With the König family I got to attend a big dinner/party in appreciation of the fire rescue people. Also that night I got to go to a graduation party in a barn. It was a bit weird since my host brothers were so much younger than me their friends were all younger too, but they could still drink. Over here they think it’s completely crazy that we can drive at 14, but can’t drink until we’re 21. They also don’t understand why we don’t drink and have parties all the time. I’ve come to the conclusion it’s because shortly after we’re able to drink we graduate from college, get jobs, and have responsibilities. The last day I was with the family their daughter’s class at school was touring the bio-gas plant and I was to explain the system to them in English. It was a very brief and condensed version because I didn’t exactly know how the system worked and they were just learning English. I got to go running for the first time that day, but because they’d had so much rain and it was getting warm it was very humid. Later that day I took the train to Vienna for orientation.

There are 6 IFYE’s in Austria this summer two from England, two from Finland, one from Scotland, and me. It was really nice to be around people who speak English as their first language again. During orientation we got to see the sites of Vienna. It was a very hot day to be taking part in a walking tour. The last day of orientation we had to get to the train station early and in order to do that we had to carry our suitcases up A LOT of stairs to get to the underground station. I’d carried my stuff down these stairs and I knew that wasn’t any fun, so none of us were looking forward to the journey. As I was carrying my suitcase up the stairs I got to thinking what a great traveling companion it has been. We’ve covered a lot of miles together, so I decided it needs a name. If anybody has any suggestions please let me know. It doesn’t have a gender yet, but it is army green in color. Fortunately we all made it up the stairs and got on our trains and parted ways. I had about a 3 hour train ride to my next family.

This family lives in the mountains and there are some huge mountains in the area. Some still have snow. The mother and oldest daughter met me at the train station and greeted me with “Happy Birthday”. Family Walchhofer has 4 older children. The youngest is spending 2 months in New York this summer. The oldest son just got married in Las Vegas in May, the other son is currently remodeling the upstairs of the house to make an apartment, and the other daughter lives in her own apartment very close by. The town they live in is a very big ski community. About 2500 people live here and 10,000 people come every winter to ski. Many of the people including my family have rooms and/or apartments for rent in their house. My host mom says she’s fully booked from Christmas to Easter and has a few people during the summer months. I wasn’t here very long before I discovered the path you can walk, run, or bike on. I may not be able to read the words, but I can read a map! On Friday Martin’s girlfriend came and we went for a hike on the ski hill. During the summer months there are cows grazing on the hill and there are lodges that stay open year round scattered all over the mountain. Luckily I’m in relatively good shape and the elevation here is similar to home, so I don’t get left in the dust on hikes because the grades are much steeper than I’m used to. My host mom is really trying to learn English, so last night we sat around with the German/English dictionary and a map of their town and she showed me all sorts of things. Today we went to a birthday party BBQ which could have been a 4^th of July BBQ, but unfortunately I don’t think I’m going to get to see any fireworks tonight.