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From Abroad

Silent night, holy night…

We sang this carol in yesterday’s Christmas mess that I attended. Singing this was very nice, not only because it is a beautiful piece of music but it comes from Austria.

In Oberndorf, a town at the Salzach River, not far from where I grew up the local priest Joseph Mohr faced a problem on 1818’s Christmas Eve. The organ did not work but he had to carry out a mess. So he asked the organist, Franz Xaver Gruber to create a melody for Christmas lyrics he Mohr composed two years earlier.

And within this very Christmas Eve’s afternoon he composed the world’s most famous Christmas carol. Nowadays it is translated into 300 different languages or dialects and hence sung all over the world.

This video shows an Austrian boy’s choir, singing the original lyrics that are now almost 200 years old.

Stille Nacht

I wish you all a very merry Christmas or “Frohe Weihnachten” as we say in Austria.

While writing these lines, I’m right now sitting in an Chevy Pick-Up Truck heading back to Morgantown. It’s raining heavily for hours now, the window wipers make a horrible noise and I am actually being late for my own farewell party? at least, Modest Mouse keeps my mood up.

Colin (who is actually steering the truck, you know him from earlier posts) and I went to Mooresville, NC. This city is not only home to dozens of NASCAR racing teams, but also USA headquarter of the Weinig Group. This is a German company building machinery for the wood industry. Colin’s master thesis deals with utilization of low grade lumber by the means of fingerjointing and that’s exactly what we were up to, earlier this day.

On the way southwards, we stopped at new river gorge. It was really worth seeing it. What a bridge.

Fingerjointing is nothing more than milling a zig-zag-pattern in the on end at a board and joining it with another board with exactly the same grooves. If you apply some glue, you can easily achieve a very good bonding. Now, this Weining Group build pretty decent devices who do this almost automatically. And since Colin had a lot to fingerjoin he was glad that he could do it at their facility.

Not the very best, but a good example of a fingerjoint. This one is unfortunately a bit misaligned but you can see the tines.

Therefore we took a university truck, filled it with wood and headed south. Unfortunately we had the wettest weather imaginable, especially on the way back. After a night in a random business traveller hotel we processed the boards, filled the truck now with 8 ft long planks and headed north again. The weather was heavy rain alternating with exceptionally heavy rain and storm gusts.

This is the machine we made the joints with. A very decent device, made in Germany. I am acutally playing with the thougt of applying for a job at this company… Ah, we’ll see.

In Princeton, WV, we stopped by to meet Robert Kincaid, President of Accurate Millworks Inc., a company producing wooden shutter components. Colin interviewed him to learn about the economic background of fingerjointing (a technique used by Accurate Millworks).

When we were done with this interview the watch showed 5pm. Unfortu nately we thought, that we’ll be back at around 6pm so I invited friends for a farewell party at our home. So, this party is starting in exactly one hour and we are right now in – just a second, need to ask Colin – he say’s he doesn’t really know where we are, a few miles from I-79. The map tells me, we’re right now not far from Hookersville.

So… I am going to be late to my own party – embarrassing, isn’t it? Thanks to my new laptop and a battery life of about 6 hours, I can take the opportunity and tell you about my last days in Morgantown. Final went well (thanks to fortunate choice of courses, I only had one), all my courses are over. I will write another post wrapping up my MoTown experiences on- and off-campus later.

My flat mate Eric has his convocation on Sunday. We’re invited to attend this event and I’m looking very forward to that. In Austria graduation (getting the bachelor degree) is nothing special – we just go to the dean’s office and get a confirmation, that’s it. But getting the master degree (which is the Diplom-Ingenieur – engineer’s diploma) is a very big thing.

Addendum: Since Eric successfully graduated today, I am glad to congratulate to this major achievement. And I can blog another nice picture ; )

Anyway – after convocation we might go with Eric’s family back to Washington and rent a car there, or go with Eric northbound (maybe Vermont), to be honest, we don’t know yet, depends even a bit on the weather. In the meantime we made it to I-79, still it is raining as strong as all day, brrr?

Our next big goal is New Year’s Eve in New York City. We already booked a hostel room there and – believe me – we’re looking very forward to go there. It’ll be even nicer, since we’re going to meet there a friend from the BOKU, Helmut, who’s going to start his semester abroad in the United States right when we leaving. He will be in Atlanta, though, and I hope he will write a blog, too.

Okay, we’re just passing Exit 79/Burnsville (I’m a pretty slow writer, when it comes to English) and I am ending the last post of my blog during the regular semester. There’s a lot different if you make a semester abroad. Not only food tastes different, you’re constantly meeting people from places you didn’t even know they existed; not only you’ll visit more cities in a few month than ever before; not only that you’re living in a different time zone. I am absolutely positive, that I was living in a different time speed? The last month just flew by and a hardly can believe it’s already almost over!

Hey folks! Sorry for my long absence at the blog – I was on my longed for Thanksgiving trip. We had nine days and wanted to cover as much as possible. And we did: Niagara Falls, Toronto, Kingston, Montreal, Washington DC, Fallingwater and Pittsburgh! If you want to know exactly what we did there, I need to refer to my German blog: http://hannes-in-america.blogspot.com!

About a month ago Lorenza and Giulia (two exchange students from Italy) as well as Doris and me were discussing what we wanted to do for Thankgsgiving. Since all of us already spent some hundred bucks in flight we thought about renting a car and make a roadtrip. This should save us some money (if we were succesful will be unveiled a the end of this post). We wanted to start on Friday and Doris and me had to be back in Washington on Wednesday, the 26th. Of course we wanted to cover as much as possible and so we decided for the following route:

This should allow us to see Niagara Falls, Toronto and Montral within 6 days. Again, I uploaded some pictures to illustrate our journey and hope you enjoy reading about it.

I-79 north for five hours. That is pretty much all you have to do to see the Niagara Falls. And all you students in Morgantown who’ve never been there before: let me tell you, it’s worth it.

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We arrived there in the evening and just had a short stop before we proceeded to our couchsurfing host who was situated in St. Catherines, just 15 min away. On the next morning we went back to the falls, found a surprisingly cheap parking spot for the day (only 5$) and enjoyed this wonder of nature in the daylight.
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You can not only see those cascading waters from above, but take a journey behind the falls, too. It was awesome to hear, see and actually feel the power of the Niagara Falls. And we’ve been there in the wintertime – it has to be even more impressing in the sommer, when twice as much water is travelling down 150 feet free fall.
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After this unforgettable experience we entered our rental car (a Kia Spectra) again an drove northbound, heading to Toronto. Again, we found a couchsurfing host for the night. Unfortunately we hade to learn, that it can happen that the same address occurs in two different places in Toronto. If you don’t doublecheck the zipcode (and I didn’t) chances are good the you find the right address but the wrong house. We found a one story house in a quite, one-story-house neighborhood whereas we were supposed to end up in a 39-floor building in downtown Toronto.

Anyway, about an hour later we arrived at the right spot and, man, surprise surprise. Our host Zoe lives in a brandnew appartment “tower” with parking garage, lobby and even a concierge. Not the average couchsurfing experience : ) Zoe offered rare combination of an upscale flat and an unbelievably generous and open personality. It was a pleasure to stay there. And later this night it got even better when we discovered that the penthouses in the top floor were not yet finished, not locked and hence a great opportunity to shoot a great picture of a great city.
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Here a picture of the four students of us, Zoe and her dog. By the way – it is a great example for the distortion of an image if you use low focal lenght (low zoom) – my face is actually not twice as big as Giulia’s ; )
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No sightseeing in Toronto without the CN-Tower. Incredible.
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This evening we left Toronto for Kingston. Denise – a good friend of ours from Vienna – is staying for an exchange semester at the local university. Although it was officially not allowed to host people in the rooms, nobody seemed to care and we slept well in the dorm room. Kingston was a perfect break since it is situated perfectly between Toronto and our next goal Montreal. And if you ever drive on that road, consider to make a short detour on the Thousand-Islands-Parkway. I admit, that the end of November is prolly not the best season to visit this beatiful piece of land, still I had to opportunity to take a picture full of atmosphere as you can see above.
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Montreal… hmm. After all we heard about this city we decided to spend two nights there and only one in Toronto. I wish we would’ve done it the other way around. I mean I liked Montreal and it is worth a visit, though I was a little disappointed due to three reasons. First, Americans love Montreal for it’s European attitude. I agree it IS quite European and I was reminded on France or England when I walked through the streets. Still this is nothing thrilling for me. Second is the end of November definetely not a good time to visit Montreal – half of the shops and restaurants in the Old Motreal were closed and there were hardly any people on the streets. Third, the weather was the worst you can imagine – cold, windy and raining. Anyway – the picture shows Lorenza, Giulia and Doris and you can even see the Olympic Center in the background.

Due to the mist we spent our second day completely in the underground. In every other city I know this would be hardly intersting, but Montreal has a unique subsurface shopping “world”. Hundreds of shops and restaurants in several downtown buildings are connected by underground walkways. We hiked across downtown Montreal without stepping outside even once – unbelievable.

Early next day we drove back to the United States. Lorenza and Giulia planned to spend Thanksgiving in Boston and New York so I delivered them to the Greyhound bus stop in Albany. Doris and me traveled further directly to Washington DC. We were invited at Eric Jaesches family for Thanksgiving. And not just Doris and me, but also my father. He managed to book a flight that brought him to Dulles this very evening. So we had a little family reunion. But since my father was very tired due to the long flight and I was very tired due to the long drive (800 miles in 12 hours straight), so we had a good night’s sleep.
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The Thanksgiving day itself started with a tour through the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum. My father as well as Doris and me enjoyed this interesting collection of aviation very much. And guess what… I took the opportunity to make some nice pictures : ) just like aboves from the fasted aircraft ever, the Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird.
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...or what do you think abour this one. The astronout is floodlight so brightly and the background so dark that it even seems it’s levitating in the free space.

Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures of the feist itself but let me tell you, that is was delicious, generous and we enjoyed it soo much to be able to participate at this very american experience.
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Black Friday. Instead of going shopping we planned to see some museums and exhibition in Washington DC. Unfortunately we were not the only ones who decided to do so. But after we eventually found a parking spot, we could see some of those sights, most Europeans only know from TV. And we started with good old Albert : )
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... the Lincoln Memorial close by…
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...an from a little further away.
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As I mentioned earlier, I grew up on a farm in Salzburg. My parents are still operating it, keeping a livestock of around 200 goats. Still my father is a very interested and knowledgeable person. Considered that he learned English only in elementary school, 35 years ago, it is astonishing how well he still speaks it, allowing him to have conversation without any big problems – respect.

I am very glad that he took the time to visit me. He’s not only a very busy farmer but also currently running for mayor in my hometown Seekirchen. So I really appreciated his visit and hope I could show him some interesting apects of the States.
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Finally I have to say Thank You to family Jaeschke, again. They hosted us for three nights in there beatiful home close to Washington. They shared breakfast and dinnertable with us, supplied us with great advice and hints and even allowed us to participate in the familiy’s Thanksgiving meal. We greatly appreciated that and hope we can give back this hospitality if you ever visit us in Austria.

So this was our Thanksgiving trip. Costed us around 90$ for transportation, since we shared the car and gas expenses by four. Accomodation was free everywhere since we couchsurfed again : )

I already wrote about my hometown Seekirchen in a previous post. In today’s I’m going to focus on the university that hosted me during the last five years – my alma mater the BOKU. If anybody is interested in the history and a general article about Vienna, please consider the wikipedia link.

The BOKU was founded in 1872; starting as a college for forestry, supporting Austria’s cutting in healthy woods since back then. During one and a half century, new fields of sciences appeared and the Habsburg monarchs broadened the focus from only forestry to a more general “soil sciences”. This is the literal translation of “Bodenkultur”, the BOKU’s name and origin of it’s acronym in German.

Actually it covers every scientific aspect of “all that’s growing” how I like to define it. This includes the following undergraduate programs:
• Agricultue
• Forestry
• Wood- and Bio Based Fibre Technology
• Civil Engineering
• Landscape Architecture
• Food and Bio Technology
• Equine Science
• Environmental and Bio Resource Management
• Oenology and Vinery

Based on these bachelor programs, the BOKU has en even bigger graduate offer, providing master degrees in 24 different fields of study. And – thanks to my home-university’s international orientation, several of them are offered entirely in English:
• Environmental Sciences – Soil, Water and Biodiversity
• Animal Breeding and Genetics
• Safety in the Food Chain
• Horticultural Sciences
• Mountain Forestry
• Mountain Risk Engineering
• Natural Resources Management and Ecological Engineering

Okay, now you know what you can study at my university. But what’s a word worth without pictures? So allow me to show you around a bit:

The Guttenberghaus, one of the many buildings on the BOKU’s Türkenschanz campus. In here all the socioeconomic lectures are taught. Renovated just a few years ago, it offers a big lecutre hall for about 140 students. And sometimes we turn it into a movie theatre and show movies there.

I took this shot from the rooftop of the Schwackhöferhaus. This building hosts, besides others, the institute of wood science where I spent a lot of time. And if lectures are just too long I love to enjoy a quick cup of coffee on this spot.

Another aspect of studying in Austria are the university and dorm parties. Opposite to America, all the students are above the legal drinking age (for beer and wine it’s 16 years, yes sixteen), subsequently student parties can be biiig fun. This picture was taken inside the Exnerhaus, which hosts five lecture halls and some forestry related institutes.

After cleaning up, the Exnerhaus lookes sincere again. Besides the lecture halls and institutes it shelters the BOKU’s main library. A place that can be pretty crowded, especially at the end of the semester

Back to academics: the BOKU has an external institute with focus renewable resources. It offers up to date machinery for extrusion. Here I am just extruding a biobased polymer composed of wood particles and polylactic acid.

Excursion! What would life be without excursions? Due to Austrias diverse natural and industrial landscape, an interesting factory or site to visit is never far. But why only stay inside the country? Over the years several field trips took me even to Germany, Hungary, France and the Czech Republic. The photo, btw, shows extreme logging, the alpine style. Cable logging is common throughout the mountainous regions.

If you’re ever in Vienna around the end of January you shoud consider visiting the BOKU-Ball. This is an annual ball organised by the BOKU’s student union. And it’s a BIG thing. Ostentatious ballrooms in the Hofburg are rented for this very night. Thousands of people dress in their nicest suites, dresses or traditional clothes (yes, Lederhosen and Dirndls) and celebrate a georgous night of dancing and enjoying thereselves. There is a reason, why the Viennese Waltz is called the Viennese Waltz ; )

So, now I showed you a short glimpse of studying at the BOKU in Vienna. If you cought interest, and want to learn more – here is the link to the BOKU’s webpage in English. It’d be great if some WVU students come to the BOKU again! You could even make a whole program here. Too expensive you think? Just imagine, the Austrian government just cut tuition for out-of-EU students in half, amounting ~500$ for a semester. That means a master degree for two grand. Na, do I have your attention now?

In one of my last posts, I wrote about travelling throughout the United States cheaply. Since most of you, my fellow readers, already did that, I would like to expand these cheap travelling hints to another region: Europe.

Good old Europe – London, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Amsterdam? dulcet names! The Louvre, The Vatican, Big Ben, Castle Schönbrunn, Versaille ? don’t you dream about visiting these places.

Austrias most visited sight – The Schönbrunn Castle

Well, vacation in Europe is expensive! Flight is expensive, accommodation is expensive and rental cars a luxury over there (not to mention gas prices around 6 $ per gallon). Still, I ensure you – it IS possible to travel through Europe and see some of the most exciting places of the world without doubling college loans. And I give you some hints how to do so.

First, please check out the “How to? travel in the States with a low budget!”-post. Most of the remarks I made there are valid for Europe too. Especially couchsurfing is even better known there than here in the USA. Additional you might want consider the following:

Fly cheap! Again, I suggest checking out www.lastminute.com. They offer quite reasonable prices for transatlantic flights. Another good source is www.studentuniverse.com. This is a webpage offering special deals for students and faculty staff, but you have to proof you school-status before receiving your ticket confirmation. I’d recommend lastminute.com for short-term flight search and studentuniverse.com for flights further in the future. I, for instance, bought my flight from Vienna to the states and back already in April from studentuniverse.com, where I found a fairly good rate from Morgantown to Seattle and back just one day before the departure on lastminute.com – nomen est omen. Other well known low cost flight webpages are: kayak.com, orbitz.com or cheaptickets.com.

The Louvre in Paris. An amazing museum. And if you want to see the Mona Lisa for free, you should be there on Fridays – they don’t even charge you for entrance.

One example: if you would like to spend on month (February, 1st through March, 2nd) Europe, I just found a rate of 657$ (including tax and other fees) from Washington Dulles to Vienna (roundtrip) on studentuniverse.com. If you would like to fly from January, 12th through January 30th, lastminute.com would charge you 684$. I found these rates within two minutes, I bet if you do some more extensive recherché and vary dates and departure/arrival airport you’ll find even cheaper deals. Still it is still a lot of money, so let’s think about safing a little during the stay in Europe.

Use public transport to come around. Throughout Europe, you’ll find a very comprehensive railway system. From the motherland of all train-schedules, Switzerland, to the outback of Rumania, there are trains going several times a day. Normally it is not necessary to make any reservations – you just go there, buy a ticket and enjoy a smooth train ride through Europes scenic landscapes.

One of the most beautiful railways worldwide, even being one of the UNESCO’s world heritages: the Semmeringbahn Austria, connecting the two biggest cities Vienna and Graz

Meet locals. If you have friends or family in the places you’d like to visit, try to stay at their places. Has two advantages: free accommodation and very good guides. They know where to go in their city, which attractions to visit and which bars serve the best drinks. If you don’t have any friends/family in these places, just couchsurf. Gives you the same benefits!

Transeuropean flights can be very cheap. We have some dedicated low-cost-carriers in Europe, who offer unbelievable low prices for flights. I, e.g., paid around 60$ from Salzburg to Brussels, 70$ from Salzburg to London or 40$ from Vienna to Bucharest (all roundtrip). But these tickets have to be booked well in advance, since there is only a very small contingent for each airplane. Therefore you might want to check out www.ryanair.com, www.skyeurope.com or www.easyjet.com.

So see you in good old Europe!

*pictures all taken from various wikipedia pages

Washington, Seattle, Vancouver, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Philadelphia and now New York City.

This is the list of cities my girlfriend Doris and I have visited since we arrived here, a little more than 3 months ago. When Eric Jaeschke spent his semester abroad in Vienna, he managed to visit 12 European countries. I don’t think, we can keep up with him concerning the total numer of countries but we’ll try hard : )

Either way, actually I should write something about New York. As you found out in the last post, two students from Italy, Lorenza and Giulia, as well as Doris and I got a ride to Philadelphia on Friday. On Saturday evening we took a comfortable commuter train to Penn Station, Manhattan. Again, we found a couchsurfing host, again perfectly situated. He lived just a couple hundred yards away from the Penn Station.

His name is Mijail and meeting him was another amazing experience. He took us to the rooftop of his building where we had an awsome view on the Empire State Building.

On the next day we wanted to meet with friends from our university, the BOKU in Vienna. Since the New York Marathon took place at the very same day, it took some more time to reach our meeting point in the Central Park than expected. At least I had the chance to take a nice photo of the fall colored athmosphere.

We don’t know who he is. But obviously he comes from Austria. A nice snapshot of the New York Marathon.

Times Square and…

...the Times Square, again.

We and our friends from Austria. I, Jakob, Thomas, Markus, H.W. and Doris.

There is another advantage of couchsurfing. It can happen, that your host takes you to a nice bar and an even nicer club later. And this happened to us. So we already partied in the Big Apple! Luckily, we didn’t stay up too long and so we could get up early on Monday. After breakfast we went to the Staten Island Ferry. We had excately zero interest in visting Staten Island (although it is probably a really nice place ;) and took the ferry because it is free and it passes the Statue of Liberty.

One still can go to the island and visit the statue. But it costs money and once you’ve arrived there, the monument is probably too large to capture it on a picture. So the ferry was a really good decsision.

I love windy boat photos with Doris : )

The next target was the financial district. Including the NYSE…

...Wall street, of course, and…

...the famous wall street bull. Not really a bull market right now, is it? Still a very nice motif.

Ground Zero.

I knew, that ground is expensive in Manhattan. I did not know, that this leads to creative parking solutions, hehe.

Finally, the four WVU Students and our host. I, Giulia, Doris, Lorenza and Mijail

Okay, so now I know New York City. What do I think about it? I really loved the huge variety you can explore within just a few squaremiles. Be it Upper West Side, East Village, Greenwich Village, Central Park, Financial District, Chinatown or Little Italy. All of these neighborhoods have amiable features.

My girlfriend and me actually booked a room for the turn of the year. And we are really looking forward to this New-Years-Eve-New-York-City-Times-Square-Madness : ))

As announced in the last posting, we took another chance to see more of this country. Since Election-Tuesday’s classes were cancelled, we decided to skip classes on Monday, too, and gained an extra long weekend.

Colin, my friend who also is a Wood Science graduate student, comes from Philadelphia. And he has a car. And he took the occasion of election day weekend to go home. Self-evidently I asked him if he would take us (our Italian friends Lorenza and Giulia, as well as Doris and me) with him. He had some doubts that five persons with luggage would fit into his car, but hey – we’re from Europe – we’re perfectly okay with tiny cramped cars, haha! But eventually it was absolutely no problem and we had a nice ride through Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Last Friday was not only the day of our departure; it was the last day in October, hence Halloween. As we arrived at Colin’s family (who thanksworthy hosted us for the night), the streets were crowded with frightening entities only some feet large. It was the first time for the four international students of us that we experienced something like this. It was GREAT fun, when children dressed up as quarterback, samurai or cheerleader knock on the door and whimper “Trick or Treat”. In this moment, we conquered another piece in the puzzle of America culture.

Later this evening we went to a local Halloween party. Not that I disliked it, but it is somewhat crazy how the girls are dressed up to this occasion. Last night of October and they wear little more than underwear. But if you went to a Halloween party in Morgantown, I bet you know, what I’m talking about ; )

On the next day we started early to discover the city of Philadelphia. First we did the American way of discovery: driving around with the car and looked out of the windows. On the picture you see the town hall, topped by a statue of William Penn. Since I turned into a big Phillies fan since I am here, I have to post this Wikipedia page that links this statue with the World Series victory this year.

A lot of cities all over the world have their “signature food”. Vienna’s is the “Wiener Schnitzel”, Salzburg’s signature food is a dessert called “Salzburger Nockerl”. And Philadelphia has its Cheesesteak. Mmhh. After wating in a long line, we finally received a pretty good but pretty expensive (these are the two main attributes of signature foods ;) sandwich with a lot of cheese and chopped steak. And we really liked it!

After sauntering over the hip South Street, it was time to say “Good Bye” to Philadelphia and “Hello” to New York City. I’ll write more about that in the next post. However, I want to finish this one with “Herzlichen Dank” (Thank you very much) to Colin and his family.

10 days in Seattle and Vancouver for around 500$
A weekend in Chicago for around 151 $
A long weekend in Philadelphia and New York City for around 120 $

This post is all about travelling cheap throughout the United States of America WITHOUT owning a car. The above mentioned travel expenses covered transportation and accommodation. And often people ask me how we did accomplish this. So if you’re interested in travelling with a small budget, you should read the following hints:

1. Search for cheap flights. Although airfares are considerably more expensive here compared to Europe it is possible to find good deals. My favorite source for this is currently www.lastminute.com. But be a bit flexible with your travel destination or travel dates. If you know, that you can take off a certain weekend, try and compare several desitnations to find a good deal!

2. Make friendships and use them. Some of the friends I made here have a car. Often they go homefor a weekend or travel elsewhere with idle seats in their vehicle. This can be a cheap source of transportation.

3. Save on accomondation. Why booking a hostel or a hotel when you can stay for free? It’s called couchsurfing and is a great opportunity to cut your travel expenses by half. On the other hand, you should provide your couches to other travelers, too. Read more about that in my couchsurfing-post or visit www.couchsurfing.com!

3. Create a “Web of Friends” that covers as much of the earth as possible. Sounds complicated? Actually it’s easy – go and study abroad. There you’ll meet loads of folks from literally everywhere. And then – when the semester is over – go and visit them! If you’d rather not want to go abroad there is another opportunity to get in touch with international students: become a buddy. Buddies are students who take care about incoming exchange students. The OIP (Office of international programs) can tell you more about that.

4. Be old enough and rent a car. If you are at least 25 years old, it CAN be pretty cheap to rent a car in the USA. Especially if you invite other students to your trip and share the costs. Still, insurance-costs are very high. But I found a way to overcome this problem. All students from a German speaking country have the opportunity to rent a car on the German webpage holidayautos.de. The advantage is that insurance (LDW, CDW, enhanced liability) is in the price included. So I was able to rent a car for thanksgiving break over one week for 180 $. We’re 4 persons in total and going to visit Niagara Falls, Toronto, Kingston, maybe Montreal and Washington DC. Estimated travel costs for these targets: 90 $ per Person. Only disadvantage: this webpage has no contractors in Morgantown, you’d have to pick up the car in Pittsburgh.

Okay! So now you know how to get around real cheap so hit the road! I have to write an exam in 15 minutes and right after that, I’m leaving for Philadelphia and New York! Yeah! Stay tuned and read about my experiences when I return.

And – before I forget – Happy Halloween!

If you look at my posts you could easily assume that I spend all my time in this exchange semester travelling around like on vacation. This is NOT the case ;) I am pretty busy, indeed. So it’s maybe a good idea to dedicate a post to my efforts at the university.

1. My classes
I admit my courses are not too difficult, compared to Austrian lectures. Still they are quite an effort, due to mandatory attendance and regular homework. And my Advanced Wood Chemistry course forces me to spend a lot of time in the laboratory, my professor wants to see results soon.

2. Working
Every exchange student with a J-1 visa is allowed to work up to 20 hours per week on campus. But almost nobody really does that. The wages are pretty poor (compared to what an Austrian student worker would get) and getting a Social Security Number is a hassle. I found out the hard way, that American bureaucracy is as bad as Austrian bureaucracy :(

But I made the effort and now I’m working ten hours a week for Prof. Levente Denes. He originally comes from Rumania, but was working for the University of Western Hungary in Sopron, which is only 45 minutes away from Vienna, quasi neighbours. Now he does reasearch in wood science for the WVU. My duty at the job is to prepare specimens and carrying out testing. Sometimes this can be very boring (once I had to measure the length of more than a thousand poplar wooden sticks), but is most of the time really interesting (e.g. determining the compression strengths of heat treated hardwood specimens).

Yesterday I was busy with preparing specimens for the shear strengths test. Therefore I had to cut slots into the boards, using a hand router. Loud and dirty, the smell of freshly sawn wood and sawdust in my face. I loved it!

Here some more photos from my student job:

This is a test to determine the shear strenght of the board. It’s a pretty straightforward method: you pull at the top and at the bottom. By the means of the distance measurement device it’s possible to determine the shear-elasticity. Furthermore it is possible to determine the MOR – the modulus of rupture.

Here I’m attaching metal cramps on tension-specimens. These are made of an innovatice derived timber product, consisting of salvage veneer parts, glued with phenole-formaldehyde.

Now the specimen is mounted to the testing machine. Above the specimen is a silver cylinder; this is a load cell measuring the force that’s applied.

A glueline close-up: notice at the dove-tail shaped teeth. These improve the tension strength.

Some more specimens: heat treated hardwood pieces, ready for the bending-test.

This is the testing-layout for the bending test. It’s just like every other mechanical test – one applies load and measures the according deviation.

As you can see, I have a lot of interesting tasks in the course of my job. And I am learning by doing. I’d recommend this to every future exchange student, trying to get involved by getting a job. The bottom line is, that I am here NOT only on vacation. I am doing a lot as a student and as a student worker and I appreciate both, the experience and the earnings! :)

Today was probably one of the last pleasant fall days before it’s getting really cold. I took this opportunity trying to make some beautiful photos. Here is the outcome:

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Aah, what a beautiful state we’re spending our semester. Back home in Austria, our falls aren’t as spectacular like here. Most of our trees are softwoods, keeping there needles. So this autumn-colors is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I love it!