Ma and Pa in AustriAAA

I will start by informing you with great enthusiasm that I had my first roast dinner on Wednesday, as it was Thanksgiving and my friend in Amstetten (my only friend.) is American! She came over with a dead chicken in her backpack and then spent a good few minutes rubbing melted butter all over it, into every single nook and cranny. Luck would have it that this girl knows how to roast a bird – it was one of the best roast dinners I’ve ever had. The meat was so delicious and garlicy and moist and YUMMY IN MY TUMMY! We also had homemade stuffing, leeks and carrots, pomegranate (because I couldn’t find the cranberry sauce in Spar, because I don’t know the word for cranberry, but I did find a pomegranate), roast potatoes and grrrrravy. I had three helpings. Then we had apple crumble with ice cream. Then we had buttermilk pie, which is basically a normal pie case filled with a couple of kilos of sugar, butter and buttermilk. Here's a pic:

Kirbee let me keep the carcass. I popped it in the freezer and will boil it at a later date.

I didn’t have time to boil it this weekend, because the PARENTS were here! Upholding a strong family tradition, they missed one of their crossovers and were a teensy bit late, but this didn’t bother me as it just gave me more time to snooze!!! When they arrived I showed them the sights in Amstetten, which took all of four minutes, then we had schnitzel. The best thing about them visiting was I could say things like “oh, I know the best place to get schnitzel.” Little did they know there is only one place! But it made me sound like a genius. Also mother looked extremely impressed whenever I spoke German. Father was less convinced.

“Wow,” he sneered sardonically, after I completed an extremely long and complex telephone call with the car hire company in dialect(!!!) “You’ve learnt to say ‘okay’ and 'super' in a German accent!”

“I think you mean an Austrian accent,” I retorted coolly. The tension was too much for the small hotel room so we retreated to the hire car.

They were both suitably impressed with Melk, and we went inside the catacombs of the abbey and it was very good. The church there looks like somebody ate lots and lots of gold leaf and renaissance art work, then projectile vomited all over the walls and ceilings. In a word, I would call it ‘EXCESSIVE’. In two words, I would call it ‘VERY EXCESSIVE’! But also pretty awesome. The pictures just do NOT do it justice.

Are my parents ghosts!? Mere figments of my imagination!? eek!

This beautiful model is used to hold the lower  jaw and one remaining tooth of one of the abbey's saints.

Stify Melk Church cieling

Then we spoke to a miserable Scrooge of a tourist office representative, who, after much pestering, finally revealed there was a Christmas fair we could go to nearby. This was held in a local castle and was a treasure trove of handmade goods! The locals charged large sums of money for all sorts of strange objects, our favourites were small angels made out of pieces of pasta and entire cribs encapsulated in a walnut shell. It was a marvel of the power of recycling. As I pointed out to the parents over tea and cake, the producers of Blue Peter would have pissed their pants at all the craft activities they could have stolen there! Mother didn’t approve of my turn of phrase, but still whole-heartedly agreed.

Then I took them to that nights Kulturwochen event, which was a local punk-protest-folk-band-thing and they sang some songs and gave me a free sticker! The lyrics were in German, but the music had an upbeat, toe-tapping, head-nodding, shoulder-wiggling tempo that kept all three of us entertained! The name of the band was WOSISIG, check them out on youtube, if you so wish! Most excitingly, the viola player from the ‘troupe’ (as mother would no doubt dub them) plays in the orchestra I’m in! our final performance of the season was on Sunday, it was a roaring success, despite the fact I missed several rather important cymbal-solos due to losing my place in the music. Turns out you cannot translate ‘to lose one’s place in the music’ literally into German, as when I tried to explain to my fellow tub-thumpers what had happened, they were pretty nonplussed. They smiled politely though!

On Monday we ventured in to Vienna. We saw a great deal of Klimt artwork, and also an impressive amount of Klimt memorabilia. The Belvedere art gallery has taken every object known to man, and covered it in Klimt. If this is something you think you’d like, pop over to the museum shop BUT BE PREPARED TO PAY BIG BUCKS. We had lunch in a little café that reminded me of my flat INSOFAR AS it was a bit of a time warp. Mother was rather taken with the waiter, mainly because he was wearing a bow tie, but also because he was ‘softly spoken’. I worked out that ‘susserdapfel’ is sweet potato and felt extraordinarily pleased with myself.

There then followed a rather long-winded quest for Christmas markets. I do not know Vienna that well, and I was following shady directions from a teacher friend that I could half remember, and for a while all we could find was some kind of soviet occupation protest (TYPICAL COLLINGSES!! Straight to the soviets! We can’t keep away!!!!) In the end we found a nice market with random things in it, and a stall that sold the sausages that are filled with cheese. Me and Daddy had one each, it was super!

IN THE CASTLE!

Father claims that this landscape features in a film, so I told them to look 'dramatic'. You can tell mother graduated from drama school, can't you! Father refused. "It wasn't that type of film." he grumbled.

I left them at the market so I could catch a train home. Father enthused greatly about my tour guiding capabilities. “Thank you for showing us around!” he said in a jolly, rumble-tumble sort of way. Mother was slightly more cryptic. “Yes, thank you for trying your best,” she said pleasantly. I chose to take this as a compliment.

I was (unfortunately) back in school bright and early this morning. I did a lesson about extreme sports and explained the difference between the ‘jumping’ and ‘leaping’ through the medium of mime. Turns out they like mime a LOT! They also like it when I read things out and then do a funny face. I then did a class about protests and accidentally showed them a photo with a big protest sign saying “DAVID CAMERON IS A C***”. Unfortunately the sign in the picture did not use cute little starts to disguise the foul language.  I had to very quickly skip to the next slide, which so happened to be the liberal democrat mock election campaign video we made in year 13. For some reason, the students did not seem to enjoy watching this as much as I did. However, I shall leave it here for you – my fans – to truly appreciate. It a nostalgic trip down memory lane, which MIGHT leave a bitter taste in your mouth (not just because of the Scottish accents!!!!)

Papa just text me (being rather wizz on the old mobile telephone). They've landed safely back in the UK and he said a good time was had by all. After I left them, mother apparently bought a new hat which is 'very becoming'. BECOMING WHAT!?!?!? We'll never know! Only four weeks until I’m back in the bosom of Blighty – so pumped! 

xx

"I WANT YOU IN MY ARMS, INFLAMED WITH PASSION!" -SCORRRRRRRPIA

Saw a sunset on the way home today :o) BECAUSE I WAS WORKING SO LONG THAT NIGHT HAD BEGUN TO FALL WAHHHH!

I’m currently sitting in my spick and span, freshly cleaned flat. My seriously cute landlady employs a seriously cute cleaner. Now, I know people call me over-dramatic. They say, “Sarah, you use too many superlatives. You just exaggerate everything to make your life sound more interesting when really your life is nothing more than living with an old lady and being ignored by stubborn teenagers and eating-yourself-podgy.” Well, screw the haters, okay? I like superlatives and I like capital letters. And my cleaner is THE BEST CLEANER IN THE ENTIRE WORLD EVER!!!  I was at work when she visited today, so I have no idea how she managed to create order from such chaos, but now every single thing I own is in neat, attractively arranged piles. In my imagination, she achieved this with a Mary Poppins/Snow White-esque pirouette around my room, with a bit of help from a friendly bluebird. She even took the packed lunch I made myself and forgotten to take with me to work out of its bag and popped it in the fridge so it was still fresh enough for supper!  I feel a mixture of awe, shame and respect when I think about it.

Ordentlich!

DISCLAIMER : I did actually ‘tidy up’ before she came. I spent about 3 hours ‘tidying up’ but it will probably come to no surprise to you that after ‘tidying up’ my flat looked like most normal people’s flats look like just before they start tidying up.

ANYWAY, now for more vaguely blog worthy exploits:

Yesterday was the end of another long weekend. This long weekend was even more special than usual, for two reasons. Firstly, because it was to celebrate Duke Leopold of Austria, who I am able to reliably inform you kidnapped King Richard the Lion Heart and then trapped him in Lower Austria (which is where I live) (in Lower Austria, not in Duke Leopold’s prison LmFaO-O-o-o-!) (I know this because I once had a starring role in a particularly acclaimed production of ‘Robin Hood’, which was so successfully it actually toured the world.) Secondly, because for some reason all the shops in Amstetten really embraced the opportunity for extra custom and STAYED OPEN all day! Even though it was a bank holiday! *AMAZING* Even my super-duper powerplate class stayed open, and because it was a bank holiday they had a little ‘Open Day’ which mean I got free champagne and salmon nibbles after my session. I even got chatting to some of the middle-aged patrons of the powerplate class and we had a bit of banter.

In the evening I attended my SECOND Kulturwochen event! I was invited to accompany my little old landlady to ‘French Night’.  ‘French Night’ was at a local hotel and involved a pianist and a singer performing famous French songs, as well as French wine and French food and French flags banging around all over the place. We didn’t booked a table, and when we arrived the waitress suggested we sit on one of the free tables round the corner, but this would mean we wouldn’t be able to see the performance, so instead little old landlady just pulled up a chair to the VIP table where the singer’s family and closest friends were sitting, as well as the photographers from the local paper. We had such a good view! Landlady was pissing herself laughing at how cheeky we were. We got some wine and some quiche l’orraine and then we had a pancake and I tried to talk in Spanish with a Peruvian but it was embarrassingly difficult and I got all muddled and though I started the sentences in English they’d meander through some basic English to a little bit of German and then trail into nothing. AWKWARD! Anyway, the quiche was AHHHHHHHHH-mazing. The pancake was also good. My little old landlady especially liked the fact it was soaked in alcohol.

On Friday I went to Vienna. This was amazing because I met some other teaching assistants and we went for a curry. I love curry. I love curry so much, and the curry was so delicious, and the naan bread was so garlicy, and it was a total 10/10. Then we went to an ex-whore-house, which reminded me of how my mother used to live in an ex-whore-house, but  I didn’t mention this because I was scared people would judge me :S :S :S

One of my friends who lives in Vienna (one of MANY friends I happen to have, being so popular and in with the in crowd) recommended we go to the Naschmarkt, SO WE DID! The Naschmarkt is a flea market and it was really, really, really exciting because I found a stall that sold loads of white linen blouses and I bought two. It was my favourite thing I’d done in Vienna UNTIL THAT POINT!! We also went to see The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and all I have to say about that is don’t go. Then we did things like drink sociably and eat burgers and chit chat and mix up an order in a posh brunch restaurant etcetc. I reward the whole Viennese experience a Rachel-Eyre-8/8.

I came home on Sunday because I knew I’d have to spend several hours cleaning the flat in preparation for the cleaner, but then on Monday, like The Real Slim Shady, I was back – back again. This time to go to the State Opera. I’d never been to the opera before and I was a bit apprehensive because the ballet we went to in year 7 was totally D. U. L. L. However, the whole experience was totally like it happens in Pretty Woman, except instead of being accompanied by Richard Greer, I was surrounded by a group of snoozy teenage students in dinner jackets. But the Opera was SO GOOD! It was a lot better than the ballet, which may be because ballet just isn’t for me, or may be because I saw the ballet at The Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton, and I saw the opera in one of the best opera houses in the world. Predictably, the audience clapped lengthily and enthusiastically at every available opportunity. At one point a particularly raucous audience member hollered “BRAVO!” with such good projection that I assumed it was part of the performance. What was also INSANELY COOL was that because of some kind of youth integration thing we not only got the tickets really, really cheap (15 euros for seats in the stalls, which every classy lady knows are the Best Seats) but also got a backstage tour of the opera house and I got to stand on the stage! It’s so beautiful! My American Assistant Friend, whose school we were with, and I were about 350% more excited about the whole thing than any of the students.  I loved it. I want to go back, and be an opera singer, and have a standing ovation, and jump off a tall building but then run around from behind the set for my standing ovation, and wear a wig and stuff.

THAT WAS MA WEEK!!!  I’ll leave you with the incredible exciting news that Mr and Mrs Collings shall be descending upon the capital city in two short days! GOD ONLY KNOWS what the hell is going to happen!

As they say in Austria, 

“Lovely greetings”, Sarah.

xooxo

avin a bawwwwll!!!!

I was back in Melk today. I do like Melk, but am really unconvinced by the concept of ‘commuting’ anywhere and it was very difficult to get out of my warm (SINGLE) bed into the freezing cold ice igloo that is my flat this morning. However, today the cleaner came and two brilliant things happened. Firstly, I thought the cleaner cost fifty euros, but she only costs twenty! She slaved away for over two hours, did my washing up, hovered, changed my bedding AND (second brilliant thing) showed me how to use the heating! So now I am sitting in only one jumper, luxuriously enjoying the benefits of a central heating system which, like everything else in this building, has not been updated since the height of the cold war. (<<<<<<<Ironic! :P)

For the past three weeks, Amstetten has been going chicken oriental for what I was reliably informed was one of THE social events of the season – the HLW Ball. My students (who organised the ball) told me it was the BEST ball in Amstetten, Austria and maybe even the world. When I asked them if they ever went to other balls, they were nearly sick into their vocab books, so disgusting the idea seemed to them.

The idea of the ball had been stressing me out, mainly because I was not only going without a date (perfectly normal for me as I am in INDEPENDENT WOMAN), I had to go to this one without anyone. Neither friend nor foe were prepared to accompany me, meaning I was waddling to the venue (late) on Saturday evening completely alone, trying to blend into a vast crowd of Austrians streaming towards the door :'( I had, however, received help in getting READY for the ball. Last weekend I went to Innsbruck and received lots of fashion advice from my friends there, and bought a dress. When I showed the dress to my landlady she got very excited, and gave me seven different shawls to wear with it. Going from personal experience, I thought a shawl would be a bit showy and I’d be unlikely to see anybody else in one there. I nearly didn't wear it. Thank god I did. These people take their balls seriously – the lovely woman I was seated by was wearing a full length, bejewelled dress with a silk shawl and an up-do. It was beyond posh.

Anyway, I plopped myself down by these strangers and tried to do some small talk in German, which mainly involved me repeating strange German words I didn’t understand whilst wearing a confused face:

Austrian lady: So, do you flobbidyjibbywaber?
Me: Do I flobbidyjibbywaber?!!?
Austrian lady: Flobbidyjibbywaber.
Me: Flobbidyjibbywaber!?
Austrian lady: flobbidyjibbywaber...
Me: Yes!

Smiling and agreeing generally seems to either answer the question, or encourage them to stop trying.

The event was attended by about 1500 people – students, parents, teachers, friends and locals. It opened with a performance of the female students either dancing with their boyfriends or their fathers. They danced to ‘You Raise Me Up’ by Westlife, and at the appropriate moment, the fathers lifted their daughters into the air and looked solemn. Regular fans will not be surprised to hear I was choking back tears at this point: totes emotes.

I was sat by a student from Vienna who was unfortunate enough to ask me a question JUST  as the big band started playing Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers’ “Islands in the Stream”, and I started hyperventilating with excitement. Obviously sensing a chance of romance, he offered to dance with me. I’ve always believed myself to be a very good dancer, possessing natural rhythm and grace. However, after stepping on his feet about 17 times we had to stop and it was very awkward.

There were five or six bars – one for ‘beer’ (it’s lager.), one for Champagne, one for cocktails, one for shots etc etc. I went to them all. Near the ‘beer’ bar, in the room for the hip young things, some of my students performed in a band and people cheered and drank mugs of beer (me too!). Some of them came and shouted at me things like “IT MUST BE SO WEIRD FOR YOU TO SEE PEOPLE DRUNK WHO ARENT 21!!!” (wrong) and “YOU CAME WITH YOUR BOYFRIEND!” (also wrong.) One student told me that she LOVES my lessons. She is my new favourite.

At midnight there was another huge performance which included the headmaster dressed as some kind of prince and many dance routines:

For one of the dances they dressed in Lederhosen and smacked eachother's bottoms (hilarious)

Grand Finale.

When it ended, everyone was weeping and cheering and they did a little encore. After two more glasses of wine, the headmaster invited me to come and drink with the VIPs (it was only made apparent to me later on that they were VIPs). By this time I’d had a vicious cocktail of alcohol, and was feeling emotional, enthusiastic and over-excited. I simply GUSHED about the headmaster’s performance and how wonderful it was to get all the students involved, then started prattling away to the local important business man who had sponsored the event. Yes, in hindsight, I am embarrassed about this; however, I have no regrets.

Here is a photo of that I took of myself in the disabled toilet. At the time, I thought it looked really wacky and cool and like I was eating my own camera. I think you’ll agree!

"You left me standing in my LBD with my bang bang shoes - I was so confused!"

After the solo photoshoot in the toilet, I felt a bit peckish, so snacked on some salmon and caviare entrees (tasted fishy...in both senses of the word!!!) then decided to waddle back home. I got back at 3am, and in the morning Little Old Landlady was appalled. “3am!?” she cried. “They usually don’t get back until at least seven!”

It was a pretty exciting night, but I’m even more excited for this weekend, as one of my fellow TA friends thinks she’ll be able to acquire me a ticket to attend her ball and this will mean I won’t be going alone! And, because it’s in a different town, I can wear the exact same outfit. SCORE!!!!!!!!!! :P

Melk, you beauty!

Here in Austria I’m working at two schools .The first, which is the school who have to deal with all my paperwork and mood swings, is in Amstetten and is a school focussed on hospitality. The second is a grammar school which is situated in Austria’s version of Disneyland (Melk). A huge abbey built on the top of a hill in Melk, Stift Melk is so big that it is literally impossible to get a complete photograph of it without a helicopter. After leaving my house at 6.40AM (!!!!) I travel to Melk on a 33 minute train ride. The train line follows the river Donau, which had lots of mist rolling over it in the mornings, and the water was quite calm last week and a beautiful colour. Being a relatively ‘flat’ part of Austria, you get a wonderful view of the sunrise and then you turn a corner and the Abbey suddenly appears out of the mist, huge and symbolically intimidating, like the ice berg in Titanic (except yellow). As commutes go, it’s quite impressive, and certainly makes the early mornings almost bearable (I also like to play ’21 seconds’ by So Solid Crew to get myself going).

This is genuinely what it looks like!

I liked it a lot, and the town is also very lovely with little, traditional buildings and a market on a Wednesday. One of the coolest things about the school is that it has huge oak doors in the corridors which open automatically, like magic! One of the least cool things about the school is that you have to climb about 935,000 steps to get to it, and by the time I get to the top, I’m really out of puff!!!!

Seeing as I am now working in Disneyland, I decided I needed to complete the look so, despite refusing to spend money on a coat (who needs a coat!? in Austria!?) I bit the bullet and [BIG NEWS!!!] bought myself a Dirndl. I got it in an incredible shop where I wanted to buy everything. Austrian traditional dress seems to involve a lot of velvet, reindeer and buckles: my three favourite things! Mine was reduced from 200 euros to 39.99. It's a lilac colour to match the lilac tree that was planted in my honour in Wolverhampton (by my parents in my garden) and has little reindeers leaping all over the skirt. A dirndl is made up of the dress, a little blouse and an apron. You can also get AMAZING VELVET JACKETS but I couldn't afford one, so it's on my 'wishlist', along with a pair of ruby slippers and comprehension of the German language.

Here is me looking like even more like a princess than usual:

The best thing about the Dirndl is that it has pockets. I tied my bow on the left so all the fellas know  I'm free, single, and ready to mingle! That's also why I chose green.

Lol self timer

They were all full length. I might take it up to knee-length, if I'm feeling paticularly cheeky. 

When the hell are you going to wear a Dirndl!?!? I hear you cry in indignation. Why, around the house, when I'm feeling sad.

My Snow White-inspired lifestyle has NOT ended there! After accumulating some rather ripe bananas I decided to release my inner Mary Berry and, instead of throwing them away, made a cheeky Banana Bread. Naturally, this activity took me an entire day to complete and involved spending much more money than the bananas were worth. Baking ingredients in Austria is not the same as baking ingredients in the UK (I blame there extensive variety of baked goods). I had to resort to accosting random strangers in the supermarket for advice, especially in the flour section, where I was really baffled. One day I'll look up the German words for the ingredients I want BEFORE I go to the supermarket, but not this week.  (EDIT: BTW See my recipe for banana bread cake balls here).

FlOuR!!!!

A picture of my banana bread. It was so good, and I gave some to my landlady's daughter and she  LOVED it, despite repeatedly telling me 'it's not bread, it's cake'. I was like, yeah BUT ITS CALLED BREAD OKAYYYY?????? :S

I used the  Guardian's perfect banana bread recipe  and it the best banana bread I've ever eaten (sorry dad.)

Whilst making my banana bread I utilised some of the wacky 70's equipment in my kitchen, including this weighing scale:

It really is a weighing scale, and it seemed to work, but I've never seen anything like it. Exciting new things!

And IN CONCLUSION here are some pix I took of Melk!

Entrance

Second entrance 

Inside the Abbey with some atmospheric birds circling the dome.  The window to my office is on the first floor on the right.

“Today is a true Odyssey” – Austrian Man on Train, 28th September 2012

[DISCLAIMER: after mixed feedback on my previous blog posts, this entry will have fewer jokes and more facts. I’ve tried to actually highlight the facts so that they’re easier to find. I didn’t highlight the jokes because that ruins the fun.] 

IM IN AMSTETTEN!!! I don't have internet at home yet but my lovely mentor teacher has let me into school so that I can come online :-) This is what happened to me so far. It's really long because I'm over-excited.  I’ve separated it into little bitesize chunks for those with short attentions spans.

PART ONE: THE JOURNEY

Odysseus has long been known as the great voyager. Forrest Gump, Columbus and Jane Ward are a few other travellers who have also made great journeys, but nobody has ever managed to survive such time consuming and cripplingly expensive adversity with as much gusto and positivity as Odysseus…

UNTIL NOW!!!! [I have now achieved that]

One week ago mother and I ‘google mapped’ the route to Stansted, and it suggested it would take 3 hours. We were like, as if it takes that long, and thinking we were much cleverer than Google maps, left the house at 7.17am for the 11.20 flight. *****FACT ALERT: THIS WAS UNWISE!****** There was really heavy rain and we got stuck before we’d even reached Walsall. It turns out the residents of Walsall are not only ‘slow’ in the figurative sense of the word, but also happen to be slow on the roadways. This was FAR from ideal. Even after we had broken free of the Midlands, it was like time was slipping through our fingers like the sand in the hourglass Jafar conjures to try and drown Jasmine once he’s a genie. Even though mother was driving like a little hooligan, by the time we saw the first sign for Stansted informing us we had 30 miles to go, we had 5 minutes to get there. I felt the following emotions:

·         Mortification

·         Stress

·         Frustration

·         Panic

·         Hunger

We got to the airport about two minutes after check in closed. As mother pulled up to the airport, I leapt out of the car and pirouetted through the revolving doors in my brand new leather brogues. Deftly noting the long queues at check-in I went straight to the ticket desk, where I waited in another queue, slowly losing the will to live. Even when I reached the front I had to wait for the small toad-like lady with huge eyes to fill in her little form before she acknowledged me, and as I checked my watch I knew the game was up – it was 10:50, the time Ryan Air cited as when the Gate would close.

Toad Lady told us that we were too late for the plane, and our only option was to transfer and fly to Linz. She was not sympathetic about this. Surprisingly, I was unable to handle the situation with the grace and stiff-upper lip of a true Englishman and was too busy boo-hooing to even respond to what she was saying, or read the map she was shoving at me, and I had to go and have a sit down and a little rest until the overexcitement had passed. It cost £110 to swap my flight and book the one to Linz, along with a train ticket to Graz. I spent the next hour being very careful that I didn’t miss the flight to Linz as well, and stood at the gate for ages waiting for them to let me on. [I also posted a very successful facebook status.]

Things looked up a bit then, the flight was okay, I had a little sleep because I was very tired from getting up early and all the excitement. Once I got to Linz, I experienced my First Interaction With an Austrian 2012:

I actually initiated this interaction by approaching an Austrian Lady who was working at the desk. “Hello.” I said. “I have ticket and I need that train station. Where…?” [NB: I was actually speaking in German but I’ve translated the conversation for English-speakers]
“I’m sorry, what?” she replied unhelpfully [NB: she was also speaking German]
I showed her my ticket and she ran away (!!!!!) But then she came back and led me outside the airport to the bus stop.
“When is your train?” She asked. When I failed to respond she threw her hands in the air and cried manically “WHEN IS YOUR TRAIN?!”
“It’s at six o’clock.” I stuttered. [NB: What I actually said was ‘es a las seis’, which is actually Spanish, and therefore helped neither of us. She was very confused.] I eventually managed to muster ‘sieben’, which means ‘seven’, and therefore was completely wrong, but anyway she seemed satisfied and left me there, and I did in fact make it to the station on time. So, overall, a complete success!

My Second Interaction With an Austrian 2012 went even better. The lady at the train station chattered to me for a bit, and I left with the impression that the trains were experiencing a power cut, and so I would have to get a coach half of the way to Graz . This is what then actually happened, which means I understood her correctly! ******VICTORY DANCE********

I finally got to Graz at 10.35pm, and another Austrian Lady invited me into her taxi, which actually wasn’t dodgy as we shared the fare and she made sure I got to the convent okay. She even wished me ‘Alles Gute’, which I thought you just used for birthdays but apparently not.

PART TWO: GRAZ

We stayed in a convent in Graz and got shipped up to a seminar in a ‘palace’ every day. There were one gazillion Americans and about four British people, some of whom weren’t even English (!!!). Thankfully I did manage to find a couple of people from Sheffield.  Their dulcet tones made me feel safe.

Our seminar was run by an English teacher called Bernhard who had an Austrian/Glaswegian accent, which turned out to be an excellent combination. The main event of the week was that we had to go and teach a lesson in a local school, causing a lot of hubbub and angst amongst the group. I was BRICKING IT but it was actually all right. We taught a class of 12 year olds, who didn’t really understand what we were going on about, but they ran around a bit and jumped up and down so it can’t have been too bad. Some of them had that evil glint in their eyes, letting us know that they could massacre us if they chose to, but their teacher was there too so thankfully that didn’t come about. 

You probably won’t be surprised that I was late arriving in Amstetten. You may well be surprised that it wasn’t my fault (!!!) A train had run off the tracks, so everything was delayed, and a friendly but misinformed local took me onto the wrong train which meant I had to change in St. Pölken. There were youths everywhere on the trains, but I didn’t feel nervous because there were also soldiers everywhere… [this is a cliff hanger – to find out why so many soldiers, read the next bit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111]

PART THREE:  AMSTETTEN

I thought Amstetten was going to be a tiny place because Wikipedia told me it only had about 20,000 inhabitants, but once I’d spoken to a few other TAs [that means“Teaching Assistants”. Just some lingo I’ve picked up!] it turned out 20,000 was quite populous. Once of my new TA friends has only 4,000 people in her town!! WOAH! The people in Amstetten actually think they live in a city! This may sound comical to you or I, but when you’re here everyone’s spread out a bit so it does look quite big. We went into the town last night and there’s a big shopping centre and some restaurants, and a town square and everything!

I’m living in a mini-flat in the ground floor of a reasonably large, detached house owned by a retired couple. The husband is quite ill, so I mostly talk to the wife (Lore Lindenhofer). She’s very friendly and accommodating, and this morning gave me breakfast and a rendition of ‘Thank You for Being a Friend’, which she learnt at English Conversation Class. Last night we went to a military parade. *FACT ALERT!!!:::: Young men in Austria have to do military service when they leave school* This year a load of them are staying in military barracks just outside Amstetten, and they all arrived today. They stood in lines and a military band played some traditional Austrian music. Mr Lindenhofer used to be a drummer so he drummed along with his walking sticks which alarmed some people, but I quite liked. Then the soldiers marched up and down and everybody applauded until they left. After we went for hot chocolate and salty cheesy pretzel which was WUNDERBAR!!!! *****FACT ALERT!!!!::: In Austria when you order a hot drink they always give you some cold water too. It’s very refreshing!****

In my flat have a bedroom with a sofa and a TV (and a bed too! LOL) then a kitchen/diner with some appliances that I believe were made in about 1965. There’s also a super-funky telephone table that I promise I will get some photos of, and lots of ornaments. The school’s round the corner, as well as the NATURBAD (OMG!!) and a big supermarket, where I went and did my first shop and bought some chocolate spread, pasta and an air diffuser. The air diffuser smells very strong and I kind of regret it, but I panicked in the shop and just bought it without thinking it through.

PART FOUR: CONCLUSION

So now I have to decide what to give my host as a gift. I have brought the following English delights: two bars of Cadbury’s, a box of English breakfast tea, a plastic bag of Chai tea, some lavender soap (which is temporarily lost), postcards of Wolverhampton, National Trust notecards and a copy of the Black Country Bugle (only 60p!). The tea and Bugle was actually going to be for class, and one of the chocolate bars is for me. I think I might give her the soap, one bar of chocolate (I’m not being stingy because it’s like 200g worth) and some chai tea. OR MAYBE THE BREAKFAST TEA!?!?!? OR MAYBE she actually would prefer me to give her some rent than some gifts. Hehehehe!

****FINAL FACT ALERT: [very important] In Austria you wear your wedding ring on your RIGHT hand! You need to know this if, like me, you’re scouting for a husband and only usually check the left hand for relationship status. If you usually check facebook for relationship status then this is less important.*****

xxx