Time flies...

...it does. I'm moving out of my flat tomorrow...! So this is pretty much the last time I'm going to be here in Krems and able to post on this until I'm at home. When, of course, I'll be at home and able to post on this, not in Krems....

Anyway, had a fairly quiet week. I've had a bunch of really-not-very-exciting stuff to do (deregistering my address, closing my bank account, vaguely thinking about packing....) The highlights have been teachers and classes giving me stuff to say thanks for my work this year. And with them being Austrian, it's largely wine. Good wine. So I'm pleased :) Now I just need to work out how to get it home...

My last week in Austria, then, will be being spent largely on holiday. Me and Tasj are going to Bad Gastein on Friday (a spa town in the mountains :)), then down to the Wörthersee (a big lake in Carintha/Kärnten, near the Slovenian border), to relax and chill, then coming back to Vienna next Tuesday.

I'll quite probably write a long spiel about the whole year here when I'm back and settled back in. I'm really not particularly organised at the moment, and have been really busy recently. Still, I've got loads of time when I get back - nearly two months to relax, finish off Uni work for next year, see friends....then in August I'm employed as a rickshaw rider in Edinburgh (don't laugh, it's during the Festival and I plan to make a large sum of money!), and get to test out the comforts of my new flat. All in all, it should be fun.

Oh, and I'm going to see Guns 'n Roses in July, having just been offered a ticket by a friend of mine over MSN. That should be entertaining :)

So, that's it for Austria just now. I'll have a big rant about it when I'm back home....

Nearly done...

Well, there it is. Two weeks of work left, and I'm out of here a week afterwards. Odd feeling, that is. I think I'm going to miss it here. I mean, I have reservations about any country which still believes that The Bold and The Beautiful is perfectly acceptable television, but there's a bunch of stuff I've gotten really used to. Work, for example. I really enjoy working here - it's interesting, fun and educational (and they pay me too :)), and I'll genuinely miss various teachers/students that I've gotten to know.

That said, there's always a few things I could do without. The excessively changable weather, for example. I mean, it's fairly stable and nice at the moment (though it bucketed it down earlier today, for an hour, then became sunny again), but at least at home I *know* that it's probabaly going to rain, and am seldom surprised when out walking round in a t-shirt, shorts and sandals....

Basically though, I've had a *fantastic* time here, and it's gone by scarily quickly. I'd warmly recommend the experience to anybody who'd care to listen. It's great fun, and is the best way to improve language skills too. Living in and absorbing other cultures isn't something that one might get to do often, so I'm really happy I've lived here doing precisely that.

Still, home is home, and therefore should be fun. I've got a bunch of stuff to do over the summer (due to a probable lack of regular summer employment for the first time in years, I'll have loads of time!), so it's not as if I'm going to be sitting bored out of my mind either.

Anyhow, no update in a week or so, largely because I keep forgetting. I've been having fun - I've got precious little work-work to do at the moment (Uni-work is another matter though!), thanks to school trips, exams, teachers being ill or just about anything else that you can think of. Went out for dinner with the girls and a bunch of their Uni friends in Vienna on Sunday, which was really nice. All you can eat Chinese/Japanese buffet for €14....it was well nice. That said, I still have reservations regarding raw fish.

I've got one of my dear older brother visiting me this weekend, which should be fun. I've been making plans, including a visit to Schönbrunn in Vienna, and Melk (about halfway between here and Linz, and home of an inordinately large monestary overlooking the Danube), so that should be fun. Plus, we get to go to Die Bar, to be amused by Pauli (the bartender, who's a total legend, and has the funniest accent I think I've ever heard)...

Dammit!!

Curses! Kim beat me. Granted, I'd like to point out that she finished her essay before I even saw her little challenge, but still. It's motivated me to get more work done, so it's not all bad!! :)

Anyway, what's up? I'm having a fairly good weekend so far - spent yesterday with the Jenny/ies admiring the prettiness of the Danube Valley around where I live, and a wee trip to Dürnstein. All good fun, really :)

I've not really been up to that much recently. My "job" was ridiculous last week - thanks to exams, tests, class trips etc...I had 4 of the 15 classes I'm supposed to do in a week. I was not a busy man. I did, however, make a couple of sly purchases - a live Sugarcult album and the new Less Than Jake album (limited edition, no less. Comes out in the 21st, I think :)), which will keep me entertained for a while, along with the new Chillis album tomorrow.

It also turns out that my last month here (starting today) is broken up regularly by various things. My flatmate's boyfriend is here for the next week, the week after that my dear brother is coming over for a long weekend, and two weeks after that there's talk of a trip to Italy before I go home...it's going to go scarily quickly. In between that I have a reading list the length of my arm to get my teeth into (man, two body-related metaphors in one sentence!) and another essay to write. Yup, it's all exciting at chez Mike.

Anyway, the internet's way to distracting, and I've got work to do. Before American Pie's on in German on TV tonight.....