I'm really sad to leave London tomorrow, its been amazing to catch up with everyone and just hang out like last year, but in one of the world's largest cities.
On Friday, after running into the wonderfully free National Gallery to visit a Caravaggio painting I did a report on in Art History this semester, K. Swiss and I wandered east to the Tower of London. We spent the rest of the day just kind of walking around markets and the river and parks, basically the free stuff. That evening four of us attempted to get the supposedly cheap student tickets sold an hour before performances for 'Billy Elliot, the Musical!' They weren't as cheap as we were expecting but it was worth it since it was such a fun show. Unfortunately it wasn't quite the show stopping, finger snapping, rockin' show I would expect to come from Sir Elton John (i.e. Aida & Lion King) since the story has its depressing aspects. Otherwise the music was good and the lead kid was an amazing dancer (as well as actor, singer, and person with the ability to speak in the difficult northern English accent). After going to the show, we all decided that after seeing what this kid could do, we have had nothing accomplished in our life.
The next morning, we ran off to Notting Hill to relive our favorite moments from the Hugh Grant movie as well as Bednobs and Broomsticks in Portebello Road. We were able to find the Travel Bookstore, and ran inside all excited until we were forced to leave after the woman at the desk realized we weren't actually going to buy anything. We unfortunately were not able to find the second half of a spell book I had used to start a home witching course amongst the antique gazelle magnifying glasses and "The Ladies Guide to Household Life." When we were tired of the crouds, I convinced Jillian to come with me to see if we could get cheap tickets to a matinee of "We Will Rock You," the Queen musical since I am a closet Queen fan. I will admit that I had a really good time, although the cultured side of me was looking at how idiotic the entire premise was. It was essentually a really good Queen coverband with excellent singers and good visuals all barely held together with strange dialouge that was mostly blatant British sexual innuendos. I didn't really realize how hilariously rediculous the story was until we tried explaining it to others after we got back. "Galileo Figero" is a rebel bohemian in a futuristic Orwellian society run by "The Killer Queen" and he must free the world with rock music by finding a guitar the band, Queen, had hid in a rock 300 years prior, all while having a budding relationship with his fellow bohemian girlfriend, "Saramouche." It was amusing just watching how they would try to force the songs onto us: Galileo complaining about how restricting the society is, then looking off into space as a key-note rings and he starts to belt "I want to break freee!" On a side note, "Lord of the Rings, the Musical!" is playing here, but unfortunately I heard it is both really expensive and really long and boring. That evening, we sat around and it strangely felt like I was back in Zahm as people were just wandering in and out of rooms, especially when a group of boys in the room next door came into the room because there was a small cooking fire in their flat and someone freaked out with the fire extinguisher until there was a rather pleasant layer of choking dust settled over everthing. The evening ended in a failed attempt to go to a pub with supposedly cheap drinks but there was a long line to get in and we weren't privy to waiting.
Today was really fun. We started at the east end where Jack the Ripper did his ripping. This is also were Brick Road is, the center of Hugonaut, Jewish, and Bangledeshian cultures, incuding a multitude of funky markets, the best I've seen in Europe so far. After a delicious lunch of curry in one of the famous indian restraunts there, we headed off to Kings Cross Station to visit probably the one real Harry Potter setting...okay, well the only HP setting that Muggles can actually visit. On the way, we obviously had to stop in the Angel Tube station since Laura informed us it was home to the world's longest escalator. It was quite impressive. Then on to platform 9 3/4. We had lots of fun running back and fourth between the barrier there with our carts, but it was kind of unexciting as the Hogwarts Express had left months ago. We ended the afternoon with a nice and free organ concert in Wesminster Abbey which also gave me a free view into the abbey itself. Tonight I think is going to be an early one as I have fairly early train train to catch through the Chunnel to Paris tomorrow morning.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Friday, February 1, 2008
Londoning
Yay, I am in London! I ran to the airport, an hour or two after my last Theo final. During my really painless flight from the IBK airport to Gatwick (which cost less than the transportation from the airport to the city), I could barely contain myself, I was just so excited to see all my friends here.
When I arrived, it was like a mini reunion with all of my friends, some of which I hadn't seen since last June. After seeing everyone and getting settled in my old roommate's flat where I am staying, we went out to experience a little bit of British nightlife.
First we went to a small corner pub and had a couple of beers, catching up with a couple friends, then they took me to O'neil's irish pub which is supposedly THE place to go on Thursday nights. I was expecting a quaint little pub with some drink special that night. It was in fact a huge dance bar with a cover band. Apparently on Thursday nights, all 130 of the ND Londoners congrigate there and kind of take over the bar. I felt like I was in America, aside from the creepy old british men dance-attacking the girls from behind, to which they would run to me or some other ND guy and pretend to be their girlfriend. I think I had about 5 different girlfriends last night.
Being here is such a different mentality than Innsbruck. They seem to go out almost every night, they travel every spare weekend that they have, they need to walk two and a half miles to class one way, its really interesting to see how much of a different experience studying here would be.
I'm not really sure what I am going to do until I meet Christian in Paris on Monday. Hopefully a show or two, maybe visiting the Caravaggio painting I did a report on this semester in the National Gallery, a swing club. I honestly dont care what I do here, as long as I am just hanging out with everyone.
When I arrived, it was like a mini reunion with all of my friends, some of which I hadn't seen since last June. After seeing everyone and getting settled in my old roommate's flat where I am staying, we went out to experience a little bit of British nightlife.
First we went to a small corner pub and had a couple of beers, catching up with a couple friends, then they took me to O'neil's irish pub which is supposedly THE place to go on Thursday nights. I was expecting a quaint little pub with some drink special that night. It was in fact a huge dance bar with a cover band. Apparently on Thursday nights, all 130 of the ND Londoners congrigate there and kind of take over the bar. I felt like I was in America, aside from the creepy old british men dance-attacking the girls from behind, to which they would run to me or some other ND guy and pretend to be their girlfriend. I think I had about 5 different girlfriends last night.
Being here is such a different mentality than Innsbruck. They seem to go out almost every night, they travel every spare weekend that they have, they need to walk two and a half miles to class one way, its really interesting to see how much of a different experience studying here would be.
I'm not really sure what I am going to do until I meet Christian in Paris on Monday. Hopefully a show or two, maybe visiting the Caravaggio painting I did a report on this semester in the National Gallery, a swing club. I honestly dont care what I do here, as long as I am just hanging out with everyone.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Old Ladies with Beer, oh and finals
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!
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!
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.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Silvester: The Aftermath
Be sure to read the post before this one first.
So after our quick break inside after our private fireworks session, we left to go to the big party in town for the countdown and fireworks show. It was absolute madness.
Before the fireworks were cute, and were being set off in empty fields and parks around the city. Now they were being set off literally all around us by crazy drunk Austrians. It had quickly become terrifying. A couple of times a stray rocket would come our way and luckily explode before it got to us and the whole situation was reminiscent of the Weasleys trying to run Prof. Umbridge from Hogwarts. It nevertheless made for an extemely exciting walk. One instance we passed by a few Austrians on the bridge outside our dorm with about 20 large rockets, setting them off one by one, and all smoking of course.
We actually corked and started drinking our large bottle of Champane before midnight in order to calm our nerves and got through most of that last hour. We actualy had drinken most of it by the time midnight came around so much for our fireworks game. But we werent really paying any attention to the huge fireworks show anyways, we were already high off of gunpowder fumes and jumpy from the firecrackers people kept lighting at our feet, we had had more than enough rockets for the holiday. Plus, the show wasnt that terriffic in the end and was hardly noticible in the midst of all the other rockets going off around the city. We werent really sure when exactly the new year hit, since there wasnt really a countdown in the strange place we were standing. Afterward, we all agreed it was right around the awkward time the two dudes in front of us started making out.
I love this picture, it gives all of the sentiments we all experienced together in the evening from left to right: Monika is a little drunk, Julie, Betsy's friend is excited about the party, Kevin is, well, Kevin, Choy is looking forward to the new year, I am a little sketched out by the people around me and Betsy is afraid that a firework is about to explode in her face. Well after we waltzed to the Blue Danube (in our heads) we headed to Marktplatz to listen to the band there. The main singer was kind of confused as to what language he was speaking in, a wierd mix of English, German and Italian but we had fun singing overplayed American Rock songs. We got kind of embarressed when all of the Austrians knew the words to "Born in the USA" better than us. We also made some friends, like this guy:
Who danced with us a lot but somehow ended up having no pants by the end of the evening. We stayed until the band stopped after 2 hours and planned on staying out a little longer until we realized that there were even drunker Austrians setting off fireworks around us and after one incident that may have permanently damaged all our eardrums, we felt that perhaps it would be safer to head back to the dorm. I am still thanking God that I still have all of my limbs attached after this evening.
Silvester: The City of Innsbruck is under siege
It is now about an hour and a half until it hits midnight here when the Blue Danube Waltz starts to play and the drunken Austrians start to waltz in the street.
Right now, all Austrian children from 4-90 are preparing themselves for the huge 25 minute fireworks display that is supposed to go off at midnight with fireworks going off all the mountains around as well as down the Inn river by creating their own mini fireworks shows throughout the city. Actually, this has been going on for the past week. 5 days ago, you would hear the occassional firecracker go off on the other street or you would see some 8 year old boys scaring some girls with the poppers you throw on the ground. It gradually grew in the past few days to seeing a flash over some rooftops out of the corner of your eye and hearing a faint explosion, but it has all escilated to this evening. The Inn river valley is currently echoing with explosions; we're being attacked. Plus, these fireworks are also more than your average, smuggled back from Mexico light in the desert, wimpy fireworks. Some of these (most of which are extremely affordable) are very awe inspireing and would make Disneyland jealous. Even now, in the alley outside my window, I hear the slightly disturbing and hopefully gleeful screams of children as they set off a multitude of exploding rockets, most of which are exploding a good 10 feet from my window. We brought a few sparklers, some bottle rockets we found in the buro, and about 15 euro of fireworks ourselves and had fun with them this evening. We weren't so bold to set them off in the city so we took a hike a little ways up the mountain behind our dorm and found a nice hill to set them off. It was worth it just for the view of all the amiture pyromaniacs' work throughout the valley. Every second there was at least two or three explosions. Walking back we came across a group of 7 year olds dropping some firecrackers down a manhole, I love this country.
Tiramasu and Fireworks
Tonight for the fireworks we have decided on a fun game for the 25 minute show. So everyone gets a color and a firework sound. Every time they see their color or hear their sound, they must drink. (I bought a 1.5L bottle of sekt from Hofer for 6 euro). IF they hear their sound and see their color in the same firework, they must dole out a drink to someone else. This has the potential to be very exciting during the grand finale.
Christmas was amazing, that's all I'm saying now.
Ever since we got back from Kirchberg, I was planning on going skiing and exploring the city and whatnot but I have ended up just sleeping in real late and not really doing much. I think the trip wore me out and I am getting over a cold. The only time I got out of bed before noon was for today when there was a big band playing on a stage in the center of town which meant a possibility of swing dancing. Unfortunately, there were just old American tourists kind of swaying and attempting to dance every once and a while but giving up when they got tangled in their purses. One time they did play Tuxedo Junction and I couldnt help myself but I may have started to Shim Sham in the middle of a crowd of Italians, not one of my prouder moments.
Tomorrow we're heading off for a grand tour of Tuscany before classes resume on Monday. Kevin and I are leaving a day earlier than planned and we really have nowhere planned to sleep on the night of Italy's biggest holidays, and we might just end up having to sleep in the train station in Florence. It should be an interesting time. Getting our tickets was a major issue:
So if you are a European, you can get these special Interrail passes which is like unlimited train travel for a certain number of days in a country for a really good deal. Well if youre not a European, you have to have lived in Europe for at least 6 months. We figure if we walk in and act like we know what we are doing, they would give it to us no problem. So we go to the ticket office, and the person who opens up is a trainee being trained... bad sign. Well we ask for the passes and the minute they see our American passports, her manager trainer person asked us for proof we had been living there for 6 months (we have only been here for 4, its a little rediculous since we'll be here for 9) and we said we didnt have it and we would go get it. So an hour or two later, we go back, and get someone next to the evil trainer lady, and since she was just observing her trainee she could easily see our second attempt to get the ticket and made sure the guy asked us for our tickets. Thanks devil woman... So we go back the next day and the princess of darkness is still there, and I end up getting the person next to her again and the moment I wispered "Interrail" to the guy she looked up like an antelope who heard a lion in the savanah and made sure the guy asked us for proof. So we say okay, we need to discuss what we're doing. So we go outside, decide to buy just a ticket to Florence, and get back in line, we end up getting some guy on the other side of the counter, a good 50 feet away from the devil red haired woman so we decide to try one last time. He gets our names about halfway into the system and the lady looks up, recognizes up, and marches over to us and screams (in German so it sounds 5 times as angry) "This is the fourth time these Americans have tried to get this ticket!!! Do not let them get it!" Bitch. Defeated, we just bought a ticket to Florence. Then, of course, Anthony goes today to buy his ticket and gets an Interrail, first time, no problem.
I plan on writing our Kirchberg adventures on the train to/from/around Tuscany, hopefully I'll fill you in on my Christmas when I get back.
Happy New Year, and a Gute Rutsch! (Good slip!)
Friday, December 21, 2007
Small Kirchberg Update
I unfortunately will not be able to internet so well while here because of a silicone keyboard with keys nearly impossible to press.
Kirchberg is amazing. The skiing is fun with a huge mountain and many different trails. The people who have showed up are awesome, we just got back from moonlight sledding. And I want to take Maria and Elizabeth home with me to cook for me and tell me to eat so that tomorrow will be beautiful.
Tomorrow we go on a horse drawn sleigh ride to a small alm or mountain hut/bar to drink Glühwein, the next day we go to Salzburg, then midnight mass at a small Alpine church, and more skiing, sledding and suprises.
Expect a more extensive update when I get home.
Frohe Weihnachten!
Kirchberg is amazing. The skiing is fun with a huge mountain and many different trails. The people who have showed up are awesome, we just got back from moonlight sledding. And I want to take Maria and Elizabeth home with me to cook for me and tell me to eat so that tomorrow will be beautiful.
Tomorrow we go on a horse drawn sleigh ride to a small alm or mountain hut/bar to drink Glühwein, the next day we go to Salzburg, then midnight mass at a small Alpine church, and more skiing, sledding and suprises.
Expect a more extensive update when I get home.
Frohe Weihnachten!
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Sorry
I apologize for the lack of recent updates, hopefully I will catch up in the next few weeks.
I have been very busy, I had a couple of projects to give in last week, one of which we were working on up to the last minute and we had to run across the city with freshly printed handouts, dodging street performers and yelling Italians in order to get to class for our presentation on time.
Ive also been preoccupied with Krampuses roaming around and hitting me with sticks and St. Nikolaus going over my behavior for the last year. More on that later.
Finally Christmas break is here and I thought it would be more relaxing but we have been frantically trying to prepare for our big Kirchberg Christmas trip. Here are my plans for the break:
December 18th, those of us planning the Kirchberg trip arrive to get everything settled, everyone arrives on the 20th.
December 26th, we all sadly leave Kirchberg
New Years I will be in Innsbruck
January 2, a few of us depart for Florence to go explore Tuscany for 5 days
January 6th we return from Italy
January 7th classes resume
Hopefully more updates later (maybe I'll even finish our eastern europe epic adventure)
I have been very busy, I had a couple of projects to give in last week, one of which we were working on up to the last minute and we had to run across the city with freshly printed handouts, dodging street performers and yelling Italians in order to get to class for our presentation on time.
Ive also been preoccupied with Krampuses roaming around and hitting me with sticks and St. Nikolaus going over my behavior for the last year. More on that later.
Finally Christmas break is here and I thought it would be more relaxing but we have been frantically trying to prepare for our big Kirchberg Christmas trip. Here are my plans for the break:
December 18th, those of us planning the Kirchberg trip arrive to get everything settled, everyone arrives on the 20th.
December 26th, we all sadly leave Kirchberg
New Years I will be in Innsbruck
January 2, a few of us depart for Florence to go explore Tuscany for 5 days
January 6th we return from Italy
January 7th classes resume
Hopefully more updates later (maybe I'll even finish our eastern europe epic adventure)
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Another Thing to Cross off my List:
Skiing in the Alps! I have absolutely no idea what else is on this ‘list,’ probably some chores I never did this summer at home and a couple of things I need to buy from Spar. In retrospect, it was probably the wrong list to put ‘ski in the Alps one day’ on and I realize now I need to re-organize my listing habits. I’ll put that on my list.
Back to today, it appears that the third time is a charm, and I finally spent a day on the slopes! Now I must tell you that this has been a big deal for me, deciding how much money and time I want to spend on skiing this semester. Deciding whether it was worth it to buy my own skis, which ski-pass to buy, and worrying whether my gloves matched my hat. In the end, I did buy my own skis, they were really cheap only 60 euro with bindings. Everything else was at least twice as much. They were so cheap because they were a 2004/2005 model and thus are ‘unfashionable.’ I got some ski-boots from the Büro and some ski poles for really cheap at Hofer, an amazing grocery store that can only be described as a Costco but everything is not in bulk and a small random sample of the non-food items, really random sample, as in they’re selling skis and bed sheets between the baking goods and the juice. Once I had my equip., I had to figure which season ticket to buy. I’ll spare you the boredom of my long decision process but it was a relief when I finally figured it out. Once I had everything, who knew that the most difficult thing would be getting out there to ski?
I tried once about a month ago. Aaron and Mariel were going to the glacier about an hour and a half outside of town. There wasn’t much snow in the mountains at the time but since it’s a giant river of ice you can pretty much ski on it in the summer. We had planned on getting up early and catching the early bus out of town. Well what happened was we woke up early, but I had not waken up yet, my evil other personality had waken up in my place. This is actually quite common, Jake usually takes over for the half hour to hour after I wake up or when I haven’t eaten in a while and my blood sugar is low. He’s the one who turns off my alarm or convinces me that I don’t need to go to class because we probably weren’t doing anything important that day. Anyways, Jake told Aaron and Mariel to go without me probably because “I’m really tired” or “I don’t feel well.” Since I wasn’t there, I don’t really know what he said. I woke up a few hours later to realize they had left without me.
The second time was last weekend. It had been snowing in the mountains for about a week and Christian, Aaron, Mariel, and I got really excited about fresh snow. Unfortunately, the glacier was the only place that was open since it is so early in the season. We made another plan to wake up early and take the bus out there. I warned Aaron not to listen to Jake and we got up early and Aaron and I were able to fight Jake back. We hiked across town to the train station and got on the bus to the glacier, finally on our way!. So this time we actually made it to the mountain. The further up the bus climbed and edged around tight corners with breathtaking sights all around, the windier and more blizzardy it got. When we arrived, they said we couldn’t buy our tickets (I was planning on buying my season ticket) until they opened the mountain which would be in about an hour. It was closed due to extreme weather conditions. We waited around for it to open but at the time they said it would they told us it was too dangerous for the gondolas. So we had to take the 2 hr expensive bus ride back to IBK, unsuccessful. Should’ve listened to Jake.
Finally, today on my third try I made it! Since many of the closer, more local, places have opened up, we decided to try one of those. We went to Patscher Kofel, where they had the slalom ski races for the Olympics, near the bobsled track. The entire mountain was not open, there were only two lifts and pretty much only one trail open but it was better than nothing. We decided to go a little later in the morning so we didn’t have to deal with Jake and it got scary for a second because when we arrived they told us that the lift was having issues so we had to wait a half hour for them to fix it. In the meantime we bought our season passes, the Freizeit Ticket, which meant taking a picture which also meant jumping in Aaron’s picture at the last second which also meant him freaking out at me for the next ten minutes how I ruined the picture. I think it definitely improved it, but that’s just me. Finally they opened the mountain and we made our way up with the other cheering Austrians.
I was nervous at first and seriously doubted whether this investment into skiing this year was a good decision. This was mostly because the last time I seriously skied was about four years ago, not counting the time I went with the Cattern family and we were forced to sustain ourselves for half the day on a small piece of lemon bread. Also, there were seriously 5 year old kids wizzing by me. It was insane! Like I’m pretty sure it’s a bigger deal when an Austrian child is able to sustain himself on skis by itself than when it can stand on its own. Not to mention the fact that Austrians ski way different in general than they do in America. Americans spend a lot of time turning and making pretty s-shapes with their tracks but it seems that the Austrians just point their skis downhill and don’t stop until they hit the bottom, or it seems unless someone else has fallen. One time I stopped to adjust my goggles, lost my balance and fell over and within 4 seconds, 4 Austrians all came in out of nowhere asking if I needed help. After my first run though, I got the hang of it and it became really fun, but I was defiantly shown up by everyone on the mountain over the age of 6 today. It also seemed like it was the ‘teach your child to ski’ day. Parents had their Austrian children all dressed up in 15 layers of clothing so they could barely move their limbs, a massive helmet, a pair of goggles that is twice the size of their face to match, and tiny 1 foot long skis. The would essentially go to a relatively mild slope, stand the kid up, and gave him little nudge, he would go about ten feet, then kind of lazily succumb to gravity and flop over. Then you had the 6-7 year old girls you had to watch for two reasons, if you looked directly at their matching pink sparkly snow suit you would go blind and they were doing the 2 mph ski-plows down the entire mountain in the middle of the trail.
In the end, we skied for about 3-4 hours and I was really enjoying it by the end and I look forward to doing it many more times in the future.
Back to today, it appears that the third time is a charm, and I finally spent a day on the slopes! Now I must tell you that this has been a big deal for me, deciding how much money and time I want to spend on skiing this semester. Deciding whether it was worth it to buy my own skis, which ski-pass to buy, and worrying whether my gloves matched my hat. In the end, I did buy my own skis, they were really cheap only 60 euro with bindings. Everything else was at least twice as much. They were so cheap because they were a 2004/2005 model and thus are ‘unfashionable.’ I got some ski-boots from the Büro and some ski poles for really cheap at Hofer, an amazing grocery store that can only be described as a Costco but everything is not in bulk and a small random sample of the non-food items, really random sample, as in they’re selling skis and bed sheets between the baking goods and the juice. Once I had my equip., I had to figure which season ticket to buy. I’ll spare you the boredom of my long decision process but it was a relief when I finally figured it out. Once I had everything, who knew that the most difficult thing would be getting out there to ski?
I tried once about a month ago. Aaron and Mariel were going to the glacier about an hour and a half outside of town. There wasn’t much snow in the mountains at the time but since it’s a giant river of ice you can pretty much ski on it in the summer. We had planned on getting up early and catching the early bus out of town. Well what happened was we woke up early, but I had not waken up yet, my evil other personality had waken up in my place. This is actually quite common, Jake usually takes over for the half hour to hour after I wake up or when I haven’t eaten in a while and my blood sugar is low. He’s the one who turns off my alarm or convinces me that I don’t need to go to class because we probably weren’t doing anything important that day. Anyways, Jake told Aaron and Mariel to go without me probably because “I’m really tired” or “I don’t feel well.” Since I wasn’t there, I don’t really know what he said. I woke up a few hours later to realize they had left without me.
The second time was last weekend. It had been snowing in the mountains for about a week and Christian, Aaron, Mariel, and I got really excited about fresh snow. Unfortunately, the glacier was the only place that was open since it is so early in the season. We made another plan to wake up early and take the bus out there. I warned Aaron not to listen to Jake and we got up early and Aaron and I were able to fight Jake back. We hiked across town to the train station and got on the bus to the glacier, finally on our way!. So this time we actually made it to the mountain. The further up the bus climbed and edged around tight corners with breathtaking sights all around, the windier and more blizzardy it got. When we arrived, they said we couldn’t buy our tickets (I was planning on buying my season ticket) until they opened the mountain which would be in about an hour. It was closed due to extreme weather conditions. We waited around for it to open but at the time they said it would they told us it was too dangerous for the gondolas. So we had to take the 2 hr expensive bus ride back to IBK, unsuccessful. Should’ve listened to Jake.
Finally, today on my third try I made it! Since many of the closer, more local, places have opened up, we decided to try one of those. We went to Patscher Kofel, where they had the slalom ski races for the Olympics, near the bobsled track. The entire mountain was not open, there were only two lifts and pretty much only one trail open but it was better than nothing. We decided to go a little later in the morning so we didn’t have to deal with Jake and it got scary for a second because when we arrived they told us that the lift was having issues so we had to wait a half hour for them to fix it. In the meantime we bought our season passes, the Freizeit Ticket, which meant taking a picture which also meant jumping in Aaron’s picture at the last second which also meant him freaking out at me for the next ten minutes how I ruined the picture. I think it definitely improved it, but that’s just me. Finally they opened the mountain and we made our way up with the other cheering Austrians.
I was nervous at first and seriously doubted whether this investment into skiing this year was a good decision. This was mostly because the last time I seriously skied was about four years ago, not counting the time I went with the Cattern family and we were forced to sustain ourselves for half the day on a small piece of lemon bread. Also, there were seriously 5 year old kids wizzing by me. It was insane! Like I’m pretty sure it’s a bigger deal when an Austrian child is able to sustain himself on skis by itself than when it can stand on its own. Not to mention the fact that Austrians ski way different in general than they do in America. Americans spend a lot of time turning and making pretty s-shapes with their tracks but it seems that the Austrians just point their skis downhill and don’t stop until they hit the bottom, or it seems unless someone else has fallen. One time I stopped to adjust my goggles, lost my balance and fell over and within 4 seconds, 4 Austrians all came in out of nowhere asking if I needed help. After my first run though, I got the hang of it and it became really fun, but I was defiantly shown up by everyone on the mountain over the age of 6 today. It also seemed like it was the ‘teach your child to ski’ day. Parents had their Austrian children all dressed up in 15 layers of clothing so they could barely move their limbs, a massive helmet, a pair of goggles that is twice the size of their face to match, and tiny 1 foot long skis. The would essentially go to a relatively mild slope, stand the kid up, and gave him little nudge, he would go about ten feet, then kind of lazily succumb to gravity and flop over. Then you had the 6-7 year old girls you had to watch for two reasons, if you looked directly at their matching pink sparkly snow suit you would go blind and they were doing the 2 mph ski-plows down the entire mountain in the middle of the trail.
In the end, we skied for about 3-4 hours and I was really enjoying it by the end and I look forward to doing it many more times in the future.
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