Cafés, Catacombs, and Countryside - The Parents Come to Visit (14/4-18/4)

Not having seen my family in two and a half months (yet another Year Abroad record), I was naturally happy to see them when they arrived in Vienna in mid-April. Perhaps I would have been happier had I not had to walk to their hotel in the pouring rain to meet them, but I was happy nonetheless. And with the help of Charlotte's welcome schnapps I was happier still.

The next day was my day off so I took my family on a not quite whistle-stop tour of Vienna, starting with the Spanish Riding School. The last time that I was there the horses weren't, so it felt slightly more authentic to see them doing their morning exercises, although it did mean subjecting myself to a lot of Strauss. As it turns out, living in two of the cultural capitals of the world has failed to turn me into a classical music aficionado, and each waltz just sounded like all the other waltzes that had gone before. Is it shameful to admit that the highlight for my brother and I was giggling at the boy with the shovel who collected the horse manure?

After the Spanish Riding School, and a tour of the catacombs below the Stephansdom (used to store the hearts of the Kaisers in copper jars as well as the neatly-stacked bones of many, many commoners), we went somewhere a little more suited to our emotional maturity level - the Prater! We saw the whole of Vienna from the top of the Riesenrad (a huge and slightly ancient and creaky ferris wheel), and then Andrew and I risked our lives on Austrian rollercoasters which gave us sideways whiplash (yes, such a thing does exist)!

The next day I had to work, but the day after we went on a spontaneous trip to Dürnstein. Dürnstein is a little town on the Danube, which was once the home of Richard the Lionheart (if by home you read place where he was held hostage), so we hiked up to the castle. It was a ruin, and health and safety rules were non-existent so we got to clamber all over it before getting lunch and catching the train back to Vienna. That was the last bit of sightseeing that I did with the family, as I spent Sunday drinking wine in the Heuriger/all the alcohol in my flat with Christina and Milan, who was visiting from Prague. And the next day I flew home for a week of food, friends, and even more family time.

Schönbrunn, Steiermark, and the Sound of Music - Staying in Vienna (4/4/11-13/4/11)

Seeing as most of my posts seem to be about the time which I spent outside of Vienna, I thought I'd write about some of the things which I did within the city itself.

Of course, there was the teaching, also known as the reason I was there in the first place. With the Royal Wedding drawing ever closer, it became the main topic of conversation in many of my classes. I then caught upon a foolproof time-filler - making the students plan their own wedding. This kept classes amused for entire lessons, and also provided some very interesting vocabulary requests, from 'chocolate fountain' to 'wasted life'. In return for these thoroughly English lessons, they taught me a little about Austrian culture, specifically things which you aren't meant to do in Austria. One of these is making the Hitler salute, another is drawing the swastika, and the teacher demonstrated this by making the salute and drawing a swastika on the board. Now why were we discussing this again?

My students also proved to be talented actors, and one day I had the pleasure of having students ask for me in the staffroom (most of the teachers hate it because it means extra work, but it just made me feel important). They were in Klasse 4 (about the equivalent of Year 9) and they wanted my help in rehearsing a play which they'd written themselves. My first job was to check the script. Expecting a few lines of dialogue of the kind that I'd have been able to produce in German at their age, I was shocked when they handed me a hefty notebook: they'd rewritten and modernised Twelfth Night!

In the same week, I went to see some of the older students from the English Drama Club performing Blythe Spirit. This was an opportunity to show off my school to Hannah, who had agreed to come too, and also to show her that the trams were not as confusing as she thought (the tram network in Vienna is rather extensive and not particularly well documented). Unfortunately, the trams let me down, as the number 58 (which I took to work every morning without the slightest hint of a problem) decided that today it wanted to be a number 52, necessitating a long walk, a metro ride, and a change onto a tram which wasn't having an identity crisis. Luckily the English Drama Club didn't let me down like the trams, and gave an excellent performance, leaving us amazed as always at the quality of English.

At the weekend we let our hair down after all that terribly hard work by visiting Schönbrunn Zoo like the children we are, then walking to the Rathaus (which was slightly further than Christina had predicted) to go to the Steiermark Festival. Steiermark (or Styria) is a Land in the south of Austria, and its festival was about as stereotypically Austrian  as it is possible to be. People were drinking beer, wearing Lederhosen, eating sausages, and listening to an oompah band. Christina's boyfriend, who had been brought along to see everything that is wonderful about Austria, went to the toilet and emerged in hysterics. "There was a man in there," he explained, "playing two trumpets! At the same time! In the men's toilets!"

As if we hadn't had enough Austrian stereotypes, that night Hannah and I decided to watch the Sound of Music. With beer. And singing. The next morning my flatmate was positively gleeful as she poured us coffee, rightly assuming that we needed it. Oh the shame...

Lakes, Lift-Shares, and Last Minute Plans - Yet Another Weekend Away (3/4/11)

In an attempt to spend three weekends in a row out of the country, Christina and I started planning a trip to Munich for the weekend after Prague. For this trip we decided not to go with any traditional methods of transport, and instead opted for Mitfahrgelegenheit, a German lift-sharing website on which people making long distance journeys can advertise free spaces in their cars. So on Friday afternoon at 5pm we were waiting in a car park, prepared to drive all the way to Munich with a man who we'd never met before in our lives (in order to stay with another total stranger once we arrived - God bless CouchSurfing).

An hour later, and after a very embarrassing misunderstanding with a man who was definitely not our lift-share, we were still waiting. Apparently this was one risk too many, and we were not to be going to Munich this weekend. Unfazed (or perhaps not entirely unfazed, but re-christening our failed lift-share 'Mitfahrgelegenheit Wanker' helped), we set about making new plans for the weekend. And, like all the best plans, it started with gin.

It also started with CouchSurfing, a CouchSurfing games night to be precise. Latvian Guy (he has another name, Pyotr, but Christina named him Latvian Guy in our first week here, and so Latvian Guy he will forever be) had invited us to the event a long time ago, and he didn't seem to mind us RSVPing at the last minute, so we went. We played games, we drank gin, we spoke several different languages, we made friends, we shared our gin with our new friends (whether or not they wanted to share it is another matter entirely). All in all it was a good evening, the highlight of which was Christina giving the last of the gin to Latvian Guy as a parting gift (again, how welcome this gift was is a matter of debate).

The next day, in the midst of a delightful gin hangover which made us feel slightly like we were floating, we went shopping. I decided to blow a good portion of my recently received paycheck on a new coat - apparently coat-buying has become a Year Abroad tradition for me - and some sunglasses which I broke three days later, and then we decided to go at sit on the Danube Island and watch the sunset. Imagine our delight when we later discovered that one of Christina's work colleagues had been robbed at knife point there only a few weeks before.

To end our weekend, and to enjoy the incredibly hot weather, we went on a day trip to the Neusiedler See. And a very pleasant day trip it was too, aside from the fact that the train station was actually a good couple of miles from the lake itself. And getting there involved walking along a very long road in the very hot sun. Still, the lake was delightful (if very cold), and we had a lovely afternoon lazing in the sun, spotting nudists, and eating ice-cream. So a lovely weekend, no thanks to Mitfahgelegenheit Wanker!

Pronunciation, Puppets and Peppermint Liqueur - A Weekend in Prague (25-27 March)

Our second attempt to go to Prague for the weekend was almost another non-starter, as we arrived at the Prater metro station to find no bus in sight. Luckily we were just too early (incredible though it may seem) and a few minutes and some seat-shuffling later we were safely on the bus. While Hannah and I had managed to switch seats so that we were together (and to show his gratitude for being able to sit with his wife, the man who I'd switched with took it upon himself to tell me about the Napoleonic battlefield we were driving through), Christina made friends with the man sitting behind, a Czech man who taught her about the Czech tradition of eating carp for Christmas dinner and in return refused to be taught the correct way to say the word 'cathedral'. The resulting sound of "ca-theeee-dral" "cat-tay-dral" kept Hannah and I amused for the best part of ten minutes, for the rest of the four hour journey we entertained ourselves with Beatles music and beer, giving ourselves sufficient Dutch courage to meet our first ever CouchSurfing host.

Apparently our luck was still in, because Milan was not only not a rapist/murderer/general crazy person, but he also took us all over Prague, gave up his huge bedroom to us while he slept on the sofa, kept us constantly supplied with bread, cheese, coffee and cherry tomatoes, and let us watch videos from his impressive collection at the expense of any of us getting a good night's sleep. All in all, the recipe for a good CouchSurfing experience!

On the Saturday we did a whistle-stop tour of the sights of Prague, but as usual we didn't exactly focus on mainstream sights. Although we saw everything the guidebook wanted us to see: the castle, Charles Bridge, Wenceslas Square, and the Old and New Towns, the highlights were, as in Budapest, the slightly wacky things which we sought out. The top three are listed below:

Rozhledna
This was Hannah's choice from the guidebook, mostly because "it looks like the Eiffel Tower". And it did indeed look like the Eiffel Tower, albeit being smaller and slightly more shabby-looking (being built on a hill, it didn't need to be anywhere near as high as the Eiffel Tower itself). Climbing the steps to the top felt a little like a death-defying experience, although not nearly as death-defying as getting back down the hill. Milan (trying to disprove his earlier reputation as a non-crazy person) decided that paths were for wusses and led us down the hillside instead, although he did offer assistance and there was a park on the way down, so I can't fault his shortcut too much!

John Lennon Wall

My choice also came from the guidebook, but it was obscure enough that the guidebook wasn't exactly sure where it was. But once again our luck held, and with minimal amounts of getting lost we managed to find the wall, which is painted with hundreds of tributes to the dead musician, and put our own mark on it. They may not have been quite as impressive as the giant painting of the Yellow Submarine, but it was the best us non-creative types could come up with!

Absintherie

Another thing that we couldn't leave Prague without trying was the absinthe - unlike the cheap imitation in the Undie, this stuff was 70% alcohol and came with a risk of actual blindness (disclaimer - risks possibly exaggerated and/or falsified). It also had an incredibly bitter aftertaste that ensured we would hesitate before drininkg it again, a disappointment that was worse than the potential(ly fake) blindness.

Other wacky highlights included the creepy puppet shop which Milan dragged us into halfway up Castle Hill (I'm amazed I'm not still having nightmares about Charlie Chaplin, I swear the puppet's eyes followed me around the room!), the Kafka Café in which we drank Kafka coffee (ingredients: coffee, peppermint liqueur, whipped cream, and not the slightest hint of a cliché), and the crazy steam punk bar which we unfortunately couldn't afford drinks in, but which was awesome all the same. Although we left Prague too exhausted to even concentrate on Music and Lyrics (and that film does not require many brain cells to concentrate on it), we took that as one more sign of a successful weekend!

New Blog

For anyone who's interested, I've set up a new blog, From Julie With Mixed Feelings. I'll still be writing about my travels here, at least until I've completed the updates on my Year Abroad, but more general stuff like film and book reviews and angst about my ongoing failure to break into the world of journalism/overexcited rambling if I manage to get any kind of work experience will be posted over there. You know you want to click it....

Currency, Culture, and a Crazily Early Morning - A Day Trip to Budapest (19/3/11)

In the middle of March (which, terrifyingly, is now over three months ago) Christina, Hannah, and I decided that we wanted to take a trip to Prague. Unfortunately (and as you can probably tell if you've actually read the title of this blog post) we didn't actually make it there, at least not on the weekend we were intending to go. Apparently buses tend to be fully booked when you try to buy your tickets the day before you want to travel, who'd of thought it? Luckily, we had a Plan B - or rather, Hannah is very good at crisis-Googling. Approximately three hours after we had been turned away from the bus station (and I had very nearly had a breakdown because my laptop had crashed that morning and it was all just too much to take) we were booking tickets to Budapest, because Hungarian buses are apparently never fully booked.

The downside of our Plan B was that the bus we had booked left at 7AM. This meant a wake-up call at a time that shouldn't even be allowed to exist in the morning (except perhaps if you have yet to have gone to bed - but then I never knew how to go to bed at normal times), made slightly more bearable by free fizzy water, wafers and Mr. Bean.

Impressed by the funny money.

By the time we arrived in Budapest, our eyes were on the verge of having to be propped open by matchsticks and only one thing could get us enthused for a long day of sightseeing - funny money! Luckily, Hungarian money was funny enough to keep us alive until we could buy some energy drink. Reaching the Old Town (which is the Buda half of the city, the Pest half is more modern) involved a ride on a metro train that bore more resemblance to a cattle wagon than any metro train I've ever seen before, and also a moment of utter stupidity on our parts. As we stood on the bank of the river looking for a) the centre of the Old Town and b) somewhere to buy energy drink, we almost managed to miss the Parliament building. To put this in perspective for people who have never been to Budapest, this is the Parliament building:

How can you miss this?

It is, as you can see, rather big, rather impressive, and rather unmissable, or so you'd think. Possibly sightseeing on three hours sleep isn't such a good idea. 

Luckily, a can of Red Bull later we were in full sightseeing mode. With the help of two of the most bored-looking information centre staff members in existence (who we then managed to annoy by leaving the door to the centre open, you'd have thought they'd have been pleased to have something to do) we managed to see all of the main sights in Buda, the highlight being the Fisherman's Bastion where Hannah, during a mammoth photo shoot, mused "Maybe I just look better horizontal." We also, thanks to my expert researching, visited a slightly unconventional sight. It was the statue of Andras Hadik (who is no doubt very famous and important to the Hungarians but if you want to know why I'm afraid you'll have to Google him because I have absolutely no idea) astride his horse, and we (or possibly just I, but I had the guidebook and the return tickets so where I went the others had to follow) were particularly interested in seeking him out because we'd heard that students rubbed a certain part of the horse's anatomy in order to get good degree results. Undeterred by the fact that the statue turned out to be on top of a rather large plinth, we set about ensuring our Firsts.

Eyes definitely not on the prize.

Having embarrassed ourselves sufficiently with our climbing of ancient monuments, we set off in search of our next destination, Margaret Island. We mainly wanted to see it because the guidebook informed us that it was neither Buda nor Pest (and as it used to be the home of the Turkish pashas' "women of ill-repute", we were sure to feel at home there), but in the end it turned out to be another highlight of our day. The reason is simple, this:

To me, to you.

The man hiring them out advertised them as bikes, we thought they looked more like Chuckle brothers mobiles, but whatever they were they were brilliant fun to drive. I let the others take care of the pedalling, while I took on the oh-so-taxing role of steering and braking, which was admittedly not as easy as it sounds. In our hour of hiring the 'bike' we saw everything the island had to offer: a water tower, some ruins, a zoo containing birds and ponies, and this graffiti:

It seems you can never escape Austria (pun possibly intended).

If you can't read it, it says "Natascha Kampusch", who is of course one of Austria's "cellar children" (yes, more than one child has been locked in a cellar in Austria, in fact it's become a bit of a national joke, although obviously most people in Austria are wonderfully hospitable and are not at all planning to lock you in your cellar when they invite you round for dinner...). 

After a delicious lunch in which only Hannah bothered to try the national fare (Christina and I had learnt our lesson in Slovenia), we set off to see what Pest had to offer. As it turned out, not as much as Buda, and the main things we saw that afternoon were rain, Hare Krishnas, and Andrassy utca, Budapest's answer to the Champs Elysées (just as long but not quite as beautiful).However, the Hare Krishnas gave us free chocolate and the beer we bought in the bus station with our leftover funny money made the bus journey back a lot better than the outward journey - or maybe it was just that the tiredness had made us delusional by that point!

Dirndls, Drinking and (un-)Domestic Bliss - Pancake Day and Other Stories (6/3/11-13/3/11)

A brief break from travelling followed, as I began to settle in Vienna. This settling was aided by meeting tandem partners, discovering (and laughing at) some Austrian traditions, and, not to forget our roots, celebrating a British one.

To be fair, the "British" tradition was Pancake Day, which is actually celebrated across Europe, but it was still something familiar, and yet nothing like any other Pancake Day that I've ever experienced. I celebrated it last year in my student house, but the difference then was that my housemates actually knew how to cook. In contrast, this year I was the only one out of the three of us who knew how to make pancakes, and that was only thanks to a frantic Skype call to my mother. Still we managed to create batter (with normal eggs rather than the coloured hard-boiled ones which Christina had opted for), and get it into two frying pans, which Christina and I were put in charge of. So far so good.

Or perhaps not. My first pancake was successful, but while making my second I got distracted, and the next thing I knew the hob was covered in batter. Trying to save her kitchen, Hannah tried to mop up the mess, but unfortunately just ended up setting fire to the kitchen towel she was using to wipe away the batter. Pancake Fail #1. I was then relegated to photo duty (and cutting up phallic banana duty), but was quickly invited back to the stove when Hannah's efforts to create a pancake resulted in Fail Pancake. She swears it was delicious, Christina and I were doubtful.

Once we were done pretending to be domestic, we settled down to watch Eurotrip. And just in case the ridiculous European stereotypes weren't enough, we decided to drink every time one appeared. Thus it was that the next morning I lay in bed for ten minutes thinking "hmmmmm, loud noise," before realising that it was in fact my alarm clock, and I was meant to be at work.

This didn't faze me, and the next night I was out again to celebrate my flatmate passing her university Master exams. In Austria, most degrees finish with a thirty minute oral exam (regardless of the subject), which can be arranged for any time that suits you and the professor examining you, hence the fact that she was finishing at the beginning of the semester. The celebrations began in a bar on the university campus, and later moved on to a 'Wunderbar' (apparently one of many across Vienna) - by the end of the night I was wishing I'd had more that 4 hours' sleep in the past 48 hours, but it was a good night.

I also spent the next three nights socialising: meeting my flatmate's boyfriend (whose room I'm renting, so I probably should have tidied it before he arrived) and celebrating the beginning of my flatmate's birthday at midnight with Sekt (the Austrian answer to champagne) and a 'birthday crown', meeting a fat blonde man in short and a Von Trapp hat at a CouchSurfing meeting who introduced himself as Hans (Oh GOD the stereotypes!), and swapping coats with Christina on the way home from a night out because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Good job I didn't give up alcohol for Lent!

And, finally, there was the Austrian culture. For this was the one week of the year in which Lederhosen and Dirndls were sold in Hofer (the supermarket which we in the UK know as Aldi). For those who don't know, these are the national costume of Austria (and also of Bavaria) and they look like this:

Innocently trying to buy energy drink, the sight of a rack of these outfits was nearly the death of Christina and I. It didn't help that the woman queuing in front of us was buying a dirndl apron. Or that when I told my flatmate about our 'experience', her boyfriend interjected to inform me that his sisters had two dirndls each - one for Sundays and one for weddings. Apparently I'm in the minority in finding them hilarious...

Couchettes, Costumes, and Carnevale - A Weekend in Venice (from 6/3/11)

I needed almost a week to recover from my day trip to Bratislava (or rather, from the night of drinking on either side of it), because I was ill and alternated between working and sleeping for a few days. Then I went to the cinema to see the King's Speech (for the third time) and was forced to spend an entire day talking about it with my classes - you can only imagine how difficult I found that. (Anyone who didn't notice the sarcasm there should refer to the part where I said that it was the third time I saw the film). And then it was time to leave the country again!

This time, the destination was Venice, a city I will have to resist the temptation to wax lyrical about because it is one of my favourite cities in thes world. So first, I will talk about the train ride. I was already prepared for the joys of overnight trains by my experiences in Russia, and scanned my compartment (full of strangers, as I was still a sad lonely girl with virtually no friends at this point) for my future companions Man Who Snores Like A Trucker and Drunk Guy Who Just Wants To Share His Cigarettes. (And if you don't recognise this characters, then you should have been paying closer attention to my Vologda entry. Or you could just go on an overnight train journey yourself. Trust me, you'll meet them.) However, before these characters could put in an appearance, I had to sample the delights of the party wagon. Yes, that's right, a party wagon. The ESN (Erasmus Student Network) had obviously been feeling guilty for charging us 120 euros for our tickets, because they decided to have a disco car with free drinks for everybody all night. The result was essentially Klute on wheels, and the one thing I can say for it was that at least the stickiness of the floor kept us from falling over as the train jolted from side to side. The alcohol also helped everyone sleep on the uncomfortable train beds, everyone who wasn't still up at 6am singing 'Duck Sauce', that is.

Venice, where we arrived at 8am the next morning, was carnage. For Carnevale (which, if you haven't already made the connection, is Italian for 'carnival') thousands of tourists descend on the city and wander through the already maze-like streets, making it all the more easy to get lost (which I did, on the way back to the station at the end of the day, thanks to some crazy Argentinian students who I decided to take directions from). And then there was the actual carnival part. Masked figures, lots and lots of masked figures. They appeared at random out of the crowds, mingled, posed for photos, climbed lampposts (and no, none of this is a lie). By the evening they were joined by drunken tourists, some of whom had their own costumes, among them a frighteningly realistic Jigsaw lookalike and a troupe of Mexicans in giant sombreros. These aforementioned drunks gave St. Mark's Square a slightly different atmosphere as they capered around madly, serenaded by a buxom opera singer of dubious sexuality and/or gender. Had I been drinking I might have been sorry to leave the scene, but as it was I was only too happy to return to the station, and collapse exhausted on my couchette. And ten hours later I was back in Vienna, significantly more alive than those who had gone to bed only an hour before arriving, but still more than ready to take a power nap in my lovely double bed. Couchettes are all very well, but when your legs are as impossibly long as mine, you'll find it hard to get a decent night's sleep on one.

Supermarkets, Statues, and See-saws - A Day Trip to Bratislava

What to do when you've just recently made new friends on your Year Abroad? Take a day trip to a foreign country, of course! And what better foreign country, than one that apparently has absolutely nothing to recommend it whatsoever?

In the three weeks I'd spent in Vienna, I'd heard a lot about Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, and none of it had been good. Words like "hell-hole" were bandied around, and the only positive comment came from my flatmate, who told me that "it's nothing like a capital city, but they do have a Tesco there".

They did indeed have a Tesco there, in fact they had several. Tesco was the first thing we saw as we entered the city, and the last place we visited before we left. And before you start thinking that this makes us incredibly sad ex-pats abroad, I would like to point out that the supermarkets in Austria are terrible. They're tiny, they have no range of products, they sell out of things by mid-afternoon, and they close on Sundays. After three weeks of that, anyone would be excited to see a real supermarket (or at least that's what I keep telling myself - in my defence my flatmate also gets excited about real supermarkets).

However, we were pleasantly surprised, because Tesco wasn't the only thing to see in Bratislava. Admittedly it was small (which was a blessing, as it meant that there was no need for Hannah to embarrass us with the giant map which she'd decided to bring along), but there were things to see. For one, there were lots of interesting statues for us to take photos with (and nothing makes a day trip better than doing stupid poses next to a statue). Our proudest moment was finding the statue we'd seen on the internet, a man crawling out of a drain, and coercing a random passer-by into taking a photo of us with it. We also climbed up the hill to the castle, where we got a great view over the river and, perhaps more importantly, found a playground in which to relive our childhood.

At the top of the hill, we also sampled traditional Slovakian cuisine in a restaurant. Traditional Slovakian cuisine is very similar to traditional Russian cuisine, filling and not much else. The menu featured an assortment of dumplings and cabbage, but not unpleasant dumplings and cabbage, and the restaurant had a certain charm - if charm equals a slightly creepy cellar and a very creepy bird in the corner, that is! Not something that I'll necessarily be trying again, but certainly a cultural experience!

So all in all, I wouldn't say that Bratislava is deserving of it's terrible reputation. However, I'm not sure that I could have entertained myself for more than a day there, so don't all rush at once to book your tickets!

Infants, Ice-skating, and Introductions - Weeks 2 and 3

After a week of relaxing, it was time to start with the hard graft - not that my first week of work was exactly hard graft! My job for the first few days was basically to introduce myself to what felt like every class in both of the schools which I'm working in. Let me tell you that after the tenth round of "How old are you?", "What's your favourite colour?", and "Which do you prefer: Twilight or Harry Potter?", answering questions about yourself starts to get old. (It started to get old after the first round to be honest, but I could at least feign interest for a while). The kids were very friendly though and, as I'm teaching in two Gymnasiums (Germany and Austria have three different types of secondary school for students of different abilities, and the Gymnasium is the equivalent of a British grammar school), very bright - some of the students in the older classes speak English better than I will ever speak German (I think some of them speak English better than me!).

My two schools are very different, in one the teachers practically fight over me (I quite regularly have three of them wanting me to teach a lesson at the same time) whereas at the other they don't seem that bothered and quite often don't want me to teach at all (which is fairly annoying given that it takes me forty five minutes to get there). However, the students are lovely in both schools, and I had some real comedy moments even in the first two weeks: highlights have to be being asked to swear in front of a class by a teacher (when I said that it was the only way I could do a northern accent), and the lesson about dreams during which a student said, sounding very disappointed "I don't have liquid dreams." (He meant lucid. He will never make that mistake again. Nor will he ever live it down.)

As if introducing myself to a load of foreign kids wasn't enough, Weeks 2 and 3 were the weeks in which I started making friends which meant, of course, more introductions. Making friends on your Year Abroad, given the limited amount of time, is usually anything but natural. In fact, it generally involves a good dollop of Facebook stalking, followed by some slightly desperate-sounding messages and then a little Freshers' Week-esque (i.e. awkward) conversation. Now I hated Freshers' Week, so I wasn't too keen on the awkward conversation stage, which took place over coffee one Saturday about two weeks into my time here, but obviously I did something right because the next day I was meeting two of the other teaching assistants, Hannah and Christina, for ice-skating. Perhaps this wasn't the best idea, given my track record of ice-skating, but the setting in front of the Rathaus was beautiful, and I only fell over once. (It may have been the only time I let go of the wall, but it did only happen once).

Schools, Studying, and 'Stammtischen' - Week 1

And so the catch-up entries begin, one week at a time. Seeing as I've already been here four weeks, this could take some time but here goes nothing...

I arrived in Vienna on February 3rd, and successfully navigated my way to my pre-booked taxi, where I discovered that yes, most of my German vocabulary had been replaced by Russian. Luckily, this was only a temporary problem, and by the time I arrived in my flat I was firing on all German-speaking cylinders, just in time to get to know my flatmate, Charlotte. She is lovely, and although we have been mostly speaking English (Because I am a bad person who is determined not to benefit from her Year Abroad? Maybe. Because I am lazy? Definitely.) that first night I spoke a LOT of German. This was mostly because Charlotte took me straight out to meet a load of her friends at a Stammtisch, a German/Austrian tradition whereby a table is booked at the same bar for the same people either once a week or once a month - so basically a social! After that we drank the best part of a bottle of wine each (and when I say the best part of a bottle of wine, I really just mean a bottle of wine) and went to bed very merry at some ridiculously late hour.

The next day, thankfully hangover-free, I went to meet Betty, my Betreuungslehrerin (caretaker teacher), at one of the two schools I'm teaching at here, the Bundesgymnasium Fichtnergasse. I also met Helen, the teaching assistant who I'm replacing, who told me that Fichtnergasse was the nicer of the two schools - experience has taught me that this is definitely the case. I got my timetable and received a very warm welcome from the teaching staff as a whole, including the headteacher. Meeting the headteacher was a slightly awkward moment though, as I had to fight not to laugh when she started talking to Betty in German about the upcoming spring holidays and they both went into raptures about how beautiful the edelweiss would be at this time of year. Oh yes, I am definitely in Austria...

For the rest of my first week, I was free as a bird, due to the aforementioned spring holidays, so I spent a little time sightseeing, a little time studying (I was doing a German evening class for my first month here, which I've just finished) and a lot of time sitting in my new flat, either watching lots and lots of TV in my (massive) room or drinking wine with Charlotte in the kitchen. And that was the week that was.

(Please don't lose faith in me, I promise I have done some more exciting things than this, but I have an obsessive compulsive need for chronology, and so the boring stuff has to be talked about first).

Wilkommen In Wien - What To Expect From My Viennese Reports

I am fully deserving of a slap on the wrist, because today marks the beginning of my third week in Vienna, and I have yet to post a blog entry! My excuse for this was that at first I wasn't really doing anything, and I wasn't about to post a blog about my thoroughly exciting days of watching Vampire Diaries and Facebook stalking people I haven't seen since primary school! Then, once things actually started to happen it all happened at once and I didn't have time to write. But let's start this new Viennese section of the blog with a list. There's are some of the things which you should expect to hear about in the next few entries, and some things you shouldn't!

What to expect:

• "Amusing" teaching anecdotes - It may be a measure of how easily amused I am, but I've heard some pretty funny things in my first couple of weeks teaching, and you're going to hear about them whether you like it or not!
• Ex-pat antics - I have become exactly what I swore I wouldn't, a member of the ex-pat club, spending most of my time with other language assistants and attending Erasmus socials. On the one hand, I should probably feel ashamed that I'm not speaking enough German, but on the other I'm having too much fun to care!
• Language battles - I may not be speaking as much German as I ought, but you can guarantee that when I do attempt it I will make some embarrassing faux-pas, which are always good blog fodder.
• Crazy day trips - While I may have travelled more of this area of Europe than the area around St. Petersburg, there's still far too much that I've never seen, and I intend to see as much of it as possible.
• Public transport rants - A fair proportion of my day is now spent on public transport, so inevitably this will probably feature heavily in the blog.
• Jokes at my own expense - And of course at the expense of everyone and everything I encounter here. If I can make fun of it, I will make fun of it. Nothing is immune :)

What NOT to expect:

• Getting things for free - This game doesn't seem to translate from Russian to Austrian, as not only do I have the delightful pound-euro conversion rates to contend with, but the Viennese don't seem to understand the concept of giving you things for free. Good job I'm working!
• Melon-related anecdotes - Unfortunately for Jenny (who specifically requested melon stories), I am now feeding myself. This means I am no longer forced to eat entire melons, cold fish, or suspicious meat which "comes from head". Good for my stomach, not so great on the anecdote front...
• Austrian stereotypes - There might be some once I learn what the more quirky (read completely insane) parts of the Austrian character are, but as I am hoping to actually make some Austrian friends who may well read this there will be no connections made between the typical Austrian and a) Josef Fritzl, b) Adolf Hitler, or c) anyone from the Sound of Music. Political incorrectness can only go so far...

A New Era Begins

And so, as most of you (especially those of you who saw me in Durham last week) will have worked out by now, I am no longer in Russia. Nor am I planning on returning, at least not for the next year or so. My plans for the rest of my Year Abroad read like this:

3rd February - 31st May: British Council Language Assistantship in Vienna.

5th - 26th September: Language Course in Bamberg

The sharp-eyed amongst you will have noticed that my British Council Language Assistantship actually begins today. Yes, that's right, in approximately 14 hours' time I will be sitting on a plane on the way to Vienna where a week of frivolity and sightseeing awaits before I begin teaching on 14th February. Currently I have very little clue what I will be teaching (other than the obvious - English) to whom so hopefully my meeting with one of my Betreuungslehrerinnen (teachers in charge of looking after me), Betty, on Friday (that would be tomorrow then...) will enlighten me somewhat. I do know that I am teaching at two schools, the BRG Fichtnergasse, which is a state Gymnasium, the German and Austrian equivalent of our old grammar schools, and the Schule St. Ursusla, which is also a Gymnasium, but a private Catholic one. Hopefully I won't be asked any awkward questions about my religion....

After a long session of online flat-hunting, involving many complicated e-mails, Skype conversations and rejections, I have finally found somewhere to live for my four months in Vienna. I'll be living in the 7. Bezirk, which is quite close to the centre, the student district, and...the red-light district... But it's near where I stayed last time I was in Vienna, and despite the numerous sex shops, it's a nice enough area. Plus it comes equipped with double bed, piano and friendly roommate, Charlotte, who has already promised to show me around the city. Wish me luck!

(Note - I will be continuing to document my travels from this blog, at the same address, however I am trying to think of a new title for the title bar. Suggestions welcome!)

Christmas, Community, and Cancellations - The Long Journey Home

As I spent most of the two weeks before I was due to fly home complaining about leaving Russia, you would have thought that I would have been grateful to see that due to the problems at Heathrow, I might have to stay. Not so. The possibility of not getting home made me realise how much I wanted to be there, and so I spent most of the two days before my flight anxiously refreshing the British Airways and Heathrow websites in search of some concrete information. I was wasting my time. As far as I could tell when I left for the airport, my flight was scheduled as normal. Actual meaning – not cancelled yet!

After several hours of delays, a free ‘meal’ from TGIs (actual meaning – a sandwich and some chips), and mild confusion as to why our gate was changing every five minutes, the pilot appeared. The appearance of the man who was meant to be flying our plane in less than half an hour’s time was never going to be a good sign, and sure enough the flight was cancelled. However, in typical Russian fashion, the airport staff assured us that we would fly as soon as Heathrow was willing to receive us. When the pilot protested, saying that surely the people scheduled on the next day’s flight would receive precedence, the BA manager for Pulkovo stared at him as if he was insane. “But this is their plane! When it flies, they fly!” Er, alright then – no complaints here.

British Airways continued to cater to our every whim. Four star hotel with all-you-can-eat breakfast? Check. Free shuttle bus between the airport and the hotel? Check. Pilot and cabin crew on site to harass at will? Check. As I relaxed in a room the size of my flat in St. Petersburg, pictures flashed up on the news of people sleeping in Heathrow and Charles de Gaulle, and I had a ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ moment. Only a moment, though – I was still facing the prospect of spending Christmas in a country which doesn’t celebrate Christmas…

Over breakfast the next morning, we gathered a small crowd of ‘flight refugees’ – a nearly-deaf Australian whose four days in London were diminishing rapidly, a young Australian couple on a round-the-world tour, a Mancunian woman who had been in St. Petersburg for a wedding, a Russian woman wanting to get home to her kids in England, and a Cambridge student who spent most of the morning working on an essay. We swiftly became united in the common goal of irritating the cabin crew, so when we were informed that only one flight was leaving that afternoon, and we wouldn’t find out who was on it until we got to the airport, we were rather distressed at the prospect of separation. Luckily for us, though, the Russians were true to their word, and people booked in for that day’s flight were being turned away to make room for us. Even holding the boarding pass in my hands didn’t quite convince me that I was going home, but it seemed to be happening, and we had a small celebration every time we got one step closer to the plane.

After coming so close the day before, nothing short of arriving in Heathrow was quite going to convince me that it was real. Noticing the captain walking down the aisle mid-flight inspired a mild panic attack but it was real and we arrived in London, with all of our luggage, only ten minutes late. Plus or minus twenty-four hours… 


(First published for my column at www.thebubble.org.uk)

History, Hangovers, and Hospitality - Visiting Vologda

My last days in Russia could have been spent in any number of ways - not least packing my two giant suitcases - but instead Tom and I decided to do something special, to end the trip with a bang. Given that Tom had already received an invitation to a birthday party in Vologda, it took the minimum of effort (at least on my part) to get myself invited too.

Vologda being twelve hours away from St. Petersburg, this trip involved that great Russian cultural experience, the overnight train journey. These journeys always involve a variety of interesting characters including, invariably, the man (or woman) who snores incredibly loudly. On the way, we had the misfortune to be in the bunks opposite him, not that it made much difference, as he succeeded in keeping the entire carriage awake. Everyone. Including the 'train monitor' who had her own locked cabin at the end of the carriage. On the way back he had disappeared. But we couldn't relax just yet, as he had been replaced by another train stalwart, the Drunkard. We inadvertently gained his approval by slugging cheap supermarket brandy in an attempt to get to sleep on a train which seemed to feel the need to remind us that it was a train every five minutes by tooting its horn loudly. (It was also able to decide whether it was day or night by switching the lights on and off accordingly - according to the train night began at 10PM and ended an hour later). This meant that I spent half an hour listening to incoherent Russian rambling (luckily very few responses were required) and shared a cigarette with him in the freezing cold smoking area (literally, there was ice on the walls!). I was only rescued when the 'train  monitor' appeared and started threatening to call the police if he didn't go to bed. Quite how the police were going to get to the train I wasn't sure, but I was grateful for the assistance.

Vologda was in many ways similar to Novgorod, small, ancient and beautiful - it was even favoured by Ivan the Terrible until a brick falling from the ceiling of the Sophia Cathedral nearly killed him. Nikita, whose flat we were notionally staying in, gave us a guided tour and Julia, Tom's best student, provided a translation when required. Highlights included the town museum (featuring: some more stuffed animals, do Russians ever put anything else in their museums?); the completely frozen river which was being used alternately for skiing practice, ice-fishing, and as a camping ground; and the two inches of solid ice covering every surface on which one might wish to walk. After I had fallen over for the third time, Julia suggested that Tom hold my arm to keep me upright. When he refused, she showed him just how colourful her English vocabulary was, before telling him that chivalry was dead. Looks like the Russian perception that an English gentleman is more like Colin Firth than Hugh Grant could be changing soon...

But while chivalry may have been dead in Vologda, hospitality certainly wasn't. Nikita welcomed us into his home, where we met various members of his family including his mother, who practically force-fed us Vologdan dairy products (the region is famed for its dairy products because "we have cows, and near to cows are factories") and home-cooked delicacies such as borsch and potato bread, and his dog, who purred like a cat (prompting Tom to say "that dog is either being irritated or sexually pleasured") and had a slight problem with peeing all over the flat. Its reaction to being told off for this particular misdemeanour was to drag itself around the living room by its front legs, essentially wiping its bum on the cream carpet.

He also welcomed us into quasi-workplace, the 'Palace of Creativity', where we were 'treated' to a two-hour dance class. It was a confusing, tiring and sweaty couple of hours, but nonetheless enjoyable, and I might even have picked up a couple of steps. We also got to watch some shows put on by the youth group there, which were excellent, not least because I managed to understand nearly all of it, including the jokes.

The final part of Nikita's hospitality was that he welcomed us into his friendship group, and the only night that I actually spent sleeping in Vologda was on the sofa-bed in some unidentified person's flat. I'm sure that I did meet said unidentified person, but the problem is that I'm not sure which of Nikita's twenty or so friends they were. We were there for Pasha's birthday, Pasha being another of Nikita's friends, identifiable mostly by the fact that he spent most of the night in his pyjamas. The reason for this wasn't entirely certain, although it was probably alcohol-related. Alcohol (including the rather strange mix of fortified wine and coke) was certainly in abundance, as at any student party and I played my very first Russian drinking game, 'Buffalo'. This involved holding your drink in your non-writing hand and downing it if you were caught doing otherwise - a fast ticket to drunkenness, as well as to learning the informal imperative of the verb 'to drink'. Learning aside, it was an excellent party, I: got very drunk, insisted to everyone that I absolutely could speak Russian, had an odd tri-lingual conversation (English, French, and Russian) with a girl named Katya, and swapped my belt for another girl's earrings. This last was due to an interesting Russian tradition whereby if you compliment someone on an item of their clothing, they feel duty-bound to hand it over - I suppose I should be grateful that it wasn't her dress!

Visiting Vologda was the perfect ending to my time in Russia, reminding me of everything that is good about this breath-taking country and giving me a reason to come back - and hopefully, a place to stay!

Riots, Revels and Rasputin - The Final Week

Unsurprisingly, my final week in Russia was a week of lasts. The last Тесто Место Monday (in which we were deprived of our usual sugar-eating contests by the lack of fruit tea), the last few lessons, the last shopping spree in Gostiny Dvor, the last meal in Cafe Zoom (predictably delicious!) and the last meal with Vera (predictably not!). But there were also a few firsts:

The first time that a teacher other than Natasha gave us presents.
Natasha also gave us presents of course, homemade cabbage pies which we were urged to eat there and then (maybe she knew that we wouldn't eat them otherwise!) but Irina and Roman went all out, throwing us a tea party on our last day of lessons. It was not quite an old-fashioned English tea party, consisting of little more than tea (in plastic cups), a box of cream cakes, and presents, but we also got to talk to Irina and Roman properly for the first time, which was really interesting. They told us that it's very difficult for young people like them to leave Russia, even for a year as a guest teacher in Durham, as the British authorities won't grant them a visa until they can prove that they've got something to come back for (i.e. a husband/wife and kids) - and I thought that getting my visa was hard! They also told us (and this is something I've been hearing a lot recently) that they don't feel that Russia can be a proper democracy, at least not in the foreseeable future. Naturally, Tom and Alex turned this into a joke, as a reference to Georgia sacking their police force prompted a remark that Alan Sugar would surely be up to the job if Russia decided to do the same...

The first time that I saw Rasputin's penis.
And no, I'm not joking. Although the actual provenance of the penis is uncertain (the display claims that it came back to Russia via a complicated route involving several European countries) the Museum of Erotica claims that its main exhibit really did once belong to Rasputin. And well they might, no-one would visit their museum if all they advertised was 'A Large Hairy Penis'. Other than the obvious 'attraction', the museum, housed in a venereal disease clinic, featured a range of sex-related exhibits. Perhaps not the first museum I'd recommend to a visitor to St. Petersburg, but it was certainly a talking point!

The first time that the Пик Centre was closed.
This last first was rather annoying, especially as we'd already purchased tickets to 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader' at the cinema there. But, if we were going to waste 300 roubles, at least it was for an interesting reason. As we stood by the doors to the centre, trying to work out why no-one was being allowed in (and giggling at the Russians who insisted on pushing past the large crowd who had been refused entry to the centre...to be refused entry to the centre!) there was a commotion behind us and we saw a large crowd running away from the metro station. That was when we noticed the riot police. And the journalists. And the television cameras. After we had spent a good half hour hanging around trying to get on the Russian news (and trying not to speak English too conspicuously in front of the police) we went home to see what all the fuss was about. As it turned out, we'd got caught up in the St. Petersburg version of the Moscow race riots (for more information see http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/1-000-detained-in-Russia-to-prevent-ethnic-clashes-900342.php ) and the police had had to commandeer what looked like a normal bus to hold the 60 prisoners taken. Most of them weren't even rioting, it seemed that they were just arresting everyone of non-Russian origin who got off the metro. So, an interesting last first for my time in Russia!

Museums, Musicians and Minus Temperatures - The Beginning of the End

Firstly, an apology. My last couple of weeks in St. Petersburg were fairly manic, as were my first couple of weeks back in England, and so I've only just got round to updating. But I do have at least three entries to come, starting with this account of the second-to-last week.

The museums featured mainly in our celebration of Helen's 21st birthday on 11th December. As we wanted to make a day of it, we decided to visit the Oceanarium and the Arctic and Antarctic Museum before moving on to our favourite Wetherspoons-substitute, SPB. The Oceanarium was home to all manner of crazy fish but my personal favourites were the rays, who we were lucky anough to happen upon at feeding time. But, this being Russia, feeding time couldn't possibly be normal. Instead the rays, who were kept in a very low-walled tank, were goaded by the keepers until they flapped against the walls, causing a veritable tidal wave of water to slosh over onto the floor. As they became more and more aggravated, they began to flap without any prompting, and one of them just flopped down on the wall, looking like it might have died, until one of the keepers pushed it back into the water with a big stick. Dying during the show is clearly frowned upon. Mind you, the cleaners would probably have preferred it if they had died, judging by the grumpy expressions they wore as they mopped several gallons of water off the floor...

The Arctic and Antarctic Museum was marginally less exciting but contained some beautiful photos and some paintings which would have been beautiful were it not for the somewhat unneccessary addition of Soviet warships. It was also home to the few stuffed animals which hadn't made it into the Zoological Museum - including arctic foxes, polar bears and lemmings. However, before too long we began to develop the little-known condition 'museum knee' (name copyright Rachel Kitchen 2010) - those familiar with this painful condition will know that it can only be cured by the consumption of some kind of beverage - which in this case turned out to be strawberry beer. Six hours later we stumbled onto the metro, having sampled a large number of SPB's finest (or cheapest) beers, played numerous games of Cheat (and thus learnt that Tom knows how to swear as he got more than a little competitive), and compiled a list of quotes from the trip on Helen's phone. All the best nights finish before 11pm here....

The previous Thursday, Tom and I had attempted to visit another museum, the Museum of Railway Communications (ie. our university's museum) only to discover that when the cash desk closes at 5, turning up at 5 on the dot isn't a good plan. Instead we headed to the Yusupov Gardens to fulfil a lifelong dream. Like all the best lifelong dreams, it had actually only been a lifelong dream since we arrived in Russia, but it was a good one - to walk on a frozen lake! To begin with we were slightly terrified and would only put one foot on at a time, but after walking to the island in the centre and back we relaxed a little (those who think that this is an impressive achievement should Google the size of the Yusupov Gardens - it was about 12 strides) and decided to have a bit more fun. A small crowd of children had gathered to go sledging and after debating for a few minutes over whether we could ask them for a go (as the best Russian we could come up with was "Can I for five minutes have that?" we thought that the answer would probably be "No.") and then decided simply to join in their game of 'Let's slide on the frozen lake'. I failed spectacularly at this, falling over almost as soon as I'd stepped onto their 'sliding patch' (a 100m run of incredibly slippery and no doubt hazardous ice), but Tom managed to get about halfway along it, albeit with rather comical arm-movements. By this time, I had regretted leaving the house without a hat or gloves, but it was worth it, even if I couldn't walk properly for the next three days!

For my final 'm' I chose musicians due to the amazing concert which I saw on 13th December - Elton John (and Ray Cooper)! For this I was mocked mercilessly by Tom, who seems to be labouring under the delusion that Elton John's greatest hit is entitled 'I'm Elton John' and runs to the tune of nothing in particular. Or at least that's what you'd have thought if you'd listened to him in the days leading up to the concert... However, the morning after it I was forced to disappoint him, as it may surprise you to learn that Elton John has never recorded a song with that particular title. He has, however, recorded numerous other songs, many of which he played, accompanied with crazy light shows and some rather interesting back-up from Ray Cooper. I knew nothing about Ray Cooper before the concert, but apparently he is one of the world's greatest percussionists. He certainly made the night interesting when he suddenly appeared behind Elton John banging drums and cymbals with huge amounts of enthusiasm. This enthusiasm soon spread to the audience, who gathered around the stage proffering bouquets of flowers and begging for autographs. Not bad for £20 tickets....