Still Here

Sorry about the month-long update drought. Everything is going well and I have been keeping myself busy with lots of things. I have actually been sick for the past week or so. It's nothing too bad, just a sore throat and stuffy sinuses. Talking in class has not helped my throat though, and my voice was a bit deeper and rougher for a while. I kind of liked it, actually. Well, Christmas is coming up here in Austria as well and it seems that every little town has it's own little outdoor Weihnachtsmarkt (christmas market), where you can buy all your standard Christmas fare: advent wreaths, ornaments, trinkets, Christmas pastries, etc. You can also find Glühweinständl at these markets, where you can drink, yes, Glühwein (literally glow-wine) and Punsch, which are warm, spiced, fruity drinks that are great on cold, cold, cold nights in Dezember. Another December tradition around here is the coming of the Krampus or Perchten, as seen in the pictures. These ugly dudes are, according to the pagan legend, supposed to scare away the evil spirits from towns and villages, to make sure the coast is clear for Saint Nikolaus (who entered into the tradition much later), or something like that. There was a huge crowd in Wiener Neustadt when they came through. These costumes are pretty gruesome, as you can see, and most of the creatures also have huge cowbells around their belts and so they are not only very ugly, but also very loud. It was pretty funny to see some of the youngsters take off their masks after terrorizing little children in the crowd. Well, as I mentioned before it is very cold here, but what is worse is that it gets dark so early. As I write this, it is 4:03 PM local time and twilight has already set in. It is depressing. They do have lights, however, at the Hirschenkogel, the ski resort right next to my school in Semmering. I already got my hands on some ski boots and I should get some skis pretty quick so I can get out on the slopes and see how rusty I have really gotten. Pretty much everybody here is a skier and a lot of people I know have gone multiple times already this season. Earlier this week I went to a city called Sopron, which is actually in Hungary, but only about a forty-minute train ride from Neustadt. I actually got a stamp in my passport - the first of my entire trip! You can see the main
tower in the city in the next picture. It was a nice city, about the same size as Wiener Neustadt. I had a delicious pork goulash at a restaurant for lunch. Since the city is very close to the Austrian border, and basically surrounded by Austria on all sides, German is widely spoken there, and we got along no problem language wise. Shopping and some services are still a bit cheaper than in Austria - one Euro is roughly 250 Forint. Because of this, it attracts Austrian tourists and consumers. The first building I saw when I crossed the border was a plastic surgery office, dentist, restaurant and hotel all rolled into one. Crazy. This last picture is of myself, some students and some others at an event that was part of the "Christmas in Europe" program that the school in Semmering hosted. There were groups of students from all over the continent, and I believe the delegation from Albania is on the right-hand side of the photo. And yes that is Punsch in my hand. Cheers.

Pictures

These are some pictures from the past few weeks. The first one is me sitting at the desk of a former Bundeskanzler - October 26 is the "National Holiday" of Austria and several government offices in Vienna were open to the public. On the same day the Austrian military, or the Bundesheer, put on an exhibition with Helicopters, fighter jets, grenades and guns for the public to check out (as seen in the next photo). It was a little odd. There were a fair share of protesters there as well. I think the goal of hosting the exhibition was to promote recruiting. Most Austrian 18 year old men opt for civil service instead of military duty. In the next shot I am dancing at the Maturaball of the school in Semmering. I may have borrowed the suit from my roommate but that cheesy smile is all mine. My dance partner is Bettina, a friend of mine and a French language teaching assistant who lives in Vienna and teaches in Wiener Neustadt. The ball was a lot of fun. Plenty of music - good and bad - dancing, food, and some champagne too. It was a bit like a senior prom, but a lot of the students brought their families along and many of my fellow teachers were there as well. I stayed at the ball with some students and another teacher until early in the morning. We got to see a great sunrise over the mountains. The last few pictures are from an afternoon of hiking with a couple colleagues (on the right of the first photo - Reinhardt and Peter, respectively). It was a gorgeous day and, as you can see the snow has melted. We could see our school in Semmering on the other side of the valley and there was a great view of the Rax, the big snow-capped mountain in the second pic.
Last night I got my first taste of the nightlife in Wiener Neustadt. I saw a lot of my students in the bars I went to and we went into a pub called Clumsy's and I can only describe its theme as being 'the english-speaking world'. Among the kitsch on the walls were the flags of different anglophone countries, Guinness posters and, coincidentally, a North Carolina license plate. Bis gleich.

Schnee

Updated photo.

It almost snowed yesterday

Hey everybody - that's right. It snowed in the higher parts of Southern Austria today; above about 500 meters or so, which means that it didn't snow on us in Wiener Neustadt (about 250m), but it really wanted to. This is good news because snow is great and last winter there was hardly any snowfall. I took this picture a couple weeks ago from the balcony of my school in Semmering, and those are the still-green ski slopes. In the meantime, before the white stuff comes, the weather has taken a turn for the worse. Cloudy, drizzling, windy and about 40 degrees describes an average day now: Have a look.

School is going very well. I am getting into the groove of teaching and the kids seem to be warming up to me and talking more than they did at the start. Both of my schools have their Maturaball coming up, which is basically a senior prom, but it specifically celebrates the students in their final year who have to take the Matura - a big test they have to pass to get into any University. I think I will be going to both events with my colleagues.

And I almost got hit by a car yesterday on my bike. Up until that point, the vast majority of drivers I have encountered have been very respectful of bike traffic - most of the time, though, it is not really an issue because the bike lanes constitute a separate traffic network. Anyway, I was entering a traffic circle after I had waited for all cars to exit it - the designated bike lanes end at these circles and they are open to all traffic. As I started riding around it, some guy pulled out right in front of me and just snuck by. That made me nervous enough, but then the car behind him also drove into the circle. I knew I would have to do something quick, and with a rush of adrenaline I turned sharply and hit the brakes. My back tire slipped on the wet pavement and I basically did a power slide and ended up about a foot away from said car's tire. Thankfully, he finally saw me as I was falling and he stopped as well. I got up without thinking and did my best to get mad at him in German. It was in broad daylight and clearly his fault. He rolled down his window and I asked him if he even saw me. He said no, apologized and asked if I was ok. My heart was racing, so even if I had been hurt I probably wouldn't have noticed. Still in the middle of the traffic circle, with the guy blocking the way of several cars behind him, I made sure that my bike was still working and told him to pay more attention on the road. Only after I walked away was I able to gather my thoughts and go through what had actually happened. Although the incident was not my fault, it still makes me a little wary of traveling on two wheels. My housemates recommended a less-traveled route to the train station that I will take in the future. Anyway, everything is fine and I suffered no injuries to speak of, not even a scar. Needless to say, I feel extremely fortunate about that.

First Week as a "Teacher"

Hey everybody. This past week was the first time I got to meet my new colleagues and students at the schools. Everyone has been really nice and the teachers are all very enthusiastic about me being here and getting the students to talk. I am working with eleven teachers per week (for now), and that means I have about 180 students' names to learn. That should be fun. The students that I am teaching range in age from about 17 to 20, and when I asked some classes how old they thought I was, some actually guessed as high as 25. I told them that was a compliment. Then again, I have already been mistaken for a student in the hallways more than once. Anyway, things have gone really well so far in class. I have basically only had time to introduce myself and field questions about George Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Paris Hilton, the death penalty, and whether or not I can speak German. It has been fun, and I am continually amazed with how well-behaved the students are. I suppose it helps that I am closer to their age than most teachers, not to mention that I am not even allowed to do any type of grading.

A hot topic among Austrian teachers recently has been the Education Ministry's proposed overhaul of the school system. As it stands now, all Austrian students go to a Volksschule, which is akin to an Elementary school. When the students are ten years old, their teachers determine whether to send them to a Gymnasium, after which many go on to study at universities, or to a Hauptschule, after which most students go on to start apprenticeships for mostly blue-collar careers or go to trade schools. This decision is made based on the students' performance in school up until the age of 10, and switching between the Hauptschule track and the Gymnasium track is not easy. The proposal would create Gesamtschulen, where all students, regardless of how well they did in elementary school, would go until they were at least 15 or so. I work with students and teachers within the Gymnasium side of the school system, and most of the people I have spoken to oppose the change. The proposal has yet to be voted on in Vienna. I'll let you all know what happens.

Tonight I am going up to Vienna to meet a couple new friends. We are going to the "lange Nacht der Museen" which means, as you can probably guess, the "long night of the Museums". Basically, we pay 10 Euro for the whole night and then we can go into as many of Vienna's museums as we want to until 2AM. It should be fun.

Hope all is well with everybody. I'd love to hear from you, so drop me a line when you get a chance.

Crash course

I had a great week in Graz. I stayed in a castle with 70 or so other English language teaching assistants. Most were other Americans, but there were also several from the British Isles. It was nice to make some more connections with people who will be all over Austria in the same situation as myself. We took part in a three-day teaching seminar, and I think about forty percent of us did not have any teaching experience at all. Discussing worries and excitement coming into the school year with the other TAs was really nice for everybody and I think we all came out more confident and certainly with a better idea of what our jobs entail. Our biggest priority is to make the Austrian students speak with us in the classroom in English, all the while serving as experts on matters of American (for me, at least) culture. Of course I am not an expert, but doing my best and faking it slightly is just going to be part of the job. Grammar, grading, and discipline is largely left up to the teachers we will be working with. We did get a taste of the 'real thing' on Thursday. We got to go into real-live Austrian high schools and teach a lesson in an English class. I thought the group of TAs that I taught with got a great response from the students and they asked some really good questions. We were assigned to a class of 17-year old guys and I was definitely impressed by their English as well as their manners. We didn't have to tell them to be quiet even once! The lesson we organized was about our respective home states in the US. We asked them to guess where we live, and as expected, we got Florida, New York and California as guesses. I think maybe three of the students had heard of North Carolina. Also as expected, one of the students brought up George Bush during the class. It was neat because all five of us were from red states and none of us had voted for him. The week culminated in a speech from the head Fulbright representative in Austria as well as a toast with Sturm, which is sweet, yellowish, partially-fermented wine. In fact, this time of year is called Sturmzeit around these parts. I have one more weekend before I report for duty on Monday at the Bundesgymnasium und Bundesgrealymnasium Neunkirchen. Or, in English, Neunkirchen High. Wish me luck.

Settled In

Well, I moved into my new place the other day and it feels good. This is a picture of my house. I like it. And I like my new housemates, too. Andrea is my 'landlady', but she lives here too. She grew up in the house, and she and her brother inherited it. Her brother moved out and she is now renting out the rooms so she can pay him back for his half. She studies Biology in Vienna and takes care of the pets in the house. I can't recall the names of the dogs, but the cat is named Gweny and I don't think she likes me. She doesn't show her face very much, but when she does it is usually to growl at me. She probably has said feelings for me because the dogs, her domestic rivals, have taken a liking to me. Another roommate, Attila, who is in his final year of high school, seems very friendly as well. We have spent a lot of time watching and discussing the dubbed-in-German version of the Simpsons. The show seems to be a hit here as well, as its reruns are broadcast almost as much as in the states. One complaint that he had about the German version, though, is that the original German voice actor for Marge recently passed away, and the new voice just doesn't cut it. Dubbing German scripts over foreign TV shows and movies is widespread. Although the acting quality and timing sometimes takes a hit, for the audience, dubbing is just a more comfortable alternative to reading subtitles. They can also change jokes and lines that would otherwise be irrelevant to those living in the German-speaking world. The German voice actors are, of course, far outnumbered by foreign 'visual' actors, and so this leads to funny overlaps in voices. For example, the same guy who did a voice part for Harrison Ford could do a part for, let's say, Mel Gibson. Weird.
I do also have one roommate that I haven't met. His name is Horst. I'm not sure when we will meet because I am going to Graz until Friday for my program's orientation week. At the end of the week, we will get our first in-class experience in an Austrian high school. Sounds like fun to me. I am looking forward to getting to know some other people in the program, as well as doing a little more wandering around in an unfamiliar city. The two photos at the end are of my street sign and a sunset as seen from Dreipappelstrasse.

Jet Lag

Well, I have been on the continent for a week now and things are slowing down just enough for me to write my first entry. I have a place to live and a real Austrian address now and that makes me feel sufficiently settled in. I will be living in a house in Wiener Neustadt. I have three Austrian roommates, one who is a student in Wiener Neustadt and another studies in Vienna. Wiener Neustadt has a population of about 40,000 and it is about a half hour train ride South from Vienna, depending on what kind of train you take. Aside from locking down a place to live, I have been doing some solo travelling. I went to Salzburg for a couple of days. It was beautiful and very Mozart-themed. One night in Vienna was followed by meeting my housemates, two dogs and a cat included, and meeting the Fulbright people in Vienna. I couldn't find a hostel in Vienna for the next night so I decided to venture to Bratislava, which is only about a 50 minute train ride from Vienna. Despite what I heard from many that it was not a nice city I have found it very pleasant. The weather has been great and there are several places to find panoramic views of the city and the Danube. The massive Soviet-Era statues of plain-faced men are a nice touch as well. Because Bratislava is so close to the Austrian border, I can sometimes use my German here if English is not an option.

English is always the first option in Youth Hostel culture, though, which I have been a part of since I got here. Hostels are a great place to make instant friends. All you need to do, it seems, is to ask someone's name, home country and plans for the night and you've got yourself a BFF. I've made several already.

Tomorrow I head back to Vienna for a couple days and I will go see visit the schools where I will be teaching later in the week. I head down to Graz for a week of orientation for my program. Work starts October 1.