A Well-Deserved Break

Harewood House

I can't believe that we're halfway through the school year! While that's not technically true as the second quarter ends in mid-January it feels like we've hit a huge hurdle. I feel like I have a much better sense of my students and what my job is supposed to be like now that I've been at the school for four months.

This Christmas, I was invited to a colleagues home in England. She lives near Leeds so we flew with Ryanair from Bratislava to Leeds-Bradford. Every time I travel in Europe, I am so grateful budget airlines! My round-trip flight was just over 100 euros! You would never find flights like that in the USA. I was able to meet Gemma's family and her grandparents too. During my week with Gemma, we were able to go to York and walk around the old parts of the city which are called The Shambles, go to the movie theater to see Mary Poppins Returns, pretend we were celebrating Christmas in the mid-1900s at Harewood House, and most importantly-go to Primark. It was a very relaxing week and I am forever grateful to Gemma and her family for opening up their home to me.

After my week in England, there was still one week left of Christmas break before school started again. One of the fun things I did during this week was going to the Schönbrunn Zoo. It is located on the grounds of Schönbrunn Palace and was founded in 1752; it is actually the oldest continuously operating zoo in the world! I bought a year pass for the zoo because that made more sense--it's 20 euros for one visit and 49 euros for a year pass. The zoo was so quiet since it's the winter months and while some of the animals that are normally on exhibit outside were not there, the hoards of tourists were not there either. It was nice to walk around and stay as long as I wanted in one place without feeling like I had to move to let other people see the animals. I'm sure I'll go back at least one more time this year because I love going to zoos.

The second notable event I did was going to see The Nutcracker at the Wiener Staatsoper for 4 euros. Yes, you read that correctly; it only cost me 4 euros. The Wiener Staatsoper sells standing room only tickets for all of their shows for 3-4 euros. The price you pay depends on where you want to be. If you want to be on the main level, it costs four euros; if you want to be up in the balconies, it costs three euros. You have to line up and have exact change for your ticket. They will only sell one ticket per person and they start selling tickets 90 minutes before the show starts. I knew The Nutcracker would be a popular show for standing room only so I went super early to stand in line. The ballet started at 19:00 so standing room only tickets went on sale at 17:30 and I was there at 15:45. The doors to the opera house were not even open since they open those at 16:00. Thankfully, because I got there early it meant that I was able to be inside the building to finish waiting and didn't have to stand out in the cold. The opera house itself is opulent and I had a great time watching the ballet. It is definitely something I would do again!