Der, die, das... it matters!

German language can be really funny, especially when one does not know it well.

So in German there are articles - definite and indefinite, masculine, feminine and neuter: der, die, das, ein, eine, ein. Everyone knows that already after first lesson. But sometimes it is easy to forget they use variants...

German is also known for its looong words (I played with it in Yahoo Babel Fish: Fallschirmhauptlandungkreis :)) which are the result of a concatenation of nouns and relations between them. One can easily say: das Tagebuch, the diary, because of der Tag and das Buch. The day's book. Clear. Sonnenklar. More examples? das Tagelohn, the workday, das Tagesanbruch, the dawn, die Tageszeitung, the newspaper, die Tagesordung, the day order... and so on.

The thing is, that last two are feminine. And the s letter, for example in Tagesordung is a variant.



Today I realized that hit is feminine masculine (thank you meine Bruder!!, even here I made an error!). But before I laughed my ass out :) Tschüs!

Grüß Gott

That is the most popular greeting here - God greets you!

As I come from a country with the biggest Jesus on the planet, that little say hi should not be nothing unfamiliar, but it is. Everywhere: in shops, on streets, in trams, buses, swimming pools, restaurants and at Apple Premium Reseller store they greet with Grüß Gott. The bored and tired neighboor living few flats below me greets me with God and the young foreign women in McDonald's greet me with Him/Her.

And here it is - Christmas! Just right after the Linzer Torte shopping festival there is another - Christmas, Christmas, mas y mas Christmas. Buy this, buy that! Don't have a Christmas tree at home yet? Whatever! Buy Christbaumkugeln! ...and they will last for more than a month.

Here in small Linz Christmas on the streets, I must say, is just beautiful. The main street - Landstrasse is decorated and there are two Christmas markets. On each of them something really Linzig can be bougth or eaten. The aroma between the markets' booths makes you want to spend your last 3 euros for something. I didn't, but I surely will and will inform you how good it was!

Ein Kleine Nacht Video from the main Christmas market at the Hauptplatz! Bis später!

Tag der Linzer Torte

In Poznań, Poland we have special croissants Rogale Marcińskie in Madrid, Spain I have seen fat dripping all kinds of meat everywhere and here in Linz is the famous Cake of Linz! Never heard of it? Don't worry, I think it is just famous in Upper Austria, but I can be wrong.



It is a very dry cake - that is why, I believe, it coupled a fantastic 1,00 euro pair with a cup of white coffee. Delicious, full of ground walnuts, sprinkled with almond petals and seductive with its cinnamon aroma. The fabulous patterns are on the top and the sweet raspberry preserves can be found inside. Mixed with coffee. In my mouth. Wonderful.

So today was the Linz Cake Day. In the Passage, which is a pretty shopping mall situated in the heart of Linz, with a special place designated for the ceremony - a stage with musicians from Anton Bruckner University and the ad-hoc bakery. There were also Linzer Torten exhibited everywhere.

I liked the concert, however classical music had not always played well with the shopping center's hum and buzzing cake-preparing mixers. I was interested though, because my flatmate Stefie sang there.

I really liked the feedback of the Austrian audience. Singers could feel comfortable and the event as a whole had its charm.

Here is the video. Enjoy!

Language lessons and swimming pools

My flatmate Stefie teaches me German. These lessons are quite irregular and both of us have to feel the moment to begin one. Every Lektion consist of reading a relatively short article in die Tagezeitung which we get every morning to the door from some early-waking ghost, then translating it and drinking a coffee. I like these lessons a lot cause I can learn from a native speaker, but also because there is always that mental game in the background - when should I stop asking questions? Lately however, she leaves early and I get my ass up late. I miss the lessons.

Anyway I got the swimming pool carnet!
There are five swimming pools in Linz, all for that one carnet that is relatively cheep - 86 + 2 (carnet fee) euro for 6 months. I have no idea how they count months in Linz, but they are really user-friendly! In Madrid I could buy a month carnet for 45 euro which could last for a week (depending on a day when it's bought) - but here I got it until the end of May 2011. Yes, to the 31st of May, my birthday. That is 6,6452 months. Swimming about three times a week I pay approx. 1,09 euro for each session. I did not expect such a bonus in Austria!

How Austrians swim and why it is so hard for them to change their swimming habits is a different story. Of course they wouldn't call it a habit, but an order. I got even shouted by an Austrian swimmer. They swim like that:

• if there is one swimmer (on a line) he/she gots all the line (clever)
• if there are two swimmers in a line they have their own half of line! And they swim only on that half - back and forth.
• if there are more than two swimmers in a line then each half of line is in different direction.

Sounds good? Well... I thought that ommiting the point no. 2 would be easier as the point no. 3 can cover it, but... I still can't argue with someone in German. Soon. Bald.

Funny story. Old guy in a tram asked us to read his SMS as he could barely see the little font on his tiny cell-screen. I read it at loud: "Meine liebe Franz! Guten tag! Ich liebe dich!" He was so thankful! He asked us where we are from and we said "aus Polen". He was so happy about that! And I had been scared of nationalismus. We suspect that he makes many people read it for him daily.

Below is the photo of Linz specialty: almonds, hazelnuts and any-nuts in very tasty sugar-like ornament. Bon appettit! Mahlzeit!

Free furniture

I needed my space in our room. I had brought some stuff with me to organize a little "Corner Office", but as it occured it was not enough. I needed two crucial things: a desk and a chair.

Where to look for furniture in Linz? At first I thought about the easiest (but the most expensive) solution - buy it. Hmm... not so clever!

It is absolutely normal in Linz that people give their furniture for free! Of course it is not brand new, but I "do not look a gift horse in the mouth". Nevertheless its condition may surprise.

We got our new desk (which cost aprox. 69 euro) for free, because we posted an annoucement on the Anton Bruckner University mailing list. German girl told us that "the desk is not in the best condition and it was in the basement for a long time". I was a bit alarmed while penetrating the one of the unfamous austrian basements, but nothing happened. The standard in Germany must be different that the Polish one - as you will see on the picture the desk is just great!

We transported the desk with Asia (strong girl she is, indeed) to our 500-meters-away-spacious-room. Both very happy, wanting to celebrate it, we headed toward the McDonald's restaurant to compensate ourselves for the effort. Being very close to McDonald's it stood in our way! A beautiful abandoned child of the furniture fashion. The armchair. For free! :)



This is how my little corner (and our room) evolved. Wonderful. Now I can do programming all day. On the left you can see the city plan. The plan is the key.

First things first

What will you need in Linz from the first day? No doubt - ticket for the public transportation. Linz has buses and trams. There are 3 regular tram lines and lots of buses.



The 30 days ticket costs 37 euro. There is no student discount for it unless you have Aktivpass. Then you will be an Aktivpassinhaber which means "The Aktivepass holder". Yes, I am having fun with German. Aktivpass is given to a student from the city after some paperwork, but hey, I am not a student anymore.

There are also other tickets, but I will not dive deeper into the fares subject - everything can be found on the Linz AG website.

When it comes to flat I was lucky. My girlfriend has been studying here for more than a year, so I've found it easily. Maybe some day I will describe how to find a flat in detail. Anyway, I have to register in Linz. That seems to be quite easy - fill up the Meldezettel and get it signed by the flat owner.

What's interesting is that we can get the Wohnbeihilfe from the city which is a money supplement for the rent. Cool. It's 200 euro to split between all the flatmates. Of course the are some requirements. First - appliers can't earn more that 1500 euro by flat. Second - one applier has to be registered on the flat's address as his/her main place (to do so he/she has to show that has 5500 euro on his/her bank account). Third - the flat can't cost more that 7,00 euro per square meter. These are the conditions.

Flat prices are OK. Comparing to Madrid, they are just awesome. For a big room in a 76 square meters flat one can pay from 120-200 euro. Bills would be around 30 euro a month.

I came a year ago to Linz from Madrid to visit my girlfriend. The first feeling about the city was so different from which I actually have. It seemed small and sad, now it feels compact and well organized. It seemed windy and cold, now it feels windy and not so cold. Austria is a very rich country and Linz takes advantage of it in a fantastic way.

By the way I have been to my first job interview at celum. It went great.

Why Linz? Why blog?

I have just finished my studies in Poznań, Poland at the University of Technology, emphasis Informatics. Finished well with BSc and MSc. Day after I was in a car going to Linz. To live in Linz, Austria.

The main reason for choosing that city among others interesing places in Europe was simply love. As my girlfriend studies here I, now absolutely free, moved in.

I realized that there are moments when I start something from the scratch. Now just another similar popped out. Unlikewise other moments this one I would like to describe in a form of blog.

Why blog? Every new day here in Linz, and I am here six days by now, I deal with things that a newcomer have to deal with. Year before I was having my extremely happy year in Madrid, Spain. After that many people arriving to Madrid asked me questions like:

• How much does the living cost you?
• How you deal with transport? Which tickets or carnets are the cheepest?
• What about food? How much you pay during a regular month? What supermarket would you recommend?
• How did you find a flat?
• Have you found a job? Do they pay well?

But there were also questions about other, more social things, like:

• How are the people?
• How long did it take you to learn the language?
• Is there any good and cheep cinema?
• Where is the best party? Where are the bars with live music?
• How about food? Is it good there?
• Are there any easily accessible places to do sport?

The thing about that blog is not actually to answer these questions - there are many services that provide these pieces of information (ex. justlanded.com). I want to make my day by day life organizer, a bit of diary and help newcomers to deal with the formal part. But my main goal is actually to prove myself that I can blog regularly. And that I can run a house. With my girlfriend.