• Austria,  Summer,  Travel,  TravelTips

    Das Sommerhaus (Getting to Know Vienna)

    So, it’s early June 2021, things are starting to open up, but you don’t feel super comfortable with travel yet (even though you will be fully vaccinated), yet still want to book yourself a nice relaxing holiday without having to jump on an airplane (there will be plenty of that this year). For me, the ideal situation was to visit our neighbors to the south in Austria, only a three hour train ride away and open without restrictions to vaccinated travelers. As we hadn’t (at time of booking) visited a big city since before the pandemic, we were both game to head back to Vienna. Although I went briefly for…

  • Austria,  Autumn,  Language Learning,  Thoughts,  Travel

    Language Progress + Thoughts on Solo Travel

    “That was a really good lesson. I felt like we sort of… are getting it now, you know?” A moment Alex and I shared after our Czech lesson today. We started taking Czech language seriously in autumn 2015 – that means it’s been now over four years of really studying the language. Before that, I had taken a couple classes sporadically the year I first arrived although they didn’t amount to much as I was a total beginner in a class with people who clearly had some sort of grasp on the language and a teacher who couldn’t explain Czech grammar in my native tongue. Four years of serious study!…

  • Austria,  Christmas,  Daily Life,  Life Abroad,  Travel,  Winter

    A Surprise Vienna

    last friday morning, my landlord, martin (who lives in the flat below me) knocked on my door, inquiring whether or not we were free to join a day-trip to vienna the next day, as there were two free seats in his van. ….so, that was a no-brainer. české budějovice is fascinatingly only a two and a half hour drive from vienna and the idea of going there only for the day was blowing my mind! as in: i live somewhere where i can visit vienna. for the day. and then come home and go to sleep. so began what seemed like two days worth of sights packed into one, waking up…

  • Austria,  Spring,  Travel

    a viennese easter

    haven’t had a lot of time to post about easter holiday weekend as i’ve had to jump right into teaching madness: moderating another english competition (this one for 14-15 year olds) then zooming to three other parts of the city to give my lessons. although CB is a city of about 100,000 people, it is surprisingly compact and getting around from north to south really takes no time at all– even on the bus! so great. today i taught my first of three conversation classes at the university!  only two people came, which was totally fine by me because it gives the students speaking time.  the czech people get are taught…