A weekend of visitors!

Hello everyone!

Apologies for this blog being slightly delayed, I had some visitors at the weekend and am only now getting around to writing my blog post!

So last week, I went on a little adventure to visit Carissa in Kirchdorf, and it's beautiful there. It was nice to step back into the countryside, and not being constantly surrounded by noise as I am in Linz. Here are a few pictures from this visit...

Carissa and I also went on a traditional Austrian baking course, where we learnt to make various cakes and biscuits that are eaten at this time of year. After getting over the initial understanding nothing as it was totally in dialect, we approached a nice-looking couple of ladies who were more than happy to help us and give us lots of information about what we were making and how to make it! We now have recipes for al of these, which is very exciting, and I'm looking forward to trying some out soon :)

On Friday, my visitors arrived, and I was very excited about it! Mum, Alison and Jen flew into Vienna on Friday night and I went in to collect them. We spent the weekend exploring parts of Austria, so here are some photos and details of what we got up to!

Saturday:

We spent our first day looking around Linz. We went to the New Cathedral and the Old Cathedral, I took them for a look around the Christmas market, and we went for a walk along the Danube river too.

In the evening, we went out for dinner with two of my friends out here, Conor and Emma Cate. It was really lovely for them all to meet, not just so they can put names to faces, but also because they got on so well, and it was nice to bring some of home to Austria :) I also made sure everyone tried the traditional Wiener Schnitzel, and it seemed that everyone loved it!

Sunday:

Our second day was spent in Salzburg. We caught the train over in the morning and our first port of call was the tourist information, where (thanks to Emma Cate's knowledge!) we got tickets for €24 that got us into every tourist attraction in Salzburg, as well as giving us free travel for the day. 

We took the bus into town, and where we got off, we had an amazing view up the river.

First off, we went to Festung Hohensalzburg, which is a castle up on a hill, the highest point in Salzburg, where you get the most amazing views! There was also a small Christmas market in the grounds of the castle, and a few museums and rooms you could go in and look around. 

The next stop was lunch, and Jen and I decided we were going to go full-Austrian and have Bratwürstel with Sauerkraut and Mustard. And it was good!

After lunch, we went to the Salzburg Dom (cathedral) which had lots of stately rooms and beautiful art and Baroque architecture to look at. We did an audio tour of the rooms, and learnt a little bit about the history of Salzburg itself. The city gets its name from its salt mines. Salt (Salz) is the city's most important and prominent exports, and we saw lots of Salzburg salt being sold at the Christmas market. 

Our final stop of the day was the Salzburg Christmas market, which was much bigger and busier that the one in Linz. However, unlike the Christmas markets in the UK, the stalls sell a lot of traditional food, and handmade local crafts and gifts, and so it is lovely to browse, and also a great place to do some Christmas shopping!

Monday:

Our third and final day was spent partly in Linz, buying a few souvenirs and Christmas presents before they travelled home, and partly in Vienna at the Rathaus Christmas market, which was, in my opinion, the best of the weekend. 

After we managed to navigate the underground, we arrived at the Rathaus, but for some reason couldn't find the market. We somehow ended up in a courtyard in the middle of the Rathaus which reminded me a lot of Hogwarts...

But luckily we finally found our way to the Christmas market, and it was well worth the detour! 

We spent some time browsing and shopping for Christmas presents, and treated ourselves to some Kinderpunsch (non-alcoholic punch, traditional at Christmas markets) to keep us warm in the Austrian winter weather!

I was sad to see them go on Monday night, but we had a wonderful weekend, and I loved having them to stay. Plus, I'll be flying home in two weeks today, so it won't be long until I see them again!

Thanks for reading!

Laura :)

Teaching Trials and Adventures to Altaussee

Hi everyone!

It's been a while since my last blog post, so I thought it was about time for an update.

I feel like I'm getting into my stride with teaching now. I'm really starting to enjoy it! I've done lessons on Facebook, smoking, bonfire night, prom, report writing...and many more! The staff are very friendly and mostly helpful, and the students mostly are enthusiastic and interested. I especially enjoy teaching the 8th form (equivalent of year 13) because they speak very good English and really like hearing about England and things, and tend to participate in the lessons really well.

There have, however, been a few 'teaching trials', which I feel many of my fellow teaching assistants will understand:
- Some teachers do not reply to emails, ever, which means I have no idea what they would like me to plan for the lesson, and then decide to tell me what they want me to do an hour (or less) beforehand!
- It's hard to get 15 year olds to speak. They just sit there and look at you blankly until you start rambling like a crazy person and wasting five minutes of the lesson.
- Some students just love to talk, only they love to talk in German, and that doesn't really help in an English lesson.
- Some teachers like to sit back and let you lead the lesson, which is fine unless the class misbehave. Others like to participate in the lesson, which is fine unless they say something that isn't quite true, and then you have to decide whether to correct them in front of the class or just let it go and hope the students didn't take it in.

I went to one of my schools' Maturaball last week, which is basically like their year 13 prom, but they tend to do it earlier in the year. It's very different to prom back home though, as it's not just the students that go to the ball, but also their families, teachers, previous students of the school, and younger students too - so there were a lot of people! There isn't a sit down meal, but you have the opportunity to buy drinks and food while you're there. All of the food is made by the students, just like the decorations and invitations, because the whole of the Maturaball is organised and funded entirely by the students. This means that in the weeks leading up to the Maturaball, students are selling a lot of cake at break time, so I'm not complaining! I was really impressed at how much effort they had put into the organisation, and on top of that, they also provided the entertainment. There were group class dances, as well as a teachers dance, a tombola and many sketches that took place throughout the evening. I thoroughly enjoyed my time, and it was a great opportunity to get to know members of staff better and practise my German.

As last weekend was Halloween, I decided some baking was in order. We didn't really celebrate or anything, but my housemate, her boyfriend and I went to a lovely tea house in Linz for a relaxing evening of tea drinking and then came back to carve pumpkins. We were very impressed at Markus' attempt at carving the smallest pumpkin I have ever seen. And of course, I carved a minion into my pumpkin...

My minion pumpkin, Markus' tiny pumpkin and Charlotte's pumpkin

Last Thursday I went to see Spectre, the new James Bond film, and I loved it! I won't be giving away any spoilers, but it was amazing! I ended up going on my own, which I was a little nervous about, but I actually really enjoyed it, and felt like a strong independent woman who just goes to the cinema on her own and doesn't care! Sounds silly, but it made me feel good :P I think it might become a regular occurrence, as it's also a great way to watch German films.

It's also been really lovely to spend time with the other TAs - I feel like I'm making some wonderful friends who I have a lot in common with. It's great to have people I can go exploring with, but also who I can stay in and watch movies with :)

During my days off, I've been spending time working on my year abroad project, for which I have a deadline at the end of November, so a lot of my free time will be taken up with that for the next few weeks, but I have been off on some adventures too, because I want to make the most of my time over here!

For example yesterday, three of the TAs and I went on an adventure to Altausee, which coincidentally is where part of the new James Bond film is filmed! (Everyone was very excited in the cinema I can tell you!) It was honestly so beautiful. We took a train from Linz to Bad Aussee and then a bus up to Altaussee, which is a little village in the mountains. There is a lake there that you can walk around in about 2 hours, and I will add some pictures of our walk because the autumn colours and the reflections in the lake and the mountains surrounding us were breath-taking!

I have plans to do lots more walks like this, and to go and explore lots of towns and villages around Austria, because it is such a beautiful country with such a variety of scenery - I really love it here :) I am also hoping to join some sports classes in the next few weeks with the French assistant at my school, as it will be a good way to keep fit whilst also meeting new people. My aim now is to get involved in a lot more activities and meet new people to practise my German, because I feel like that will help me settle in a lot more.

The final thing I wanted to say is that I am starting to make some progress with the dialect over here. It's not easy at all, and at times sounds like a completely different language...here is a link to a YouTube video that gives you an idea of what I'm up against! The man in the video is actually from Upper Austria, where I am, so that is how people here sound :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkuAd97WUSw

Thanks for reading! I'll hopefully have lots more adventures to tell you about in my next blog post :)

Laura :)