The last couple of times I have gone to Spar or Hofer or any of our supermarkets, there has always been this unbelievably slow old lady in front of me. Amongst the normal old lady things they buy, tea, jam, and crumpets, there is usually one or two large cans of beer thrown in. It always throws me off but then I remember, "Oh yeah, I'm in Austria."
So finals are finally over! After my last one today I suppressed the urge to jump up in an explosion of papers and start singing a very specifically choriographed song with my classmates we had been practicing for the past two months, "What time is it? February!" They were a little stressful since its almost impossible to study in this country. For example on Saturday I got a call from my Host Mom and they invited me to go skiing. Can't pass that up can I? It was one of the better decisions I've made, it was such a beautiful day and I probably would've sat around thinking about studying and not getting anything accomplished. It was fun except for the part where I was trying to impress my family and their friends with my ever increasing skiing abilities and I wiped out for the first time in like 2 months in front of all these cool Austrians.
The finals themselves couldve been a lot worse, and I really lucked out. Beforehand when studying, the Austrians would freak out when I told them I had 5 tests in one week, apparently IF they had a finals they were spread out over a one month period in January.
Saturday evening was also the UniBall, the largest social event of the year. Faschings time as I may have mentioned before is the time of balls and the University hosted one the last weekend of the semester. We (the ND kids) had a little pre-party before the dance here in Roessl and everyone was all nicely dressed up. Then we all walked over to the ball together as a group. The ball itself was so fun, there were about 3 giant ballrooms, and a couple other places to dance, each with a different style of music and each with a live band. There was one playing with an orchestra playing the waltz and classical dances. When we walked in, and you saw all these people dancing around, it looked like you were walking into some cheezy Rogers and Hammerstein musical, everyone knew exactly how to waltz and everyone was gracefully spinning and whatnot in their coattails, long gowns and gloves. A couple of us tried to join in and we found two things: 1. Nobody really knows how to waltz; 2. Its really easy to pretend to know what you are doing. In the crowd of waltzers we got stepped on, jabbed and someone was always crashing in you. It felt like I was in the middle of a fist fight, I didnt know waltzing was so intense, there is so much dirty underhandedness that goes on within the dance floor. There was another room with a blues/swing band. None of the Austrians know how to swing dance and just tried to awkwardly waltz to the music. I definately impressed some when we started to Lindy Hop. There was another room with a rock cover band as well as a few discos. The ball went on till 6am but I left around three because I was dead tired from skiing that day, and I was thinking about all the studying I needed to get done in the next week.
I leave in a few hours for London to visit many friends and I am extremely excited, I cannot wait. Then I take the Chunnel to Paris to meet Christian for a few days then train back to IBK maybe stopping a night in Strassbourg. Ill post my overall travel plans after this.
Ciao!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Good day
I woke up, it had snowed all night, and it was clear and sunny. I donned my ski pants and jacket and took my skis and boots with me to class. At half past noon, class ended, I grabbed a sandwhich and apple at Spar and jumped on the bus. In the hour, I was on the slopes. It was amazingly clear, still, and sunny with a fresh batch of snow. I was almost alone on the mountain. After two and a half hours of amazing skiing, I jumped back on the bus, got back to the dorm, took a shower, got dressed and met everyone for Gemeinsammenesessen (weekly dinner with the Gürtlers in the historic center of town). I've decided to not do any work the rest of the night and get to bed early. Tomorrow begins the studying for finals.
And just for fun, and because it's kind of appropriate, I thought I'd include the following. Listen for the noises he makes when he goes off the ski jump, its the Fasching noises from last night.
And just for fun, and because it's kind of appropriate, I thought I'd include the following. Listen for the noises he makes when he goes off the ski jump, its the Fasching noises from last night.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Fertility Slaps
So after a long Monday night writing a long German paper for Poly Sci and a Theo paper fittingly about hell, I really wanted to get some sleep today. Tuesdays are my weekly dinner with my Gastfamilie so I was planning on having a quiet, short evening with them before heading back to Roessl, watching a movie and sleeping, little did I know that by the end of the night, I would have some fertility slapped in me.
I apologize for that last sentence, just read the rest of the post and it'll make more sense (hopefully).
Everything was going to plan, we had a nice meal of Kaesespatzle, a kind of Tirolean macoroni and cheese and we started watching a slalom ski race on TV. I kind of am obsessed with the sport now. I'm only mentioning this because we humorously discovered that there was some DJ playing songs when each racer went that correlated to their country of origin (sort of). I noticed this first with a Japanese skiier, they were playing "Kung Fu Fighting" when he went. Then we realized it wasn't a coincidence when ABBA started playing to the background of the Sweedish skier to go next. Then a crappy Italian pop song for the Suedtiroler skiier and so on. After discussing the political correctness of this DJ who had too much time on his hands, my Gastmutter randomly mentioned that she heard of a Faschings event going on in a small town 15 minutes away. We decided to check it out reguardless of my exhaustion, I can sleep when I'm older.
Fasching is the strange season that begins on November 11, (11-11) and extends until Lent. It is known as being the 'ball season' where various clubs and organizations throughout Austria host large black and white dances. I am going to the UniBall this Saturday, the largest University social event of the year. Another thing about Fasching is that there is a kind of traditional ceremony that the rural places still carry out. I am not really sure exactly what everything means but I think the general idea is to drive out winter and bring in the summer. You know, like any other pagan ritual. It involves men dressing in Lederhosen and elaborite masks, and what else, alcohol.
I had no idea what exactly we were going to, I'm not even sure my mother did, she just kind of read about it in the newspaper that morning. Well we arrive at this Gasthaus, a kind of traditional restraunt and apparently you needed tickets to get in and they were sold out, but they suggested we just stand at the doorway and look in the dining room as it all happens. So we each got a beer and waited for the festivites to begin. The room itself reminded me of a camp dining hall: a large wooden room with long tables, decorated very flamboyantly with colorful streamers and giant masks. Well, I guess we were standing in the kind of prep room before the 'performers' did their thing so a strange crowd of about 25 young men all arrived in strange costumes. They were wearing an assortment of clothing and the costumes included: disturbingly short lederhosen, colorful shag (think: gay chewbacca), suit with colorful pom poms glued all over, women's dresses, and a few suits with thousands of tiny pieces of wood hanging off that resemble those paint stirrers that hardware stores throw handfulls of at you whenever you approach the paint section. Right before they went on, they all put on these very interesting masks. Most were simply wooden carvings of a man's face with a kind of dirty porn star moustache with any assortment of decorations around it. These were both subtle and extreme. One had a 4 foot tall headdress kind of thing with mirrors, feathers, and sequins that he seemed to steal from an Elton John concert.
The festivities began when a masked man started playing an accordian and one by one each of the characters came out dancing and interacting with the crowd. First, these men dressed as hags went out and brushed people with their brooms. Then the men with the lederhosen ran out and started doing the traditional Tirolean dance called the Schuehplattler which is German for absolutely hilarious. It involves a lot of slapping, jumping, and high kicking to rhythms. If you ever stop laughing at them you would realize its a pretty complicated, rhythmic dance. Then the paint stirrer boys ran into the crowd with a twisting jerking dance that really made their outfits loud. Many of them were making the screaming noise that goofy would always make in cartoons when he would be falling or something, its really quite difficult to describe, a kind of high pitched "aaaaaaah hooo hoooie." But it wonder if Goofy was inspired from Tirolean Fasching ceremonies. This went on for some time and the men would go amongst the tables, reach into their costumes, pull out a flask, and offer some schnapps to the ladies. They would also give everyone a hefty slap which my gastmutter called a "Fruchtbarschlag" or a fertility slap. This went on for some time until the performers got tired, took of their masks and half their costumes, grabbed ein Bier and joined the party.
Apparently every town has their own traditions with the holiday, and every town has their own troupe of young men who do their own Faschings dance celebration. This night apparently 4 different towns were sending their dancers. I would have loved to stay and watch the next three towns' perfomances, but we didn't have anywhere to sit and I was already dog tired from the lack of sleep from the night before and the party went on till at least midnight so we decided to leave after this small but delicious taste of Tirolean tradition. When we went outside, it had started to snow for the first time since the new year. Looks like they need to work on their winter-driving out skills.
I apologize for that last sentence, just read the rest of the post and it'll make more sense (hopefully).
Everything was going to plan, we had a nice meal of Kaesespatzle, a kind of Tirolean macoroni and cheese and we started watching a slalom ski race on TV. I kind of am obsessed with the sport now. I'm only mentioning this because we humorously discovered that there was some DJ playing songs when each racer went that correlated to their country of origin (sort of). I noticed this first with a Japanese skiier, they were playing "Kung Fu Fighting" when he went. Then we realized it wasn't a coincidence when ABBA started playing to the background of the Sweedish skier to go next. Then a crappy Italian pop song for the Suedtiroler skiier and so on. After discussing the political correctness of this DJ who had too much time on his hands, my Gastmutter randomly mentioned that she heard of a Faschings event going on in a small town 15 minutes away. We decided to check it out reguardless of my exhaustion, I can sleep when I'm older.
Fasching is the strange season that begins on November 11, (11-11) and extends until Lent. It is known as being the 'ball season' where various clubs and organizations throughout Austria host large black and white dances. I am going to the UniBall this Saturday, the largest University social event of the year. Another thing about Fasching is that there is a kind of traditional ceremony that the rural places still carry out. I am not really sure exactly what everything means but I think the general idea is to drive out winter and bring in the summer. You know, like any other pagan ritual. It involves men dressing in Lederhosen and elaborite masks, and what else, alcohol.
I had no idea what exactly we were going to, I'm not even sure my mother did, she just kind of read about it in the newspaper that morning. Well we arrive at this Gasthaus, a kind of traditional restraunt and apparently you needed tickets to get in and they were sold out, but they suggested we just stand at the doorway and look in the dining room as it all happens. So we each got a beer and waited for the festivites to begin. The room itself reminded me of a camp dining hall: a large wooden room with long tables, decorated very flamboyantly with colorful streamers and giant masks. Well, I guess we were standing in the kind of prep room before the 'performers' did their thing so a strange crowd of about 25 young men all arrived in strange costumes. They were wearing an assortment of clothing and the costumes included: disturbingly short lederhosen, colorful shag (think: gay chewbacca), suit with colorful pom poms glued all over, women's dresses, and a few suits with thousands of tiny pieces of wood hanging off that resemble those paint stirrers that hardware stores throw handfulls of at you whenever you approach the paint section. Right before they went on, they all put on these very interesting masks. Most were simply wooden carvings of a man's face with a kind of dirty porn star moustache with any assortment of decorations around it. These were both subtle and extreme. One had a 4 foot tall headdress kind of thing with mirrors, feathers, and sequins that he seemed to steal from an Elton John concert.
The festivities began when a masked man started playing an accordian and one by one each of the characters came out dancing and interacting with the crowd. First, these men dressed as hags went out and brushed people with their brooms. Then the men with the lederhosen ran out and started doing the traditional Tirolean dance called the Schuehplattler which is German for absolutely hilarious. It involves a lot of slapping, jumping, and high kicking to rhythms. If you ever stop laughing at them you would realize its a pretty complicated, rhythmic dance. Then the paint stirrer boys ran into the crowd with a twisting jerking dance that really made their outfits loud. Many of them were making the screaming noise that goofy would always make in cartoons when he would be falling or something, its really quite difficult to describe, a kind of high pitched "aaaaaaah hooo hoooie." But it wonder if Goofy was inspired from Tirolean Fasching ceremonies. This went on for some time and the men would go amongst the tables, reach into their costumes, pull out a flask, and offer some schnapps to the ladies. They would also give everyone a hefty slap which my gastmutter called a "Fruchtbarschlag" or a fertility slap. This went on for some time until the performers got tired, took of their masks and half their costumes, grabbed ein Bier and joined the party.
Apparently every town has their own traditions with the holiday, and every town has their own troupe of young men who do their own Faschings dance celebration. This night apparently 4 different towns were sending their dancers. I would have loved to stay and watch the next three towns' perfomances, but we didn't have anywhere to sit and I was already dog tired from the lack of sleep from the night before and the party went on till at least midnight so we decided to leave after this small but delicious taste of Tirolean tradition. When we went outside, it had started to snow for the first time since the new year. Looks like they need to work on their winter-driving out skills.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Austrian Sporting Events
Real short, I feel real good about February, I have finally finished purchasing all of my transportation connections.
I'll post later exactly where I am going to be and when.
Friday afternoon, Mariel tells me that there is an Innsbruck CouchSurfing meeting that we could go to. CouchSurfing is a social networking website that we just joined where you can connect with people in other cities and stay with them (i.e. surf their couch) for free. It sounds sketchy but they have pretty decent ways of checking up on people. I am planning on trying this out in Portugal so I thought it would be fun to check out this meeting. Well we arrive and apparenly it was an Innsbruck ExPat (Ex-Patriots) club group that some lady advertized on the CouchSurfing site. We didnt really quite read the invite right. It was not quite what I was expecting, but we were kind of socially obligated to stay and talk to some other fellow Americans/Italians/Irish/Australians. It was quite a unique group of people from folk songwriters to freelance band photographers and the whole time I kept asking myself how the heck I got myself into this crazy situation. They were unbelievably nice and they kept talking about meeting up in the future for parties and such but if I didn't have: 13 other native speakers from ND to be friends with, an obligation to leave the country in 5 months, a Gastfamilie, a decent grasp of the German Language, and a life, I may consider to spend more time with these people.
Today, Saturday, Mariel and I awoke before the sun to drag ourselves to the train station and go to Kitzbühel to see the world famous Hahnekamm Ski World Cup race. Kitzbühel is essentually where I was all of Christmas break and it was awesome to see this race on the mountain I had been skiing on just a month ago.
As a side note, on the way there, we had a layover in the small town of Woergl, and on a whim (and since I am terrified of the IBK train station ticket office and the beast that roams there) I decided to try to get another Interrail pass for my February travels. And I tried to keep my cool amongst my excitement when I was able to get it no problem.
Anyways, this event is probably Austria's biggest sporting event of the year. Austria really has nothing going for it with sports other than skiing. Their Fußball team is horrible and only reason why they are playing in the world championship this summer is because there will be a few games in Innsbruck. This event (the Saturday race) is the worlds longest and most difficult downhill ski run. There is a point where there is an 85% grade and even the snow grooming machines can't make it up so they call in the Austrian army early in the morning to march around and pack down the snow. In living here for the past 5 months, it seems that the Austrian army's most important jobs include cleaning up the Pope-trash in Vienna, parading in order to groom snow, and wearing red berets.
After sitting on an hour train ride packed with people and watching all the Austrians down beer and schnapps all before 10am, and making friends with an Australian snowboarder named Luke living/bartending in London for the year, we finally arrived and joined the mayhem. Austrians were running around everywhere, waving the flag, blowing airhorns, ect. I all thought that they had lipstick kiss marks on their faces but on closer look, it was just the red, white, red stripes of the Austrian flag painted on their cheeks. Mariel and I made our way up to the end of the run to stake out a spot for the race in two hours. As we slipped and slid in the snow our way to the stadium/holding area for people, the stumble drunk Austrians were easily passing us with their geneticly inherited Tirolean snow-legs. We found a good spot between the finish line and where the skiiers stop and celebrate about two hours before the race and made an Austrian friend who was telling us all about the sport and the racers (very helpful since mariel and I were fairly lost). The event itself was extremely similar to any other sporting event, including a pregame show with parachuters, hang gliders, cameramen amonst the crowd, and cheerleaders "the Alpine Angels," commercial breaks between races, and music to pump up the crowd (their 'Jock Jams' are a pleasant blend of polka and yodeling). The race was suprisingly exciting, we could watch the racers on a big screen then see them come around the corner at the top of the mountain and watch them finish the last fourth of the course as they raced against the best time. The only racer I knew was Bode Miller who the Austrians all love but the Americans all hate which which resulted in a confusing number of American flags in the crowd (carried by Austrian Bode supporters).
Unfortunately we witnessed a really bad fall. Scott McCartney, the first American skiier, and second of the day, wiped out really bad right at the end of the race resulting in them stopping the race for a half hour as they airlifted him out. It was really disturbing. As he was coming down, the announcer announced that it was his birthday today and before he finished, he got the entire crowd to start singing "Happy Birthday to you" as he came close. He got a little too much air from a ledge and lost control (it seemed as if he was distracted from the singing) and well you can see the rest here:
He stopped sliding right in front of where we were standing and the whole crowd went silent as he started convulsing with shock. I was almost sure he was dead or paralyzed but apparently it was just severe head trauma. He is doing alright now at the Innsbruck Clinic. Some birthday...
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/skiing/news/story?id=3204103
It was kind of a buzz-kill for the crowd but they livened up after they announced he was conscious, and the energy returned.
After the race, we decided we were exhausted after getting up so early and standing all day and decided to head back rather than wait for the fireworks display that evening. Before heading back to Innsbruck, Mariel and I walked around the city to check out the party of wasted Austrians dancing around and belting the words to "I'm Walking on Sunshine." And then we joined the crowd as we tried to set the Guinness record for how many drunk Austrians we could fit on the train in the short 50 min ride back to Innsbruck.
I'll post later exactly where I am going to be and when.
Friday afternoon, Mariel tells me that there is an Innsbruck CouchSurfing meeting that we could go to. CouchSurfing is a social networking website that we just joined where you can connect with people in other cities and stay with them (i.e. surf their couch) for free. It sounds sketchy but they have pretty decent ways of checking up on people. I am planning on trying this out in Portugal so I thought it would be fun to check out this meeting. Well we arrive and apparenly it was an Innsbruck ExPat (Ex-Patriots) club group that some lady advertized on the CouchSurfing site. We didnt really quite read the invite right. It was not quite what I was expecting, but we were kind of socially obligated to stay and talk to some other fellow Americans/Italians/Irish/Australians. It was quite a unique group of people from folk songwriters to freelance band photographers and the whole time I kept asking myself how the heck I got myself into this crazy situation. They were unbelievably nice and they kept talking about meeting up in the future for parties and such but if I didn't have: 13 other native speakers from ND to be friends with, an obligation to leave the country in 5 months, a Gastfamilie, a decent grasp of the German Language, and a life, I may consider to spend more time with these people.
Today, Saturday, Mariel and I awoke before the sun to drag ourselves to the train station and go to Kitzbühel to see the world famous Hahnekamm Ski World Cup race. Kitzbühel is essentually where I was all of Christmas break and it was awesome to see this race on the mountain I had been skiing on just a month ago.
As a side note, on the way there, we had a layover in the small town of Woergl, and on a whim (and since I am terrified of the IBK train station ticket office and the beast that roams there) I decided to try to get another Interrail pass for my February travels. And I tried to keep my cool amongst my excitement when I was able to get it no problem.
Anyways, this event is probably Austria's biggest sporting event of the year. Austria really has nothing going for it with sports other than skiing. Their Fußball team is horrible and only reason why they are playing in the world championship this summer is because there will be a few games in Innsbruck. This event (the Saturday race) is the worlds longest and most difficult downhill ski run. There is a point where there is an 85% grade and even the snow grooming machines can't make it up so they call in the Austrian army early in the morning to march around and pack down the snow. In living here for the past 5 months, it seems that the Austrian army's most important jobs include cleaning up the Pope-trash in Vienna, parading in order to groom snow, and wearing red berets.
After sitting on an hour train ride packed with people and watching all the Austrians down beer and schnapps all before 10am, and making friends with an Australian snowboarder named Luke living/bartending in London for the year, we finally arrived and joined the mayhem. Austrians were running around everywhere, waving the flag, blowing airhorns, ect. I all thought that they had lipstick kiss marks on their faces but on closer look, it was just the red, white, red stripes of the Austrian flag painted on their cheeks. Mariel and I made our way up to the end of the run to stake out a spot for the race in two hours. As we slipped and slid in the snow our way to the stadium/holding area for people, the stumble drunk Austrians were easily passing us with their geneticly inherited Tirolean snow-legs. We found a good spot between the finish line and where the skiiers stop and celebrate about two hours before the race and made an Austrian friend who was telling us all about the sport and the racers (very helpful since mariel and I were fairly lost). The event itself was extremely similar to any other sporting event, including a pregame show with parachuters, hang gliders, cameramen amonst the crowd, and cheerleaders "the Alpine Angels," commercial breaks between races, and music to pump up the crowd (their 'Jock Jams' are a pleasant blend of polka and yodeling). The race was suprisingly exciting, we could watch the racers on a big screen then see them come around the corner at the top of the mountain and watch them finish the last fourth of the course as they raced against the best time. The only racer I knew was Bode Miller who the Austrians all love but the Americans all hate which which resulted in a confusing number of American flags in the crowd (carried by Austrian Bode supporters).
Unfortunately we witnessed a really bad fall. Scott McCartney, the first American skiier, and second of the day, wiped out really bad right at the end of the race resulting in them stopping the race for a half hour as they airlifted him out. It was really disturbing. As he was coming down, the announcer announced that it was his birthday today and before he finished, he got the entire crowd to start singing "Happy Birthday to you" as he came close. He got a little too much air from a ledge and lost control (it seemed as if he was distracted from the singing) and well you can see the rest here:
He stopped sliding right in front of where we were standing and the whole crowd went silent as he started convulsing with shock. I was almost sure he was dead or paralyzed but apparently it was just severe head trauma. He is doing alright now at the Innsbruck Clinic. Some birthday...
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/skiing/news/story?id=3204103
It was kind of a buzz-kill for the crowd but they livened up after they announced he was conscious, and the energy returned.
After the race, we decided we were exhausted after getting up so early and standing all day and decided to head back rather than wait for the fireworks display that evening. Before heading back to Innsbruck, Mariel and I walked around the city to check out the party of wasted Austrians dancing around and belting the words to "I'm Walking on Sunshine." And then we joined the crowd as we tried to set the Guinness record for how many drunk Austrians we could fit on the train in the short 50 min ride back to Innsbruck.
Monday, January 14, 2008
My host mom admits she is very spontaneous
Unfortunately for me, she will often call me a half hour before doing something to see if I want to come along, such as hiking, movies, or skiing. Unfortunately whenever she calls, I am busy sleeping (usually the case) or in the middle of something else. Finally I asked her to kind of warn me of when she might be spontaneous in the future so that I could be prepared/awake. She had warned me last night that she would call me today at 11 am. At 10am, my cell phone vibrates off the table and crashes into a bunch of pieces. Putting my cell phone back together was truly a great way to start the morning. It ended up being my host mom telling me she was coming to pick me up in an hour to go skiing. Dead tired from our previous evening’s activities involving ping pong balls and disturbingly dirty plastic cups, I convince myself to go and hastily throw on my ski clothes: long underwear, ski pants, and jacket. She picks me up and we run out and go skiing which is basically 3 runs then 3 hours at an Alm or restraint lodge thing in the middle of the run with her friends.
After she invited me and the friends we met over to her house for coffee. I agreed to come even though I have a lot of stuff to do. A few hours later, after her friends leave, I look at my host mom to grab her keys and take me back. Instead, she grabs her Robbie Williams Concert DVD and pops it in and asks me to sit down. If you are unfamiliar, Robbie Williams is one of the most famous British pop stars out there now but no one in America has heard of him even though all of Europe, especially my host mom is obsessed. For the next two hours I sat through my host mom snapping her fingers and singing along to the music. He was a decent performer the music was catchy but it got a little ridiculous. When the concert ended, she started preparing dinner, I guess I’m staying over for dinner now. I wasn’t complaining, I didn’t really have anything to eat back at the dorm anyways. After dinner then I guess it was time to watch Der Bourne Identität which they had never seen before. Mind you, unprepared for this 12 hour day with my family, all I am wearing this whole time is my loud swishy ski pants and my awkwardly tight fitting long underwear top. By the time it was 9:30 I felt like it was late enough for me to leave and I suggested I could take the bus but they insisted to take me. By the time I got back to the room I was so tired, I crashed and got no work done.
Little did I know that “picking you up for skiing” was hostfamilyish for “kidnapping you for 12 hours” I suppose all kidnappers rely on spontaneity.
After she invited me and the friends we met over to her house for coffee. I agreed to come even though I have a lot of stuff to do. A few hours later, after her friends leave, I look at my host mom to grab her keys and take me back. Instead, she grabs her Robbie Williams Concert DVD and pops it in and asks me to sit down. If you are unfamiliar, Robbie Williams is one of the most famous British pop stars out there now but no one in America has heard of him even though all of Europe, especially my host mom is obsessed. For the next two hours I sat through my host mom snapping her fingers and singing along to the music. He was a decent performer the music was catchy but it got a little ridiculous. When the concert ended, she started preparing dinner, I guess I’m staying over for dinner now. I wasn’t complaining, I didn’t really have anything to eat back at the dorm anyways. After dinner then I guess it was time to watch Der Bourne Identität which they had never seen before. Mind you, unprepared for this 12 hour day with my family, all I am wearing this whole time is my loud swishy ski pants and my awkwardly tight fitting long underwear top. By the time it was 9:30 I felt like it was late enough for me to leave and I suggested I could take the bus but they insisted to take me. By the time I got back to the room I was so tired, I crashed and got no work done.
Little did I know that “picking you up for skiing” was hostfamilyish for “kidnapping you for 12 hours” I suppose all kidnappers rely on spontaneity.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Florence et al.
Kevin and I got up early the next morning and our hostess was nice enough to cook us an "american" egg and bacon breakfast. They were way too nice.
Then we hit up Pisa which doesn't really have much going for it other than the Field of Miracles where the Cathedral, Baptistry, and world famous falling over bell tower all sit. Most images of Pisa just include the tower but I think the whole field is really beautiful. After laughing at all of the silly Japanese tourists attempting to prevent the Tower from falling over we got the urge and took some cheezy pictures when no one was looking. For the sake of alliteration, I even coughed up 1.50 euro to photodocument me feasting on a piece of Pisa pizza in front of the leaning tower. If the internet was a little better I would be able to upload it.
After Pisa, we planned to go to Volterra, a small hill town that has an interesting Etruscan history to it. In order to get there we took a train to Pontederra and then a bus to Volterra. The train/bus schedules didn't quite match up and so we had to wait in Pontederra for about an hour and a half. After being there for 5 minutes, I decided that God likely used this city as inspiration for purgatory. Optimistic we walked around looking for an old part of the city, a church perhaps or something but no. There is nothing but random shops that seemed to sell decorations in your house that were left over from the 1980s, the world's most boring river/canal/resivoir thing, and some wierd colorful paper maché art randomly stuck in the middle of a traffic circle. NEVER go to Pontederra, your brain will eat itself in boredom. Trust me, I've never had a more mind-numbing hour in my life.
The drive to Volterra alone was worth the trip, we drove through small Tuscan villages, by large villas, and there were always hills in the distance topped with tiny towns and skylined with bell towers. The city itself was also really quaint, it reminded me of an Italian, less touristy Rothenberg. We walked around for a few hours and explored the tiny city with stunning views of the surrounding countryside. Other than that, there is really not much in Volterra. It was cute but small and a little unexciting but I'm glad we went nonethelss.
We got back to Florence that evening and met up with the other group at our hostel, an old convent. It was one of my more memorable hostelling experiences since we were in a 22 person dorm room. During the night I would have my own private concert of a symphony including sounds from around the world.
The next day we decided to stay in Florence. This included waiting in line for 2 hours at the Uffizi Museum because Betsy refused to pay the 3 euro reservation fee, walking around the city, having a religious experience at the Accedemia when looking at Michelangelo's the David, and making friends with the gelato man after purchasing our 3rd gelato at the same locale, "Grom" within a timespan of 2 hours. We took the fact that it was all organic to mean it was actually healthy for you. Then I wanted to take a picture in front of the fake David in front of the Ufizzi because I feel I resemble him, kind of. This was a mistake on my part because it opened a can of worms of everyone else trying to imitate every statue in Florence (there is a lot). Posing as Muses, Hermes, and famous Florentines is all fun but I felt it got a little out of control when they started reenacting a statue of a centuar (Betsy as the horse-ass) and especially the statue of the rape of the Sabine women. Apparently the Italian police felt the same way.
After another moving evening concert, this time including a commentary in Portugese, we moved to our new lodgings (it was way cheaper to stay in two places in Florence...claims Betsy) to a room for just the 6 of us more in the heart of the city. We then all parted ways and Anthony went to Rome in an attempt to see the entire city in a few hours where we think he contracted ebola or something (explained later), Betsy, Julie, and Monika went to Pisa, and Kevin and I went to Lucca. We really enjoyed Lucca a lot, the nice weather that day also really helped; it was sunny for most of the afternoon. Lucca is nestled in a valley and has this neat rennaissance town wall that is now a raised bike path/park around the old part of the city. It also has some neat buildings such as a unique circle of structure that is just houses built into an old Roman amphitheater and an old mechant family's tower with a garden on top including large oak trees. It was also in Lucca that we came across Henry, the pidgeon who almost was, or who was then wasn't or maybe the most pathetic thing I have seen in my life. Here is his story: After visiting the cathedral, we heard a small squeaking sound and discovered a juvinle pidgeon freaking out around the door. We started to try to feed it bread because we had some and it stupidly ran away from. But other pidgeons came flying in and eating the bread, and then Henry would see them eating then try to take the bread from their mouths. The whole thing was hilariously pathetic. We kept throwing bread at Henry and he would run away until the othe pigeons ate it. I think he figured it out after a while. We taught Henry how to eat bread. We had a bond. Well we turn away, satisfied about helping a poor dirty pigeon learn to live in such a cold, dark, hurtful world. Two minutes later a car drove by and we hear a squash sound and some people gasping. There, was Henry squished into the pavement. He had a wing half-raised as if a waving goodbye to us. We then felt like it was then probably a good time to leave Lucca.
The next day, we made it to Siena, which was probably my favorite city of the trip, even though we had the worst weather. In this city there are 17 different neighborhoods and each has its own mascot as well as colors and a coat of arms. The mascots are fairly normal such as eagle, panther, dragon ect. But they also have some strange ones such as snail, shell, goose, and she-wolf. My favorite was catepillar. Every neighborhood also has its own fountain or well as well as a church. There is competition between the neighborhoods since every summer there is a horse race in the center of town where each neighborhood submitts a rider and horse and the winner gets bragging rights for the next year. Well we spent most of the day walking around the city and looking at the signs on the buildings to figure out what neighborhood we were in and trying to find their fountain. Conversations usually went like "Ooooh look! We're now in giraffe!" And then we would discuss how giraffe could totally beat forest by eating all the leaves but forest has a rhino on the crest which could totally beat out any giraffe. It escilated and got a little rediculous when we were in unicorn and we found what we believed was a unicorn grotto which then resulted in some people having a unicorn fight. I guess this is what we do... Many college students go to Europe to get sloshed, we go to have unicorn fights in Siena.
The next day we had to head back to Innsbruck but before, we had a very long night ahead of us. We had an early train the next morning and we had a late night to bed, mostly because of an improptu shadow show before we went to bed, dont ask. At about 2 am, I wake up to Anthony cursing and trying to leave the room to use the rest room. When he came back, he was just lying in bed making noises which he later called "dramatic breathing." After about an hour of this and me being unable to sleep I turn over, annoyed, and ask him if anything was wrong. He kind of mindlessly mumbles nonsense but I figured he had a bad case of food poisoning. Not knowing what to do, I just put the trash can near his bed for him to boot in and try to sleep. Well with the dramatic breathing all night and the hasty trips to the bathroom sleep didnt happen. The alarm rings and I realize we have to somehow get Anthony to the train station in this state. He was still making trips to the bathroom enjoying his last few meals in reverse. With an hour before our train left, we packed up all of his stuff, and wait for a lull in the action. It didnt come until about 30 minutes before the train left. We grab him, throw clothes on him and drag him on the 15 minute walk through Florence to the train station in pouring rain. Somehow we made it minutes before the train left, and we throw him in his reserved compartment full of Italians who have no idea how much fun their ride with Anthony will be for the next seven hours, luckily I was not among them. Since he is still alive, we figure he didn't have ebola.
Monika and I decided to stop in Verona for a few hours on our way back to Innsbruck. I'm glad I went, it was a very beautiful city but I was exhausted and kind of wanted to get back to IBK. Monika loved the city, she also had a little more energy since she slept through the exciting events of the night before. It was a little exciting when we almost missed our train coming back to Innsbruck.
We finally got back to Innsbruck and everyone who had gone home to America was already back and we spent the rest of the evening catching up and it was good to see everyone again.
Then we hit up Pisa which doesn't really have much going for it other than the Field of Miracles where the Cathedral, Baptistry, and world famous falling over bell tower all sit. Most images of Pisa just include the tower but I think the whole field is really beautiful. After laughing at all of the silly Japanese tourists attempting to prevent the Tower from falling over we got the urge and took some cheezy pictures when no one was looking. For the sake of alliteration, I even coughed up 1.50 euro to photodocument me feasting on a piece of Pisa pizza in front of the leaning tower. If the internet was a little better I would be able to upload it.
After Pisa, we planned to go to Volterra, a small hill town that has an interesting Etruscan history to it. In order to get there we took a train to Pontederra and then a bus to Volterra. The train/bus schedules didn't quite match up and so we had to wait in Pontederra for about an hour and a half. After being there for 5 minutes, I decided that God likely used this city as inspiration for purgatory. Optimistic we walked around looking for an old part of the city, a church perhaps or something but no. There is nothing but random shops that seemed to sell decorations in your house that were left over from the 1980s, the world's most boring river/canal/resivoir thing, and some wierd colorful paper maché art randomly stuck in the middle of a traffic circle. NEVER go to Pontederra, your brain will eat itself in boredom. Trust me, I've never had a more mind-numbing hour in my life.
The drive to Volterra alone was worth the trip, we drove through small Tuscan villages, by large villas, and there were always hills in the distance topped with tiny towns and skylined with bell towers. The city itself was also really quaint, it reminded me of an Italian, less touristy Rothenberg. We walked around for a few hours and explored the tiny city with stunning views of the surrounding countryside. Other than that, there is really not much in Volterra. It was cute but small and a little unexciting but I'm glad we went nonethelss.
We got back to Florence that evening and met up with the other group at our hostel, an old convent. It was one of my more memorable hostelling experiences since we were in a 22 person dorm room. During the night I would have my own private concert of a symphony including sounds from around the world.
The next day we decided to stay in Florence. This included waiting in line for 2 hours at the Uffizi Museum because Betsy refused to pay the 3 euro reservation fee, walking around the city, having a religious experience at the Accedemia when looking at Michelangelo's the David, and making friends with the gelato man after purchasing our 3rd gelato at the same locale, "Grom" within a timespan of 2 hours. We took the fact that it was all organic to mean it was actually healthy for you. Then I wanted to take a picture in front of the fake David in front of the Ufizzi because I feel I resemble him, kind of. This was a mistake on my part because it opened a can of worms of everyone else trying to imitate every statue in Florence (there is a lot). Posing as Muses, Hermes, and famous Florentines is all fun but I felt it got a little out of control when they started reenacting a statue of a centuar (Betsy as the horse-ass) and especially the statue of the rape of the Sabine women. Apparently the Italian police felt the same way.
After another moving evening concert, this time including a commentary in Portugese, we moved to our new lodgings (it was way cheaper to stay in two places in Florence...claims Betsy) to a room for just the 6 of us more in the heart of the city. We then all parted ways and Anthony went to Rome in an attempt to see the entire city in a few hours where we think he contracted ebola or something (explained later), Betsy, Julie, and Monika went to Pisa, and Kevin and I went to Lucca. We really enjoyed Lucca a lot, the nice weather that day also really helped; it was sunny for most of the afternoon. Lucca is nestled in a valley and has this neat rennaissance town wall that is now a raised bike path/park around the old part of the city. It also has some neat buildings such as a unique circle of structure that is just houses built into an old Roman amphitheater and an old mechant family's tower with a garden on top including large oak trees. It was also in Lucca that we came across Henry, the pidgeon who almost was, or who was then wasn't or maybe the most pathetic thing I have seen in my life. Here is his story: After visiting the cathedral, we heard a small squeaking sound and discovered a juvinle pidgeon freaking out around the door. We started to try to feed it bread because we had some and it stupidly ran away from. But other pidgeons came flying in and eating the bread, and then Henry would see them eating then try to take the bread from their mouths. The whole thing was hilariously pathetic. We kept throwing bread at Henry and he would run away until the othe pigeons ate it. I think he figured it out after a while. We taught Henry how to eat bread. We had a bond. Well we turn away, satisfied about helping a poor dirty pigeon learn to live in such a cold, dark, hurtful world. Two minutes later a car drove by and we hear a squash sound and some people gasping. There, was Henry squished into the pavement. He had a wing half-raised as if a waving goodbye to us. We then felt like it was then probably a good time to leave Lucca.
The next day, we made it to Siena, which was probably my favorite city of the trip, even though we had the worst weather. In this city there are 17 different neighborhoods and each has its own mascot as well as colors and a coat of arms. The mascots are fairly normal such as eagle, panther, dragon ect. But they also have some strange ones such as snail, shell, goose, and she-wolf. My favorite was catepillar. Every neighborhood also has its own fountain or well as well as a church. There is competition between the neighborhoods since every summer there is a horse race in the center of town where each neighborhood submitts a rider and horse and the winner gets bragging rights for the next year. Well we spent most of the day walking around the city and looking at the signs on the buildings to figure out what neighborhood we were in and trying to find their fountain. Conversations usually went like "Ooooh look! We're now in giraffe!" And then we would discuss how giraffe could totally beat forest by eating all the leaves but forest has a rhino on the crest which could totally beat out any giraffe. It escilated and got a little rediculous when we were in unicorn and we found what we believed was a unicorn grotto which then resulted in some people having a unicorn fight. I guess this is what we do... Many college students go to Europe to get sloshed, we go to have unicorn fights in Siena.
The next day we had to head back to Innsbruck but before, we had a very long night ahead of us. We had an early train the next morning and we had a late night to bed, mostly because of an improptu shadow show before we went to bed, dont ask. At about 2 am, I wake up to Anthony cursing and trying to leave the room to use the rest room. When he came back, he was just lying in bed making noises which he later called "dramatic breathing." After about an hour of this and me being unable to sleep I turn over, annoyed, and ask him if anything was wrong. He kind of mindlessly mumbles nonsense but I figured he had a bad case of food poisoning. Not knowing what to do, I just put the trash can near his bed for him to boot in and try to sleep. Well with the dramatic breathing all night and the hasty trips to the bathroom sleep didnt happen. The alarm rings and I realize we have to somehow get Anthony to the train station in this state. He was still making trips to the bathroom enjoying his last few meals in reverse. With an hour before our train left, we packed up all of his stuff, and wait for a lull in the action. It didnt come until about 30 minutes before the train left. We grab him, throw clothes on him and drag him on the 15 minute walk through Florence to the train station in pouring rain. Somehow we made it minutes before the train left, and we throw him in his reserved compartment full of Italians who have no idea how much fun their ride with Anthony will be for the next seven hours, luckily I was not among them. Since he is still alive, we figure he didn't have ebola.
Monika and I decided to stop in Verona for a few hours on our way back to Innsbruck. I'm glad I went, it was a very beautiful city but I was exhausted and kind of wanted to get back to IBK. Monika loved the city, she also had a little more energy since she slept through the exciting events of the night before. It was a little exciting when we almost missed our train coming back to Innsbruck.
We finally got back to Innsbruck and everyone who had gone home to America was already back and we spent the rest of the evening catching up and it was good to see everyone again.
This week
I am going to try to blog more often now until I have finished what I have left out in the past couple of months. I have decided to start at the present and work my way backwards so if you dont check the blog for a week or two itll all be in chronological order. This is more for me and I apologize if you are overwhelmed.
This week was fairly uneventful. We had classes resume and it seems like this month is going to be a lot of work before we have finals in the last week of January. Amongst studying for finals, I have a couple of large papers to write in German as well as planning for all of the travel we'll be doing after finals. We were looking at our calendars, and with the semester break and the spring break we have around easter, we only have 4 days of class in the months of February and March. Places I am hopefully going to travel to are: London, Paris, Egypt, Spain, Morocco, Holland, Belgum, Croatia, Slovenia.
One quasi-eventful occurence that happened is that for the second time this year, der Föhn came at the end of this week. It is an extremely dry wind that comes from the south and blows through the Inn valley for a couple of days. If you live in Southern California or are familiar with the movie "The Holiday" it is very similar to the Santa Anna winds. The Austrians all claim that it makes everyone go crazy and Professor Giacomuzzi told me that you'll know that der Fön is here or coming when you see people stumbling down the street in a daze. I was joking about it with my Gastfamilie one time and my Gastmutter gave me a stern look and told me it is not a laughing matter. I beg to differ.
This week was fairly uneventful. We had classes resume and it seems like this month is going to be a lot of work before we have finals in the last week of January. Amongst studying for finals, I have a couple of large papers to write in German as well as planning for all of the travel we'll be doing after finals. We were looking at our calendars, and with the semester break and the spring break we have around easter, we only have 4 days of class in the months of February and March. Places I am hopefully going to travel to are: London, Paris, Egypt, Spain, Morocco, Holland, Belgum, Croatia, Slovenia.
One quasi-eventful occurence that happened is that for the second time this year, der Föhn came at the end of this week. It is an extremely dry wind that comes from the south and blows through the Inn valley for a couple of days. If you live in Southern California or are familiar with the movie "The Holiday" it is very similar to the Santa Anna winds. The Austrians all claim that it makes everyone go crazy and Professor Giacomuzzi told me that you'll know that der Fön is here or coming when you see people stumbling down the street in a daze. I was joking about it with my Gastfamilie one time and my Gastmutter gave me a stern look and told me it is not a laughing matter. I beg to differ.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Made it to Tuscany
After taking 10 hours or roundabout trains, Kevin and I finally made it here to Florence. We were planning on spending the night in a small hill town of Volterra, about two hours outside of the city, but unlike the Austrians, nobody actually works on holidays so that means no transportation to get there. Serously, how are these two countries neighbors?
On the way we did pick up a small Interrail pass (take that devil woman) in Verona. We did have problems like in Austria where one guy told us we had to be Italian to get it. But we tried again with the guy next door and even though this guy was yelling around the office about how to get us this pass, making the other guy well aware it was our second try, in true Italian form he could care less.
I had called some family friends who live in Florence for their help in figuring out whether we could make it to Volterra. They were the ones who informed us that we would be unable to make it there and they invited us to come to their house once we arrived in Florence. Expecting them to help us find a room in a hostel or something, we arrived, and they had already made us two beds for us to stay for the night. They were unbelievably nice and told us we were joining them for dinner. They helped us figure out our travel plans and then we had a home cooked feast, finished by a long due pumkin pie. The fact that there is no canned pumpkin, condensed milk, or pie tins in Europe made this treat a huge treat for us especially since it was the only thing missing from my Thanksgiving and Christmas meals.
Well so much for spending the night in the train station.
On the way we did pick up a small Interrail pass (take that devil woman) in Verona. We did have problems like in Austria where one guy told us we had to be Italian to get it. But we tried again with the guy next door and even though this guy was yelling around the office about how to get us this pass, making the other guy well aware it was our second try, in true Italian form he could care less.
I had called some family friends who live in Florence for their help in figuring out whether we could make it to Volterra. They were the ones who informed us that we would be unable to make it there and they invited us to come to their house once we arrived in Florence. Expecting them to help us find a room in a hostel or something, we arrived, and they had already made us two beds for us to stay for the night. They were unbelievably nice and told us we were joining them for dinner. They helped us figure out our travel plans and then we had a home cooked feast, finished by a long due pumkin pie. The fact that there is no canned pumpkin, condensed milk, or pie tins in Europe made this treat a huge treat for us especially since it was the only thing missing from my Thanksgiving and Christmas meals.
Well so much for spending the night in the train station.
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