The Native Speaker

Kids dressed up for carnival day, school in background

view from my classroom

It’s been three months now since I started my job.  I am really enjoying it although there are a few too many hours which left me exhausted at first.  The first week was great, I was a novelty.  Second week the novelty was beginning to wear off as the kids began to realize I couldn’t really understand them, and some of them became curious to see how far they could push the limits.  The third week was terrible!  If the teacher left the room, it was chaos!  It was like I was invisible, and mute!  They completely ignored me, and it was a real struggle with the language barrier.  In the first few weeks one little girl cried every morning about coming to Kindergarten – all because of me!  Because I only spoke English and she didn’t like me!  She gave me the foulest looks!  And one little boy wouldn’t even look at me when I tried to approach him, and apparently only referred to me as ‘that woman’!  It’s almost impossible to build a rapport with the children when you can’t speak their language.  Things slowly improved as the weeks went on.  I am picking up more words and phrases every day which has made a huge difference, but still half the time I have no idea what they are saying to me, and it must be frustrating for them if they need help with something, or have a problem with someone and I can’t help to sort it out.  There are 19 in the class, 3-6 year olds.  Some of them still ignore me if they are up to no good and I am trying to put a stop to their behavior, which is incredibly frustrating, but I think I am slowly winning them over with the gymnastics every second week in their P.E class, again extremely difficult and I am having to demonstrate much more than I am actually physically capable of at the moment having not exercised for months!  And miming and silly facial expressions and speaking broken English with a funny accent all seem to help!

Every second week during the winter we took the kids Eislaufen (Ice skating) at the outdoor rink.  This entailed helping 19 children put on all their snow gear including helmets, (this took 30 minutes), traipsing to the ice rink in town, helping 19 children take off their snow boots and put on their ice skates (all have different types of clasps and buckles etc which I am now an expert at!)(this also takes 30 mintues), being the tea and snack lady on the sidelines (beats making a donkey of myself on the ice!), and then helping them all take off their ice skates and put their snow boots back on (this takes another 30 minutes), and then traipsing back to Kindergarten, before helping them all get their snow gear off again and get ready for lunch.  All this for 20 minutes on the ice.  And I always broke a nail!

Everyday they play out in the garden (again during winter this entailed helping them all get dressed up in snow gear which takes about 20 minutes for a 20 minute play!).  The garden was under nearly two metres of snow.  The boundary, in the way of a fence, was invisible.  So much of the time was spent making sure kids didn’t wander into the carpark.   One of the weeks some areas completely iced over, and I went over on my bum a couple times.  Somewhat embarrassing!  And then the snow began breaking up and becoming unstable once March arrived, and most of us became half buried if we took a step in the wrong place!  This was funny because is happened to everyone and not just the silly ‘English’ teacher who had no water proof pants (that would be trousers for ‘English’ readers, not underwear!)  Speaking of pants, there is a doctor nearby called Dr Pantz.  And whatsmore, his wife works with him, so they are a ‘pair of pantz’!  As you can imagine this had me in a fit of hysterics when if first heard about it! (and while we’re on the subject, there is a law firm also called ‘Schlapper and Fuchs’!!)

So back to Kindergarten - Amelia had trouble at first with me being there and not being able to see me whenever she liked, and there were a few tears to begin with, also from Noah who could see me from his classroom when I was in the garden, which broke my heart!  But then Amelia’s ‘English’ teacher told her she was the luckiest girl in the kindergarten because nobody else’s mummy worked there, and after that she was great!

A few things are hard to get my head around, there are things that go on which in Australia and England would be unacceptable and leave me wide eyed and speechless, but it’s hard to know what is simply cultural difference (which I have to leave alone) or what is actually unacceptable only nobody is doing anything about it!  I am constantly asking ‘is that okay?  Is that allowed?’  Some examples:

·         Lunch is cooked at the school, lovely fresh organic food (my favourite part of the day) and sometimes during lunch the food runs out, and little 5 year old Annie (not her real name) is sent down to the kitchen to fetch a refill, carrying a hot casserole dish for which she was told to pull her sleeves down over her hands so she wouldn’t get burnt.  Another time 6 year old Susie (not her real name) brought up a steaming hot heavy pan of soup, which she was just about to drop before she laid it on the table.  The kitchen is two flights of stairs down, by the way.

·         In the snow filled garden kids use ‘slidies’ which they sit on to slide down little hills formed by the snow, one of which ended with a wall.  No-one told the kids they shouldn’t do this, or that it was dangerous, until one kid actually smacked into the wall which ended in tears, but the activity was still allowed to continue.

·         At gymnastics the kids are allowed to run around in the gym hall in socks, which has resulted in quite a few slippages!  They also played a game in the classroom where they ran around with their slippers on and at certain signals had to remove a shoe, the removed shoes being left where they were taken off, resulting on kids tripping over left right and centre.

·         We went to the park and six kids had climbed up a big tree at once.  I don’t think kids are even allowed to climb trees in Australia anymore?

·         ‘Kid A’ aggressively bit ‘Kid B’ and I jumped into the situation making out that ‘kid A’ was in serious trouble.  I took them to the teacher so that she could sort out the problem only to be told ‘well that’s because ‘kid B’ was waving his photo in ‘kid A’s’ face and ‘kid A’ doesn’t like this, so, that’s what happens’.  And that was it.  Whaaat??

Some of you may read that and think so what, not a big deal, but it’s a struggle for me after working with kids for such a long time in a place overrun with health and safety do’s and don’ts!

Anyway, I’m grateful to be able to work here instead of cleaning toilets in a hotel!  Apart from a few frustrating bits I really enjoy it.  My job is to expose them to as much English vocabulary as they are ready for and as much as they want to learn.  Some kids are really interested and want to do the English work all the time.  For a bit of fun I might start to teach the ‘How Now Brown Cow’ and ‘The Rain in Spain’ stuff, just to see if they can say it, and for even more fun I might teach them Maciek’s favourite – One smart fellow, he felt smart, two smart fellows, they felt smart, three smart fellows, they felt smart, and they all felt smart together!  Too inappropriate? (If you don’t get it try saying it quite fast!)

P.S  The little boy who wouldn’t look at me and called me ‘that woman’ at the beginning of the year, actually blew me a kiss the other day as he skipped out of the classroom to his mum!  Which was nice!

my little English section!

A Weekend in Wien - Photos



Picnic stop at Seewalchen

St Stephens (?) Cathedral

Horse and Carriage ride

Restaurant from 1477

Inside cathedral

Rathaus (?)

First ice-cream of Spring

Falling asleep on shoulders!

The fair cost us a fortune due to Melanie having beans for lunch!! Spot Milly and Noah through the glass....

Real horses for the carousel...??!

Schonbrunn Palace

......And some of the grounds

Weekend in Wien

The weather was set to be warm and sunny and I had Monday off work, so it was a spur of the moment decision to go to Vienna for the weekend. 

We left Saturday morning for the 4 hour drive, stopping along the way near a lovely lake for a picnic.  There were swans on the lake, taking flight and chasing each other, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen this before, their wings are so loud!  Amazing to watch.  Amelia and Noah chased each other between the trees and played hide and seek and weren’t the least bit interested in the food after I’d spent a whole afternoon and the best part of the morning preparing it to use up what was in the fridge!  It was great to be travelling again with Karen on the Sat Nav guiding us, the car packed up, passing snacks and drinks to the monsters in the back!  Brought back memories of our trip.  And it was nice to leave the snow behind, heading into regions where there was no snow left at all and we were excited to see grass!  We needed no thermals or puffy jackets, and it was great to wear normal shoes and a light cardigan instead of having to rug up so much.  There was much excitement about going to ‘the city’ and Amelia was telling Noah all about how we were going to ‘live’ in a hotel for two days!

We arrived about 4pm.  We chose the hotel for its proximity to the city centre and it was a great location but looked dodgy enough for the price.  The hotel was set on the 8^th and top floor of an apartment block and this is where the reception, breakfast room, and single and double rooms were located.  As we had booked the family room, this was on the 1^st floor opposite a rickety old lift big enough for one man and his suitcase and surrounded by other apartments belonging to God knows who!  It was old, with one of those annoying showers that’s not a real shower but a shower head attached to a tube attached to the tap with water taking turns being extremely hot and freezing cold.  Also there was no heating, until we enquired about it on the first morning after a freezing night and they fixed it for us.  But it was spacious and the beds were comfortable and it was clean, so no problems really.  Maciek was pleased as the T.V had Eurosport in English!  Not that he had chance to watch it.

We went out straight away to catch the last of the light and splashed out for the first time ever on a horse and carriage ride, and what a city to do it in!  Vienna is beautiful.  Brilliant architecture and museums galore.  It gave us a good start to get our bearings of the layout of the city and where we could go the next day.  And we finished off the evening with Nuggets and Chips at Old MacDonalds which is the only thing the kids were looking forward to about ‘going to the city!’  (And the whole time on the carriage this is all Amelia was talking about - typical!)

After breakfast the next morning (which was surprisingly relaxing and confirms our thoughts that we did our Europe trip one year too early as far as Noah goes!) we wandered back into the centre in luxurious sunshine and took in some of the sights we’d seen on the horsey ride in daylight and took our time.  It was such an enjoyable morning, with 20 degrees and sunshine keeping us warm and smiling, window shopping, Amelia and Noah running around happily (bit too loud for some Sunday morning strollers but oh well).  We felt like such country bumpkins!  Being in the ‘big city!’  There were so many nationalities around.  Weird and wonderful fashions.  Hundreds of cafes and shops.  Bums and beggars!  Smells of a variety of national foods wafting from restaurtants.  And we realized how we’d gotten used to ‘country life’, the quietness, no crowds, being able to leave your doors unlocked and return for a bag left behind after half hour and find it sitting where you left it, not watching your back incase of pickpockets, fresh mountain air (and tap water), no graffiti, no chewing gum gone black scattered over the pavement.  We loved the contrast and it was quite invigorating to experience the difference.  On the way back to the hotel Noah fell asleep on Daddy’s shoulders!  And after a rest (Noah slept and Amelia watched a DVD which gave us some rare time to chat, and eat cake, which was nice!) we caught the tube (WOW, the city has a train that goes UNDERTHEGROUND!) to Praters which is a big park with a fun fair. 

Didn’t think it was going to be so big!  It was unexpected in a city like Vienna, when you think of Mozart and the like, but it was a full on loud busy smelly fair like the Royal Show!  There was even a carousel featuring real horses, or ponies, which was weird, and quite cruel.  Not a big fan of that.  Is that even allowed?  Amelia and Noah enjoyed a couple of rides, and so did Maciek up on the giant swing, and we looked everywhere for that ‘turning head clown game’ as Amelia really wanted to win a prize, but we could only find crap ones where it’s near impossible to win like bursting a balloon with a dart, shooting the bullseye, or throwing rolled up balls of socks into a pyramid of tin cans, which is the one Maciek tried, so Amelia ended up with the booby prize of a fluffy heart on a keyring; she wasn’t impressed!  We ended the evening with coffee and cake in the main square next to the Catherdral, where we were surrounded on all three sides by Russians!

We left next morning so we could get back to ‘the country’ at a reasonable hour and also to have enough time to stop in at Schonbrunn Palace and Grounds on the way.  We didn’t go inside the Palace (for two little reasons!) but Maciek suggested trying to sneak in on the Japanese tour group until we realized we might not blend in as the Japanese have quite a unique fashion sense (he he!).  We walked the grounds which were extensive and you could imagine how stunning they would look in the full bloom of summer.  The highlight of the morning was walking the path through a wooded area to see squirrels scurrying about and one that came straight up to Noah and sat up on its hind legs looking straight at him!  “I saw his eyes!”exclaimed Noah, and Amelia thought it was so great that when we finally arrived home she drew a picture of the event which I have proudly displayed on the wall in the hallway!

It was a fantastic little getaway.  Amelia and Noah were so good despite the mileage their poor little legs did!  Don’t really know what all the buildings and statues are called, or the history behind anything we saw like I usually would, but we didn’t have too much time to read up about it with kinder in tow, but enjoy the photos anyway!  And if anyone knows why Japanese peoples always do the ‘peace’ sign everytime they have their photo taken when touring the world, please enlighten me….?

P.S  Photos to come......

Faschingsfeier

 

Everyone knows about scraping ice off the outside of the car windows in the morning, but no-one told us about having to scrape it off the inside!  The shape of the scraper is designed for the curvature of the glass on the outside, so having to remove ice from the inside of the windscreen is a particularly difficult task, one that I happily leave to Maciek!  It causes a miniature snowstorm inside the car, and a wet bum, as it turns to water quickly after settling on your seat.  For weeks we couldn’t figure out why this was happening.  But now we know apparently it happens because of the moisture inside the car, like if you leave your ski’s and boots etc inside the car overnight with snow on them.  One thing I can leave in the car though is the food shopping, which is a definite no-no at home.  Couple of hours is fine.  Frozen items remain frozen and items that aren’t begin to freeze also! 

Having said that it’s beginning to warm up.  It’s been around 10 degrees some days.  Woohoo, t-shirts and shorts weather!  It’s amazing how warm it does feel after experiencing – 20’s.  The snow is beginning to melt too, and it sounds like it’s raining all the time as the snow is melting into the gutters and running onto the ground.  We can see patches of grass and bits of fence starting to make and appearance and it might sound funny but after everything being covered in so much snow for so long it’s really weird to see it.  The walls of ice are melting too, and driving around we can point things out that we haven’t seen for months, like the farmhouse, and the phone box, having been hidden behind the ice wall and not visible from the road. 

What we know as Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, and the beginning of Lent, is called here Faschingsfeier (Amelia thought it was Fashions Day due to the talk about dress ups).  It’s a big carnival day, where everyone gets really dressed up in all sorts of funny outfits, and eat jam dohnuts, called Krapfen.   When I say dressed up, I don’t just mean a funny hat and face paint, they really go all out.  We saw court jesters, medieval folk, smurfs, bumble bees, action hero’s, mythical creatures.  It was a special day at school, people talked about it for weeks, what they were dressing up as.  I felt under huge pressure, not having any old bits a pieces lying around in a wardrobe you hadn’t cleaned out for yonks, like you normally would.  But I did manage to throw something together using bits from Amelia’s small collection of dress ups, make up, hair lackies with big flowers on them, and a stupid skirt made from pink curling ribbon!  People were confused as to whether I was a fairy, or a butterfly, a Fruhlings Frau (Spring Lady!), a birthday present, or a mixture of all!  But at least I made an effort.  Amelia was Snow White, and Noah a Crocodile, and they had a special fun day at Kindergarten with a fashion show and a Magician.

And last but not least, Maciek’s days of a Lederhosen wearing non-German speaking waiter in an Austrian hotel are at an end.  Boo hoo and toodle oo!  No more on-the-house-wink-wink-nudge-nudge Milka chocolates that he nicked and stuffed in his jacket pockets on his way out at the end of his shift everyday!

The Big Chill



Above the clouds



Macieks boarding track on the right, his two friends skiing tracks on the left

Buried chalets

It’s still winter.  Feels like it’s always been winter!  Waking up to bleached whiteness everyday is becoming a bit monotonous, it’s like living in black and white, but we’ll miss it when it’s gone so trying to appreciate it while it’s still here.  And it is magical when it snows, big fat flakes floating passed the window.  Apparently it’s the most snowfall this region has seen in 7 years.  When it snows the roads are cleared pretty quickly and very well, but all the snow from the road is fed to the sides of the road which has left walls of ice, some nearly 2 metres tall, and for a while driving around was like driving through an ice maze!  Blind corners everywhere (more than usual!) and difficult to find entrances to pretty obvious places like shopping centres and main roads!  Some of that has melted now, or has been chopped away.  Not long ago they were shoveling a metre of snow off the roof of our supermarket, as the roof is flat, and too bad if you were just strolling past as there were no signs up to let you know what was going on above, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a fair number of pedestrians became partially buried or at the very least copped a whopper of a headache and had to carry on with their journey soaked to the bone!  I went to get a trolley from the trolley park but couldn’t actually get one out as they’d been buried! 



We’ve spent many many mornings shoveling a few feet of it off our car and digging the car out so we can get to school, and everytime I say to Maciek ‘we must get a photo of us doing that’, but still haven’t, as in the rush to get everything organized, kids dressed in their marshmallow suits and getting out the door on time and then sorting out the car, the camera always gets forgotten.  The girls who parks next to us was holding a lighter to her car key one morning to try to defrost the lock which had frozen, and she couldn't open her car!  It’s been fun driving – NOT – skidding all over the place.  Maciek tried to be cool and chuck a ‘donut’ in the carpark of the hotel where he works only to get stuck and have a couple of his colleagues help push him out of his predicament!  How embarrassment! 



St Johann gondola, amelia calls it a bubble, noah calls it a zoom



There’s been lots of fun sledging, sliding on bumboards, and catching the gondola after work for a hot chocolate at the top, and animal foot print spotting in the snow (mostly deer and hare).  There were a few days in January where they closed the lifts altogether as it was too dangerous with the amount of snow and there were avalanche warnings.  Didn’t bother Maciek though, he considers himself too professional to be bothered by a measly thing such as an avalanche!  Dumkopf!  I did manage to go skiing for a couple of hours with a friend one Sunday morning.  We did more falling than skiing.  And unfortunately I haven’t been able to find the time to practice again since, so I am officially the worst skier in the family, apart from Noah, and that’s only because he’s two! 



Hot chocolate inside, frostbites outside



The temperature has been -20 or close to it the past two weeks.  You don’t spend much time outside in that!  Just getting from the car into school (literally 30 seconds) is painful, it does really feel like your skin is being bitten, and when you breathe you can actually feel the bits up your nose turning into little icicles!



 

 

taken by milly in the zoom

Buried trolleys

Forgotten Photos

 Here are some photos of Milly in action that i forgot i had.
BTW that mysterious odour has now gone. Melanie was trying to blame it on me. I must admit I have been responsible for a few bad smells around here from time to time but definitely not the last one. I'm not wearing that one.

Winter Update



Loads of Snow





Milly with Medal



 Servus, or gday everyone, Maciek here again with an update of how we’re travelling so far.  This blog will mainly be about me, the snow and me on the snow. So if you’re still with me welcome aboard.We are about two thirds of the way through winter and it has been quite a harsh one as far as snow fall goes, we’ve had a lot, which sounds great and it is but there a lot of snow removal to be done when that happens. It take about 15 minutes to dig the car out every morning after a snow fall, usually about a foot of snow covers the car and surrounds then the same in the afternoon. Digging the car out once a day is fine, twice is a pain. I’ve also had to do my fair share of snow clearing at work which can get annoying but mostly its better then standing around doing nothing. Work is either full on busy or dead quiet but it’s all good because I’ve been able to get plenty of time to snowboard.

These days, as I’m now 10 years older than I was when I last did a season, I find that a couple of hours in the morn before work is sufficient enough to get a fix and not feel too tired. I also usually get a chance to go out one day a week for a half day before I have to pick up Melanie and the kids. It has all been a bit of a fine balancing act, trying to get time on the hill and not upsetting the family, but so far it has worked ok, I think.



My Epic Ride-TOP



MIDDLE



The slopes around us are pretty good. There are three resorts within 15 minutes drive from here. I’ve spent most of my time at the local one, St Johann, as my work is at the bottom of that one. So what normally happens is that I drop mel and the kids at school, leave the car there, walk to the gondola, snowboard for a couple of hours and ride down to work, which is on the other side of the mountain. Sound good ha. The slopes here are uncrowned and with all the fresh snow we’ve had I have been able to get the best powder rides of my life. In one ride I was lucky enough to get the second track down which went for about 2 km, untracked fresh snow in front of me. This must be the best feeling in the world, it almost feels like flying and I love it, well I’m sure skydivers and base jumpers would have something to say about that, but that’s a bit extreme for me. I took some pictures of the tracks, I got to do this run twice that day. Everything came together, two days of snow, followed by a sunny day and a day off for me, doesn’t happen too often. The only down side was that there was a 15 minute hike out of the valley to the gondola.



BOTTOM



Amelia has also learnt to ski in the meantime, we are so proud of her. It took quiet a lot of tears and persistence but after 2 weeks of ski school she skied in a race, slalom between flags, and came forth in her group. I have also learned to ski and have been about to go up with her and ski down which has been a long awaited dream come true, to be able to ski with my kids. We are still waiting on Melanie to be able to join us as she has been very busy with work and been too tired to ski with us. Hopefully soon. Noah will have to wait till next winter as he is too small but if you’ve seen the video of him skiing on Facebook you’ll know he won’t have too many problems.

By the way, I’m writing this blog today sitting here at home, while Mel and the kids are at school, and not boarding because it -15 outside and too freaking cold. I’m also airing out the house cos there’s a foul and mysterious odor coming from somewhere and I’m freezing.