3 weeks of info

Wow, it has almost been 3 weeks since I last updated my blog. This seems extremely strange to me, as time has been passing sooo quickly for me here (which is a good thing, i have been busy!)

I have so much to tell you about...where to start.

I have been trying to do something new every day. I haven't been traveling around Austria very much at all, rather staying in Graz due to my teaching duties and also many things, such as hiking trails and lakes, are closed for the Winter. I live right across the street from the Music and Art University, which often has productions. I went a couple of weeks ago to see the University Jazz Orchestra. They were really good (especially the drummer) and their conductor was this chill black dude from Chicago who spoke to the audience in english. I met a few of the musicians during the break. Most of them are not austrian. I remember one guy was Serbian. This kind of surprised me, but then I remembered what I had heard from Austrian university students that I have met, which is that many people come from Germany as well as many other countries to come and study in Austria because it is much much cheaper. This is one reason that universities are crowded and that is why there are protests currently going on in Graz. Most students want more money from the state to allow for bigger classrooms and more teachers. Some students want tuition to be instated as well (as of now it is free and there is no admission tests, since the philosophy of austria is that each student who graduates from an austrian school is equally prepared for college. I am not exactly sure about their foreign student admission policy).

I also went to a lecture about Darwin and God at a church near my house a while ago. I was definitely the youngest person there. It was alright. There was a biologist who spoke about the theory of evolution and then a philosopher who spoke about how religion can deal with evolution (throw it out, incorporate it, etc.) There was time for questions at the end which was actually kind of entertaining. The best part was when some guy said that evolution has produced nothing better, but rather everything that evolves has deteriorated from it's original "god created form". There was a silence and the biologist was like...uuuuh let me give you a few examples. Some other guy was just like 'how are new species created? HOW HOW? it makes no sense! evolution makes no sense!". Looks like austrians aren't any better than some americans.

I also have started singing in a choir. (i mentioned that i was at their St. Martin's Day party in my last post). I am singing Soprano, which is quite high, but they need more sopranos than altos. We are preparing some songs from Bach's "Weihnachts Oratorium" to sing on December 19th in the Evangelical Church. I think this is so cool! It is so austrian! I am, once again, by far the youngest member of the choir, but everyone is really nice to me and is excited to have some young blood in the group. We meet every wednesday, and only have a few more rehersals left until our performance. I have NO idea how we are going to pull that off. It is really hard getting 4 harmonies down well, and we have only practiced about 4 of the songs. I am glad I took that sight singing class in college, because it really helps me follow along and sing to songs that i have never heard before.

On November 20th the Christmas Markets opened here in Graz. There are a bunch of little stands that sell Glühwein (warm mulled wine, mmmm) and Glühmost (mulled cider) and also Punch and sweets and wooden crafts. Some of the Americans went out to visit them. They were SOO packed, becuase it was the first day they were open. They are really cute and we don't have anything like them in america!

I've been getting to know the americans better, and it is nice to know that there are other people my age and in my situation around that I can hang out with. I watched a movie called "Jawbreaker" at the dormitory where a couple of them live a while ago. I really liked it, although it was quite disturbing in some ways. An interesting fact about the dormitory that they live in: it is mostly all foreign students. They don't know any austrians who live there.

I also went "bouldern" with one of my students from school. Bouldern is like if you went to a rock climbing gym but climbed on the walls without any ropes. You have to be certified to use the ropes (the walls are higher) but free climbing anyone can do. It was lots of fun and there weren't too many people. That night we also went to Leibnitz (where one of my schools is) and watched the Perchtenlauf. This is the COOLEST thing ever. Perchten are basically people who dress up in fur suits and really intricate scary looking wooden masks which usually have horns attached to them (real horns!). They walk down the street and try to scare people. I think this derives from the idea that they are scaring the winter away. I am pretty sure it predates christianity. THere are also fire blowers and fireworks at the end. Many of them have large bells on their butts that make loud noises so you know they are coming. See?

THey tend to target little kids and blonde girls. THey grab their heads and shake around their hair. Many of them have large sticks that they hit people with (mostly teenage boys and girls) on the legs. THe Perchtenlauf in Leibnitz was apparently the second largest perchtenlauf in austria, with 960 perchten from 4 of the austrian provinces. It was also supposed to be "child friendly" so they didn't really hit anyone that hard. BUT there was also another one in Graz last Sunday which I went to where they definitly were more violent towards the people watching. This is ok with the austrian people, by the way. It is just tradition. I myself was hit in the leg by one of the perchten and also on the hand when i was trying to cover my leg with my hand. THis smarted for sure. But it is lots of fun. Some of the really little kids get really scared and some of them are totally relaxed when the perchten come and look at them right in the face with their scary masks. Here are a couple of videos I took of the perchtenlauf in graz. Sorry they are so dark. But you get an idea of what goes on. The first one they all stop and kneel for a picture of their group (which is quite unusual) and the second one you can see one of the perchten pull a girl out of the crowd and hit her on the legs with his stick:

Here are some pictures from the Graz perchtenlauf (unfortunately i dont have any from Leibnitz)

It is also kind of strange because St. Nikolaus is with the Perchten too:

Not a very good picture, but still interesting how the 'good' and 'evil' are balanced at the ceremony (although much more of the fun & scary evil!)

I have also been tutoring the daughter of one of the women i went on the hike to Mariazell with in english every couple of weeks. This is actually kind of hard because I know what is right but I often don't know the rules. For example, do you know why you say "chihuahuas are the smallest dogs" but "panda bears are the most dangerous animals?" Because if a word has more than 3 syllables you use "most" rather than "-est" ending. Also some vs any rules are new to me and so on. But it is nice to make a bit of money on the side and I also really like hanging out with her mom, Sabina, who is really nice and always gives me tea and cookies after tutoring is done. We talk and she tells me about austrian traditions and so on.

Thanksgiving also did not go unnoticed for me this year. Other than talking about it with my students in a few classes, I also was able to celebrate it! Sam (a nice guy I met at orientation from Britain) invited us to his house in the outskirts of Graz to cook dinner. Chris (also who we met at orientation) came all the way from Horn (about 4 hours) to celebrate with us, and also Krystal (from about an hour away). We made stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, turkey breasts, apple pie, and i made lentil stuffed bell peppers with tomato sauce. It was all really good and we ate not only together, but also with the austrian family that Sam lives with, who really enjoyed the food and told us they were really excited to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving once!

This past Saturday I watched as the really big christmas tree was lit in the center of town. There were some people playing horns to celebrate. Here is a cut from the trunk this year:

It gets dark here pretty early nowadays, about 4:15. The city is really beautifully decorated for christmas time.

They line many of the streets such as the main street (above) with lights and decorations.

Here are a couple more pictures:

A carousel on Hauptplatz:

A special cute train that takes you to the different christmas markets around town:

I also went to another Matura Ball on Saturday, which was fun. I danced and talked to teachers and students and got a ride home around 3am when it ended!

On Sunday I had a GREAT time at a thermal spa with one of my teachers from the HTL. She took me and her son (22) and daughter (25) to Therma Nova which is about 45 min away by car. We spent 4 hours there in the sauna, hot tub, swimming pool, and eating and relaxing. I really really enjoyed the sauna. It feels so refreshing and my skin felt really good afterwards. I could do this every weekend! It was also a really nice view over a small valley.

This sunday was also the 1st advent (4 weeks before christmas). Here in austria everyone has an advent wreath which is like a wreath with 4 candles on it. You light the first candle on the 1st advent, and then the second the next sunday and so on. I bought one at the local farmers market, but you can also make them yourself and many people do.

Finally, I went to a Billy Talent concert on monday night. The music was pop/punk and i wasn't really into it that much, BUT i had a lot of fun. I went with Bettina (the austrian girl that lived in my apartment before me) and her boyfriend, friends, and brother and his friends. We were all dancing and moshing to the music. I saw a few of my students there too. I also took part in the biggest mosh pit i have ever seen. It was nice to finally be able to go to an event at the Stadthalle that I always pass by as well.

Everything is going well. I am very happy, love teaching, don't feel alone, and I am REALLY excited for mom dad and shanny to come visit for christmas. It should be really nice (although i don't think there will be any snow. Austria has been having a really unordinarily warm November which is nice but also i want snow!)

Also ben has planned his trip to come here in march and april. This morning i didn't have to go to work, so i spent the morning reading through my Austria Travel book and planning all the things i want to see in austria before I leave (june). I still haven't seen barely any of austria (other than graz and my hike to mariazell). I was in czech and denmark though, which is cool. But i really want to get to know austria better. I have many many plans to fulfill.

Oh one more thing. There is no santa claus here, but rather the Christkind which is an angel, neither male nor female, that brings kids presents. It flies through the window and decorates the tree and leaves presents for the kids. Aww.

Denmark, Matura ball, Tutoring, Run, Choir, Ski Trip, Buddhism, Films

so on thursday i took a train to vienna to begin my travels to denmark. The train ride was beautiful, with lots of winding and beautiful fall tree colors along the way. trains are far superior to airplanes! once at the vienna train station i took a bus to the airport where i took a 1.5 hour flight to denmark. when i arrived, the barons were there waiting for me! the trip there was very very easy and not stressful at all which was nice.

we had a good time together. we went to the Louisiana modern art exhibit, where the best exhibit was (depending on your taste) either a photography exhibit showing the "darker" side of america (mostly taken in the 70's of poor people living in shacks, under bridges, gun toting americans, kkk, etc.). It was quite shocking and also sobering that we have such things (even still!) in america. another cool exhibit was about the future of architecture in a "green" world. the best model buildings had trees growing on them. i can't wait for those!

forgive my lack of capitalization. i am being quite lazy right now, perhaps it is this delicious beer that i am drinking called Stiegel, from Salzburg. The smallest bottles of beer you can buy at the grocery store is .5 liters, which is about .2 liters more than the bottles in america. lulz.

anywho, we also had a great dinner at the museum and the barons even got me a piece of delicious carrot cake for my birthday. the next day we went to the carlsberg brewery which was quite interesting and we had some great beer as well. om nom nom. we also had dinner at a great italian restaurant.

i left saturday morning and came back to graz where i got home and promptly got ready for my first matura ball ever! this was definitely a cultural experience.

I took the train to Deutschlandsberg where it was located. a matura ball is basically for the "seniors" (which is the 5th class at the technical school who was hosting this ball). they have this ball mostly to raise money so that they can go on a trip together somewhere. that being said, they invite as many people as possible so that they can get ticket revenue. so there are teachers, parents, grandparents, little kids, and friends there. everyone dresses up really nice. the ball is opened with a polonaise, which is a dance that they have all been working on for weeks. each person has a partner. there were actually 2 classes that had the matura ball together. the first class' dance was ok, the second classes was awesome! you could tell they practiced a lot. all the maturanten (males) wore the same colored tie and/or shirt and the maturantinnen (girls) all wore the same color/cut of dress.

they also have bars that they serve food and alcohol at. the 'seniors' are the ones working at the bars, while the guests enjoy themselves at the main dance floor (live band, and live styrian band with accordian and lederhosen!) and the younger people go downstairs to one of 2 discos.

there is also a midnight show where the seniors do little skits and dances.

all the decorations are made by the students themselves, and they arrive early to set them up and stay late to take them down and clean up (which usually lasts until 5 or 6 in the morning!).

i had fun with the students and teachers and wine. on sunday i just relaxed and hung around and watched a movie and cooked beans and tortillas.

on tuesday i went to the house of sabine, the woman who directed our hike to mariazelle, to help her daughter with english. she was working on the past tense. tutoring english was harder than i envisoned because i know what is right, but i don't always know the rules why. but it was worth it because i taught her the question words and what type of answers go with each question word (like people for the word who). i also made 50 euro for 1.5 hours of tutoring. Not Bad.

that night i also was thinking about going to a bar for quiz night, but no one i called wanted to go, so instead i went for a run (which is much healthier) i just followed some other runner and ended up exploring this running forest, which is aawesome and i will definitely go back when i get that feeling to run again (maybe in a month, lol).

on wednesday i went to a meeting for a graz chorus. i don't have anything better to do with my time, so why not. they were actually not having practice when i went, but rather a celebration for st. martin's day, aka martini fest. they had prepared a really ornate meal in the beautiful cellar of the evangelical church. the meal was very traditional for st. martins day, including a "martini ganse" (st. martin's goose) and cabbage and knödel which is like really hearty bready stuffing. i had goose! i figured, hell, its tradition, i will try a bit. it tasted just like turkey to me. next week we are going to practice though, for a christmas show of Bach's Weihnachts Oratorium. (maybe you will see me sing in an austrian chorus fam!)

today at school i found out that there are 2 ski trips that the school goes on in march and that i am invited to go on one of those, so i am really excited! one is in corinthia, and one is in salzburg.

i also talked to one of the teachers in the teachers' lounge and he was a religion teacher. i told him i also studied religion in college and he invited me to speak about buddhism in a few weeks with his religion class. i am really excited about this also!

finally, tonight i am going to go watch some movies at the graz congress and convention center about mountainns, nature, various cultures, animals, etc. as part of the berg und abenteuer film fest. it is free! woo hoo! the venue looks beautiful.

Graveyard, Dinner at Monika's, off to denmark!

Hi everyone!

On Sunday i went to the local graveyard to check out the grave decorations for all saint's day. this is the day when austrians visit loved ones and light candles and bring lots of flowers and branches to decorate the graves. the graves themselves are way cooler than any other graves i've seen before. they are more like plots of ground with little beds of grass/flowers/plants growing on them. so you can really feel that death also brings life. i went with jameson and colleen, a couple of americans that i invited. we talked about how we would like our bodies to be dealt with after death, which was interesting.

on monday i went to monika's for dinner, which was of course delicious. one thing about this meeting that was interesting is that we were talking about Bio Markts, organic food stores, and jeff (an old teaching assistant that was also at michaela's house for dinner when i was there) reccommended that I check out a place called matzer. i thought he said Matza so i was like, "is it spelled like the jewish bread?" and michaela's son was like 'what is jewish bread?' and i explained matza bread and matza balls. they told me that they know no jewish people personally. i was thinking how many jews i know! it's just so crazy when something like this comes up and you realize how different the place you are living is actually is. damn you hitler!

anywho i am drinking some coffee and getting ready to go to denmark this morning to see auntie M and uncle ephe and Andrea. Woo hoo! family!

i love you all

Halloween classes, Sturm Graz

Servus!

This past week I was teaching at the HTL in Kaindorf. I didn't work on monday because it was the austrian national holiday which celebrates austria gaining independence from occupation after ww2 and also their signing of a permanent neutrality document, which means they cannot fight in wars unless they are attacked themselves. i was still hiking in mariazell on monday.

On tuesday I spent my classes talking about the similarities and differences in how america and austria celebrate their national holidays and had them get into small groups and make up their own holidays, which amounted to some pretty cute answers. many celebrated alcohol but some celebrated friendship and pizza and movies.

On wednesday my teacher baked me a whole cake for my birthday! that was really nice of her. she also invited me to her house for dinner on monday, which i am quite looking forward to. i love austrian cooking. a few of my classes sang me happy birthday too, in german and english. my hiking leaders sabine and peter also sent me a really nice email with a german poem in it wishing me a happy birthday and successful future. So even though i was away from friends and family this birthday, i still felt loved and i really appreciated that.

on wednesday and thursday i talked with my classes about halloween, which the kids seemed to like. we talked about trick or treating, costumes, halloween tricks, haunted houses, and I even made a jack o' lantern out of a butternut squash to show them how to make them. we also talked about similar celebrations in austria. they don't really celebrate halloween here, although it is becoming more and more popular (my guess is in about 5-10 years kids will be celebrating it). some things that they mentioned to me that were similar were:
-Laternenlaufen am St. Martinstag (Nov. 11) where little kids go around with lanterns that they make in kindergarten and sing a cute little song (which they all remembered and almost every class sang it to me of their own accord which was cute)

"Ich gehe mit meiner Laterne, und meine Laterne mit mir.
Da oben leuchten die Sterne, und unten leuchten wir.
Ein Lichtermeer zu Martins Ehre, rabimmel rabammel rabum."

I go with my lantern, my lantern goes with me.
Above the stars shine, below we shine.
A sea of lights in honor of St. Martin, rabimmel rabammel rabum.

-Fasching, where people of all ages dress up and parade through the streets, this is in february.
-Weihrauchtag ( i think that's what it's called) where people take special mushrooms that grow on trees in the forest and they are blessed by a priest and they light the mushrooms on fire and go from house to house to bless the houses.
-Unschuldige Kinder Tag (Innocent children day) where little kids go around with branches and hit people with them and say "frisch und gesund" (fresh and healthy) which is supposed to bring people luck and health in the next year. usually kids get money for this.

on thursday i gave out candy and dressed up as a black cat at school, which basically amounted to wearing all black and little cat ears, a feather boa as a tail, and painting whiskers and a black nose on my face. the kids in the hall would look at me weird but it was fun and i think they liked it. my teachers told me i was brave.

on friday i also went into school at leibnitz because next week i am going to denmark to visit andrea and uncle ephe and auntie m! i am leaving on thursday morning, so i worked an extra day this week to get my hours in.

last night i went to go see a sturm graz soccer game. it was really fun. they kicked the other teams asses. i went with some other americans. i learned a few cheers and although it was pretty darn cold i had lots of fun. i want to go to more and sit in the hardcore fan section and drink some Most (warm alcoholic cider). By the way, i tried mead the other day (called Met here), something I feel like i've only heard about in fantasy books. it was pretty delicious.

Hike to Mariazell

Gruß euch!

Friday morning I began my AMAZING hike to Mariazell from Graz, which lasted until Monday night. I met the other 5 members of our hiking group (Peter & Sabine (husband and wife, leaders of the trip), Maria, Andrea (two very nice women) and Lisa (Peter's 19 year old daughter)). I took a bus out to Fuß der Leber which is about 35 minutes outside of the center of Graz at the foot of a hill which was the beginning of our hike.

The hike to Mariazell is a very common hike that people in Austria do. Many people make it a point to undertake this hike at least once in their lives. (peter has done it 22 times!). It is also an important pilgrimage for many people, where they pray along the way. So we saw many many crosses along the trail. In german this pilgrimage is called a "Wallfahrt".

The first day was pretty intense. We started our hike at 7am and hiked all day until about 7:30 pm when we reached our guest house. Needless to say, the hike was beautiful and we hiked a bit with head lamps for the last couple of hours since it was dark, which was a new and fun experience. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

We passed by a lot of cows because in Austria it seems like there are a lot more small local farms that provide mostly milk to nearby villages. Cows are cuuuuutee!! These small farms are called Bio Farms.

We also passed by this house which was crazy about garden gnomes.

We also crossed over a water fall by way of quite a few little bridges. It was called Kessel Fall. I do not understand this picture.

On the first day we also saw quite a few of these sweet salamanders.

The only times we stopped were once in the morning for a small snack and drink, once in the afternoon for a drink, and once for lunch where we had soup. This was a cute little sheep near the window where we ate.

Those nuts in front of the sheep are called "Kastanien" which are very very very popular in austria. There are so many street vendors here in Graz that sell these roasted chestnuts ( i have yet to try them though, but i hear they are delicious.)

The trail was marked with the Austrian Flag.

This structure was pretty interesting to me. Hunters climb up to the top to have better aim.

By the time we got to the guest house I was quite exhausted. I am sure that this is the longest day of hiking I have ever undertaken. It made the down time that much more relaxing though. We had an amazing meal of delicious austrian salad (potato salad, lentils, tomatoes, garlic, beets, lettuce, and the traditional pumpkin seed oil dressing) and everyone else had wiener schnitzel, but I had some zucchini pasta. I learned an austrian song that you sing when you toast each other before you drink"

"Ein Prost, ein Prost, ein Prösterchen Prost

Wir leben nur einmal.

Ein Prost, ein Prost, ein Prösterchen Prost

Wir leben nur einmal.

Wir leben nur ein einziges Mal,

vielleicht ist es das letztes Mal.

Ein Prost, ein Prost, ein Prösterchen Prost

Wir leben nur einmal."

If you translated this it would be:

"a cheers, a cheers, a little cheers,

we only live once.

a cheers, a cheers, a little cheers,

we only live once.

We live only one time,

maybe it is the last time,

a cheers, a cheers, a little cheers,

we only live once."

The owner of the guest house was soooo nice and talkative with us. He also plays the styrian accordion, which is different from a normal accordion with keys.

He was really good. He had quite a heavy styrian accent thought, which made him hard to understand. It seemed like the further we went into the mountains, the thicker peoples' accents were. It was really fun to listen to though and try to understand. The people I traveled with also had thicker styrian dialects than the teachers that I work with (who speak more of the german variant that I learned in school). I definitely picked up on some of their pronunciations, like saying "yo" instead of "ja" and "na" instead of "nein". also, I spent my whole life thinking that the song where they sing "Danke Shaane" was wrong, since in high german it's pronounced shoon (sp. schön), but actually in the styrian dialect (at least the styrians i was traveling with) said shaane! Blew my mind.

Anywho the guest house was really decorated. Here is one of the walls.

Those pictures still crack me up. Here is the bar room:

Peter started playing the washboard with Rudi (the owner/accordian player)

And I even joined in with this weird clapper instrument thing!

Heres a video of rudi playing a traditional styrian song on the accordian.

The next day we woke up and had breakfast and started our hike about 9am. We walked through more beautiful countryside and forests.

We even saw the mountain that we were going to hike to the next day from afar. Behold:

Yes, we hiked up that mountain on the third day. It is called the "hohe Veitsch".

We also saw more crosses, like this one.

Notice the snow! It was around the second day that we got up high enough to see a lot of snow. We didn't hike through much snow until the third day though, when we went up the hohe veitsch.

The second day was the only day where the weather wasn't that great. It rained a bit, but not too much and was kind of cold. But i was prepared clothing-wise so it didn't really matter.

That night we stayed in another guest house. We had good austrian food and good austrian hospitality once again. The whole fire department from neighboring Wartburg was there too celebrating one of the members' 70th birthday. That was a trip! They were so talkative and jolly. There were 3 at our table and 2 of them just kept telling joke after joke after joke for hours.

Everyone was laughing really hard but I couldn't really understand the jokes. Mostly because I couldn't understand what they were saying most of the time, and even when I did understand part of the joke, thats not enough because you really need to understand everything to get a joke. But I still had fun (even though at times I felt really left out and frustrated). I could tell everyone else was having a good time, though and that made me happy. Peter even ordered me a birthday cake, which was so nice. We all shared it. More accordian was played (by many different people actually, it is a common traditional styrian instrument to play)

and there was lots of dancing. This is Andrea dancing with one of the fire men.

It was really nice that Lisa (the 19 year old) was on the trip. I enjoyed talking to her and it was nice to have someone my age around.

The third day was when the hike started getting really really beautiful, as if it wasn't beautiful already. We hiked much higher up and stopped and had lunch here. It was so pretty.

Then we began our long ascent up the hohe veitsch which was strenuous, but well worth it. Here is a sign that looked so small from where we had lunch but from the top was obviously huge.

I am pretty sure its some sort of ski marker for the ski season (we passed through a few ski areas that don't have snow yet).

When we got to the top we were at the lodge that we stayed overnight in. We had a drink and then hiked further up the mountain to the highest point in the veitsch right when the sun was setting. This was my favorite part of our hike. It was seriously so amazing to see the sun setting in the alps here with the snow and the clear clear sky that you could see sooo far away in over so many mountain tops. Awesome...

Here is a short video I took of the surrounding area.

Here is the "Gipfel Kreuz" the cross at the peak of the mountain.

And here's a group photo in front of it.

From left to right: Andrea, Lisa, Maria, Peter, Sabine, Me

At the top of the mountain I learned an Austrian tradition. When you get to the top of the mountain you say "Berg Sieg" (mountain triumph!) and kiss each other on the cheeks as a sign of well wishes and success.

We were lucky to stay in this lodge because usually they close their doors to overnight guests around the beginning of October since it starts getting too cold, but they let us stay there since we made a reservation a month ago. It was a bit more rustic than the other 2 guest houses we stayed in. There was no running water for example.

The next day we hiked down the mountain which was also beautiful.

There was quite a bit of snow on the way down though and this made it hard to walk down, since it was so icy and slippery. I definitely fell a few times, even though I had my hiking poles with me.

Towards the end of the day we were all the way out of the mountains and back down in the valley. We saw more cows! Here is the cow sign & some cute cows:

We had a late lunch at a restaurant and hiked really really fast up a hill to get to Mariazell. We had to get there fast because it was already 4 and the last bus was leaving at 6:15 back to Graz.

We got there and walked through this archway which apparently cleanses you of your sins if you walk through it:

Here is the entrance to Mariazell.

We went into a room where you light a candle in remembrance of loved ones ( I thought of someone special tee hee!)

It was quite hot in that room. Heres peter and sabine lighting their candles from the main candle in the center of the room that you use to light all the little candles.

We also walked into the Basilica which is beautiful. Here's a pic from the internetz.

And one from the inside:

I would definitely like to come back to Mariazelle some time just for a day trip to explore it for longer, but we didn't have much time this trip.

Overall, my hike was just as awesome as i expected and more! I knew it was going to be naturally beautiful, but i didn't expect how much austrian culture i would experience along the way by way of the guesthouses and my hiking mates, who were also great to be with and were very friendly and accepting of me.

Classic Rock, Czech Ausflug, teaching stories

Hi all!

I forgot to mention that there was a marathon here in Graz the other weekend which I saw the tail end of. There were lots of people running and also live music scattered around.

I stopped to watch one cover band playing, they did classic rock like "Sweet Home Alabama" etc. They weren't that great. But I soon discovered another band also playing classic rock near the Hauptplatz (city center, where the town hall is). They were much better. Here's a short video of the guitarists solo for "Hey Joe":

It's pretty crazy how when they sing they sound american but when they speak they have such heavy Austrian accents. There was a cute little girl dancing to them. Video:

They also played "Sweet Home Alabama". 2 times in one day is 2 times too many to hear that song. I also went out to a bar with the Italian teaching assistant Martina and there was a classic rock cover band there too! I really need to find somewhere that has some good austrian bands....

The day of the marathon I also saw this strange sight, someone surfing in the Mur river from a bridge:

Here's a random building near my house that I like:

Here's one of my teacher's apartment buildings:

So this past weekend I went to the Czech Republic (specifically the city of Cesky Krumlov) with a group of teachers from Leibnitz. They called this trip a "Lehrausflug" which basically means a vacation for teachers. On friday Monika picked me up and we went to the bus station where a private bus for us all picked us up and drove us to Krumlov. The ride there was nice, there was actually quite a bit of snow in the mountains in upper austria, not much in Czech though.

The ride there took about 4.5 hours. (we stopped for about 50 min for a break though). Many of the teachers were drinking beer and champagne the whole ride up, which meant that there was a lot of loud laughing and talking, which was kind of entertaining. I talked to different teachers including one named Pauli who teaches Biology, Physics, and Chemistry (many teachers teach multiple disciplines, not just one like at our schools). When we got there we had dinner at the hotel which was pretty good. For me they had baked cheese with breading, potatoes, and a salad. Then we went out for a beer at a local bar (the beer they had was Eggenberger, a local beer from a brewery we visited on Saturday). Some of the teachers (including Barbara, the teacher I was sharing a room with) went out for more drinks, but I didn't really feel like partying with my teachers, especially since I didn't feel like talking about who i was and where i came from and how i liked austria and so on anymore. My roommate came back at 3am and in the morning told me she had too much to drink. lol.

On Saturday we went on a tour of the city. Heres a couple of teachers on our tour, the one on the left is one of the young english teachers I work with.

Among other buildings, we saw a church:

We also walked by a torture museum which seems to be compulsory in old eastern european cities (remember estonia?) This one was weird though because when I looked into the window I saw this:

Why is a big michael jackson head in the torture museum? Dunno...

The museum was right next to horni street

Tee hee...horni. Oh god, I feel like my students.

Here's the main square:

Here's a local shop with cool flames on the doors. I saw a few shops with flames:

We also visited the Castle and the Baroque theatre in the castle that one of the kings had built. Here's a view from a bridge towards the castle:

It's pretty cool how it is built into the rock like that.

Heres me from one of the castle bridges, behind me the city of Krumlov:

Here's the castles main tower:

The Castle actually has bears on the grounds underneath a bridge (they didn't come out while we were there though). The bear is important for Krumlov because it is the symbol for the Rosenberg family who ruled Krumlov. So we also saw bears around the city in different places like this one guarding someones backyard:

And this one creepin in an old wall painting on a building:

There were some pretty cool wall paintings around the city like this one which reminds me of old alchemical art:

The baroque theatre was the coolest part of the whole trip. There are only 2 in the world (one in krumlov and one in sweden). We watched a video where they showed how the scenery could change from looking like an endless forest to an endless ballroom.

Isn't that theatre fucking awesome!!! I loved it.

There were people underneath the stage turning wheels to make this change fast and seamless. It was awesome. We got to see underneath the theatre too. It would be cool to see an actual performance there. After this I went with some of the teachers to see an Egon Schiele exhibit at a museum. He is an important Austrian artist, although I had never heard of him. To me he was more historically interesting than artistically interesting. He was condemned by many because he drew naked pictures of women doing some pretty vulgar stuff and so he was important for transcending certain cultural taboos. He was even put in jail for it. But even so, the pictures weren't that great to me. The museum did have some really cheap posters from older exhibits so i got one for a Mucha exhibit they had back in '98 for 1 euro to hang on my wall! I had about an hour between being done with the museum and going to the Eggenberg brewery so i just chilled and read for a while. The tour of the brewery was mediocre because nothing was really running since it was already 7 pm, but the brewery is hella old so that was cool. We then had dinner at the brewery which was delicious. I had broccoli with cheesy cream sauce and potatoes and salad. and of course beer which was tasty as well. I was pleased with my food on the trip, it was much better than some signs I saw around the city for traditional czech cuisine:

Mmmmm....pork knee!

We left after breakfast on sunday and got back to graz around 4pm, which was when a Sturm Graz vs Wien soccer game was starting. I really want to go to one at some point. There were a lot of police men around the stadium.

I've spent the last few nights doing lesson planning and also waking up really early to take the train to school (about 5:30). The students seem to like when I talk about holidays and play patriotic american songs and talk about the school system. I also did a lesson about gay rights and gay marriage in america with the oldest students (18-19 years old) since Obama just gave a speech to the Human Rights Campaign and there was that march on washington. I thought that it would be interesting for them and they would be willing to discuss the issues but I was overwhelmingly faced with students who seemed to care less. Theres one class i have with mostly all girls and they were interested it seemed, but the classes with boys were like laughing when i said the word "gay" and also many of them said to me that they didn't care either way, and that they werent gay so why should they care? Some of them said that they think don't ask don't tell is valid because they would feel weird being around gay men in the military. Since there wasn't much discussion by the students about this issue I asked them what they would rather talk about with me. One student answered "general things about america, not specific laws" and the teacher said "aren't you planning on being a lawyer?" and he said "yes, but (muffled)." I was suprised, but I guess I can understand tht they would rather talk about sports (like american baseball) and the daily life of a teenager in america than civil rights issues. I felt a bit bad though cuz i don't want to bore my students. Oh well, I think I'll just plan some more games and activities and music lessons, maybe some stuff about prom since they have their Matura Balls coming up and a couple students have asked me what prom is like. Also Austrian National Day is coming up so maybe we could talk about that. Another fun idea maybe would be to show a clip from a german film and have them translate it into english, or have them do some writing activities. Does anyone have any ideas for me?

Last monday I did a lecture on Columbus Day and made a little chart on the board about it. The teacher suggested to her students that they write it down to learn it. They asked her if they could just take a picture of it with their cell phones and she let them. I tried to get out my camera and quickly snap this funny moment. There were a lot more students doing it than this and sorry for the blurriness!

One funny story from teaching for you: I was going around the class asking the students what their names were and what they liked to do, and one student said that he like to sing and I asked him if he sang in a band and he said yes he did, in a punk band. I asked him what his bands name was and he didn't want to tell me but I heard one of the other students say it and it was "Hodenwachstum". Hoden means "testicle" and wachstum means "growth". So I thought that was pretty funny.

Soon to come: I will have pictures of my room and I'll go around Graz and take some pictures of important places/places I like as well as my schools in Leibnitz and Kaindorf. Maybe I'll get some pictures with teachers for you as well!