Dear England,

Well, I was intending to write every week, but unsurprisingly that has not happened. The past three weeks have been a mixture being busy and excited and bored and overwhelmed, settling in, making friends, feeling lonely and homesick, enjoying Austria, doing and waiting and forgetting to do and worrying and making a big mess of my flat and now cleaning it up again. I have learnt so much and the more I know, the more I realise I have still to learn.

I wish I had brought a jar of marmite with me.

Here is a summary of everything I have been up to:

Week Two
This was a week of training in Hinterglemm, Salzburg. I had been really excited about meeting the other assistants and making some more friends, but forgot that it would take time, so when we were in the awkward first stage of meeting and getting to know each other I was really discouraged and missed my friends back home a lot. However, after a few more days I was feeling better and ended up having a really good time. We learnt a lot about teaching. We were lead up a mountain by a man wearing Lederhosen (he got us lost). By the time we reached the summit, we were exhausted, but cooled down with some lovely Austrian beer.  And as if all of that were not Austrian enough, our trainers had organised a demonstration of traditional Austrian dancing and music. An alpine horn, edelweiss on the cowbells and 'schuhplattlern' (the famous dancing with thigh-slapping and more Lederhosen!). It was great!
The food was pretty good too, but very salty.

Week Three
My first week of teaching. I introduced myself about ten times (and I'm still not finished with introduction lessons). One class was so enthusiastic that I didn't even need my powerpoint because they asked so many questions. At another, I used the powerpoint, two games and everything else I could think of to get them talking, but still finished ten minutes before the lesson. The teacher let me go early. The rest of the classes were somewhere in between, although somebody in my last class on Friday got hold of the remote control to the projector and was flicking through my slides and typing on them as I was trying to give my presentation. I still don't know who it was, but I am tempted to put ultra-violet ink on it next time and catch them out!
The best bit of last week was Thursday afternoon, when Heinz, Ulli and two of their friends all went out to a Buschenschank and took me with them. I thought it was going to be a sort of fair, totally misunderstanding the German. Instead, we went to a restaurant and drank apple juice and elderberry cordial and ate Jause, which is often translated as 'snack', but was much more filling than that; it was my lunch and my dinner. The waitress brought us a big basket of bread to share and then platters of meat and cheese and grapes and a kind of lard spread, like dripping. It was delicious! The others talked very quickly in dialect to one another, but made a special effort to translate into high German or English for me. They roared with laughter when I tried out the only phrase I knew in dialect (I bi heu dramhappat - I'm exhausted). There was a lovely atmosphere; relaxed and chaotic at the same time. It was obvious that the two couples were very good friends. I felt as though I was seeing a very beautiful and private side of Austrian life, and truly experiencing the famous Austrian gemütlichkeit*.

Week Four
I did some teaching on Tuesday (more introductions). I will be teaching again tomorrow too, but as Wednesday is a regional holiday**, yesterday and today are free for me. So on Tuesday evening lots of assistants took the opportunity to meet up and get to know our counterparts. We were a mixture of French, English, American, Spanish and Italian assistants, with a couple of university students there too; one from Austria and one from Germany. That was fun too, but there was more smoking than I would have liked - every time I go to a pub here, my clothes come back reeking of smoke! I'm looking forward to meeting up with some people to do something other than going out for drinks. We haven't agreed on a date yet, but some of us were talking about getting together for baking.
I missed church on Sunday because I got really lost on my bike, hurt my ankle, gave up and came home. I didn't go to home group yesterday either because I forgot. I'm really annoyed about both of those things, but I think I'm going to another church this weekend which is a bit closer to home.
My last bit of news before we get on to the 'regular' sections: I have a Dirndl! I'm so excited, and I will put up pictures when I have them, but as a bit of a clue, the one in the picture above is pretty similar to mine.

Regular Slots

Nutella level: low. I have nearly finished my first jar. My downfall was finding out that nutella hot chocolate is not only delicious, but really easy to make (milk + nutella + microwave = possibly not fitting into my new Dirndl for long-oops!)

New words
I can't really think of any new words from this week, but I have learnt a new phrase in dialect:
Schau ma mal - let's have a look/we'll see/maybe


Hopefully I will write a bit more often now. I am beginning to love it here but I still miss you very much.

Bryony xxx

*It means "a situation that induces a cheerful mood and peace of mind, with connotations of belonging, social acceptance, cosiness and unhurry."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gem%C3%BCtlichkeit)
**to celebrate the fact that Carinthians were allowed to vote on whether they would become part of Slovenia or Austria in 1920.