Mayonnaise Toothpaste?

Saturday I slept in as late as I possibly could, hung up some pictures on my wall and ventured to the grocery store. Or “Markt” my roommate looked at me like I was nuts when I asked her where the grocery store is.

At this point I find myself stopping mid sentence and trying to remember the word that every one else will understand. I can only imagine how hard it is to know more than one language. Even trying to remember German sentences and phrases is hard for me. The majority of the people here begin learning English in third grade and then start learning a third language later on. I really wish we would start doing this in America, we are so isolated from other countries it is insane.

Okay I am done venting now…

So the Markt was very interesting. The one I went to was expensive and did not have very much to choose from but I needed food for the week. It is so hard to decide what to buy when you cannot read the label. Everything is in German. When I got home later I wanted to make one of the frozen dinners I bought and I had to go to google translator and type in the directions, which takes forever because I have to look and make sure every single letter is correct. Haha

I also discovered that mayonnaise comes in a toothpaste container! You also choose the percent fat it goes from 80% to 10%, I think. I went with 50%, I figured I still had to be somewhat American and keep fat in my diet. Haha

Oh and I found Bugles!! Ahh YES!

I went out to Matt’s dorm party on Saturday night and met a ton of new people. We ended up at a Turkish bar below the dorm with all of the exchange students. It was very odd and some of the Turkish men were very creepy. I will never go back! Haha

Which brings me to another point. The Austrians really do not like the Turkish. I had read this somewhere before I came here and it has only been confirmed since being me. Apparently in Vienna there are a ton of Turkish immigrants and they do not learn German, they just continue to live in Austria without adapting to the language or culture. So the Austrians feel that they should remain in Turkey. I mean if you surround yourself with other Turkish people, continue all of your traditions and do not learn Austrian ones then why bother coming to Austria? Just stay in Turkey.

Even our professors at school have told us about this overall view. I instantly thought of how some American feel about Mexicans in the states. But at least the Spanish speaking children learn English. There are schools in Vienna that not one student speaks German, only Turkish. Could you imagine a Spanish speaking only school in the states?