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I really enjoyed a weekend showing my sister the city I've called home for the past two months (Vienna, if you've not been reading).

I'm finally back home after getting annoyed at airport security (why is it never consistent? They took my photo this time at Heathrow!) and staying in Newcastle for a few nights (the Wagamamas was deeeeelightful!) and we watched the final Harry Potter (how unconvincing are their older selves?!) Glad I wasn't tempted by the shops as my wardrobe/chest of drawers are groaning, I really have gone crazy these last years... I'm thinking I won't really *need* to buy anything for a good few years, but that's not going to happen, living in Germany and France (Paris, no less...) however there is that pesky suitcase weight limit..... it's all about the capsule wardrobe, Beth!

Tonight was not only my first night back, but also Zumba night. Mum is obsessed with it (this brings with it her discovery of Shakira, Lady Gaga and J-Lo!) and I was surprised to find myself absolutely knackered after an hour of it... I was very impressed that women A LOT older than me kept going that long... I blame it on being weighed down by lots of cake and sausage/schnitzel from my time abroad... I wonder how long I can use that excuse for?! I'll definately be going back next week!

Hello August!

I've finished reading 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy'. Although quite amusing and an easy read, to me, the story didn't really go anywhere (perhaps I should read the sequels?!) and was left unsatisfied with the lack of deep and meaningful quotes I thought I'd find. (I need to accept things for what they are!)

I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is (We always search for answers and solutions and never really know what we really want in the first place?). I guess this book, more so than others, can be interpreted in so many ways and that is why you either love it or loathe it?

Anyway it was the first book I've read in far too long and I'm going to try and keep rotating between English, French and German books.

This weekend I visited Sigmund Freud's old residence where you can sit down and read his works and lots of other books on psychology in the 'Living Library'. Hundertwasserhaus and Kuntshaus Wien left me feeling very happy and inspired, I want to visit the church he designed!

Tonight I'm going to register for my classes at Heidelberg university, book flights and look up info on my accommodation! They've been extremely helpful in sending me lots of emails keeping me up to date on the never-ending stream of paperwork us ERASMUS students have to do.

Know hope.

Where has this week gone?! It's zoomed by so quickly... not that I'm complaining because in a week I'll be meeting my sister for a weekend here before flying back home to see my boyfriend and family, all who I've missed like crazy! I've also missed walks on the beach! Wherever I end up living will have to be near the sea (helloooo south of France?!)

Last weekend 'Haus der Musik' made me fall in love with classical music (if the men dressed up as Mozart on the streets didn't), after watching the following:



So so so brilliant, I have been humming Strauss all week!

After this, I went to a restaurant all on my own! Something I've never really felt comfortable about doing before. I know this comes without a second thought to some people, and I love eating at different places, but on my own?? I would always worry what people thought of me/where should I look if I have no one else to talk to? Wouldn't people think I was weird/staring at them? However I got over these silly thoughts and enjoyed a nice Italian meal with some wine and Sacher torte for dessert, yum! I felt a little invincible... one small step for man...

It's all in the palm of your hands

I am exhausted. It's never good to think too much.

I've not updated for a week or so as we went on holiday to a farm on a mountain... having no internet was a killer! The week consisted of a lot of table tennis, seesawing, a wood museum and a 2 hour ride on a steam train! We had to extend our holiday by one day as the whole family, apart from me, caught a virus, not so much fun!

Burgenland adventure

"Ce qui doit arriver, arrivera"

On Saturday I went to Neusiedler See which is about 2 hours away from here, dubbed the Austrian's Med, it's a huge lake which would take you the whole day to get all the way around. We approached it from the east before enjoying the view at Neusiedl as the sun set. We walked along the jetty which had a jazz band playing. Everyone was sitting at the edges with their glasses of wine, taking in the view, the sky's hues of blue and pink reflecting off the still water....

Yesterday was about 35 degrees in the city... I couldn't even spend 10 minutes in the sun... Cue lots of ice cream and frappucinos... it had to be done!

Hold on tight to your dream

This song has everything you could want from a song, it makes you feel great, you can dance to it AND some French. Perfection!

This song means a lot to me and it came on yesterday when I was in a Heurigen (wine tavern) having lunch (schnitzel, of course!) and it instantly made me feel ten times better!






Here are some photos from my day spent going westbound alongside the Danube through Lower Austria. The weather wasn't the best, rainy and very windy, about 13 degrees so jeans and a jacket (which I've only had to wear about 3 times since getting here!)

We visited Grafenegg'scastle and gardens, where there is an outdoor stage 'Wolkenturm' for concerts. Then onto Dürnstein's church and ruins, meandering along cobbled streets where I overheard some English(!), then onto the gardens and abbey at Melk, which seems like a perfect setting for a wedding!

My sister has just told me that she is able to visit me in August so I've got the task of finding us a hotel and planning our weekend jam packed of sightseeing, good food and drink, shouldn't be hard to do in the coffee capital!

ich und ich

Just outside Spitellau's U-bahn station, you stumble upon a brilliant Hundertwasser building, for.... *drumroll* a waste incineration plant (producing electricity). I think it is a great idea to draw attention to the plant and renewable energy/recycling, something that is very big here! Most houses out here in the country have solar panels and of course we have various coloured bins for various materials. I even went to the local tip - just a huge site filled with skips but oh how everyone seems to care so much... "oh no some wood in the metal skip".... On one hand, I thought "who could be bothered to go to all this trouble?", but on the other hand, it doesn't take long and you feel good for doing your bit, Britain take note!

Last Thursday was a free day (Feiertag) so I decided on a trip to Vienna was in order! However with the dad off work and no Kindergarten, tis surely should've registered in my tiny head that NOTHING WOULD BE OPEN and buses would be s p a r s e. You can say that again.

Realising that I couldn't get into Vienna in under 2 hours, I decided to take the bus for an hour (also very annoying but the bus drivers here are charming!) to St. Pölten, which is the main town in the county (Land) of Lower Austria (Niederoesterreich). Beautiful, but also with only restaurants and café's open, I took so many photos and sat myself down at Café Schubert and whiled away an hour or two with a few latte macchiatos, writing in my diary and reading my French book, 'Les Sept Pechés du Diable' (The Seven Deadly Sins). Very hip!

Sadly, I got caught in a crazy storm on the way home and SOAKED. I think this, or perhaps the fact I left my memory card in my laptop overnight, must've deleted all my photos from the day.(I need to find the German equivalent of 'GUTTED'!)

On Sunday I went to the Donauinselfest, a music festival that lasted the whole weekend. It was nice even if I was on my own! Sunny and not too crowded, I flitted from stage to stage with an ice cream in hand, nabbed a free body lotion sample (highlight of the day, rock and roll!) and tried to spy any German rock stars to no avail.

As I've worked all day today, I'll have Friday, Saturday and Sunday off so I am taking full advantage of this and hounding people on Facebook to be my friend, can't go wrong eh?

Ich wunsche mir...

Graffiti in Vienna. 'Wir greifen immer mehr und begreifen immer weniger', translates as 'we want more and more and understand less'.

It's 10pm and I still have my bikini on under my vest and shorts, got a few tan lines after spending 5 hours at an outdoor swimming pool in 32 degrees heat (we applied suncream by the bucket load!) It should've been more exhausting, constantly going up the stairs to slide down various slides with the 5 year old as well as teaching him how to swim, but I think my inner child came out to play and I had just as much fun as him! The most tiring was trying to get the 2 year old to not try and escape from me and find his Mum... I keep worrying when he screams for his Mum and pushes away from me that people will think I'm kidnapping him, especially as he has bright blonde hair and doesn't look like mine!

Also today, one of the parents' friends, Tony, a farmer (very jealous of his tan from being outside all day!) came over today and asked me to give him English lessons. He speaks the dialect and not Hochdeutsch so it's gonna be interesting!

I go through phases of wanting to be more chatty/confident and thinking about what I 'should' be, when all I really 'should' be is me, maybe a bit on the quiet side, or maybe just a good listener?! Though I would often think that wasn't good enough. Good enough for who? As we all know "those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter" and I am coming to the realisation that you can't really change some people's opinions of you, especially if they take a dislike to you for no reason!

Tomorrow I don't need to work so some exploring in Vienna is on the cards! Really need to make some friends though, I am going to exhaust all Couchsurfing and Facebook options!

I'm a dreamer, a distant dreamer, dreaming far away from today

My knees and ankles are aching after a long day meandering around Vienna! So glad I wore trainers (typical tourist fashion sense) and not high heels and a dress... which I secretly wanted! Not practical considering I walked non stop for about 5 hours, including to the top of Karlskirche.

Before I got on the train to Vienna, I overheard a group speaking English - they were having difficulty working out if they had the correct tickets, so I went over to lend a hand. In the group were a couple from Cornwall who are staying nearby and it was so nice to natter away and hear a proper English accent.

Whilst wandering around the city, I was a bit fed up that I had no one to share this experience with, as Vienna, which I'll repeat many times, is so incredibly beautiful! After an hour or two on my own, discovering places without a map, I decided to do a little bit of shopping (I bought a navy blazer, beautiful suede wedges and a bracelet) and also spent a little too much on a city guidebook, which I sat down to read in the park. Then I strolled around some more before a guy attempted to speak German and ask me to take a photo of him. We chatted and it turned out he is travelling on his own before heading back to the States in August. We strolled around the Hofburg (Imperial Palace) and I asked him if, like me he ever felt lonely travelling alone? He explained that he just strikes up conversation with the nearest person. How easy does that sound?!

The whole of my legs are now aching, so tonight will be spent listening to Duffy and reading bits from 'Babyjahre' by Remo H. Largo - a book about the development of babies/infants and why they do such crazy things!

Full moon, half moon...

Tonight the parents explained the reason for their kids extremely excitable behaviour was the full moon! I didn't know whether they were joking or not, but they explained the children will sleep through the night and sleep longer in the morning. I don't quite know where they found this out but if the boys sleep for longer, I'm not complaining!
So I looked up human behaviour in accordance to lunar patterns and that made for some interesting reading.

I think the idea of the moon making people more unstable at certain times is a little bit unnerving/spooky although I tend to read such articles with a pinch of salt. Depending on your point of view, any statistics can be manipulated "I think more crimes are committed nearer a full moon... and yes they are". Is this really to do with nature, or are more people scared of a full moon/believe it has a power and is some mass consciousness allowing more crimes? Even so, you never know the methods of how such statistics were rendered. Having said that, if I am to have any surgery in the future, lets hope it falls on a new moon!

her fate hangs by a thread

Just had Skype chats tonight with my parents and my friend from uni, Roger. Both tormented me with thoughts of Tetley tea and Dairy Milk!

This weekend has been a long, tiring one. On Saturday night I joined the host Mum's niece to a fire brigade fair not too far from here. On the walls were about 30 trophies from competitions against other fire brigades across Austria. Apparently they train in the middle of the night in the dark in order to be the fastest and thus best! I really noticed how friendly everyone was and, despite it being midnight, some of the older firemen who had been working all day were still keen to chat to us. Today we went on a short hike to Gföhlberghütte which was easy with the kids and had such stunning views of other mountains in the distance too! It was so peaceful there, a world away from the hubbub of Vienna! Again, I noticed how complete strangers we met on the way would take time to stop and talk to us and even ask about the children. I was told that during such walks, you can use the familiar 'du' form instead of the more formal 'Sie' with anyone you meet. I did have my first nasty encounter with a tick though, they are rather persistent! I love being in the Great Outdoors... just not with these little critters (children sometimes included)!

dis-moi encore...

This week has been mentally exhausting. I'm a bit down and have been asking 'the big questions' about what I want out of life, if languages are something I really want to pursue or not. I've decided that for now, yes, as I enjoy it most of the time, despite feeling at times completely lost and useless. Hopefully I will make it as an interpreter/translator, but then again if something else unrelated to languages decides to comes my way, that's ok too, that's life after all! Communication is all we have and sometimes I can't even pick up the simplest of foreign phrases! As every learner of a language will also know, understanding more than you can speak is also frustrating! I really should stop being so hard on myself though!

I am really missing people back home, so need to find some friends quick.. Personally I don't like wandering around on my own (as I always get lost due to my rubbish sense of direction) and prefer to explore a city with other people.. I get too lonely on my own! To add to my frustrations, my laptop is having a love/hate affair with the Internet here, so Skype conversations have been at times incredibly tedious...blurry faces, robotic sounding voices and echoing. Top of my list of hates (if I had one... which I don't as I'm a carefree, happy-go-lucky gal... unless you mention the aforementioned 'S' word!)

This week I vow to get my bum in gear and go for a run/cycle through some fields, of which there are many!* May also start mediating/doing yoga in a bid to find my inner self, ja. Seriously, I do think I need to relax a bit more and not let worries get to me!

*I really hope this happens....reality may be another thing!

Vienna calling

It's been a week since I arrived in Vienna. I am working as an au pair for a few months for a lovely family and it has already been hard getting to grips with the Austrian dialect and changing nappies before breakfast! Most places I go, I feel like I can chat to people, in shops, at bus stops etc. which is really good for improving my German. However on the bus back from town I had to pay double... I explained to the driver that my trip into town was half the price and he said that would get me nowhere. Not wanting to hold the queue up any longer and feeling that my German was failing me, I gave up and sat down. An hour later and the last person on the bus, I arrived at my stop and showed the driver both tickets (half price and full price). He explained that I must be a student/under 26 therefore it was half price. I had a bit of a rant about wanting my money back and that he should have asked me if I was a student and that I didn't know due to being foreign. He said it was too late and I should tell the driver next time. I got off the bus and cried, feeling really frustrated and alone! So if you're a student, I advise flashing your card at every opportunity!

Aside from that teeny tiny glitch, I love Austria. 'Quaint' perfectly describes the endless rolling hills and colourful houses with their own character and story to tell. Inside Vienna, the architecture is so beautifully intricate and the city seems easy so far to navigate (I have an awful sense of direction!) I can't wait to explore more. I met another au pair, Dominika who helped me find my way around the city. On Thursday we went to Schönbrunn Palace to watch the Vienna Philharmonic's Summer Concert. I had never been to Schönbrunn before and it is so beautiful, espescially looking up to the gloriette on the hill, which lit up red and blue during the concert. Unfortunately, despite being close to the stage, the music was quiet and we went for a wander around the city instead.

I have also had my first experience at the dentist (in both several years and in a foreign country). Due to my EH111 card, I didn't have to pay (or at least not yet...!) I am also on insurance overload with my host family and I bought some for my whole year abroad. It is also advisable for British citizens to register with .LOCATE, even if for a short trip abroad.

Finally, I apologise in advance if this doesn't read well, I've noticed it's already hard to think in 'proper' English and when the parents ask me for 'the correct way to say things in English', I have to think a while as my poor little brain can't handle two languages!