Recent Photos

Whoops

Hey everybody. Well, I thought spring was slowly making its way into Lower Austria, and I was thrilled. The days are getting to be normal length, the birds are chirping, and the first flowers are starting to bloom... and then, yesterday I rode my bike home from the train station in a blizzard, and today in the mountains the ski resort is making a fresh batch of artificial snow. I guess I just have to be patient. The second semester has started for me and I have several new classes. The older groups that I had last semester all have to prepare for their Matura, the big end of high school test that they need to pass in order to go to a University. I think I like teaching the younger groups anyway. We did have a vacation between the semesters, and I went to Prague with a friend. We stayed at the house of a complete stranger thanks to CouchSurfing.com. The picture was taken there.
This summer the European Championships in Soccer are being hosted by Austria and Switzerland, and the country is gearing up for it bigtime. You can buy cheap-o novelty soccer balls in pretty much any grocery store you walk into, and the Austrian team has played some big-time friendly matches in preparation for the tournament. They played Germany a couple weeks ago, losing 0-3. The result was not a surprise, but the optimism that many Austrian fans had after the game was. The next game is later in March against the Netherlands in the Ernst Happel Stadion, Wien. I've already got my tickets. To end on a good note, my team finally won the Thursday night pub quiz last week. We each took home 25 Euro. (that's almost $40 going by today's record-breaking exchange rate). Tonight we look to repeat. Wish me luck and all the best. I'd love to hear from you. Here is one more picture.

Jänner

Hello everybody. January is almost at an end and that can mean only one thing: I am getting older. My birthday is on Thursday. I will be twenty three. I'm back into the swing of things and have started doing a bit of English tutoring as well, with some students as well as people who live in Wiener Neustadt. The picture is from the Hirschenkogel, overlooking the mountains surrounding Semmering. It feels like real skiing when you can see jagged snow-capped peaks in the distance. Lately, the skiing has been terrible because of the warm temperatures. The snow just melts during the day and freezes again at night, making for dangerous and slippery slopes. I am going again with some students on Monday. I promised one guy I would try snowboarding if he did, so that may be what will happen. I recently went to Vienna's English "Theatre" to see a sketch comedy/improv group from the Second City in Chicago. Most of it was funny and satisfying, but they sang a number at the end called "this is the world we made" that basically sounded like an apology to the world on behalf of America. In the song, they mentioned several of the cliché negative stereotypes about America and it's people, which of course everyone has already heard before. I hope they were trying to be tongue-in-cheek about it, but it didn't come off that way, especially since they were performing for an audience that was almost exclusively non-American. I didn't think it was really clever or necessary and, honestly, it left a bad taste in my mouth. Since when did America create the world anyway?
I recently went to an interesting restaurant called the "Wiener Deewan" before my traditional Thursday night Vienna Pub Quiz. If the place had a slogan, it would probably be something like "all you can eat, pay as you wish". It is an Indian/Pakistani buffet-style restaurant that has no set prices on its food. The customers just eat as much or as little as they want and pay as little or as much as they want for their food. The drinks have set prices, but it was an interesting task to name a price for food I had already eaten. When it came time for us to leave the restaurant, the 'waitress' who was tending to the room we were in told us to pay at the door. She didn't give us a bill, we were just responsible for telling the guy in front what we had had to drink, and we could also tack on some extra Euros for the food. He says thank you to every customer after they pay. It would have felt like stealing had I looked the guy in the eye and only paid for my drink. I can't remember how much I gave for the food, but I think it was probably a bit more than what it would have cost if it had had a fixed price on the menu. I think that is probably the case for most people who eat there as well. It was very good, as were the service and ambiance, and it felt like I was paying for an experience more than anything else. A very interesting business plan. Well, hope everyone is staying warm and healthy. Hear from you soon.

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.