Surprising Mum for her birthday!

This surprise had been a long time in the making. In February, I'd decided that instead of doing the trip I had planned, in which I spent the first two weeks of June travelling along the south of France, I would fly home and surprise my Mum for her birthday. Naturally I had to get some people on board to help me out (thank you to Rachel and Nanny for being my accomplices, I very much appreciate it!) and I decided to continue planning my France trip to use as a cover story for Mum.

By the week before I came home, Mum wanted to know everything about my trip, where I was going and staying, what I was doing...and I managed to put it off as long as possible and be as vague as possible, but I worried she was getting suspicious.

Luckily though, she wasn't. So on 2nd June I flew home and Rachel came and picked me up, having made an excuse to borrow the car that left Mum thinking she was going to pick up a cat she'd bought for Mum's birthday! Thankfully Mum wasn't too disappointed when it was me and not a cat who came through the door :P

I had a wonderful week at home, it was so nice to be back and see some friends and family. Here are a few pictures from my time in Devon:

I spent time with my friend James, and walking on Dartmoor, which I have really missed!

Mum and I got all dressed up for the theatre...

I took Mum and Nanny to see 'Guys and Dolls' in Plymouth for Mum's birthday and it was brilliant - we even had second row seats!

We spent Sunday afternoon at the steam fair

My best bud came to stay for a couple of days and we went to see 'Me Before You' which we sobbed our way through

And I got to catch up with lots of other people who I have missed dearly.

Thank you to everyone for a lovely week at home. It was great to be back, and now I'm off on my next adventure. I am currently in Cubas de la Sagra, just south of Madrid, where I am working as an Au Pair until the end of July. The family are lovely and have made me feel very welcome. I am struggling with the Spanish a bit having spoken only German or English for the last year, but being completely immersed in a language you improve quickly so I'm sure I'll be OK! More updates on my time in Spain to come.

Thanks for reading!

Laura :)

My Birthday and Traditional Upper Austrian food

Hi everyone :)

So last Friday (1st April) was my 21st birthday, and I had a lovely time celebrating in Austria. I was teaching just one class so I decided to take tea, biscuits and sweets in and play some games with them. I was very spoilt by my colleagues with some lovely gifts (which Niki enjoyed too!), and my class had prepared a special birthday song for me called 'Wie schön, das du geboren bist' (how lovely it is that you were born), for which they were accompanied by the teacher and her ukelele!


In the evening, I had some friends over for food and then we went bowling. Unfortunately I didn't win, but I did have a wonderful time!

The beautiful birthday cake that Charlotte and our new housemate Michael made for me! 

Of course Niki had to have a place at the table...

On Wednesday I decided to cook for my housemates, and I had received an Upper Austrian recipe book for Christmas, so I thought I'd give it a try! Overall, it worked pretty well, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. 

The dish was called Bauernkoteletts - literally 'farm cutlets'.
It consists of pork cutlets with vegetables and frankfurter sausages in a gravy sauce and with roast potatoes.
(Upper Austria is the farming region of Austria, so the food is similar in sorts to back home)

Other than that, not much exciting has happened! I've been teaching, lesson planning, and working on my dissertation, which is due on 3rd May (really not very long left!) But I do have lots of exciting things planned for May to make the most of my remaining time here.

Thanks for reading!

Laura :)

Happy Easter!

Hello everyone and happy Easter!

The last two weeks have been super busy and I've done so much, so here's a run down of what I've been up to.

My friend Beth from university, who is on her year abroad in Spain, came to visit me in Linz. We did lots of exciting things, including a visit to Linz zoo, where you can pay €2 to get a bag of food to feed some of the animals - it was very exciting!

We also took a trip on an old-fashioned tram to Pöstlingberg, a small town set up on a hill by Linz.

There is a grotto train (I think it's meant for children but we had fun anyway) that you ride on and see little scenes of gnomes and forest animals. Afterwards you enter a museum where scenes from fairy tales are shown - in Austria, the traditional fairy tales are a little darker in comparison to the UK!

The church at Pöstlingberg which can be seen up on the hill from anywhere in Linz.

The view out over Linz from Pöstlingberg.

And a trip to Vienna...

We started off our day at Schönbrunn palace.

This was the view of the palace ground from the palace steps. We had beautiful spring weather and the grounds were free to explore.

The Gloriette which stands up on the hill was intended to be a focal point and a vantage point for the palace garden. It now, however, houses a cafe.

The view of Schönnbrunn palace and out over Vienna from the Gloriette.

Karlskirche (Karls church) was where we began our tour of the Ring Road, one of the biggest and most famous streets in Vienna where many of the popular sites can be found.  

This is an art museum in the Museums Quarter of Vienna, and shows the sort of architecture which is so popular throughout the city.

The Rathaus seen through the tree blossom.

I introduced Beth to Schnitzel, as this is very important when in Austria, and she liked it.

I then flew home for the Easter holidays. The first few days were spent in London with my friend Jen, as we went to see Adele in concert at the O2 arena.

We also did a fair bit of sightseeing.

We started our day with Big Ben and Westminster

We went to visit the Queen...

...had afternoon tea at the Library Lounge right on the Thames...

...and we went up the Shard. 

This was the view of Tower Bridge from the Shard at night. 

And then I headed back to Devon for the Easter weekend. Mum and Jen planned a lovely half-surprise early birthday party for me, and it was so lovely to see so many friends and family all at once :) I was thoroughly spoilt!

My sister Rachel got me these rather fantastic balloons!

(yes, I did wear my Christmas slippers for the whole party)

I also spent time visiting family and friends and generally catching up with people I hadn't seen since Christmas.

It was a very short trip home and seemed to fly by, but it was lovely to be back.

I am now back in Linz, and I start back to work tomorrow - I only have two more months left here! I cannot believe how quickly the time has gone, but I am determined to make the most of the remaining time in Austria.

Thanks for reading!

Laura :)

Christmas holidays and returning to Austria :)

Hi everyone!

I'm now back in Austria after a lovely Christmas in England.

I had a great Christmas holiday, which included seeing lots of family and friends, eating lots of lovely food, and celebrating my little sister's 18th birthday by taking her away to the Harry Potter Studios in Watford! Here are a few pictures from my Christmas:

Rachel and I with our grandparents

Rachel and I with our grandparents and cousins

An amazing Dartmoor sunset

I spent New Year with these lovely people

I got to meet adorable puppies on the farm! Unfortunately they didn't want to come back to Austria in my suitcase :(

Rachel with the hand made birthday cake from our hotel!

Practising for going to Hogwarts in September!

My first try of butterbeer ft. butterbeer moustache

The Great Hall

Mum, Rachel and I in the Mirror of Erised

Rachel and I trying out Hagrid's flying motorbike

No. 4 Privet Drive

I flew back to Austria on Monday, and spent the next couple days working on a deadline for university. I started back at work on Thursday and have been doing a lesson on extreme weather and ways of talking about the weather in English. The students particularly liked how many words for rain we have in the English language! The idea for this lesson was sparked by the floods in England at the moment, and I hope everyone back home is staying safe with the bad weather!

Having left rain behind in England, I was very excited to come back to the first proper snow this winter in Austria! It was beautiful, and whilst a lot of it has now melted, we did make the most of it by building a snowman after work on Friday. However, the Austrians don't tend to play in the snow...so we did get a lot of weird looks!

You know it's cold when a lake is frozen over!

The beautiful snow near one of my schools

Our snowman!

Yesterday I went on my first adventure of the new year. We went to Passau, which is just over the border into Germany. It is a beautiful town, and we had a lovely day doing some exploring. Here are a few photos from the trip:

The inside of St Paul's Church 

The inside of St Stephan's Cathedral 

The monastery up on the hill

The Danube river

In Passau, three rivers meet. This is the exact point where all three come together.

The view from the Veste Oberhaus

Thanks for reading!

Laura