The new place

It's been a week of adjustments here for me!  I moved into a new apartment last weekend, so I had to unpack all my stuff and figure out where everything is here and on this side of town.  It was also the first week back at school from vacation, so that took some adjusting for me, the teachers and the students.

My new apartment is really nice! Plus there's the added advantage of everything working!  I have a flat mate now, she's another English TA from Britain, and we get along well.  We have a lot in common, and we have a lot of laughs, especially when we try to mock each other's accents.  By the time I come home I'll have perfected my awful (ever changing) British/Irish/Scottish (and sometimes Indian) accent, and Liz will be able to do the Sconnie accent with equal success!  I now live on the edge of town (nearly in Pfaffstätten), so it takes longer to get to downtown or the train station, but there are some other shops around here, and there's more to explore.  Around the corner from us is the race track (for horses); there are also a lot of schools in the area, of course we don't work at any of them... but whatever!  One of the schools near me here would've been the perfect school for my mom, it's for bakers, confectioners and dental hygienists.  Strange combination I know, but it would've been fitting for her, if she went to school here in Baden.

On Thursday night some of Liz's students from the Social Work school here in Baden (which is also a boarding school) invited us out to Karaoke with them.  The decided that we had to sing in German, and they would sing in English, so we sang 99 Luftballons, which was fine for the 1st verse, but after that neither of us knew the words and I just ended up laughing a lot.  We had a lot of fun with them, and saw some of the night life Baden has to offer, there's not a lot, but it is what you make it!

Friday I had to go to the city center and register where I live with the city, change my address at the bank, and run some general errands.  The whole time I was out and about the city was surrounded by dark storm clouds, but it didn't start until I got home again.  Then there was thunder, lightening and SNOW! It was the first snow here in Baden, and it actually stuck (until about noon yesterday).  It looked like those little styrofoam balls falling from the sky since the flakes were so big.  It actually snowed again yesterday afternoon/evening, so there was snow again this morning, but who knows how long it will last, and it's not very thick on the ground.  Some kids took all the snow (literally) in the backyard to make a snowman, which is now a sort of 1/2 melty slush pile filled with leaves, grass and twigs.

Yesterday my friend Johannes and his wife Amy stopped by after a shopping trip to Vienna.  We went to a Heurige in Sooß for some wine and a light lunch.  It was fun to see them both again, and to visit yet another Heurige in the area.  I didn't have my camera with me, but I wish I would've so I could've taken a picture of their sign.  One of the special things they were advertising was their Jungwein Denise (Jungwein is the new wine from this year), it was a Blauer Portugesier (a red wine), and I'm not sure why they called it Denise since that's not a common name, but I thought it was funny.

One drawback to the new place- I have limited internet (9 gigs per month), so you'll have to wait for photos til I can upload them at school.

Hope you're all having a good winter, stay safe & warm!