Yt anthr blg ntry

Well I got carried away posting videos of Austrian pop bands last post so now I'll bring things a little bit more up to date. Apart from some more of the seemingly neverending exams (I'm even starting to see the benefit of having an exam term, things must be bad!) the most important thing that happened between then o'clock and now p.m. was my first field trip with the university here. I guess I was sort of apprehensive at the start what with not having a clue what was going to happen, but it turns out that the field trip experience in Geology is one that is relatively constant across language and cultural barriers.

Basically when you group geologists together they are suddenly surrounded by other people who will not only listen to but positively encourage discussion about rocks. Combine this with the fact you are being shown tonnes of new exciting rocks by an expert in the field, you're in the countryside, and in the evenings plenty of whatever the local food and beverages are is to be had, and you have a rather pleasant holiday. On this trip there wasn't even the pressure of marks to spoil the enjoyment!


Due to the differences in geology between the UK and Austria, almost every rock I saw in the 3 day trip was one I had never seen outside of a hand specimen. Whole cliffs stuffed with lovely minerals I never saw more than one of in the lab... Anyway what it all amounts to in not so rock speak is that I had fun. Especially cool is that the people leading the trip were working on research of the area, and so half the time we'd stumble upon something interesting and cool for them too, sometimes even something they couldn't identify at all! At which point we would usually have to break out the sledgehammers, because even normal geological hammers wouldn't make much of a dent in any of the rocks we saw...



It was also a pleasant change to have a full three day immersive german course too. No escape! Well, I could have escaped by speaking english but I really tried not to do that even though everyone is always really keen to show you they can, because (as good old WRN put it much better than me), if you start talking to an Austrian in english you've immediately ruled them out as a potential speaking-german-together person... It's weird how when you start out in one language, there's a sort of language inertia even though you're both pretty good at either. The countryside along the banks of the Donau near Melk and Krems is beautiful, (even with the Donau filled to overflowing the roads at some points due to the recent spate of rain), as are the small and very Austrian villages of the Waldviertel. Something that really does improve on the UK experience were the Gasthoefe we stayed at along the way, simple countryside hotels (maybe inns is a better word??) where the food is always tasty and pig and dumpling related. I tried some Schnapps made from what I reckon (translation problems aside) were Rowan berries. Actually pretty tasty, even though the original berries are supposed to be poisonous...

So yeah, lovely.

Time is really getting tight now, I'm wracking my brains and trying to make sure I don't accidentally sleep away my last few weeks here, which would be easy to do in the current 32 degree heat! Also I still have YET MORE pesky exams which I also need to learn for without letting said learning take over my life. I had an hour and a half long oral exam on Thursday. Granted half of it was basically being lectured at rather than asked questions of but still, phew! A far cry from the good old (mind numbingly terrifying for no discernible reason) 10 minute oral exams at school!

Der Tommington