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 :)
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 :)
posted by Mike | 12:17 am
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