was also looking for a job and went to EURES office which is almost like unemployement office, but for immigrants. I found out that I need to speak German. Everybody keeps saying that Austrians are picky when it comes to education, language skills, country of origin etc. There's no specific criteria, but finding a job depends on luck and the amount of CV's I send out. Nice. I found out I could work in the post office in the morning from 5-7am, sorting the mail or I could be the mail-delivery guy or milkman. Or the street cleaner. Hmmh. Exactly what I came looking for. Because of this information, Hannes signed me up for an intense language course that actually started today. It lasts for a month, but it's around 25hrs per week + homework. I started it today, I'm in te A1.1 level as I don't know much about grammar. The first class was easy for me, though. Way too easy- I know how to introduce myself and pronounce letters. Fortunately, the lady who's our teacher, told me that it will be like this for 3-4 days and then it will get better.
Going back to the meeting loads of people topic, my weekend was over the top busy. On Saturday we went to visit Judith with Hannes. She just got back here and we went to say hy to her. That was really lovely. We drank lots of tea and just gossiped. We're going on a dinner to her place on Thursday and promised to make a cake. :P After seeing Judith, we hurried back home, where a friend of Hannes was waiting already for us (behind the door as we were a bit late ourselves..... I need to get better at planning my time). We introduced her to Estonia by showing many videos and photos. She loved them. She had just been to Israel so she told about her trip. We drank tea and ate tiramisu that she brought to us.  Oh, I nearly forgot. On Saturday I got my city-bike from another friend of Hannes - she left the country and gave it to us for free. It's a really good and fast bike and in a good state as well. So I'm happy! I got two bikes here now! A proper city-bitch and a normal long-distance bike.
On Sunday we went to meet another Estonian girl who just moved to Graz. She is really nice and lovely! I'm so happy there's such a nice Estonian here with whom I'm sure I will communicate a lot and will become good friends. She is really smart, obsessed with Graz and Austria and knows a lot about this country. She had been here many times before as Erasmus student and also as EVS. She has graduated  from Treffner, so she is a good person to talk to and we have many things in common and know the same kind of people. I'm really happy and left her place with such a good mood. Hannes liked her as well!

So for the next 4 weeks I will be extremely busy with language school and will try to look for a job as well. I am also going to meet some more new people- some all by myself and some are Hannes's friends. And we'll have many dinners with other people. So it seems I won't get bored, which is good. Therefore, I have to apologize if I will lack of blog posts- they will be once a week or so and I won't be talking to people in Skype too often either. But you can still start the conversation with me and I will reply and tell whether I got time or we'll have to talk later.

Besides all the social part outside home, I have to say that so far I'm still all happy and satisfied with over the fact I moved to Graz to live together with Hannes. We can manage and it's not such a lack of privacy that I thought I would have when moving together with a boyfriend. Hannes has to work and go to school and I have school. And we still do our own things in the computer. It's like living with my previous flatmates. Almost. It's just got some more benefits. If you know what I mean ;)

About living together- right now it's still just the beginning of it.... We'll see how it will be in 2-3 months time.

For now I'm happy and active and have to say I don't miss Estonia at all (maybe my friends but not work, for sure not work).

9/23/2013

Graz- a city with too much trust and interesting ways to welcome you. And some Turkish shops and Russki magazin and Italian ice-cream.

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 So, I've finally somewhat settled down here in my new home in Graz. I live quite close to the central of Graz (10min walking) and 5 minutes from the Hauptbahnhof (train station). My flat is lush- the best looking flat I've ever lived in- well, it's new. So it's pretty. And we have our own basement-cell where I keep my bike (which Hannes put back together and fixed a bit).


My arrival to Austria was quick and without any problems. I got off the plane, got my luggage (some of it got stuck on the lint but no problemo in general), got into the car of one of the friends of Hannes and then drove to Graz.


On the first day (Thursday afternoon), Hannes made me a tiny tour around the closer area- where the shops are located and where I can get Turkish and maybe Estonian food. Firstly, they are located close to me, so I'm happy. I can get good Turkish bread and halva and coffee from nearby places. Then here's a Russian shop as well. And guess what I found there? Pelmeenid, präänik, condensed milk, sprotid, Rollton chicken-flavoured noodles, Baltika beer, Krakow sausage, Russian candies and most of all- some weird looking Russian Kohuke that actually tastes really good. I'd say that only Estonian beer is missing now :) Hannes also showed me a local ice-cream place which is owned by Italians and where they sell freshly-made ice cream. Well, you can imagine how good that tastes!


On the second day, me and Hannes went around in the city a bit, met again with the guy who drove us to Graz and had another ice-cream with him in that Italian place. This time for free, because they just renovated the street it was located in and for the opening of the street the ice cream was gratis (free). Not bad at all for first couple of days in Graz.


On Saturday we put together my bike with Hannes and fixed it.Also, we promised to help a gay-association to sell their stuff for couple of hours on the street that was freshly opened- because they had a fair over there. A funny incident as well- a lady came to us, told that the stuff we sell should just be chucked into garbage (sort of Flea Market stuff) but was a bit looking at the table where we had the rainbow-coloured things. Then she asked whether we have those....welll those.....those..... and asked whether she could look for them in the gay association house that was behind us. Hannes went there with her and the lady saw the bowl with condoms. She told that her son is gay and well, when he's like that then he should at least be protected and she worries about his healty and then took a bunch of condoms. Oh, but she chose condoms- they were all the same, just different texts on them, but she told that oh, those ones are better than the others. She was a nice fussy lady. Funny.


On Sunday, we went to botanic gardens with Hannes and that friend of his (let's call him the bee guy, will explain soon, why such codename).  They had a free-entrance there so we took a look. Well, botanic gardens as everywhere else, basically.



On that day I found out sth weird about Graz- they have public gardens where everybody can go and plant their things and grow them there and everybody can go and take them for free. E.g., I could go and take tomatoes from there for free. It's extremely weird to me- people trust each other so much here  that they aren't afraid of thugs coming and breaking the garden or stealing everything from there. This system has worked here for 5 years. I could go there myself and start growing plants. Weird. I still think I will do that on the balcony of our flat.... Even though one of those gardens is 5min walk from our flat. Still, the bee-guy who keeps 3 hives of his bees in that garden, told that we can go there whenever we wanted. I don't feel comfortable with such stuff- I don't grow anything there so I won't go and take anything from there- that's fair, I would say. Hannes agrees with me. Me as a typical Estonian can't just imagine such a level of trust actually working out. But it does.


 

Anyay, Graz is a weird place (in some ways) to live in.

I love the fact that they have tiny family-shops in the streets, though. Reminds me of England a bit.


Oh,and by the way, after I registered myself as the citizen of Austria, I got a welcome-package with many maps and booklets about Graz. Also a memory-stick with 2 movies about Graz on it.


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