How is that possible that you live in Austria and have never gone mountain skiing?

Because it's madly expensive, that's why!

But when one has a chance, then one has to grab it.

That is exactly what happened after 3,5 years in Austria. I have made many great friends here, mostly couples. You know- Estonian girl, Austrian guy. The family of one of those guys, lets call him L, has a mountain hut near a skiing slope in the county of Carinthia and he invited us all to go and spend a weekend there.  Usually it is very costly to go such places so took the opportunity without hesitating.

On the last weekend of February 2017 we all drove to Corinthia. Our main aim was to have fun, go skiing and sauna (Estonian influence obviously, L had bough a sauna). We also wanted to celebrate Estonia's 99th birthday there.

Me, Hannes and an Estonian friend of ours, lets name her AS, had never gone mountain skiing. Hannes had only once tried nordic skiing, but that was it.
Some of us went to the hut already a day before. Hannes came one day later with some other friends who had to work a day longer.  The hut itself is lovely, has altogether 3 floors, on the basement-floor is the storage and sauna, ground floor has a living room, kitchen, shower and toilet and first floor 4 bedrooms. The hut has been built by L's grandfather, and the grandparents had made most of the decorations and as far as I understood, some furniture, by themselves. It looked like the cosiest mountain hut one can imagine.

Mountain skiing- I'm glad I know how to ski on nordic skis. As me and AS didn't have any skiing equipment, we had to borrow it from the resort. Getting the right boots was an effort. It turns out that with the boots you need to not only have the correct size, but also the right shape.
I got such bad boots in the beginning, that I couldn't basically move. I think my feet didn't get any blood in them. So, hoping that it was just my problem, I went and changed them for another pair. After that I felt that I could actually go skiing with them. But wait, you had to first get to the slope.
.
Putting on the boots took a while- they are so tight and rough that it hurts to even put them on. Then you need to use all your force to strap them as tight as possible. They go way above your ankles and you can not move your feet in them at all. Oh, and your legs are bent slightly forward as that is the position you need for skiing. After all you've heard, can you then imagine walking with them? I couldn't, but me and AS both tried. We were both looking like zombies from the Walking Dead while trying to balance ourselves and move couple of meters with those. Oh yeah, we also had our skis in our hands. I'm pretty sure we were a relatively amusing sight for others. Took us quite a while to get from the parking lot to the actual slope.

Now we were ready (or not) to put on the skis. Sounds simple, you say? Think again. The boots don't lock into the skis only from the front, but also from behind. After 5 minutes of trying we both finally managed to get on the skis with the assistance of L and A-L. They were very patient. The next challenge was to actually stay standing with the skis and not slide anywhere (not that easy in the beginning).  AS managed to slide backwards into a fence.....I'm not gonna say I was much better.  Took down no fences though.
Then we started learning how to actually move around. That's where nordic skiing came in handy. For our surprise we got the techique on how to make curves with the skis quickly and L and A-L decided that we are ready to go up the mountain. Only after 15mins. Great! Or not.....

Once we had bought our ski lift tickets, we had to face another challenge- to get on the lift. It was a plate-type lift which you have to quickly pull and put between your legs and then it starts to pull you up the mountain. Sounds easy? Only if you know how to actually stand while driving up. I was halfway squatting and by the time we were up, my legs were done. Before I had even started to ski down....

Obviously I fell, And not only once. Falling was easy, but getting up, well that is another topic. Took me a while to realize that I should put the skis so, that they are crossed with the slope. Every time I tried to get up in the beginning, I fell straightaway again because I started sliding withour any balance. And I mean, getting up with those boots is not comfortable- your ankles can not move, so you need to use your hands and sticks to get up. I obviously have weak hands.  Must have been a funny sight to see me getting up. But L, who was standing next to me for those THREE minutes, while I was doing god knows what while trying to get my ass off the ground, was very patient.  It was not the only time and place where I fell. AS managed to fall off from the plate-lift. She was supposed to start right after me but all I could see behind me was someone in the snow. One shouldn't laugh about others mistakes. Learned my lesson the next day when I fell down with Hannes from a T-shaped lift for two people.

After couple of times of trying on the lowest slope, we went higher. That was not for me, I fell too often and as I later realized, used many wrong muscles to drive down. So I was knackered too soon. A-L and L said that we had a bad-slope-day for learning as it was icy from the warm weather the day before. After a while it started to snow a lot and then the slope also got better. As we didn't want to take all the fun from A-L and L, we said with AS that they can go and drive some better and faster slopes and we can practice on our own. That's also what we did. After 45 mins of skiing I actually got the feeling on how to ski and started to enjoy it. Did altogether 3hrs of skiing that day. Was a good days' worth of learning for me. I have to say, the sauna had never felt better in the evening than it did on that day.

The next day we had beautiful weather- sunshine, cloudless sky, amazing view. In the beginning of the second day on the slope, my feet (and also AS's feet) were like jelly. She didn't do many rounds. I was luckier-  I did 3hrs of skiing with breaks in between. Downhill skiing is pretty bad for the knees and I could feel mine a lot.
 On that day Hannes also started to learn how to ski. For him it took longer because he had barely gone nordic skiing.  After 45 minutes learning and backwards sliding and falling also Hannes managed to start driving by himself, so we could go up the mountain and down together.  L was very patient with Hannes. I couldn't always wait until Hannes did 20m to continue skiing so I went down a lot faster.  It wasn't fair for L to only teach, so we sent him away so that he could enjoy it too and I stayed with Hannes. He didn't really want me to tell him what he is doing wrong (like not keeping the skis parallel etc) and told me to go faster. Win-win! For the last round he also wanted to try out the higher part of the slope, that me and AS had done the day before. That's when we both fell down from the lift. On the second try we managed to go all the way up.  The higher part of the slope was a lot steeper and Hannes didn't enjoy it too much. He was happier when he got back to the place where he practiced before.


On the third day, most of us decided to take a short walk near the hut with all the picturesque views as our legs were done from the skiing.   By the way, you could see the steepest slope from the hut and with good snow conditions also ski to the lift from the hut.

Even after all the pain and falling, I have to say, I enjoyed it a lot and would do it again. I wouldn't go on a proper skiing holiday though, as they are way too overpriced here. Maybe I go in South-Tyrol at some point.
I am also very grateful to our hosts, L and A-L as the weekend and the hut were brilliant and they were the most patient and calm teachers one could have. They deserve a medal!

Aaaaaand no one can say to me again that "How is that possible that you live in Austria and have never gone mountain skiing?".

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How does it feel to share a life between two (or actually even three) countries?

Last week, when a friend of mine, who is from Estonia, had her leaving party here, I started to think deeper about my life which is currently divided between three countries and two out of those countries have grown so close to me, that imagining leaving one of them for the other would be a very hard task. I don't know what it is, but amongst almost all my good Estonian friends come and go deep and painful longings for our fatherland.

One friend of mine had such a bad crisis just couple of months ago and as the result of that her boyfriend started to learn Estonian, although until then he had shown little or no interest in the language. She got over her crisis but we spoke about it a lot at the time. She has a good job here, where she can actually do something and change the lives of people, at the same time it's also a well paid job. In Estonia she wouldn't get such a job with the kind of a wage she has right now. Her occupation doesn't even exist in Estonia.
Another friend of mine still keeps her name in the list of an Estonian university, even though she has been living here for four years now. She has taken maternity leave, normal academic leave and soon that will be over as well. Still, she is not willing to give up that placement, although she is getting married here this year and has her whole life built here. There is always that small doubt... "what if?". What if things go wrong? She would at least have a backup plan then.

It is well known that the longer one person spends in another country, the less they start to miss their homeland. I can for sure confirm it. I've been living in Austria for almost three years now and it feels like home to me. Yet, when I go to Estonia, I feel the same way. It's nice to have two homes, isn't it? I would actually also have South-Tyrol as my home in the future, as my boyfriend comes from there, but my feelings towards that region are not that strong yet. Having two homes in two different countries is actually not that easy. The longer you live in one country, the more you get to know your way around, the local traditions and lifestyle. You just adapt to it. The circle of friends also grows bigger and bigger and the friends you make, will become closer and closer. I am really lucky to tell that I have also got really great friends in Estonia, with whom I will always remain as close to as I am now.  But I have also got such friends in Austria.

The leaving party I attended made me think that I will also have to have my leaving party one day here, in Austria,. That made me feel really sad. It also made me not want to leave here ever. Then again, I also want to go back to Estonia. The realisation that the longer I stay here, the harder leaving will be, made me freak out a lot. It would be way easier to go, had I not made so many good friends here. In order to be happy somewhere, one needs friends. From pillar to post (nokk kinni, saba lahti).
As I never really thought so much about all the feelings related to leaving Austria, I was quite surprised. Leaving England seems like a child's play now next to it.

So how does it feel to share a life between two countries? Crap, it feels really crap, because whatever you will decide to do in the end, you will hurt many people and will be deeply hurt yourself too. There simply are no good solutions.

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The perks of working with people with Autism

I had to do a bit different working shift today, where I had to take one guy home to the other end of the county from a social group he attends in Graz. It was an unexpected shift in thay sense that I found out about it two days before and had to change my work schedule for that. Was all worth it, because....  I got into a following situation:
I went to pick my client up and along with him came another autistic guy, claiming that he is all the time taken to a certain bus stop in Graz by the workers who take my client home. Alright, no need to doubt, my client also seemed to be used to it. We sat in the car, the new guy in the front and my client to the back. The new guy (seemed like a high-functioning autist or Asperger to me) asked me about my accent and as soon as he found out I'm from Estonia, he started telling me how fascinating he finds the Baltic States. My client was already starting to get nervous (obviously, me picking him up was out of his regular routine as I used to have him 2 years ago and he was still a bit insulted that I had to give work with him up unexpectedly and now I was talking to other guy actively) and I tried to calm him down while the new guy kept going on about the situation with the Russians in Estonia. Aaaaand then, he said something. I felt like being hit by a brick. I asked him to repeat it. "Kaks" (two in Estonian, it somehow fit into the current topic we had). And then he said he had been studying Estonian by himself at home and told that he finds Finno-Ugric languages interesting and told that "Yeah, Estonian and Finnish are really similar but Hungarian is completely different". It seemed to me that he knows more about why Hungarian belongs to this language group and all the details related to it but I didn't have time to ask him more. Unfortunately. Every now and then he would drop another Estonian word to me during our conversation and eventually, when I managed to ask him whether he has met any Estonians in his life, he said "No". He then added that he knows Eda-Ines Etti and our president and that he wanted to look more into the background of the new Austrian president (Van der Bellen) as he has Estonian roots. He also told that we changed our money recently and that our previous currency was  "Kroon". Pronounced as perfectly as one can expect a German speaker to say it (with the German "r"). He said the word in Estonian though.  I told him that I still have some Estonian money left at home and he said he collects money and asked me whether I could give him one of them (unfortunately I have them in Estonia, but now, when I think about it later I might try to organize something for him). He also asked for my phone number (which I didn't give, because you know, clients). When I dropped him off, he said "Nägemist" and "Aitähh" to me (Seeya, thanks). My client was by that time already on the edge of banging his head on the window and my attempts in trying to calm him down were not working too well until the other guy had left the car and he could have me only for him for talking).
To sum it up- I met a random probably Asperger guy who is so fascinated about Estonia that he learns the language by himself, knows probably a lot about my country and actually has no real contact to the country at all. I was the first real Estonian he had ever met. I must say, probably he spoke more Estonian than many foreign boyfriends of Estonian girls do. Now that is something extraordinary. And he should be one of the people I work with, one of my clients....
I most sincerely hope I get to meet this guy again and be able to talk to him a bit more.
This stuff just doesn't happen, except that it did today. I'm still shocked (but positively).
Aja, he said that he was motivated by Daniel Tammet (the author of "Born on a blue day", another random autistic guy who has learnt Estonian because he liked how is sounds). What is it with autistic people and Estonian language?? We must have a perfect language for autistic people (for some weird reason).

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Elfriede Ott a'la Austrian (or Croatian) neighbours

When we were living in our very first flat in Graz, we once watched an Austrian movie called "Elfriede Ott" with my German-speaking friends. It was supposed to be a comedy in the style of "Siin me oleme". The activities took place in Graz and the movie had the best Austrian actors and actresses playing in it, who meant nothing to me. The language of the movie was Austrian German with deep influences from the local Styria dialect. Which at that time was almost impossible for me to understand. The movie itself was supposed to describe Austrian neighbourhood in a humorous way. I didn't get it. Until....

...we moved to our next flat in the part of the city called Eggenberg. Eggenberg is a very multi-cultural region, with a colourful mixture of inhabitants. Mostly from South-East Europe (like Croatia, Turkey etc). Our new neighbours were from Chechenija, probably Turkey, some other nationalities that we never found out and there was a couple from Croatia. A very old couple. They were the only people in the house, who owned their flat and didn't rent it.
This couple made me understand the humour of that Elfriede Ott movie. The movie about neighbours, who have to know everything about everyone.
So, while we were moving in, they introduced themselves to us straightaway as the house-keepers (you know, when there is a problem, we should go to them). When we moved our stuff into the flat, they occasionally peeked through our opened door to see what was going on and sometimes even invited themselves into our flat. Ok, we were new and interesting. Couple of weeks after we had moved in, Hannes had his birthday. We were not loud or anything, but at 11 pm. our neighbours came to our door to tell us, that they cannot sleep (they lived above us). We didn't play any music, sometimes we might have laughed a bit loud, but that was it. A while later, before I was gonna have my birthday party, I went to tell them that we're gonna get visitors and brought them a package of waffles as an apology. They kept going on about how loud we are, how loud the other neighbours are and just spoke in a mannes which in Austria is called "jammern", the Estonian equivalent is probably "kiunumine" or "vingumine".  I asked them whether they have thought about the fact that, when they hear us, we hear them too. And I asked them about the war going on upstairs that we sometimes hear (you know, when someone runs or plays a ball). I said that we get oftern that feeling, that we would like to say something to them as well, but we are just too nice. Well, from that day on, they never told us anything about us being too loud.
But that's not how the story ends. Oh no, this is just the beginning.
You see, we had a communal garden, for everybody to use. Or, for everybody to use, but for those neighbours to control. There was a corner for bicycle storage- which we actively used as our flat was on the ground floor. One day our doorbell rang (soon after we had moved in) and we were explained by our lovely pissed off neighbours, that each flat was allowed to put only one bike there, due to the lack of space. Alright, we would've put our bikes to the bike storage in the basement, but that was full of stuff from exactly those neighbours. Which we also mentioned. Couple of curses in their mother tongue, and some days later the room looked a lot cleaner. Hallelujah!
As the laundry drying room in our basement was locked and our flat had already massive humidity problems, we used the garden to dry our clothes. It was allowed, but our neighbours didn't really like it, because the laundry was either way too close to their tomatoes or on the way of their garden-furniture (the "communal garden" itself was probably 20 square meters or less). So, often, when we put our laundry outside, it was a "hurricane-like windy" day so it fell over (the drying rack) or someone had reorganized our laundry on the rack or relocated the whole rack in to some shadowed corner in the garden or we found nut peels on our drying clothes (our neighbours had the balcony on the first floor straight towards the garden). The cute old couple also had to clean their carpets from their balcony right after we had put our freshly washed stuff outside or water their plants in a very extravagant manner, so it splashed everywhere (the muddy water of course). Once I caught the bitch  in the act- she had told we should put our stuff under their balcony because then it's not in their way - 20 minutes after I had put it there, she was watering the flowerd on her balcony and guess where all the extra water went. Oh how she could shout, when I confronted her about it. I guess you could've heard it even from a kilometre away. I left her alone to yell as I was not really bothered (after all I had said what I needed to say) and went inside. The cries of the deeply insulted and hurt woman lasted for another 30 minutes.
Once, one of my other neighbours, was training in the basement corridor. Nothing that would bother us. But the female part of the couple from hell, well she rang our doorbell and asked Hannes to go and look with her, what was going on. They went, she yelled at the poor guy in the basement for a good amount of time and thought that Hannes will support her. Hannes said, that he doesn't mind the guy exercising there and left. A week later there was a notice on the corridor wall from flat-owners association, saying that "For fire-safety reasons, it is not allowed for anyone to exercise in the basement.".
Sometimes those neighbours brought our laundry back into our flat, when they didn't like it being in the garden or they rang our doorbell for some other reasons or just complained to us about our neighbours from Chechenija or someone else who had done something they didn't like. At some point they put a sign on a window in the corridor with pictures of Jesus Christ and some holy text (most of the people in the house were muslims), which we then removed in the darkness of the night. We saw the couple often lurking behind the corners of the corridor or the stairs, trying to listen what is going on in various flats or who is talking to whom in the corridor. We sometimes caught them in the act and they then pretended to be doing something really important. But they always knew exactly what was going on where.
The case with our neighbours reached it's high point, when someone broke into our electricity-box in the corridor and by mistake switched off the electricity in all the flats on the ground floor. Except for one- the one where the Checheny neighbours lived. Probably it was them - they had their electricity turned off, I guess. But the lovely Croatian neighbours came to us, thinking we did it. We explained them the situation  (which was a hard task taking into account that they were constantly whining) and hoped they had understood it. We also called the police who recorded the incident with the electricity box. Couple of days later our flat had - once again -  no electricity. We are pretty sure that the old damn couple switched it off to annoy us as much as they could. We couldn't prove it though.
After one year of hearing them complain about everything I told the old lady to piss off and she never spoke to us or disturbed us again. I also might have threatened her with the police.....
All I know, is that we were probably the worst neighbours one could have in their opinion. I'm sure the new renters of our old flat will have heard of it by now. Maybe they have even topped us. Who knows.
But by the time we moved out, I understood everything that I had seen in the movie "Elfriede Ott".

Our problems with the previous flat still continue but that is a whole new and even longer story than this one....

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The birthplace of Terminator

Once in my language course in Austria, we were discussing about all the famous people that come from Austria. A few names were named: Fritzl (yeah, people tend to have heard of him a lot); You-Know-Who (at least we should not say his name out loud- he was a very very bad person, worse than Fritzl) also originates from here; Franz Ferdinand; Arnold Schwarzenegger. For some weird reason, no one in our group named Mozart. But this post is not gonna be about him anyway. Everyone should know he comes from Austria, I mean seriously, people?

I'm gonna briefly talk about my visit to the birthplace of the currently most famous Austrian - or as the locals tend to call him - Arnie.
After having lived here for almost three years, I decided it was time to visit the only existing museum about Arnold Schwarzenegger, located in his birthplace. I guess there will be more museums created, once he will be dead. But let's not think about that. Arnie comes from a tiny village called Thal in Thal valley near Graz. The whole area of Thal is full of symbols and signs related to Arnie. The local lake has a boat standing next to it, where he supposedly proposed to his wife. There is also a hiking trail with his name around the local lake (called Thalersee).
The locals in Graz asked me, after I had mentioned I want to go see the place, why I would do such a thing? They don't seem to be proud of their own Mr. Universe. They also say that there is nothing to see. I was gonna check it out myself.

So on a nice and sunny day I took my bike and cycled up to his museum (it's about 30min cycle with average speed to his museum from where I live). Right in the end, I had to cycle up a small mountain (to an Estonian it was actually a mountain). I got up and to my surprise, I was there. His birthplace is a not a spectacular-looking house with big signs on it. It was actually just a house with his statue in front. Alright, the locals were right, it seemed indeed to be a small museum. Still, as I didn't have to pay the entrance of 6 Euros, because of the Steiermark Card I have, I went inside.
As soon as I opened the door, some Christmas song started to play. It turned out to be some sort of a movement sensor to tell about the visitors arriving. Merry Christmas then! Later on, every time someone walked past the sensor, it played the damn song. The workers must have good nerves there - already I heard that tune at least 10 times.  The person setting off the sensor, was mostly me, though, as I was almost the only visitor. And I almost went mad with that. Anyway, as soon as I got in (and the workers got notified of my presence with a lovely Christmas tune), I was greeted by a very happy  woman, in my opinion even by a too cheerful woman considering that she works in a museum. She spoke a lot, offered me a soda to freshen up and allowed me to start my tour of the museum.

There were about 5 rooms to see- it is still a house museum. There was a room full of photographs of Arnie, just every photograph they couldn't fit into any other room. The room also had couple of pieces of furniture, which had belonged to the Family Schwarzenegger. The next room was dedicated to Arnie's time as a governor. Some medals, American money with his picture on it, more photos etc. The most interesting thing for me in this room was the wax figure of the man himself. After taking couple of photos, I moved to the first floor, where I could see the toilet, which Arnold's family used (yeah, an old-fashioned toilet, but still different as you could sense that Arnold, like any other normal person, needs to use such facilities), the kitchen, the room full of body-building machines he used to train with. In that room was also a figure of half-naked Arnie showing off every muscle in his body (well almost every muscle). All the walls of that room were covered with similar-styled images. Pornography for body builders, I guess. The last room was dedicated to his acting career and had some original costumes from the sets (about 2 costumes altogether- he was such a generous guy after all) and also another wax figure of the Terminator-Arnie and the robot (that one was only made out of metal). I took some pictures, and, after having been in the museum for about 30 minutes, I was done with it. Glad I didn't pay for the ticket, there was really not so much to see. Maybe we should still wait another 20 years or so, and then visit again. You know, when it would be a memorial musem. I guess they might have more stuff to show then.

In the end I wanted to buy a postcard from the museum to send it to my mum (I mean, how cool would it be to receive an Arnold Schwarzenegger museum postcard?). On every postcard there were only pictures of the house. I wanted the man himself on the picture, of course. Turns out, that Arnie hasn't allowed anyone to use any photographs of him to be put onto a postcard. Not even his own museum is allowed to do that. This is just ridiculous- we all know how he looks like anyway, we can print a picture out ourselves- what is the problem? The lady in the museum was also not happy about that rule. I also got a fridge magnet from there (to my surprise, they were allowed to put a picture of Arnie as a Terminator on it) for my mum. The most amusing things they sold in that musem were: wait for it- condoms! With Arnie's face and the the museum logo on the packaging. I guess when someone uses them, they might be protected by Arnie's special power. I couldn't think of a friend, who would need such a special condom, so I decided not to buy it. If I still want to get one and frame it, I can always go back and get it.

I also spoke to the lady in the museum a bit before leaving. She loved to talk, you could see that she doesn't have exactly a lot of interaction with other people during her work (with maybe ten visitors she gets per day?).  I told her I might be helping the Estonian Special-Olympic delegation next year (because Arnie had come to the opening ceremony of the last games that were held in Austria and I hope he will come there next year) and she was so exited about it - telling me, that I will be visiting her again next year as all the delegations will visit the museum! It turns out I had made a new best friend in that museum for about 10 minutes. When I left the museum, she wished me all the best and told "See you soon!". Probably going for the second time into that museum would make me a regular customer.

After a strangely amusing trim to see the birthplace of Terminator himself, I cycled back home, feeling way too satisfied, taking into account what I had just seen. One thing for sure, the locals were right about the museum.

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When I got home to find out there had been no electricity for couple of days.

I'm not gonna start off this post with the reason, why I'm absolutely (still) pissed, but will talk first of all about my week.
So, I had a mini-holiday from work and went to South-Tyrol. As usually, one needs a holiday to recover from a holiday :)
First of all- I managed to start my holiday off with hives on my legs, probably due to all the crap I've eaten in my Mcdonalds job. So, I was prescribed Kortisool as the treatment. Besides my legs feeling extremely blown up (they were swollen) and itching and hurting, I was also deadly tired. During my whole holiday. I still managed to meet all the grannys of Hannes and even see Judith and her parents, eat a lot of cake and get some sun. One of my holiday days, Hannes had to go back to Graz to take an exam, so I had a whole day for myself. Spent it in the Ötzi museum and in a cafe, talking to Hannes's brother. In the end of the day I crashed to Judith's place and stayed overnight there. Was a lovely week, full of nice people, dead ancient people and sun.
On Thursday, I drove back to Graz......


Got into my flat and discovered that we have no electricity. Tried everything, still nothing. Panic, all the stuff in the freezer had already melted up. Hannes, who still stayed in South-Tyrol for couple of days, called our electricity provider. They told that they switched everything off, because they have no information on who's living currently in the flat. Well, we sent the information to them nearly 2 months ago..... Seems that they weren't capable of organizing their papers. So, a really pissed of Maria found out that there will be no electricity until the next day at least. (Just to mention, we didnt get any warning before they switched our electricity off). What to do? There was a storm in Graz on that evening. Some quick phone calls and a bit of organizing, and Maria ended up in Annika's place with all the contents of her freezer. I managed to fit all the stuff into Annika's freezer and stayed overnight there. Was a really lovely evening and morning, too. Thank you, Annika, once more, for helping us so much- I'm really lucky to have Estonian friends here, like you :) (Astrid, thank you for the willingness of helping me, too, even though I didnt need it in the end).
So, on the next day, when I got home again, there was still no electricity. Hannes yelled at the guys from the provider a bit, and 2 hrs later, a guy came and switched us in again.

I managed to get a severe cough thanks to going through the city on a stormy evening with all my stuff. Hell, I was pissed. I still am.

So, we're gonna tell them that all the stuff in our freezer was defrozen and had to be used or otherwize it would've gone bad. Or it was already gone bad. As it's some pretty expensive stuff from Estonia (wild-board sausage etc), we will fuck them hard in the arse. Sorry for my expressions, but we're gonna ask for some money and refund for their idiocy. We're not gonna leave it like that.

Anyway, I still worked on Friday, had a coffee with Annika and Thomas (her son) and worked on Saturday. Then Hannes got back. On Sunday we went to Astrid's place to wash our clothes (hopefully for the last time in someone else's place) and play some 7 Wonders. The week full of curiosities and unbelievable happenings was over. With a nice ending (not for the electricity company, I guarantee it), though.

Oh, as the heating is turned off for the summer, our flat had 16 degrees in it, yesterday. Just to say.....

And here's a picture of how Ötzi is supposed to look like.

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Going to a public sauna in Austria

I've been wanting to write here about sauna-culture in Austria since three weeks but just havent had the time and motivation.
So, couple of weeks ago, an Estonian friend of mine (Annika) asked me and Hannes, whether we would be interested in checking out the biggest sauna complex in Graz, called Auster, which happens to be just 3min walk from our new flat. Me and Hannes decided to give it a go, as we both had been really stressed with moving and work in the past couple of weeks, so on a lovely Monday evening us three (me, Hannes and Annika) went to saunas. First of all- we knew that people go to public saunas and spa's naked, but thought that only some of them do it. As soon as we walked into the wellness park area, with our bikinis on (in the Estonian public-sauna style), we saw that no-one, absolutely no-one, was wearing anything that would remind of clothing. So, we turned around, went back to the changing area, and took our swimming clothes off. In the beginning it was really strange- all the people were walking around everywhere, completely naked. Some of them took a towel with them (mostly women) to cover them while walking from one place to another, but the main use for a towel was under bum in the sauna so that you wouldnt sweat on the benches.
Well, as the place looked somewhat like a paradise with all it's outdoors bubble baths and pools with lights at night and saunas indoors, it was a bit like Eden and there were many more Adams walking around, than Eva's. It was probably the biggest amount of naked people I've seen together in one day in one place (and I have to say I've seen quite a lot in my life already).
Ok, that about the being-naked part. Next thing- the saunas themselves. We decided to go to a salt sauna. So, we sat in, the sauna was normal room temperature. The walls were made out of salt and in the middle there was an "oven" (if you can call it that way) which had some salt-stone thingy inside and from where was coming salt-smoke like from the end of a cigarette. After sitting in that room for 15 mins, we decided that we are cold and decided to check out more realistic saunas. So, there was infra-red (too cold again), 60 degree, aroma, and 90-degree sauna (2x). So, we decided to sit in the hottest one. A bit weird, too dry for me and not the best sauna I've been to. But never mind, we got a bit warmer. So we decided to check out the bubble baths outdoors. Oh, those were nice, warm water, sunset, trees around you, relaxing in the water, slight wind blowing through your hair. Felt a bit like in a movie- you know, those ones where rich people go to spa's in St. Tropez or whatever.
Then, as a proper Austrian person does, we decided to use the relaxing areas. In Austria, there's a tradition, that people relax on bed- alike bags on the floor or beach chairs. Read books or just sleep. Yeah, exactly, saw people doing that, too. We also "relaxed" then outside in the air for a bit until it got too boring and/or chilly and we decided to try out some sauna procedures.
It turns out, that in Austrian spa's they have some weird procedures at certain times, where a sauna master does sth inside the sauna. For example puts water instead of you. Or whatever. On that evening there was only one time of "treatment" still left, so we went to check it out. We sat in the 90-degree sauna and waited patiently. The sauna started to fill itself up with people. In the end there was about 30 of us or maybe even more. You could only sit, not lay. Then the show began. The sauna master came, made a short introduction, cooled down the sauna by keeping the door for 5mins wide opened. And waving a bit with a towel to keep the air circulating. Then, he brought a bucket of water, a bucket of ice, some towels and some aroma oil and closed the door. No one was allowed to enter from that moment on, or leave either. Scary, right. So, the music was turned on and the sauna master put a little bit of ice, aroma oil and water on the stones in the kettle that was located in the middle of the sauna. Then, he took a towel and started waving around with it. Literally. He made wind. In the beginning it seemed like a joke and I thought that hmm, Austrians call that a hot sauna or what? Then, he repeated the whole procedure, but with some more water. I started to feel a bit warmer. he went around in the sauna, waving the towel once towards each person. Ok, I got it, it was supposed to get hot. And it did. After the third round, I was sweating like a pig. After the fourth round most of the people just ran out of the sauna- it got intolerable.But the guy made another round after 3/4 of the people had left.  It was similar to Estonians whipping each other in the sauna, but on the whole body, not just on the part that was whipped. Yeah, I was impressed. I jumped into the cold water and got really dizzy because that was a huge change of blood pressures. But never mind, relaxing area was waiting for us.  So, we went there, stayed there for a bit and then swam a bit and Hannes decided to check out the normal pool. Me and Annika decided to try another round with the sauna-master. This time, I decided to sit one step lower. Good idea. First time the guy used some mixture of oils, this time he went for a good strong mint. Oh damn lords, that was good. My whole body was breathing with the amounts of mint aroma caressing it. And my lips, it felt like I would never ever need a lip balm. The guy turned the music up (with the song "I'm happy" or whatever) and everybody were just half-dancing on their places  to the music, with the mad guy in front of them waving with a towel. The high peak of the treatment was when the master put half a bucket of water on the kettle and did his waving. After that the body felt like beaten, like there would be no bones left. Oh, that was so so good.
After a cold shower and relaxing (like a proper Austrian) again, we took a short swim and then decided to go all home. Hannes missed the orgasm-like sauna procedure, but he can try it again the next time :)
The sleep was not that good since a long time. (Even though I had a terrible headache afterwards- my blood pressure is not at it's best state at the moment due to all the stress and mcdonalds food).

Oh, but I will not be working in McDonald's starting from the first of June. Cutting out the stress of having two jobs and no free days. I will focus fully on my second job, which is working one-to-one with people with autism. Way better and I earn more money by making less hours. Seems like a good deal to me. :)

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My job

As many of you know, I have a job by now. It's been nearly a month now and I can tell you a bit more than only the fact that I work in McDonalds.
I work as a cleaner, which means that I have to make sure that in our lobby all the tables are clean for customers and that everything is nice and neat. I have to sort the garbage (mostly it's paper), clean the floors, empty the ashtrays and in the evening I have to wash the floors.
The beginning was painful. The first couple of weeks I came home with my feet killing me- you see, I have no time to sit except my 30min break which is fitted somewhere between 8,5hour working day. Besides my feet hurting, my hands were in a pretty bad state- we have to use chemicals and have no gloves. So when I have tiny wounds on my hands, then there's no possibility of them healing. So, at some point when my fingers started to swell up, I asked whether I could buy myself latex gloves and use them. I was allowed to do so, which means that my hands are all fine by now :)
My work is intense, I walk at least 5-10km per day because of my work. By now my feet have gotten used to it so I can actually come home and do sth else. I am starting to be more energetic on my free time, which is great!
I have often shifts that last until 24:00. That means I get home at about 20 past 12 at night. Going to sleep takes still some time, so I manage that usually by 02:00. My sleeping rhythm is a bit messed up because of my work and it affects Hannes as well. Not too happy about it. I now understand why in a normal country the shops close at 19:00 latest. The people want to go home as well! I would, at least.
As I work in the train station, there's a lot going on. We have to call police nearly every day for a guy who is probably homeless, comes into our place and falls asleep. He's not even drunk. He just doesn't get up any more. Every time he's taken away with ambulance. And couple of hours later, he's back.
I've met Estonians in our McDonalds- from the band Defrage. There was about 6 of them. When I met the first 3 of them, I managed to somewhat shock them- a random person in McDonalds starts to talk to them in Estonian, out of nowhere. You guys should have seen those faces! :) Besides, Estonians, I meet many interesting people and also annoying people. For my first two weeks there was a black guy coming to McDonalds every day- first day he asked my name and whether I am single. Then he started talking that he likes girls who don't look like anorexics and that have something to grab. I'm still not sure whether to take it as a compliment or not. Anyway, he started coming to me every day, just to watch me working. As it made me feel extremely uncomfortable, I told him I will call the security or police because he is harrassing me. He started apologizing and saying that he's a Christian and Maria is a sacred name blah blah. The result: he still comes sometimes, doesn't talk to me, just observes, sometimes says hello. I ignore him as much as possible.
Then I have interesting gypsy-style people who come and try to steal stuff from the trays (the things that are under the burgers). Once a whole bag of compost was gone. I guess someone had a really huge unhealthy meal...... I've seen once a Turkish guy trying to eat food out of my compost bin. As it's not allowed, I threatened again with security. That guy is in the station every day as well- I think he's got mental health problems, because he talks to himself, puts some weird gloves on his hands and off and does strange movements with his hands.
So in general, I see a lot of stuff at my work. And I eat a lot of burgers. At the moment I'm still a bit tight with money, so I use the discounts I can have at work and eat cheap (I have to pay 30% of the original price), usually with less than 1€- a cheeseburger, apple pie and fruit salad- 90 cents :) But as soon as I have more money, I will eat a bit more expensive, I think. Even though I run off all the burgers I eat, it's still not too healthy to have them every day.

Besides my work I've been busy with meeting people, cooking and christmas stuff. I gave Hannes a 50-minute massage as a christmas present and he already had it. And he loved it! He has a bad back because of office-work, so it helped him a bit. :) Yesterday I had the Bee-guy and Judith over at my place for a lovely christmas dinner with sauerkraut, black pudding and kotletid :) And mince pies and gingerbread. Nearly all of the stuff was made by me and Hannes. Delicious.
On the day before (Monday), we went to a christmas dinner at another Estonians' place, so we had 3 Estonian girls and 3 Austrian (sort of) guys. Was  a nice evening!  And the day before that we had lunch at one of Hannes's friends place. So indeed busy.

I went to donate plasma for the first time yesterday. I earned 25€ in one hour! The plasma donation centre gives money for each donation so it's a nice way to earn some (at the moment, as I'm a bit tight). You can donate max 50x per year. I don't think I'll manage to reach that limit but we'll see. Anyway, I had given my blood samples in the plasma center previously, to be tested. All was fine and yesterday, after going through the doctor's examination, I was put on a special bed and was connected to a needle. From the needle went the blood into a huge machine, which separated plasma and other blood cells and then pumped the blood cells back into my body. In the end it pumped nearly a liter of salt water also into my veins to make up the plasma I gave. The machine is really interesting, it's hard to describe, but it's cool. You can see your own blood being sorted to parts. Plasma itself is some yellowish-orange kind of liquid. Looks ugly to me. But what matters is the fact that I get to help people and earn money at the same time! Brilliant!

By now that's about it for the things I've been doing. Most of the time I've been too tired to do anything (because of work). I might get another job in January but as I have still no contract, it's not certain yet. It would be 1:1 work with children with autism- basically giving families free time from their children. I hope it will all work out and I can work more with that and have  a part-time job in McDonalds and part time with the autism-association.

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Sheepy and his adventures!

I haven't posted into my blog for a long time. It's probably because I've been too lazy, haven't really had anything too interesting going on etc. Actually I was just lazy.
Anyway, now I want to make it up a bit, as I've got some news. And one of my lovely friends decided to be active and participate in everything interesting I do. So say hy to Sheepy!

Name: Sheepy McDonalds
Born: Oct 2011, in Scotland, Edinburgh
Nationality: Scottish
Marital status: single and looking
Race: fluffy and hairy
Type: Lamb - not eatable
Interests: Travelling, concerts, living life to it's fullest
Loves: being cute
Current location: Graz, Austria
Has lived: Scotland, England, Estonia
Has travelled: look above+ Riga
How we met: on a trip to Scotland,  I met Sheepy in a tourism office and couldn't leave him there. Ever since that time we have developed a true friendship.
Favourite food: dandelions
Food he hates: haggis
Nationalities he likes: Welsh and Scottish (many sheep over there, maybe even a possible partner?)
What he sees, when he looks into the sky:souls of sheep flying around and waiting to get into heaven
Superpower: can fit into a pocket and hide himself very well

So, Sheepy travelled around with me a lot, but now he decided to reveal himself. He is too brilliant to live in my shadow. So, he decided to join me and Hannes to see his fellow mates- Biffy Clyro. He loves the fact that they come from the same country as he does :)

Sheepy loved the concert a lot. Besides hearing the lovely Scottish dialects (well, his owner doesn't speak with any Scottish accents, but with some weird Eeeeenglish.....), he loved the songs. He had heard them often and knew nearly all the lyrics by heart.  He jumped around like mad, tried to stay alive in the middle of crazy guys playing pingpong with each other and was extremely sweaty in the end. His owner did a good job protecting him from the worst- so his owner, that lovely lady, has a really bad blueprint on her elbow now, that will stay probably for couple of weeks. Also, his owner managed to piss off many people who jumped into her by hitting them with elbows, putting her fingers into their ribs and hitting them into their arses with knees (one of them came to yell at her after the concert). But Sheepy was all safe. The fans in the concert were truly brilliant, singing along, jumping along. The band and the fans were all sweating like pigs! During "Stingin' Belle" the whole crowd lowered themselves during a calm part of the song and then jumped up when song got loud again. Yeah, it was beautiful. For Sheepy it was definetely the best concert he has ever been to. His owner says that for her it was top three!

Sheepy got home on the following day, being really tired and sleepy. When his owners went to a quiz in the evening, then Sheepy took a long nap in the backpack.

Sheepy had a great time!
So did Hannes and Maria.

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Some nice pictures from my language course

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