There's Really No Way To Reach Me, 'Cause I'm Already Gone...

If you are curious about the title, it comes from a song by The Fray titled Vienna that I absolutely love. And considering this blog post is about Vienna, it seemed very fitting. This post will also talk about airports and future plans.

But, first, I want to say that after a few complaints, I reread Love Story. I still stand by my opinion. First of all, Jenny Cavilleri wasn't even 21 when she married Oliver. He's mean to her and he hides the fact that she has cancer from her. SHE DIDN'T GET TO GO TO PARIS. She always wanted to see Paris. And, when she is dying, she tells Ollie something like "Screw Paris" but I know she doesn't mean it. He knows she doesn't mean it. But she keeps him from apologizing because "love means never having to say your sorry" and whatnot. 

Now, with that said, I did start bawling my eyes out in the Zurich airport when I reread this, but I think that's more because of how prevalent cancer is in my family than anything else. Cancer is stupid. That is one opinion that no one can even attempt to change my mind on. 

Okay, so, down to business....

Airports and Airplanes

1) The Madrid Airport - Terminals 1, 2, and 3 are awful things. They are depressing and have very little choices for food and such. Terminal 4 is a much better thing. I had a cronut in terminal 4 for crying out loud. At an airport. In terminal 2, I had coffee and a sandwich that cost me 9 euros, which I consider expensive for Madrid.

But my flight from Madrid terminal 2 to Zurich was awesome. My view from Madrid to Zurich was epic. Here is a view of what I am pretty sure is the Pyrenees mountains. You know those flights where you look out the window and all you can see are clouds? Well, that happened on this flight, except you could see the tips of mountains peeking into the clouds. It was incredible and it made me feel like the scene in The Great Gatsby when Jay Gatsby when he is describing all of his trips with Dan Cody to Nick Carraway.....not sure why, it just did.

I flew Swiss, so, chocolate and a pastry! They gave me a slice of lemon cake.

2) The Zurich Airport - I've been here many times now. It's pretty, but it's expensive. It is a very clean airport and that's nice. A coffee and a salad here cost me the equivalent of 17 US dollars, which was ridiculous. But necessary. 

My layover ended up being longer than expected on this trip because of storms and such, which led me to discover that when flights are worried about turbulance, they will not serve hot drinks. So, no coffee for me. Also, this flight gave me a bagel with a square of butter on the inside. Not quite as appetizing as the lemon cake, but, hey, free chocolate still.

3) The Vienna Airport - I didn't spend enough time here to have any real opinion on it, but I remember coffee being a reasonable price. 

The really nice thing about this place was that I was able to check into my flight from the train station in Vienna. I didn't have to deal with it at the airport. Convenient.

4) The Munich Airport - also known as my favorite airport that I have ever been in. First of all, they had an amazing stationary store. Second, they had FREE coffee. You read that right. Free coffee, tea, hot chocolate, beverages, etc. So, I had a lot of free coffee. Also, for 15 euros an hour, you could rent a little room with a bed and a desk that is in the middle of the terminal. My layover was short, but this would be a great place to be if you needed a short little nap while your devices charged on the desk. 

Both airlines I flew with to and from Vienna were great (Swiss and Lufthansa) and I would recommend them.

Vienna

Vienna was an epic time. I went there to visit a friend that I hadn't seen since high school and to visit the beautiful city. It's great having friends in awesome cities. I owe a lot to this guy. I am very grateful both to have gotten to see Vienna and to have reconnected with someone I'm not sure I would have seen again otherwise. 

Vienna. Hands down one of the most outwardly beautiful cities that I have ever been to. Hands down the most beautiful library that I have ever seen. The library was at one point owned by the Hapsburgs (my favorite European dynasty) and I am just enchanted by it. Here's a picture:

Schönbrunn palace and the palace gardens were beautiful. I didn't actually go into the palace, but I went to the cafe at the palace and got to see strudel being made (and got to taste it of course). I was trying to wait for the rain to pass. Then I went to the gardens and they were so amazing!

Some things from the gardens:

The Neptune Fountain

A duplicate of a Roman Ruin

This Awesome Statue that unfortunately had no plaque (look at the woman's face. Doesn't it just make you want to write a poem?)

The Gloriette

Amazing Views of Vienna

It was by far one of the most beautiful gardens I had ever been in. Lots of fantastic statues and such. But my favorite statues of the day come from just outside the Hapsburg palace. I think these ones are just so worthy of poetry. The way the stone has settled adds so much character and expression to them, it just amazes me. Of course, my pictures can't do it justice.

They had some gorgeous cathedrals as well, including this one, St. Stephan's Cathedral:

I spent a lot of time just wandering the streets of Vienna as well. I found a street named Kollergasse, which was awesome. My grandmother's maiden name was Koller, so, I had to snap a photo of that one for all of my family in New York and Switzerland:

I got to wander through the Prader and the amusement park. I took a photo of the Riesenrad, the iconic Viennese Ferris Wheel:

I also got to ride the tallest amusement swing in the world and saw an amazing view of Vienna that way:

And, of course, I took a photo of the Hundertwasserhaus, the most photographed building in Austria (and one of the most unique buildings that I have seen):

Vienna was great and it is definitely worth a visit. I was also, surprisingly, underbudget for my trip, so, that was good. It's always good to have more money at the end of the weekend than you thought you would. 

Future Plans

I have officially booked a flight home to California for the summer. I will be spending two and a half months there, which I have mixed feelings about. But I have epic times planned and I am starting to get excited about that. I will return to Spain in September and hopefully write more blog posts than I do now, but who knows. I might try to write one or two while I am in California about reverse culture shock and whatot. 

So, look out and keep checking for new posts.

Education Rants

I work with many teachers at this school. I love them all for different reasons. They are all great teachers in their own way and they are all so different from one another. And none of them is Kim Jaxon....

Teacher 1: JM Barrie - I cannot praise this teacher's teaching skills highly enough. He's awesome. Students love and respect him. His lessons are very captivating. He is capable of making every student feel smart. He has incredible patience with the children. Today, Jean Valjean knocked over some kids backpack and kicked it when JM Barrie told him to pick it up. JM Barrie told him to repeat the motion of picking the backpack up until he could do so in a mannerly fashion. It literally went something like this. "Put the backpack on the floor and pick it up again." The girl would lay her backpack on the floor and Jean Valjean would kick the air and pick it up. "Okay, you're going to do it three more times. Lay the backpack back down. He'd kick the air and pick the backpack up. On the 7th time "Okay, you are going to do it three more times, and if you keep doing it like that, you are going to go talk to the Principal." He never raised his voice. Not even once. 

In class, he makes every moment a moment where life lessons can be learned. He rewards the students and he makes learning feel like magic. He hardly ever loses his temper. He encourages their imagination by telling them to invent answers. He makes every single kid in there feel smart and he makes his class a safe environment. I do not know a single kid in that class who would be afraid to speak because their classmates might make fun of them, or they might say something wrong. He treats it as a true learning environment where everyone can improve. Because of that, he has their respect, they respect each other and they respect every individual that walks into their classroom. Seriously, he can leave me alone with the students and they will not say a word while he is gone. They will all work on the assignment he has asked them to do unless they have a question or something. And it's not like I would get them in trouble if they did. (Okay, so, maybe I'm biased. They are my favorite class.)

The downside to JM Barrie. He's overly ambitious. Like OVERLY. But it's because he wants every single one of them to succeed. He cares far too much. When I walk into the classroom, he has everything planned down to the second. "Okay, we have a half hour. Do you think you can grade all thirty paragraphs, file three sets of exams and talk to seven students?" Okay, that's a bit of a stretch, but, you get the picture. 

Also, there was one time he let a child get away with plagiarism. PLAGIARISM. One of the only education sins I am fully against. The kids had to write paragraphs about food and a kid copied word for word out of their science book. I recognized it and immediately showed it to JM Barrie, who pretty much dismissed it. "It's good he knew what the topic was about and I doubt he would remember the wording during an exam, but if he did I'd be impressed. He's a good student though, so, write 'Good Job' at the top or something." I'm pretty sure that's almost word for word what he said.

Teacher 2: Elphaba - I love Elphaba. She truly is the misunderstood green lady who just wanted her shoes back because she was upset about her sister's death. Or something like that. But, like the character Elphaba, she has a reputation. Unlike the character, Gregory Maguire has not written a story about her to defend her honor. 

Elphaba also cares too much. She wants her students to be the best and they are. But they are also afraid of her. Maybe she subscribes to the theory that fear motivates them. 

A few of her students had to stay at lunch the other day to finish art projects and they were in the English room with me. They were speaking Spanish even though I kept reminding them that art was a subject they did in English. They didn't listen. Then I asked "What would happen if Elphaba were to walk by and hear you speak Spanish?" I didn't hear a word of Spanish the rest of the time.

Elphaba likes to yell. She likes when kids are wrong because she can go on a half hour tangent to show the person with wrong answer why they were wrong. Yes, she uses this as a learning opportunity, but she uses it to bitch rant. 

One time, a kid was five minutes late to class and she asked him why he was late. He mumbled something that we couldn't hear and she spent fifteen minutes yelling at him to speak up while he stood there crying. "The examiners won't be interested in you crying, they will be interested in hearing you!!!!!!!!" After 15 minutes, I asked if I could say something. I told him how to use his diaphragm. Then she wanted me to teach the whole class. Then we practiced. The English class turned into an acting class for the day with an impromptu performance of Three Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf. It ended up being a lot of fun and even the crying kid was laughing hysterically by the end.

Elphaba loves that kind of stuff. She doesn't like actual lessons. She likes looking for unique ways for the kids to learn English and I really appreciate her for that. She has a lot of faith and pushes them to work really hard. She has them write poems and tell stories and do silly games. Her problem is her intensity, but she never means any harm. 

Okay, well, I will let this entry end here because I feel like it's getting too long and especially ranty. So, my apologies, but I hope you enjoyed the read!