Spain

It's been a crazy past week-I feel like everything around me is being fast forwarded, and I can barely keep up with it all.

I went to a mass recently at the Hofburg's church, called Augustinerkirche. It is known for it's masses, largely because of the music. They have an amazing orchestra, and choir. Each Sunday there is different music, sometimes there will be a Mozart mass, and sometimes a Schubert mass, but regardless of what composer it is, the music is always amazing. I got there early on Sunday because I wanted to be sure to get seats, and not get lost when I tried to go to the church for the first time. On the way to church my straßenbahn unexpectedly turned, and I lookd out the window and saw it was because the main street in Vienna, Kartner Ring, was closed for a parade. This has happenned before, so I just got off the straßenbahn and walked towards the church, which was about a 20 minute walk. Everyone was wearing red in the parade, and I later learned why. It was to celebrate the start of spring, in what many English speaking countries call "May Day". Originally, people, mostly men, would wear red carnation on this day-the SPÖ's (Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreich or the Social Democratic Party of Austria) party color is also red...so a while back they made May 1st something like their party day, and the parades all on the street I saw were specifically for the SPÖ.

I finally made it down the street, and eventually to the church. I shockingly did not get lost, and was an hour early for mass. It was actually nice to be so early, because I got to hear the choir/orchestra practicing. They sang Hosana, and it was so amazing I had chills the entire time. All of the songs they sang before the mass, were entirely different than the ones for the actual mass service, so I got to hear two different sets of songs. The mass itself was wonderful, and I surprisingly understood a lot of what was being said because the Priest spoke much more slowly than normal Austrians in day to day conversations. It was a nice service, but rather long. We started mass at 11:15, and it was over 2 hours later...with the extra hour I had before the service, I spent 3 hours at church. It was nice though, so it did not feel so long.

The rest of the week flew by...I had teaching at my Austrian Volkschule, as I always do, and then I had to finish some papers, and other work early because I left for Spain on Thursday, and would get back Sunday evening.

I went to Alicante, Spain with a friend and it was wonderful! Spain was gorgeous. Our first full day there was Friday, and the weather was warm, but the 25mph winds, took away most of the predicted 75 degree weather, and made it feel much colder. We went to the beach, but the sand was going everywhere! I left the beach and had sand all over me, including in both ears. It was not a good time to be down there, so we mostly wandered around the town, and saw their Basicalla de Santa Maria.

The place we stayed was about a 5minute walk from the beach, and was perfectly located in the city center of Alicante. On Friday it was paella night, and they made paella and sangria on top of the terrace. My friend and I went to it, and had a great time. We met a lot of neat people there, from places like Poland, Ireland, and Holland...we even met 3 Americans from DC. The next day was a bit cloudy, but we still went to the beach for a bit, the water was freezing, so I didn't really swim, but there were some local teenagers doing all kids of flips, and other acreobatic things in the sand so we watched them for a while then had some sangria at one of the restuarants right on the beach. A little further down the beach there was a huge kite competition, and we watched professional kite fliers preform choreographed routines with kites. It was crazy to think someone could actually do all of this with a kite, and so much fun. There was music and it made the slightly cloudy day much more lively.

On Sunday the weather was perfect! We got up and check out, and went straight to the beach. A local radio station was playing music and we layed out until 3 when we had to go to the airport...it was the perfect last day!

We did not get back to Vienna until 1am, I was exhausted from the day, but I had to get to bed because I had teaching in the morning. I woke up at 7, and was a little sad because it would be my very last time going to Bishop-Faber-Platz. I have really enjoyed my time there and getting to known the teachers and students. I am really going to miss them all. When I was leaving for the day the students all gave me a book with their pictures and signatures saying thank you for teaching them. One class also made me a necklas. It was really sweet and a good way to end my time there.

I feel like so much has been going on this past week, but I really have not had time to digest it all. I had 4 papers due this week, a takehome test due today, a final on Friday, then the rest next week and only 11 days left in Vienna! It is crazy to think the semester is ending!! I have done so much here, but it feels like it has only been a week. I plan on pretending I am not going anywhere until I actually have to start packing. Until then, I am going to be working on my papers.

Tschüss!