Woche Eins: Ulli und Heinz!

My internet was not working very well last week, which is why this post is late.

Day seven and my first week in Austria has been a success. Nao suggested I write about my favourite bits of each week, so here are some of my highlights from week one:

·         Heinz and Ulli have to be at number one.  Best landlords ever!

·         800g jars of nutella. Either Nao or Tom (can’t remember who, sorry!) gave me the idea of posting my weekly nutella consumption, so here it is:

Week 1 nutella jar level: Almost Full

  Total nutella consumed since arrival: A smidgeon!

·         Meeting my mentor teachers. One of them showed me around his school, introduced me to teachers and generally put me at ease about starting work. The other didn’t show me the school at all, but took me out to coffee instead! She treated me to my first authentic Austrian apple strudel and talked more specifically about what I would be doing in lessons. We got to have a proper chat and get to know each other. The first was almost completely in English and the second was nearly all in German. I loved having both types of meeting and I’m so excited about starting work!

·         The water hydrants. Some of them just look like this...

...but there are others that look like these...

 ...this one is outside the Unfallkrankenhaus (A and E) and is covered in blood and bruises and plasters:

 They were painted by teenagers as part of a community project.  I think they are brilliant!

·         My first friend. She’s a teaching assistant called Amanda from Chicago. She’s good fun and is just as indecisive as I am, so it’s difficult to get anything done between us! She was in a sorority, which is, like, totally awesome*! And she thought it was really funny when I said “brilliant”. I don’t know, either.

·         Being called a “Prinzessin”! A man drove past me on a mobility scooter on Wednesday and said (in German) “Sorry, all the seats are taken! Have a nice day, princess!” That cheered me up.

Tom has been requesting advanced German lessons as he feels he needs some help in progressing beyond the challenges of “Was ist deine Lieblingsgruppe?”, to which he always replies “Meine Lieblingsgruppe ist fünf”**. You can tell when he went to school! Anyway, I thought I might include the new words I learn each week, so you can be sure you are learning something with real life applications, unlike some of the phrases I had to translate for him when he did his German lent challenge^. Here they are:

Neugierig-curious (neugieriger und neugieriger – curiouser and curiouser)

Kuemmel-I thought I was buying cumin, but apparently that is Kreuzkuemmel. I had actually bought caraway seed, which I had never used before. Still, it went very nicely with my carrots!

Jungzwiebel-Spring onion

Gruess Gott-this literally means “God bless”, but here it is part of the regional dialect and is used as a general greeting, especially between people who don’t know each other very well. You say it to people working in shops or cafes, to neighbours and to strangers on the street.

*You have to say that bit in an American accent.

**What is your favourite group? My favourite group is five.

^E.g. Entschuldigungen Sie mir bitte. Ich muss gehen. Meine Giraffe steht in Flammen=Excuse me please. I have to go. My giraffe is on fire.

Dear Home...

It is day number three and certain family members are urging me to write. It probably will be now or never, to be honest! I'm not sure what to write because it has been so long coming; it is difficult to know where to begin. Organising everything seems so far away now. I had to organise insurance, which nearly drove me crazy. I booked my flights, packed my bags and did hundreds of other sorting out and tidying up type jobs. And now I'm here.

The flight was amazing. I actually wrote a lot on the plane, intending to write and tell you about it, but decided it was too embarrassing. I have not flown very much since we came back from Nepal when I was four; only once to Cologne with my mum in 2009. This was painfully obvious in my excited ramblings about clouds.

My new landlord picked me up from the airport. He and his wife have been brilliant. Today, for example, I went to ask him to sign a form for me and his wife offered me soup she had made from home-grown vegetables and Kaiserschmarrn*. I accepted, of course! Then she took me to the supermarket in her car to do my first grocery shop and helped me with the overwhelming choice. This evening, my landlord told me he had looked up the best deal for my new Austrian simcard (they are lending me a handset) and told me all about it so that I could order it online.

Kaiserschmarrn, an Austrian
dessert like a cross between a
pancake and a waffle, served
with jam. 

Tomorrow I am going to the town hall to submit a form. Not very exciting, but one of the other speaking assistants suggested we go together and I am really looking forward to meeting her. It is a bit lonely so far. It will be good to get my schedule so I can start joining clubs and making friends. This year I want to try skiing and learn to ride! I'm also looking forward to Sunday, because I didn't make it to church yesterday.

I hope you are all doing well at home (and abroad). I miss you.

Lots of love,
Bryony
xxx