Going all the way back to December and after my family's visit to Salzburg, I had just over two weeks left before flying home for Christmas. As it is a fairly long time ago, there's no way I'm going to be able to remember everything that went on but I'll record it all as best I can.
On one of my free mornings, I went to Jakobs (the son in my host family) school, to help out with an English lesson. Every child had prepared 4 or 5 questions to ask me, so the lesson was more of an interview than me teaching them English, which was fine as it meant not having to prepare anything! One of the kids asked me, "How much money do you make?", which I stuttered with for a second before mumbling "enough" and hoping to keep him quiet... I was quite taken aback that the teacher had let him ask that question as we're brought up to think that discussing money and wages is a big no-no, but I just moved on as quickly as possible to the next question. The walk back to the house from his school was soo pretty, so I stopped to take a few pictures and fall further in love with the place I'm living.
As some of the American assistants were flying back early to make the most of their Christmas break, we had an early Christmas party with everyone. This was slightly lower key than Thanksgiving and instead of eating turkey with all the trimmings, the main dish was lasagna with everyone else contributing starters/desserts or other nibbles. The food was all delicious, and Tim's lasagna and Libby's sticky toffee pudding were definite highlights! After dinner we exchanged Secret Santa presents. My Secret Santa (Cecilia) got me a really nice smoky eye kit with the promise of a Big Night Out after Christmas!! We played some games (the Hat game, and Mafia made their usual appearance) and I taught the group Paranoia. We ended up playing it for over an hour, and some hilarious questions were asked.
Later that week, Erika, Liza, Alice and I took a trip to Innsbruck. It's only about a 2 hour train ride from Salzburg so the perfect distance for a day trip. We left mid-morning and so when we got there had a spot of lunch and a Kaffee and Kuchen stop, before beginning to explore the town. We went up the 'Golden Tower', and from there had a great view over the whole city. Unfortunately it was a bit too foggy to see the surrounding mountains at first, but as we ended up spending over an hour up this tiny tower (for some reason we found it hilarious), the clouds started to clear and we could really enjoy the view. After going down we made the most of the Christmas markets. There were two seperate markets so we wandered from one to the other and then went to a Spanish restaurant and had tapas for dinner, which was amazing! It was good to 'burst the bubble' of Salzburg for a day and explore a new city. However, I must admit that Innsbruck is scarily similar to Salzburg in the size and feel of the city, and the fact that it's surrounded by mountains. Salzburg is, of course, much prettier though.
The last event that sticks out to me from the last week was going to the Christmas markets in Salzburg with one of the classes from the Abendgymnasium and spending the evening there. It was great to be chatting away in German, with some Gluhwein and roasted chesnuts, but after 3 hours my feet were absolutely freezing!! Once I could no longer handle the cold, I went to meet the other assistants who'd met for a meal before all going home for Christmas. Unfortunately they'd pretty much finished by the time I got there, but I was inside with them just long enough to start to feel my toes again.
The rest of my time was spent packing (of course), and raiding the Christmas markets for presents for the whole family, and looking back on it now these two weeks were a bit of a blur!
