Mückenstiche und ein Ball.

On Monday morning I had the usual 6am start, (will I ever get used to this?!). I'd had a dream about a mosquito, that I could hear it in my sleep and had tried to bat it away, but when I woke up I felt that something wasn't quite right with my eye. I went to the bathroom to check the situation and my stomach dropped a little as I looked in the mirror. My left eye was about half the size that it normally was. It turns out that it definitely wasn't a dream and I'd been attacked by a mosquito overnight. My first thought was that the left-hand side of my face had been paralysed (a horrible over-reaction I know, but we must remember how early in the morning this is!), but after checking that I could move my mouth and cheek on that side of my face I knew it was fine. Luckily my host mum was up at that time as well, and happens to be a surgeon, so I showed her what had happened and explained with some rusty 6am German about the mosquito dream. As most of the other bites were also clustered around my eye, she said that it was just a reaction and that it should go down in 2-3 days. As it had shrunk so much, it was quite an effort to keep the eye open and it started to give me a headache. However, I couldn't justify calling in sick to school because of a few mosquito bites so continued getting ready and made my way there. I'm so glad I did, as the first thing someone said to me when they saw me in the staff room was, "What has happened to your face?!". Unfortunately Monday is my heaviest teaching day - teaching the full day at the Gymnasium, and then two lessons in the evening as well, so a lot more pupils saw me in my shrivelled state than I would have wished.  I was pretty self-conscious about it, and tried to keep my right side facing the class as much as I could.

My face must have looked just as bad as I thought it did, as on Tuesday one of the teachers had bought in an anti-mosquito stick especially for me to borrow. It looks a bit like an electric lighter for a candle or hob, and the end heats up. You put the end on the mosquito bite for 10-15 seconds, it stings a tiny bit, and after that the mosquito bite doesn't itch any more - what a great invention! Apparently mosquito bites become ineffective once they come into contact with heat, which is how this device works (my host mum explained it after). I tend to get a lot of mosquito bites so will definitely be looking to purchase this myself. As effective as it was though, we did get a few funny looks as he held this stick to my face in the staff room!

On Wednesday, in keeping with last week's spirit of being proactive, I attended my first university lecture here in Salzburg. As I enjoyed working in the Marketing and Communication department for Zurich in Paris so much, I decided to take a couple of classes in 'Kommunikationswissenschaft' (Communication Science). The class I've signed up to on Wednesdays is 'Transkulturelle Kommunikationswissenschaft' and is broadly about how the marketing and communication techniques should differ, depending on the culture they're aiming to target. As a languages student the element of cultural differences is particularly interesting and I really enjoyed the lecture. I'd say that I understood about 70% of it, which I think is pretty good going considering the amount of technical vocabulary that was used. I was, however, taken a little by surprise at the end when they all knocked on the desks, rather than clapping. I know that that's a German thing to do, but it's something that I've been told about, rather than experiencing myself, so I got to experience a little culture difference thrown in there at the end as well!

On Thursday, I went to the second class that I'd signed up to, which was 'Einfuhrung in der Kommunikationswissenschaft' (Introduction to Communication Sciene). The ideas and concepts talked about were simpler, as it was an overall introduction to the subject, so I'd say that this time I understood about 90% of the lecture. I went to my conversation class at the library afterwards, so was definitely feeling better about having more exposure to and improving my German. Thursday was also the long awaited PAY DAY! As we'd been in Salzburg for the best part of two months without being paid, this was naturally a welcomed event. To celebrate, we all went to the Steiglkeller (a beer hall come restaurant) for dinner and drinks. I had to teach at the evening school first, so made my way there afterwards. Unfortunately, I still haven't completely got my bearings in this city (slight understatement...), but I bumped into two other TA's on the way there which prevented me from getting too lost. I enjoyed some traditional Austrian food, finished off with an apple strudel and, of course, some Himbeere Radler. It was a good evening, and I think it's safe to say that everyone was very happy to have finally been paid.

On Friday I went to my secondary schools' 'Maturaball', with two of the other TAs Alice and Cecilia. This is the equivalent of our leaving ball, except it's much bigger, more traditional and family members are invited. I'd been chatting to some students about it in the week and they explained how there's a committee of 8 students who are in charge of the overall running of the evening, but that everyone in their year gets involved in some way or another. They had been practicing for the opening dance and 'Midnight Surprise' for the past two months, and had even got a professional dance teacher in. Every student had to find at least four sponsors for the event, but instead of the money going to charity, the students get to keep it, and use it to fund a holiday after their exams! We arrived in perfect time to see the opening dance, which was a mixture of traditional dances such as the Cha-cha-cha, and the foxtrot. Once they'd finished, the dance floor opened up and there were grandmothers in dirdnls, dancing along side the sixth form students. The amazing thing was that everyone seemed to know how to dance properly, and some older couples were really whizzing round the dance floor  We explored the venue a bit, and found a chill-out section where the live bands were playing, the disco, and also took part in a win-every-time tombola. The theme for the evening was 'Around the World in a Night', so there were themed bars scattered around the venue as well. The 'Austrian' bar was, of course, serving beer, the 'French' bar serving champagne, and the 'Las Vegas' bar serving cocktails to give you an idea of just a few. The 'Midnight Surprise' was a dance inkeeping with the theme, so there were cowboys/girls, Native Americans, as well as 5 boys all wearing white who turned out to be the Backstreet Boys. Straight afterwards the teachers, all dressed as aliens, came on and had also prepared a dance. It was all really well done and very entertaining. Afterwards we went back upstairs to the disco and danced away until 1am when the coach came and we went home.

Opening Dance

I find this picture hilarious - our heads are so big but our bodies so small! I'm not sure how this happened...

Teachers 'Alien Dance'

Once we got home and had finished chatting etc it was nearly 3am, so we decided to call it a night as we were getting up early the next day for our trip to Ljubljana, Slovenia...