That was a fun weekend....

...but I'll talk about that in a minute :)

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I'm currently listening to a radio programme, recorded last Friday, on my laptop - it's from Virgin, and it's Pete and Geoff's breakfast show, and it's the last one ever! I was gutted to learn about that...I'm not much of a radio listener, but Virgin's pretty good and they were the funniest two presenters. Gutting. Still, the last show itself was pretty funny, given that they were pretty much having a party the whole time, and may or may not have been a bit drunk :)

Anyway, the weekend - lots of fun, it was! Two friends of mine from around here were celebrating birthdays, so we went to Vienna to party. What began as a party in Carmen's flat ended up moving to a club in town, in which we stayed rather a long time.....suffice it to say that I was a bit knackered on Sunday :) It was really good fun - clubs can be pretty dodgy (particularly if they have a love of techno), but this one played, by and large, decent music. Some of it was a bit too 80s, but you can't have everything. One highlight was some of the Pulp Fiction soundtrack being played, prompting many people to try and dance like John Travolta.... :)

So I've been at school all morning, doing what I do, which has been fun. This is the start of my last week 'till next year, so lessons have taken a rather unsurprising Christmas-themed direction, which is fun. Everything's getting rather Christmassy, and I'm still rather inept at buying gifts for people. I've still got family to buy stuff for....it will be done, and they'll be good, but I leave it a bit late!

The Rangers lost to the Avalanche last night, which was unfortunate. That said, it's the first time they've lost two straight home games all season, so it's a mark of how well they've been playing that a game like this is a disappointment, rather than the norm :)

What else...? Oh yeah, I read this,
http://entertainment.tv.yahoo.com/news/wwn/20051209/113414040002.html

...article, which amused me rather a lot. The perils of the internet, beware folks :)

Anyway, not much else to add, unfortunately! It's still absolutely baltic here (the river upgraded from having-chunks-of-ice-in-it, to being-completely-frozen-over the other day) and it's snowed some more, so everything looks white and pretty :)

Right, this afternoon I plan to A) Buy food, B) Plan an exciting lesson for my 5th form class tomorrow.....

I shall attempt to update this a little more frequently, but alas, I've been busy! Who'd have thought it....? :)

Lazing on a Sunday afternoon....

Okay, not quite an exact quote from the song, but I'm running out of decent titles to call these things...

Anyway, a week since my last update - I've not *actually* done that much in that time. I was successfully quite ill for a couple of days (helped by some medicine procured at a chemist in town. I successfully told him what was feeling dodgy, in German. Oh yes :)), but am way better now, with only a minor sniffle to complain about.

Had a fairly large shindig downstairs last night ,as it was 2 of the Erasmus student's birthdays, so everybody got together, and it was good fun! Odd as this may seem, but one of the better things about it (I thought, at least...) was that I can notice my German getting better, in that I can comfortably sit around speaking it about most things to folk who don't speak English, and they understand me! My grammar's not exactly perfect, but it does the job. They were impressed, which made me happy :)

What else, let's see....the Rangers beat the Blues last night despite, by all accounts, playing pretty badly. The winner was scored in OT by Martin Rucinsky, who took a shot which deflected off a Blues defenceman, off the plexiglass, off Patrick Lalime's ass and into the net. Funny old world.

Really not a great deal of interesting stuff to post, for which I duly apologise - I've done a grand total of....sod all today - was fully knackered from last night so slept for a good while, bought some food, watched some TV. I only actually saw people from half 2ish...they were all in bed 'till then :) It's been good though, despite doing nothing, I feel a bit recharged, which is all good!

12 days 'till I go home for Christmas....that's a scary thought. I'm sure I mentioned this the other day, but I was talking to Rachel about it yesterday, and it really, really doesn't feel like we've been here this long. I still remember Hollabrunn (where our week-long introductory course was at the end of September) as it it was last week, and I remember everything else I've done, and everywhere I've gone (Salzburg, Innsbruck, Vienna numerous times, Copenhagen....), but looking back it seems that the time between said events has kind of blurred together....my theory on this is that it still feels like this isn't "home", if you know what I mean, even though we're all really enjoying living here. After Christmas, when we're here for another 5 months, and will be more accustomed to everything, I reckon things will seem a bit more normal. That didn't sound quite right, but I can't think how else to say it! :)

Anyway, enough nonsensical rambling for now.....shall try and write something interesting in a day or two!

Later!

It's almost warm outside!

Well, almost. I mean, it's just above freezing :)

So, what have I been up to in this week of sparse updates? Well, there was an enormous gathering of international students (and lecturers, and hundreds of other randoms) here on Wednesday night, with a lot of free drinks and live music, which was generally great fun. The band were awesome, actually - two acoustic-guitar-toting Austrians, who played a bunch of stuff (bit of Counting Crows, some Jack Johnson, "Johnny B. Goode" by Chuck Berry. Oh, and a random Austrian song about getting drunk and going skiing, which got *every* Austrian in the room up and dancing :)), which was grand fun - I danced. Not often that I dance, and if you've ever witnessed it, you'd know why, but it's great fun. It's on my list of things-to-do-more-often :)

Went skating again on Friday, which was grand fun. Still baltic outside, but it felt good to skate again. I've gotta get me some skate, as the ones that you hire there are brutal...

My Rangers are still booting quite a lot of ass, despite a loss to the Capitals last night, so not a great deal to say there, aside from it's, mostly, all good!

I realised the other day that I'm only actually here for another 3 weeks (less than, in fact), which is really strange. Obviously, after Christmas, I come back for another 5 months, but it doesn't seem like I've been here for that long, yet I was last in Scotland on the twenty-somethingth of September. When I think about everything I've done since I got here, it seems longer, but it's going by quickly. I'm still having a great time here, but I am looking forward to going home - I won't have seen everybody for months, so it'll be great fun. Plus, I'm getting an affinity for this travel malarkey, and my journey home looks like a fun one - work 'till 1ish, then pack, eat, train to Vienna, train to the airport, flight to Frankfurt, flight to Edinburgh, drive home. I end up getting back at around 1 in the morning on, technically, Christmas Eve.

That reminds me, need to buy some Christmas presents for people.

Anyway, one of my classes this week was about politics - one of my older classes, so their English is superb. The small group I was with ended up discussing everything- Austrian politics, British politics, devolution, and it was really interesting. I think you don't realise a lot of thing about your country until you're not living there - I didn't, at least. It's odd, taking things for granted like that. It's even weirder having to try and explain the British political system - bits of it just don't make sense. Some questions I got asked.... - "Who elects the House of Lords?"...."If Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own parliaments/assemblies, why doesn't England?". The Austrians have a point, I think :)

I'm just rambling about nothing in particular, to be honest, but that really interested me, that lesson did - it's interesting to discuss stuff like this with people who don't inherently know things about a country (like how I don't know a lot about here, for example). Plus, they also asked about Christmas traditions, and little things like that, which was cool.

Anyway, not much planned for this week - got an email from Carmen, a friend of mine in Vienna, suggesting that a group of us go to Prague this weekend. It appears that Viennese schools have an extra day off compared to ours, as they get a long weekend this weekend, so I'm sadly not able to go. I'm not too gutted, as I've been to Prague before, and I'm sure I'll go back before my time here's done, so it's not so bad. Would've been fun, though! I want to go to one other place before Christmas....maybe Bratislava? It's close, and easy to get to, and I wanted to save Budapest and Lljubljana 'till next year, as they're worthy of a long weekend, rather than just a day (particularly as they're around 5 hours on a train...)

Right, to-do list for today- email people, choose my German options for 4th year, organise everything in my room, 'cause it's a shambles, and get dinner. Given that everything's closed on Sundays, I may resort to the permanently-open pizza place in town..... ;)

Later :)