October 26th is Austria’s national holiday – we thought we’d celebrate with our intern Elena as she is so far from home. Here is her latest blog entry about life at The PumpHouse.

James, Mags, Elena and Julia share in some “Kaffee und Kuchen’”. Gill is off-camera taking the photo.

I thought about giving a little update on my life as an intern at The PumpHouse.

Coming originally from Austria, Wednesday was one of the most important days for our country – Austria’s National Day!

Feeling really odd not celebrating this huge day in my home country, my lovely colleagues set up afternoon tea with typical cake from Austria- ‘Kaffee und Kuchen’ as we say in Austria.

The 26th of October is the most important feast day in my home country and nobody has to go to work or school. There are also various events taking place, such as ‘open house’ in Parliament and office of our President and free entry in almost every museum. Many people also use the day off to get out of the city and travel to one of our beautiful lakes to do picnics or hikes.

While my fellow Austrians are now beginning to wrap up in thick autumn wear, I’m enjoying the weather becoming warmer and warmer while exploring the beautiful places New Zealand has to offer on the weekends and getting to have a close look on the theatre life during the weekdays.

Since my last blog entry I’ve been dealing with a few more tasks including writing a how-to guide streamlining my box office procedures, which I really enjoy doing! Passing on the knowledge I got during my first month of work is not just a good way to improve my written English, but also a good chance to keep record for myself of what I’ve already learned.

I’m also becoming more confident in answering phone calls and even got used in operating the ticketing software.