Hi everyone,
So I think I promised a blog last week, as it should be weekly! I apologise once again and am making it my march resolution to blog weekly!
I've thoroughly settled in to my little routine of teaching which is really good. Going home the other week was amazing (apart from my best friend not being there! 
) and it actually didn't unsettle me the way I thought it would. It just brought to my attention how little time I actually have left here! With that in mind and a few extra euros in my bank account, I began to plan some travels for this semester.
The first thing I wanted to do was visit Hannah in Dijon, and so, with both my bank balance and the environment in mind (by the end of May, I will have taken over 20 flights this academic year... which is not something I'm proud of!) I decided to look into getting the train to France. The easiest way seems to be a night train to Zurich or Strasbourg and then onwards from there to Dijon. I decided to go for Zurich as I absolutely love Switzerland and my love is based almost entirely on how efficient their public transport is (as well as the fact that the people speak German, are amazingly friendly and the country is beautiful!) The night train to Zurich was fairly cheap at 45 euros for a seat. Considering that my TGV from Neuchatel to Dijon is 63 euros, I thought this was a fairly good deal! So tonight I will be braving 14 hours on a train. I had to opt for a flight back as the night train doesn't get me into Vienna in time for school on Monday morning.
School is going really well at the moment, I feel like I've now settled in and know what's expected of me. The teachers are all really friendly and I feel like my conversational German has definitely improved, as well as my understanding of the Austrian accent! I had to plan a lesson for an 8th form class yesterday. The teacher was supposed to be there with me but she was called away and so I took the class solo - which was scary at first, but as soon as I realised that they weren't about to attack me, I settled into it and it turned out to be quite good fun. The lesson was on dialects and accents and their importance. I let them listen to a Burns' song (The De'il's awa' wi' the Exciseman) and had them work out what the words meant before talking to them about contemporary Scots dialects. The children here are so lovely! Especially the first years, I'm astounded every day by their enthusiasm for learning English, I know we definitely weren't that happy to sit in a French lesson when we were younger! They also really love to talk to me, which is great. I actually got a cheer from a first year class when I walked into the room today - I could get used to that sort of welcome!
Now that term has started at the University as well, I've decided to take a few lectures in English as I have every afternoon free and was beginning to get bored. I was looking into lectures in German but there were none that really appealed to me. I'm taking two Cultural and Regional Studies classes; British Culture and the USA. I haven't studied cultures in this way since I was at school so it has been really interesting, it also gives me an objective perspective of British culture which I can use when teaching. The other class is called 'Alice, Harry and Co.: Literature in English for young readers' which is really interesting. The same theories, which are applied to literature can be applied to children's literature and it's fascinating to look at books you've known so well for so many years in a completely new way. The lecturer also teaches in the Education department and so she will be linking a lot of the course content to that, showing us how we can use these books as teaching materials - which is really useful for me.
In other news, I've started to apply for summer jobs. I have a telephone interview for one today which I really hope I get. It's a job as an English teacher at one of the summer schools in Edinburgh. I'll let you know how it goes, needless to say I'll be watching my phone closely this afternoon!
Sarah and I have booked trains to go and see Ellis and Caroline, our two dutch friends, in two weeks time. This time we'll be attempting to survive a 17 hour night train to Amsterdam but it looks like there'll be a fun weekend waiting for us at the other end. I've been told, plans have already been made! It won't be long after that, that I'll be back in the UK for Easter holidays. I still feel like there's so much to pack in before I go home at the beginning of June, and though I'll be looking forward to coming back and to being in Edinburgh once again, I think I'll definitely miss Vienna, my pupils and the friends I've made here... but I've still got a little while to go!
