First Week of Training English

I just finished my first full week as an English trainer. I taught a class on Monday at Berlitz, then classes on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at Inlingua, as well as a private student Monday afternoon and a volunteer tutoring session on Wednesday afternoon. The teaching has already gotten easier, for example today, it only took about 45 minutes to prepare for my 2 hours and 15 minute class. Then next week, I've got the same Inlingua class on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, plus two private lessons on Tuesday and Wednesday at the same school.

My soccer team is one game away from winning our league, which I explained last week is an amazing accomplishment. However, as soon as we win this weekend and celebrate being champions, I'll switch my thoughts to St. Paul FC. During the summer, I'll do a short loan move to the USA where we'll also hopefully be fighting for a league championship. Currently St. Paul FC is in first place in the Minnesota Amateur Soccer League Division 4. Personally, (very selfish, I know) I hope they don't have the title wrapped up before I arrive, because I'd like to feel partly responsible for their winning, but we'll see what happens. I'd much rather have them have first place guaranteed before I arrive, than get second or third. I won't even contemplate less than that.

I mentioned on facebook that Marlene and have concrete plans to return to the USA this summer, but I don't think I ever gave any details here. We'll be flying to London on July 8 and staying for 2 days, hotel/hostel is yet to be booked. I plan on finding one this weekend. After 2 days in London we'll fly to Minneapolis through Gander, Canada, which is quite strange. We only have a 35 minute layover which you may think is not enough time to run through the airport to another gate. Well, you're right! Luckily, we don't have to. We're only stopping there to re-fuel so we won't be switching planes at all! Hopefully we'll at least be able to exit and stretch our legs a bit, but who knows.

Finally, you may have noticed I added a number of new bands to my current music section. Just look up and to the right if you're reading this. The Cars are obviously an old band but just released a new album which rocks, especially the song "Blue Tip". If anyone was able to get tickets to see them at First Avenue this week then I'm super jealous. The Strokes put out their first new album in 5 years and I love it. They were the indie rock to catch my attention back when I was sixteen so they'll always hold a special place in my heart. The other two, Yeasayer and Wiz Khalifa, just check 'em out, I don't have anything special to say...

Hallelujah!

Big news everyone! After the Xbox troubles detailed in my last blog, we sent back the faulty European Xbox power supply, and we received the replacement yesterday. This time, everything worked! We cautiously plugged it into the wall in the kitchen first, because the kitchen and bathroom are on a different electrical circuit from the other rooms where we have clocks that needed resetting every time we caused power outages. After the power supply worked in the kitchen, we tried it in the living room. After it worked in the living room, we plugged it into the Xbox, hit the power button and woohooo!

Marlene had the first session, playing the classic Civilization Revolution. If you can believe it, Marlene has been looking forward to having a functioning video game system at least as much as I have. She's got Civ Rev along with The Sims 3, which she's been waiting to play since Xmas. Here's some photographic evidence of how happy she was!





In other awesome news, my soccer team started training again yesterday. It was pretty freezing cold to be playing outdoor soccer already, but it'll be good to have more opportunities to exercise. The competitive matches start in a couple weeks, until then we have friendly matches against other Vienna teams to get back into real fitness. I'm really looking forward to it because I was starting to get some decent playing time with the first team at the end of Fall, and I had a great time playing indoor with my teammates over the Winter.

Saturday Night Blog

Hey all, it's Saturday night here and I just got back from an FK Austria Wien match where we won 4:1 against LASK Linz. It was a super fun time because we scored early and often and were up 3:0 at halftime. After that we let off the gas and Linz scored early on the second half before we scored the the fourth in about the 87th minute to put an end to the comeback.

Marlene went to Neusiedl am See tonight for an Oktoberfest revival party and I've still to hear how that went. I obviously stayed in Vienna first for the FK Austria Wien match tonight, and because FC Adrenalin has two matches tomorrow. The first team plays at 3 pm and the reserves play right afterwards at 5 pm. I'm on the first team roster and I'll hopefully play with the reserves too as long as I don't play too much with first team. If I start for the first team (which is unlikely), then I'll be super happy and won't play for the reserves. So far I haven't started for the first team, I've been playing as a sub for them and as a key player for the reserves. Last week I played the whole second half for the first team and then later in the day played 80 minutes for the reserves. Normally I wouldn't play for both teams in one day but if both teams have games on the same day and I'm only a sub for the first team, then I'll happily play for the reserves as well. Playing for the reserves is super fun because obviously the opponents aren't nearly as good so I can relax and just try to pick out dangerous passes. In my 3 games, I've played as center mid twice and both times and I've had assists, hopefully that trend will continue...

Apart from soccer, Marlene went to a cool park today I took a few pictures of her/us while we were at Wienerberg, which obviously sounds funny in English but was a fun time. It's one of the biggest green areas in all of Vienna. Here are some pictures of our day there.

News in Brief: Oct 20

Hello all, it's been a week and I never want to go a week without an entry so I just want to put together a quick post.

Since getting my residence permit, Marlene and I both registered with the authorities a second residence for our apartment in Vienna. That was a relief because it felt dishonest to be registered in Neusiedl am See since we don't actually live there. That also meant I could go register as officially unemployed at my Viennese district's employment office. I'm not entitled to receive any unemployment money but they're supposed to be search for jobs and offer different classes. I'll need to look more into what types of classes I could take from them.

Over the weekend with the FC Adrenalin reserves we played against a team of all Mexicans so that reminded me of home. We also won 6-0 so it was a fun game. Earlier in that same day I played the second half for the first team but that was disappointing as soon after I subbed in, one of our central defenders got a red card and we struggled badly. We ended up losing 1-4.

It's getting to be pretty cold here and often overcast. We actually turned on the heat in our apartment last week and we broke open the winter blankets for the bed.

Next week is the last week of my German course and it's doubtful I'll sign up for another month, unless the unemployment office would offer to pay for it, which would be a possibility. We talked about it a bit in my class today because another student has already been working with the unemployment office for a few weeks.

Odds and Ends

In my last post, I wrote solely about my first job opportunity, leaving out some other items which have occurred recently. On Sep. 18 and 19 we spent a night in Stoob, Austria which is where Marlene's sister, Christine, lives. It reminded me of a small Midwest town mainly inhabited by farmers, including Christine and her boyfriend's family. However in Austria, Stoob is reasonably well known for having a ceramics/pottery college. They have a small farm by American standards, there are a few cows, pigs, chickens, rabbits, and further outside of town they grow some crops. We spent the majority of the time playing the board game Settlers of Catan and playing with their two kittens. We left the next afternoon and they gave me two different kinds of homemade sausage and a big slab of bacon. I ate the sausages pretty quickly but I've still got some of the bacon left. It was really a big chunk which was fantastic because I'd complained many times about how the grocery store bacon is so thinly sliced, but now I can cut it as thick as I like.

My German class ended on Tuesday this week but I've signed up for another course at the same academy which begins on Monday. I decided pretty late to sign up for another course because it's a bit expensive and I wasn't sure if it really constitutes value for cost but beyond just the learning German aspect, it's a good way to meet new people and get out of the apartment. When I went to sign up for the next course yesterday though, they told me it was already full. They said I could take a test to try and get into the next next level, so I did, and passed it! The course I did in September along with the one I tested out of, together are meant for level C1 of the European Framework for Languages. The course I'll be taking in October now is for the first half of the C2 level, which is the highest. Beyond that, there's only one more class I could take. So I'm very excited about that, and I am beginning to feel a lot more confident in speaking.

I officially registered as a member of FC Adrenalin and played in the first team match last weekend. I subbed in for the last 20 minutes and the game ended in a 2-2 draw. All the scoring happened while I was still on the bench. If you look at their website now, I'm listed in the roster and it has my stats. There's no picture yet, but I did ask the webmaster to change my flag to that of the USA, it showed me as an Austrian just a couple days ago.

Mostly Football News

The only non-soccer update I have is that on Thursday night I had to go to Neusiedl to meet with a police officer for the next step in attaining my residence permit. They didn't give us too much information beforehand, it turned it was supposed to be a surprise as it was an in-depth interview to make sure Marlene and I didn't get married just so I could emigrate to Austria. There were a lot of difficult questions and it was made harder because Marlene wasn't allowed to be there. All in all, it last about an hour and was pretty intense. Now that it's over though, it makes for a funny story and it's also a good sign that the immigration office is making progress on my residence permit.

Now, on to soccer stuff. On Friday I went and watched FC Adrenalin's first team in their first match of the season. They came from behind to win 2:1, thanks to two red cards on the opposing team. The level of play wasn't as high as I was expecting based on how serious the practices are and how organized the teams are. The location of the game was pretty amazing, right on the very end of a peninsula in the Danube. Then on Sunday the reserve team had a match which I played in. We lost 2:4 but I thought I played pretty well. After the game the guy in charge gave me my necessary paperwork to to officially join the club and said when it was filled out I can play with the first team. It was a bit expensive but I'd like to do it. The guys all seem pretty nice so it'd be a good way to make friends.

At the exact same time as our reserve team game on Sunday was the Vienna Derby. My team FK Austria was taking on our cross-city rivals Rapid. The game was in Rapid's stadium but we emerged victorious. I was very surprised because we haven't won in like six games and I was expecting to get thrashed. The reports I've read about it said Rapid dominated, but we capitalized on a defensive mistake to score midway into the second half.

First Time Playing Soccer in 6 Weeks = A Little Sore the Day After

Training with FC Adrenalin went very well. The guys are all about my age, in good shape, and seemed to be a similar skill level. We played on a turf field so I actually didn't even need the cleats that I went out and bought yesterday, I played with my flats instead. Thinking about it today, I haven't been on a team which practices regularly since college. We tried to organize practices for Northfield Football Club but those never really worked out and the Vandals never practiced either.

We didn't do any drills that were too complicated. We worked on passing, dribbling, shooting, then played a half field 9v9 scrimmage. I was last picked by the team captains but played pretty well. My team won 3-0 and I scored and had an assist after being put at right midfield. Afterward one of the guys asked if I wanted to play in the team's friendly match this weekend. Looking at their schedule, it's the last friendly before the real league matches begin so I hope I do well and am asked to be on the team for good!