Matters

Often I find myself alone, reflecting on life's matters, what-matters, and anti-matter. Maybe I don't really think about quantum mechanics everyday, but it is pretty cool to think about what would happen if a tennis ball size of anti-matter was released inside a vacuum... (I'm not referring to a vacuum cleaner if you were curious-however, the effects would still be rather dramatic). Besides anti-matter, I have been mostly thinking about my future, asking myself where I will be in 3 months, 2 years, or a decade. I think I know where I will be in three months, but is that where I should be? In two years, will I be done with school, or will I continue, or will I be off in some land where technology and English does not exist? In a decade--no, I have not really thought about that, just hope that I will be happy.

Engineering fascinates, challenges, and belittles me. I want to continue my education with engineering because I keep learning things that I see as valuable and helpful towards society. However, I am like a puppy trying to dig a hole to bury a T-Rex femur bone, probably taking on a job a bit too big for my little paws. Also, like the puppy, I will easily be distracted by a butterfly fluttering in front of my nose, and I will have to follow and inspect it until exhaustion or the next distraction comes along. Why can't I just be content and work a blue-collar job, and not have to bring my dirty paws and work home with me every night? I think its because I need the challenge. I suppose my biggest question here is: will engineering be the right challenge for me? Andreas, my boss, is a very talented engineer and it is inspiring to see him work on such amazing projects, but also daunting to see him stay up until 1:30am with work and start again at 6:30 am every day. I hope in the next three months I can make a good pros and cons list of whether I, myself can be a good engineer someday and still maintain my sanity.

I hope you, my peers, can push me through some of these questions by your experience thus far in life, not necessarily with engineering, but how you have gone through or are going through this adolescent contemplation. Ha, but maybe not, I suppose everyone has to figure it out for themselves ;)

OH yeah, Austria update.

Disc Fiction played a showcase game in Klagenfurt, on a nice field with spectators and an announcer! Unfortunately we lost 12-9 (?), but I think it was a valuable experience for us and we will improve vastly in the near future. After the game, we all went out for mexican food, including my kiddos! Austrian mexican food is not really the same as american mexican food, nor anything close to Mexican food. So far, I have made my host family three mexican dishes, quesadillas, nachos and chicken enchiladas. They can't get enough of it!

The kids are great! Evi got her cast off, and tomorrow we will all go on a hike up some alpine mountain nearby.

I have not been to many field sites lately with the engineering internship, since I am mostly on kid duty, but what engineering I have done has been some AutoCAD work on a sound retaining wall for a highway. WOooo!

OK, until then, CIAO!

Hungary for Frisbee

Balaton Lake, in Fonyód, Hungary, where the water is only one waist deep as far as you can see. 

I had the exceptional privilege this past weekend to attend an international beach Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Fonyód, Hungary. There were about 20 teams hailing from Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia and Austria--and a total of three Americans playing with some of these teams. Cheers and conversations heard in four different languages with English as the common language in between, hence I was able to communicate to all (who spoke English...). I had never played on ultimate on the beach (it was actually just a sand court for a volleyball), nor have I been to an international tournament, nor have I ever had horse goulash, but altogether each new experience added another dimple in my smile.

I am starting to get the hang of being the confused American. I don't know if I stand out in a crowd or if I just have a stamp on my forehead because I most certainly look a little European, but as soon as I open my mouth it is obvious that I am a foreigner. This is also not such a bad thing. I have only received the kindest offers and respect as well as an interview with the local Hungarian news channel at the tournament. I thought if they knew I was an American, I would automatically be hated, and then I would just say that I was actually Canadian to ease the tension. I suppose it is not what I thought, and that some Europeans actually like Americans, or at least they don't care, or maybe it isn't even about your nationality, but how you portray yourself. Its amazing how far you can go in this world by just communicating with a smile. :-)

Ok, back to talking about the tournament. One thing that I wish that I did not have to witness or that the event ever occurred was a terrible injury. A Croatian team member was going up for the disc in the end zone, and on his way down, his left foot caught a clump of sand, torquing his leg upon impact, where normally an ACL would be torn, but instead with a sonic bone-crushing sound, his femur snapped. A single cry of pain was heard throughout the whole tournament and everyone stood still, and saw an abnormally and disgustingly disfigured leg attached to the man's body. Too afraid to move towards the incident, people covered their eyes wishing to erase the image from their memory. Dani, one of our team members, bravely ran towards the man, hoping to figure out how to help since he is a physical therapist. Unfortunately, there was no doctor on sight at the tournament and the man had to sit in the sand, calmly in shock, for twenty minutes until an ambulance arrived. Our next game was canceled because it was on the field of which the man was sitting on, but no one really wanted to be very physical for a little while after witnessing such an event, just thinking about getting hurt gave everyone the chills. Later on in the evening, I heard from one of the fellow Croatian teammates that the man will be in the hospital for one week, but that he is doing okay, just sad to not play frisbee for the rest of the summer.

On a happier and lighter note, we won two of our games, played seven total, but its not about the winning, its about how much fun we all had and playing experience we gained. For a team that just formed nine months ago, Disc Fiction will be an unstoppable team in the near future :)

Chillin in our dorm room in an old Hungarian high school, where all the teams stayed in at the tournament

Disc Fiction ready for a pull

Got my own Camera!

In compensation for my work thus far, my boss bought me a camera, a Nikon Coolpix P500 with 14.1 MP and 36X optimal zoom! Since then, I have been non-stop with it and trying to capture every moment possible, but I have to be careful because I do not have enough Giga Bites for every possible moment on my computer. But I will now be able to show more pictures of the kids, worksites, frisbee, and Austria!

Speaking of Frisbee... I will be going to Hungary next weekend for a Beach tournament with my new team, Disc Fiction, who are a blast to play with! I am so lucky that I am able to play some super fun ultimate this summer--in Austria and Hungary!

Disc Fiction Party!!! Petra, Marten, Mani, Hermann, and Christopher. It was a fun night, despite my Austrian alcohol tolerance...

Okay, so I just had my first weekend with the kids. I have to say that being an Au Pair in this Au Pair/Engineering Internship gig is like 100X harder... Something to consider if you plan on having an engineering career and children someday. But hopefully your kids will speak the same language with you most of the time. Not knowing German has been the biggest difficulty so far on this adventure, with the kids and with the internship. Everyone is taught English and can theoretically speak it, but they never get to use it unless their job allows them to, which is not very many here. I am quickly learning, and by the end of the trip, I might have a 10-year-old's knowledge of German :)

Bernd taking pictures of catfish, he was such a pro using his dad's SLR.

Silvia and Andreas, my Austrian parents :)

Typical farm visage on a rainy day

Bernd (Berndy), 9 years old, and he loves fishing!

Alexander (Alex), 11 years old, he is a Boy Scout of Austria and loves soccer!

Eva-Maria (Evi), 10 years old, wants to do anything a boy can do, regardless of having broke two arms in the past two months.

Alex, Evi and Berndy made me a SURPRISE! :) They are so wonderful and very skilled in the culinary arts!

Picture Time!

My town of Villach

Austrian Flag and Alps in the background at the top of Mt. Dobratsch

Family lunch: Markus, me, Christian, Iris (Christian's Girlfriend), and Silvia

Pörtschach Bakery

The Ossiachersee Lake, where I have spent a lot of time already

Grillen for office BBQ

Andy and an upset baby from one of the office workers

Silvia and I are pooped from a nice day in the sun

Engineering!!! Tunnel in Reisseck II-Hydropower plant

Reisseck II- I got to visit this site, it is the biggest engineering site in all of Austria. They are adding a new system for an existing hydro power plant, and I got to walk all around the tunnels inside this mountain...

Reisseck II- In the distance is where the water entrapment will go for the system-like a dam.

Pre-tension loading!!! important when building some tunnels.

The reason why we were at this site was because Andy is in charge of the safety management (even though he is a geotechnical engineer-he wears many hats!)

Uhm... Yeah, I got to witness this view on a normal day at the office.

I got my workin' boots on!

Anyone need a dentist? (These are pieces of the tunnel borer)

Inside one of the tunnels- Where the huge water pipes will go.

Large drill.

At the top of the site 2,400 m

This was an incredible site to visit.

YIPPEE!!!

Choo Choo for snow!

GDP: Goats Drink Pepsi

Sitting outside my new Austrian home's balcony, watching the moonlight dance off of the lake's wrinkled surface, I reflect on my first week here in Austria. So far, I have admittedly have not done much work, it is more of a vacation, really. I have gone to a work site once, for half of a day, to help do a dynamic load bearing test on a foundation slab for new construction. I have seen the kids once or twice now because they are currently staying at their mother's house (I am at the father's house). What I have done is gone to the lake each day-twice, gone on three runs about the lake, tanned my skin, drove up to the top of Dobratsch-a popular Austrian alpine mountain, bought spätzel noodle at the local farmer's market, cooked said noodle, did some pleasant yard work, and taught my host family how to throw a frisbee. What am I supposed to do here again? I am not complaining by any means, this is a much appreciated break from the life back in America.

But really, I do start "work" tomorrow with Andy. We are going to go to four sites to do some more dynamic load bearing tests and other geotechnical tests--it should be a rather busy field day. After the long day of work, I will go to my first Austrian frisbee practice for the only ultimate frisbee team in Carinthia, Austria: Disc-Fiction. I am quite excited to meet other people from Austria that are not my family. Even though I love my family, I want to see if other Austrians are just as nice. :)

I want to start discussing the differences I have already seen from my past summer experience in Bolivia to America and to my current experience in Austria. Wikipedia shows me that Austria is very well-off on the GDP-per capita, they are ranked 10th. America is ranked 7th. Bolivia is ranked 151st. As you can see, Bolivia is on the other side of the human development spectrum, it was a bit of a cultural shock coming from America. America and Austria are both fairly well off on GDP in comparison to the rest of the world, but from my little experience, I already notice quite a difference between each life-style. This is, however, coming from a very naive, young perspective of the world. Austrians seem to live life a little sweeter, eat better, exercise regularly, work efficiently, and play daily. Their main exports are not agricultural goods, but manufactured quality goods. They are also a socialistic country (so is Bolivia), and have no real beefs with other countries. Now, I am not saying Austria>America, I am simply putting some biased facts in my blog so that you can get a better perspective on my three country/cultural experience in the past year. Tomorrow, I will get to see what it is like to be an austrian engineer. From my little engineering college experience, it will be good to use some of my education in practice--especially in Austria.

More to come on this subject later.
For now, some pictures...

Evi (10, Andy's daughter), Andy, and Me at the school playground

Standing at the top of Dobratsch mountain, under the Austrian flag, with the Alps in the background.

First Day in the Field

Markus and I using a dynamic load bearing density tester for soil. This is with Andreas' geotechnical engineering company.

Hot Awakening

It is 3:10 am in Villach, Austria (7:10 pm Seattle time). I am wide awake with wonderment and hot flashes. Well, maybe I am too young for those, but the point is I am sweating at 3 am with barely wearing any clothes and the windows open. Why not write in my blog since I have the time now, no one is popping in and out of my room to check in on me, its quiet, and I have to document my first couple of days here with the Austrian family.

First thing I noticed here upon my arrival: everything is Beautiful. Markus, my host dad's eldest son (22 years old), picked me up from the Vienna airport, about 3 hours away from the house in Villach, and we drove all across Austria on the Autobahn. My original plan was to take the train from Vienna to Villach, but the family wanted to see me home safe after a 20-hour long journey on planes. Markus knows English, sometimes he had to ask me to repeat words or find what vocabulary word he was searching for, but in return he got to laugh at my poor pronunciation of the long German words on the road signs. The hardest one I struggled with so far was Pörtschach (pwert-shawh), the closest I got to saying it was probably something like "poort shock." I have trouble making that guttural sound in the back of your throat in which you would pronounce "schach," or the "ch". I will just try to imitate a cat, arching her back ready to release a fur ball from her latest cleaning session. Hmm... No, maybe not. That might look foolish.

I will definitely be learning as much German as possible in the next two and a half months. The family speaks very good English (even the little kiddos!), and we all can communicate at the dinner table just fine. However, when I am out by myself, the neighbors will come up to me and say something in German, I just smile in agreement and hope that that was enough for them to either be content with our engagement, or let them know I had no clue what they just said, and to notice the big fat red American stamp on my forehead.

Okay, more about the lay of the land. Since I do not have pictures yet, but hopefully there will be some soon when I can get my hands on a new camera, I will try my best to describe. I am located in Villach, as mentioned before, not Klagenfurt, from which I have told most of you. Klagenfurt is the larger city known in Austria by the foothill lakes of the Alps and Villach is about a 37 minute train ride away. The house is next to a popular lake (of which I have swam in twice already yesterday), you can google map it if you want:

9520 Sattendorf
Mitterlingweg 14
AT Austria

(HINT: also my address....)

Everything in Austria is a bit smaller and greener than in the States. There are little white houses with red roofs and large lawns scattered in the lush green hillsides, with a few cattle grazing about. The population of Villach is 50,000, and the entire Austrian population is about 7 million, of which 1.8 million live in Vienna. This place has a small town feel, but everything is spread out but easy to get to. It is about 30 minutes by car/train to get to downtown Villach from my home. I have yet to explore downtown much, but in about six hours, when we get up (they like to say "stand up"), Markus will take me to downtown on the train for breakfast/café/walking around. I hope to practice a few German greetings and learn my way around a bit, without acting too American... I can already tell that I will very much like my stay here, it may be very hard to leave. Friends, do not fret, I have to come back for fall classes, but I might be a bit grumpy about it. :)

Also, Andreas, my host father/boss, will make my work schedule tomorrow for the Geotechnical engineering internship and as the Au Pair for the kids. The kids are here about every other week or so, the rest of the time they are at camps or visiting their mother. So I will have much more to talk about on my "Existential Engineering" side of my adventure, but first I must use this blog to show my friends and family how my travels are going as well.

On a final note, my host family is Wonderbar and very very nice, generous and good humored. I am so very lucky that all has worked out so nicely. Until then, Gute Nacht, I must try to sleep, even though the sun has risen already...

Goodbye, Guten Tag!!!

I can officially start my Austrian travel blog now, however, I am currently in London. Four hour layover--not too shabby. I have done quite well so far on my Standby flying from Sea-Tac to Klagenfurt, Austria. Haven't missed one flight yet! Except for the fact that I had to wait a week from my original departure time of the 28th, until the 4th of July to have a clear window for standby flying. But hey, what a perfect way to spend my fourth by leaving the country in a red, white and blue-bald eagle (ignore that Freudian slip), also known as a Boeing 777 in business class with my very own reclining chair and endless food and beverage service! It's currently 2:40 am Seattle time, 10:40 am London time, I have had a total of probably four hours of sleep (I was too excited to sleep in the reclining chair!!!).

I spent my last few days in America with friends and family, and of course, playing some ultimate frisbee. I greatly valued my extra week of vacation in the States. I want to thank all of you who have helped me get on my way, even though it's always hard to say "Auf Wiedersehen," but it was time for me to leave the eagle's nest. Again. :)

Unfortunately, my compact digital camera decided to call the quits on me on my last day at Potlatch (the frisbee tournament I was just in), so pictures will be delayed for a bit :( until I can find a replacement or fix my lens. But here is something for your visual/audio enjoyment, Cheers!