More Questions! And Free Cookies!

Every other week I have the pleasure of working with a 1st form class. These kids are about 10 or 11 years old, and for most of them, this is their first year learning English. It's a bit difficult for me to plan lessons for them because they don't have many language skills to work with, but they are really great at asking questions. Each time I see them they have gained more vocabulary and thus the capacity to ask questions other than what is your favorite color, so each time I come to their class we do a pretty extensive "fire away at the teaching assistant with anything and everything you can think of to ask" time. They just learned more complex question words and how to say numbers 1-100, so today's session was extra fun, and as always, they asked incredibly adorable, ridiculous, hilarious, and poignant questions. Here's a sampling of my favorites:

1. How old is your mother? How old is your father?
2. Can you count to 10 in Japanese?
3. What is your favorite part of our world?
4. Do you like exciting clothing?
5. What do you think is the sweetest animal on the earth?
6. How often do you drink a beer?
7. How often to you go to the disco?
8. How often to you go to the casino?
9. How many skirts do you have? How many dresses do you have?
10. How much money do you have? How many Euros do you have?
11. Do you have friends?
12. How many friends do you have?
13. Who is your best friend?
14. What is your surname? Do you have facebook? (this could be dangerous)
15. Who is your favorite teacher at our school? Do you like our school?
16. If you had a very crazy pet where would it live? (when asked for an example, the animal chosen was a tiger...I said I'd keep it in a hut in my backyard...)
17. Do you like FC Barcelona? Do you like Real Madrid? (apparently the correct answers to these questions were yes and no, respectively, because when I gave those answers, loud cheers erupted throughout the boys in the room)
18. How often do you wash your face?
19. Which is better: a Euro or a dollar?
20. What is your favorite thing on a mobile phone? (yeah, I don't get it either)
21. Why are you here?

and my personal favorite: What do you think about universal peace?

Aren't these kids great?

Also, after school I was walking through the Marktplatz in the center of town towards the grocery store. I noticed there were lots of political party people standing around, stopping people to solicit votes, because the Landestag election (local government) is coming up March 3. I had my "I'm not Austrian, so I can't vote" answer all ready to get rid of them when I came up to this one lady who was standing by a car handing something out. I tried to avoid eye contact and walk past quickly, but she shoved something in my face anyway. To my very pleasant surprise, it was not a pamphlet or flier, but rather a little thing of cookies! Manner Schnitten, to be exact: my absolute favorite!! True, there was a little thing stuck on there telling me who to vote for, but the important part is: FREE COOKIES!  This is a great country.

**sidenote: I would never actually vote for this party because Frank Stronach is a crazy millionaire who decided to get into politics (Donald Trump, anybody?) but nobody actually knows what he stands for other than disintegration from the EU. Plus, he named his party after himself. Who does that? So yeah. I'll eat your cookies, Frank, but wont vote for ya.

Coming attractions: I went to an Opera last week so I'll have a blog post written about that very soon! But right now all I want to do is watch last night's Parks & Rec and weep from the happiness I am certain the Knope-Wyatt union will bring me. I literally can't think of anything else or do anything else before I watch it because I have not been this excited about television nuptials ever in my life. Not even Jim and Pam. I can't handle the anticipation.