In the conversation class on Tuesday, we were talking about Christmas traditions in Austria and around the world. There are 3 Brits in the class, and it was surprisingly hard to explain what a Christmas cracker is, and when/why we have them. Most people couldn't get their heads around the idea that we had it with Christmas Dinner, but that it wasn't food, and found it even more bizarre that we wear silly paper hats while having our meal. I just take it for granted that that is what happens, so it was funny to see it as a new and strange tradition through everyone else's eyes.
Afterwards, I went into town to meet with a different Tandem Partner. She's from Austria originally, but lived in New York for 18 years and as she didn't mind whether we spoke German or English, we spoke German for the whole two hours which was great. She seemed really friendly and a lot more open-minded than most Austrian people I've come across so far, so it was much more successful than my last Tandem meet-up, and I'd happily meet up again. In the evening, I headed over to the 'Languages Exchange' couch surfer meeting again, with Alice and Cecilia. This time it took us a little longer to get talking to a native speaker, but we did in the end, which was great. At the end of the day, I'd spoken about 6 hours of German, and felt great about that. When I was working in France, I'd speak, or at least hear, 7 or 8 hours of French a day. In comparison to that, I am still speaking very little German here, but I have to create my own opportunities much more than in Paris. It's still something that is in the back of my mind, so I'm just trying to be as pro-active as I can, and days like this show that that must be paying off.
A group of us went to Cafe Tomaselli on Wednesday. It's one of the most famous cafes in Salzburg, and supposedly was a favourite hangout of Mozart and his wife! All of the waiters are in black tie, and the cafe has a fairly formal feel to it, but there's a good balance, and it's not so formal that you can't relax. They also do great cakes - I had a raspberry meringue type one, and it was delicious! Afterwards, we walked to the centre of the Altstadt to catch the Krampuslauf. This is an 'unusual' Austrian tradition, so I will dedicate a separate post to it, as it really does deserve one of it's own! Unfortunately, I had to teach at the evening school and so had to leave before the Krampusse came. It also turned out that I had a nightmare journey ahead of me. There was a student demonstration on the Staatsbrucke (the bridge which connects the two parts of the city), and so no buses could get from one side to the other. I was, of course, on the other side of town from where I needed to be, and the journey took about an hour and a half in total. This meant that I missed the first lesson, but luckily the teacher was very understanding. After the second lesson, I headed back into town and met the others for dinner at Stieglkeller, a traditional Austrian restaurant and a favourite of ours - we even have a table that we sit at everytime now! I was gutted to have missed the Krampuslauf, but all was not lost as the Krampusse (along with St. Nickolaus) paid a visit to the restaurant, and we must have been good this year, as our table was even given some sweets!
Thursday, the 6th December, was Sankt Nikolaus day here in Austria. The children usually put hang their shoes outside the night before, and in the morning, if they've been good (and their shoes were clean), Saint Nicholas will have brought them a present overnight. I didn't technically hang my shoes outside, but Saint Nicholas came for me anyway! He bought me a very nice new pair of gloves, along with some nuts and chocolates. That morning, I went with a few classes to the English theatre. They were playing 'A Picture of Dorian Gray'. The show was only an hour long, and the dialogue quite simple so that all of the Austrian students could follow it. It was very entertaining, and a much nicer way to spend the morning than teaching. In the afternoon, I went to the conversation class, and afterwards went to the train station to catch a train to Bishofshofen, an alpine village about 50 minutes outside of Salzburg, as we were all meeting for Emilia's (the TA who is based there) birthday meal. After the meal, a group of us went to Sankt Johann (another nearby village) for the Krampuslauf there. I won't write about it here, so watch this space for the Krampuslauf post, that will explain all about this strange strange tradition...
I'm not sure if you can work it out from this post or not, but I have had a huge amount of free time, and only taught for an hour in total in the past week! 'Week B' is normally the quieter week so I'm used to that, but this actually ran over back into 'Week A'. Three lessons on Wednesday morning were cancelled, I missed one on Wednesday evening due to the demonstration, went to the English theatre on Thursday instead of teaching, Thursday evening lessons were cancelled, and all lessons on Friday were cancelled as we had a seminar for the TAs. Most of my lessons were cancelled quite last minute, so I couldn't arrange to go travelling anywhere and have just been chilling in Salzburg. Having this much free time, as glorious as it is, did affect me a bit and I ended up feeling much more home sick than I have since arriving here in Austria.
Luckily, this weekend my parents and brother had planned a visit to Salzburg, so they ended up arriving bang on cue...
No comments:
Post a Comment