In defense of the Austrian village

Though my time as an English teaching assistant has come to an end after two years, city choice is still a topic that I see come up quite often with new teaching assistants. Most people coming to Austria want to live in the bigger cities like Vienna or Salzburg or Innsbruck; I don't blame them. I felt the same way when I first got that email that I had been accepted as a TA in Austria. I was so excited; it was my third attempt to go to Austria. Then I saw where I was to be located. Some obscure place called Bischofshofen that I had never heard of. I looked it up and saw that only 10,000 people lived there. Only 10,000 people! Super small by American standards. But I learned, that is not too small by Austrian standards.

For the past two years, I have lived in smaller town or villages. As mentioned previously, the first was Bischofshofen, about 10,000 people.. This past year, I lived in St. Pölten, the capital of Lower Austria. The population of St. Pölten is about 50,000. It is the 9th biggest city in Austria. One thing I tell new TAs to Austria, especially if they are placed in a smaller town or village, is that they need to rethink their definition of what small is. As one teacher said to me last year, "Austria is a bunch of villages and then Vienna." A very true description. Even the next biggest city after Vienna, Graz, is not that big in comparison to many American cities.

I want to defend all the smaller cities and villages in Austria. They have as just much to offer, if not more to the TAs that are placed there. I try really hard to show new TAs all the benefits of small town life and encourage them to live where their schools are located rather than the nearest big city. I'm not saying that I haven't experienced disappointment or loneliness or any other negative feelings in these two places, but overall, I am grateful for the experiences I have had.

The biggest thing that I have noticed is that people in villages tend to be much, much friendlier. Last year, in Bischofshofen, I was shocked that people would say hello to me on the street. I always thought that Europeans didn't smile and say hello to each other. Definitely not in small towns! This doesn't happen so much in St. Pölten, since it's a lot bigger, but in Bischofshofen, it happened all the time. I think some of the townsfolk even started to recognize me and one time, a man said hello to me when we were on opposite sides of the street. It's a nice feeling knowing that people recognize you!

I've been able to get to know the locals in my little towns. I’m sure you can do this in Vienna, but living in a smaller community puts you in closer contact with Austrians, and it prevents TAs from hanging out with only Americans. The tricky part is meeting an Austrian. But once you meet one, it can be a life-long friendship, and they will introduce you to all of their (Austrian) friends. They can expose you to Austrian culture and can explain things that are not in the dictionary or guidebook. When I went to the Christmas market in St. Pölten, I saw that there was a kind of food called "Feuerfleck." I never would have been able to guess what this was, but luckily, an Austrian friend explained it to me. By the way, it's local to the St. Pölten area and consists of flat bread served with a dip of sour cream mixed with chives.

Living in a smaller town allows you the opportunity to better know Austria and to really see authentic Austrian culture. I've had the chance to experience things in Austria that I probably wouldn't see in Vienna--from a Krampuslauf to authentic Heurigers, Again, not that "authentic" experiences don't exist in Vienna, but it's different when you are the only American at a Krampuslauf. Then you know it's not just a show for tourists, but something that the locals do for themselves. Recently, I was in another town in Lower Austria, Krems, and I got to see the local Trachten or traditional costumes of that region plus eat an amazing dish of Gulasch at a restaurant that I never would have found on my own. Though I have to recommend that Gulasch is definitely best eaten when it's cold outside. Not when it's hot!

It can be considerably cheaper! I have had very nice apartments that were much, much cheaper than anything in Salzburg or Vienna. My landlords in both Bischofshofen have been super nice. From making me a cake to allowing me to live at their property on short notice, I have appreciated how kind and helpful they have been.
And finally, Vienna is a beautiful city, no doubt, but when I think about Austria, I will always remember the mountains surrounding Bischofshofen and the terraced vineyards in Lower Austria. The landscape is so beautiful in Austria that it sometimes is like living in a fairytale. 

I highly encourage any new TAs in Austria to live where your schools are located, even if it is in a smaller town. You won't regret it!

Sightingseeing in St. Pölten

Fridays are my normal day off in St. Pölten, so I took the opportunity to go on a short walking tour of the city center with a British TA, James, who also happens to be one of my roommates.

St. Pölten has a pretty compact city center and most everything of interest is luckily in the city center. Despite the fact that St. Pölten is not the biggest city in Austria, it does have a pretty interesting city center. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, there are some interesting shops, cafes and restaurants in the center. But the center is also very historical and even has some art nouveau buildings and artwork.

We started in the Rathausplatz. Rathaus is the name for town hall in German and this is the plaza where the town hall is located.

Some photos:

The Rathaus! And it's pink!

Rathaus in background.

A mini-train that goes around the city center.

Big statue in the square.

Another interesting place in St. Pölten is the Domplatz. The church on this square isn't very impressive from the outside, but pretty impressive on the inside. While I was inside, a lot of people appeared to be praying, so I refrained from taking any photos except for one. There is also a nice little market here on Thursdays and Saturdays. We just made it to the market on Sunday before it closed. Because it is Fall, there was a lot of wine on display and I ate one of my favorite kinds of sausages with lots of mustard.

From the outside it's not impressive.

The organ.

The Market.

My Käsekrainer sausage.

There is a former synagogue just outside of the city center. The interior was destroyed in 1938, but from the exterior, it's easy to tell it was once a synagogue. I'm not sure what it's used for now, but we had to ring to get inside, and we decided it wasn't worth the effort.

Exterior of the former synagogue.

We were told we had to walk outside of the city center to see the modern part of St. Pölten. And we definitely found it! I had heard of the Klangturm (Sound Tower) from a former TA, but didn't really know what to expect. It's a huge tower, obviously. I thought we would just go to the top and enjoy the great views, but apparently the whole tower is an art installation on sounds, again, obviously. The view from the top was amazing! I could see the whole city. We even tried to see if we could pick out other buildings we knew from up high, but weren't so successful.

We walked down and stopped on each level. Each level had a different interactive sound activity. Including a set of drums that played different mechanical sounds, stories through sound, a map with regional dialects in Austria and probably strangest of all, we set in a room with the voice of a man talking and jumping around as we listened. I wasn't expecting anything like this in St. Pölten and I'm pleasantly surprised that there is this tower with modern art with a touch of humor. 

View from the elevator.

Sitting in one of the strange rocking chairs on the top floor.

The Klangturm itself.

And a few more pictures!

Mary Ward School

Also from the Mary Ward School.

I just liked the facade of this building.

First Day Jitters

Today was the first day of classes at one of my new schools in St. Pölten. Even though I spent last year teaching in Austria, I was incredibly nervous about moving to a new city and having to start over with new schools, new teachers and new students. And one of my schools has 1,000 students! Which is more than I had in all three schools last year.

To make the jitters worse, I was in Bischofshofen last week and ran into some former students. They were very excited to see me, but once I told them I wouldn't be back in Bischofshofen, they were pretty disappointed. It made me realize how much I liked my schools last year and I almost regretted my decision to move on to different schools for my second year.

However, things went better than expected today and I'm definitely glad I'm here. I already had an introduction lesson that I planned last year and tweaked a little. I could tell that I had more confidence in the classroom than last year and the students, for the most part, seemed interested and engaged and I got them to interact with me. They and the teachers, seemed to like my introduction lesson, even though I think talking about me is maybe not the most interesting thing to do.

I was, of course, very impressed with their English. One student even sounded like a native American English speaker! And their questions and comments were pretty self-aware and insightful. I'm really looking forward to teaching them this year and wonder why I even doubted myself.

One thing that hasn't changed is Austrian schools still are overheated!

I've Arrived! And First Observations...

I arrived in Sankt Pölten this past Wednesday after 24 hours of traveling. Luckily, the journey to St. Pölten, while long, was pretty smooth. I had to fly from Minnesota, to Chicago, to Düsseldorf and then finally Munich. And then take a train from Munich to St. Pölten. I was worried I was going to miss the flight to Munich, as the flight out of Chicago was delayed. Fortunately, I (and my luggage) had plenty of time to make the flight.

My landlord and landlady greeted me at the train station and drove me to my new apartment. I was able to visit the apartment last Spring, but had forgotten what the room I had chosen looked like. It's actually very cute! In my room were a Milka chocolate bar, a little American flag and also even a Minnesota flag!

Some pictures that I took before flinging my stuff everywhere:

Bedside table and pictures.

My bed before I messed it up.

TV and part of the wardrobe.

Couch/pull out bed.

And finally my desk! Oh, with a little American flag and a Minnesota one!

Some observations I've had over the past few days:

• St. Pölten is huge! I mean, in comparison to where I lived last year. I actually feel a little overwhelmed, which I never thought I would say. People here seem friendly, but not quite as patient with my bad German as they were in Bischofshofen.
• Shops/restaurants I've noticed in the past few days: McDonald's, Subway, an Indian restaurant, (and it smelled really good!) bubble tea shop, Mango outlet store, a cupcake shop and an all vegetarian restaurant. I'm sure I will discover more as I continue exploring.
• St. Pölten seems hipper than Salzburg does to me. Salzburg is a bigger city, but I feel that it's stuck in the past. For example, the cafes feel old, with the women serving cake while wearing maid's uniforms and the men serving the drinks in black tie. I don't get that feeling at all here. It feels modern, but at the same time, it's not Vienna, so it's also not trying too hard. I like it so far!
• I got lazy over the summer and I forgot how much walking I did in Austria!
• I visited my main school and it's huge! Much bigger than my schools in Bischofshofen! 
• Jet lag is terrible. It's even worse than I remember last year. Speaking of jet lag, it's a bad idea to try to run any errands the day after you arrive.
• And finally, apparently I look either look like I speak English or like I know what's going on, because I've had a lot of people come up to me in Munich and ask me for help/directions. Luckily for these people, both statements are true!

And a couple more pictures:

St. Hippolyta, the town is named after him.

Yeah, I took a picture of a slug. It's been raining a lot, so I see a ton of them around. It's been a while since I've seen them!