Vienna--Not just for sausages.

Austria turns Radically Right

2008-09-29T21:12:00.001-07:00

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4847277.ece

Hometown, Europe TV

2008-07-22T10:29:00.001-07:00

Not Viennese Cooking

2008-06-22T10:49:00.000-07:00

So...I've been finding new ways lately to offend the sensibilities of most of the culinary world...partially due to having a weird mix of food left, and partially, out of boredom. I'm definitely looking forward to having my food cooked for me next month.

BEHOLD:

Mexikanische Semmelknoedel--(German/Austrian) Bread dumpings seasoned with Mexican spices and served on a bed (or smile!) of Mexican-spiced lentils and veggies

Thai Gnocchi--Gnocchi with cheese, served with a Thai vegetable sauce

I wouldn't really call these "fusion" dishes; they're more like collision dishes. They tasted alright, but I think I prefer my Gnocchi with olive oil, garlic and tomatoes, and the Mexican-style Austrian dumplings may need some tweeking...

Where I'm Working this Summer

2008-06-22T10:03:00.000-07:00

I just found out a couple weeks ago that I will be working in Ftan, Switzerland for a month this summer. I'll be working with Concordia Language Villages again, and this will be in their English program, called Hometown, Europe. There is also a Hometown, USA in Minnesota.

Ftan is a small village/town in the Alps, and it looks like this:

I'm pretty excited to work with this program. There are fun names for everything. The living groups are named after streets, like Abbey Lane or Easy Street. The nurse's office is called "Queasy Street." The morning signing hour is called "Rock-n-Roll" and I believe the rooms are called Madison Square Garden, Washington D.C., etc. This is what all the other language camps do (our office at Salolampi was called "Helsinki" and the dining hall at Lac du Bois is called "Paris"), but it's even funnier when it's in my native language.

If you want to see some pictures of the program, you can view last year's village production page here: Hometown, Europe

I'm leaving Vienna for Ftan on June 30, and I'll come back to Vienna for a couple days before my flight back to America, which leaves on August 6.

The Prater

2008-06-22T06:19:00.000-07:00

Vienna's Prater is an amusement park that has been around for quite a while... I need to find the date again, but I know it has existed since before WWII. The ferris wheel you can see in the distance in this picture is called the Riesenrad (the Giant Wheel), which was built in 1897. It's the symbol of the park, and often, of Vienna. It was a gift to the city by a wealthy Jewish business man, but when the Nazis came to power, they "Aryanized" it; they didn't want to take it away from the people of Vienna, so they had to change its history. It used to have 30 compartments, but it was rebuilt after WWII with 15 compartments.

The Riesenrad has also become particularly famous because in The Third Man Orson Welle's character, Harry Lyme, gives his famous speech with his take on humanity in once of the compartments of the Riesenrad. The Third Man is one of the few successful movies that take place in Vienna, so even people who have not been to Vienna know about the Riesenrad.

It does not cost anything to get into the park, but you have to pay for each ride. To ride the Riesenrad, it costs 12 euros. My friend Lauren (who was visiting Vienna for the weekend) and I went on the Blumenrad (Flower Wheel), which is just as tall, but only costs 3 euros. This was the first time I got to see a whole view of Vienna. There are not a lot of easily-accessable hills to view the city from, and it doesn't have a famous skyline, so the Riesenrad has usually been what people associate with Vienna.

The rest of the park has the usual make-you-dizzy rides, stands with games, and a lot of vintage-looking haunted houses.

Ha ha, get it? Hallo Wien? (Vienna...) Ugh...

Walkin'

2008-06-22T05:23:00.000-07:00

What Europe will do to perfectly-good Payless shoes:

No worries--I have a different pair of shoes now, and I've always had my running shoes with me, but I made sure to get my $10 worth of Payless quality. These are now going in the trash.

Servus!

Happy Father's Day!

2008-06-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's Day to Dad & Grandpa!

UEFA Cup

2008-06-13T15:53:00.000-07:00

The UEFA Soccer Cup (Europa Meisterschaft) has been going on this month in Vienna and other Austrian and Swiss cities. I've heard that it's the third largest sporting event in the world--just behind the Olympics and the World Cup.

Generally, things are running smoothly, but around the evening, things get a bit crazy. I wandered over to the "Fan Zone" an hour or so before the game between Austria and Poland started. I didn't actually get into the Fan Zone, because there were so many people, but for this reason, I also didn't want to try to get in. I gawked at the soccer fans for a few minutes, took pictures, and made my way back to the comfort of my Wohnheim room to watch the game.

Me, in front of the Central College office, after Austria in Context class, ready to enter the Fan Zone...in cognito....

Not the Fan Zone...but one of the many cafes and bars showing the games

A moonwalkesque tent(?) in the Votivpark

Fans around Schottentor

gifts from football tourists

a soccer ball on the Burgtheater

Disappointed Geman fans near the University and Beethoven's house--Germany managed to lose to Croatia...somehow...

Croatian fans celebrating on the Uni's statue

Austrians warming up for the game with a few cheers in front of the Schottentor McDonald's

Fans of Austria and Poland...or perhaps just the colors red and white...in the U-Bahn station at Schottentor

Home at last!

An Italian dinner with Austrian colors

Austria ended up tying with Poland, which was actually better than I expected. Neither Austria or Switzerland qualified for the cup (but since they're hosting, they automatically get in), and Switzerland lost its second game and its chance of moving on earlier this week. But since Austria is also in the same group as Germany, which, as I stated earlier, lost in an upset to Croatia, there is a small chance that Austria could prevent Germany from moving on in the tournament, if they beat them on Monday. From what I could understand in the news, the last time Austria beat Germany in the the Euro Cup (or perhaps, in any match) was in 1987 in Cordoba. Some German companies are selling "Revenge for Cordoba" shirts. The chances are incredibly slim that Austria will get even one goal, especially since Germany is considered a strong contender for winning the cup, and Germany got a wake up call this week, but who knows...

Wachau Excursion

2008-06-08T07:03:00.000-07:00

Melk

a historic monestary

No change allowed!

What the western side of North America was though to look like--and perhaps what it may look like after a few more earthquakes....

On the riverboat to Duernstein

a bus-sized train

CNN International and Art Class

2008-06-08T06:49:00.001-07:00

My roommate and I stayed up quite late watching CNN International to see the results of the last primary and watch Barack Obama's speech after he won enough delegates to get the Democratic Party's nomination. It was great to see his speech in St. Paul--it made me almost forget that I still wasn't in America.

My drawing class finished last week. We mostly spent time practicing getting the right lines and angles, since little mistakes can make what was meant to be an exact drawing of a table look quite abstract.

Besides the ceramics class I took last semester, I've had no experience in an art class since I was in middle school, so I think I improved a lot. Here's the first portrait I actually finished--it's of Franz Kafka:

Adventures in Neuroscience

2008-06-08T05:24:00.001-07:00

Signs that my prefrontal cortex is finishing its development:

1. I'm wearing a lot more sunscreen, since I realize that I soon be more concerned about having my skin age at a normal pace, and I realize that a tan isn't that great--especially when it's just on my nose. I'm Finnish and Norwegian--I shouldn't force anything.

2. I take my calcium supplement.

3. I think about cholesterol--at least once a day!

4. My ability to keep my thoughts about other people's behavior or my complaints about the weather to myself while traveling in a large group has improved. I may soon be allowed to participate in a Rick Steves tour...which I believe has a no whiners or trolls policy...something like that.

The prefrontal cortex is responsible for many of our personality traits and helps us deal with conflicting feelings, predict the consequences of our behavior, and control impulses that, if left uncontrolled, could lead to negative social outcomes. Supposedly, this region is not fully-developed until about age 25. It's a strange feeling to read that my brain hasn't matured yet, but I hope maturing won't end at age 25. :)

It's June!

2008-06-03T15:50:00.000-07:00

Temperatures were in the mid- to high-eighties this weekend, so my friends and I spent about four hours at the beach on Saturday. Don't worry, I put on multiple layers of sunscreen.

The Alte Donau (Danube) Bad--it's on Arbeitersstrandbadstrasse--The Wokers' Beach Bathing Street (Vienna had a couple strong socialist streaks in the past...)

Rob and Rachel

Annie

After a day on the beach, we stayed inside and played Scrabble on my Travel Scrabble board. I got the highest scoring word, "acclaims," which got a double letter score, a double word score, and a 50-point bonus for using all seven tiles, for a grand total of 84 points...just for that word. Depending on who you ask, I may or may not have bribed someone for a switch for the second "a."

On Sunday, I got to move back into my room after being temporarily in another one while laminate flooring and new wallpaper was installed. I'm enjoying not having stained carpet or carpeting for wallpapers.

My toilet, like every other toilet I've seen in Europe, does not flush with a mini-handle, but with a button--either on the wall or on the tank.

Vienna is getting ready for the European Master's Cup which will be going on here, and in various locations in Austria and Switzerland all through the month of June. A "Fan Zone" is being built in the historic center of the city, near the City Hall (Rathaus) and the giant entrance gate at Heldenplatz. People will be able to watch the games on giant screens. There's also a giant inflatable tent/dome going up in Sigmund Freud Park, which I pass before class. I'll try to get a picture of that eyesore.

This comes just in time for University Finals, and the main university building is located right next to this Fan Zone. Thankfully, most of the noise will be in the evening, while most classes are in the morning and afternoon.

The Fan Zone is under construction. (I wonder if they got this idea from the Bush II-Era "free speech" zones)

Someone wasn't so happy about the Euro Cup or sexism, and decided to share this sentiment on one of the Uni builing's walls. I've probably mentioned before that graffiti is EVERYWHERE in Germany and Austria.

Eurovision Song Contest

2008-05-23T18:04:00.000-07:00

Every year, a country in Europe (or a country within the reach of the European Broadcasting Union, such as Israel or Turkey) hosts the Eurovision Song Contest. Think: the Olympics meet American Idol...and take away the American part, then cut the annoyance off at one week. What seems to be the case in most countries is that a few singers or groups are picked by a network, then the citizens of that country can vote on which group they would like to represent them. In some countries, a singer is picked, then people vote on the song.

The format of the contest seems to always be changing, but the system now is that there are two semi-finals where half of the contestants are picked to move on to the final. The host country and the "Big Four" countries--Germany, the UK, Spain and France--are automatically finalists. The country that wins the contest gets to host the next year.

I heard a lot about this contest while working at Salolampi (Concordia Language Villages' Finnish camp) because the Finnish band Lordi won with "Hard Rock Hallelujah" in 2006, so Finland hosted Eurovision in 2007. We even had a mock Eurovision night where kids lip-synched to Finnish hits.

Lordi kind of looks like something Kiss had for dinner--three weeks ago.

One of my favorite YouTube comedians, "Markku from Finland," had a series about Eurovision in Helsinki. Armed with a press pass and access to the press conferences and rehearsals, he tries to educate the people of the world about Finland. Here's one of his videos:

Most of the songs entered into the contest are mainstream pop or rock songs. Almost all of them are ridiculous (like the one in the previous video), but only some of them are intentionally so. Ireland's entry this year was Dustin the Turkey--a plastic turkey puppet that was wheeled out on a stand and yelled out some lyrics to a techno song while showgirls danced around him. Somehow, Dustin the Turkey did not make it past the semi-finals...

Finland's entry is a satirical metal band, Teräsbetoni. Their song "Missä miehet ratsastaa" ("Where are the manly-men riding?") made it to the finals. Warning: This kind of music may not be good for your health:

Most of the songs are dance songs or pop ballads like Israel's entry for this year. Boaz does not use any gimmicks, unlike the Russian singer who ended his song with one of Russia's olympic ice skaters twirling around him on stage (I'm not kidding about that). This would be my pick if I felt like I had a couple euros to burn on a televote:

I was only able to see the first semi-final round, so I assumed that Austria would have its entry in the second round. Austria, however, as I soon found out, was the only country this year that decided to withdraw its participation. ORF, the Austrian broadcasting company claimed that Eurovision winners are picked more by popularity than by the quality of their song. They specifically cited bloc-voting among Eastern European states.

I agree with the Guardian writer, Caroline Sullivan, who says that Austria's withdrawal from the contest has more to do with their lack of success than any concern for the contest's musical integrity. Their only winner was Udo Juergens in 1966, and since then, they have not produced very many hits. As Sullivan points out, the best recent success (2003) was when they stopped caring and let Alf perform:

Alf's act consisted of rapping in front of cardboard cut-outs of animals holding instruments, and his Weil der Mensch Zählt (Man Is the Measure of All Things) came in sixth out of 26 - Austria's first top 10 result in 13 years.

Austria won't even broadcast the contest, so my friends and I are planning to watch the final tonight on the Spanish channel that has been broadcasting it. (You have to try to hear what the announcers are saying over the real-time audio translation the channel provides.)

I hope Austria (well, Austria's broadcasting company) comes to its senses and decides to continue sending singers to the competition--even if they won't win--in the name of international cooperation. The Eurovision Song Contest is a good opportunity for countries to put their politics (and perhaps, sour grapes?) aside for a few days of ridiculous pop music.

And with that, I'll leave you with Udo Juergen's Eurovision-winning hit, "Merci Chérie."

Torrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! (Gooooooooooooooooallllllll!)

2008-05-16T08:01:00.000-07:00

Austria and Switzerland are hosting the Union of European Football Associations' Cup this year. It's not as big as hosting the FIFA World Cup, but Vienna will still be pretty crazy, especially when the finals happen. The final game will be held on June 29--the day before I leave Vienna.

Almost every product in the grocery store has some kind of Austrian national team logo on it. Even the bakeries are catching the fever...sometimes with odd results...

I'm not sure if I should be relieved or disappointed that the soccer ball bread isn't actually an entire sphere. A whole ball would be a little ridiculous, but at the same time, a semi-sphere isn't as fun.

Feeble Attempts in Viennese Cooking: Part 3

2008-05-12T14:38:00.000-07:00

Gulasch: The final frontier? ...Not Quite...

1. Cook your ingredients.

2. Open packet of Gulasch sauce mix, pour into pot, add water. Stir over heat.

3. Add your ingredients. Stir.

Okay, this wasn't a completely traditional preparation. I'm also pretty sure that the traditional style has everything slowly cooking for a good portion of the day, so the flavors can mix together better. It tastes pretty good anyways.

A Very Viennese Wochenende

2008-05-12T13:29:00.000-07:00

Eurovision's Young Artist Competition--in front of the Rathaus

And now... We waltz!

Parliament by night

Friday Night Skating--Unfortunately, I was not a part of this, but Rachel and I were sitting on this statue when they all came flying in.

The new, rather space-agey Schottenring, which is the station I use to get to class and almost everywhere else.

Cafe Mozart

A Sundae that's made with pistachio and chocolate gelato, so it tastes like a Mozart Ball.

a fountain by the opera house

the new Taborstrasse station escalator

The Augarten, made in the late 1600s, you know...before America..was well, existed...

creepy Nazi-era bunker that couldn't be taken down

Someone either has a coffee shop here, or just wanted to paint one to cheer the place up... (A "Melange" is coffee with a lot of milk in it.)

Prague

2008-04-27T14:24:00.001-07:00

The Central College program took my group to Prague on April 18-20. It rained until about two hours before we had to leave, but it was it was nice to see the city nonetheless.

This is the oldest gate to the Old Town.

The Fruit Market

Don Giovanni was first performed in this theater.

A Glockenspiel! The skeleton rings a bell, the saints rotate a bit, and then we know it's time for lunch.

The first Czech filmhouse

The first Czech Coffeehouse

This guy used to be the tallest man in the country; and was only about 5'2" tall.

Charles' Bridge

Supposedly, it's good luck to rub the statue of this martyr, who was killed because he wouldn't share the king's wife's confessions.

A wall, which mostly seems dedicated to John Lennon, where the Czech people have held most of their demonstrations and protests. It was repainted several years ago, but the citizens reclaimed it.

Mozart's Requiem was first played in this Baroque church.

I guess invalid stamps have been an issue...perhaps.

Feeble Attempts in Viennese Cooking: Part 2

2008-04-27T04:20:00.000-07:00

Semmelknoedel come from Bavaria and Austra and are on most traditional Austrian restaurant menus. Basically, they are dumplings made from stale pieces of bread, which is not hard to find since bakery and grocery store bread gets stale here very quickly if not purchased in the morning and immediately placed in a better package than it was purchased in. So as long staples like eggs and milk are available, this is a good money-saving recipe. The original recipe I started with (and have only changed a couple directions on for this blog) can be found here: AllRecipes.com "Semmelknoedel"

The ingredients (for four people--the pictures show a half-recipe):

1 loaf (about one pound) of stale bread, preferably a moderately dense variety, like French bread; I haven't seen Wonderbread Semmelknoedel, but perhaps they're good.
1 cup of milk
small amount of butter or oil for cooking onions
1 onion, finely chopped
chopped parsely--The original recipe I found says 1 Tbsp, but I think you can add more if you're afraid of your fresh parsley going bad in the fridge. The extra parsley makes the Semmelknoedel look more colorful anyways.
2 eggs
1/2 tbsp salt...or just guess
pinch of black pepper
a container with cold water to get the mixture off of your hands when you're forming the knoedel

Use as much parsley as you'd like! (Well, not enough to make the mixture not stick to itself..)

1. Cut the bread into 1-inch cubes. Feel smart for not wasting stale bread.

2. Heat milk until it starts to bubble on the edges. My milk bubble to the top of the pot, cause I wasn't paying attention; my Semmelknoedel still turned out alright anyways.

3. Pour the milk over the bread, stir the mixture a bit, and let the bread soak for 15 minutes. I covered it; I'm not sure if that's necessary.

4. Instead of staring at this bread, you could be chopping and cooking the onions in a pan with a bit of butter.

5. Mix the eggs, cooked onions, salt, pepper and chopped parsley together. Once the bread's 15 minutes have passed, pour everything into the bread bowl. Mix everything with your hands until the mixture is "smooth and sticky," as the original recipe says.

6. Form the mixture into large (somewhere between baseball and softball-sized) balls. This is when you'll need the cold water; otherwise, half of the mixture will stay on your hands. Drop all 4 or 5 knoedel into lightly-salted boiling water, cover and lower the heat to a simmer for 20 minutes.

Don't remove they cover--they're okay in there. :)

7. Remove the knoedel with a slotted spoon, or, if you're like me and only have a spatula, try not to drop them on the floor, which, thankfully, I did not do. Wait a couple minutes for them to cool down and dry off a little.

8. Serve with lentils and bacon or whatever you come up with. (It would be healthier to make your own and add your own low-fat turkey bacon. For the sake of time, I had some Linzen "mit Speck" from the can.)

A lot of people serve Semmelknoedel with gravy or creamy mushroom sauce, as the cook in the YouTube video below:

(Warning: Overly dramatic music to follow...)

If you'd prefer a quicker video of someone with fancier kitchen equipment (and a marvelous Austrian accent), here it is:

Rathaus & Steirmarkt

2008-04-14T08:42:00.000-07:00

Feeble Attempts in Viennese Cooking: Part 1

2008-04-12T06:29:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try to make Kaiserschmarrn (Emporer's MishMash) tonight. This recipe is basically complicating the pancake. The main difference is that the pancake is cut up, there are raisins in it (which I don't plan to add; I'm not a big enough fan of raisins to spend money on them), and sugar is carmelized a bit over the pancake pieces at the end. And of course, maple syrup is not used; people top Kaiserschmarrn with powdered sugar, fruit and jam. Plenty of people eat this as a main dish for dinner or lunch (I've seen several students in my Wohnheim do this), but I'd consider it more of a large dessert or a sweet breakfast. Anyways, when in Rome... I guess this is what I'll be having for dinner. :)

The story/legend I've heard about Kaiserschmarrn is that Kaiser Franz Josef and his wife Elisabeth (Sisi) were having frequent disagreements about their meals. Sisi was obsessed with remaining thin and always wanted lighter meals and desserts. Franz Josef probably just wanted something tasty.

One day, Sisi was complaining about the rich meals again. Franz Josef said impatiently, "Lets just see what kind of "Schmarrn" the cook has whipped us up today. The cook brought out the now infamous dish. Franz Josef ate his portion and finished off Sisi's mostly-full plate as well.

I'll try to get some pictures of this while I'm making it. (That is, if I don't end up making the kitchen look like flour factory in Kansas during tornado season.)

*****Update******

The Kaiserschmarrn turned out very well. The recipe I used called for a lot of eggs, so they turned out more like thick crepes. I used whole wheat flour too, so I guess there was some nutrition in that sugar explosion.

These pictures are from my second time making Kaiserscharrn (I remembered the camera this time):

Things I've grown to appreciate about America:

2008-04-08T17:10:00.000-07:00

It's easy to find things that are not going well in America these days, so I've decided to make a list of things I like about America--some big and some small. Some of the cultural differences are simply big city changes, and some things I miss are Minnesota (or Duluth)-specific. I will continue to add things to this list when I think of more.

1. Immediate Friendliness and the Casual Atmosphere

2. Honey Mustard

3. Thomas Payne

4. Blues, Jazz & Folk Music

5. Non-sweet Mexican food

6. Saunas

7. Personal Space

Things the Viennese Enjoy:

2008-04-08T16:03:00.000-07:00

1. Scarves: Everyone--I mean everyone--wears a scarf. Men, women, children, cats... If you want to blend in, wear a scarf. You could be wearing a clown costume, and if you have one of the latest patterned scarves, you may just blend in. It's a good way to look fancy, which leads me to:

2. Looking Fancy: People usually have a scarf and a nice coat on. The women wear tall boots, and the mean have nice shoes and briefcases. I'm not sure where all of these guys with briefcases are going, and I'm not sure if I've actually seen a Viennese person working (besides the ones who sell me food), but they're going somewhere. (Think Go, Dogs, Go!...perhaps there's a big party somewhere I'm missing...) I discovered there's a big banking and business district, so I think that's where the Viennese do a lot of their work.

3. Coffee and Pastries: I've noticed that I always find Vienna much more enjoyable when I'm at least mildly caffeinated. (This is where Red Bull was invented.) There are a lot of kinds of coffee and they all have their specific Viennese names (see #4); most of the names aren't difficult to figure out--a large black (ein grosser Schwarz) is self-explanitory.

The Viennese have a pretty good selection of bread available, but not as much as in Germany; however, they seem to have incredibly decadent and often over-decorated cakes and pastries everywhere. There are a lot of bakeries in the U-Bahn stations where it's easy to get an apple strudel for breakfast.

I once got a desert in the Mensa (University cafeteria) that looked like the top of a dipped ice cream cone and was about four inches high. I assumed it was a chocolate-covered piece of cake with a little cream or marmalade inside. When I broke it with my fork, it was pure whipped cream inside--nothing else. I could only eat a few bites before feeling like I was eating the most ridiculous dessert in my life. Needless to say, that's as far I got.

4. Making up their own names for things: Now I understand that a lot of the German developed independently here; the Austrians aren't just trying to be different, but people who are fluent in German still have trouble with the new names for basic foods. A potato is no longer a Kartoffel; it's an Erdapfel. Some people hope to taste something exotic when they order Paradiessalat, which seems like "Paradise Salad" but they find out it's just tomato salad.

My literature professor interrupted a presentation I was making (to other American students) to correct one of my words. It wasn't bad German; it's just that the Austrians had their own word; I guess I wasn't prepared with an Austrian translation. I had lost my train of thought, so I could only protest that the novella I was speaking about takes place in Germany. I don't think he was correcting me to fix my presentation, but I think there is some pride among Austrians in their version of German, and he just wanted to teach some more words.

5. Taking the Elevator: People in my Wohnheim take the elevator to avoid climbing two flights of stairs. I know this happens in America, but I guess spending two years in a 13-story dorm where anyone who took the elevator up to anything below 4 or 5 would get the Look of Death has changed my relationship with stairs.

6. Not standing in line: The Viennese will absolutely mob a coat check booth before a concert, so if you don't push your way to the front, you will wait until everyone else has checked their coats to get your chance. This same rule goes with waiting to get on an escalator in an U-Bahn station; if there's room at the entrance of the escalator, people will take it. It's perfectly acceptable to give people gentle (not forceful, like in Paris) pushes when they're standing to the left or blocking your way.

7. Painting anarchy signs everywhere: ...yet everyone seems so content here....

8. Overemphasizing their long "i"s: If you want to say a long i like a Viennese, first, you have to hear how hilarious it is. Then, take a word like "zwei"...put a strong accent on the first part of the "ei"; drop your jaw, then continue like you're smiling and let the sound end in your nose. Finally, practice this by reciting the long list of numbers along with the automated voice on the U-Bahn. The Viennese are used to seeing people do this.

Update: I'm still alive!/Here's Some Finnish Pictures

2008-04-08T15:06:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, I disappeared for a bit there. I'm just getting back into the school routine (once again) and I just got over a rather bizarre stomach virus that has been going around Vienna. Thankfully, it did not last a long time.

Despite this virus, I read a short books (long stories/short books?) for my lit class. They're both a bit hard to understand, but I just have to keep reading and eventually I get the main point. I did a presentation on one of them, Annette Droste-Huelshoff's "Die Judenbuche," this evening. I don't usually volunteer to do those kinds of things before other people in the class, but I thought I could manage it, and I'm glad it's done. Then, of course, I found out that I didn't need to have had "Bahnwaehrter Thiel" read for today, even though I was rushing to get that done in addition to my presentation. I guess I'm just ready for next week now.

I (finally) got to the Naschmarkt this weekend. It was pretty crowded, since it was Saturday, but it's a good place to get vegetables and spices. The produce prices are actually similar to those in the discount grocery stores, but the selection is better. The spices, however, are much cheaper, and this was the first place I found ground cumin in Austria. I was surprised how many people were selling olives or stuffed jalepenos. While I definitely enjoy olives, as anyone in my family can tell you, I wasn't sure how all of Vienna could begin to consume all of those olives. I plan to bring my camera the next time I go to there.

On Sunday night my friends from my student home and I went to the Nordic Film Festival, so I got to see a Norwegian film (in Norwegian) called The Art of Negative Thinking. It had German subtitles, and since that's all dialogue, I was able to understand it all pretty easily. I just noticed it took a lot more time for me to read than English subtitles, which isn't really a surprise. I think it's a lot easier than trying to understand German through spoken dialects.

This is a week overdue or so, but here are some pictures from the second half of my spring break in Finland and Estonia:

Helsinki

People stick-walking (sauvakaevelle), which is popular in Finland and Sweden

President Tarja Halonen's house

Cruise Ships on the Baltic

A statue for a czarina who visited quite a long time ago...

The central train station in Helsinki

The EU--with a Finnish language twist

The Baltic Sea

The ferry we took to Estonia

Inside the ferry

Goodbye, Finland.

Hello, Estonia (Tallinn).

Paernu by day

Paernu by night

A beach in Paernu-in March-on the Gulf of Riga

Estonian is very close to Finnish; "Rannas" would be "Ranta" in Finnish, which means "beach." "Puhtust" means "clean" but I'm not exactly sure how it would be written in Finnish. "Puhtain" in Finnish means "the cleanest," so that's as close as I can get.

Estonians enjoying the park

Susanna, Juuli, Niina, and Verneri at Pappa Pizza

It was almost always snowing in Paernu. That didn't stop us from making use of the playground.

Verneri trying to figure out what to do with Estonian coins the Finnish exchange wouldn't exchange on the ferry.

We decided to glue the money to a postcard.

The University in Pori

Yet another stick-walker... They weren't kidding at Salolampi when they told us it was popular in Finland.

This is Pori's equivalent of Duluth's Bayfront music festival area. They have a big Jazz festival in the summer.

A beach on the Baltic Sea, outside of Pomarkku, which is close to Pori

University cafeteria food in Pori, which, thanks to government subsidies, only cost two or three euros. They still bring it to you at your table, like in a restaurant.

"Eeen Feeenland, Vee play ice hockey."

Downtown Pori

Verneri and Turkka

At a heavy metal karoake bar--something you can (thankfully) only find in Finland...

The kesamoekki, where we went to have a real Finnish sauna

Keppa checking out the ice-hole situation

Verneri and Turkka measured the water depth to see if it was deep enough for the ladder.

The pages from this Sudoku book are used to get the fire started. I guess if you can solve the puzzles, you can at least use them to get warm.

Norway

2008-03-30T08:09:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, I've been back in Wien for a couple days now. I've finally recovered enough from my trip to sift through the 300 or so photos I took. As I have a lot of photos, this entry will just be about Norway; I will start the Finland entry soon.

This is Oslo, where I spent most of my time with my relatives, Annbjorg & Lars.

Oslo's Statue Garden

Goofus like to cover himself in bronze and throw a temper tantrum; Gallant likes to experience culture through the visual arts.

The famous tower of people crawling all over each other.

the NFL's top infant draft picks

outside of the Central Station in Oslo

Lars

a major shopping area in downtown Oslo

I believe this is an important hotel...

Parliament

Karl Johann Street

The Nobel Prize place.... I know that's not the official name. :)

the ferry we took to the Fram and Viking Museums

It was rather cold outside, so I really felt no need to escape the boat.

The Fram Museum--This boat went the to the North and South Poles.

The Viking Museum

The "Tunnel" Line/Train

Now, I know someone can eat a meal "on the run," but the first thing I thought of when I saw this store was someone on the run from the law. Fugitives need gasoline and snacks too.

Fanta being politically incorrect.

a small shopping mall in the train station

This is how insane people stay physically fit.

a troll guarding the gift shop in front of the ski museum

Some kids start skiing at a very young age; some just pose for pictures.

These skis are hundreds of years old.

These ones are not.

climbing up the tower to the jump

Cognac and bobsledding--not a mix I would advocate...

a sweet lunch at a fancy konditeri in Oslo

dinner with my former roommates

a snowy road in the mountains

an old mountain farm town that has been restored and recreated

Lars and Annbjorg

A mannequin in the Volksmuseum

Lillehammer

an Easter tree

the view from Annbjorg & Lars's cabin

late-night waffles--some with cloudberries and apple jelly--others with Norwegian brown cheese

the entrance to the WWII Resistance Museum--This museum was about all the Norwegians who opposed and undercut the Nazi occupation of Norway by committing "illegal" acts like distributing secret newspapers, refusing to teach Nazi ideas in the classroom or training soldiers to hinder Nazi troop movement or prevent further weapons development.

Oslo

2008-03-19T13:51:00.000-07:00

I have been in Oslo since Sunday visiting my relatives, Annbjørg and Lars, who live here. I already have about 150 pictures, but I think I will wait until I get back to Vienna to post them, as that would monopolize too much computer time on computers that don't belong to me. Ø)

We've seen a lot of things this week, like the Viking Museum, the Fram Museum, the National Gallery (with Edvard Munch's "The Scream"), the statue garden, a giant ski jump, Lillehammer, a Volksmuseum, etc. There was a lot of snow in the mountains near Lillehammer. It reminded me of how Duluth used to be when I was 10. We also stopped by Annbjørg & Lars's cabin today, which is very high up on a hill (mountain?) and has a very good view. Tomorrow morning, we will probably go to a WWII resistance museum.

Tomorrow night, I will fly to Finland and stay with my friend Verneri.

Tomorrow is also my mom's birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! :)

Spring has Gesprungen

2008-03-15T13:58:00.000-07:00

Today was a very nice spring day in Vienna. The temperature reached 13 degrees celcius. I went for a walk and did some shopping on Stephansplatz, which is a bit of a zoo on Saturdays ...understandably. It's just a little difficult to dodge horse-drawn carriages.

Pictures from my district around the canal:

Sigmund Freud Park

The Votivkirche

Shottentor/Universitaet Area

(Mostly) Tourists on Stephansplatz

And now, Your Moment of Communism:

(Notice how I'm a safe distance from the demonstration, Central College officials...)

Partly-Cloudy Pictures

2008-03-13T19:28:00.001-07:00

So I finally had some time to go take general pictures of sunny Vienna, and then the clouds rolled it. Luckily, the sun poked through the clouds just a bit for some of these photos.

These are pictures of the route I take to get to the nearest U-Bahn station, which I take every day to school or wherever. I leave my district when I cross the bridge, then I walk down an Allee to get to the U-Bahn entrance.

The Danube Canal

An Allee

The First Sign of Spring

A Strassen-Bahn

On Monday night, I went with my classmates from the Musikseminar to a string quartet concert in the Brahms Saal. This was before the concert...when I assumed I could get away with some non-flash photography. The quartet played pieces from Haydn, Beethoven, Debussy and Puccini.

Fun with Intercultural Communication

2008-03-11T16:39:00.000-07:00

Me (at a small food stand where Turkish music is playing): Entschuldigung, was sind Maroni? (Excuse me, what are Maroni?)

Young guy working at the stand: Sie sind ein euro achtzig. (They are 1,80 euro.)

Me: Sind sie Gemuese, Nusse oder was? (Are they vegetables, nuts or something?)

Guy: (smiles, looks confused, serves someone else a bag of 8 Maroni)

Me: OK, Ich probiere sie. Ich moechte acht bitte. (Ok, I will try them. I'll have eight please.)

Guy: (puts the mystery food into a paper sack) Shoene Musik, ja? (Nice music, yes?)

Me: Danke, Tchiuss.

So...I tried the Maroni. They had the texture of a potato and a nut at the same time and were a little sweet--not very good, to be honest. I was just intrigued by these things I saw roasting every day. I found out that Maroni are chestnuts, which I had suspected, since that's one of the only nuts I've heard of that people roast themselves. (Do you know anyone who owns a honey-roaster?)

These pictures are not of the stand I went to. I got them from Wikipedia, where they are not copyrighted (in case anyone is wondering...). The first picture is of a stand in Istanbul, and the second is from Melbourne.

The guy I bought the Chestnuts from from either: 1. didn't know how to describe them to me in German, 2. thought I didn't know how to ask the right question, or 3. thought I was "taking the Mickey out of him" as my roommate, with all of her British-English training, said.

In honor of the Rektor (the Dean) and all s/he does for the education of the students at the Uni Wien, there is Rektorstag tomorrow, so all educational activities will be temporarily suspended. :) Actually, I think there's a speech or several meetings going on. I still have my grammar & stylistics course with Central College tomorrow, but that's in the evening, so I'm going to start reading one of the ten books I have for my literature course. (Most of them are short.)

So far, everything is going well. I understood about 75% of my Education & Anthropology lecture today, which is great, considering that I understood 40% last week. I quickly learned that I need to sit in the front to hear, especially with some professors who just speak loud enough for the first three rows to hear them.

I've also made some comprehension progress in the TV world. I have no problem understanding Spongebob Squarepants (Spongebob Schwammkopf) in German, but I'm still working on Grey's Anatomy. Dr. Stevens speaks too fast. :)

Stephansplatz and Tiergarten Shoenbrunn

2008-03-07T07:02:00.000-08:00

Despite what these pictures show, we've actually had mostly sunny days this week. I promise to get out and take some more sunny pictures soon...if the decent weather holds up.

These pictures are from the remainder of our tour and my Sunday trip to Europe's oldest zoo. It was originally built to be a animal garden for the imperial family in the 1750s. The weather was pretty cold, windy and rainy that day so it wasn't the most comfortable outing. The animals, however, were interesting. The zoo has been in the news a bit recently because one of the pandas had a baby, which we got to see.

The Museumsquartier:

Stephansplatz

Stephanskirche

This is an Allee on the way to the Tiergarten, which is a long parkway with trees. If you have seen the classic movie The Third Man, you may recognize this kind of path.

an English garden on the way to the zoo

The Tropikhaus

ein Pandabär

a human child on a fake panda

Panda-Mom with Panda-Baby

Baby Giraffe

The Petting Zoo

This tiger can shoot laser beams from its eyes.

A bit of Florida...in Vienna

Rainy Vienna Pictures

2008-03-04T13:50:00.000-08:00

The first couple days in Vienna have been rainy and windy. We got some sunshine yesterday, but it's still windy. From what I've heard, that's probably not going to stop. Ever. It might calm down, but there are no mountains to protect us.

I went to my first couple classes. The Central College Lit class was pretty easy to understand buy my lecture at the Uni Wien and my art class were harder to follow. I'm sure this will get better over time.

On Saturday, I visited the Shoenbrunn Tiergarten, which I've heard is one of the oldest zoos in the world. I will post pictures of that when my camera starts cooperating again (that will probably be when I delete the short films off of it.)

This was my first Viennese meal: Wiener Schnitzel mit Pommes Frites.

This is the main university building....behind a tree.

Beethoven lived here:

Schubert lived here:

A typical Viennese side-street:

This is an auction house, but it looks more like a fitness club to me:

Franz-Josef? Someone important nonetheless...

A well with Sirens--the Greek kind:

Our tour guide told us that Trotsky and Stalin met at this cafe:

Because of this Spanish Riding School, Vienna is probably the only large city where one can smell horses in the middle of town.

Vienna!

2008-02-28T13:27:00.000-08:00

I just got into Vienna this evening, and now I finally have internet access. :) It looks like my roommate is still on the semester break. My Wohnheim isn't incredibly fancy, but it's a bit more cozy than Josenturm (where I stayed in S.H.).

I went out to get some dinner and I thought a Doenner Kebab would be a nice quick meal, then I saw that this restaurant was charging 9,8 euros for one. The average price in Schwaebisch Hall was 3,4 euros. I have no idea why that is; I doubt that that's how they're priced throughout Vienna. I ended up getting a pasta dish for 7 euros instead.

Now I'm back in my room. I watched some Grey's Anatomy and Spongebob Squarepants (auf Deutsch, so it's educational) and the news. There's something very comforting about watching TV in a foreign country. For all but one year of my time at Augsburg, I have not had a TV in my room, and it's not something I need to have, but I think the familiarity of sitting passively and being entertained is kind of nice.

It's a little too late to explore the city, but during our orientation tomorrow, I will be a be able to see more. These are pictures of the Danau (Danube) Canal in my neighborhood.

Nürnberg

2008-02-19T05:36:00.000-08:00

I think I'm starting to forget how to properly speak and write in English, so I apologize to my Writing Lab colleuges about the countless punctuation and spelling mistakes I'm going to make. I've speant too much time learning German and speaking English with Brazilians. The comma rules are also quite different in German, so I'm trying to learn them. This mixed-up keyboard isn't much help either; the z and y are switched (I think I have a typo in a earlier post that proves it...), the puntuation marks are all over the place, and it took me about thirty minutes to figure out just how to type the @ and € signs.

Anzwazs... :) The Goethe Institut had an excursion to Nürnberg (I think it's Nuremberg auf Englisch) on Saturday. Nürnberg has a lot of churches, shopping, and cold weather. Nürnburg was one of the centers of Nazi organization and propaganda rallies during the Third Reich, so the main Nazi documentation center is located in a Colluseumesque building Hitler had built. (The infamous Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will begins with a Nürnberg rally.) Our tour guide said it would take about half a day to go through the documentation center, so we only drove around it on our way back.

These days, there are still a few idiots-with-a-cause who think Nazi ideas would benefit Germany, but whenever they rally, entire towns come out and protest against them. I met someone who saw a small Nazi demonstration in München, but the police had to surround them because the accumulating pile of rotten fruit and garbage that had been thrown at the neo-Nazis was getting pretty big.

Some friends and I broke off from the Nürnberg tour group, which we were told we could do, because our tour guide was pretty long-winded, to say the least, and we were afraid that we wouldn't be able to see any of the city if we kept standing in the cold waiting for our guide to finish explaining the difference between German citizens and the German people. We walked around the citz, explored a couple (very old--this is Europe) churches, climbed up to Kaiser's Fortress, saw the Albrecht Dürer house, had authentic Italian pizza, and attempted to go to a WWII "art bunker" which was closed on Saturdays.

No wind will go uncollected...

The Operahouse in Nürnberg:

This photo is a little hard to see, but it's a long walkway with pilars in front of the German National Museum.

One of the many pilars with a statement in German and several other languages about human rights.

Elisabethkirche (kirche=church):

Really-Busy-Statue-Next-to-a-Tower Parts I-IV:

Note the skeleton choking another skeleton...Perhaps an excercise in futility.

Nürnberg street attractions:

A street!

At least the potatoes will smile at you on the street.

Imagine this street with eight times the people as in this photo, and then you'll know how busy it is in the afternoon. If I would have pulled out the camera then, I could have been trampeled.

A river... I read that the the Main/Danube/Rhine Canal is near Nürnberg (in Regenberg), but I'm not sure which river this is:

The Schönen Brünnen--The Lovely Well

Lorenzkirche:

an illegal Lorenzkirche picture I took before I found out photographieren was verboten:

Albrecht Dürer...in statue form:

This is probably not the German idea of the Easter Bunny:

Kaizer's Imperial Castle:

Mehr Schwäbisch Hall Fotos :)

2008-02-18T10:30:00.000-08:00

a small (by German standards) breakfast in the Goethe Institut Mensa:

the street I live on:

the Saturday market:

people at a cafe on the Marktplatz

St. Michaelskirche and a fountain:

This saintly figure can kill demons with his eyes closed:

a food cart on the hill:

I forgot who this is supposed to be, but it's pretty much my favorite statue ever:

shoppers on one of Schwäbisch Hall's main streets:

a memorial in the cobblestones of the Marktplatz where Nazis burned Jewish books and furniture:

The River Kocher:

Josenturm (my Wohnheim)
My room is right behind this tower; there's a picture of it in my first Schwäbisch Hall post:

My Schlafzimmer:

I can organize a closet:

More Schwäbisch Hall Pictures

2008-02-11T07:33:00.000-08:00

Schwaebisch Hall on a cloudy day, which, from what I've heard is the typical weather situation in this part of Europe in February...

Enten lieben Schwäbisch Hall.

Apparently, the people of this town bury their frogs. (Froschgraben literally means "frog graves." I'm probably missing something here.)

This is a cool piece in front of a government office. I think it shows how the artist (and the people willing to put it here) feel about government and burreaucracy... It's a bunch of people trzing to get a cow and a goat up the stairs.

I really want to post all of my photos, but each one takes about two minutes to load, and it's about seven minutes to load five at once, so this will be a very gradual process. I'm not supposed to use the Mediotheke for personal e-mails, but it's the only place I can get internet AND use a USB drive for free...and I like to think of my blogging as an educational activity. :) I don't know how the Mediothekemeisterin feels about that....

Anyways, I'm going to head home. Hope everthing is well (if not at least interesting with the elections) in America.

Eu no se falar Porteges.

2008-02-11T05:05:00.000-08:00

We had very nice weather this weekend, so I went on about forty walks, also because there's not much else to do besides explore the city when I don't have the internet in my Wohnheim (student living house). There's a big market that takes place on the marketplace (surprise) in from of Schwäbisch Hall's big historic church. I bought some onions from a funny elderly farmer for 0,30 Euro.

I got to know some of the Brazilians in my Wohnheim. They taught me a little Porteguese.

I had a pretty good German class today. We finally moved on from the topic of diets and genetic engineering. I just found out that I'm in the highest class currently being held at the Goethe Institut. Europe has a profciency-ranking system that goes A1 to C2: A1 and A2 being "basic language use" and C1 and C2 being "proficiency." We are almost C1; we are using the C1 book, but I guess we are techinically B2.3. I think we are taking the C1 test. I don't need to pass any certain level to study in Wien, but I would like to learn as much as possible. This time will probably go very quickly.

2008-02-06T06:10:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone,

I'm in Schwaebisch Hall now. The internet situation is rather shaky, so I probably won't be able to update a lot this month.

I'm in a pretty hard German class, but I like the challenge. For our first two classes we're discussed genetic engineering and bizarre diets people decide to go on. I can tell that even after two days my understanding of the German in newspapers is better.

Anyways, I have some pictures, which is what everyone wants to see anyways. :) The first pictures are from the day I left. Check out my not-bursting-at-the-seams suitcase:

The train station in Bad Canstatt (Stuttgart)

I only have time to add a couple Schwaebisch Hall Pictures, because I have an advising meeting, but I will add more tomorrow afternoon (or morning for y'all in America).

Here is a cloudy picture of Schäbisch Hall:

Here is the outside of my bedroom (I was lucky enough to end up with a single room):

This is the view from my room:

Two days to go

2008-01-31T00:22:00.000-08:00

I'm finishing up with all the little things I need to do before I leave, such as: sending those last thirty e-mails, canceling my Netflix subscription, proving to St. Louis County that I will not be available for jury duty next month, and telling my credit union I will be gone so they don't suspect that a 14-year-old in Stuttgart hacked my checking account.

I also, with the help of my mom, made a budget. This is the most detailed budget I've ever made, and frankly, I'm hoping that the Euro will take a serious dive--just for a few days--so I can exchange all my money at a better rate. The last time I went to Europe the Dollar and the Euro had about the same value. Now, the one Euro is worth about $1.48.

This is 8,50 euros, which is worth approximately one first born child.

Anyways, despite the exchange rate (and the mild flu I seem to be experiencing), I'm very excited to leave for my trip.

One week to go... Learn the Language Edition

2008-01-25T00:30:00.000-08:00

If I could pick one aspect of my German language abilities I would like to improve, besides just getting to know some of the everyday German idioms people use, it would be my command over my verbs. I really need to work on passive form; I mean, ahem, my passive sentences will need to have been changed. :) I would also just like to know more verbs and get better at conjugating the ones I use all the time. SO, I've been making flashcards from Henry Strutz's 501 German Verbs.

I actually found a mistake in one of the examples. It defines beißen as "to cut," which is close, but it means "to bite." This guy made sure 501 German verbs were properly conjugated in every possible way, so I guess I can cut him some slack.

My favorite new verb so far is "bejahen," which means "to answer to affirmative." Basically, it means "to yes" or "to be-yes" someone.

I'm also reading the first Harry Potter book in German. It's called Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen. It's at a pretty good reading level for me. I'm learning a lot of new vocabulary because I usually don't talk about wizards' cloaks, owls, spells and wands every day, and it uses some idioms I am unfamiliar with. I was actually able to buy this book at Barnes & Noble in Duluth...of all places.

One week to go... Packing Edition

2008-01-24T23:43:00.000-08:00

As you can see, Rick Steves is helping me get prepared for Germany and Austria.

"But that's the 2007 edition of Rick Steves' Germany & Austria!" you may prostest. No worries--I've unlocked the secret to time travel. I will be visiting Europe in the year 2007, which will allow me to pay 2007 rates and experience all the sights as they were before the Y2K8 bug hit.

OK, kidding over. I just don't see the point of buying the 2008 edition, which is bound to be quite similar. According to RickSteves.com, this will probably be the last year that Germany and Austria will be featured in the same book. There will also be a book focused solely on Vienna that will be published this spring, after I've already become an *expert* on Vienna.

On to packing... I am only bringing one suitcase, but I think I can manage that. Airlines usually only allow one carry-on and one checked bag into Vienna, and I do not wish to pay 50-75 euros to send another one. I'm just going to wash my clothes more often.

I have three Rick Steves brand packing cubes--very shick, as you can see. They're not completely full yet. I also have some airtight bags that promise I can bring up to three times the clothes I would have brought without them. We'll see about that.

End-of-2007 Update

2007-12-29T22:28:00.000-08:00

I just got my visa a week ago--the travel document, not the credit card...if you were wondering, which you probably weren't. The Chicago Consulate was incredibly fast in getting my passport back to me.

I got some very helpful travel supplies from my family last week, including: a TSA-approved suitcase lock, travel lens-cleaning wipes, Rick Steves-brand packing cubes, a backpack and other convenient things.

I'm going to get a camera in a couple days, so I can post pictures.

Eine Reise von tausend Meilen beginnt mit einem Schritt...

2007-10-31T22:46:00.000-07:00

Ah, Vienna... A barren wasteland devoid of any art, culture or signs of humanity. As I begin my journey, with nothing but a hatchet, some flint and a prayer, I hope I will find something deeper within myself that will help me survive in such a desolate landscape.

I just got word today that I've been accepted to Central College Abroad's program in Vienna. Now I must begin to crawl out of this mountain of paperwork required to get there. Some of it's just written/legal grunt work, but I'm happy to do it. Anything that will get me closer to some genuine Sachertorte...