
04/02/2024
Another alumni update! 🇦🇹 from Vincent DeSanto '23, currently living in Austria as a grantee with Fulbright Austria! "Hello everyone! I have had the immense pleasure of spending the better part of last year teaching English in a town in Upper Austria called Bad Ischl. My time in Bad Ischl has far exceeded my expectations. The job itself is wonderful, my students are all fantastic and my colleagues are very kind and generous. Upon my arrival, I hiked my way through the Salzkammergut. This region, whose status as the 2024 Kulturhauptstadt has been an added delight, has endeared itself to me. Bad Ischl was the one-time summer escape of Franz Joseph II and his Empress Sisi, along with a wide variety of spiritual exiles ranging from Karl Kraus to Robert Musil. What is particularly nice is its proximity to Munich. I have had the rare chance to develop a closer relationship with my uncle and his family, who live there. Just last weekend I hosted my cousin and his girlfriend in Bad Ischl. We spoke German nearly the entire time, which caused me to reflect upon just how impactful my burying myself within the German idiom is for me. I've continued to translate more German prose and poetry. I have fallen particularly in love with Vienna. I've applied to continue working there next year as a USTA. Vienna has been a fixture of my weekends here, and I feel as though I've gotten to know it just as well as Bad Ischl. I have spent time there exploring the cemeteries, raiding the bookshops, and wandering the museums."