When life hands me lemons... I go to a spa.

One of the outdoor thermal baths at the spa in Blumau (where I'll be on Saturday).

I've certainly slacked off on the blog for awhile... but that's mostly because life here hasn't been incredibly interesting in the past two weeks.

Last week I went to Vienna 3 times, 2 of which were to get my apartment key replaced (who knew it took a day to make a key?!?) after it fell out of my bag somewhere between Istanbul and Vienna.  On Wednesday I went with a group of students from Gainfarn and one of my co-teachers to see The Hunger Games movie.  We read the book as a class, and it's been a lot of fun for me to teach and discuss this book with them.  In the end we were all disappointed in the lack of character development in the movie, they spent too much time on the beginning of the book and setting up the Games, and then there wasn't enough time left to really show what happened in the Games.  I'm looking forward to our next class discussion so we can really talk about the changes they made to the movie.

In other news from the Bad Vöslau-Gainfarn school, the Handball boys have made it to the Semi-Finals in the World Handball Championship for schools.  It's pretty cool, and it seems entirely possible that they'll win the whole thing.  However, I don't envy their usual teachers trying to teach them anything after they become world champions...

My other school in Berndorf is pretty disappointed that I wasn't placed there for next year.  I would also really like to be back there, I really like my colleagues and students there.  My main co-teacher there is working with the Direktor (Principal) to get me placed back with them next year, but I'm not sure if they'll be able to work it out.  It's certainly nice to know that they want me back next year, and that they're willing to fight to have me!

This week hasn't really been my best week here... so I'm not going to spend too much time writing about it because really I'd rather forget most of it.  I haven't been sleeping well, waking up at about 4/4:30 most days (today I slept in until 5:30...excitement), which leads to me feeling like a walking Zombie all day.  There have also been a few lessons where the students have just been totally uncontrollable, and I've also had some frustrations with the bureaucracy here... Honestly Austrian bureaucracy is so thick you couldn't cut through it with a diamond toothed chain saw. I've also been really busy with extra lessons, tutoring hours and errands this week, so I haven't really had much free time- and let's face it, I've gotten rather used to having a ton of free time.

Today I'm heading down to Graz to see my friends Kristin and Domenica, for what might be the last time this year.  We have reservations at a Thermal bath/spa for tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to getting some much-needed relaxation!  We're going to Blumau, which is the Hundertwasser Hotel/Spa; I went twice when I studied at Uni Graz, it's a beautiful and extensive spa full of all different pools and saunas.  On Sunday I'll be back in Baden, and my friend Micha is coming down from Germany for a week long visit!  I'm excited to show him some of Eastern Austria, and explore some more of the area myself.

I'm glad this week is over, especially since this weekend and next week should be a ton of fun!

p.s. All the pictures from Istanbul are up and captioned- SmugMug