Frohe Weihnachten und einen guten Rutsch!

Well I'm all packed and ready to go to Germany tomorrow!

This week has really gone slowly even though all my lessons have been pretty fun.  I've been teaching about Christmas, playing Christmas jeopardy, reading 'Twas the night before Christmas.  It's probably because I've been looking forward to this weekend, going up to Germany to see my parents and our former exchange students and their parents.

I'll be leaving early tomorrow morning to meet up with a friend in Wels (he lives in Graz), and I'm riding up to Erfurt with him, and from there I'm taking a train to Leipzig.  It's going to be a long day of travel (a bus, a car and two trains), but it'll be worth it to see family and friends!

We'll be in Leipzig until the 27th, and then my parents and I will be going to Prague for two days, and then we'll be back here in Baden to celebrate the New Year.  I'm not sure what exactly we'll be doing, but it's going to be fun to see my parents!

This is a short post, just to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year since I don't know when I'll be posting again.

Happy Holidays!

Having a hard time with the Christmas spirit

Well it's time for my weekly post- maybe one of my New Years resolutions should be to post more often...  It's been a good week!  I was in the 7th form Handball class this week, and I always have fun with them.  They explained to me how handball works, which is not at all like American Handball, it's a great combination of soccer, hockey and basketball.  We cracked some pronunciation jokes because they all have issues with their "th" sounds, and they also (inexplicably) have problems saying a "v"- which they have a TON of in German.  When I talked about the death penalty with them I heard a lot about "wengeance".  Many of the teachers here also have strange pronunciation, or they try to over-enunciate, and I don't really know what to do about that besides sit back and smile (since correcting most of them will just blow up in my face- or they're in such a habit of saying it wrong they won't remember).  

This week in the teacher's room we had some interesting conversations about the history of Santa Claus- which countries he's in, and how he became who he is today.  Of course I knew about the connections between Santa and St. Nikolaus here, but I didn't realize that he was also made from the myth of Father Frost from Russia and Scandinavian countries (who ran around wearing a red suit and brought winter with him wherever he went).  I had a children's book about Father Frost- so I knew about him, without ever making that connection.  We also (randomly) talked about how many continents there are.  I've always learned that there are 7 continents- but as it turns out many people learned just 5 or 6.  Many of the teachers here learned America as 1 continent, not two, and they also don't think of Antarctica as a continent, but most of them learned Oceania (the islands between Asia and Australia) as it's own continent.  The geography teachers told me that now all the kids here learn that there are 7 continents, and its the same 7 that I learned- Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, South America.

Most of my lessons this week will be about Christmas in the US, which will hopefully get me in more of a christmas-y mood.  I don't know if it;s the lack of snow here, or that this is my first time away from home for the holidays, but despite the decorations and markets everywhere I just don't feel like Christmas is only a week away!  I've noticed some pretty funny decorations here over the weeks, but I haven't really written about them.  Many of the trees around town that were decorated by the city have their lights hooked directly into the power lines, so they have signs on them saying "Beware- high voltage" (in German of course)- talk about holiday spirit!  There are also these sort of creepy Santa decorations of Santa climbing up a ladder or rope into a window.  They're everywhere, and then ones hanging from a rope are especially off-putting.  I also saw a female Mannequin dressed in a man's Santa suit in a shop window- it was very strange looking to see a big white beard and mustache on a clearly female figure.

This week I checked out a different grocery store in town and finally found a good brand of chocolate soymilk (there are a lot of bad ones here), two Radlers I haven't seen before, some new Milka chocolate bars and fresh CRANBERRIES!  First off, a radler is a beer with juice or soda added to it, secondly, while Milka isn't my favorite kind of chocolate the new varieties sounded delicious and they were on sale, and lastly I've really been missing making and eating my cranberry sauce.  I had to improvise a bit on the cranberry sauce because two of my usual ingredients are a bit hard to come by, and then I had to do some calculating and converting to figure out the ingredient proportions- but I got it all sorted out and made my usual delicious sauce, which I then ate straight from the container within 48 hours.  I bought some more cranberries and will be making more sauce today!

Preiselbeere Radler (Lingonberry juice and beer)

Johannesbeere Radeler (Black currant juice and beer) 

Milka Daim (sorta like a heath bar) and Milka Oreo bars

This week I also had two Christmas parties to attend.  One of them was for my school in Berndorf, all of us teachers met up at a heurige in Sooss (it was one that I walked past a few weeks ago when wandering through the vineyards up there) for dinner and drinks.  It was a good time, getting to know my colleagues better and speak German.  The teachers from Berndorf have all known each other for quite some time, so there's a real feeling of friendship and community, which was great to be a part of.  The school where I work as a tutor also had its christmas party this week, so I got to meet some of the other tutors and talk to them over dinner and drinks.  Inge, the woman who runs the school, also bought us all little gifts, so I got some really nice vanilla body wash and lotion.  On Wednesday this week my other school is having their christmas party, but I haven't decided yet if I'll go or not.

Yesterday I had to run to IKEA to pick up some things, so I took the Badner Bahn to the Shopping City Süd.  I don't know if it's the biggest mall in Austria, but its certainly the biggest mall I've been to in a long time, and since it's the last weekend before christmas it was PACKED.  I'd like to go back sometime and see more of the shops, but being there yesterday was a nightmare, and I was just trying to get to IKEA and looking for very specific things- so all the slow meandering foot traffic drove me nuts.  To get back to the train station I opted for walking back through the parking lot instead of the mall.  Later in the afternoon I met up with my friend Kristin, who's a TA in Graz, but staying in Vienna for the weekend.  We went to the Naschmarkt- where I bought yet another scarf.  Every time I go to the Naschmarkt I end up buying another scarf, it's dangerous because they're like 90% Cashmere and they're just 5 euro!  I'm going to end up with a suitcase full of them if I don't stop myself soon.  I also got some tasty dried fruit, and had a falafel sandwich for lunch.  I never thought that I would like falafel- but Dr. Falafel in the Naschmarkt knows what he's doing!  After sitting in a coffee shop to escape the sudden downpour we went to 4 different Christmas markets around Vienna. 

 I'd already been to the MQ Market and the Rathaus market, but I hadn't been to the Karls Platz or the Spittalberg markets.  The market on Karls Platz had a lot more artistic works than tourist crafts, so that was interesting to see.  The center of Karls Platz is usually a big shallow fountain, but now it's a petting zoo and covered in straw that all the kids were playing in.  The Spittalberg market is in a very narrow old street, and it was full of the traditional market stands.  We ended up getting dinner there, I had Leberkäse for the first time.  It literally translates to liver cheese, but really there's no (or very little) liver in it, and usually there isn't cheese in it either.  Its basically like a meatloaf, usually made of pork (in this case it was wild boar, but there's a place in Baden that has horse Leberkäse).  The stuff that we had was served on a seasoned roll with a really delicious mustard, I would eat it again; it's not your most gourmet meal, but it is a pretty typical street food around here.  After seeing the Spittal market my foot was aching and I was ready to head home.  On the train platform I ran into two of my students from Berndorf so we talked for awhile- that's the first time I've seen my students outside of a school setting!

Anyway, I cleaned my apartment this morning, and now it's time to go make my cranberry sauce.  I'm really looking forward to heading up to Germany this weekend and seeing my parents!!!!  I'm not sure when my next post will come, so don't hold your breath. Incase I don't post next week- Frohe Weihnachten und einen guten Rutsch! (Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!)

Krampus Video

My friend Kristin posted a link to this on Facebook today- it was actually at the end of an article on NPR's website about Krampus coming to the U.S.  The video is pretty cool, it shows you what a Krampuslauf is like with all the creepy masks.  I'd like to get a Krampus mask, but I have NO idea how I'd get it home!  It would be fun to bring something so authenticly Austrian like that back with me.

The video is better if you can watch it larger than it plays here.

Another week in the life...

I haven't posted all week, but mostly because nothing terribly interesting has happend.  Monday was Krampus, and one of my teachers had warned me there would be people dressed as devils running around hitting people with sticks.  I was all over town on Monday night going to tutor a kid and running errands and I didn't see a single Krampus in Baden.  Tuesday was St. Nikolaus, I got a tiny chocolate Santa from one of my teachers.  On Wednesday I finally taught my last Thanksgiving lesson- which means that most of my lessons in the last two weeks will probably be Christmas related.

Thursday was Mariaempfangnis- which I'm not really sure what that is, except we had the day off from school.  One of my teachers told me she thought it was the day the Arch Angel came down and told Mary she was going to give birth to God's son, but then we both thought that was a ridiculously short pregnancy, and then we realized that we both aren't at all religious and didn't really care what the day meant.

As my dad likes to point out, Austrians have a holiday about every-other week, and I sure don't work much!  I was going through my calendar the other day and there have been a number of weeks when I've only taught 8 lessons due to holidays and/or exams (we're supposed to do 13 a week- but if we're short because of holidays or exams we don't have to make them up).  I've been putting in more hours than I'm scheduled for the past few weeks just from sheer boredom.  Besides I spend pretty much the whole school day sitting around at school waiting for my next lesson- I might as well do something!  I went to a 1st form (10/11 yr olds) German lesson on Fairytales; it was pretty fun, the kids were all shocked that I understood and spoke German.

Since I had a long(er than usual) weekend I thought I might go down to Graz, but I sort of lost my ambition to head down there and didn't find a place to stay.  Some friends from Burgenland (the eastern-most state in Austria) were coming to Baden to visit Liz, and I wanted to see them again so that also played a role in my decision to stay home.  We had a good time hanging out on Thursday night, we watched some terrible TV, went out to eat at another Italian place in town, drank beers and local wine.  It was about 2 am when I decided it was time for me to go home and go to bed; on my walk home I twisted my ankle, which was then swollen and sore the next day.

We had talked about hiking up to some ruins on Friday, but everyone at Liz's got a late start, so by the time they left for their hike I was busy tutoring.  I met up with them in the Christmas market when they came back into town and we walked around checking everything out again.  There were a lot of people out, and a bunch of musicians were out singing carols.  We all ended up with Feliz Navidad stuck in our heads- not what you'd think we'd hear in the streets in Austria.  After some Punsch and Glühwein we went to a Heurige for more wine and a rather large delicious dinner.

So that's pretty much what I've been up to this week- nothing too terribly out of the ordinary or exciting.  I'm looking forward to meeting up with a friend in Vienna next weekend and going to a few more Christmas markets & my parents will be coming over soon too!  It's hard to believe Christmas is coming up though, we still don't have snow here, and this weekend it's been in the 40s F (4-7 C).

So that's why Pagans have more fun!

Well it's been another lovely weekend here in Austria.  We still don't have snow, and it's still chilly and cloudy- but it's all good.

On Friday I went into Vienna with my friend Liz.  We went shopping at the Naschmartk (a big outdoor market, which is mostly food), around in the city, and also at two of the Kriskindlmaerkte (christmas markets).  Then we went and saw the 4th Twilight movie at the English movie theater.  I didn't go in with very high expectations of the movie, so I wasn't disappointed.  They changed things from the book of course, and some of it they stayed a little too true.  There were some pretty gruesome scenes, and the 10 year olds in the audience were scared out of their wits.

A stall in the Naschmarkt full of fruits, nuts and vegetables.

Some traditional wooden ornaments at a stall in the Museums Quartier Kristkindlmarkt.

The most American display I've seen since the 4th of July, I'm not sure why it's right outside the Rathaus Kristkindlmarkt.

Rathaus Kriskindlmarkt

These big pretzels with all different fillings and toppings seem to be popular this time of year.

Tonight I met up with Liz again and we went to see what Perchten is all about.  Usually the Perchtenlauf (or parade) is put on by a local Perchten organization.  The closest group to Baden is actually from Berndorf, so there's a good chance that some of the people I saw tonight are colleagues or students.  I don't know what all the group does besides get into costume and put on these parades, but the parade was cool enough for me!  I think the best way to describe it is hilariously terrifying.  These people in out-of-this world costumes and masks walk slowly, creepily toward the crowd, swishing their horsehair whips or reaching out to touch the people in the first few rows.  Most of them went toward this group of teenage girls in the front across the aisle from us, but a few came our way too.  Liz was molested by a wolf, and an absolutely enormous Perchten with a nightmare-inducing mask got up in my face (well my face was pretty much in the mouth of his mask) and asked if I was "brav" and at that moment I couldn't remember what that meant- except that it does NOT mean brave.  It means good.  Liz was pretty much screaming at me to "Just say yes", and I was laughing from the absolute absurdity of the situation... and a bit of terror.  We both were hit with whips several times, but they don't really hurt.  I took as many pictures as I could, but my camera was being stupid and slow.  

Even kids are Perchten.

It's hard to even see the face in this mask.

Many of the masks are enormous, I'm not sure how some of the people could see.

Some of them had light up eyes.

This is the Wolf that got Liz.

This one was in the midst of whipping the guy next to me.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and an excellent cultural experience.  It seems like it must be the remnants of the Pagan traditions that the church has tried so hard to take over.  I'm surprised that it's still celebrated in such a Catholic country, but I'm glad it's here. 

Tomorrow is the real Krampus, and after I'm done teaching I'm tutoring, so I'll be out and about in the streets of Baden to see what happens!

For more pictures click here!

Don't break my achy breaky... wait, what?

I realized that I haven't really said that much about teaching or my schools for awhile, and this week has been full of fun, teachable moments.  Pretty much every week there are funny things that happen, or that students say, but I never really write about them- so now I'm going to.

My schedule right now at Bad Vöslau is a bit of a mess, I'm there on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and I ended up hanging out at school pretty much all day, just looking for a lesson to join.  It's test season right now, so many teachers couldn't use me because they either had their last lesson before the test, or they were giving the test.  There have been two or three teachers who have left the school to go on maternity leave, which is why the schedule is constantly changing.  Instead of just getting a substitute teacher in to teach their classes they rearrange everyone's schedule to cover those classes.  They actually don't have substitute teachers here, when a teacher is gone the other teachers have to fill in for those classes.

On Tuesday I ended up putting in two hours in 1st form classes (10 yr olds), which is a bit hard because they don't understand a lot of English, but they have a lot of energy and are pretty funny.  In the first one we just did a Q&A- they asked me questions in German or English, the teacher wrote the English on the board that they didn't know, and I'd answer.  I was surprised at how many questions they came up with in English, including, "How much are you, teacher?"  This is funny for two reasons- 1) He was trying to ask how old I am- obviously didn't quite come across that way! and 2) When they ask a question in German here they usually either start or end with saying "Frau Professor", so he took that and changed it to English as best he could.  Anyway, I had a lot of fun with them, and they were really enthusiastic about everything, even if they didn't understand much!  The other 1st form was doing body parts, so I thought I'd teach them Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, maybe play some Simon Says (Simon Says touch your right elbow to your left knee!- you'd better all be doing it, or Simon will know!). When it came time to leave what was in the book and do my own thing their teacher jumped in and made us go back to the book, so I was a bit disappointed.  We listened, sang, and danced to the song provided by the book writers- which was a very strange, awful techno song- it seemed like a bad joke to me.  The kids all thought it was hilarious, and they got to dance around and be silly.

Wednesday I really filled up my day because I'd been so bored on Tuesday with only two lessons.  I taught 5 lessons, 3 of which were about Thanksgiving.  In one of the Thanksgiving lessons I asked them what they think we eat for Thanksgiving, and after giving me a few dishes (Turkey, mashed potatoes...) they broke down and started giving me ingredients they thought we might use (onions, butter, salt).  The teacher and I just started laughing at them.  One lesson was another book lesson- but it was the last lesson before the test, so I didn't mind as much that we had to stick with the book topics.  In my last lesson (for the two hour Wahlpflichtfach) we wrapped up their last unit, and started talking about American High Schools- more specifically high school sports.  Most of that class are guys from the handballer class, so I thought the topic would be interesting to them, and I think they like the movie I picked too; we're watching Coach Carter.

I teach at Berndorf on Mondays and Thursdays, and I have a pretty nice, set schedule.  I only change classes once a month, so I get a chance to know my students a bit more (although there's still a lot of them!), and I'm only with 6th-8th forms (think Sophomore-Seniors) so we can do more advanced lessons. There's a class of 10 8th form boys- most of whom are footballers- that I saw twice this week (since we started the week in November, and now its December).  I've been teaching them about US Government and Politics, and they've been telling me about Austrian holidays and family traditions.  The teacher for that class told me last week that she had told the boys they were going to be doing some reading during one of my classes with them, and they all protested, "It's Allison's hour!" "We want to talk to Allison!", so I thought that was pretty funny.  They've told me some pretty interesting things about the holidays and traditions around this time of year like the meaning of Advent Wreaths (nearly impossible for them to pronounce, they usually say reas-s or reafs), how they celebrate St. Nikolaus, what Perchten, Krampus, or Knecht Ruprecht are, how they celebrate Christmas (on the 24th of December- not the 25th), the history and importance of Christmas markets, and sort of randomly- one kid told me about Johan Hölzel, better known as 80s pop sensation Falco.  I have no idea what Falco has to do with holidays and traditions (as far as I know he never put out a Christmas album- I hope!); plus I've seen the movie Falco: Verdammt wir leben noch so I know a fair amount about him.

This post is already getting a bit long, so I'll just fill you in on some of the stranger or more interesting things they've told me.  Perchten and Krampus are nearly the same thing, and they're usually celebrated on December 5th (the day before St. Nikolaus).  People dress up in creepy devil masks, the more traditional ones are carved from wood and hand painted.  For Perchten they usually have a parade through the city center with torches and who knows what else (Perchten is on Sunday here in Baden- I'll fill you in a bit more after I've seen it).  For Krampus the people dressed as devils wander randomly through the town with bunches of evergreen branches that they use to beat people (or just hit them once or twice), they usually go for women and kids (not the really little ones- more like middle/high school kids).  As I understand it both of these traditions come from the story of Knecht Ruprecht.  He would go around with St. Nikolaus from house to house, and if the children were good they'd get candy and fruit from St. Nik, if they were bad Knecht Ruprecht would put them in a bag and beat them with a stick, or throw the bag in the river.  This is also where we get our Santa Claus that we have to be good boys and girls for- or else we'll get coal.  Obviously we've tamed it down a bit!

Some other interesting things the students told me is that Silent Night was written in Austria in the 1800s, I always thought it came from somewhere in Germany.  They also told me the first Christmas market ever was in Vienna (the one in front of the Rathaus that I'll be going to see today), and it was first mentioned in writings from the 1200s.  I couldn't verify this, Wikipedia doesn't say anything about it.  They also told me that we get the name Chris Kringle (Santa's name) from the German term Christkindl(markt), a German term for the Christmas markets.  I can see that.

In one of my other classes yesterday we got a really good debate going about smoking in Austria, the laws involved with it, and where people should/shouldn't be able to smoke.  I was surprised at how many people really stayed on their side of the issue and argued with people of the opposing opinion.  In the US it's really not hard to get students to debate each other- but here it's usually like pulling teeth! They don't want to disagree- so they all end up changing sides saying things like, "I understand what you're saying and I agree." when they're supposed to disagree!  If you assign them an opinion they have to argue for they have a really hard time pretending it's their opinion... so usually I avoid having them debate something because it's just pointless.  However, this class did an excellent job, I even got to jump in and mediate, I was very proud of them!

I've also noticed that most students here want to be on exactly the same level as their peers- they don't want to be better than the others.  So in one exercise when they were supposed to be comparing themselves to someone else if a student said, "I think _____ is cleverer than me." The student they named as cleverer always had to put up their hand and say something like, "I don't think that's correct, because _____ always does better than me at _____." or something similar... They don't mind putting themselves down as being bad at something, but they don't want anyone to think they're good at something.  I find it a very interesting cultural phenomenon.

All along I've been seeing strange or wrong things in the textbooks here, but this week I've really been noticing it.  Some of the stuff that I don't like turns out to just be British English, which I have a hard time not correcting (If I ever say "at the weekend" kick me!).  One of the funny examples from this week is "a pot plant" apparently in British this is simply a potted plant, but I think of marijuana every time I see it.  I asked Liz, a British friend of mine here, and she said it's just a potted plant, but when she googled "A pot plant" only one variety of potted plant appeared!  Some of the other stuff is just wrong, especially when it comes to adding articles like "the" "a" and "an", but the teachers are sure that because it's printed word it must be correct and I'm wrong.  I think I'll stop bothering trying to correct the book- it's just not worth it in most cases!

If you've read this far- congratulations! You're nearing the end, and this is the non-school related fun!  Last night I met up with Liz (Brit), Steffi (Austrian), Kittle and Kate (both American) in Baden, and we went out for Punsch, Glühwein and other Christmas related drinks at the Badener Adventmeile (or christmas market).  It was a lot of fun just hanging out, swapping stories, trying out all the different drinks and standing around a hot mushroom (the literal translation of the German word for one of those big outdoor propane heaters- they do look like large mushrooms!).  There was also the most eclectic live band playing by one of the huts.  They played everything from 1920s swing, to early 90s country; including My Achy Breaky Heart- which, judging by the crowds reaction, is an absolute favorite here!  Everyone was tapping their toes, singing to the chorus, bopping their heads- it was pretty funny.  After nearly 3 hours of standing around outside we were all pretty cold, and our feet hurt so we split up and went home.

Today I'm going to go get some of my Christmas shopping done, and check out some of the Christmas markets in Vienna.  As of yet we don't have any snow here- which is turning out to be a really big problem for all of Austria- even the Alps are lacking in snow!  Hope we get some soon!