Carinthia & Styria

I made it my goal a few weeks ago to visit every region in Austria, with the exception of Vorarlberg, because it is really far away and apparently doesn’t even want to be a part of Austria anymore. Last weekend, as a solo mission, I tackled 2 of the regions, Carinthia and Styria. I figured that by visiting the capitals, Klagenfurt and Graz, I would be able to absorb as much of the region as I could. I had a fantastic weekend in both cities (towns) and am glad that I decided to stick closer to home instead of travelling to different countries. It should be known that under strict travel advice from my dad, I did not accept candy from strangers this entire trip, I swear. I told Hannah this advice my dad had given me, and she said, ‘Oh, so he knows about the case in Austria from a few years ago?’… What?? Apparently someone had left chocolate on the hood of an Austrian mayor’s car wishing him a Happy Valentine’s Day one year. It turns out the chocolate was laced with poison and the mayor who was given the chocolate is paralysed forever. SO, note to self: No candy from strangers.

Klagenfurt, Carinthia

In order to maximize my time, I left for Klagenfurt on the Friday night. The train ride was 4 ½ hours and I arrived in Klagenfurt at 9:30p.m. I had google mapped directions from the train station to the hostel I was staying at, but in the dark in a completely foreign place, I was not willing to take the chance of becoming lost, so I hopped into a cab in hopes that I would be taken into the right direction, which I was. The hostel was a Hostelling International hostel, which is a member’s only hostel, and has certain standards and conditions it has to maintain. When I arrived I headed to bed, only to find that I was sharing a room with someone else. Out of respect, I did not turn the light on when I came in, so I was not aware if I had any sheets on my bed… The morning revealed to me that I had in fact been sleeping on straight mattress and pillow, I felt a little dirty. I headed into town with my backpack because I didn’t want to have to come back to the hostel before I left for Graz. I had noticed that there were lockers at the train station, so I went there and left my bigger pack for the day. Klagenfurt is a beautiful city/town. Standing in various points in the city, if you look up all you see are the steeples of churches with that onion shape at the top. The look of the town reminded me a lot of Salzburg. I took a bus out to Wörthersee, the lake about 5 minutes from the town. Surrounded by snow capped mountains, it was beautiful thing to see, I imagine it would be really nice in the summer. The sun teased me all day long, coming out for little periods of time throughout the day. It was of course better than being in rainy Vienna. I walked around the town and came across a farmers market, which I have come to love. It can be compared to a huge flea market because of the random junky tables, flower and food vendors. The town is centered around the Lindwurm statue, which legend has that some warrior killed this dragon, and now there is a statue commemorating it. Klagenfurt was a very picturesque town, but by the afternoon I was ready to move onto something a little more exciting, Graz.

Graz, Styria

I took the bus from Klagenfurt to Graz which lasted a little over 2 hours. It was a breathtaking drive and many parts of the drive reminded me of driving through the townships, the Laurentians and British Columbia. I really enjoy travelling during the day, you can actually see the things around you. When we arrived in Graz, you would never expect to be driving into an old city. The newer part of the city has been built surrounding the old town. From the train / bus station I did not believe that I was actually going to see old buildings. I arrived at the hostel I was staying at, which was awesome. It was perfectly located between the train station and the inner city of Graz. I ended up bunking with 3 girls from the States, 2 from Maine and 1 from California. I decided not to stick around the hostel for dinner, so I took a bus into the inner city to walk around. I had read about the Murinsel, which was built in Graz when it was the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2003. It is a bar / café that was built and then lowered into the Mur river. It looks like an open seashell and is very cool. When I returned to the hostel, I took a shower and appreciated the fact that I was not charged for the water or towel, services you come to appreciate when travelling. I woke up the next morning to an absolutely beautiful day. Breakfast was a feast of a buffet, all included. I headed out into the city with my trusty map and top sightseeing places, courtesy of the information centre. Graz is filled with romantic courtyards and all you can do is picture what it must have been like in the olden days. At 11 a.m. there is a building in Graz, called the Glockenspiel, on a side street that has shutters that open and two wooden figures come out dancing to a Styrian song. I don’t know whether or not my life has been changed because I saw it, but I am glad that I did. I then climbed to the top of the Schlossberg, the mountain with the famous Graz clock (or course covered in scaffolding) and bell tower. I was up there at 12 and all of a sudden the city started singing this symphony of bells. The bell tower that I was near chimes 101 times every hour, so that dominated the sound, but there are so many churches in Graz that the city literally went into song, it was very pretty. Afterwards, I met up with 2 of Hannah’s friends for lunch; they were in Graz for a film festival. I headed back to the hostel and caught the train back to Vienna at 3:30. I had no clue how long the trip was going to take, which ended up being around 3 hours. Quick Fact: Arnold Schwarzenegger grew up close to Graz.

All in all, the weekend was a huge success, and I really loved Graz, definitely a place that I would want to go back to.

Vienna has started campaigning for their mayor elections, which take place in September 2010. They start campaigning very early because of the fierce competition between the two parties. One of the candidate’s campaigns is based on the notion that he wants to stop immigration into Austria and kick all of the foreigners out of country. The scary thing is that people will vote for him because they base their opinions on the idea that foreigners have taken all their jobs, and therefore kicking out the foreigners will only have a positive impact with their abilities to find jobs… A little scary that people can think like this.

German class continues, and is becoming increasingly more difficult. I can put sentences together now, which is a plus, although I feel like my co-workers expect me to be fluent by now... Ain’t going to happen! There are some people in my class that are just so horrible at speaking German; it literally hurts my ears to hear them talk. It is painful.

My job took a huge turn for the better last week, and I feel that I am now contributing to the well being of the company. Among contributing ideas for the content of the website, I have been put in charge of building an ambassador program for the youth of the bank. The concept behind that is using the current Apprentices at the bank to increase youth involvement and have a constant focus group for product feedback and development. I am currently working on organizing a workshop for 5-10 apprentices, aged 17, for their input. I am approaching it by imagining having Matt and his friends in a room, and ways that I could keep them entertained with the thought of creating a program… I am preparing for a lot of awkward silence. I feel that the work I am doing is having a positive impact and will one day benefit the bank, which is all I can hope for. I cannot believe that I only have 5 weeks of work left; it has gone by too fast, like everything always does.

I am heading to Linz, Melk and Krems this weekend with my friend Steph, and I promise I won’t let her eat candy, or follow someone to his car to see his ‘puppies’… Oh dad.

Funkenfest

Tara does Vienna.

This past weekend my friend Tara, who is from Halifax but doing a SWAP term in Berlin, came and stayed with me and Hannah. She brought a friend of hers from Berlin, and someone that I met while I visited her, Martin, who is originally from Sweden. It was a bit of an international house for the weekend. They arrived at different times on Friday evening, so Hannah and I planned on making dinner for them (I helped plan and buy food while Hannah cooked…). Tara is a vegan, so we racked our brains to come up with a meal that would be edible for everyone. We ended up having fried vegetables with curry and rice, and it was fantastic, kudos to Hannah for having frozen homemade curry in our freezer. We had bought some wine for dinner, and that influenced our decisions for the evening. We had originally planned a big night for Saturday, as the Europeans have no clue what Jager bombs are, I thought I would give them a good introduction. Needless to say, after Friday there were hardly and ingredients left for Saturday. It was a fun night out on the town, and some felt the effects more than others on Saturday morning.

We didn’t have the opportunity to lounge around on Saturday morning because we had tickets to the Spanish Riding School performance at 11 a.m. Being an avid horse lover (sarcasm) I was actually blown away by the performance. The horses literally dances around the ring, and were perfectly in tune with the music. To think that Jodi was actually able to do that in Portugal was pretty cool. However, I will now always have the satisfaction of knowing that I went to the see the real show, and she didn’t… The riders looked old school with their hats and long coats on, and I am pretty sure that the saddles were lined with diamonds, they sparkled profusely. I don’t think Tara quite appreciated the experience, as she was feeling the Jager bombs from the previous night. (German Lesson: Jagermeister means 'hunt master' in English.) After the riding school we headed back to the apartment on request of some of the members in our group, and enjoyed a quiet afternoon watching skiing on t.v.

That night, Saturday, some of Hannah’s friends had planned on going to the Vorarlberg Funkenfest. Vorarlberg is the most western region of Austria where they practice this annual tradition. Every year a different town is invited to Vienna to host the tradition. Basically, they build a huge tower of wood surrounding a pine tree and tie a witch doll, with flashing red eyes, to the top of it and light it on fire. The tradition is to burn the witch, which will in turn scare away winter, not that Vienna had much of one this year. A group of us headed to the 19th district to Am Himmel for the festivities, which is an area on the top of a hill, that you can look out and see all of Vienna. Tara, Steph and I took a picture of ourselves in front of the fire to send to SWAP. They have a lot of contests for participants, so we are hoping that the fact we have all become friends and attended a traditional Austrian event, we will win something! We stayed for a few hours and then all headed back to our apartment for a flip cup tournament (I introduced them all to flip cup too) and a little sing star session.

On Sunday I took Tara and Martin out for a little sightseeing. We went to the Lower Belvedere museum and saw an exhibit by Alfons Mucha. The plan was to go to see an Opera at the Staatsoper, but I had messed up the times, so we opted out of that. We did some sightseeing and then met up with my new Canadian friend Steph and 2 of her floormates in the dorms she lives in. There is a jazz festival going on right now in Vienna so we went and checked out some live performances. The bands were amateur musicians, who were showcasing their work, but they were all very talented musicians and it was a really cool thing to visit on a Sunday night.

Life right now

My weekend schedule is absolutely full with adventures from now on until I leave to come home. It is absolutely insane, but I only have 7 weeks of work left. When I started in January there were 16, it has gone by so fast. I am heading to Klagenfurt and Graz this weekend in my attempt to maximize the amount of Austria that I see.

I had my mid-evaluation yesterday for work. I was able to speak to my career advisor, and he seems pleased with how everything is going. My bosses were very generous with my review and it instils confidence in myself to know that they think I am doing a good job.

Our internet is supposed to be fixed today, which means the return of Skype… Over the past 3 weeks Hannah and I have done a lot of bonding at night, which has been great. I would go as far to say that we have become good little buddies! I spoke to my dad last night; I have figured out that it costs nothing for me to receive calls, so it is a good way to talk to people. Should anyone feel inclined to speak to me, my phone number is 011 43 680 219 7223.

My second Deutschkurs, or German lesson, started last night. Montag und Mittwoch habe ich Deutschkurs von sechs bis Viertel von neun Uhr. We are learning the fundamentals of sentence structure, so I can actually say things now. It is a rather rewarding feeling. We are 9 girls all from different countries, with the exception of 2 who are from Thailand. There is occasional passing around of my translator so we can communicate. This is suppose to be a more intensive version of the course, with only 3 ½ weeks of class oppose to 5. There is one lady from Thailand who wants to buy the translator from me so bad. Every class she eyes it and I feel that I need to have it with me at all times to avoid the potential of it being stolen. She has offered me €200; I think she wants it mostly because it can translate Thai. I will not sell it to her; she just needs to get over it.

I have slowly passed through the homesickness faze. I was spoiled with Skype as it allowed me to speak to my family and Conor whenever I wanted to. It was hard when it was just taken away, but now that some time has passed I realize that I am still alive and that everyone at home is doing just fine. I send e-mails to the parents and communicate with my siblings and friends on facebook, so it is not like I have been cut off completely. It was weird, I could actually feel a certain kind of pain, not that it hurt, it was just a nagging feeling of missing contact from home. However, that is starting to pass. Hannah told me that a study proved that it is around the 2/3 point of being away that the missing feeling kicks in, so I was right on schedule! I do miss you all, but I am glad to be on this adventure and being able to share the experience through this blog has been great.

A Quick Life Update

A quick life update... Without Skype, I am thinking that this blog is going to become my main source of communicating with everyone!

One of my classmates at Dalhousie is doing her Co-op for the Management Career Services, the people who help us find jobs and do workplace check ups. Saying that, I have my mid evaluation on Monday. Most of the advisors visit the work places of the students and meet with them and the employers. Unfortunately, Dal doesn’t have the budget to send my advisor all the way to Austria, so we are having a phone evaluation. The first half hour is done just with my boss, and then the second part is just with me. I think it is a way for Dal to have feedback about how the co-op is going and if there are problems that needed to be sorted.

Anyways, back to my classmate. Part of her job is to profile students for an upcoming MCS e-mail bulletin. My classmate has asked me if I would mind being featured! She asked that I send her information concerning my workplace, living arrangements, any communication mishaps and how this international working experience is going to affect my career path and future career choices. It is scheduled to be sent out in September, so that will be exciting, I am curious as to what information she will use.

After much deliberation, I have decided to declare my major in Business Management. We are given a few options in Commerce, and I feel that this is the area that is best suited to my skill set. Time wise, I could have double majored at Dal because of the fact that I have so many transferred courses from CEGEP, but Dal doesn’t allow double majors in Commerce. It will however allow me to take courses in different fields, so I can continue pursuing courses in marketing on top of my major. We have to start taking courses relative to our majors in the winter of 2010, after our second co-op.

I have decided to go to Zell Am See, Austria for Easter. It is looking like a solo trip for now, which I am actually pretty okay with. I am sure that all this alone time will eventually start taking its toll on me, but I am rather enjoying being able to go where I want. I have been able to realize that I am completely self sufficient and can successfully live in a foreign place by myself. Saying that, I do miss having certain people around… You know who you are.

I think that covers the general highlights of my life to date :)

Salzburg and Mariazell

I know this is very long overdue, but we have not had internet for 2 weeks. I don’t even know where to begin it has been so long… ( I apologize now for the length of this one…)

Salzburg

Two weeks ago I went to Salzburg with two other Swappers, Simon and Steph. We stayed at a youth hostel, Yoho, which was pretty fantastic. It was right between the train station and down town core of Salzburg, so it was very convenient. The rooms were actually quite nice, with 3 sets of bunk beds… It reminded me a little bit of summer in Panorama. We arrived on the Friday night and had dinner at the hostel, some typical Schnitzel, and then headed out on the town. I had read about the Augustiner Brau monastery that instead of producing cheese, made beer. We headed there first. This place was unreal. I think that it could sit about 2,000 people in 4 different rooms. There were 2 options of beer size, a half litre, or litre. We opted for the litre. It was such a cool setting, except that there were pictures and sculptures of Jesus everywhere so you felt like you were committing a sin. We had some fun and met some members of a Scottish stag party, who had all worked in B.C. the past summer. The walk home brought on some adventures, including a few funny occurrences with reference to the Sound of Music, which was filmed in Salzburg (More on that later). We returned to the hostel, only to find the bar busy with an international tour group. We met some of the Canadians who go to Western and Dalhousie.

When we woke up we discovered that Salzburg offers something that is a rarity in Vienna, sun. We woke up to a beautiful day, and realized that Salzburg is basically surrounded by snow covered mountains. We decided that it would be a good idea to visit the fortress that overlooks the city of Salzburg, the Festung Hohensalzburg. It is basically all you can see from anywhere in Salzburg. When we actually arrived at the top, after a short but heart pumping hike, the view was stunning. It was cool to walk around the fortress and try and imagine what it must have been like actually living there. We explored it for a little bit, Steph and I took millions of pictures, while Simon tried to deal with his 2 day old hangover. Looking out from the cannon holes, all you can see are church steeples and mountains, it was quite beautiful. When Jodi and my dad were here this summer, she had taken a really cool picture that captured all the steeples of Salzburg. I desperately tried to find the spot, but am pretty sure that it wasn’t here that she took it. I think I found it the next day. As we walked down, we decided that today would be the perfect day to do the Sound of Music tour. None of us really remembered the movie, or the songs, but we knew that we were in Salzburg and that this was our chance to have a little piece of Julie Andrews. So we put our pride aside and boarded the bus. The best part about these tours is the fact that you learn something, and see things that you have otherwise not known about. The Sound of Music tour brought us to…

Leopoldskron Castle: Where the boat tipping scene was filmed
Hellbrunn Castle: Where the original gazebo has been moved to
Nonnberg Abbey: Where the real Maria was a nun
St.Gilgen and Lake Wolfgang: I don’t think this was in the movie, but it is in the breath taking Lake District. It reminded me a lot of Invermere.
Wedding Church Mondsee: Where the wedding of Maria and the Baron was filmed.
Mirabell Gardens: Where a lot of dancing and singing took place.

The majority of the tour was people like us, but then there was one couple that made the tourist level soar. They gasped and sang and loved every moment of the tour. I vowed to never turn into that kind of couple. And where were they from? The U.S.A.

Feeling touristed out we headed back to the hostel and all fell asleep, for a power nap. We had great aspirations about what we were going to do that night, we wanted to go to a club that hosted a lot of MTV d.j.’s, but we ended up sitting with a group of travellers and played Uno all night. At least we stuck to a budget...

We had to check out by 10 a.m. the next morning, so we put our stuff in a locker and set out for another exciting day of Salzburg sightseeing… Until we realized that we had seen most of Salzburg the day before (it is not very big). We headed up to the ridge that follows the Salzach, the river that flows through Salzburg. We were able to see a panoramic view of Salzburg, and it was incredible. I am pretty sure that this is where I took a picture similar to the one that Jodi has. We headed back into the town; I wanted to buy some of the painted eggs. I am not talking about tie-dyed kids eggs, these are amazing. They are painted by students and housewives, and I just hope I can bring them home without breaking them. Hannah had also asked me to pick some up for her mom. We also walked by the Christmas in Salzburg shop, and I saw a lot of ‘Pyramids’ – These Christmas candle things. I felt inclined to buy one, but reality kicked in and I remembered that I only have 2 suitcases… After that we collectively agreed that we had seen Salzburg to the best of our abilities and headed back to the train station.

That was the end of the Salzburg weekend.

Mariazell

Last weekend, I decided that I needed to go skiing again, to fully justify the fact that I dragged all of my skiing stuff out here. After much deliberation, I decided on the town of Mariazell, which the Pope visited last year. The trip there was almost more exciting then the skiing. I left Vienna at 6:45 a.m. I had to transfer once in St. Pölten (Where the trial is currently being held for man that held his daughter hostage in his cellar for 24 years, raped her over 3,000 times and fathered 7 of her children. She gave birth in the cellar each time, with no doctors). From there I took the ricketiest train to a town 2 hours away. There is so much snow that the train could not go further, so we had to get off and board a bus. A man was putting chains on the tires of the bus literally from the 60s. My first thought – Safe. The ride was alright, except for the kid sitting in front of me who puked the ENTIRE time. That was nice. As you enter further into the interior of Austria, English starts becoming very rare. Luckily, my german language skills kicked in and I was able to figure out what time to arrive back at the station in the afternoon. Skiing was fantastic. All the rain we have been receiving in Vienna has clearly been snow there and I literally skied powder all day long. The mountain still wasn’t as high as I had hoped, but I am waiting for Easter to really take a long journey into the heart of the Austria Alps. Although I do not know what my surroundings looked like because it snowed all day. I had a little 'experience' on the chairlift. I was riding up with someone who clearly did not know what he was doing. As we approached the top of the hill, I tried to lift the bar up, but he would not take his skis off… He did not take his skis off until we were half way around the top pole, heading back down the mountain. We were the chair that made the chairlift stop, and had to jump off. Thanks buddy. The lonely day came to an end; it was a good day, but not talking all day kind of takes a toll on you… Driving back down to the train station (1 hour) you could really see how much snow they still have. Some of the snow banks were taller than the bus we were in. It makes me hopeful that Easter will be fantastic.

My friend Tara is arriving on Friday. We are going to the Spanish Riding School on Saturday, and hopefully the Opera on Friday or Sunday night.

I received an e-mail from Sky Europe saying that they have cancelled the flight from Prague to Venice, the one that Conor and I were suppose to take. Instead, we are leaving for Italy on an overnight train from Vienna 2 days earlier, and taking Budapest off the travel plans. We are going to head to Prague when we return from Italy and before we head home. This way, we can maximize time in Italy, which takes the stress away of needed to be in places at certain times.

Sorry for the long post, my life is just that exciting…

p.s. I will add pictures as soon as we have internet back at our apartment.

Berlin

The biggest adventure to date was definitely last weekend when I ventured to Berlin. I left on Friday the 13th and arrived in Berlin in the morning so I could benefit from a whole day. My friend who is living in Berlin right now, Tara, gave me fantastic directions into Berlin, where she met me at the one café I could understand, Starbucks. We had only met in November after we got in touch through SWAP. We set out on our touristic journey of Berlin, which is very different from Vienna. The people are much more apt to speak English, but they still walk around like they are miserable. Apparently the Germans and Austrians have a love / hate relationship like Canada and the U.S. I haven't experienced the culture long enough to know which one is Canada in this relationship.

Our first sight was the Brandenburger Tor, which is like 'the' landmark of Berlin. It weird to have seen all these places in school textbooks and to see them in real life is pretty cool. Around the corner from there is the parliament building, the Reichstag. According to Tara, I am not taking the blame if this fact is wrong, Hilter organized the fire that burned it down some decades ago. He did this in an attempt to have a reason to go to war, inevitably leading to WWII. This is how a lot of the conspiracy started about September 11th and the involvement of the U.S. government. The building does have a certain presence, and knowing that it was Hilter's old stomping grounds made it a little eerie. Conveniently all of the touristy sights are close to each other, so we just kept walking. Walking up to the Holocaust Mahnmal was a little confusing. There is no real identification describing what it is, but enough books tell you. The ground slopes up and down, and most of the pillars were higher than me. The weird thing is that they are in perfect lines, so you can always see a way out, but the sloping ground and monstrous pillars leave you with a sense of disorientation. The architect never really explained why he did it, and wanted people to derive their own meaning of it. Continuing down the street, there were big pieces of the Berlin Wall in random places. To see the Wall is one thing, but seeing it out of place doesn't seem right. I think it is good to preserve and remember it, but displacing it from the original site makes it lose some of its meaning.

As we were walking, I noticed that all of the sewer tops are actually nice, and have major buildings on it. One of the building on sewer top was the Berliner Dom, which was pretty impressive. It was probably one of the only buildings that resembled the architecture in Vienna. In the photo, you can see the Berlin TV Tower in the background. It resembled a mix of the CN Tower and the tower in Calgary. After that, we made our way to another church that had been bombed during the war. The bomb ruined most of the church by burning it down, but half of the steeple is still standing, making it a very, I will say interesting, but it isn't the word I am looking for. From there we made our way to the Tiergarten, and saw the Siegessäule, the Golden Angel. It was moved in 1939 as part of Hilter's plans to turn Berlin into the capital of the world. Tara and I climbed it, all 285 steps. It was like climbing the Statue of Liberty because of the spiral staircase.

The same time I was in Berlin, the Berlin film festival was taking place. Tara bought tickets for us so I was able to experience something that is internationally recognized. Unfortunately I was a few days late to see Kate Winslet. After that we went to a little cafe / bar and I met some of Tara's past roommates. I was talking to one girl who had gone to Concordia. I asked where she was from in Montreal, and she said that she was actually from the Eastern Townships. I told her about Knowlton, and of course she knew the Knowlton Pub. And she went to Massey Vanier. We decided that we obviously knew mutual people. Sitting in a little bar in Berlin, this complete stranger lists two people we both might know. The names were Nick Cogger and Ryan Stowe. My old sailing coach/I wish my old brother and my first cousin. Yeah Right. It is a seriously small world.

The next day we visited the inevitable, the East Side Gallery. It is a stretch of the Berlin Wall that stands exactly as it was. It was so hard

to vision that this wall split the city of Berlin in two. Years ago, Berlin invited artists to come and paint the Wall, so it is covered in what used to be, unique art. Unfortunately it is now covered in tags and visitors names. I guess it does add to the significance of the Wall but at the same time, it ruins it. I am glad that the government chose to leave this section of the Wall, as it was, instead of doing something creative with it. As a tourist, it makes the experience much more real and gave me the opportunity to understand. After the Berlin Wall we went to the Jewish Museum. The architect built the new part of the museum with a lot of angles and random empty space. Supposedly, the empty areas symbolize the lack of Jews in German society. The museum woke me up and really made me realize, that yes, the Holocaust happened. Not at all to reference that I am a 'Holocaust Denier' but learning german history in school is one thing, but to come to the place that it all started, was a reality check. After that, Tara and I headed to Checkpoint Charlie, where the United States opened a section of the wall in the 1960's. It was made famous by a standoff between the Soviets and the Americans, where some believed WWIII would start.

The next day we hopped on a Tour Bus and were able to hear a little bit of the history of what we were looking at. As touristy as the double buses are, you are given the opportunity to know what is what. After a busy weekend, I was ready to come home.

Tara is coming here in March, so I can return the favor of being tour guide. I have bought us tickets (Me, Hannah and Tara) to go and see the Spanish Riding School, I just felt compelled, at least one of us in the family had to see it, so why not make it the one person who loves horses most?!

I am heading to Salzburg next weekend with another Swapper, Simon. He is in my German classes, so we are turning into little buddies. German is terrifically hard. I am starting to learn the basics and understand what our teacher is talking about. The weeks are very quickly starting to add up, the past week was my sixth week of work. That means I have 10 left, which also means only 10 weekends. Upcoming trips that I am planning are to Krems and Melk, Bratislava, my fingers are crossed for another ski trip, Graz, Linz... I am still unsure about Easter, but my friend who is in Germany wants to go somewhere hot, I wouldn't mind...

Conor bought his ticket 2 days ago, so he is actually coming. Since our flight is out of Prague, we will start there, and our Italian plan is Venice - Florence - Rome - Naples - Pompeii - Capri or Amalfi. Everything is starting to be pretty busy here, I just hope I can fit everything in that I want!

Sch-tuhleck

Apparently there is some interest in my blog, and I therefore apologize for not being on my A game. Since my last post, a whole lot of stuff has happened. These entries are going to start getting exciting...

Last week Hannah and I went to see a ballet in the Staatsoper, the famous Vienna opera house. The outside of the building does not give an hint about what it like on the inside. The pictures I took don't even do it justice... Check out my album on facebook. The ballet was fantastic, and probably much more entertaining than the Nutcracker. This is also where the Opera Ball is hosted. A huge debutante event with the social elite of Vienna. There is a man who became a rich rich business mogul somehow, who pays a female celebrity to accompany him to this ball. Past dates have been Paris Hilton, Carmen Electra, Pamela Anderson and this year Nicolette Sheridan will be gracing Vienna with her presence. Due to the obnoxious nature of this man, all women apparently leave within the first half hour, or lock themselves in a bathroom. I think the Opera Ball is next week.

On Saturday we went skiing in Semmering, at a mountain named Stuhleck. It is in the 'entrance' to the alps, so it was not incredibly high, but pretty cool. We took the train and the ride was about an hour and a half. We were there with the rest of the world, and from a country that produced Hermann Maier, you would expect everyone to be equipped with the latest and highest tech stuff. I'll just say... I saw someone going down the mountain on CROSS COUNTRY SKIS. Not those telemarket skis, cross country skis. This was the first time I am glad Jodi wasn't here, she would have died. She also would have found it interesting that you can take the chair lift up with a toboggan because there is a 5km long toboggan hill. On the ski hill. Check facebook.

It was pouring rain on Sunday, but I did not want to waste another Sunday, so with the support of Hannah I decided to go discover more of the Ringstrasse. The picture to the left shows the discontent of my journey. My umbrella broke, like really bad, my jeans died my white shoes blue and I was freezing cold - but I persevered. Since that picture worked, I will try to add more... On my journey I saw the Town Hall, the Votivkirche, Sigmund Freud's house and practice, which has been converted into a museum, the police station, which used to be a barrack so it is HUGE and the Börse, which is the home to the stock exchange. After my adventure we met at Charlie P's Irish Pub to watch a rugby match between Wales and Scotland. Hannah is from Wales, so I clearly cheered for Scotland.

I started German last night. Oh. Boy. It is a tough tough language. We learned how to count and say the alphabet, very elementary but useful. We learned that when there is a word that starts with St it is pronounced Sch-t, hence the name of this entry... My course is 6 hours a week for 5 weeks... There are 5 other people in my class. One of them is named Simon who I met through SWAP, so that is pretty cool. There is one from Turkey (who doesn't even speak English), Finland, Romania and India.... And 2 Quebecers. Pretty diverse group, we'll see how it goes. I actually have homework - not fun.

On Thursday there are 4 of us getting together from SWAP. The office has a list of all of the SWAPPERS and it turns out there at least 5 in Vienna so it may make for some good travel buddies.

I am heading to Berlin on Friday morning for the weekend. I am staying with my friend Tara, who I met through SWAP as well. I have also made plans to go to Salzburg at the end of February for the weekend. I am staying at Yoho Hostel, which is apparently world renowned.

So Posh

3 weeks done already, I can hardly believe it. The weekdays seem to all blended together but the weekends are starting to fill up. This week was the last 'tame' weekend if you will, I actually went to museums. By myself. Oh yeah. Museums are definitely places that have to be visited here, since Vienna is so centered around their culture. I went back to the Museums-Quartier and visited the Leopold Museum and Museum Moderner Kunst. The Leopold was not necessarily my style or preferred genre of art, I am actually developing one, but I did find some pieces fairly interesting and striking. It seems though that the ones I preferred never became very famous, I guess that hints something about my artistic style... The top 2 floors of the MUMOK were very interesting, and fit my taste better. Very abstract and allowed me to develop my own meaning for them. I don't know how to describe what kind of art I find tasteful, but it seems to be the more abstract and give the viewer the option to form their own visions about what it says. I thoroughly enjoyed Gustav Klimt and Wolfgang Paalen.

Well that was a paragraph I never thought I would write...

Through work there are various promotions given to employees that allow us to take advantage of discounted cultural events. The first one that I am being subjected to is the ballet. Hannah and I are going tomorrow night to the Staatsoper and are sitting in the sixth row... for 100 Euros cheaper a seat than normal. I don't know how and I don't know why, but I believe that this new culture side of me is going to appreciate this ballet more than I appreciated the Nutcracker that I was dragged to as a child. There will be a definite update about this performance tomorrow night. The bank that I work for sponsors an Art Gallery and is called BAWAG Contemporary. The first Wednesday of every month is somewhat of a Vernissage (thanks for teaching me that one Dad) and welcomes the new artist to the gallery. That is on the agenda for the Wednesday.

We just came back from buying tickets to go skiing next weekend. There are 4 of us who are taking a little day trip to Semmering and then coming back. For 51 Euros, the train service offers round trip plus your ski ticket, a deal I am thinking of taking serious advantage of.

Although May is far away, I have already taken advantage of yet another European deal for my travel plans through Europe. Sky Europe was offering a buy one get one free plane ticket deal under the condition that they are one-way flights. I had to take advantage of this and made an emergency skype call to Conor. He is scheduled to come here at the end of April... I say scheduled only because there has been no plane ticket purchased yet so therefore I am still apprehensive.

We were thinking about where we wanted to go and had to start ruling out places that were unreasonable. To Conor's dismay Istanbol and Barcelona were crossed off the list and to my dismay, Croatia has been ruled out. We agreed on touring Italy for 10 days. Our schedule will look a little something like this...Beginning May 4th - Prague-Venice-Pisa-Florence-Rome-Pompeii-Naples. If there are any suggestions about Must Sees in Italy, please let me know!!