Monday, April 25, 2005

bad ischl

i’m back und ich habe ein brand OR, for you monolingual folk, “i have a fire in me” ~ otherwise known as a hangover ‘cept it doesn’t mean you feel sick, or have a headache, it literally means you have a fire in you (curable by drinking cream, apparently) and, after a night out [at bloody irish and australian pubs] with my favourite fugazi and a bunch of austrian/british/american rugby players (spanks aplenty must go to alex and his broken nose!), that fire should come as NO surprise! now, after a lazy day in the klosterneuburg sunshine, i’m relaxing on the best balcony in the world, listening to cat empire, and attempting in some way to relay my experiences in bad ischl, home of the famous zaunerstolle...


it started seven days ago, challengingly early on an intensely wintery monday morning ~ really i thought i’d done a dorothy, somehow clicking my red sparkly heels together in my sleep and waking up in mid-winter melbourne complete with howling wind, driving rain, gloom and doom fixed on everyone’s tired n grumpy faces, red-suited ambulance workers disappearing off the bus and into the misty streets of the city. i had no idea what lay ahead, hutteldorf u-bahn station and a green minibus being my only clues to the exhaustingly enjoyable schnitzeljagd that would become my week with mandl sprachkurse.

i got there half an hour early and sat in the railway station cafe, injecting the necessary caffeine i knew i’d need just to get as far as the exit, let alone all the way to bad ischl. when i’d had my fix and made my way out into the dim light of that day, i was greeted by a cold n sorry looking bunch of auslanders and mr mandl’s somewhat anxious welcome. johnny, a scotsman, and steve, a brit, introduced themselves straight up and when i climbed in the car alex, jolly and florence said hi. but when i replied “hi i’m leonie”, pete [later to be known as “the controller”] retorted “WOT?” and complained that i was the third australian he’d met recently with a name like that ~ i almost turned around n went home, hey.

after a few minutes little miss late turned up, introduced herself as beata and we were on our way to the youth hostel that would become our home and school for the week. the three hour~ish trip passed quickly and, considering only a few of our group had met before, tales of getting shot at and mugged in norfolk [virginia], performing jackass~esque stunts and meeting traditional austrian farmers who played guitar [but only whilst atop their tractors with the engines running] were not what i’d call par for the course. although you prob’ly wont believe it, i was pretty quiet, partly from my usual nonmorningness, but mostly just coz i was trying to figure out what strange track i’d suddenly found myself wandering along.

so now, having done full circle along that curious path, to salzkammergut and back (!), i’ve had my first real osterreichisch teaching experience and, if i was forced to describe it in one word, that word would definitely be AWESOME!! but you must know i’m not much chop at one word answers so, indulge me, if you will: five long and mostly misty days; nine pretty fun native english~speakers harking from england, scotland, wales, canada and australia; four friendly and yet characteristically quite reserved austrian teachers; the one and the only mr wilfried mandl; and 73 fresh-faced austrian schoolgirls from vöcklabruck! oh, CAN you imAGINE??!

the first afternoon was pretty cruisy: we met the four friendly austrian teachers [joe, margit, mary and christine], had some lunch [vegetarians also provided for, except on fish friday] and a preparatory meeting and launched straight into classes. there were nine groups, with seven or eight girls in each. at first it was a bit daunting, the 20~something male native~speakers amongst us [and me] particularly nervous about being confronted by a bunch of thirteen year old girls.

but our worries were entirely unfounded, these girls were lovely, sweet, smiley, curious and polite little things who behaved themselves almost too well all through the week. and mr mandl, to give him credit, had prepared more than enough material for the twenty classes we were to carry out and, while there was a leetle leeway and room for impromptu activities, he was the boss and he knew what he wanted which made it, honestly, pretty easy for us...well, the classes anyway.

the hardest part was finding the energy to keep up with all those girls, high on excitement and wide~eyed with fascination at these strange foreigners in their midst. our job was really to get these girls more comfortable with speaking english, shyness being a tricky hurdle for many of them. but i also felt like i was in a bit of a big~sister role too.

so we really tried to spend as much time with them as possible, eating a few meals with them, playing cards with them in our free time, joining in some of their afternoon and evening activities even though we weren’t obliged to, even performing a half-hour play for them on the last night. jeez, that play is a blog entry in itself (!) but i think i’ll let the photos do the talking (more coming soon). suffice to say, our efforts made a difference ~ the deafening roar of applause and cheers we got from the kids on our last day confirmed their appreciation beyond a shadow of doubt.

kanyeshna, there were the usual hiccups associated with having 70+ kids cooped up inside all day and a bunch of pommy bastards trying to get along (!) but minor theft, illness and injury was really nothing out of the ordinary and certainly NOTHING like you’d expect from a bunch of british or even viennese schoolkids, or so i’ve heard. and when the leetle treasures finally went to bed each night, we native~speakers were free freE frEE fREE FREEEEE to roam those dark shiny cobblestoned streets in search of that precious amber liquid we know fondly as beer.

and, our search having been a roaring success, i can highly recommend k n k and stehbeisl, should you ever find yourself in the beautiful mountain village that is bad ischl. but please, bear in mind, if you fall asleep at the bar and you wind up late for breakfast you just wont get none ~ luckily there’s a “bar” at the hostel so if you’re a likely contender, i’d suggest you drink there. AND they certainly don’t expect foreigners to order a radler at stehbeisl so if you try it and get yourself a macchiato instead, don’t say i didn’t warn you. lastly, it could be good to remember, that five grosses weissbeers after a long day at the “office” will probably NOT find you fighting fit the next grey morn.


other highlights of the week included:
visiting the imperial palace where the anorexic empress sissi and her opium smokin hubby lived;
steve and johnny’s irish/scottish/english violin/guitar and strange drum performance;
the siriuskogel which we reached via the schnitzel hunt (otherwise known as a treasure hunt) on a sunshiney thursday arvo;
the final concert on thursday night complete with our ten million euro lottery winning play and numerous singing, dancing and comedy performances from 70 something not so shy teenage girls!

and finally, coming home to receive a pile of much welcome international snail mail including cocktail recipes (spanks mumbo), the fine work of mr alex parr international man of art, as well as YOU letters aplenty and wicked zines from the superhero himself!! keep your eyes peeled ‘round smelbourne town for the latest installment of starnawskirestlessness in YOU letter form and if you see luke, tell him he RAWKS!!!


and this week’s potentials??
teaching zeiselmauer swimming teaching st andrä-wördern arrinking schikaneder swimming and trivia~ing and anD aND AND...the thursday night arrival of the one and only, the wandering adventurer, the chocolate fiend, the tofu theif, that’s right, you heard it slash read it here first, the SQODGELATORRRRRRRR is soon to be here, caught in the clutches of chaos house kburg city...look out grumpy weiners!!

xx

oh yea and mumbo jumbo, can you puh~leeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaase bring me some peanut butter! and either a kangaroo or a crocodile for markus ~ he’s not fussy. tarr muchly, love lots xx

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