Teachers' Outing and St Florian's Day

Hello everyone,

I can't believe it's been a month since I last wrote! Things got a little hectic with finishing my year abroad research project (dissertation), and finding a house at university - both of which have now been sorted out.

So what have I been up to?

Back in April I went to see 'Into The Woods' at the Musiktheater in Linz. It was totally in German, but I knew the story so it was pretty easy to follow. I really enjoyed it, and was very impressed that they'd managed to fit the extra-long German translation into the already very fast songs!

I also went on a teachers' trip (Lehrerausflug) with one of my schools. It was really great fun! Here are a few pictures from the trip:

We first visited Burg Strechau in Steiermark (a castle in the region of Styria) which was beautiful, and very typical for Austria. 

This was the view from Burg Strechau out over the town.

Chiara the Italian assistant and I spent the weekend together, and it was great fun getting to know her better.

This was the hotel we stayed in in the region of Carinthia (Kärnten)

We also went on a brewery tour and tried some traditional Austrian beer, schnitzel and Goulash

On the way home we stopped off at Friesach, Kärnten (Carinthia) and climbed up a hill to find this view over the town, of the old city wall and the beautiful church. 

Last Wednesday was St Florian's Day. He is an important man in this region because he is the patron saint of Linz, and of Upper Austria. He's also the patron saint of firefighters, chimney sweeps and soapmakers...
So to celebrate the day, I went to St. Florian, which is a little town south of Linz, where one of my colleagues lives. She invited me to visit the market they have, where they sell traditional food and clothing from the region, and to do a tour of the church in St Florian, which also has a very important history.

St Florian was important in the Catholic Church because he was seen as being between mankind and God, so people could talk to God through him. At the time he was alive, the area was under Roman control. After refusing to worship the Roman Gods,  St Florian was sentenced to death, and was drowned in the Enns river with a stone around his neck.
This Church is also important because the musician Anton Bruckner lived nearby, and loved to play the organ here. He is actually buried directly underneath his organ in the crypt. 

The library at the monastery. 

The marble room at the monastery, which used to be used to entertain the Kaiser (royals in Austria) and is still in use today for concerts. 

I am also now the editor for the Student Language Bureau blog, which is aiming to help anyone setting out on their year abroad, or settling back into life after living abroad. We have a range of bloggers positioned all over the place. If you are interested in checking this out, it can be found here: http://www.studentlanguagebureau.com/blog.php
And if you are interested in writing for us, contact me on: editor@studentlanguagebureau.com

Last weekend was a long weekend, and I went off travelling again - I went to Innsbruck and Budapest! I will write another post about that this week.

Thanks for reading!

Laura