Advertisement
Published: October 15th 2008
Gothic Church
The stained glass windows are amazing. This would have to be one of my fav churchesSeptember was a fairly quiet month for us; with no travel plans we were able to slow down and enjoy the end of Summer in Vienna. Without a doubt, the biggest surprise was the severe change in weather. We went from wearing singlets, shorts and sandals to scarves, jackets and even gloves within a couple of short days. We’ve since been told that Vienna seems to skip Spring and Autumn, but I am happy to report that the really cold weather only lasted a couple of weeks and it has been quite mild ever since. On the plus side, it was a good excuse for some winter clothes shopping.
On the job front we were both fairly busy. Sean made the very big decision not to accept his Paris job offer. It would’ve curtailed our travel plans, so we think it was the right decision, but looking at the exchange rate right now we just occasionally have second thoughts. In September I had my job interview for English Language Teaching, completed a couple of weeks of training and had my first lessons. My first week coincided with a cold, so all of my effort went into the
The Votive Church
We walk past this on our way to the city centre classes and I would come home absolutely exhausted. My favourite part of the job so far is getting to meet so many different people. Most of my students have basic knowledge of English and they usually just want to improve their conversation skills.
After a couple of very comfortable months at Malachy’s, it also came time to search for a new apartment. We would probably still be searching if it weren’t for Jamie and Adrianna who (very patiently) showed us the best websites to check out and translated the various sections. We seriously lucked in and managed to find an apartment within a week of looking. It is a great place, very close to the city centre and the main shopping street. The landlord was happy to lease short term and even offered to leave the place furnished.
Our apartment and job searching kept us fairly busy, but we managed to make time to see more of Vienna. One of my favourite places would have to be Prater Park, a huge reserve close to the city that has running and walking areas, sport centres and an amusement park. We have been running here and have spent a couple
Danube Canal
My favourite running route of afternoons wandering around (and sampling) the rides. A Guinness Book of World Records Event was held in the park so we watched a few records get smashed (the longest ever schnitzel was my favourite).
We also spent a very cold afternoon at the Vienna Flugtag, which is a Redbull competition where entrants design a contraption and run it off a huge ramp into the water. I think points are awarded for creativity etc. as well as for distance. I felt very sorry for all of the entrants who ended up in the cold water, but there was a hot tub on standby for them.
Music wise, we spent a night at the Donau Insel Festival, an annual free (and therefore huge) music festival held on an island in the middle of the Danube. There were about five stages, all playing different styles of music. The only performer I recognised was ‘Shaggy’, but it was raining when he played so we missed it.
The highlight of September though, was the Coldplay concert. It was held in a relatively small entertainment centre (12000 people) and the atmosphere was fantastic. Every time Chris Martin spoke in German the crowd
would go crazy. The whole band had so much energy and of course all of the songs were brilliant (Sean and I knew them all). At one point the band ran up to the back of the entertainment centre and played a couple of songs surrounded by the crowd up the back. Hmmm, I wonder if they would play at our wedding..... Gwyneth and Apple could come too.....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.078s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 9; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0348s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
alex
non-member comment
thank you for the laughs
am not sure why this one made me smile so much as your others have been just as amusing, but this one cheered up my grey english day, thank you. Can't wait to see you all at Christams, I am really looking forward to it. And Sean I have a couple of jobs lined up, my loft hatch is broken, my bathroom needs regrouted and our drive way needs jack hammered and Andrew has mentioned something about the garden shed!!! Cheers bet you can't wait.