Welcome to Austria!

As I said when I introduced myself, I am a foreign student.  It means that I have a different point of view about Austria and Graz than my fellow students.  Before coming here I thought that everyone in Austria wear leather hose, drink a lot of beer, sing Tyrolean music, and love skiing. When I arrived here I noticed that all of that was a cliché hum not all but most of them.

So what’s weird/great/crazy for me here:

• Clap Clap! It’s so funny when at the end of each lecture you begin to applaud the teacher in the Austrian way. I mean you knock the table with your fingers. That’s so hilarious but the best is to see the face of new Erasmus when you do that!
• Titles! You are a doctor but not a doctor well you passed a PhD but you are not able to treat anyone. It’s surprising how you are so careful about each ones title.
• Honesty. I think it is what surprised me the most. In my street each Sunday you can buy the newspaper in a weird folder and you pay spontaneously the right price. Well many Austrians told me that in fact you don’t pay but I like thinking that people really pay.
• SKI why isn’t it the number 1 point on the list?! You are so fond of ski it’s unbelievable! Many people go to see the world cup or at least one race or they can’t because they work for it!
• God bless your photocopier! That system is genius you should import it around Europe (at least in France!). With this little card you have the power of printing!
• Crossing the street is so easy! Cars stop spontaneously to let you cross. You don’t have to wait a long time and drivers don’t seem angry to let you cross the road. For Christmas, I went to Paris. When I wanted to cross the road I simply stand on the pavement nobody stopped! I had to use my old French habit, which consists on nearly jumping under the car to make sure that the driver stops. Safety is not our first priority!
• Organized! Last time when I went to the library (this library where you have to give you student card) I realized that there are two ways:
• - The Austrian way: you arrive ready with you’re student card in your pocket you need 1 minute to get a key for your locker.
• - The French way: you arrive there, you remember that you need your student card so you spread all the mess contained in your bag on the counter, you give your card, you try to tidy up your stuff in your bag. Finally you have the key for your locker … 10 minutes later! Austria though me something: organization and I’m so thankful for that!
• But my favorite stuff here is your cycle routes. It is so easy to bike! You don’t have to fight with the car drivers, people are friendly and there are cycle routes everywhere!! 

So keep going guys, your great!

A fight for education

My dear readers,

Yesterday I watched a talk on TED about girl in Afghanistan.  It was the story about Shabana Basy-Rasikh. She told about her childhood as a little girl and this priceless gift she had from her parents: education. Shabana Basy-Rasikh is 22 and went to high school in America under the YES exchange program and just graduated from Middlebury College.  During her studies she found a nonprofit organization HELA devoted to help and empowering Afghan women by the access of education. In the USA many media talked about her because she built a high school for girls in her home village. She said that what gave her this strength to fight for all Afghan girls and women was her childhood. The Taliban arrived in Afghanistan when she was a little girl. Suddenly Shabana had to sneak out to go to school obviously an illegal school. She had to dress up like a boy and accompany her sister everywhere. Indeed her sister was already a young woman so she always had to be accompanied by her father or her fake brother. Each day they had to take a different road to go to school in a way that nobody could guess something. Sometimes the school was closed for a week or more because the Taliban were suspicious. What helped her to keep going? Education. Her father told her that in life you can lose all your money and belongings but only one thing stays it is education.

This story is one of many. We often heard that education is difficult in some countries for girls. But I would say too often! Is it normal that a little girl had to sneak out and fight to go to school?  Why today in 2013 a girl can’t go to school? Why so many men are afraid about educated women?  

Link to Shabana's talk

A Royal Affair

My dear readers,

I would like to introduce you a movie. "A Royal Affair" is a Danish movie directed by Nicolaj Arcel. This movie received two Silver Bears at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for best foreign language film and at the Golden Globe Award for the best foreign language film. Generally it had good criticism from the media and the movie critics.

This historical drama is set in the 18th century at the court of the King Christian VII of Denmark. The story tells the love story between the queen Caroline Matilda of Great Britain and the doctor of the king.

This story is not just a simple romance, it shows how this illegitimate couple reformed (especially social reforms for the poorest)  the country inspired by the Enlightenment.

This story which is a true story had a huge impact on the History of the Denmark (I don't tell anything else and let you the surprise!)

Why do I recommend you this movie?

It is a really nice way to learn more about Denmark and its History. You also come across many theories of the Enlightenments (which for your personal knowledge isn't that bad!). 

It's available in English and there are some really good expressions so don't wait anymore and watch it !

A better access to drinking water?

A woman using a LifeStraw

My dear readers,

For my last post I spoke about food. I want to talk about something which is related to food, it's water and drinking water. 
At the moment, around 884 million people in the world, 37% of whom live in Sub-Saharan Africa, drink water from unreliable sources of drinking water. This increases the risk of having diseases such as cholera or typhoid. Each year approximately 3.4 million of people die because of this lack of safe water. 
Recently, a company invented a straw to filter water and drink it safely. This  object, called LifeStraw, has more or less the same shape as a straw. It removes all bacteria and parasites in filtering the water. No bacteria and parasites means that it is a efficient way to avoid diseases and death. 
This LifeStraw requires any electrical and battery power and because of its small size it may be carry everywhere. So to recap this objet is like a little revolution for countries lake drinking water. 
But (there is always a but!) it is produced by a company so I am quite sceptical about the accessibility of this (great) invention for population at a disadvantage. I am afraid that one more time money will take precedence over people. 
This invention is absolutely new so we have to wait a little bit and hope that my skepticism wasn't fair. 

My most awesome meal ever

My dear readers,

I'll tell you the most awesome meal I ever had.
It was in my boarding school. It was awesome not for the quality of the food but because we had the biggest fun ever!
With the girls of my room, we decided to challenge ourself to eat a full diner without our hands. It was unlucky that we hadn't seen the menu that day because it was meatballs and rice. Trust me it is pretty hard to eat rice without using you hands! Unfortunately we had a warning for bad behaviour and we had to clean the canteen for a week. But it was really a lot of fun and even of week of cleaning couldn't ruin this great souvenir.

May I introduce myself?

My dear readers,

(Let's be crazy and think that I have readers!)

I'm Anaïs (yes this weird sound is my name). It is quite uncommon and kind of hard to pronounce for English speakers. 

So I'm Anaïs and I'm 21. I am French and I study in Austria as an exchange student. It is funny to think that I came here to speak German and I end up having a blog in English.

But the reason why I started to blog is our English teacher. He asks us to write regularly and thought that blogging would be a new and fun way to write. Since 10 minutes, I have been able to call myself a blogger!

I don't have any idea yet about what this blog is going to talk about. Maybe a melting pot of many ideas and opinions.