And a month later she remembers she has a blog

Hmmmm what all have I done since November 21st. Had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner in Baden at this huge heurige (sp?), then went the next day to ski in the Alps. It was a five hour drive or so out to the glacier near Salzburg, and we didn't leave until the afternoon, so the 3 day weekend was just two days of skiing. But it was the greatest bargain ever - 120 euros plus lunches for a 4 star apartment house that had a spa we used after Saturday on the slopes, all you can eat dinner and breakfast buffets (dinner themes were meditteranean and then an amaaaaazing variety of Austrian food which I am going to miss so much). Plus equipment and lift tickets all included. Didn't take me long to feel at home with skis on, though my legs got quite tired the second day. The views were so incredibly beautiful, mountains with jagged snow covered peaks going on forever. There was one trail I did over and over again partly just for the view from the lift! (Also it was relatively empty, and just challenging enough that I had to push myself on it.)

Europe has been quite a workout. The skiing, all the stairs in church towers and castles, hiking up to castles, hiking in Cinque Terre, walking around cities including Vienna.

After that I had been thinking about a weekend in Warsaw or Prague but I was so tired that I stayed in Vienna for the next weekend. I also realized I had a month left so I started hitting up all the museums I've been meaning to go to - just finished the circuit by going to the Sisi museum today. She was one crazy lady, poor thing.

Went to Munich two weeks ago and loved it. We had a long weekend for some Catholic holiday and Friday got into Munich and used our Eurail passes to get to Fussen for free. Fussen is the location of two Bavarian castles, one of which was the inspiration for the Walt Disney castle. The tours were pretty cool, again gorgeous views, and those Bavarian kings also had their share of insanity. And perhaps scandal. It was really weird, the temperature was about 50 degrees and it was windier than anything I've ever seen. People's tickets were being blown out of their hands, and you couldn't move sometimes for the wind, or you could just lean into it. The tour guide at one of the castles said this was because of storms in Italy pushing warm air down off the Alps. Then back in Munich I took in the city sites and sampled the bier - Saturday night we did a brewery/beer hall tour where we went to local places and saw how brewing happens and I finally learned what the hell malt and hops are and do. Then Sunday I went to Dachau, which wasn't as harrowing as the death camps and featured the typical overload of written information in its museum. I invested in the audio guide which was OK, but I'd rather have had it contain the stories I was too tired to stand and listen to at stations within the museum.

Then it was finals time. A friend from home visited and I was a poor tour guide, although I did give her a scavenger hunt to explore the 1st district with. I spent much of the last two weeks working or procrastinating, as well as still running around to museums. The Vienna armory museum is really interesting - it's got weapons and military uniforms and other relics from back to the Turkish wars, but the most interesting sections were on WW1 and WW2. Especially WW1 - they've got the car Franz Ferdinand was assasinated in, complete with a bullet hole, and the military suit he was wearing at the time, cut open where the blood stains are because it had run down his side, but you can also see the little bullet hole in his neck. To look at something that was so crucial to altering the course of Western history was pretty awe inspiring. They've got interesting weapons from the war too. The WW2 section had some bizarre display by the museum featuring models of people eating brains and turning into animals - not sure what they were going for with that, though apparently some sort of commentary on the Nazis. The interesting part in that section was the propaganda posters all over the place. And they didn't mind that I was taking pictures. Oh and I went to a restaurant on my street for taglichessen - the daily menu special that includes soup and a main dish and in some places desert, though when it had been quite a while since we'd finished our plates and we weren't drinking anything and they hadn't brought desert we just paid and left. It was so good, though, these little fried circular slices of friedness with meat of some sort inside. And Austrian potato salad, so good. Sadly my German teacher forgot to put up a few recipes at the final and I was so relieved to be done that I forgot to ask her. Apparently next semester she's offering her regular cooking lessons which she didn't do this semester due to some sort of recent leg surgery.

So that's that. Lots of running around Vienna - I've still got a little more in me tomorrow, I might go back to the Belvedere to say goodbye to some wonderful art there while I'e still got my free pass, and I've got to go to IES to give them leftover food and drop off Tara's key. Then tomorrow at 6pm I'll leave for the train station (allowing plenty of time wiht my 4 bags!) and head for Rome. I really like Vienna, and I'm sure I'll be back to visit. But I also loved Germany when I visited - admittedly some will argue that Bavaria is a whole different deal. But Germans are more friendly - a few minutes in a bar there and I'd made friends from Munich, versus a whole semester here - most IES kids only know Viennese who they met in their apartments. And while the Viennese/Austrians are passive aggressive, Germans are just plain aggressive which is more my style. I definately love the European lifestyle in general, or the germanic life style, or something, and Austrian/German food is droolworthy. I'd love to live in one of the two countries again for a while and in fact next summer I'm hoping to be in Berlin on a free program and then have time to travel around more in Germany.

So that's that, I guess. Maybe some time I'll get around to posting pictures, but don't anybody hold their breath.

Auf wiedersehen.

Time Flies

At the beginning of November I was busy with midterms, my how time flies as I'm now thinking about final papers!

The weekend of the 10-12ish my friend Laura came from Madrid, where she is studying, and it was a wonderful excuse to do touristy things. I showed her around the city showing off what knowledge I've gained from Vienna Past and Present. We saw the expressionist exhibit at the Leopold museum which was pretty good, went to the Naschmarkt where I finally tried what is allegedly the best kebab. But I actually like the kebab right at the Oper stop on Karntnerstrasse better. Saw the Secession museum including some truly strange contemporary exhibits, a whole bunch of video exhibits which were particularly weird involved cameras recording people nodding off, driving in endless circles around rotaries, etc. There was also a work that consisted of 4 cardboard boxes sitting on the floor. I actually moved a box before I realized it was supposed to be art.

Friday night we went to the little local restaurant in my district that cousin Peter had taken my family to 2 years ago. Nobody speaks much English. Well we go and sit in the back room with 2 couples and a table full of about 15 drunk middle aged men. The couples soon left leaving us alone as objects of many stares. This one guy in particular kept turning around to face us. He wished us a good meal in poor English when our food came (mmmm spezial cordone blu with peperoni cheese and onions inside my schnitzel!) Eventually, as we kept trying to avoid looking at the guys and giggling at eachother, he asked where we were from, and upon finding out Laura was from California the guys all ruminated for a while. Then he turns around and proclaims, again in English, that Arnold Schwarzenegger will be president in a year or two. Laura and I crack up and I tried to explain, first in English and then in broken German ("He was not in Amerika birthday" - I learned the word for born the next time I had German class!), that this was simply not possible, but as I didn't exactly know the words for "constitutional ammendment" we failed and the man concluded that he would be president in three or four years. (I didn't even get into the fact that that would be the middle of somebody's term). All in all quite amusing, Laura and I couldn't eat sometimes for the amount of giggling we were doing. That night we also explored the clubs on the Gurtel which despite their proximity to my apartment I hadn't yet been to. I immediately regretted my tardiness as the atmosphere, in these cave-like dens under the Gurtel (belt) train tracks was really cool.

We went to Otello Saturday and I loved it. The music was incredible and dramatic and gorgeous and the singers were great. The production was done with no period's dress at all - not the 1500s, not modern, just black trench coats, cloaks, and dresses, and a few white dresses. In a stark comparison to Lohengrin, Otello's production showed how well the simple theme could work, allowing imagination to take hold and not distracting from the actual music.

And this past weekend I went to Budapest with half my Lit class (the professor is Hungarian). Got in friday and it was, we found out Sat, the annual trash day for the district we were in. This means that there were piles of furniture, clothing, papers, gross looking undidentifiable stuff, every few feet on the sidewalks, and people picking through the piles, loading up their bikes and old Soviet-era cars. We ate in a cafeteria, which I guess was very student of us, but their lack of English led to me getting some interesting dishes when I'd just been trying to ask if they matched the signs above (not necessarily was the conclusion). Never order first in a situation like this. Anyway Saturday we wandered around and found, on recommendation of an odd guy at our very very nice cheap hostel, the Museum of Terror. Housed in the former office building of both the Arrow Cross (Hungarian Nazi party) and later communists it goes through the nearly half-century of oppression. Although only a few of the video displays were subtitled, there were plenty of other visuals and each room had a page-long description to pick up. I have practically a book from the museum's pamphlets, the latter half of which I didn't read because we started running out of time. It was really an interesting place though. Our prof gave us a tour of the castle and a sizeable helping of Hungarian history that afternoon and then took us to a local pub where I had a delicious veal peprikagoulasch or something of the sort. The next day I went to hero's square and the castle and peaked through the zoo's fence, saw parlament, then climbed the citadell and returned to Vienna. It was pretty grey though warm while I was there and I wasn't a huge fan of the city.

I've realized I have only a month left in Vienna. I made a list of things I want to do before I leave - mainly museums that I'll regret not going to even if I feel museumed-out now. I'm making an effort to do things in between classes instead of just hanging out, and there's tons of restaurants I've been meaning to try. Meanwhile (probably for the better so long as I have mail/skype) my internet has been fussy and it's been hard to load my usual routine of websites at home.

I visited the christmas market in front of the Rathaus this evening. It is huge and a mixture of stalls selling ornaments, candles, little nativity figures, cookies, chocolates, hot wine and other punsches, chestnut roasting shacks, etc. Little sheds that sell baked goods and hot wine and punsches have also sprung up around the first district where restaurants used to have their outdoor seating areas. Sadly some of the prettiest things are painted glass ball ornaments that would never make it home, especially given how much luggage I will have. I haven't yet bought anything (well besides a truffle) because I promised myself I would wait and see what was around the city before buying something and finding something better or a better deal elsewhere.

Italy the rest

The next day I slept in a bit, woke up with bites all over my hands and face, and headed for the Jewish quarter which was a 4 minute walk from the hostel. It is the origin of the word "ghetto." I did the museum but skipped the synogogue tour, which was a huge mistake. I thought Id see it at services but no, there are in fact 3 synogugues on the tour, none of which you can see during services because the two non-safardic only open for the high holidays and are incredibly beautiful and the safardic one si the summer one that is unheated. Then I went on the water bus to the glass blowing island, Murano. I was wandering around trying to make sense of the directions Id received to Ty-something or other, the farthest island that was abandoned due to a plague and thus has an old cathedral. I ended up wandering down an ally and standing in front of an open furnace door watchign the glass blowers. Eventually they invited me in and proceeded to shower me with gifts and demonstrations. I was given a glass bead and shown how they place them onto vases-to-be, and I was given a paperweight, and a piece of silver and gold and shown how they roll those onto the glass. They were mostly making various types of vases. Then I was told (all with sign language, they didnt speak a word of English) to stand in front of a table and watched as before my eyes a guy made a horse that stood on its hind legs and tail. Then he produced another (not hot) one and had another guy wrap it up for me. Then they had me give my camera to one guy while another had me blow a little bit of glass up intoa big bubble. He wanted me to pop it but I didnt have the lung capacity aparently. He made it explode and gave me a shard of the glass Id blown. Then they went to lunch and I went to the rather boring dead island.

I got back to Venice just in time for services, which I attended at the safardic synogogue because the scenery would be more interesting than at the Hasidic (I think) schule. After services the two communities came together and went to the kosher restaurant that serves the whole community free Shabbas dinner and all the tourists too. Luckily there were people (other tourists mostly) who spoke English. They served challah, an amaying spread of 6-8 Israeli salads, then soup, then beef, then chicken, then finally cake for desert. It was kind of a ridiculous amount of food, and delicious, and free, and the men all sang songs and made lots of noise and it was general fun.

The next day (sat) I got up at 6am and hopped on the first of 5 trains that took me to Cinque Terre. By the time I got there I was smelly, hot, tired, and I'd never seen such beautiful beach. I got off the train and it was 75 or so which was amaying. I went to the 5th town, which is cheapest, found accomodation for 15 euro, and lay on the beach all afternoon, mixing swimming, reading, and napping until sunset. The next day I took all my stuff, including my carefully packaged glass horse in my shoulder bag and my backpack, and set out to hike the trail between the towns. I happily discovered that it was daylight savings time and Id thus gained an extra hour. The first leg was nice and flat and 20 minutes long. I had to take the train from the 4th to 3rd town, through what would have been an hour hike, because the trail was closed due to rock slides. The towns are all various small sizes, full of colorfully painted buildings and extremely cute. It was kind of overcast but I managed to work up a good sweat on the leg between the 3rd and 2nd towns, an hour and 45 minute hike that was lots of ups and downs and flights of stairs. It was really nice to hike with the sound and view of the ocean. I rested in the 2nd town for a while and went on to the 1.5 hr walk to the first. I ended up being grateful that the leg of trail had been closed because by the end of the hike, which culminated in about 20 minutes of climbing downstairs (I cant imagine starting off the other way), my legs were trembling. It was a little cold for swimming but I relaxed on the beach until dinner and my train to Florence, where I caught the night train back to Vienna. I ended up in a car with other IES kids coming from Rome so it was fairly comfortable, we were able to put our feet up on eachothers' chairs.

An interesting note about language - when I arrived in Italy I kept wanting to use German words for things even though I knew perfectly well they wouldn't be understood, because German is the not-English language on my brain. This was true when I got to Vienna as well; I kept supplying Spanish words for German words I didn't know because I knew the English was wrong. Yesterday, back in Vienna, I said Scuzzi a few times before I got my brain to switch back to Deutsch.

Day trip and Italy part 1

(written 10/26)

The day trip was great. First we went to Kloister Neuburg (monastary new castle) which was very very close. We could smell the wine fermenting 30 meters below during parts of the tour. We saw some interesting art and old furniture and rooms designed for use by the Hapsburgs that they never ended up using. Among the art we saw: some cool enamel things arranged as an alter that are so significant they had a 5 min video about them, some statues, especially fo the virgin, that were nearly 8-900 years old, two original roman citizenship documents which are really rare cause you only got them if you survived being a soldier for 20 years and of course not many of the documents themselves survived (the monastary was built near roman ruins), two paintings of some saint being stabbed that are so subtle it's like a "what's wrong with this picture" thing, and I'm sure there were other significant items but I was very hungry and tired by the end of it and sometimes churches just get to be too much. Oh and a million and one illusions in art and decoration to the legend of the monastary's church or whatever, basically some prince guy's bride's really expensive veil blew off the night of the wedding and they thought they'd never see it again. Then a year or two later he was hunting in the nearby hills and he saw this shining thing in an elderbury bush. And it was the veil. And then the virgin appeared, so he built a church there. I love how all these random legends end with "and then the virgin appeared to him." After eating we went to this guy's private castle. How cool is that? Its not real, in the sense that many of the items were acquired and weren't original to the castle, but are all period pieces, and it was really cool. 600 year old books, seals that people used instead of signatures, old furniture, stuffed birds, random gargoyles and people being eaten in statues up in the corners of rooms, the kitchen... Finally we went to a winery, a little family place, which is really cool because they have resisted the urge to consolidate and dealt with the EU and profit issues by going directly to the end-consumer. The owner's brother guided us through the vineyards (had a few grapes off the vine), a wine tasting (probably 5 different kinds? kind of lost track down in the basement with the barrels), and gave us info about making wine. Then the owner's wife made us an amaaaazing delicious dinner. Sadly the next day I was feverish and didn't go on the other day trip (which had a similar agenda: monastary, caslte (albeit the one Richard the Lionhearted of England was held in for randsom that was then used to refortify the city's walls thus saving Vienna and perhaps all of Western Europe from falling to the Turks), and wine tasting. I heard the food wasn't as good. Luckily after telling me they couldn't, they ended up giving me my money back.

So here I am in Venice on my 4 day mini-break. It's Thursday night. Last night I had my first ever night train experience. My reserved ticket was right on the aisle of the cabin, and the cabin was the one right at the end of the train by the bathroom and exit. Not so loud with the door closed, I thought, except that I woke up every single time the train stopped and people got on and off. Night trains are not comfortable. The one back to Vienna will be even less because I could only get a center seat; no walls to lean against. My only hope is that like last time there is some sort of noshow by the window, except this time I move into it instead of staying put. Redeeming the whole experience was the fact that it cost me 5 euro. No, not 5 euro plus 1/6 of the price of my Eurail pass, because I had no clue what to do with the thing and the conductor didnt ask for it so it is still blank. I'm gonna use the extra day to save myself 30 euro Sat. when I travel to the other coast. Anyway I tired myself out even more waiting 30+ min for the hostel to open (despite the sign that said they opened before my train got in) and then took off with their very helpful walking trail around the city. I decided to head for the furthest point and track back. Well, leaving my huge Lonely Planet with its decent map had its benefits, but the map the hostel gave me can only roughly be called a map. Before I could even get the the farthest point I was hopelessly lost many times. The thing about Venice that is really annoying is that there are all these cute narrow winding streets but they end up bringing you to a river with no bridge. So then you know what direction you need to go in but by the time you turn around and find another street to go down you have lost it again. Also there are many dead-ends, none marked, so you walk several blocks only to turn around and do it again. This was sometimes nice, as there are random things down dead end streets like 5-story tall winding brick towers with arches. Not having a map meant I saw a lot more of the city but it was frustrating at times. Tomorrow I'm getting one from the tourist info office. Eventually I found the Gugenheim and it was all worth it. The collection is small but amazing, with incredible statues and some really interesting futurism pieces I learned about in my Modern Art class last fall - plus one by Cara that was the topic of my term paper. Also my new favorite Picasso, called either "The Beach" or "On the Beach." And a Louis Vuitton briefcase that Duchamp made with miniatures of all his previous works inside. And a really cool statue of "young woman's profile" or something like that. I skipped the old old art at the Academia as I usually don't enjoy it much and can get my fill in churches. Speaking of, the Venetians lost 2 million to the plague and what did they do? They built a huge gaudy statue-ridden ornate humungous 2-domed church to show there gratitude that it ended having only killed that many. I wandered around by other churches, always very proud of myself when I found what I was looking for, and also sat in a square for more than an hour listening to a Bulgarian guy play classical guitar on a funny looking empty upside down collapsible guitar he'd disigned. I once again saw the Piazzo Marco with the largest, gaudiest, goldest church in the world and more pigeons than people. This was practically the only thing I saw on my 10th grade trip to Italy, and luckily I also got to do a gondola ride then because there's no way I could afford one.

A bit on Austrians and Hitler

Background: the Austrians are still really, really sensitive to the fact that their nation gave birth to Hitler, even if they weren't the ones who elected him, and to the fact that they allowed Hitler to take over.

I went with a few friends to see The Black Dahlia tonight at an English theater. The movie, by the way, is pretty good, very disgusting in a nasty-bloody-uck sort of way, but very interesting and certainly suspenseful. It had interesting camerawork and was part film noir, part something else. Anyway, the star character (played by Josh Hartnett) has a German last name. Somebody asks him, "What is that name, anyway?" "German." "Germans. Good people. Hitler was a little excessive." Of course the three of us burst out laughing. Well, Tara and I giggled, and Karen kind of laughed really, really loudly, and then immediately clamped her hand over her mouth. The rest of the theater was totally silent, and an older lady behind us stood up and leaned over to look at where the laughter had come from. Ooops.

Another update on another 2 weeks

Wow, I am pretty bad at updating this. I was going to say, "at updating this regularly," but it appears I am updating it every 2 weeks, which is pretty regular.

I guess I should start with Salzburg, which was very pretty. We got there Friday and it took forever to find our hostel but we found it after accidentally getting on the wrong bus (probably my fault) and riding out to the suburb-like areas with cute houses and then into a barren industrial area at whcih point we got off the bus and waited for one going in the other direction. I had really yummy goulash for dinner and then we went to a tavern with their own Herbstbier (fall beer, just a seasonal brew) and some weird strudel I'd never seen before that was bread-y and nutty and good. Saturday we hiked up to the castle, we're talking a hike, and toured. It was kind of expensive to get in but gorgeous views, really interesting exhibits (well the endless military exhibits did not always keep my attention) and a cool audio tour through some of the rooms including a torture chamber and the top of a tower with an amazing view. For the afternoon we paid way too much money, but it was worth it, to see the world's largest accessable ice cave. It was cold, another hike (I went hiking in the alps!) and truly amazing. Unlike other caves I've toured they did not have it lit electricly but gave everyone a caving lamp with an open flame and the guide had some flares and a brighter lamp. The cave was absolutely amazing, hard to describe, and pretty dark so my pictures didn't capture how cool it was. There were ice sheets that were thousands of years old, and formations that looked like a polar bear and elephant and such. We got back so late Sat. night that I had to sleep at my friends' apartment because they live right by the train station.

Since then, hm...class has kept me busy enough I guess. Classes are terribly easy in a disapointing way, simple work easy and not less work easy. I like my classes that are not in my majors but the polisci and econ classes are reviews of basic principles half the time which is really painful. I've actually been being quite lazy during the week, but last week I got my museum pass so now I have free access to many of the city's museums. My Vienna Past and Present class toured the treasury, which was pretty impressive, especially the 1000 yr old embroidered tapestries that were part of Charlemange's coronation set (except probably a bit younger than him and not actually used by him).

Last Friday was my roommate's 21st birthday. I would have liked to take it as a travel weekend but oh well, we had an amazing time at a bowling alley (probably the only one in the city) and then went to the Triangle, the bar district basically that I had been waiting to check out until the Austrian students got back.

Vienna has gotten cold! I had to give in to my frequent urges to go into one of the city's 6 H&Ms and buy a sweater and gloves. German class is going well, we've learned the imperative and the perfect tense and such so I can sort of maybe have conversations that are more than "I go here and I like applestrudle." Our landlord came back from Berlin and had our hot water fixed so we are really happy that we can have hot showers (before they were warm-cold-warm-cold).

This weekend I've got two daytrips, one with my history class and another to the wine region as an IES field trip. Wednesday a club here is doing u2 night which I am very excited for! Next weekend is the 4 day weekend so I'll be heading down to Venice and Florence. I'm pissed I bought a Eurorail pass cause now I am pretty much locked into going to Germany when I'd rather go to Poland. Also, apparently we have no class during midterms, which they didn't make clear to us until this week, so I could have travelled after Tues the 7th until the following monday, except I didnt know this and a friend is coming to visit that weekend. Arrrg that would also have been a time to go to Warsaw and Prague (and Terezin). And that big travel period was their excuse for scheduling the german midterm on the previous saturday thus grounding me here. Not that it's bad to be here, I love Vienna, but I would like to see certain places while they are so readily accessible. I'm probably going to Dresden though I should look through the Germany section of my Lonely Planet...I have no idea what I wrote 2 weeks ago and if I'm just repeating myself...

Now for an update on the past 2 weeks.

They had elections October 1. For the entire time I've been in Vienna, we've been bombarded by billboards and ads with the candidates faces and parties. Many had grafitti on them. I have tons of pictures of them. The Austrian government has 4/5 main parties, from right to left: the FPO which is basically fascist and had signs up that said "Islam go home" and such, the BZO which broke off from them 2 yrs ago, the OVP which was in power and in a coalition with the neoNaz...I mean FPO, the SPO (social democrats, had been in power previously for pretty much the entire history of this era of Austria) and the Greens. I saw a pretty funny commercial run against the OVP, with Clinton subtitled saying "I did not have sex with that woman," then LIAR on the screen, then Bush saying Iraq had wmds, then LIAR, then Schussel (the OVP candidate) saying something in German and then LIAR too. Interesting comparisons to make, sex, a war, and some thing Schussel said. Also the parties all seem to think bribery is ok. Well, not quite bribery, but I collected lots of election loot: a keychain lanyard and pen from the OVP (apparently I missed the hackey sacks!), a lighter, keychain, and little red gummy bears from the socialists (the gummy bears were awesome, totally would have had my vote...but for reasons other than the gummy bears), a pen, postcard, green teabags and a lime candy from the Green party. Pretty cool souveniers all in all. It was very exciting, the Socialists won, and a coalition is being formed now. Also the BZO despite being a new party made it into Parliament (pending official tally). The psoters for the FPO, OVP, and SPO all had stickers on them Monday morning saying "Danke." So civil and nice. The OVP is the only party to have removed their posters so far, sore losers. They did so Tuesday.

October 1 was also the date that most of the city's ice cream parlors close. Very, very sad. The ones that stay open aren't nearly as good, because the ones that close are run by Italians going back to Italy for the winter. I made it my mission during the first week of class to try all of the places in the IES booklet, and I did. 6 or 7 of them. My favorite by far was Tischy, at Reumenplatz, which I went to on Oct 1. There was a huge crowd out front, and Europeans don't believe in lines, so it was basically jostling your way through with elbows to get the ice cream, and took a while but was totally completely entirely worth it. Especially for the hazlenut. I asked when they closed, actually I asked what day they closed, becuase unlike most places they had no sign up, and they actually give away ice cream for free when they close. She said eleventh. Or I thought she did. Turns out she must have meant 11pm, or at least thats what I was left to infer from the fact that it was all shuttered up on the 4th. Now it is getting cold and there are chestnut roasters in place of fruit stands and ice cream stands.

That weekend (last weekend) I also went to Bratislava for Friday afternoon. We saw the Jewish museum but got there to late to see the clock museum, which I'm sure is pretty cool. Saw the castle and views, went out to eat, went to a bar where we think they made us bad drinks just to get rid of the Americans, went to an Irish pub, and went home. There's not much to see in Bratislava so aside from the clock museum I feel like I've seen it all. Then Saturday there was a Flohmarkt (flee market) on my street. Not the part I live on, but 2 blocks away and then stretching all the way through the 7th district to Mariahilferstrasse. I walked the length of it, looking to replace the beautiful amazing warm soft shawl I'd bought in Bosnia and lost somewhere in Slovenia the day I canyoned and hitchhiked and was in a general rush. Ended up with a u2 record and some old postcards of Vienna, plus had a delicious oozing melty kasekraner. (That's a sausage with cheese inside. sooooooo good.)

Monday was Yom Kippur. I will go to the Orthodox synagogue for Shabbat services some time, but for Yom Kippur I went to the new Reform synagogue. The rabbi spoke no German, was a once-a-month import from Jerusalem, the prayer book was in German and Hebrew, and the services went 3 hours before they took a break and I left. 3 hours! Then I went back after my afternoon class, cause I'd heard they were all going out for pizza, and they were doing annoucnements at 6:30 or so. But they launched back into prayers that I didn't understand and that appeared to have the potential to go hours more, so I left. I would have stayed if I felt like it was a good opportunity to meet Austrians, but most of the crowd seemed to be American expats, with some elderly Austrians. It was a nice little synagogue though, on the ground floor of a building by the river, and they mentioned they are trying to raise money and find a cemetary for the congregation.

Classes are pretty OK. I like my lit class and my Vienna history class that has a touring element. My econ and polisci classes feel like intros, which sucks a lot. Even though they have prereqs. Oh well.

Now I'm headed to Salzburg for just one night. Sorry I took so long to update, I'll try to be more regular. I wanted to write about the trip before I moved on, and that was quie a bit to write about.

Part 3: Slovenia

I wasn't much of a fan of Ljubljana. I guess they've got a pretty cool cafe culture along the river, and it's nice at night, but by the time it came to consider lodging for the night I didn't like the city so much that I just set out for the town of Divaca. Ljubljana was pretty much not as pretty as Vienna or Prague or other cities with old architecture and castles, not as charming, didn't really have anything unique or standoutish. I guess just comparatively dull. And my hip was hurting so walking around was a bit miserable. I had a nice room in Divaca, my own after several nights in hostels and on a bus, and the next morning walked 5 kilometers to the caves, asking for directions along the way (German really came in handy, people spoke that but not English). The caves were pretty amazing, lots of tiring steps but absolutely gorgeous. Sadly no pictures were allowed. I bumped into an American woman there who I'd met in Ljubljana waiting for the tourist train to the unspectacular castle, so she offered me a ride to the train station. But she was going to Lipizanna to see the horses, so I went with her en route. They were pretty nice. One of the towns I stopped in on the train route was Nova Gorica, which is on the Italian border. Like, I walked through town square and ended up in Italy, which is tecnically illegal cause I should have used the border crossing down the road. They have a fence right through town, and 2 mayors, but they took down the fence in town square.

I ended up getting into Bovec really, really late, which was apparently bad. All the room agencies were closed and my choices appeared to be expensive (52 euro) hotels. The cheaper hotel (32 euro) said they had no rooms, so I asked the lady if she had any ideas of where I could find one, and she somehow found an extra room she hadn't noticed. Whatever, it was nice, had a tv (national geographic! we don't get that in vienna). The next morning I confirmed with the tourist office that the bus to Bled I'd found out about in Ljubljana would be coming at 3 and I found a rafting agency. I guess I'd missed the early morning canyoning trips so I ended up having to do a more expensive one at 11am with this Slovenian and Croatian family. It was pretty fun, terrifying at some points. Canyoning is basically jumping off waterfalls, with ropes-course-like belay lines set up. We had to hike up, waaaay up, and the air was very very thin. Then we jumped down, slid down, climbed down. One jump was maybe 20 meters down into a cave, which scared the shit out of me, and the more I stood there counting "1-2..." over and over again, the worse it got. Plus all the Slovenians were laughing at me. Finally jumped, and got down just in time to change and make the 3pm bus. Except the bus didn't come. I waited, I asked the tourist office, then this Slovenian lady also going that direction called the bus company. From her very little German I came to understand that the bus had gone kapput and was the last bus of the day. This left me with 1 option: hitchhiking. Which I did, nervously, and survived fine, coming out with a cocacola and apple. I got down to a town with a train station and trained into Bled, where I wandered around in the dark until I found the hostel (where I'd called to make a reservation). And there were 2 guys from my program! The next morning we went to the castle, which had amazing views though not as amazing as the canyoning views, and 6 and 9 liter wine bottles that they use for weddings and open by chopping off the top with swords. Then we went swimming in the frigid, frigid lake, because our train wasn't til like 4, and then slowly made our way back to Vienna where I arrived in time to catch the last Sunday night streetcar to my apartment.

The end.

Part 2: Bosnia

Anyway, got up at 5:15 th next morning and headed for Mostar, Bosnia. Sadly, I crossed the border on a bus so I didn't get a stamp. Mostar was pretty interesting. To start with, the Lonely Planet said that the bus and train station were adjacent, so when I got into the bus station I was planning to check the train timetables later in the day to take the late train to Sarajevo. Well, it turns out there are 2 bus stations, and I was at the Croat one. In fact, I was on the Croat side of town, and nobody really wanted to tell me how to get to the Muslim side of town (though I didn't know the reasoning until later in the day, just that the allegedly friendly Bosnians were being awfully difficult with simple directions). In the end instead of paying 8 marks for a map (4 euro! for a dinky little one horse town map!) I paid 6 marks for a cab ride to the train station, which was probably for the better as it was pouring rain still and it allowed me to enjoy my Burek. Burek: delicious, huge, amazing, savory pastry with mince meat inside.

I wandered around, saw lots of bullet holes and bombed out buildings that I avoided, was shocked by the endless graves marked with 1993, and found my way to the old mosque. There were several tour groups of old French ladies and as I was the only individual the imam opened the door to the tower and let me climb up. Cool views, though again spoiled a little by the haze and rain. Anyway, he said to come back in a few hours when it was less busy and he'd talk to me about the mosque/town, so I wandered around. Saw old town with its uneven cobblestone streets and rebuilt old bridge (Stari Most). Latched on behind an english speaking tour guide who talked about how boys in the town jump of the 20-30 meter high peak of the bridge into the fast-moving water below, how when Franz Joseph came to see Mostar he was afraid he'd fall on the cobblestone so they put carpet out on the bridge, how it was rebuilt from original stones after the war. Saw a gallery with photos from the war, including the river below completely dry - I gathered from the guide that people used it as their only water source. I bought a gorgeous cashmir shawl and was looking at the bridge from a mosque on the river (there were about 100 mosques) when I met an American couple travelling for the whole year (had been to Ghana for several months) and invited them to come back to the other mosque with me.

Here's what I wrote hastily in my gmail after talking to the Imam:
"First we talked to the Imam about the history of the Mosque. It was built by some rich important ottoman figure, though not somebody in government. The guy was called black eyes (in bosnian obviously) and bought not only the land for the mosque but all the land around, so they get their income from renting the surrounding buildings. It is about 450 years old and the tower I climbed is 25 meters high. The tower was destroyed in the war, as were all the mosques' towers except one that was too short (which i have pictures of as well). Like the bridge, they rebuilt the mosque from as many of the original stones as they could salvage, and kept the rest on the propoerty. There are huge scars on the covered patio of the mosque from when the tower fell on it, bursting through the roof as well, which has now been rebuilt. The rich guy built a school and library as well and they have books that are 250, even 500 years old but the library is dirty and in poor condition and lets the rain in so the books are pretty much in bad, bad shape. Anyway, the muslims pray at as many mosques as they wish, basically goign to whichever is nearest. The Imam says that its good to pray at many, because it is less boring that way. We talked about how they are much more open about choice with the religion here than in other Muslim countries. Girls who wear scarves do it by choice, not because their parents make them. Though he indicated that he'd prefer girls do so because women, he said, are more beautiful than men (translation: men are more tempted by women?) so it makes it hard to pray if there are girls nearby showing too much. Anyway, after the war they got money from Saudi Arabia, but it was just enough to make the mosque safe to pray in, not enough to actually rebuild it to its former glory. Later they got money from Turkey to rebuild. Also Pavorati gave them 5Mi Euros. Saudi Arabia now no longer gives much money because the US restricts what Bosnia can receive due to worries about terrorism. Anyway, eventually we worked our way around to the war, I asked where they prayed during the war. This is out of order from our conversation, but basically at first in the very early 90s the Serbs were attacking from the East (the side of the river we are on, with all the mosques, the Muslim side) so the Croats and Muslims took shelter together on the west side. Up until that point in the 500+ year history of the town they had lived mostly in peace. Anyway when the Serbs were attacking everyone there were embargoes on Bosnians getting weapons, because some idiots in the UN thought this would stop the war. Of course the Serbs could get weapons but not the Bosnians so they were in big trouble. Eventually they started making weapons here, then fought back. So they finally drive the serbs out after a 5 month occupation, the Croats and Muslims began to fight. Something about Milosovic actually working with the Croatian president because they wanted to take Bosnian lands and enlarge both their countries. The Immam said the Serb occupation was nothing compared to the war in 1993, where thousands died. All the mosques were targetted especially, but first they had to shell the buildings around the mosques to get to the mosques. The cemetary across from the mosque I was at was sheltered by a building that was still standing, and they would bury the dead at night so the sniper couldn't get at them. There was a sniper on the other bank of the river which is now a holy spot - he scoffed at this, Im not sure if its a christian holy spot or what. They slowly retreated and ended up praying in classrooms of a school off away from the river. I asked him if he was happy when Milosovic died or if he wished hed gotten justice. He said if you are religous you know he would get justice from God. He scoffed at the Hague, saying that it is nothing, 15 years for 10000 deaths, and that the west had set it up to make up for protecting the serbs during the war but it was idiotic, etc. He said what happened to the men was worse than death, far worse than just being killed. Now that the fighting has ended it has gotten better. 8 years ago the town had 2 mayors, 2 school systems, etc. Now there is only one mayor, who is a Croat, but still two school systems - how can the kids grow up as one town if they go to different schools? I asked him if it was good to have one mayor who was a Croat or if hed rather have his own - he said it would be good if the mayor was good. This mayor has held off plans for some sort of Muslim cultural center to be built on Muslim owned land for years, but the Croats got a theater approved in a nearby location, no problem. Theres a lot of tension under the surface between the Croats and Muslims, which explains why when I arrived I had trouble getting people to tell me how to get to the bus station on this side of town.

The immam, whose name was completely unpronounceable and he knew it when he told us, was married but with no kids. He was only 25, had married at 21, had been an Imam there for 7 years! His brother was before him, and their father who died at the beginning of the war was before his brother."

Anyway, I hopped on a 6pm train to Sarajevo, and it was gorgeous, cutting through cliffs and such. I wisely went with the hostel that had an office in the train station and was ready to shuttle me and several others downtown (though the lady lied when she said they had free internet). The hostel was awesome, the first night I met a ton of cool people with interesting travel backgrounds. Think, 28 beds in a small cluster of rooms, with one tiny toilet/sink room and another that had a toilet, sink, and 2 showers....all together, in the open, with no stalls or curtains. Not sure who thought of that, but standard practice was to lock the door, so for 28 beds there were really 1.5 toilets and a shower. All of which were filthy, but the beds were very clean.

Because the guided tour was 20 marks plus 5 marks entrance to the museum, I decided to go it alone on the advice of the American couple in Mostar. I went with a kiwi on a train and a bus out to a suburb farmy type area where the driver told us to get off. We walked down a dirt road that felt like it was the wrong place, but we found the museum. They dug the tunnel during the war as a way around the Serb blockade, guarded it really well, and aside from aid drops at the airport it was the only way through to the outside world. They'd smuggle in food and weapons. Then I went back into town. Sarajevo is literally in a valley, with the river and main streets running straight between the hills. The hills made it ridiculously easy to hold in siege, you could really see it just standing in the city. I saw the ugly yellow Holiday Inn that the journalists were holed up in, and went to the History museum where there were really interesting exhibits on the history of the region and on the 1990s. There were always English captions but the articles were just in Serb so it would have been nice to have those translated. I wandered back along the river, passed the new Synagogue which was covered in scaffolding and not open, through old town. I figured out about my bus for the next evening, and on the advice of the cool hostel manager wandered up the hills for a view of the city (and, like in Mostar, the miles of gravestones that are all dated 1993-1995). I then wandered around for about an hour trying to find an atm because I literally had no Bosnian money (asked for directions about 30 times) until I ran into a guy from the hostel who'd been there a week and knew where one was. I decided to eat at this place recommended by the guide book and the American couple, so I ordered a sampler which was absolutely amazingly delicious.

Back at the hostel for the night, I was now an oldie instead of a newbie, so I got to sit around with the manager and other guests. The manager brought us beer when his shift was over and talked up a storm. I wish I'd taken the tour because what my friends in Mostar didn't tell me was that you get this amazing narrative of somebody's actual experiences. I went to the 3 places they go, but I missed out on that and got a sample while the manager was talking. He also told one of his many tour jokes: "This guy is swinging on a swing, and his friend asks him what he's doing. He says he's bored, but his friend wants to know what on earth he's doing. 'Fucking with the snipers,' he says." Now that's pretty intense. Sunny was generally an interesting guy, trying to impress the girls with his hostel-manager power trip (he controls about three quarters of the beds in Sarajevo, if you're nice he'll find you a bed on a fully booked day, if you're an asshole entitled tourist, you're screwed). He also talked about Jazne, the blond 30-something woman who's so crazy/drugged/drunk she looks like she's 50. Jazne hangs out at the train station and likes Japanese men because they don't say no very firmly for cultural reasons. So she offers them a room for 5 Euro and then seduces them, basically. She's actually in Japanese guidebooks, has a bunch of google.japan hits, this asian canadian guy I met said she'd approached him in the train station and asked if he was from Japan and that he'd heard about her from a Japanese guy on a boat in Croatia. Half of Japan loves her, says Sunny, and half is scared of her and shows up at 7am at the hostel office asking for a room for the next night. Sunny also talked about his 2 great disappointments when he travelled out of Bosnia. I guess he went on some end of high school trip to Italy and his friends appointed him to go order in MacDonalds. (Did I mention? No McD's in Sarajevo, they didn't want it or the jobs they'd lose for the property McD's demanded, so along with probably Havana it's one of the only capitals without a McD's.) He ordered Big Macs in English from a woman who didn't speak much English, and when she put them on the tray he was sure there was some misunderstanding. "Big Macs, Biiiiggg macs. Big," he said. I guess the "Big" Mac and the statue of David were his two great disapointments in Italy.

Colorful detours aside. Wednesday I got up bright and early and, refusing to use the slooooooow overpriced internet next door, set out towards the Jewish cemetary, certain I'd find a cafe along the way to check the primary results. Problem was, I left old town and hadn't wandered passed one, and new town isn't touristy so there were none there. At that point I was pretty much at the turn off to go up the hill to the cemetary, so I did without knowing the election results. The Jewish cemetary in Sarajevo is incredible. It's up on a hill that overlooks "sniper alley," a busy intersection near the Holliday Inn where civilians were often shot by snipers...from the Jewish cemetary. It looks like it's been hit by vandals, and in a way it has. Many gravestones have scars from bullets hitting them, many are knocked over. The giant rectangular stone holocaust memeorial actually has a shell hole on one side. It's sort of a tourist site so a lot of it is well-walked on, even littered upon, but I went way up high towards the old section before I realized with a start that, while it is a residential area, a tourist site, and has no warning signs, there was a possiblity there might be mines off the main path. So I walked on the gravestones back to the path. By then I had gotten used to always staring up at bullet holes in buildings, but the mine thing wasn't something I'd thought about, having been only in the city. After the cemetary I found internet and was very happy about Deval, then went to a few Jewish museums. One was the city's official Jewish museum located in the old temple, with vague exhibits on culture and the holocaust, the other was a gallery next door that had letters and pictures from concentration camps and of victims and survivors on display, and really interesting stories. The Jewish community was at one point 14,000 or so, and after the Holocaust had dwindled to either 7000 or 1500 (I forget). After the war in the 90s it was down to either 1500 or 700, with many poeple going to Israel and leaving a population with very few young people. I wish I'd stayed in Sarajevo for Rosh Hashannah, I'm sure I would have been invited to dinner and that would have been really interesting.

After more amazing food from the same restaurant, and talking with a grad student doing field research on the conflict who had heard of Tim Burke, I got on a night bus to Zagreb, Croatia. I pretty much locked my purse to myself, and slept not so well, though apprently well for the last hour after the border crossing (still no stamp for Bosnia, damn it) that when I woke up we were in Zagreb and the bus was empty and I had to rush to get my shoes on and get off the bus while my contacts were all messed up. I found the train station and got on the next train to Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Belated but lengthy story of my weeklong break, Part 1: Croatia

So, several weeks ago I had a break. I travelled on my own and returned with over 2 gigs of pictures, every last one of which I'm way too lazy to figure out how to post.

I left on Sat the 16th, taking a bus to the Bratislava airport with just my backpack, Lonely Planet Europe on a Shoestring, a bag with some snacks, and a purse. I was very proud of how lightly I packed. It was pouring rain and windy and the little Sky Europe plane got tossed around to the point where I almost wished I hadn't used the barf bag for scratch paper as the plane was taking off (well, it wasn't quite that bad).

I touched down in Split, where I took the room offered to me by a cute old woman who was less pushy than a less cute old woman. It wa 150 Kunas, a bit more than the 100 the guidebook said I'd pay, but still just over 20 euros, and the room was complete with a TV. I shared a bathroom with the family who owned the apartment, and what a weird family it was. There was a little toddler, and a mom, and a girl in her 20s who walked around in her underwear. There were maybe 3 other bedrooms and if they weren't arguing they were shut in their rooms watching TV.

Anyway, I gave myself a tour of the castle, climbing the stairs to the top of the tower for a spectacular view once in the afternoon and again when the clouds cleared (I convinced the guy to let me back in on the original ticket). As it was raining I decided to forego the islands and head to Dubrovnik the next day, but in the meantime I went to the restaurant recommended by the woman who leased me the room. I had some red wine and the most delicious veal in sauce with potatos. Really, really good. I was even planning to go back when they opened the next morning at 9am befor going to Dubrovnik.

As I wandered back to my room in the castle/old city, I passed a bar with a football game on, so I figured, why not? There was one other woman in there, who explained to me that Split was wearing white against a team from the north. They kept refilling my drink without asking me, which wasn't exactly what I had in mind, and the place was full of smoke but very, very local. As in, it was actually the official tobacco smoking club of Split's headquarters. They had some sort of team picture on the wall that they proudly showed me. Eventually I got into a conversation with a few guys about Bush which was very interesting and largely involved one Croatian guy showing me his proficiency with the English words "fucking idiot" and "asshole." (I had originally claimed I was from New Zealand but upon realizing my utter ignorance of the country, like, what's the capital?, I decided to tell them I'd been to school in the US since I was little.)

This was all well and good, and I went home and showered and went to bed, until about 3am when I was hit with food poisoning, cramps, trips to the bathroom on the hour. Needless to say the family probably thought I was a rotten drunk. But they let me stay an extra day, and I lay in bed watching hours of CNN and National Geographic (british shipwrecks explored, katrina killings, and the ironic "hunting an epidemic: e coli" program). I felt well enough late in the afternoon to get back out and go back to th restaraunt, where I got fish instead of veal. The fish wasn't that good for a place 10 feet from the ocean, but my mom says it was probably the previous dinner that made me sick so perhaps it's good I didn't get the delicious veal again.

And that was Croatia.

Lohengrin

I've just returned from Lohengrin.  First of all, the singing and orchestra were absolutely marvelous, quite an experience. I especially like the huge choral parts, and hearing the original context of "Here comes the bride" was of course fun.  I don't know what else to say about the music; it was superb and very enjoyable.

The interesting, disappointing, and distracting thing was the set/production.  Because I am apparently a "sissy" and didn't want to stand for 4.5 hours, I got a 53 euro ticket which was in the Gallery, 3rd row, 1 seat right of the center.  It was an excellent view of the stage, which was the unfortunate thing.  I should have bought the 9 euro ticket with a view of less than a third of the stage.  For some reason the producer felt the need to make the set modern.  The costumes were mostly fine, just simple black or grey suits and black or silver dresses, white for the wedding.  The physical set was eye-searing.  The first act opened with a mostly black stage with 3 strange circles that I thought were supposed to be water until Lohengrin and the Count walked on them during the duel.  There were greyish wooden poles rising at various points, and at their tops were spokes pointed in four directions - perhaps somebody's idea of trees.  But weirdest of all was the neon yellow toy truck, about 1.5 feet long.  Just sitting on stage with no explaination.  Oh, scratch that, weirdest of all might have been the fact that Elsa was apparently blind for this production, walking with a cane, though I'm pretty sure the singer could see based on her behavior during her bows after each act.  She had a white cane that would be taken from her in moments of anger by Ortrud, etc.  It was truly bizarre, along with her groping the air (in a manner I think a woman of 30 who was actually blind would not have done) and singing about seeing a knight, etc.  The second act opened, and the curtain rose, and I was nearly blinded.  A huge neon yellow house sat in the center of the stage, Elsa appeared at its window for the balcony scene and later in the act it developed a steeple and turned into the church.  The inexplicable truck was still there, along with neon yellow stepping stones around the house, 2 lines of neon yellow picket fence, a neon yellow swan the size of the truck (interesting that the only act in which there is no swan in the script was the only act in which a swan appeared on stage!!), a neon yellow flower the size of a person, a neon yellow rabbit the size of the truck, and some sort of hoop or ring, in guess what...neon yellow!  Also, when Elsa left her house and made her way to the church outside the wedding for the scene where the Count and Ortrud ask for Lohengrin's name, she was wearing her white dress and a white fur coat.  And accompanied by about 10 people in white feather pantsuits wearing masks of birds' heads.  I was relieved that at least the wedding chamber scene of the first act was conducted in front of a pleasant purple-lit curtain and was very watchable, but for the end the weird trees, pools that were not water, and yellow truck were back.  Also a neon yellow chain, each link the size of a forearm.  And as I said, no swan appeared, but Gottfried was lowered from the ceiling inside of a raindrop in the final moments of the show.

So, somebody deserves to be fired for that one. I saw nothing but disturbed looks and confused mumbling in reaction to the set, and it certainly was distracting from a most beautiful performance.  I wish I could have closed my eyes, but I wouldn t have been able to read the subtitles.  I actually considered leaving my 53 euro seat to sit in the back on a standing room platform where I'd have been able to see the subtitles but not the stage.  Though, having been confused about who was singing which lines when I saw La Boheme and couldn't see all the stage, I stayed where I was.  I don't want to have my discription of the weird production take away from how beautiful and amazing the opera was, but I had to share because it was so strange and confusing (why was she blind? what was a small truck doing on stage? neon yellow????).

Anyway, I'm off for my trip to parts of Croatia, Sarajevo, and western Slovenia during my week-long break.  I'll try to write but I'm not sure how much time I'll have, and I'll probably want to spend way too much of my online time (and time in general) reading about the Sept 19 primary.

Realtime post

So....

The intensive German period is almost over, with our oral tomorrow and written final Friday. It's been enjoyable, and the weather save for rain the first week has been gorgeous. I've done a lot of studying or pleasure-reading outside, exploring random parts of the city (but I can never do enough of that). Yesterday Tara (my roommate) and I got on a train and rode it to the end to Nussdorf, where there are lots of heuriges, or winehouses. It is the season for a Viennese favorite, Sturm, which is new wine that is partially fermented and therefore very sweet but more alcoholic than you realize. I haven't spent much time inside of museums because it's been so nice out and I'm waiting for my museum pass that comes with my history class.

Break begins Friday after the final. I've got a sit-down ticket to Wagner's Lohengrin, which is 4.5 hours long. Saturday I'll take the bus to the Bratislava airport and go to Croatia (except that I was really dumb and waited too long to buy the ticket and even from last night to just now it's gone up another 10 euro, dumb dumb me), where I'll hang out in Split and/or the islands for a while until I get bored and decide to take the train up through Bosnia to Zagreb (Croatia again). Then I'll go up to Slovenia, particularly the coast and Julian Alps region, and hike and perhaps look at caves and former Italian seaports and such. Then a series of trains back to Vienna. I've bought a 20 euro card that gives me a 50% off discount on trains in Austria and 25% off in/to surrounding countries, making me question whether or not my Eurail pass was actually a good deal, but alas what is done is done.

I'm a bit nervous because the MA primarly election falls while I'll be traveling, and I don't know how available the internet will be for me to anxiously follow results or more like it curse the lack of non-televised results.

Alright I ought to go somewhere nice (perhaps the Schoenbrun) and study...

Email Sept 5

On Tuesday I attended opening night of the opera, and they performed La Boheme. They ran out of the best standing room just before we got to the front of the line, but we were up in the Gallery and over to the right. It was beautiful, and at points I was forced to really concentrate on the music and watch the orchestra because I could see none of the action on stage. They have made an addition to the opera house since the last time you guys were probably there. Each seat, and each standing room position, has its own little screen that shows 3 lines of text at a time. You can select Deutsch or English. It was a great tool in understanding what was going on! They are pretty subtle as well.

Email from Sept 4

I wanted to let you know about the changes with IES - as you may have seen from my mailing address and google, they now have the center at Palais Corbelli on Johannesgasse, right in the 1st district off of Karntnerstrasse, which is a little too touristy for my tastes. Nearby can be found a convenient postoffice, the best ice cream in town, and a wide variety of restaurants that I have yet to try. For the first week, the film festival at the Rathaus was still playing. Every night they show an opera (though often strange versions; I watched The Marriage of Figero set on the 40th story of a 1980s New York appartment building, which made all the funnier the scene in which Cherubino jumps from the window and breaks nothing but the angry gardener's plant pots). They also have international food booths.

We went to Mariazel for orientation, and returned to Vienna last Sunday, so I have had just over a week here. We have 3 hours of German classes daily, and plenty of homework and vocabulary. Still there is lots of time to explore the city. I have spent a good deal of time just wandering around, especially near my house in the 8th district (Josefstadt), around the center, and from the Naschmarkt all the way home, past Mariahilferstrasse. To go to class, I can take the streetcar too and from the center, but it is also a 25 minute walk that I do whenever it isn't raining and I have time before class. My walk takes me from my appartment on Strozzigasse, a street with beautiful old buildings sandwiched between the inner and outer rings and Josefstradtenstrasse and Lerchenfelderstrasse. If I want to take the scenic route, I can walk up past the Rathaus and Parliament, through the Volksgarten and Heldenplatz, and then I have a choice. I either go the long way through the Hofburg to the left, which takes me by the roman ruins, down Kohlmarkt to Graben, where I then go by the statue of the Plague and St Stephens before turning down Karntnerstrasse to Johannesgasse. (Next time I will look for Meinl's.) Or, I walk around the ringstrasse along the route of the streetcar, past the Naturalhistorisches Museum and Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Opera, then up Karntnerstrasse. Sadly my signal to turn is the McDonald's sign: McDonald's is a few doors down from the center. If I want fastfood lunch, though, I go get Pizza or Falaful or Donner Kebab or of course a kasekraner or other sausage.

My German teacher is wonderful. Her husband is a curator at the Natural History museum so he took us on a private tour after our exam Friday morning. We saw the gems and minerals, the dinosaurs, a rotating hologram of various views of the world, and a machine with a wheel that you spin to see the continents from way before pangea to 150m years in the future (they will apparently end up all together again and shaped like a donut with one central sea). Most interestingly, he took us up to the roof (through a hallway that they use for storing hundreds of skulls on glassed-in shelves!). The views were beautiful, I have attatched a few pictures. Today as we began our unit on foods she brought various Austrian pastries in for us to try, and her own delicious homemade Liptauer. Having Austrian relatives, I already had tasted it (and in fact have been having some from the supermarket every day for breakfast) but everybody in the class was very impressed with it. Hers is very good, I might attempt to use her recipe to make some but I'd love to be emailed everybody else's recipe for it.

I have indeed seen the works of Otto Wagner around town, and they are fascinating and beautiful. This weekend we went on a bus tour of the major sights; up a mountain for a city view, to the Hundertwasserhaus, which I find quite fascinating, and to the Belvedere gardens. It was basically a tour to orient us. I loved my tourguide so much that I have changed my schedule to take her class (more below). Sunday I went with friends to the Donau Insel where we studied and enjoyed the nice weather. The train ride took us past the incinerator (I believe that's what it is) that Hundertwasser designed. Next weekend I will rent a bike on the insel and explore further before it gets cold. I have also found a swimming pool with a good price, and I will probably take a dance class and perhaps an additional recreation class at the University, both to learn to waltz and to meet Austrian students. When the semester starts up at the end of September I will get an art museum pass with one of my classes and will be able to stop into many of the museums whenever I like. Unfortunately the Leopald, Wien, Natural History, and several others aren't included; it only covers federally owned museums, but I will still be sure to see everything.

I am also planning to attend my first opera with standing room tickets tomorrow. It is opening night and La Boheme is showing. I know that Otto is a great Opera fan, so in case he (or you, or my grandmother, or my mothers) has any recommendations I will tell you all that they are showing while I am here: Il Barbiere Di Siviglia, Lohengrin (I suspect he will recommend the Wagner!), Osud/ Le Villi, Onegin, Le Nozze Di Figaro, Robert Devereux, I vespri Siciliani, Copelia, Die Sauberflote, Peter Grimes, Madame Butterfly, Rigoletto, Carmen, Giselle, Otello, Tosca, Nabucco, La Sonnambula, La Traviata, Der Rosenkavalier, Arabella, Requiem, Der Nussknacker, Don Carlo, und Romeo et Juliette. Quite a few choices!

As for my classes, I will be taking German (of course), a politics class (Post Cold War European Security), an economics class (Transitions to Market Economies in Central and Eastern Europe), and my newly added history course, Vienna Past and Present, which goes over the history of the city and includes a substantial amount of touring museums and other historical sites. I believe I'll see everything from the Roman ruins to St. Stephens to the Belvedere to the museum that houses the car in which Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. All of this with the very knowledgable guide who seems to be an excellent lecturer. Also I am applying for an internship; if I don't get one that interests me enough then I will take a class called Nations and Religions: Minorities and Majorities, a small part of which is focused on Jewish history.

That's all for now. I'll send another update when there's more to report. Enjoy the attatched pictures; sorry there were so many but they were hard to pick out of so many I've taken! I made them poor quality so they'd be small enough to email in mass quantity, but if you'd like to see a better copy of anything, let me know. A little caption for two of them (the rest should be self explainatory): "now you see it" and "now you don't" are of the statue that the Russians built as part of the treaty after WWII. The Viennese were required to keep it up, but it is truly ugly, so they spend what I can only imagine is tens of thousands a year maintaining the fountain they built that goes perhaps 3 stories in the air to hide the statute!

Email I sent Aug 27

Vienna is awesome. Actually I haven't seen any of the city yet, just had a 3 day orientation in the Alps. People are pretty cool. My roommate is a Tennessee girl who goes to Wellesley and is very sweet and we had the 2nd to worst number but somehow lucked out because there were two of us instead of the big groups other people had. I am in the nicest two person appartment (that should have been three) with wireless!! and it is huge and old and beautiful and it couldn't be more convenient; it's right between the inner ring and outer ring in a district full of students with streetcar, grocery store and wiener (sausage) stand all visible from the front door. Also my landlord is a student coordinator for the program and doesn't charge us the fees the other land lords do (that means, I have an extra bed in my appartment that anyone can crash at for free). I start 3 weeks of intensive German tomorrow which will include tours of the city, then a week break, then classes. Admittedly I haven't had to cook for myself yet but I'll be hitting up the Wiener stand a lot and all the jazz clubs that are 2 blocks away.

Back by popular demand...

Ok, not actually that popular of a demand, but I figure in 10 years if blogger hasn't started charging people to access their accounts I'll want to look back on my 4 months in Vienna and Europe and remember what exactly those pictures are of. The title of this blog is Deutsch for "to Vienna," except I'm still totally confused by German prepositions so it also might translate to "in Vienna." Regardless, here it is, with a few backdated entries (if I can figure out how to backdate them) that are copies of emails I've sent my family.