Week 2 - Training in Graz! :)

So.... I arrived in Graz on the Friday after a 5.00 am start and a meeting in Liezen with my Betreuunglehrerin (the teacher who is responsable for me), i met Jordan and the youth hostel and we immediately went out for a beer, i quickly realised he was on my level and we ended up getting on really well!

CORI was supposed to be meeting us in Graz from Vienna but dissapeared off the face of the earth, causing me, her mum and Cat to have several nervous breakdowns over the period of 6 hours that she was "missing" because we couldn't find her anywhere! LOL turns out she thought we were meeting on saturday and had gone out for drinks, leaving her phones at home..... however this non-contact triggered a series of Josef Fritzl-esque fears which ran wild through my head, not helped by Jordan and an Ozzie guy called Ilan, who were on hand to helpfully supply me with brand new and potentially life threatening situations which Cori may or may not be involved in, each one worse and more fucked up than the one three minutes before... so thanks for that guys!

Alysha arrived the next day, as did Cori and we did some sightseeing (which included a 1950 stain glass window depicting Hitler and Mussolini as bystanders in the torturing of christ....) and had a realllllly nice meal! :) Then we got drunk.
Alaina arrived the next day and so did Phillip so we had a quite a crew gawarning in our hostel by the end of our stay!
The youth hostel was a really cool and i'd defo recommend it to anyone staying in Graz, it's called JUFA and although it's not in a very good part of town it's only a really short walk to where the main action happens!
So Monday we decided to get a taxi across town because we had sooooooo much luggage and it was going to be quite a walk. When we arrived we checked in (to the CONVENT lol!!!) and i had a shower before we were sent up to the second accomodation site at a castle up the road.

We had an introductory seminar and met about 12 million people and then had some wine and beer at the castle together before getting the bus back to the nunnery...

Although we should have gone to bed at this point.... we didn't!
Me, Alaina, Rich, Dan and Nichol decided to go to a pub up the road and have a few drinks, which turned into many drinks, which eventually ended up as a lock in with an OAP called Heinrich, a woman who i assume was his carer (but who was nonetheless pissed as a fart) and WOLFIE... the over friendly patron with whom i'm sure every member of the group (male or female) has taken their very own special memory of wandering hand syndrome! So after many (free) glasses of white wine and spritzers for the boys (lol!) we all staggered off into the night and back to the convent, talking a LOT of shit all the way home! :)

The next morning was strugglemania, early start, bus ride to the castle, seminars all morning and more meeting people... but great tipps from our extremely awesome team of teachers and second year assistants (Otto and Lisbeth mainly)
After a tour round Graz (given by students from the schools in Graz) me, Jordan, Dan and Nichol went for tapas and STURM! Good times, we got back at about 10pm and i was asleep by 11... very tired!

Back up to the castle for wednesday where we learned we were going to be giving an ACTUAL LESSON the next day, in schools in Graz... cue inward hysteria and heightened sense of anxiety. However, my group were awesome, we were a mix of U.S and U.K assistants, and after a brief (but surprisingly intense) disagreement between the wisconsin and michigan camps about which state is ACTALLY shaped like a hand or a mitten????? we all got on really well! We decided to give a lesson on stereotypes and split the group into 4 smaller groups asking them to come up with their favourite stereotype of Britain and the U.S (we had a LOT of fun discussing these amongst ourselves whilst we were planning the lessons).

Thursday was an eeeeeeearly start, got up at 5, breakfast at 6, school at 7 and actally teaching at 8! Our support teacher was the bomb.com!! She was so nice and gave us some wicked feedback about the lesson (which went reeeeeally well), apparently the kids even asked her if we could come back the next week! :) :) :)
We were finished in school by about 10.30, so we went to drink bucket loads of coffee and walked round Graz for a bit before getting the bus back to the castle... bear in mind by this point we've been up for a good 8 hours and still have the afternoon session to go.... so the bus drops us off AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HILL!!!!! Unexpected and unwelcome turn of events.. me and the girl i am walking with proceed to whine and whinge at each other about how shit life is for the entire 15 minutes it takes to walk up to the castle... i feel a lot better after that and have a coffee with her making sure she realises i do not actually hate my life in the process!

Thursday night begins at about 3pm in the castle! Me, Jen, Jo, and Nichol have a beer, and then another, then theres a break for a while before we start drinking wine with dinner, then we get a taxi into Graz and go barring and clubbing!! LOTS of fun ensues, there is a pole in the club we are in, we manage to con some austrian boys into thinking we will all pole dance for them if they do first... without any trousers on! They do it.... we do not. More jager bombs and frolicks, then taxi home for me and Nichol about 2am.
Jo and Jen stay out (Hardcore you know the score).
Upon getting in the taxi i realise my throat is hoarse from all the singing along, i have lost the ability to speak and sound more like a 12 year old boy than a 21 year old girl... great.

Friday morning, checkout at 9am.... not in a good mood, me and Alaina get the train to our area, potential students from the school get on at Liezen, me and Alaina seperate in Stanaich, almost instantaneously i fall asleep (with my mouth open) unsure whether dribbling was involved, but lets face it, its a possibility... wake up in Schladming with an audience of maybe 8 students watching me sleep/dribble.... i will meet them on monday.... fantastic!

I'll let you know whether my new name around school involves saliva.....

Tschussss! x.x.x.x