Its really interesting having so many different nationalities in the one room. You experience it all the time, but when you live with that many sorts of people and really get to know them it is so interesting to look at them and see how everyone is different. I hate to generalise, but seeing people from different countries and backgrounds entrenched in those respective countries' culture and values, makes you realise how much you can see how living in a country influences the way someone is. It is hard to give exact exmaples, because a few people from a specific country can barely account for the millions of people in that country. From just being around these people, however, national identities emerge, it is facinating to watch.
Last night we had a Rotarian from a neighbouring town come in and teach us some traditional Austrian dancing. It was heaps of fun. I mean, i cant dance to start off with, but match that with dancing where you have to concentrate to not run into people and miss the steps, haha! Now there's a laugh! Austrian dancing is loosely based on things like the Canadian three step and the waltz, although there are many different types of dances. But it is all about intertwining arms and bodies and then turning is a certain way so that the knot unravels. Unfortunately for April, the Australian girl i was dancing with, i wasnt really concentrating hard enough, and she sort of learnt what it felt like to be a contortionist for an evening. But we sorted it out in the end and it was great fun. I even got to play the accordian, which is seriously hard! At one stage i had james doing the pumping whilst i played the keyboard, that seemed to work ok. We even managed to give them a rendition of waltzing matilda, which needs a little work. But just as everyone was winding down, we busted out Eye of the Tiger, accordian style, talk about bringing the house down! Haha!
Just reading this back i have to apologise to anyone who is reading it or putting it up or something, because i am completely ignoring punctuation! Haha, Roger would be disgraced! The reason, however, that i am doing this is because the European keyboard i am using makes it very difficult to put in things like quotation marks and apostrophes and things, so you will all just have to imagine them!
But for now i have to away, my room has to be cleaned, and i am seriously hungry!
Paz