Geography

The actual reason why I decided to write about geography today.

For the entire 8-year stretch of middle school, I had the same geography teacher: Mag. Norbert "Geomayr" Mayr. He was feared by most of us for being one of the strictest teachers at our school. During the 5 minute break before his class started, we each had to get our atlas of the world, geography text book and note book, all neatly stacked on one corner of our desk. In case we had forgotten one or more of our books at home; we had to report this immediately upon the start of the lesson. There was a quiz in every lesson.
I remember being at my most rebellious around 14 and having been called to stand next to the teacher's desk for one such quiz, I failed to answer some (or all?) of Geomayr's questions. He would address us by our surnames back then, so he said to me, "[my surname], your knowledge is showing as many holes as your jeans." I'll never forget that. I also remember him formally asking my peers and me if it would be okay to call us by our first names when we were 15. Such a peculiar thing to do, this was in 1992 and by then some of his fellow teachers had offered us that we call them by their first names...

I graduated from highschool in 1995 and decided to attend the academy for teaching 10- to 14-year-olds. My chosen subjects were German (because I was never good at maths and didn't have the confidence to teach English - imagine that!) and Geography - exactly the same combination Geomayr taught, but at a different level. That year, Austria had joined the European Union and my new geography teacher decided to take us on a field trip to Belgium in May 1996, so we could visit the European institutions there, see Zeebrugge, the polders (transport & geology being part of geography lessons then) and meet with colleagues at both the catholic and the state academy for teaching professions.
There were 9 students, four of which decided to have as much fun as possible during that trip, the others preferred to stay in their rooms. To my big surprise I found myself with the "fun" group, drinking Sangria in Bruges, Tequila Sunrise in Brussels and teaching our host at the youth hotel in Bredene how to prepare white wine Spritzer.
It sounds cliché, but the last evening there, he showed up. Alain was loud and irritating and looked at bit silly with his long curly hair and ring beard, but we started talking and the next morning I left our host a note with my postal address on it and asked him if he could pass it on to Alain. A week or two later the first of many letters from Belgium arrived and set into motion the chain of events which lead to me now writing this blog while looking out across the rooftops of Ostend and listening to my cat snoring next to me.

Around the World in Antwerp

I've been meaning to write this long post explaining a couple of things that have happened since January, but then I procrastinated and it never happened, and other posts that would've followed from "that big one" were never written.

So, I've decided to blog anyway, explain along the way or not at all.

Here I am, out & about in Antwerp, on a little excursion with a bunch of lovely people.

The trip was organized by the West-Flemish Rainbow House, where I started volunteering in February. It's not always fun & drinks there (though, frankly, often enough), but I've made so many new connections, met people from different walks of life. I still seem to get along better with people 15 - 25 years my senior though, so little change from my knitting groups there.

My main job as a volunteer is website maintenance, with a side of newsletters and social media.

Mad Men

“Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern.”
― Frank O'Hara, Meditations in an Emergency