March On

I guess it’s called “March Madness” for a reason, right? March has flown by — full of visitors, adventure, skiing (including a day of solo skiing and a private ski lesson!), art, exploration, personal writing, and dancing. I’ve had guests almost every weekend, and during the week actually had a lot of lessons to teach and prepare (shocking, I know!). So it’s been difficult for me to find time to blog.

As you may have noticed, my blog theme changed (again). This was accidental. I was messing around, as I do, trying to understand WordPress. I thought I was clicking on “preview a new theme,” but instead, changed my blog to a new theme. I instantly clicked the “back” button, but it was too late. Now it won’t let me change back to my previous theme without paying like $20 a month for a business plan. 😝 I already panicked and called my tech-savvy older brother, but I guess it’s stuck on this for now. Minor things, but…..the fonts bother me. I’m sorry font-lovers! I’m working on it.

But without further ado, here’s a recap of things that have happened in the past six weeks, starting in February.

First, back in February, I somehow found myself at the local pub carrying a ski helmet and ski goggles (Vic was loaning them to me for a friend). It was pretty funny to be carrying them around on a night out, so, to really complete our cultural immersion, we took turns passing these around and trying them on. Some pics from the night:

Because everyone knows Vorarlbergers don’t leave their house without their ski gear, right? (KIDDING!)

Also, I forgot to write about Funken, which I believe was the same weekend as the ski helmet shenanigans. In short, Funken is a very strange Vorarlberg holiday that involves a 50 foot wood pyre and burning a witch (a straw one). I’m a bit miffed that some of the stray ash burned a hole in my jacket, but otherwise, it was quite the experience.

The witch exploded in the end, which is supposed to mean that winter will be scared away. However, it’s still been snowing, so I guess it didn’t work.

An acquaintance from college also visited me — she’s a TA in Spain. I took her skiing on probably the WORST day for it — the weather was awful. However, she was a champ amidst heavy fog and like 5 ft. visibility — “nevertheless, she persisted.” 😉

Then my dad was able to visit again! Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t that great, but we explored Feldkirch (finally went up in the castle) and Bregenz. My dad really enjoyed the castle, whereas I passed the time by taking really cheeky photos.

We found a decent sushi place and a very pricey Mexican restaurant in Bregenz. (Thanks, Dad, for making sure I was eating more than yoghurt and Muesli for one weekend! What a treat 😉 )

We also saw some contemporary art installations at the Bregenz Art Museum. It was really special having my dad here for a weekend!

Of course there was a lot of skiing in March (although not quite as much as I would have liked 😉 ). One of the highlights for me was skiing with Vic on her birthday! We went to Nova and I really enjoyed exploring new routes there. It was GORGEOUS weather, and I think I might have to do a separate post about it because there’s a couple good stories from the day. 😉

I had two friends from Germany who came to visit me in March — that was a lot of fun as well!

Maria and I met in Indianapolis but haven’t seen each other since September 2016 — far too long! We had a much needed girls weekend full of chick flicks (I think we watched like seven or eight movies), a fun night out on St. Patrick’s Day, and plenty of girl talk. ❤ We brunched for hours and even managed to take a trip to Lichtenstein, where we tried (unsuccessfully) to find any eligible single members of the royal family after stumbling upon their residence. I felt a little like Mia Thermopolis (“Get off the grass!”). 😄

I also had the cool opportunity to do some voice recordings, so some Vorarlberger school kids are going to hear the beautiful voices of Zach and I in some tests, hah! I was kind of nervous about it, but they told me I was a natural 💁🏻‍♀️and fortunately, we didn’t have to do too many takes. It was a pretty sweet sound studio in the basement of someone’s home.

At one point, the script required that I read some German words — and since I was supposed to be reading as a “native English speaker,” I thought I would try to pronounce them badly — with a really strong American accent, as a native English speaker probably would. However, the producer didn’t get the joke and was like “No, the German words are actually pronounced like this: ______. But it’s okay — of course, you wouldn’t know that.” Ooops, haha. So then I read it a second time (pretty perfectly, I must add) with a German accent, and they were happy. 😝

Speaking of German, I dusted off my C1 Grammatik book and have been trying to review verbs with prepositions. I’m struggling to find motivation, though, because I don’t know how German will fit into my future career plans. Right now, even though I live in Austria, so much of my life is conducted in English — at school I speak English, and of course I speak English with the other TAs. And then outside of that, I’m trying to read more and up my writing skills — and of course, I’m concentrating on writing in English. So I’ve concluded that the easiest way to practice German is to watch a lot of Netflix and go on bad dates. 😇🤪

I guess that pretty much summarizes March — all in all, not a bad month. 🙂  And, I’m really looking forward to April — my siblings are visiting! ❤ So much shenanigans is going to happen. Can’t wait.

xo,

Sarah