Day 006: Achille from Italy
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day 6 — A new roommate, Achille
08-August-1971
(Sun.)
TRANSCRIPT
Today one of my roommates came. His name is Achille
R. and he is a student from Milan, Italy. He is very
friendly, and we agreed to always try and speak in
German, if possible. We do pretty well, and I think
that my German is improving considerably. We both
answer each other’s questions about the way we live
and it is all very interesting. He is a student of
chemistry, and is also about to receive his
“Doktorate of Economy” degree.
Went to Mass at St. Stephan’s Cathedral and had
Communion.
At lunch, we met these people from the Rep. of South
Africa. They knew English and we had some more
pleasant conversation. The wife asked me if I would
like to write to her daughters and I replied, yes. It
should be very interesting to find out how students
think there.
At dinner–Wienerwald. Met 2 French families. With the
help of Achille, we had very pleasant conversation.
People always seem to be interested in each other.
REFLECTIONS
Roommate
Achille. Yes, I
have a new roommate. His name is Achille. He’s from
Italy and a doctoral student. (Sorry for the
funkadelic Germanic spellings, which I obviously
thought I was so cool at the time.) I was sorry to
discover that I didn't have any pictures of Achille.
Rotary.
The Rotary
International fellowship was certainly meeting its
goals. I was immersed in a wonderful cross-cultural
international world of students.
(aside)
Send
your kids to Europe. If you are
a parent and have children, if feasible, try to find
a way to have your children experience some overseas
or European schools. Many colleges have programs with
a semester or more overseas. Alternatively, a
one-month summer language course is a major
international experience. These language courses are
usually attached to universities in major European
cities. In the summer, Europeans are out to learn
additional languages or brush up on their foreign
language skills, and visit new locales. That’s why
they know multiple languages. They study them.
Countries are close. They go to native countries to
learn languages—now that's total immersion.
[Immersion—dumping you into a language full-blast
with 100% language—is the current rage. I heard it
works.]
Rotary
gave me a life-changing experience.
Even
though my language course hasn’t yet started, I am
already connecting with students from many countries.
This experience of meeting so many people from other
countries was amazing. Again, the purpose of Rotary
International's Walter D. Head Foundation was being
met. If you haven't guessed, this was a life-changing
experience.
Up-close
culture. A bonus of
a summer language course, or semester of study
abroad, is the amazing capability to see a city and a
country’s culture, up close and personal, over the
extended period of a month. Compare that to just
hours or a day or so on a typical tour bus.
(back to the journal)
Once again, conversations with a husband and wife from South Africa. And I’m supposed to correspond with the daughters. Incredible.
Dinner time. The Wienerwald in Vienna is, I believe, a chain restaurant. (On returning to the U.S. I think I remember seeing them in New York as well.) The restaurant was close by—a big advantage. I remember that I liked it and ate there regularly, as it was reasonably priced. Not sure what I ate, but a good guess might be Wienerschnitzel (breaded veal patties). More pleasant conversations with two families from France. Thank goodness Achille was there.
Note: I need to remember to post some visuals on the locations of where I was staying and visiting so you can get a better orientation of the location of each place. The student hostel was right off of the main shopping street, Kärtnerstrasse, only a couple of blocks from the Vienna State Opera house and also from St. Stephan’s Cathedral. That's going by memory, not Google™ Maps.
A good day. Meeting good people. Yea!
[Note: as stated, I will try to revisit these pages, or on the pages where there are no posts, and publish both my personal photographs and additional history or comments on the points of interest of where I am visiting.]
