The Final Chapter. I’m all grown up!

I started this blog with the intention to write it for the duration of my Comenius year abroad, and that time has now sadly come to an end. It’s genuinely difficult to believe that another school year has flown by and has led me to places I could only have imagined I would end up in! After some initial doubts, I can now say that it was a good decision to complete the Comenius program. It allowed me to find my feet, build my confidence and establish a professional network which I can build my future from. Before I get too sentimental, let me first reflect upon what’s been happening over the last few weeks. 

  

June continued with another fantastic visitor, my half Russian, half Ukrainian friend Sofia. We first met in 2011, after starting our new lives in Finland and joining the Board of a voluntary organisation called ISTU - International Students of Turku Universities. We organised many events together, we cooked for hundreds of people, we hosted sauna evenings, went ice swimming, and even spent long mornings in the library as study buddies, concentrating on that dreaded Master’s thesis. In Vienna, however, we found ourselves chilling in the city, and checking out the sights with the help of a pair of local eyes – those of Georg. Georg is from Ottakring (a so-called ‘ghetto’ neighbourhood of Vienna), whom we’d also met at an ISTU event in Finland. 

Even without a local in tow, we spent an evening at Prater – a permanent amusement park, where I’d somehow avoided during most of my Comenius year. We were lucky to catch a beautiful, midweek evening with a stunning sunset and a change from the overcrowded nature of Prater, instead enjoying the freedom to move and no queues for the rides. We even conquered nerves and rode the Praterturm - 117m high and the world's highest-flying swing ride. I also introduced Sofia to Làngos, a proper greasy Hungarian snack. 

As always, we bumped into special events and festivals, including the vibrant and extravagant pride parade. I’ve always wanted to experience a city during gay pride week and Vienna was a great place for it! I think it was also a special experience for Sofia, considering where she’s from. We managed to catch the parade as it passed by Schwedenplatz, where we happened to be at the time. We had originally been on a mission for ice-cream and I knew just the place – a place I’d recently discovered with Jenny, where they serve an amazing After Eight ice cream sundae – it is simply heavenly!

After Sofia’s visit, I’d planned to spend the long weekend in Hungary – a couple of nights with my au pair family in Sopron and a couple of nights in Eni’s hometown of Nagykanizska (closer to the Croatian border.) In Sopron, I met the new au pair, Renee. As she is training to be a teacher, it was insightful to talk with her and see the tremendous progress the children have made since Renee has joined the family. Saci and Juju are now reading and writing in English. Hanga is forming complete and grammatically correct sentences at 4 years old, while Attila is saying his first words in English at 22 months old! 

Renee and I took the two older girls to an interactive forestry museum, where there were many interesting facts and activities to do with wood and trees. After returning, I went with Eszter and Attila to pick up Hanga from kindergarten. I witnessed Attila walking for the first time, which also happened to be his first time exploring how it feels to walk on grass! Straight afterwards, we attended the closing ceremony of the school, which was interesting for me to see inside the school and compare to those I’ve seen in Austria. Even in a small school in Sopron, the classrooms are equipped with interactive whiteboards, while those in Vienna lag behind with only chalkboards and overhead projectors from decades ago. To continue the full schedule of activities, we dressed up for a celebratory dinner for Juju and Saci receiving their grades. Juju sang in front of all the diners at the restaurant, alongside her private music teacher playing the keyboard. A packed day, but a great one!

The next morning, I caught an early train to Nagykanizska and was welcomed by Eni, Ilpo and Eni’s grandmother who kindly drove to the train station to pick me up. I was grateful for the lift, but also to make it in one piece – after parking up in the driveway, Eni and Ilpo got out of the car safely, but as I stepped out the back wheel rammed into my foot as the granny nearly ran me over while driving into the garage! Not to worry, I suffered nothing more than shock and a throbbing, grubby foot. I later walked it off around the city with Eni and Ilpo, where we discovered a beer festival happening. We tried a few different kinds, but the experience still confirmed my inability to drink beer. The smell gets to me and since smell forms a significant portion of our sense of taste, my dislike naturally follows. 

As always in Hungary, I was well fed! We enjoyed traditional Hungarian lunches of three courses (soup, main – almost always with meat – and dessert). We spent our days chilling out, playing cards (learned a Hungarian card game), and picking strawberries in the huge garden where Eni’s family can be self-sufficient. They have every fruit and vegetable you can think of, as well as many chickens for eggs and poultry meat. It was enlightening and heart-warming to meet the family of one of my best friends, and I was chuffed to see Eni thrive in her own hometown environment. I can’t wait to see where the next place we’ll meet will be! 

As the last week of school approached immediately after returning from Hungary, I anticipated an incredibly busy week, but nothing could have prepared me for the madly packed schedule I had! Every day was full of school, tutoring and end-of-year school events in the evening. On Monday evening, before Thomas arrived from Bern, I attended a dinner with the 4^th graders and parents.

They presented me with a beautiful, big potted plant that will hopefully fit well in our new apartment. I have two asides to add here – firstly, I’ve become somewhat green fingered. After growing a mint plant, I was excited to discover a deal on a herb pot, in which I now also grow basil, parsley and chives. Before I left, I planted sunflower seeds which I received as a gift from a pupil in the private school, and I adopted an orchid too. Hopefully, thanks to the next tenant in my old apartment, the plants will survive the summer and I can move them to our new home in August.

Secondly, two milestones were reached during that crazily packed week, through the signing of my new work contract for the next school year, and securing our new apartment. My new job will be in the private school as the class teacher of 3^rd grade Junior High School, teaching them English, history, geography, chemistry, biology, coaching and craft. I have a huge challenge ahead of me but one that I hope to tackle head on and work together with my colleagues and pupils to create a positive and thriving learning environment from September onwards. 

On the last Tuesday evening of June, I was invited to a staff farewell party with my colleagues from the Comenius school. During a fun-filled evening of banter, I received a farewell gift with a voucher for Interio. At first, I deceivingly thought it was a CD(!) because of the case it came in, though I didn’t question the oddity of such a gift. I was later told that they had originally discussed buying an IKEA voucher, but as IKEA is always on the outskirts of the city and I don’t have a car, they decided against it. Interio is a more upmarket home ware store where I wouldn’t think to shop, but now Thomas and I have the chance to treat ourselves and our new place to something special from there that we wouldn’t normally buy. Can’t wait to see what there is! Then the next big mission is sofa shopping! I’m growing up, indeed…!

On that note, I’ve mentioned our new apartment – it’s central, big (at least 75m2) and cheap. There’s lots of potential to make it our own and it even has a huge bathtub (as a fan of long, hot soaks, this was a major plus-point for me!) The toilet in the corridor is the only negative, being in an Altbau building, but that’s something I’m already used to from the past 10 months. No apartment is perfect and all the positives more than make up for the negative. I’m lucky too that there’s a direct tram to school, and everything in the city centre is within easy, walking distance. Thomas and I are both looking forward to living and experiencing the real hustle and bustle of big, city life!

Before the final school day, I had another break from city life on the Lobau camping trip with the 4^th graders from the private school. The weather started off great: warm, the children could swim in the Danube and play outside. However, later we were caught in a thunderstorm and it left the camp too damp to make a campfire during the evening. It cooled down for the night but with a

good sleeping bag and a bit of camping savvy (e.g. not wearing too many clothes inside the sleeping bag!) it was warm enough. Though we were sleep-deprived (the noise only lowered around 1am and the children were up and wide awake at 4.30am), we still managed to make the most of the time away. The forest trail the next day was rather exhausting for everyone! Fun all the same, and I was even offered a summer job at an English adventure camp, camping for five nights. Unfortunately, the timing doesn’t suit, but otherwise I would be interested and might have the same opportunity next year if they still need a native speaker.

Before I knew it, the last day of school had already arrived and emotions were running high, particularly for 4^th graders, but mainly their parents, and especially those leaving the country. I received more cards, gifts, chocolate and vouchers! I now also have 110€ of Amazon vouchers to spend! Sometimes teaching doesn’t just deliver psychological and emotional rewards, but material rewards too! By the end of the week, I was exhausted but still no rest for the wicked! I had to pack up everything and start moving to the new apartment and clean the old one. The next day was Saturday, and it was already time to board a flight to Helsinki. 

Sunday came around just as fast, but we had time to enjoy the special day of the name giving ceremony of Matti and Johanna’s baby. Thomas and I had a slight problem with our perfect idea for our present, as an obstacle presented itself in the form of a Finnish tradition not to reveal the baby’s name until the very occasion. Being the ridiculously organised couple that we are, we had a replacement gift with us and still had time to perfect the proper present during our last few days in Helsinki.

 The first couple of day were spent at Matti’s summer cottage, somewhere I’d only ever been in winter. It’s situated north of Turku and Helsinki, in the middle of nowhere, with the closest city being Hämeenlinna. Matti had always said, “In the summer, you can do this, and in the summer you can do that, it’s so great in the summer,” but it was never summer! This time it was and, though it was quite dull and drizzly, the land of the midnight sun still lived up to its reputation. This time there was no need to take a torch every time you used the outdoor toilet hut, because, whatever time of the day or night, there was plenty of light to see clearly.

We felt privileged to be a part of that special day with Matti and Johanna. This was a big moment for them, revealing the name of their 7-week old baby. They gathered everybody outside under a marquee and showed a video that Matti had made displaying photos during the pregnancy and since the birth. The suspense was finally over as the baby’s name was revealed at the end of the video: Tuulikki Lilja Toivio. It was very well done and the name they chose serves the purpose they were seeking: to find a Finnish name that would suit their baby daughter. Tuulikki is a very traditional name coming from the national Finnish book Kalevala, meaning ‘forest goddess’, while ‘tuuli’ in Finnish means wind. Being surrounded by the stunning Finnish landscape of the forest and lake, the name seemed incredibly apt in this situation. Following the presentation, the godparents were asked to step forward, choose a tree, climb a ladder and nail a bird box to the tree. This may not be such a tradition but a nice touch, nonetheless. For the rest of the time at the cottage, we enjoyed cuddle times with Tuulikki, proper wooden Finnish sauna, and skinny-dipping in the lake. The land of the midnight sun, and land of a thousand lakes never disappoints.

Since I was so busy prior to this trip to Finland and the trip was revolving around Matti and Johanna’s plans, I hadn’t planned anything in particular. In fact, I had suspected that we may not have a chance to even visit Turku; a strange thought, considering I lived there for two years. However, we did end up in Turku after all and we were glad of it, as we could spend more time with Matti, Johanna and Tuulikki, catch a few of my friends before they left for the summer, and even organise a small gathering to have a drink for my birthday. So much for a spontaneous, unplanned trip – I spent the entire car journey to Turku organising to meet up with friends. That’s as spontaneous as it gets for me! Not having my planner with me was unusual, but that was only the case because I thought we would return to Vantaa so I’d left it there.

We did return to Vantaa after spending a couple of amazing days in Turku and stayed in Matti and Johanna’s new apartment there, strangely without them present. Still, we felt at home having always felt so in their flat in Turku, and with all the same furniture, just in a different environment, we could completely relax and appreciate our last few days in Finland. It is worth appreciating, as we don’t know when we might return here, and it felt as if a door had somehow closed in Turku when I finally closed my Finnish bank account. It was actually a little emotional and a rather brutal experience, as the lady ruthlessly cut up my bank card in front of me, unaware of what it represented. Nevertheless, it is a good time to close that chapter of my life, as a new one has well and truly began.

As a new chapter writes itself, I celebrated turning 26 and foresee a new year with a new life, in which I don’t feel the need to continue this blog. Celebrating my birthday in Finland was a first, and I was lucky to be spoiled by Thomas the whole day with breakfast in bed, a beautiful new handbag, a picnic on an island, dinner date, sauna and shopping spree in Helsinki just for me! I can wave goodbye to Finland this time, feeling that my goals for this country have been fulfilled – I’ve now experienced the traditional Finnish life at a summer cottage in the summer time; and experienced proper Finnish sauna and swimming in a lake the traditional, naked way; and even tried liquorice ice cream for the first time! – any future visits will be purely to visit those who mean something.

On that note, let me close this chapter and allow the new one to freely express itself as I look forward to spending the summer in Switzerland, Northern Ireland and Vienna, and the future who knows where! With a new apartment, new job and new life all starting in August, I’m sure I’ll have enough to keep me occupied!

Watch out! I’m becoming localised!

The end of the school year on the 27^th of June will mark the end of my Comenius year, and the EU project as it’s known. We are the last participants to complete the program and as of January 2014, it no longer exists. The new Erasmus+ program incorporates many new opportunities but nothing quite like Comenius. In this sense, I can only consider myself lucky to have had the chance to spend this year finding some direction in a city I had never thought I would end up in.

As one of the final requirements of Comenius, I must write a final report reflecting on the year spent in an Austrian school and how it has helped me develop both professionally and personally. Part of the report is about my contribution to the local community. In the past few weeks, I’ve been experiencing more and more of the local nature, museums, culture, theatre and sport! Here’s just a taster of some of those!

Music, History, Drama and Running!

Recently, I’ve had the chance to accompany some of my classes on field trips and workshops. With the 2^nd graders (7-8 year olds), I visited the Albertina museum, which is one of the biggest, most famous museums in Vienna that I had not yet seen. Being my usual frugal self, I was grateful to be granted free entrance as a responsible adult with the class.

The enthusiasm of the guide was so infectious that we could overlook the unfortunate rule of NO PHOTOS! She had the children dressing up as Duke Albert and his wife, Maria Christina. The dominating feature of the museum is the Young Hare painting by the German artist Albrecht Dürer, painted in 1502. That’s the symbol of the Albertina and the example painting used to advertise the museum that can be seen on posters and billboards all over the city. It is an impressive painting, but I was captured more so by the painting Praying Hands from the same artist. If you’re unaware of the title of the painting, it can lead to many possibilities of interpretation. 

With the 4^th graders from the public school I work in, I attended a first aid workshop. I’m normally a fainter when it comes to these things – put me in a real life situation and I will cope with the adrenaline flowing, but fire a detailed description of a scenario at me and I will probably keel over! – but this time, I was concentrating so much on the language that my body didn’t react to the content. If it had have been in English, I would surely have been on the floor! The kids nominated me to act as the injured party and I obliged, giving myself a role and providing some entertainment for those involved. Supposedly, they start training children in first aid from kindergarten age, so who knows, it could be a four year old who saves your life some day!

A highlight from the month of May was the Austrian Women’s Run (Österreichescher Frauenlauf). I had originally registered to run alone, but after joining the teaching team at the private school, I also joined the group of female teachers and girls who were registered to run as a school. The organisation of the run was impeccable. There were 31,000 women and girls running and yet it ran so smoothly and I had no issues picking up my starting number, chip and goodie bag (with lots of freebies from sponsors) the day before. The atmosphere was incredible as well, with many promo and food stalls, and plenty of people there to cheer on the runners. 

The school had also organised it well, despite the unfortunate coincidence that the Frauenlauf t-shirts (which everyone who registered received to wear on the day of the run) happened to be the same colour as the school t-shirt: bright yellow! The point was that we would stand out so the parents and children could find us easily, and we could also locate each other easily. However, with thousands of other people wearing the same colour, it became impossible to find anybody once you’d lost them. Luckily, everyone managed to locate the meeting point for after the run and we all completed it, even though it was a rather hot day! I was happy to reach my goal of running 5k, and hope to aim for the 10k next year. That’s not much compared to the 42k Ryan ran at the Edinburgh marathon, but it’s enough for me!

 

Later that evening, I was treated to a free ticket to the theatre (originally priced at 40€ each), thanks to my mentor. I went to see ‘wunschloses unglück’, or in English, ‘A Sorrow Beyond Dreams’ in the Burgtheater im Kasino am Schwarzenbergplatz. It is a depressing story about a mother’s suicide and her son’s attempt to understand how and why she did it. In putting together the puzzle pieces, he discovers the huge influence World War II had on his mother and he suffers from schizophrenia. It was by far the strangest theatre production I’ve ever seen – the actors had no dialogue; all was narrated from a room on the left of the set; on the right of the set, a sound lady had a duplicate of every prop to create the sound effect at the same time it was being acted out; on set, you could see several rooms and camera people moving around the whole time to show different camera shots from different angles; and above the set was a screen, showing what was being filmed live on set. Quite an extraordinary production, and with so much to look at and concentrate on, my fear of boredom due to not understanding the language didn’t come true. I was awed and mesmerized by the entire thing.

In keeping with culture and frugality, a few of us attended a free classical music, evening concert at the palace of Schönbrunn. It consisted of impressive performances of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, playing on a televised stage set up specifically for the occasion. The great thing about living in a city like this is that there is always something going on and it’s impossible to be bored. Furthermore, it suits my budget that so many of the festivals and shows taking place exhibit free entrance to the public. The same existed with the opening ceremony of the Life Ball at the stunning town hall, including performances from Conchita Wurst and Leona Lewis, and a fashion show. It’s hard to believe sometimes that such events are open to the public for free!

Thomas and I are excited to have found a flat that’s very central and would allow us to spontaneously experience the city whenever we feel like it. We had a little taste of this last week as we checked out the area of the apartment we would like to rent on a Saturday night and enjoyed a date night, imagining that that’s what we could do more often come August. We went to a relatively new restaurant that I’d read a raving review of on the ‘Vienna Reviews’ Facebook page and it did not disappoint! The restaurant, named Ulrich, is in a lovely part of the city called Spittelberg, where there are narrow, pedestrianized, cobbled streets and a cosy, inner city atmosphere. The food was scrumptious, the staff were fantastically friendly and efficient, and the restaurant oozed a charming quirkiness that would entice anyone to return.

In terms of personal development, learning German has been the defining feature of this year spent in Vienna. This week I will receive my certificate of proficiency in German at A2/2 level, meaning I will move on from being a beginner and can now take intermediate level. The teacher also said, based on my active participation and demonstration of the language throughout this course, she will put in a good word for me to skip B1/1 level and go straight to B1/2 (the levels are taken from the "Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR)".) 

City vs. Nature

During the last week, I have been alternating between city life and experiencing the local nature. Festivals versus forests. City spa versus swimming in the Danube. Dining out versus campfire grilling. All of those appealed to me!

The influence from nature mainly came from an overnight camping trip spent with my 4^th graders from my Comenius school. We travelled by coach to Donauauen, about an hour and a half away from Vienna, in Lower Austria. It’s located right next to the Danube River, amongst a huge national park. Two rangers greeted us upon arrival and didn’t spare a minute getting to know the kids with icebreaker games. They guided us on a hike through the forest and national park, where the children spotted many creatures such as a beaver, turtle and a grass snake. In the evening, we all gathered around a campfire and grilled sausages, vegetables and dough. 

The rest of the time flew in with activities to keep us active, from swimming in the Danube, to cycling to the river and rowing together to an island. I was glad that the children were also given paddles and the rowing wasn’t just left to the adults to do. It is a great opportunity for the children to be involved, rather than feeling bored and moving around in the boat, upsetting the balance and making it more difficult for those who are rowing. Instead, every child had a role and it was a fantastic way to encourage teamwork and exercise at the same time! I hope my next overnight camping trip with the 4^th graders from the private school will be just as fun!

The aforementioned city life stems from quality time spent with my cousin Jenny, whom I met in Budapest and later showed her around Vienna. I was met at the train station in Budapest by the granddad from my Hungarian au pair family, who very kindly offered to drive to the airport to pick up Jenny as well. We stayed in his house, where I’ve stayed every time I’ve been to Budapest (I can’t imagine staying anywhere else!), giving Jenny somewhat of an authentic Hungarian experience. We enjoyed our breakfasts outside in the summer morning sun and could conveniently hop on the metro to take us directly into the city. 

As city life tends to present you with random events you would never have even thought of, Budapest had a unique street food festival that happened to be over the weekend we were there. A colleague of mine alerted me to it, originally recommending the beer, but as we’re not beer drinkers, we went for the locally produced cider instead, along with some tasty, Asian food. After that, we challenged our feet to a walk along the river to admire the striking architecture of Buda and Pest, before heading towards the thermal baths. I always seem to find myself at this one particular spa in Budapest (this was my third time), but I can hardly resist, especially as I know it can reach the expectations of visitors who want to experience this as something special that Hungary has to offer. Every time I’m there, I thoroughly enjoy going from 18 degree water to 40 degree water and relaxing in the naturally heated, mineral pools and saunas.

There was just enough time to show Jenny around Vienna while she was here too. Because Vienna also has so much to offer, I thought carefully of what my lovely cousin might like to do in order to have the best possible impression within such a short time. I took her around the old part of the city, where she could feel the Viennese, old school atmosphere with the elaborate, elegant, old buildings and horse-drawn carriages trotting by. 

By simply walking around, we randomly discovered festivals, raves and events that were happening that we wouldn’t have known about otherwise. Having such an efficient public transport system, as Vienna does, helps to make the city more accessible, especially if time is of the essence. One of the many highlights of the weekend was at Vienna Zoo within the grounds of Schönbrunn Palace. There we saw so many amazing animals, including cheetah cubs and a baby panda playing with its mother, but the most spectacular of all was observing the polar bears swimming and playing with a ball underwater. This was one of the most fascinating sights I’ve ever seen; such huge creatures gliding through the water, with their giant back paws trailing behind them made you stare in awe at how they are such powerful swimmers and beings. 

Packed into the same day, we managed to relax by the river Danube and refresh ourselves with a swim in the Alte Donau, which is a separated, older and warmer part of the river. We needed this, as the temperature rose to a scorching 30˚C and the afternoon sun was too strong to do anything else. Jenny came over the perfect weekend as I had the most free time due to a public holiday (the schools were off), and it was the first proper summer weather we’ve seen, in terms of it becoming consistently hotter and staying warm and sunny the whole time. Jenny’s visit came to an end with an elegant evening spent having traditional Austrian food at a very typical, upmarket Viennese café/restaurant with my tandem friends. 

As always, a lot was packed into the last few weeks and as the end of my Comenius year approaches, my schedule only becomes tighter and tighter! With another visitor arriving on Saturday and plenty of school and cultural events coming up, I'll surely be kept on my toes!