The rest of spring break went well. The best part of Paris was still climbing Notre Dame and pretending to be in Victor Hugo's book. Paris is beautiful but not my favorite city, perhaps just because everywhere else I went and Vienna feel much, much safer. But I did manage to successfully navigate the ridiculously confusing Paris metro system (really, are 14 lines necessary?), to the Paris regional trains, to Charles de Gaulle Airport, then into Vienna VIE, onto another train, and onto the U-Bahn by myself starting at 6:30 AM.
Classes suddenly became a bit more real. It looks like I might actually have to do work sometime in the near future, rather than just continue the extended vacation this has been so far. I went to Greenpeace once, and then slept the next day because I was sick, so I really still need to get started on that. But my work will be fairly easy, I just have to work on better comprehension of German so I can understand everything they are saying to me very quickly. I am just going to grocery stores, buying products, and then entering lots of information about them into a computer database. They are keeping track of products that have genetically altered ingredients or ingredients that are in other ways not organic, or were tested on animals. They are also tracking who uses recyclable packaging. In other words, way to go Greenpeace. My project is here: marktcheck.greenpeace.at
Yesterday was a good day. We went to the Prater, a very old, famous amusement park. A nice, 20-minute trip on the Riesenrad (the giant ferris wheel) gave us a view of most of Vienna. You cannot actually threaten to push anyone out of it Third Man style, because the door won't open. We then also decided it would be a good idea to go on the Dizzy Mouse, which is usually not a good idea, but I always forget. It spun the whole time and was expert at the look-like-you're-falling-off thing. I also tried out an absolutely insane ride called Extasy, which I imagine might be what it feels like to actually be on ecstasy. It just turned me in every direction and kept me upside down for awhile, all the time spraying smoke and strobe lights and other colors into my face with a strange German soundtrack going on loudly. And it was in front of a creepy 80s superhero type mural. The Prater is full of some of the scarier thrill rides I've ever seen, most of which I'm too afraid to touch, but would stand there and wonder why people ever thought that would be fun.
Before the Prater, we went to the Third Man museum. It basically just made me want to watch the movie repeatedly. The museum is comprised of a few rooms, all full of pictures and memorabilia from the movie, the makers of the movie, and Vienna immediately following WWII. They start out by showing you a short clip from the film, on a projector from 1936 which is huge and loud and amazing. People are more obsessed with this movie than I imagined. There are also an appropriate number of pictures of Orson Welles looking ridiculous and Joseph Cotton looking suave. And now I just want to play the zither. I'm hoping to go on the tour next Friday, or some soon Friday.
Last night we found a bar under a train station that was pretty, and sat there till somewhat late talking. About space and science fiction and such...my friends all like the same things. Then Rachel and I actually managed to make it home by employing some night buses, since the transportation mostly stops running at midnight.
Prague is coming up soon. As is possibly a four day break, but I'm not sure about that yet. I'm over halfway through abroad.
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