Short enumeration of what I did for my English this week:
Reading:
- actually only did the necessary. I read a few pages of Jaywalking, prepared for my presentation I had on Monday. This included some researching on the web which, as I realized later on, was unnecessary work because I found almost exactly the same links as Roman had already found last year. However, I looked up his link page on our yahoo group too late. The work had already been done by myself.
- my girlfriend ordered the second part of "A Year in the Merde" (I don't know if that counts, but as I'm really looking foreward to reading this book I wanted to mention it here as well)
Writing:
- just read this weeks post, that's what I did for my writing.
- what I plan to do is, to proof-read my blog entries or at least to write the following entries more carefully using dictonaries, linking words list etc.
- Grammar exercices by Rebecca Welland (prepositions...)
- a wonderfull mail to George summing up the content of my part of the presentation allowing him to create our wonderful handout.
Listening:
- youtube (not always the highest level of English but can be fun from time to time)
- some Hollywood film I can't remember the name of nor what it was about... I'll wait a minute and add it later on...
- not much more's going on in that section right now.
Speaking:
- preparation for the presentation. We tried to stick to English as much as possible during the preparation of our presentaion. Furthermore, we praticed the presentation a few times as to speak as freely as possible. In the end all of us spoke without using any notes which is a good thing I believe.
- a short chat on earthquakes in Dover, GB with my landlord, who happens to be from the Island.
Well, I believe this is about it!
As soon as more comes to my mind I'll add it to this wonderful blog...
April 28, 2007
The post-flight adventure
I already wrote about the pre-flight adventure and the flight adventure, hence I’ll need to find a post flight adventure as well. Actually, this last comment on the flight is not that much of an adventure as everything worked out as planned. Nevertheless, I think a short description of immigration into the US is interesting though not a thrilling experience. Still, I was a little nervous when waiting in line for my turn as I had not checked-out of the US correctly last September. I’ll stop my confusing introduction here and start again in chronological order.
First, last September on my trip to Canada I went on a day-trip to Seattle with my girlfriend. Not only could I for the first time experience the bureaucratic immigration process to the United States of America but also did I see the Space Needle and a lot of shopping malls. Anyway, what is important to mention is that when entering the US Austrian (and many other European citizens) get a Visa-Waiver (a kind of temporary Visa you don’t have to pay for) stapled into your passport. When leaving the country for good you are supposed to give this Visa-Waiver back to US immigration officers. Unfortunately, when crossing the border to Canada again we never met an US immigration officer. The only person checking our passports was a Canadian officer who did not remind us of bringing back those certificates to the US services. Hence, when leaving Canada from Vancouver airport for Paris Charles-de-Gaulle the Visa Waiver was still in our passports and no Canadian would take it from us. Back at home we decided to tear the slips out of our passports and send them, accompanied of a nice letter containing a short version of the story, to the US embassy in Vienna. To the day of my departure to the US I didn’t get any answer from the embassy nor could they tell me what happened with our letter when I called them.
That’s enough to understand the situation I was in while standing in the “Non-US citizen queue” at Denver airport. Eventually it was my turn and I advanced to the immigration officer. With sweaty hands I handed him over the I-94W Form (for more information follow this link ) and the customs declaration. While scanning in my passport he asked me if I had ever been to the US before and at the same time he was interested in what I was planning to do in the country this time. Then, without any emotion or astonishment he wanted to know why I had not returned the “green slip” at the USA/Canadian border. Showing him the letter to the embassy (which I of course had printed out and taken along) I explained myself. He looked at me, wondered how such a thing could happen and told me to place my left index finger on the fingerprint identification machine. After having done the same thing with my right index finger followed by an automatic photograph he continued his speech: “This time when leaving the country you have to, do you understand, you have to check-out your passport. After check-in; before boarding there are automatic check-out machines. You have to put your passport in there, give him your fingerprints and let him take another picture before boarding.” He repeated these or similar words two or three times to make sure that I had understood him correctly. Finally, after I had told him that I was planning a road trip without even thinking about espionage, terrorist attacks or any other criminal offence he let me enter the country; or at least the baggage claim area.
I was relieved but wondered what the “A” meant he had written, with a fat black marker, on my customs form. Was it a special request to frisk me for Arms, Ammunition or even for Anarchist material? A few moments later I was sent to the baggage scanner and, while my bags were scanned by customs officials, my brain finally associated the A correctly with the word “agriculture” or “agricultural products”. Again, relief followed by a short explanation what pumpkin seed oil was and that it was not worth building a pipeline from Austria to the US because their cars’ engines would not appreciate it too much. Hence, it was not necessary to bomb our country (actually it was not all that dramatic). Accompanied by the final words of the customs officer: “You are free to go now”, Harald and I stepped into the main hall of Denver airport.
This is the end of my post-flight adventure but, at the same time, the beginning of a three week stay to the US starting in “Colourful Colorado”.
First, last September on my trip to Canada I went on a day-trip to Seattle with my girlfriend. Not only could I for the first time experience the bureaucratic immigration process to the United States of America but also did I see the Space Needle and a lot of shopping malls. Anyway, what is important to mention is that when entering the US Austrian (and many other European citizens) get a Visa-Waiver (a kind of temporary Visa you don’t have to pay for) stapled into your passport. When leaving the country for good you are supposed to give this Visa-Waiver back to US immigration officers. Unfortunately, when crossing the border to Canada again we never met an US immigration officer. The only person checking our passports was a Canadian officer who did not remind us of bringing back those certificates to the US services. Hence, when leaving Canada from Vancouver airport for Paris Charles-de-Gaulle the Visa Waiver was still in our passports and no Canadian would take it from us. Back at home we decided to tear the slips out of our passports and send them, accompanied of a nice letter containing a short version of the story, to the US embassy in Vienna. To the day of my departure to the US I didn’t get any answer from the embassy nor could they tell me what happened with our letter when I called them.
That’s enough to understand the situation I was in while standing in the “Non-US citizen queue” at Denver airport. Eventually it was my turn and I advanced to the immigration officer. With sweaty hands I handed him over the I-94W Form (for more information follow this link ) and the customs declaration. While scanning in my passport he asked me if I had ever been to the US before and at the same time he was interested in what I was planning to do in the country this time. Then, without any emotion or astonishment he wanted to know why I had not returned the “green slip” at the USA/Canadian border. Showing him the letter to the embassy (which I of course had printed out and taken along) I explained myself. He looked at me, wondered how such a thing could happen and told me to place my left index finger on the fingerprint identification machine. After having done the same thing with my right index finger followed by an automatic photograph he continued his speech: “This time when leaving the country you have to, do you understand, you have to check-out your passport. After check-in; before boarding there are automatic check-out machines. You have to put your passport in there, give him your fingerprints and let him take another picture before boarding.” He repeated these or similar words two or three times to make sure that I had understood him correctly. Finally, after I had told him that I was planning a road trip without even thinking about espionage, terrorist attacks or any other criminal offence he let me enter the country; or at least the baggage claim area.
I was relieved but wondered what the “A” meant he had written, with a fat black marker, on my customs form. Was it a special request to frisk me for Arms, Ammunition or even for Anarchist material? A few moments later I was sent to the baggage scanner and, while my bags were scanned by customs officials, my brain finally associated the A correctly with the word “agriculture” or “agricultural products”. Again, relief followed by a short explanation what pumpkin seed oil was and that it was not worth building a pipeline from Austria to the US because their cars’ engines would not appreciate it too much. Hence, it was not necessary to bomb our country (actually it was not all that dramatic). Accompanied by the final words of the customs officer: “You are free to go now”, Harald and I stepped into the main hall of Denver airport.
This is the end of my post-flight adventure but, at the same time, the beginning of a three week stay to the US starting in “Colourful Colorado”.
April 27, 2007
Flight Adventure
http://www.luftfahrt.ch/images/ - Augsburg Airlines...In fact, the flight adventure isn’t about either one of the flights but about the time in between our landing at Frankfurt airport and our departure there. After saying goodbye to my girlfriend and reassuring her that I would take care of myself Harald and I entered the boarding area. Where, due to massive time surplus, I had a closer look at our tickets. In my, sometimes wild, imagination, when booking the flights I had paid attention that we would have enough time in Frankfurt. Whatever finally happened I don’t know. For sure, I can only say that on our tickets there were mere 60 minutes from our arrival to the departure of our flight to Denver, CO. As I later realized I had not turned insane nor was I hallucinating in front of my computer a few months ago; actually, the flight departing in Graz had been rescheduled by half an hour. Anyway, this was not going to help us when our pilot explained that we were going to land a few minutes late because of heavy air traffic. Nor was it comforting us in any way when we were driving in a bus (where all passengers of our shuttle-airbus were transported at once – so much to the size of the first plane) from one end of Frankfurt airport to the other. To cut a long story short, by some unexplainable chance not only the bus brought us to the Terminal were we had to catch our connection flight, but also the queue at the security checks was short enough to let us move on rapidly. In the end we arrived at Gate 23 just in time for boarding, which by the way was about 15 minutes late and approximately 25 minutes after our arrival at the Terminal.
Pre-flight adventure
One week ago I posted a list of promises, a list enumerating all the details I planned to hand on to the readers of this blog. It’s high time to give at least some of my stories on to you. Before I do so, however, I’d like to refer you to my flickr photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rys07 . Up to date there is a collection of approximately 50 pictures from the road trip. As soon as flickr makes it possible to me (I think at the beginning of next month) I’ll upload some more, hopefully amazing, pictures of my first week in Golden, CO, of the summit attempts and our excursion to the Garden of Gods near Colorado Springs.
Anyway, it was early in the morning when my girlfriend, Harald and I departed for Graz Int’l Airport (actually people in Graz rather call it Thalerhof but for us it was Graz Int’l Airport). My girlfriend asked me whether I had taken all important documents I would need for check-in and immigration. It was only at the check-in desk when it turned out that we had forgotten to take the US address of Harald’s brother along to the airport, which for us personally was not a big deal because he was going to pick us up anyway, however, the check-in lady was not ready to actually check us in without an address in the US she could hand on to the US immigration office. Certainly, we could have called Ulrich in the US but then we realized it was night in the Mountain Time Zone. It did take me some time to come up with an intelligent solution but in the end I managed to dig out a route planner where an arbitrary address, including the ZIP code was mentioned. Hence, we decided that, at least for US immigration officers, we were going to spend our first night there. This was the pre-flight adventure.
Right, if there is a pre-flight adventure there has to be a flight adventure as well. Read about the latter one in the next message.
Anyway, it was early in the morning when my girlfriend, Harald and I departed for Graz Int’l Airport (actually people in Graz rather call it Thalerhof but for us it was Graz Int’l Airport). My girlfriend asked me whether I had taken all important documents I would need for check-in and immigration. It was only at the check-in desk when it turned out that we had forgotten to take the US address of Harald’s brother along to the airport, which for us personally was not a big deal because he was going to pick us up anyway, however, the check-in lady was not ready to actually check us in without an address in the US she could hand on to the US immigration office. Certainly, we could have called Ulrich in the US but then we realized it was night in the Mountain Time Zone. It did take me some time to come up with an intelligent solution but in the end I managed to dig out a route planner where an arbitrary address, including the ZIP code was mentioned. Hence, we decided that, at least for US immigration officers, we were going to spend our first night there. This was the pre-flight adventure.
Right, if there is a pre-flight adventure there has to be a flight adventure as well. Read about the latter one in the next message.
April 21, 2007
Back in ahh from the USA!
source: www.lunargifts.co.uk Well, it ain't my country but the Americans love their flag so much that I've to put it here for once at least!
Chuck Berry: Back in the USA The Beatles' song "> "Back in the USSR" is a parody of Chuck Berry,...
It’s been almost a week that I’ve touched Austrian soil again. Unfortunately, to this very moment it was not possible for me to update my Weblog. I suppose that millions out there are waiting for comments, pictures and adventures from the Far West. Don’t worry, be patient! Sooner or later I’ll sit down in front of my laptop take out the USA map and write down what comes to my mind. This will be the moment when you will hear about my friends and me on several summit attempts in the Colorado Rockies. Then, you might get some pictures of the unbelievable places we had to sleep on our hikes in the American Canyonlands. Further, I might show you the statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower and the Venetian Canals à la US. As my trip took me even further west, a short update on how Mitch is doing at Malibu Beach and which star lives where in Beverly Hills could come up as well. Not to be set aside are wonderful pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge followed by ups and downs in San Francisco, California. Before coming home to everyday life in Graz; a short visit to Grand Canyon National Park, the Great Sand Dunes (which by the way look fantastic even if they are snow covered) and finally Denver and Golden, Colorado will sum up my report on my three week trip to the far west of the United States of America.
In addition to that, I’ll provide you with some personal comments on American life, people, attitudes and culture sometimes comparing my experiences with Bill Bryson’s “Notes from a Big Country” which I happened to read on my flight back to the old continent. ("Link" to buy the book – by the way, I read a "Reklam" version of it where the most important vocab and cultural information you might not know are provided. The Reklam, however, only contains a third of the original text. Nevertheless, I believe Bryson’s “Notes” form a great opportunity to get a first glimpse of American culture.)
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