Quiet weekend...

Yup, that's what I'm having. It's rare that I have a weekend like this, so it feels a bit odd. I've gotten a bit of work done, relaxed....it's not been too bad. If we gloss over the terrifyingly heavy rain that's been battering seven bells out of my flat recently, that is. Quite what's taken over the seemingly schizophrenic weather here, I don't know, but it went from sunny and 20 degrees to torrential (and I mean *torrential*) rain in the space of 5 minutes.

So anyway, I'm trying to get work done on essay #2 just now. It's tricky starting essays, I always find, so I'm trying to be productive in other ways, by reading, researching etc...and trying to get a proper start on the actual text of it, that reads well and sounds good. That's the theory, anyway. It's not as if I'm rushed here, I've got ages, so it's nothing to stress over at the moment.

So aside from that, life's not half bad at the moment. I've got precisely one month of work left, and it's not exactly going to be a busy one, given that a lot of my students have exams, thus limiting the number of hours I actually work...

On the less cheery side of things- my Rangers got unceremoniously hammered in their playoff series against the Devils, which blows. A fantastic example of how to lose a playoff series, including injuries to best players, and a complete and utter lack of scoring. Ach well, there's always next year. At least we had playoffs to watch this year....

Right, I think I should head back to my flat (I still use the internet connection in the student residence I used to live in - I am allowed to, before anybody accuses me of being a thieving bam). Gotta get some lunch, and some work done...and update this more often and make it more interesting! :)

Sunshine....

Yup, it looks like (crossing fingers), that the weather's decided to be nice. It was 22 degrees outside today, and I wore flip flops. Triumphantly.

Anyway, the last week or so's been fairly relaxing. I've had precious little in the way of work (I mean language assistanty work, not Uni work), thanks to holidays and 2 of my classes being in Ireland. It's been nice, I've gotten a fair bit of Uni stuff done mostly reading for essay #2, which is being started very soon.

I was in Vienna with Tasj at the weekend, which was grand. We actually did quite a lot - went up to the top of Kahlenberg (a decent sized hill/mountain outside Vienna) and walked all the way down and back into town, and watched quite a lot of Dawson's Creek, which she's got me liking...

Not a great deal else to report, strangely enough. I've got just over 5 weeks of work left here, which feels fairly strange. Plus, the Rangers are in the playoffs, which is even stranger. That said, they took an absolute kicking off the Devils in Game 1, so here's hoping for an improvement tonight...

Also, on a completely unrelated note, I've aquired in the last week: a haircut, thus curbing what was starting to look disturbingly like the beginings of a mullet, a new pair of shoes, which are rather comfy, and a suntan. Not bad for a weeks non-work :)

Right, I'm off to try and be productive.

I'm back!

Like the title says, I'm back in Krems after a week or so away. I've not got photos uploaded properly yet, but I'll post them soon...

Where to start? Well, Tasj and I cut our trip short by a couple of days as Tasj's great uncle isn't well, and there was/is the chance that she'll have to fly to Denmark at fairly short notice (though nothing yet, thankfully). So we came back to Vienna on Thursday. However, in the time we were away we still fitted in Salzburg and Innsbruck, both of which were really cool...

Salzburg's very pretty, in quite a touristy (not that that's a bad thing) way. It's got a massive castle (bigger than that. A fortress :)) on a hill right in the middle of the town, and loads of little alleys and streets in a beautiful old town. It does have a slightly unhealthy obsession with Mozart, but I guess that's to be expected :) We did loads - including going up a smallish (1300m) mountain just outside town, and enjoying the rather spectacular view from the top. We also successfully went up to the Fortress on the hill (without cheating and getting the funicular railway up... :)), which was also grand. And given that we were on holiday, we went out for dinner a lot - nothing overly flashy or expensive, but it was great. We felt rich :)

It was also one of the hottest days since I've been in Austria - glorious sunshine, and *gasp* temperatures above 20 degrees! That's nearly a 40 degree improvement over January....

So after a few days in Salzburg, it was onto Innsbruck, the capital of Tirol, and of weird accents. Innsbruck's really different to Salzburg. It's smaller, less busy and completely surrounded by the Alps, which makes it very very pretty. The old town's really cool...very compact, and full of little alleys and streets connected with eachother and spectacularly easy to get lost in. We went to the Alpenzoo (Europe's highest zoo, oh yes :)), which was cool - everybody loves a good zoo :) We also marvelled at how the weather could go from t-shirts and sunglasses baking heat in Salzburg on Saturday, to snow in Innsbruck a few days later....

We also saw one of the oddest things I've seen in a while. For Lent, apparently, they've made a little "modification" to the Cathedral - by placing 4 beehives in each corner above the entrance. Now, big Cathedrals are fairly large, echoey places, and it's truly bizarre to hear bees buzzing echoing around this enormous building. Quite how they plan to get them out, I have no idea...

Despite coming back a bit early, we had a grand time. It was nice to get away for a bit, without the pressure....well, my work involves little pressure at the moment....so without having to work at all. I'm still off work, and am heading back to Vienna to see folk tomorrow. I'll post a proper update with some of the many, many pictures we took last week, soon! :)

Anyway, back to work...

Playoffs!!!

Yup, that's where the Rangers are going for the first time in years after beating Philadelphia last night. I am rather delighted, to say the very least :)

Anyway, life's grand at the moment. I've just about gotten back to normal after the weekend, and I'm off again on Saturday....but I'm trying to be productive this week. Getting my CV written for employment/work experience over the summer, working out what I want to do after Uni (thinking of teaching or journalism) and useful thingsl like that :)

I'm fairly knackered at the moment, thanks to having first period classes all week (first period starts at 7:45 here....), but the holidays start on Saturday, so it's all good.

Right, that was about it, really...I'll have to think of something more interesting to rant about.

Later :)

Budapest

...is beautiful. I got back this morning after staying in Vienna last night, thanks to there being no trains back after 9. We had a fantastic, *fantastic* weekend.

We went out to the pub on Thursday, as it was my birthday, and that was grand fun. But onto Hungary...

So we arrived on Friday afternoon, all feeling fairly knackered and hungry ( No, that's a terrible joke, I'm not saying it...), but after a sly bite to eat we started walking. I'm fairly sure we didn't stop until last night, and my feet are killing me, but it was worth every second.

So anyway, Friday's highlights included the Chain Bridge and Castle Hill (both of which are fairly important and central), and St.Stephen's Basilica (Szent István-bazilika, though I'll save you the unpronouncable Hungarian from now on), and wandering round a lot of Pest followed by a meal of goulash with inordinately hot paprika stuff added to it :)

Anyway, Saturday was the only full day we had there, so we had to make the most of it. We left the hostel at 9ish and didn't come back for about 13 hours, so I think that should have done the trick. We wandered up Castle Hill to Buda, to marvel at the rather spectacular views there. A lot of the architecture is fairly Viennese looking, but still slightly different, but seen all at once...it's quite something. Anyway, we managed to find ourselves a guided tour of the Basilica, which by the way is enormous, which included going to the top of it (and it's the tallest building in Budapest), so there was even more stunning views from up there. At some point in between all this, I forget exactly when, there was a brief period of sitting in the baking sunshine drinking cocktails. I felt it was worth a mention.

Saturday ended by us getting on a boat up and down the ever-so-slightly flooded (more on that later) Danube. For just under a tenner, we got an hour on the river surrounded by a beautifully lit city, and champagne - can't complain about that!

Sunday involved more wandering (inadvertantly through an enormous political rally, with a stage and everything), a brief visit to a museum in the castle/palace and a train back to Vienna, through yet more copious flooding.

Anyway, the flooding - we noticed this when we arrived. Subtle as it was, the Danube was about 30 feet wider than it normally was. The trees and road signs sticking up out of the water gave it away. Good thing that most of the buildings are at least a sensible distance back from the river, otherwise you'd have had a particularly wet parliament. Anyway, the water rose considerably in the 3 days we were there, and I've got photos to prove it. A good contrast is the ones of the tram track - it goes along the river, then down underground, so there's a wall separating it from the grass (normally) or the expanded river (as it was at the weekend). This wall's about 10 or 15 feet high, and we went down to take a look at the water seeping through it as the water rose on the other side....we came back the next day to find the whole entrance to the tunnel submerged, with the water level equal on both sides. Crazy.

I'm sure I've missed out a few things, but basically we saw *loads* of the city and had an awesome time. It was great - I warmly recommend a trip there if at all possible!

So I'm back at work this week (not that I wasn't at work last week, just that the weekend felt like longer than a weekend), but only 4 days to go before the Easter holidays. All things considered, life's pretty good :)

(A few more photos of Budapest can be found HERE - I'll try and make it the best ones, as I took loads)