Hallein gets ready for Halloween?

With nothing but a very lazy Saturday ahead of me, I decided to hop on a train and head to Hallein to see what I could find. I had forgotten that this weekend the Krampusausstellung would be on display. Now, if you know me, then you probably know that I love Halloween.


See, that's me loving Halloween, or rather, me being upset that Austrians don't seem to love Halloween, nor really understand what it is, sadly. Anyway, though I love Halloween, I unfortunately scare very easily. Reading Bram Stoker's Dracula has caused me more than my fair share of nightmares this week, though I won't give it up. Dracula, however, is nothing compared to Krampus. Now there's a being that's really effing terrifying.


At the Krampusausstellung, they had over 600 of these little beasties on display to scare the bejeebus out of every little kid, and a few big kids, too. But like I said, Austrians don't really do Halloween. So why here, why now with all the scary and the creepy and the horns and the fangs? Well, if you know Alpine folklore, you already know the answer. Krampus is associated with a holiday, but no, not Halloween. Krampus's holiday, rather, is Christmas. Yes, Christmas. You see, in mid-continental Europe, bad little children don't get coal in their stockings to let them know Santa has been paying attention. Instead, St. Nicholas sends his goons, a.k.a. a "Pass" of Krampuses, to beat the bad little children with a fist full of branches. This is apparently what Krampus looks like in the farm willage I'm living in, Kuchl. I best be good this year.


This next one, however, was the Krampus I found most terrifying. I think it's the fact that he was one of the few without eyes, since his teeth and horns were by no means the largest or sharpest. It really robs him of any humanity, or any perceivable life (as opposed to death), that a Krampus may otherwise have. Not to mention the fact that the skin had been partly ripped away from his face. Really, if the Austrians wanted to Halloween well, they easily could.


I had to wash those images out of my mind, so I headed off to take pictures of my second two schools. This one is a Gymnasium. Of all Austrian schools, I think a Gymnasium is most like an American high school. It doesn't specialize in a specific vocation or area of interest, and every student who walks through its doors will have the chance to go to college (some schools, usually vocational schools, do not prepare students for the Matura, and without the Matura, an Austrian can't go to college). This is also the largest school I work at with about 700 students. I don't think I'll ever learn any of their names.


This is the third school I work at. It's a fashion design and marketing school - yes, one of the vocational schools in Austria. About half the students will take the Matura, and the other half won't. They have classes on sketching and design, also on the history of fashion. But no, the students, and the teachers, do not have noticeably better fashion than at the other two schools. You'd expect it, though, wouldn't you? It's also the smallest school I work at with about 200 students, and only 5 of them are male. Ha. Maybe I'll be able to learn their names.

This school also happens to be a Catholic school, so every morning they begin the first lesson with a prayer. I was told not all the students are Catholic and that not all are Christian, but I haven't noticed anyone skipping out on the morning prayer. I join in, too, though I haven't been Catholic for years. Since I never got baptized anything else, though, I think if you held a black light up to my forehead, you could still find a Catholic stamp there. Maybe saying the prayer will help keep the Krampuses away. After all, he is pals with St. Nicholas, and the old-school Catholics sure do love their saints.

Walking Tour of Kuchl

In one of my classes, I mentioned that I'm living in Kuchl. Kuchl seems to have a decent representation in the schools in Hallein, but when I mentioned that Kuchl has a population of over 6,000, they seemed surprised. One girl said she thought Kuchl only had about 1,000 inhabitants. I guess you don't have to go from living in a suburb of Chicago that's 80,000 people big to a farm willage outside of Salzburg for Kuchl to seem small. Maybe they have barn parties I could join in on, you know, as part of my effort to experience all facets of Austrian culture. We'll see.

The reason Kuchl has a dormitory at all is that there's a school for Holztechnik and Holzwirtschaft here. What that means exactly, I'm not sure. I think they learn how to process and market wood, but it's a bit unclear. Anyway, the Holztechnik students get nice housing. Behold, my room, or about half of it:


I found out that my bed, which is bigger than a twin and smaller than a double, is a standard size in Austria. I'm not sure they have a name for it, just measurements, though. And then there's my kitchen, in all it's ovenless glory. I'm still trying to figure out how I'll be able to bake anything.



The whole building, and its twin next door, is pretty new. It opened in February 2008. For being open less than a year, though, it's fairly dirty. But I suppose that's a habit of student living.


Then there's everything outside the dorm, most of which, because this is a farm willage after all, includes animals. I found one of the cats that chases the chickens around. As it turns out, the reason the chicken crossed the road is because a cat was on its tail. True story.


Then these are my nextdoor neighbors. I think there might be as many cows in this willage as people. Okay, that might be an exaggeration, but not much of one.


These are my other neighbors, a few houses over. I wonder if they vacation in Italy for the winter. The house seems a bit drafty.


I wouldn't have even know there were sheep in Kuchl if I hadn't gotten lost my first day looking for the dorm. But now that I know they're there, I stop by and say hi every day on my way to the train station.




The most important thing in any old European city, town, or willage, is the church. Fitting the size of the willage, the church is on the smaller side, too, which would be even more obvious if the sun hadn't bleached out the megahuge mountain that stands right behind it.


And this is the main street of the town, named after a bank, because they don't have much else going on. It's not a bad showing, but you have to remember there are only four or five stores not located on this street. But how much more do 6,000 people need?


Last but not least, some more typical Kuchl housepets. I'm not sure they're the friendliest of pets, though. The one with the horns always eyes me as I walk past. I'm kind of glad they're kept behind an electrified fence, to be honest.


That's Kuchl in a nutshell. Of course, it might be argued that even with everything I left out, Kuchl could fit in a nutshell. Oh, this little farm willage of mine... It's a good thing, I promise.

Living in Kuchl

Why living in Kuchl sucks:

1. Yes, sometimes it smells like cows.
2. I will probably electrocute myself on one of the cow fences before the year is out.
3. There's no oven in my kitchen.
4. My bathroom light is on a sensor, and it turns off when I'm taking a shower.
5. The sink is also on a sensor and turns on when I don't want it to.
6. I don't know how to buy sheets for a bed that's bigger than a twin and smaller than a double.
7. Even the grocery store closes for two hours at lunch.
8. There's nowhere to get a doener kebap.
9. I have to pay 77.20 Euro a month for a transportation pass to Salzburg.
10. Commuting got old a long time ago.

Why living in Kuchl is sweet:
1. I've got a much better view of the mountains, a view that takes your breath away, and those suckers in Salzburg will never know.

I think I'll stay here for a while.

And classes begin

You take a look at Salzburg, and you think, "Life here must be so relaxing, so peaceful in a city with such obvious charm." And from what I can tell, it usually is. But first weeks anywhere just have a real talent for kicking you in the pants.


The first day of work was Monday. The three schools I will be working at are all in a town called Hallein, which is about 19,000 people big and is south of Salzburg. After spending Monday and Tuesday finishing up paperwork and opening a bank account, I finally got to some actual lessons at my first school. And here it is, along with a picture of Hallein.

It's a HAK/HAS, meaning it's a business school. I'm not 100% sure of how that effects the curriculum overall, they still take standard math, history, etc. But besides the ever-popular American elections, I've had to use affirmative action and advertising as lesson themes. Good thing I know so much about that... er.

The real problem of the week was housing. You know, I never thought I'd get the chance to say, "Hey, I'm an illegal alien." But that was before I went up against the beast that is Austrian bureaucracy. The day after returning from orientation, I moved into the room I arranged to stay in for a month. Because this summer I had had so much trouble finding a place to stay for the year, I though I'd just rent a room for October and take my time finding a place once I actually got to Austria. Once I moved in, however, I found out that no one there would sign my Meldezettel. It's a complicated story, but basically, you need the landlord or the primary renter (if you're subletting) to sign this thing and then turn it in within three business days to the Austrian authorities. The three days thing is fairly flexible, but that really wasn't the issue. The first problem was that the person who was subletting me his room, aka who should have signed my Meldezettel, was out of the country. He's an international student and went home to get his wife. I thought it would be fine for the person mediating the sublet, a friend and neighbor of his, to sign my Meldezettel instead, but he declined. Instead, he sent me to the office for international students which oversees their housing. That's when I found out how much trouble I was actually in. As it turns out, it's illegal for that room to be sublet. The renter's contract includes a clause saying as much. If an Austrian had been staying in the room, it could have slipped past everyone and been fine (though still not legal), but for an unregistered foreigner, it's a big problem. Apparently the primary renter was aware both of this clause and (I know because I told him) that I was a. a foreigner and b. unregistered. To add insult to injury, I found out he pays 50 Euro less for the room than he was charging me. Worse still, he receives a grant each month, part of which pays for his housing, and although he's out of the country, he was still receiving the grant for this month. I about had a breakdown in the office, so the woman I was talking to actually offered me Prosseco, which I gladly took, ha. She offered me another room, which I could legally rent, but it's a decent distance outside of Salzburg in a very small town called Kuchl, so I asked for a day or two to think about it. Well, after spending Monday evening frantically looking for room in Salzburg to no avail and still without a place to legally reside, I resigned myself to the room in Kuchl. At that point the headache was just more than I could take, so the easy way out looked pretty good to me. I finally moved in yesterday. It's true, it is farther out than I would like, but there are cows and sheep to keep me company, and the view outside my window isn't bad either.


And with a few Halloween decorations to remind me that my favorite holiday is almost upon us, I don't think I'll mind it here too much.

Thus concludes my first work week abroad. TGIS.

First week in Austria

Well, I made it to Austria safe and sound after an interesting 8-hour flight to Frankfurt and a considerably more tolerable 1-hour flight to Salzburg. Once actually in Salzburg, which I made it to with the help of a fellow NU alum who found me in the airport, I reconnected with Alison, a friend from study abroad in Freiburg. She's been in Salzburg for over a month now and let me crash on her floor until we left for orientation. They held our orientation in a small town called Hinterglemm. It's really a ski town. Probably 4 out of 5 houses there were hotels. Since it's too early for ski season, the place was absolutely dead, but that was fine. It meant we had the whole gorgeous place to ourselves - the American, British, and Irish English TAs. Each day we had a few required sessions about different aspects of teaching English or living in Austria. I wouldn't say they were too tremendously helpful, but it was with a good bunch of people, and that's probably more important in the end. On the third day of orientation, we took a hike on one of the mountains nearest our hostel. I wasn't sure how the knee I injured last year on ski trip was going to hold up, so I bought a brace. Even with the brace, the climb was rough, but the view was worth it. Check it out.


We were headed to a cafe on the mountain which, thankfully, wasn't all the way up. I needed the break. But some people felt like they hadn't accomplished enough by getting to the cafe so decided to hike the rest of the way. And I joined them. We took the long way round to the peak by accident, which my knee wasn't too happy about, but it worked out in the end.

Then we walked back down to the cafe and Hans, one of the Austrian teachers leading the orientation, entertained us with some accordion music, joined by an American on violin and a Brit on vocals. It was one of the best jam sessions I've ever heard.


And on the way back down the mountain, we ran into some goats. The whole experience was so perfectly Austrian, it was most surreal.


The next night, the last of orientation, we had Bunteabend. It was somewhat of variety show. Each group (we were split by state) was supposed to present two things. Mine sang Schnitzelbank and learned an Austrian folkdance. Another commemorated the great accordion-playing Hans with a Queen parody.

But the real highlight of the night was probably when we learned a song the Von Trapp children actually sang and then got to sing it to the real Maria von Trapp (who was one of the children, not the Governess. Her name was Gustl!). Hans, of course, personally knows the 96-year-old who now lives in Vermont. We all tried to crowd around the pay phone in the hall so she could hear us.



The day after returning from orientation, a few os the TAs in Salzburg got together for Lange Nacht der Museen. The idea was that you would pay 13 Euros and get into any museum in the city between 6pm and 1 am. We ended up only hitting four of them, but we got in the two most important. Namely, the Festung (upper right):


And Stiegl Brewery, the pride of any Salzburger and Mozart's home brew:

It was a good way to spend the last real night of freedom we all had before beginning our teaching duties on Monday, and a good way to end my first week in Austria. But something tells me we'll be back to both the Festung and the brewery a few more times...