Weekend Überblick
Friday
Friday ended up being a pretty good day. I only actually had one class to teach in Stockerau instead of two, which wouldn’t have been so bad if the teacher had actually told me for sure if I was going to be teaching or not. The one class I did teach was alright, though. We talked about the American school system and how it’s different from the Austrian one (not in great detail, though), and I brought my senior yearbook, which they found really interesting.
I must say, though, that 15-16 year olds are probably the most difficult students I’ve had to teach so far. It’s like…they know the English and understand most of what I’m saying, but they’re waaay more interested in trying to look cool or flirting with someone else in the class to participate. And in case that’s not enough, teachers in Austria don’t really have any way of disciplining students. They can’t send them to the principal’s office or kick them out of class. I don’t know if you can give any sort of detention here, but I doubt it. The most you can do is embarrass a student in the hopes that that will make him/her act better. Or move him to a free chair in the class. I haven’t really had to deal with any horrible situations like that, but it would be nice if I could at least threaten them with some sort of discipline. I guess I’ll just have to find other ways to make them talk.
That’s the other thing - even if they’re quiet and listening, a lot of the students are still intimidated by my native speaker capabilities, so they refuse to talk, even when called on, even when I stress that I just want to hear them say something in order to know that they do, indeed, understand English and can form a sentence. *sigh*
Anyway, after school on Friday, a few of us met up for a tour of Vienna. It wasn’t for us, actually, but one of the TA’s had a friend on her former study abroad program who was in Vienna for the weekend with the new study abroad group, so we just attached ourselves to their group and got a free city tour! Yay! I actually found most of it really interesting, since I’ve already learned most of the Viennese history the tour guide was sharing with us, and it was really nice to get a semi-comprehensive reminder of it all. BUT she went into waaaay too much detail at nearly all of the stops, even for someone like me who actually recognized most of the names and references she was making. I can’t imagine what the current study abroad students thought, since they would’ve had so much new information thrown at them. Afterward we ended up going out for dinner with some of them, and we went to another Centimeter restaurant, which I think I mentioned in my last long entry. Here’s a picture from the first time I went there.
www.flickr.com/photos/phloxyloxy/2979796190
Saturday
Saturday I didn’t do much, except check out this completely amazing apartment that I found out on Sunday I didn’t get. BOOOO. After that, Emily and I decided to ride around the Ringstraße one last time, since they changed the Straßenbahn (streetcar) lines on Sunday to new routes, so now there aren’t any that go the whole way around. Lame. So we took some commemorative pictures of that. I also watched a LOT of House, which I am currently addicted to. Oh, well. It’s not like I’ve been having weird House-inspired dreams or anything. Oh, wait…crap.
Sunday - Nationalfeiertag
Sunday, on the other hand, was a much more exciting day. It was Austria’s national holiday. This year is the 80th anniversary of Austria becoming a democracy, which apparently is a Pretty Big Deal. It’s also the day they celebrate gaining their independence back from the Allied Powers in 1955, once Russia finally agreed to stop occupying the eastern part of Austria.
SO. For the Nationalfeiertag there was a lot going on! Apparently there was a military parade that started at 8:30 AM. We didn’t get out there (on Heldenplatz) until 11:30 or so, and it was still going on. And it was packed. More importantly, though, most of the national museums were celebrating the Tag der offenen Tür (Day of the Open Door), which meant that admission was either free or reduced.
We intended to visit the Parliament, but apparently it wasn’t actually open, even though the webpage said it would be. Instead, we hit up the Papyrus Museum (part of the Nationalbibliothek), which was kind of boring for me….until we sat down in the children’s corner and got to write on pieces of papyrus! Lacking any real creativity, I wrote my name in Hieroglyphics, Greek, and Coptic.
After that we went to the COOL part of the Nationalbibliothek (National Library), called the Prunksaal, which is the really old-looking part of the library that looks like it came out of Beauty and the Beast (according to Emily). They had an exhibit there on violence, crime, and torture, which was pretty interesting, but mainly I was just there to goggle at the books and architecture. It was sooooo pretty.
THEN we happened upon the Bundeskanzleramt, which is where all of the important chancellory-related actions take place. What are those actions, you may ask? Well, good question. The Chancellor (Alfred Gusenbauer) meets with the Bundesregierung here, which is basically their cabinet - ministers for 12 different topics pertaining to Austrian life. To be quite honest, I don’t know much about it, but I DO know that it’s only open one day a year, and we were there for it. So plllbb.
After that, we went to the Präsidentschaftskanzlei, which is where the President (Dr. Heinz Fischer) does whatever it is that he does (whatever is required of the diplomatic face of Austria). It’s located in the former apartments of Maria Theresia, so there’s a lot of gold gilding and striped red chairs. But the COOL THING is that WE MET HIM AND SHOOK HANDS WITH HIM. AND he asked me, “Wie geht’s?” How cool is that?! Yeah, it probably would’ve been cooler if I’d had any clue who he was before, but still. Yay! Also, his offices were only open for 2 hours. 2 hours in the entire year, and we were there! Yay! Anyway, they also had a cameraman there, so I’ll try to find a picture online once they’re all up.
FINALLY, we went to the Roman Museum, which used to be conveniently located underneath an Asian restaurant. BUT apparently the restaurant is gone now, and the museum has expanded, so there’s more than just ruins to look at. This is good, because it’s more interactive now and says more about the Roman culture at Vindobona, but I was a little sad to see that the restaurant was gone. Oh, well. At least they had Roman legion Legos to play with, so we had fun.
Anyway, that was the weekend. Back to school tomorrow, where I get to talk about the election, have an abortion and sex ed debate, talk about the age of adulthood, and inform students on the housing situation in the US. Light, fun topics. Nothing too serious like Halloween or anything - how dreadful that would be!
Friday ended up being a pretty good day. I only actually had one class to teach in Stockerau instead of two, which wouldn’t have been so bad if the teacher had actually told me for sure if I was going to be teaching or not. The one class I did teach was alright, though. We talked about the American school system and how it’s different from the Austrian one (not in great detail, though), and I brought my senior yearbook, which they found really interesting.
I must say, though, that 15-16 year olds are probably the most difficult students I’ve had to teach so far. It’s like…they know the English and understand most of what I’m saying, but they’re waaay more interested in trying to look cool or flirting with someone else in the class to participate. And in case that’s not enough, teachers in Austria don’t really have any way of disciplining students. They can’t send them to the principal’s office or kick them out of class. I don’t know if you can give any sort of detention here, but I doubt it. The most you can do is embarrass a student in the hopes that that will make him/her act better. Or move him to a free chair in the class. I haven’t really had to deal with any horrible situations like that, but it would be nice if I could at least threaten them with some sort of discipline. I guess I’ll just have to find other ways to make them talk.
That’s the other thing - even if they’re quiet and listening, a lot of the students are still intimidated by my native speaker capabilities, so they refuse to talk, even when called on, even when I stress that I just want to hear them say something in order to know that they do, indeed, understand English and can form a sentence. *sigh*
Anyway, after school on Friday, a few of us met up for a tour of Vienna. It wasn’t for us, actually, but one of the TA’s had a friend on her former study abroad program who was in Vienna for the weekend with the new study abroad group, so we just attached ourselves to their group and got a free city tour! Yay! I actually found most of it really interesting, since I’ve already learned most of the Viennese history the tour guide was sharing with us, and it was really nice to get a semi-comprehensive reminder of it all. BUT she went into waaaay too much detail at nearly all of the stops, even for someone like me who actually recognized most of the names and references she was making. I can’t imagine what the current study abroad students thought, since they would’ve had so much new information thrown at them. Afterward we ended up going out for dinner with some of them, and we went to another Centimeter restaurant, which I think I mentioned in my last long entry. Here’s a picture from the first time I went there.
www.flickr.com/photos/phloxyloxy/2979796190
Saturday
Saturday I didn’t do much, except check out this completely amazing apartment that I found out on Sunday I didn’t get. BOOOO. After that, Emily and I decided to ride around the Ringstraße one last time, since they changed the Straßenbahn (streetcar) lines on Sunday to new routes, so now there aren’t any that go the whole way around. Lame. So we took some commemorative pictures of that. I also watched a LOT of House, which I am currently addicted to. Oh, well. It’s not like I’ve been having weird House-inspired dreams or anything. Oh, wait…crap.
Sunday - Nationalfeiertag
Sunday, on the other hand, was a much more exciting day. It was Austria’s national holiday. This year is the 80th anniversary of Austria becoming a democracy, which apparently is a Pretty Big Deal. It’s also the day they celebrate gaining their independence back from the Allied Powers in 1955, once Russia finally agreed to stop occupying the eastern part of Austria.
SO. For the Nationalfeiertag there was a lot going on! Apparently there was a military parade that started at 8:30 AM. We didn’t get out there (on Heldenplatz) until 11:30 or so, and it was still going on. And it was packed. More importantly, though, most of the national museums were celebrating the Tag der offenen Tür (Day of the Open Door), which meant that admission was either free or reduced.
We intended to visit the Parliament, but apparently it wasn’t actually open, even though the webpage said it would be. Instead, we hit up the Papyrus Museum (part of the Nationalbibliothek), which was kind of boring for me….until we sat down in the children’s corner and got to write on pieces of papyrus! Lacking any real creativity, I wrote my name in Hieroglyphics, Greek, and Coptic.
After that we went to the COOL part of the Nationalbibliothek (National Library), called the Prunksaal, which is the really old-looking part of the library that looks like it came out of Beauty and the Beast (according to Emily). They had an exhibit there on violence, crime, and torture, which was pretty interesting, but mainly I was just there to goggle at the books and architecture. It was sooooo pretty.
THEN we happened upon the Bundeskanzleramt, which is where all of the important chancellory-related actions take place. What are those actions, you may ask? Well, good question. The Chancellor (Alfred Gusenbauer) meets with the Bundesregierung here, which is basically their cabinet - ministers for 12 different topics pertaining to Austrian life. To be quite honest, I don’t know much about it, but I DO know that it’s only open one day a year, and we were there for it. So plllbb.
After that, we went to the Präsidentschaftskanzlei, which is where the President (Dr. Heinz Fischer) does whatever it is that he does (whatever is required of the diplomatic face of Austria). It’s located in the former apartments of Maria Theresia, so there’s a lot of gold gilding and striped red chairs. But the COOL THING is that WE MET HIM AND SHOOK HANDS WITH HIM. AND he asked me, “Wie geht’s?” How cool is that?! Yeah, it probably would’ve been cooler if I’d had any clue who he was before, but still. Yay! Also, his offices were only open for 2 hours. 2 hours in the entire year, and we were there! Yay! Anyway, they also had a cameraman there, so I’ll try to find a picture online once they’re all up.
FINALLY, we went to the Roman Museum, which used to be conveniently located underneath an Asian restaurant. BUT apparently the restaurant is gone now, and the museum has expanded, so there’s more than just ruins to look at. This is good, because it’s more interactive now and says more about the Roman culture at Vindobona, but I was a little sad to see that the restaurant was gone. Oh, well. At least they had Roman legion Legos to play with, so we had fun.
Anyway, that was the weekend. Back to school tomorrow, where I get to talk about the election, have an abortion and sex ed debate, talk about the age of adulthood, and inform students on the housing situation in the US. Light, fun topics. Nothing too serious like Halloween or anything - how dreadful that would be!