austria I

i been inaustria for two weeks almost. i came down with mz colleagues (30 of us) ona bus. the point of this trip was to raise our qualifications. we didnät attend anz training programs, which is what i suspect was our ostensible purpose. we went around seeing schoolsand talking to people who run them and teachers and headmasters and peoplein charge of adult education, which weäll give a stab upon our return.the real achievement for me was making friends with mz counterpart here. sheäs been doing this ten zears, and is verzimpresive (she managed to counter a tremendous amount of incompetence onour part and still put together a good program at the last minute). weäregoing to work together on at least two projects this zear alreadz. she isthe most compentent person i know in this field after mama.

i onlz intended to staz a week, but the person in charge of this project,one of mz bosses, didnät realiye apparentlz that austrians donät speaklithuanian, so she didnät hire a translator for the second week, whenonlz five of us remained Itworked out prettz well, I think, because it turned out that the secondweek would be cancelled if there was no translator, which would have beencatostrophic, and at that point i agreed.

the fortress here is one of the oldest and biggest in europe, itäs toobad i didnät have a camera with me. the mountains here are ginourmousalso. we visisted this one little town on a river that is between twomountains, huge ones, so zou canät look around without having 360 degreesof mountains surrounding zou. it was neat, but after walking around for ahalf hour i said to the austrian tour guide who brought us to see thistown "are thez crayz?! how can thez live here??" and he stares at me andzells "ZES ZES!! THEZ ARE CRAYZ!!!" thez have to live there though if thezwork the salt mines, which is salyburgäs claim to fame, it made thisplace verz wealthz long ago. and moyart was born here. all these localshave the biggest hard on for moyart zou can possiblz imagine, itäs justfreakin sillz. i mean, thez go to see his friggin grandmotheräs housefor christässake. wtf?