About a month ago I took the rather familiar flight to England. I had Semesterferien and also the third Genesis Sixteen course to look forward to, as well as a few visits to friends that I have dearly missed during the very difficult part of my life that is my Year Abroad!
Tim met me in London and I proceeded to embrace the warm feeling that is my love for England. I know what you’re all thinking; why would anyone miss the UK!? And I never thought I would, until I came here. I live in Vienna…it has recently been voted the best place to live in the world. It’s safe; it has an excellent healthcare system; excellent transport connections and the culture and history are amazing…but I could never leave England on a permanent basis. So, people, appreciate it while you can! Especially the food…right now I have a drawer filled with crème eggs, wispa golds, Cadbury bars, hobnobs etc…it helps J
The third Genesis Sixteen course was great but too short (again!) I’m really sad that there’s only one course left and really starting to freak out about singing in general, and what I’m going to do…but that’s not even relevant. Seeing everyone and singing together again was great. On the last evening when we were on our way to our group meal, it snowed a LOT. I was gobsmacked because from what I have heard it doesn’t snow much in London and it was way more than I had seen in Vienna at that point! But it made the whole visit very magical J
The day after the course finished, I went to Xscape in Milton Keynes with Tim to start learning how to ski! We decided we didn’t want to waste time on this when he came to Austria, so did it in England instead. It was way more fun than I expected…more on that later.
Next up in my visit to England was Durham! It. Was. Amazing. Just getting off the train to that amazing view of the Cathedral and the Castle made me want to cry. I forgot how much I love that city. I met up with my lovely college friends for lunch, spent lots of time with my first-year roommate, sang evensong with my college choir and ended the night in Spoons with my college son and dear friends from choir. I just couldn’t stop shouting “I’m just so happy to be here!!!” with tears in my eyes and they thought I was bonkers. Aside from the whole forgetting how to write essays thing…I really am looking forward to my final year J Being in a choir and having friends in other years is so awesome because it means not all my friends will have graduated when I get back, so it’s not so daunting.
After this, I visited Phil, one of my singer friends. We go way back and everytime we see each other it’s as if we’ve never left. We had a girly night in with chinese food and movies.
I ended Semesterferien by going back to London and spending a few more days with Tim, which included more skiing lessons, Frankie and Benny’s (yay!) and a visit to tesco to stock up on proper chocolate. I just checked my bank statement and I spent £32 on that shopping trip…!
Coming back to Vienna was difficult after being in England for so long, but I’m definitely back in the swing of things now. I had a week of semi-normality. Teaching resumed. I have finally, finally, really got into this teaching thing. So much that I’m actually wishing I had more hours…I only have 13 hours a week of classes. And it’s not even 13 hours because each lesson is 50 minutes long. I know my students so much better now and have a good laugh with them. I have completely relaxed about the whole thing and I’m really enjoying it, so I really want to do it more often! But such is the life of a teaching assistant.
A week later, Tim had reading week so came to visit. It was such an amazing week J We started off with a belated Valentine’s meal at the Donauturm restaurant. The Donauturm is a tower 252m high and has a restaurant at the top! It moves around so that the view of Vienna is always changing as you sit and eat your meal. Afterwards we met up with Tara and did Charlie P’s (even though nobody else seemed to be up for it!). Sadly, Tim had to sit through my terrible karaoke but all in all it was a good night. Pictures to prove it:
On the Wednesday afternoon, after I had finished school, and all day on Friday – we went skiing! I really never imagined myself enjoying it but I absolutely loved it. It was tough to start with; I remember saying the word ‘can’t’ an awful lot and having a few tantrums which Tim had to deal with (lucky him…) but once that was out the way it was great. I did have a slight Bridget Jones moment when I fell over with my skis pointing down the mountain…and proceeded to carry on hurtling down screaming “I’m going to die!!!”…but hey ho. The views from the top of the mountain were absolutely breathtaking and it was worth it just for that! We are probably going again at Easter when I have a holiday, as that’s the last week of the skiing season. Here's a couple of pictures of us:
A little less scary than the skiing was ice skating. At the moment Vienna has the most amazing temporary ice rink open in front of the Rathaus. We went one evening with Tara and had a lot of fun. It was weird wearing ice skates after skis though…more pictures...
Tim has gone home now and I’ve been chundering along with life. I’ve been to see another opera (Carmen), been to see a German film (well, French, but dubbed), finished reading the second Harry Potter in German (totally addicted at the moment…) and I’m looking forward to lots of choir rehearsals, starting my language course and generally trying to fit as much German/being cultural into these last three months as I can!
Bis Bald J
