Catching Up/ Cram Session

Sooo.  I have not updated in 2 and a half months.  I am terribly sorry.  Unfortunately this means I am going to update this time in a fast-paced, action-packed, bullet-point format (please enjoy the hyphens).

BARCELONA: William and I head to Barcelona Feb 23 -27:

• We check out La Sagrada Familia - the architect Gaudi's design, a giant cathedral that has been under construction since the 1930's and is still not finished

The La Sagrada Familia

• We also took an architectural walking tour as suggested by William's guide book.  This meant I followed William around and he read to me interesting tidbits about the buildings we were passing.
• Interesting fact: The Spaniards in Barcelona speak Catalan as there main language, Spanish is secondary. 
• The OCEAN, wow.

 William and I

• The WEATHER, Austria was still cold and snowing and Barcelona felt like early summer.  Beautiful.  We rented bikes and biked all over the city.
• William and I went to lots of open air markets and bought delicious foods for picnics (ie. HUMMUS, which does not exist in Austria...YESSSS)
• My new best friend: The olive man. We bought special olives every day from the same guy and I loved him because we spoke Spanish together and he never switched to English.  I was very proud of my ability to say that I am American and would like a few olives.
• Tapas: William and I went to a tapas restaurant.  We were apparently supposed to order like one disk of tapas to share.  We ordered two...and almost finished it.  We decided everyone in the restaurant was judging us for being fatty Americans.

Conclusion:  Maybe I should have learned Spanish.  Barcelona is excellent.

Back to school:

• Austro-American Society Book Group: have been involved in the book group.  We have thus far discussed Freakonomics and Me Talk Pretty One Day.  Next we are reading The Reluctant Fundamentalist. It has been nice discussing the books with a mixed group of Americans and Austrians of various ages.  Plus the Austro-American Society pays for our books and for the refreshments at the meetings. :-)
• I dyed my hair.  BRIGHT RED.  It was crazy for a while, then it faded to a more normal hue.  

 photos of red hair right after it was dyed...

• Taught lessons on: Study abroad, Route 66, Multiculturalism and Immigration, the Academy Awards, advertising, Ireland, opinion essays, St. Patrick's Day, Facebook and social networking, nuclear disasters (esp relating to Japan), children around the world, Ecotourism, the Revolutionary War, the American Dream....shout out to Anne Higgins: she sent a letter to my class about her job in Ecotourism and it was really helpful!!!
• One of my best friends, Calum, left in mid-March. :-( He is British and was only doing the teaching assistantship for a semester instead of a year.  We had a huge going-away party, during the course of which I fell on the stairs and sprained my ankle pretty badly.  I have not been able to jog since, but I am going next week for a check up so hopefully they will give me the go ahead on jogging considering the weather is so beautiful.
• After Calum left, I realized the year is almost over and started to get serious.  I was looking in earnest for a subletter, because I am not able to be released from my contract for my room here unless I find one.  This was stressful for several weeks, but I think I have got someone now.  
• I also started looking for a job about a month ago.  This is not going so well.  I have applied for like 14 jobs, got one interview, most of them never even wrote back to reject me.  I'm sure the process of applying for several jobs a week will continue for several months, but hopefully it will eventually yield something.  If not I will be back in Austria teaching again next year, which is better than sitting around my parents' house.

PROJECT WEEK: April 11-14 I was on a "project week" with one of my fifth form classes (15 year olds).  The theme was "sports and conversation."  Mostly it is like a week long field trip where the kids do fun activities and speak some English.

• The project week was in Palfau...a tiny town in Lower Austria that most Austrians haven't even heard of.  But it was very picturesque and in the mountains.
• Ernst (the elder) and a sports teacher named Iris were the other chaperones.
• The students did team building while we stood around in the rain and watched.
• On Wednesday it finally started to snow and we got to do archery with the students.  It was really a lot of fun even though I am horrible at it.
• I did English activities with the students in the evenings, like English Game Show and Guess That Action (basically charades) and they seemed to have a great time.  Apparently I got a very high score on the feedback sheets.
• The whole week we stayed at a Gasthaus that served traditional Austrian food in all it's greasy gloriousness: schnitzel, pancake/broth soup, kaiserschmarm (pancake strips and raisins), goulasch soup, various dumplings, cabbage strudel....
• I finally spoke some German with the students.  They thought it was hilarious: "Madeline, does our English sound silly to you like your German to us?" (imagine this said with a thick Austrian accent)

FAMILY SIGHTSEEING TOUR: From April 14 - April 24th I was touring around with my parents and brother!!!  Warning: My family really likes history and eating.  Pretty much all we did were these two things.  Also, I did not take any pictures, my family did.  But I don't have these yet, so you will have to make do with google.

• April 14 - 16 we were in Munich.  We went up the St. Peters Church for a nice view of the city. The next day we did a walking tour of the city center and saw the English gardens and various fancy churches.  My mom and I rented bikes and biked around the garden later in the afternoon, which was probably my favorite part of Munich.  My brother appeared in Munich on the 16th.
• April 16 - 18 we were in Salzburg.  I had never seen Salzburg before!  We took a city tour and once again saw some churches and squares and heard about history.  
• One important figure is Saint Rupert who in the 8th century came to Salzburg and built the first Christian churches.  He also named the city Salzburg for the profitable salt mining nearby.  Interestingly, Salzburg was not part of the Austrian Empire until 1805, before that it was an independent ruling body. 
• Another important figure is Prince-Archbishop Leonard von Keutschach who ruled Salzburg from 1442 - 1519, who is always pictured with a turnip (don't know why!).  We also saw the huge fortress up on the hill above Salzburg.  
• We visited Mozart's birthplace and living quarters - this was very interesting for me.  Mozart died when he was only 35 of a sudden, unexplainable fever.  Also, although Salzburg claims Mozart, Mozart never claimed Salzburg and preferred Vienna where he lived in his later life.

Salzburg

• April 18 - April 21 were spent in and around Linz.  
• On the 19th we went out to St. Florian's abbey in the nearby town of St. Florian.  St. Florian was an Austrian Christian that was martyred by being thrown into a steam with a millstone around his neck, so there were lots of images of him in the church.  He is also now the patron saint of firemen, and is often pictured throwing a bucket of water.  This abbey is HUGE and beautiful.  They have some very old artwork that despite never being restored looks as bright today as it did 500 years ago.  We also saw a library that still owns about 35,000 really old books and looks exactly like the library in Beauty and the Beast.  We also visited the crypt.  Anton Bruckner, the famous composer and organ player, is interred here underneath where his favorite organ still sits in the church above.  Behind his casket is a stack of 6000 skulls and crossbones which were found near the abbey in a landslide.  These were early Christians who wanted to be buried near the Christian abbey.

 St. Florian's Abbey

The library

The 6,000 skull and crossbones

•  In Linz, we did the same walking tour that I did back in October (in previous posts you can read about the contents).  My parents loved Johann, the guide.  We saw the old castle, various churches, and got to sit down during the tour for a taste of Linz's famous Linzer torte.
• On evening of Wednesday, April 20th my family and I were invited to Ernst (the elder)'s house for dinner.  He lives in a tiny town outside of Amstetten in lower Austria.  It is up in the mountains and affords an incredible view.  He gave us a tour of the garden and his wife fed us some incredible salad, beef rolls, dumplings, and strudel.  My parents were very impressed with the view, the area, and the generosity!
• April 21 - April 24 we were in Vienna.  
• Historical preface: the Austrian Empire (which, if you remember, did not include Salzburg until 1805) was ruled by the Habsburg family from the 1200 until World War I.  Most of what we saw in Vienna dealt with the Habsburgs.
• The first day we walked around the grounds of Schoenbrunn Palace (which is the Habsburg's Summer Palace), but the lines to get in were outrageously long. So, we went to the Hofburg Palace instead (their winter palace), saw the silver museum (what's the point?  Who cares to look at room upon room of the Habsburg's dishes?).  But the Sisi Museum and the royal apartments were also part of the Hofsburg tour, and those were more interesting. (more on that later).  We also went shopping and Mike bought some awesome flower pictures for his house that are over 100 years old.

 Hofburg Palace (winter Palace)

• Mike had to leave really early the next morning at like 4 am...but my parents and I returned to Schoenbrunn early to avoid the crowds and got to tour the inside.  We also went to the Schoenbrunn zoo and saw lots of animals napping.

Schoenbrunn Palace (summer palace)

• History Highlights and Habsburg Celebrities: 
• Maria Theresa was the Habsburg Empress in the 1700s.  She had 16 children and is the one who decorated and designed much of Schoenbrunn as it is today.  She was apparently over 400 pounds in later years and had to be carried around in a palanquin, but according to some quotes from her she was very happy and loved her husband, Franz I, very much.

 Maria Theresa

• Franz Josef: emperor starting at the age of 18, from 1830 - 1916. Franz Josef had very interesting facial hair (see below).  He is much loved in Austria and apparently got up at 4 am every morning to work on the affairs of state.  His life was plagued with tragedy: his brother, emperor of Mexico, was assassinated by Mexican rebels, his eldest daughter died at the age of two, his son and heir to the throne, Crown Prince Rudolf, committed suicide in 1889 at the age of 31, his beloved wife Sisi was assassinated in 1898, his nephew and subsequent heir, Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated precipitating the onset of WWI. Unfortunately for Franz Josef this time in history was rife with revolutions (France, Mexico, Russia...), so assassinations were apparently common.

 Franz Josef

• Sisi, or Elisabeth of Bavaria:  Sisi is the tragic, beautiful, haunted empress of Austria.  She married Franz Josef at the age of 15, but seemingly did not love him.  She hated the life of a royal and the institution of marriage and struggled against it her whole life.  She was seemingly depressed and had strange eating disorders.  However, she was extremely beautiful (and vain) and was known as the most beautiful queen in Europe for her whole life. After her son, Rudolf, committed suicide, she remained in mourning for the rest of her life.  She was assassinated by an anarchist in Geneva, Switzerland, who stabbed her in the heart with a sharpened file.  Upon her death her husband reportedly said, "She will never know how much I loved her."

 Portrait and photo of Sisi

• So Vienna was very interesting, and incidentally I am fascinated with Habsburgs - kind of like how I was fascinated with Romanovs a couple of years ago...oh me and the royals.

Hope some of this was interesting to you, I tried to cram in so much!!!