Hola from Barcelona!

Wow, the first 3 days had quite an impact on us... we saw loads of things, had really good weather for sight seeing and managed to get locked in the house... all in all quite an amusing first few days.

Crossing the Alps already proved to be an amazing experience, the beauty of these mountains is virtually undescribable!

Then, when we had arrived we were not certain whether Esther would find us - she was there alright, and so we went to their flat and took off for a first walk through Barcelona...
Along the Avinguda Diagonal, one of the longest streets of Barcelona where we came across houses of the typical Barcelona Jugendstil. Quite nice - the most striking feature of the first few hours was "la poya" though, the dick... I wonder why they call it that, do you?:

So, anyways, we went into town, met up with Llorenc (Lorenzo), Esther´s boyfriend and had dinner in a beautiful Catalan restaurant, mmmh, very nice food there, especially the sea food was delicious for me! Not for Rita, though! Look at Esther and the beautiful "bombas":

The following day, Esther and Lorenzo took us to Montjuic and the Olympic village of 1992! Beautiful area, lots of huge monuments and superb view over the city! We had a really good time there, enjoyed the atmosphere while a guitarist was playing outside the museum up there.

Then we went back home and watched Fernanda Alonso win the Grand Prix of Germany on Nürburgring, which also was an interesting experience... fantastic atmosphere again, I can tell you!
On Monday, Esther and Lorenzo had to go to work, so we took by ourselves and went up the second hill which captivates Barcelona in its valley: Tibidabo, slighlty higher than Montjuic and with a huge chapel on top! Also, they have an ancient amusement park up there, which looked quite cool and bars with brilliant views over Barcelona! See for yourselves:


Afterwards we went to one of the highlights of my tour! The "Estadio Camp Nou", where Barcelona FC plays their home games in front of as many as 85000 people sometimes! I have to say, Rita enjoyed the toour probably even more than I did, as I have been to other stadiums before and she´d only been to the one of LASK Linz (not very impressive after all), but it was really cool. I want to show you the changing rooms and the grounds from above:

In the end we were really tired again and returned home, where Esther and Lorenzo looked after us like little birds - this has been great so far, honestly, Barcelona is well worth visiting! Check this blog for more in the next few days, also check out my flickr page for more pics!

3 hours to go...

Hi there, we only have like 3 more hours until we leave for Barcelona, and I am still stupidly trying to get some info on this page... that´s a bit stupid indeed, considering I have not been writing for the last year, roughly, and now I want to make up for it, it seems.
Well, nevermind, that´s cool we can relax for the whole of next week, just today, we should actually go to a little village outside the city in order to experience some of the good ole "real" Spanish surroundings...
Cool, we cannot wait anylonger, will be cool... are already planning our trip for the next year... Washington! ;-)
ERF

Barcelona, we´re coming!!!

Hi there, everyone out there in the void... isn´t the heat virtually unbearable? I think, my mind is totally numb most of the time from trying to cool down, I´d love to have a air conditioning system in the house... but, no, there isn´t one and so I have to bear with it for as long as it lasts... I know that many of you guys suffer from the same heat, so I should stop complaining! And I will, as Rita and I are going away soon! On Saturday morning, we´re off to Barcelona for a week! Can´t wait! Here´s one of the things waiting for us... The Arce de Triomphe of Barcelona! Nice, ey?! Hopefully, it´s not too hot! ;-) More pics to be delivered soon! ERF

Mathias Gabler´s surprise party in Neupölla!

What a successful weekend!
First I corrected the last test of my class and had no fail grades, then Rita and I went to a wedding and to a surprise party for a friend of mine in Lower Austria´s northern area, the "Waldviertel" and then I had a really good football match on Sunday, too... our team did not win, but we put up a real fight for the last time, as we´re being relegated to the 2. Klasse Nordwest in Upper Austria. Check out the blog about football here.
So, there are a few more pics on my flickr page, check them out, too, they are good fun. Mathias was so incredibly happy when he saw Rita and me arriving a little late (3 hours after the real surprise) but were basically a new surprise again, which was super... so we had too much drink and too much fun to be described in a little diary entry, but... groovy night, singing on singstar, drinking excellent wines, talking to fantastic and friendly people. Sabine and Mathias´ relatives are amazing! :-)
So, there´s a pic here: It shows Mathias and me singing Father and Son... he did not quite know how to sing it, but I reckon we didn´t do too badly, considering we´d already had a few... so, it was a great weekend,... there are more to come, I hope as our present was to spend a weekend somewhere in the Burgenland tasting wines... looking forward to that one!
ERF

Martin "Xi" Kopf - my man in Denmark!

Hi there, folks...
Today I just want to send you a link to one of my mate´s travel blogs... he´s a really funny man who has done journalism and English so the whole thing has been done up really properly and he always gets pics on his blog too... he started out his journey in Denmark and has now moved on to Sweden!
We studied together in Vienna, and he´s good fun, always up for a laugh! (as people from Vorarlberg normally are!) Xi, if you see this, haha!
Check it out - that´s his blog: http://mann-von-welt.blogspot.com/
ERF

Some new pics on the picture site!

Hi everyone, I haven´t been in touch for a while, due to several things that have been going round my head for too long, really...
Stressful times at school, no success at playing football, a hamstring injury on top of all that and not a lot of motivation to write even more things on the pc, when correcdting and preparing take up so much time in the first place...
Anyways, don´t want to bore you with details about teaching, it´s still an amazing pastime, am really happy to be allowed to have such a marvellous occupation, it´s so satisfying... that´s what the kids would lkike to get, haha!
Yeah, apart from that.... Rita and me are going to Barcelona end of July, Zweilaenderlauf is coming close, a lot of work ahead in that respect, too, and also, preparation for the summer courses is about to start - beforehand, though, I have to grade about 115 students to make sure that they receive the grade they deserve, so there´s still a lot of responsibility there too, am not willing to decide about students fates too lightly!
The picture you see was taken last year in Paris and shows Eros, standing on the tip of the Opera House, which has been placed where there used to be.... damn, I´ve forgotten!
Yeah, well, look at my pics and enjoy your time, I´ll be back soon - by the way, if your write a commentary, I get an info mail, so I´d be happy to receive one every now and then... ;.)
ErF

Eric - happy birthday!

Hi mate, as you are one of the few people checking my blog every now and then, I´m hoping this receives you well and in the shape that I expect you to be in - which is, as always, a very good one! ;-) Happy birthday, I do not know how to get in touch with you - well, I could have phoned your parents! But I have no new mail address not anything like a phone number, and the old one is not in service anymore, is it?
Take care, hope everything´s going well, have even bought one of your great shavers!
Cheerio,
ERF

Birgit, my friend from school!

this is a picture of Birgit, my friend from school!

ERF

Winton weekend - I´m coming!

Something really exciting has come up - not that I have a lot of time and so on, but still... Karl, my mate, and me are going to Winchester next weekend! Yeah, there´s a grand reunion at King Alfred´s College every year, where people from former uni sports teams meet and compete against the momentary teams... good fun, and some great partying involved too!
Apart from that, there´s not a lot to tell... have been really busy in the last three to four weeks, what with writing papers and correcting them as well, and so on... it was good fun as well though! Next week we´ve got the semester break so there is some time to relax and some more time to go out and have some fun too! ;-)

Merry Christmas - for everyone!!!

Hello out there in the void of ever so hectic last minute arrangements and present gathering! I hope you´re all coping with the pre- Christmas stress that has become a ritual for so many people that it´s very unlikely anybody out there still considers the traditional ideas of Christmas as a welcome time of peace and quiet! Anyways, to all of you, have a Merry Christmas with all your loved ones and enjoy the restful days afterwards, when business has died down and people slowly get back to normal activities! Also, enjoy your New Years Eve, wherever you decide to spend it or wherever you might be at the time - I hope your new year will be a successful and exciting one, just as the past few years should have been!
Today, I had something like a small first Christmas present already! I went to Hinterstoder to watch the World Cup Giant Slalom there with my and my colleagues classes! It was fantastic, a truly enlivening experience - frigging cold but really cool! The winner, Aksel Lund Svindal from Norway, you can see on the pic below - there´s a lot of training ahead of me if I ever wanna get near their skills - actually, it´s too late for that now!
Anyways, enjoy your days and have a rest, take care and talk to you soon, probably in the new year!
Cheerio, XXXXXmas,

ERF

Long time, no see!

Hi everyone - well, there´s not many people out there, following my life I guess, but still, you know...
Sitting here in a little room behind the conference room and using the time to give you some info about life´s progress while a student of mine is concentrating on her exam - life´s unfair sometimes!
Has been good lately, though! Parties at home, an invitation of a friend on Wednesday to watch the Champions League, great feel in our flat.... life´s good!
Hope everyone out there is ok and too cold, as winter´s coming up - but also the Christkindlmarkt and so on - yeah! Well, mind you, you don´t get that anywhere besides in Austria or Germany - what a shame!
The pic shows AMrtin Jech, an old friend of mine and me having a drink at Alex´ farewell evening before she left for France - and returned with a little Jonas and a tall Jeff... groovy!
Ok, gonna go, talk to you again soon,
ERF

Pictures!!!

wow, what a beautiful kitten!

ERF

Alwin and I

This is my blog, I´m showing it to Alwin!

Back to the roots - not!!!

e
Hey people,
I have just organised a new internet connection for my laptop and it´s just about the grooviest thing I have ever seen - in comparison to the one I had before it´s just too fast!!! Wow, I like it a lot and I´m hoping to be able to play on the net more again - so, today, I want to give you one picture, showing a sight in London: it shows the caviar counter at Harrod´s of London, a beautiful and luxurious shopping centre in the heart of London, amazing there!
Well, the rest of our stay was really groovy, too, obviously there are many things that I still have to learn and change for future visits, but oeverall I was quite pleased with the outcome of our trip - the kids who tried really got something out of it, too, that´s the most important thing, if you ask me!
So, I´ll leave you to it - check out my flickr page also to find some more new pics!
Our flat is basically finished, we just need to get the rest of the decoration sorted, so that everything is perfect - but it´s great the way it is!!! Talk to you guys soon!
ERF

Back to school, back to business!

And busy-ness it is! Having to cope with a bunch of pre-pubertarian pupils or the ones that are just about trying to cope with this state of growing up does not always fulfill people with the greatest of pleasures! But I have to admit that, although I feel I´m far behind schedule, I still am enjoying this routine of standing in front of the class very much! It´s lovely, school is just the place where I can see myself for quite a while still!
Apart from that, there´s not a lot to tell - having returned from England the other week where I spent a week with my oldest group of pupils, I´m still recovering from the aftermath of too many sandwiches and unhealthy eating, meaning that my bowel activities needed somewhat more attention than I wanted to give them.
Well, that´s over so it´s time to horse around again!
Next, I´ll put some pics on again from London, we did a lot of sight seeing, good fun!
ERF

Explaining ernst how a blog works...

Hi this is me explaing to Ernst how a blog works - funny that!
ERF

Finally done - it´s heaven!

Hi there, Rita and Ernst productions proudly present their new flat!!! It has taken frigging long to get there, but we have in the end! Today, our kitchen arrived and we managed to get it sorted - well, apart from a leaking tap that needs to be looked at! Pity, but cannot be helped right now, is a real bad leak, too, so there´s no chance we could use it right now - but the dishwasher, a fridge, storage, ... wow, it´s amazing what you can do with a kitchen, I can tell you... I´ll put some pictures on Flickr.com in a minute!
ERF

Hi there this is me showing Barney how to make a blog...

Our new flat is nearly finished!

Hi there, people!
As you might have known, Rita and me have recently moved in together - we have rented a beautiful 70 m² apartment, totally new and unfurbished, and have been decorating it since - well, it´s about to be finished! On Tuesday, the 12th September, we´re getting the kitchen! That´s it then! Scary thought, actually having brought together so many new things, arranging them and so on - not looking forward to building my own house at one point! Well, pics will arrive soon, so stay in touch! Oh, and if you can, write a comment every now and then, ok?
ERF

Here we go again...

I want to try again and send a picture to you guys... so there goes... this pic shows me and Karl getting there, well, we were trying anyways! Before that we´d been taking pictures with Amando´s MAC, which was great fun cos he has this distortion thing goin and it was just a laugh to see Karl look like a big monkey!
Ok, gotta go, its really late! if the pic isnt here, dont worry you ll find it on my flickr.com page---
ERF

Back from GB - and it was groovy again!

Hi everyone, I´m back - and it was great to be in Benenden again this year - 2006 was a lovely Benenden, with a heap of brilliant people and more than fun to spare all around! So, here I am, back from the Crusades, what a programme: London 3 times, Brighton, Canterbury, Leeds Castle (not Leeds!!!), Chessington fun park, loads of lessons in between and so on and so forth - stress, hectic periods, altogether just an amazing experience with friends from all over the world and amazing and motivated students - THE IT for any teacher I can tell you!
Back again, after having to fly from Heathrow with 3 kids with an expired ticket who managed to get on the plane just on time, I used the last two days to relax and start getting Rita and my flat sorted - all the stuff from IKEA needs to be put together, so there´s a lot of work - luckily enough I had Evelyn and my dad to help me with a few things, thanx a lot, fellas!
Ok, gotta go, pics from the apartment to be online soon! ERF

One more today - Zidane´s Summer "HIT"

This is just too hilarious - check this out: the French have created this song, meant to become this year´s absolute all time summer HIT - Coupe de Boule... Too good to be missed, ERF

Long time no see - and there´s more to come...

Hi there folks!
This time, well, it´s been a while again, I´m sending you a post to let you know that I´m leavong for England the day after tomorrow, that is Wednesday, 2nd August! Yeah!
Will be teaching at Benenden again, so lots of fun is to be expected! Check it out here
In the past 2 weeks, I have been havbing quite a bit of fun, except that sometimes I have had one drink too many and had to suffer from bad hang overs a couple of times... this should be over now, as the "holidays" are nearly over now!
I have one pic for you, taken at the tennis tournament in Neustift, that shows me with my mate Christian - we didn´t have to play against each other, but I lost in the quarter finals, well.... practice makes perfect... check it on my flickr.com page
In my next entry I will send you some pics of Rita and my new flat... yeah! Talk to you again soon, cheerio, ERF

My new blog - check it out!

I have created a second blog now - a blog for students and others interested in English who would like to impprove their knowledge of grammar and other things about English. It´s called English for you and you can get there by clicking here.
Check it out, it might help some of you, obviously it is something for the younger ones - but there also will be links to more advanced sites, where you can find information about writing essays or how to create presentations...
Who knows, maybe t´ll help some! ERF

Many a day is spent in the sun!

... but not the one when we went to the Upper Austrian Schools Tournament for Beachvolleyball... WE WON - well, the girls did! Check my flickr Page for the pics... But, as it seems now, they cannot go there, they are busy... Maturareise, yeah... volleyball tournament respectively!
Well, the pic you can see here was taken at Lake Garda! Yep, I was there at the end of April with my English class and my colleague Orti, sitting in the centre... great fun was had by all and we were sorry to have to get back to realitiy after a fantastic week in Southtyrol! Wanna go again! Wait, one more month of school and then I´m off to ... ENGLAND... to be continued! ERF

Happy birthday!

Hi there, everyone...

This is just a wee note that goes out to all the people that have recently celebrated their birthdays: Marlis, Mathew, David... well, tomorrow! I have tried to get in touch with you, guys, or rather will be trying to, so Happy birthday!, all the best and all the rest, too... Hopefully your parties will be as blissful as the rest of your time throughout the next year!
On another note, I have lately been rather lazy, or so it seems, to get on my site and produce texts here on my account - this is due to several aspects of my life - ten million tests, seven hundred presentations, the organisation of a school trip to London next year, which is taking up a considerable amount of my time right now, and the general unsuccessful attempts to fix my laptop, so i can use it in school - would be grand but isn´t working... pity, really, could really do with it sometimes, life would be so much easier. But I´ll be back shortly! ERF

What´s happened so far...

Hi there, this is just a wee note to keep you up on things; lots has happened since I blogged you last! As you might remember, we were in Paris and then returned - afterwards, there was school, school school... well, not really, actually, I was in Italy with my sixth years, that was amazing! We went canyoning, mountaineering and climbing around Lake Garda in South Tyrol, an amazing place, as pictures of it will prove for sure. See my pictures for that.
Then, when we had returned, there was the first chance to play a bit of beach volleyball, which I opted for the second I could - only played for a bit but already it´s getting to me again! But this week there´s no time for that: I had two exams with my first years in school, midterm test at university and I did a grammar check up with my 6th formers so they wouldn´t forget that the essence of learning a language actually is learning for the language - well, sometimes anyways!
Ok, gotta go and do some correcting, as you might understand... look at this though: That´s Rita and David in Paris; we´d waited for David in a Café and there we had a drink - it only cost 9,70 per beer, that was alright! ERF

Hi there,

back from the crusades, sitting in my brothers flat in Vienna again, I thought I might as well just write another short blog to tell you how it was! Well, it was fantaastic, what can I say... soon, I´m going to show you some pictures, I´ll put them on my photo account, but for now you´ll have to bear with me and my short memories... Thanks David et Emilie for taking us up and treating us well (You´re a great tour guide, David!) and the twins for partying! Thanks Paris for just being there... as last part of our journey we went to se Pere Lachaise, the oldest and most beautiful graveyard in Paris, last resting home of many a famous wo/man, among them Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, LaFontaine, Rossini, and, of course, Jim Morrison. Here a pic of his grave - it don´t look like that anymore, though, there´s been problems, a pic of now will be on Flikr... that´s it for now, am gonna have a second beer with my bro, dere! to be continued, shortly. Au revoir, ERF

Vacation in la ville d´amour!!!

Easter Holidays, yeah!!!
Thank god it´s Easter holidays now, time to relax and enjoy daylight outside school for more than the 15 minute ride to and fro school! ;-) And, guess what - Rita and I are going on a holiday! To Paris - city of love! Hopefully, we´re going to have the brilliant time that we´re looking forward to having... I´ll send you some pics as soon as we get back.
Right now we´re in Vienna at my brother Christoph´s place, a new flat, very nice, man! And tomorrow, very early in the morning, we´re of to France! Lots of my friends who live their are having babies just now, so this seems to be a dangerous trip - but it´s only for two days and to visit a friend, so it won´t be too exciting in that respect, I guess... to be continued!
Besides that, we had our first match yesterday, and won 6:1 - great result, though the game itself was not exactly what we/I had been hoping for... I scored the second, that was alright, nice header... the night was a laugh as well. Ok, gonna go and have some wine with Chris and Rita now, cheerio! ERF

Carnevale Lentiae

The Fasching has been the funniest thing for quite some time this year - and thank god it´s all over! It´s been great but you got to move on and do new things at one point or another as well, so here we go - I want to show you some of the things that happened during the past fortnight!
There was the Narrenkastl, which I had mentioned earlier in my blod, check out the page again for updates.
Then there was the Fasching at school, which was very funny and luckily unspectacular apart from Trixi´s Rocky Horror Dance, and then we went into town with eighth graders to go bowling - see my flickr.com page for details of these shows!
Well, that´s about it really - I just wanna give you one pic for today on here - that´s me in my disguise as a Kasperl - that´s a children´s puppet in Austria at the Narrenkastl. Also, I´ll provide a link to a page where you can download mp3s of the Narrenkastl... that´s very funny, too! Well, that is, if you understand German, naturally! See yas, ERF

Here we go again - eventually!

After not having been able to go online - well, to go onto my blog - for a while now, I´m gonna try to sum up the last few weeks in a few sentences: thinking about it, I only need one word: MENTAL! Totally stressed from having to grade millions of students, correcting loads of papers at uni and at school, checking out pupils as well as parents to make sure everyone is alright and happy with their results and their kids... I´d like to become a teacher one day, I´m telling you, they´re supposed to have a real low stress job! ;-)
Then there was the Gymnastics Competition for my class, which means, they all participated in a tournament like gymnastics day, where they had to show various skills on different apparatuses. They did really well and I was pleased with their results - one of the girls would have come 5th in the whole school! She´s only in year one now! Cool, hein?
And last Friday I went to the Hochficht skiing resort in Upper Austria where we had our county´s skiing competition for schools! It was freezing cold, the snow was just pouring down like mad and the conditions of the slope were awful - but, although the kids didn´t do very well we had an amazing time and it was a fun experience for most of us. There´s a pic of Lukas, Petra and me waiting for Luke´s start. Good laugh, he didn´t make it, though, didn´t finish the race. Check out my photo page and you´ll find photos of these events!
Well, anyways, it´s been really great, too, and rewarding, coz´ when it comes down to it, all the students I have to deal with are really fantastic in their own ways and I´m still loving it! So, that´s the good news!
What´s ahead, you´re probably saying?! Well, there´s the end of the first semester and then, straight after, the Narrenkastl starting next Friday, so there´s plenty of work for me to do anyways, yeah, baby, won´t complain about getting bored! It´s a groovy carneval festivity with loads of different interprets trying to be funny - some of them hilarious bacause they´re just frigging awesome, others for opposite reasons - overall a great show, performed live in Oberkappel at the two following weekends - be there or be square! Check it out under: www.narrenkastl.com

Hallo Manfred, danke für den Kaffee!

My class in the snow

Today I only have a couple of minutes, but I would like to show you two pics of my classes´ trip to Hinterstoder, Upper Austria, where we spent two days snowboarding and skiing. Good fun, the kids loved it and us teachers enjoyed ourselves quite a bit as well! The first pic shows the kids on our torch procession and the second one shows me with two of my mates, Trixi and Markus - thanks for helping, guys! ERF

Skiing with 6A at Hochficht!!

This is a post in which I want to tell you about a great three days we spent at Hochficht, a small but lovely skiing resort quite close to where I live. We went there with a year six group, a groovy and very enthusiastic bunch of students and did some marvellous skiing/snowboarding as well many other things like a torch walk or a games night - good fun, really. The pics show us playing two games - the first one is the "Moose Game", which is actually an English drinking game. One person is the mousse and has to have antlers, the people sitting next to him/her have to lift the closer hand and make antlers as well.


The second pic shows my two colleagues, Herwig and Karin, after a pretty funny game they´d played with the Bavarian group staying at the same hostel - fun people, wow. Cheerio Peinty, is all I can say!



The third pic shows me telling one of our snowboarding beginners how to get into the right position... they were amazing and really talented, managed to get going after the first day - very impressive!
so there you go, this is what an average school day looks like for me - isn´t that nice?! :-)
ERF

Benenden is fun - as every year!

Hi there, everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful time over the holidays and made it through to the New Year as smoothly as I did. We had a little get together at my sister´s place, lovely, really, and everything was well relaxed and cosy - the best thing is that I didn´t even get drunk this time round, so there you go! ;-)
The picture I´m presenting today is a lovely one. It shows me and my colleagues/friends from last year´s Benenden Language Camp - I go there every summer to spend three weeks speaking English and teaching kids how to do so as well - great fun and well worth checking out, in case you have any relatives aged between 10 and 18 who would like to have some extra input over the holidays. My mates are Kerryn, Lisa and Jean Paul, called J-P. We made up a fantastic team and had just as brilliant a time as the students did - hopefully, anyways!
See yas, ERF

Rita´s stand at the Christkindlmoakt Volksgarten in Linz!!!

Be there or be square is the only thingI can say about my cousin Judith and Rita´s stand at the Volksgarten Christmas Market in Linz, Upper Austria. They sell the most wonderfully smelling soaps, bath pearls and body butters/creams you could ever dream of, all of them natural and hand-made by a famous company in Vienna and then sent directly to Linz by train, so they have fresh products nearly every day, too. Innit great? Well, I believe it is, and if you don´t want to be square you´d better get there before Christmas. Actually, even on Christmas Eve there´s still time to get your sopas and little presents for valuable AND worthy friends, as they´re open until the early afternoon on the 24th as well... see you there then. See Rita conversing with a beautiful customer, well aware of the need for a good skin - make over (peeling, bath and body butter) - and she´s such a good advisor, too!

Don´t forget to check it out: www.allesseife.at

Damn, just realised I didn´t take the pic with me to work, will renew this page shortly, then with the pic! (It´s Volker, a good friend, really, she´s selling the products to... ;-))

This is my class in AHS solarCity

Hi there, long time no see, time is flowing too fast, can´t keep up with life right now! Anyways, this is my class in my second school - a really nice bunch of ten/eleven year olds, as lively and lovely as they come, as you might say. They´re really funny, every time I am there, there´s a major upheaval about someone getting hit by a ball or water bottles splashing around the gym - cute, they are, and still relatively handy, these boys. The pic shows them doing an running exercise they enjoyed very much - obviously a competition then, right? ;-)
Cheerio, and check out Rita´s stand at the Christkindlmoakt, too. www.allesseife.at
ERF

A test for the best! 70ies party in Neustift!!!

Strange feeling, I am actually just having a test at university and yet I am sitting here, checking my page! WLan is really an amazing thing, I have to admit! The students are taking the whole thing very seriously, that´s fantastic, and therefore it´s going great - for them and for me, too, I think, it seems a manageable test and the whole test is making good progress, so hopefully, it´ll turn out all right. The ball was good fun, by the way, and there´ll be pics on the web soon, I suppose. Also, last weekend, there was the 70ies party in Neustift, organised by my volleyball team back in Neustift! Eric´s costume was the most outstanding one, as ever, one might add, knowing Eric´s indistinguishable fantasy and spirit of the Seventies. But more about that as soon as there are more photos and stuff on the website of the Volley-Springginkerls! ERF

Dancing Stars live at the Peuerbach Ball on Saturday!

This Saturday in the Palais Kaufmännischer Verein, there will be the highlight of Linz´ ball season, when tout le monde of fashion and the haute couture of VIPs of the GVP is having a gathering at the ball! Everyone is gonna be there, including lots of teachers and students from other classes than the ones organising the ball! Check out the ball homepage to find out about the details of the festivity! Should be good fun, maybe you wanna come, too? Go get your license to chill and show up!
And now for something completely different! We had a dancing lesson today in school, in order to get ourselves all hyped up and ready for the ball, so I can now positively dance with you - mostly the girls checking this page, hopefully - I can dance the slow waltz and Chachacha, which is one of my favourite dances anyways! Good laugh, real good fun!

Also, check out the picture of my class! They´re such a laughly bunch, there´s only one or two who start a ruckus every now and then - and you wouldn´t believe who it is mainly! There´s one boy. the devil in disguise I can tell you! So sweet and such a "criminal"! They´re really good kids, and I look alright amongst them, don´t I? ;-) ERF

Here we go again!

After having dealt with many a dead person in the last couple of days, we´re back at school, a bee hive full of busy little ants doing this and that constantly - not many of them manage to listen to the teachers at the same time, though! ;-) Just joking, it´s not bad at all, looking forward to the next lesson already, when I can see my "own" little buggers again. They´re just so cute! You can find a picture of me and my class here soon, actually, but not right now, as they´re still not online, damn! Anyways, life´s treating me well, my remote controlled areoplane has been mended by Volker, my flat mate and yesterday´s little accident with my nephew Markus has not harmed him majorly! I let go of his tram and it fell over - he screamed like mad but just because of the shock! Thank god, was well worried for a second! Life´s full of dangerous moments, innit?
The person I´m showing you today is Alex, one of my best friends, who has just gone to France for a year as a French assistant, she´s a French and sports teacher! Great girl, always up for a laugh and very enjoyable company, too! Missing her quite a bit actually, she would have been teaching in Solar City with me... Gotta go!
See ya, wouldn´t wanna be ya!
ERF

Broken arm in school - still the winners of the last match of the season!!!

Despite a tragic little accident in school Friday afternoon, where one of my boys in the solarCity grammar school broke the radius of his left arm, I still managed to go ahead as planned with my weekend - and we eventually won the last game of the season against Ulrichsberg 2:0 which means we ended the season in second, 6 points ahead of our opponents and 2 behind the leaders! Not bad, and thank god it´s all over, most of us really can do with a break right now, everyone was getting really really tired. But it was another great and intense match and I think we can be quite pleased with our result. Anyways, Armin´s injury is not that bad after all, he´s gonna have a cast for a few weeks and that´s the end of the story. Thank god, it was my first injury in school and I didn´t like it all that much! Talk to you again soon, gotta go - it´s Rita´s final orals tomorrow and she needs my mental assistance desperately! I´ll tell you how it went in a couple of days... ERF

Final game of the season brings final decision

After having recovered from the tragic loss against Niederwaldkirchen last week we´re facing the team in 5th tomorrow. They are a young side, and hopefully we will be able to beat them with our cleverness and experience... check out the details here the day after tomorrow. It´s 2. Liga NW... apart from that, I was in school today with two of my colleagues and we went on the trampoline. What a laugh, I hadn´t done it for a while but it´s such a ´fantastic sport! I have a couple of videos, don´t think I can put them on here... I´ll try one day! ERF

Loss against Niederwaldkirchen: N/O is not top of the pops anymore!!!

Sad result in our last home game, not only do we lose the match but we also lose the top position in the league! Good game, we could have scored a few but had to accept defeat in the end, too good was the opponents defense, too weak our effort to score goals. Nevermind, there´s more to come and eventually, we´ll be showing them who we really are!
Anyways, life goes on and so I´m back at school, giving tests and exercises, and at uni, where my students are becoming more and more insecure about their English! .... They´ll be having a self evaluation tomorrow, so we´ll see how it goes after that! But look at them, they seem to be having a good time in school, so that´s alright... tbc

Title race final show down on Sunday in Neustift!!!

On Sunday, 16th October, we´re play ing our fiercest opponent in footie! the team from Niederwaldkirchen is only one point behind us, having lost one out of 9 games so far, whereas we have drawn the match against St. Stefan, the then leaders of the league.
Although we´ve been on a winning streak and scoring lots of goals there might be some problems we could face in Sunday´s match. Grise Wundsam has got a knee injury, so he´s not sure whether he can play, and some other players are also slightly hurt, including me and my bruised knee from the match against St. Veit a fortnight ago - stay in touch, I´ll tell you about it next week.
The picture is from the match against Arnreit, thanks to Bernhard for sending it to me (was that before or after I did them in with my goal? ;-)) ERF

My schools

I wanna show you my schools today. As you know - or you mightn´t actually, I work in two schools in Linz, called Georg von Peuerbach Gymnasium and AHS Solar City - they´re both real good fun and teaching is the thing I´m really quite good at, as far as I´ve gathered so far. It´s my first "real" year at school, so there´s many things I have to learn and get used to, but, overall, I have to say it´s darn cool..... well, have a look at them, decide for yourselves and then tell me what you´re thinking... there´ll be more info about school life soon. But now it´s off to the last few lessons before the weekend, which I´m really dying for! See ya!

I´m getting into the routine - eventually

After being restless for quite a qhile when school started I have recovered now and seem to be getting there - tomorrow is my last "extra" duty as the head of a class for the time being - the parents´ evening, as we call it in Austria. We meet the parents in school and tell them what we expect of their children and how they have been doing so far. Will be another interesting night at school!
Also, I had my first day at university today, it was great, real good fun, actually, did not feel nervous or anything and got along fine - it´s just that these students really have to learn loads - we need to finish a whole book by the end of the semester! Mmmmh! We´ll see how it goes!
I have to burn a CD with the pics from last weekend´s Kennenlerntage, where we went to Neustift with the kids for two days - great fun, but so exhausting - for the kids as well as the teachers! Pics will be coming soon...
ERF

David est la!

Today is a good day, as my old mate, David Catot, is finally coming to visit me in Austria! It´s been quite a while since I say him last, so this will by quite exciting!
Check in the future for another pic update!
ERF

Gemeinsamer Scooterausflug bei der Hochzeit von Joachim

Gemeinsamer Scooterausflug,
originally uploaded by Ernsti.

Our Trip to the island Lipari surmounted in the scooter tour we did on our last day - we saw a really pretty island with lots of interesting places to go to and enjoyed our time very much - it´s obvious why Dani and Joachim wanted to get married there - find more pics here

This is just a small test, I wanted you all to be able to look at Matt ´s blog as well, so as you know how to do this properly...

Cheers, Ernsti

Rita Maus

Rita Maus,
originally uploaded by Ernsti.

This is Rita, my girl-friend at last weekend´s beach volleyball competition in Neustift! Always smiling, although it didn´t go that well for them - they ended up third of three... Nevermind, she´s a great player! Definitely the best I know!

Oberkappler Meister

Oberkappler Meister,
originally uploaded by Ernsti.

And these are the winners: Petronella and me - totally dead but also very happy we got our cups! Petronella could keep it, she has won it for 4 consecutive times already - there´s not too many girl runners in Oberkappel, though!


for more pics: www.zweilaenderlauf.com

Die Vier Musketiere at the 2LL

Die Vier Musketiere at the 2LL,
originally uploaded by Ernsti.

This is a picture of the 4 fastest "Oberkappler" runners of the Zweilaenderlauf 2005! It is such a hard race, you wouldn´t believe it, really! T´was the first time I competed and... I won!

Da Gri!

Da Gri!,
originally uploaded by Ernsti.

And this is Christoph, my brother, my nephew´s godfather and a student of "Internationale Beziehungen" - which do, of course, include girls from other countries, hähä. No, it´s "Internationale Entwicklung", really, I know, Gri!

Mathias der Vater

Mathias der Vater,
originally uploaded by Ernsti.

Dearest of friends, father of a beautiful little girl, as far as I know, haven´t seen her yet, I´m afraid! Mathias and Sabine, the "Horn"ies, cheerio!

Da Koal!

Da Koal!,
originally uploaded by Ernsti.

Carlos and me got to know each other when I first returned from England and then went again the following summer - he came along, and it all started from there - what a decent friendship! Cheers, mate - and what a sexy outfit!

Josch im Gefecht

Josch im Gefecht,
originally uploaded by Ernsti.

Another friend of mine, intimate companion in recent years and soon-to-be-wed all time favourite Italian coast guard Joachim! All the best!
Photos from the wedding will be uploaded naturally!

Die Sieger sind immer die Gleichen

Die Sieger sind immer die Gleichen,
originally uploaded by Ernsti.

Today I would like to introduce to you some of my best friends - this group here are my best and most understanding football mates, which were relegated with me this season! Still, the best football players I could imagine myself playing with! Talent, athletism and grace combined with beauty - it´s just outstanding! :-)

Zweilaenderlauf

Zweilaenderlauf Logo,
originally uploaded by Ernsti.

I would like to introduce you to the "Zweiländerlauf", a running event in my home village of Oberkappel! In the next few weeks and postings, I will tell you more about this special competition leading from Austria to Germany and back again. Also, you can check it out under:
www.zweilaenderlauf.com

Start des Hauptlaufes

Start des Hauptlaufes,
originally uploaded by Ernsti.

The main event is the pro-competition over 5500 metres. Younger and older "Professionals" and hobby runners from Austria and Germany join to finish the course as fast as possible, never forgetting that, a few years ago, there was a boarder line between the 2 countries they pass through constantly throughout their endeavour. From a cultural and a social point of view, it is an absolutely unique event!