He died on the road...

Feeling weird after seeing Into the Wild and now listening to sad guitarey-type songs, but today was probably the best day yet in Wien.

Yesterday was Arbeitertag, May Day to everyone else, and the Social Democrat Party through a celebration all over town, most of which my friends and I got up too late to see.  I did manage to hear the distant parade music while still being half-asleep in bed, and saw the remains of various socialist celebrations.  Everything was red.  We did indeed make it to the Fest at the Prater last night though.  We got there to a strange British country-rockish band playing, trying to say things to the audience in German, and messing up some grammar in their songs.  The Prater at night is insane.  The thrill rides that look questionable during the day look even more questionable lit up with neon lights in the night, making you wonder why human beings want to do some of these things to themselves.  I took approximately a hundred pictures of the Riesenrad at night, and they all came out lame.  It is beyond impressive when it just looks like a circle of floating lights.  We went on the smaller, more normal-sized ferris wheel, which still managed to freak me out with my fear of heights.  I don't know what it is.  Sometimes I am comfortable being up high, sometimes I am not.  But it was perfect timing, because the fireworks started while we were on it, so we saw them from up in the air.

We ended up staying at the Prater for awhile and sitting in a restaurant/Biergarten called Schweizerhaus, making ourselves feel gross with beer and fries.  But, a fun night.  We went home tiredly before the transportation stopped.

Today was a journey into the Wienerwald, or the Vienna Woods, the huge forest that begins to the east of Vienna and continues into the Alps.  I think it is the most gorgeous thing I have found since I've been abroad, and I was full of all the possible sappy pastoral sentiments all day long.  But I really do want to live in a field or a mountain or somewhere with lots of flowers.  We started out at the end of an U-Bahn line, took a bus up to the top of Kahlenberg (a foothill), and emerged at the top with a spectacular view, of which I took way too many photos.  We could see the mountains in the distance and all of Vienna laid out before us.  We picked a random path to hike back down through the woods, and were surrounded by trees for a good while until we emerged into a meadow and enjoyed watching a frantic dog run around for awhile.  A bit further down, we started to see the vineyards.  Vienna has its own vineyards and wineries on the edge of the city, and they were beautiful and reminded me of Italy.  I want to live there, maybe.  We eventually made it all the way back to the Donau (Danube) and then back into the city for an Austrian dinner of Knoblauchsuppe (my favorite Austrian food) and various types of Schnitzel.  

We saw Into the Wild tonight, so my day went from GREAT INSPIRING NATURE to INSPIRING THEN TERRIFYING NATURE.  My Lit and the Environment class talked about the story last year even though we didn't read it, so I knew most of what happened, but I apparently forgot the crucial, disturbing ending.  But I think I kind of loved the movie and am a big sucker for nature and spirituality and cliche lessons learned from being alone in the wilderness...things every nature writer of all time has written about.  I really want to read the book though, because Sean Penn seems to be an awkward director at times.

So,

FORESTS AND MOUNTAINS!  YAY!

Hunden.

Today was a very nice day, in which I finally walked through the Prater park.  It is huge and full of trees and meadows, things I have missed going from a small town in a valley to a big city.  There were dogs everywhere, but we couldn't touch any of them, which was just extremely upsetting.  However, there were a couple which bounded over to where we were lying and jumped all over us for awhile.  Tomorrow or sometime soon might bring an exploration into the Wienerwald.

Today also began the quest of Find Every Aida Cafe/Konditorei in Vienna...there are 26, according the website.  I've been to three now.

Last Monday a bunch of us got together at another Wohnheim to have a Passover feast.  Sometimes I am pretty sure I should be Jewish just for the food.  Matzahball Soup is delicious, as were all the other dishes.  It was also complete with the traditional four glasses of wine.

Last night, my friends and I went to the Zwölf Apostel-Keller again, one of my favorite cafes here.  It´s in an old Baroque cellar, and features various delicious deserts.  There are also the old men that roam around with a violin and accordion and play The Third Man theme every night.  As I was enjoying mz Glühwein and Topfenstrudel, I noticed a loose brick on the wall.  We pulled it out and found a package, full of notes from lots of countries in lots of languages.  We left one there as well, congratulating anyone on finding the hideout.  I was hoping that it would perhaps lead to a secret passageway.

Also, went to Prague recently.  Despite the fact that it rained the whole time and I have possibly not ever been wetter and colder for a whole day, it is a beautiful city and I want to go back.  We went on a very rainy tour, where we all probably looked a bit miserable and therefore got our tour guide to let us stop for a long lunch.  But the tour ended up in Prague Castle, which was pretty amazing.  The second day we found the Mucha/Dali exhibit, and I bought some Mucha prints because I loved pretty much everything he did.  We also went to a very old bar featuring old Czech men playing jazzy stuff and pretended to be writers.  Where was the absinthe?

And I now have my Innsbruck trip planned for the Pentecost holidays.  Innsbruck for two days and possibly a day trip into Salzburg on the last.  So excited ALPS!

I never knew Vienna before the war...

This was a good weekend, I believe.  It was, perhaps, a bit full of Der Dritte Man, but that is never a problem.  

Yesterday, two friends and I went on the tour, hosted by a strange little Austrian man whose entire family was so embedded within the movie and Graham Green's and Carol Reed's lives, that he may actually be a fictional character.  He walked with us to a lot of the main sites the movie was filmed at, and disillusioned us about some others (it is not actually possible to splash around in Viennese sewer waterfalls).  I enjoyed descending into an old bomb shelter to the tunes of Anton Caras' theme, to find someone strumming a zither at the bottom.  Can I please learn to play that?  Right after I learn the banjo.   Anyway, I took some cheesy skewed-angle black and white photos.

The most interesting part of the tour by far was a quirky old British woman who sounded a bit like Angela Lansbury crossed with someone who has sat inside with her cats for too long.  She was very defensive of everything about the film, saying of the entrance to the canals, "In Britain we would have made this a national monument!" and of the statues that could have been destroyed in the war, "In Britain we dismantled our statues and hid them in caves...in Wales!"  Another personal favorite was when she learned of some of the tricks of movie-making: "How deceitful, these film-makers."  I'm not sure the tour guide knew quite what to do with her.

It was interesting to watch the film again and finally recognize most of the places - beginning with the tackiest statue in the world at the very start, ending with the Zentralfriedhof.  

This weekend I also ventured to the Natural History Museum, which is also the Museum of Very Old Things.  Some of the preserved animals in there are from the 1800s.  I'm also almost positive they made some of them up.  Some of those cannot be real animals.  And I was apparently unaware of the number of bird species in the world.  And again, someone needs to remind me not to go in the insect exhibits.  But, a really cool museum.  And it even smelled like every other natural history museum!

We also had a couple of nights at bars this weekend, and a nice American dinner at TGI Friday's just for a little taste of gigantic, fried American portions, something which I have surprisingly been missing.  

I spent a couple of hours on a couple of days recently sitting in the Burg Park, which has magically sprung into a garten while I was apparently not looking.  I also wandered through the Steiernmarkt, an open-air market outside the Rathaus complete with plenty of people in Lederhosen, accordions, and lots of beer.  Actually, it was really fun, if not a bit intimidating.  

On Thursday night my grammar class met with a group of Austrian students who will be abroad in America next year (I am not sure what this has to do with learning grammar, but the Professorin is crazy, should be hosting an NPR show, and obviously doesn't care about actually teaching us).  Talking to them was interesting though.  In one of the groups, discussing cultural differences and perceptions of each other etc, we inevitably got into their views on America.  They, like most people, were able to separate the government from the people.  But I have realized that being abroad has at times made me slightly defensive of America, not of the actions of a stupid, careless government, but just of a country and its' people.  When I first left, I thought I would be embarrassed and quiet about where I was from.  But it's not necessary, and maybe self-defamatory to be so.  I'm not ashamed of being an American, and intelligent people can figure out why.

Now back to trying not to stress out about next year's classes, next year's housing, and life after college.

When your mind's made up, when your mind's made up...

I've been singing Once songs melodramatically down the streets of Vienna.

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.

win et frommage canard et creme brulee

What is this language? I'm in Paris, and completely confused by French. It is incomprehensible to me, and less people here are willing to speak English. I'm sorry that I speak no French, all I have managed is "merci". It's a little bit uncomfortable...one man actually said, in English, "I know English, but I will not speak it to you." Thank you, sir. That and the metro is difficult because tickets never work and signs are vague. It was a stressful day.

BUT other than weird people, Paris is beautiful. I went to the big cemetery, hunted down Oscar Wilde amongst other admirable people, and looked into very old sepulchres that are basically frozen in time. The cremation part was interesting but also really freaked me out, because you could see the big smoke towers where they do it in a church. Then we went to the Pompidou, one of the coolest looking museums I have ever seen. It was built partially inside out, so all the elevators, escalators, and stairs are on the outside. And modern art is usually entertaining. I actually liked a lot of it though.

Then we went to a crazy fondue restaurant in Monmartre, which is all about loud drunk people and tiny spaces. It was amazing. They bring you wine in baby bottles, refill it for free all night, and keep giving you tons and tons of fondue for a reasonable fixed price. Then you can get pushed around by the old French man who owns the place because there's no room and he's not in the best mood since everyone is yelling and jumping on the tables.

Today we got up late and went to Chantilly, a day trip from Paris with a beautiful chateau, gardens, and a horse show. I illegally petted the horses because I loved them. Tomorrow is hopefully Notre Dame, the Louvre when it's free for students, and the Eiffle Tower at night. We'll see.

I also just did Stockholm for 5 days and loved it. Cold, but beautiful. I didn't really know anything about Sweden but now I want to go even further north, and perhaps stay in the ice hotel. The best part was the boat tour of the inner archipelago, the islands between Sweden and Finland. We only got to go a little ways out, because you need a longer trip where you would stay overnight to see the outer ones. But snow-covered islands covered with pine trees and nice Scandinavian houses, and ocassionally palaces were incredibly beautiful.

I'm running out of time!

Struenseegade?

Hello briefly from Copenhagen, Denmark.  This Danish keyboard is a little hard to figure out and also doesn't work very well, so quickly...I was just in Amsterdam for three days, and spent one full day here, and am leaving in 40 minutes for Stockholm.  The night train to Amsterdam was fun, I got my own tiny hotel room basically and spoke quick German to the nice Deutsche Bahn people.  It is very strange to wake up in another country, with an announcer speaking a language you've not really heard before.  But Dutch is very close to German, and I think I could learn it easily.  I actually had one or two people say things to me in Dutch that I understood well enough to give answers (in German) to.  After some chaos in the Amsterdam train station, I met up with Rachel and we headed to our hostel, Shelter Jordan.

I think Amsterdam could also be named Don't Get Hit by a Bike.  There are apparently more bikes than people there.  But it's beautiful and doesn't look like any other city I've seen.  Everything is on canals, and somehow it manages to be cleaner and nicer looking than Venice, I think.  We went on the free tour again, which gave us quick history and sights for three hours, starring tour guide Basilio.  The brief dip into the Red Light District was interesting, but of course you have to do it.  We also went to the Van Gogh museum, which is actually more like Some Van Gogh Plus All These Other People That Lived Around the Same Time.  We also spent a long time exploring parks, finding strange birds, going to a wax museum, getting hailed on, and sitting in bars with Dutch men singing American blues quite well.  

Night train to Copenhagen wasn't quite as great because I was in a tiny room with five other people, but they were all very nice.  Including myself there were two Americans, two Danes, and two Germans.  Again, spoke to the German girls quickly and was happy.  The venture into the part of the train that was separating and going to Moscow was just upsetting though, and reinforced my recent aversion to going to Russia.  Everything was ugly and scary looking, painted vomit color teal under horrible lighting.  We also kept getting trapped in the weird Russian doors.  At least Deutsche Bahn makes their trains look nice.  The parts going to Poland and the Czech Republic weren't doing much better, either.  Ahhhh eastern Europe.

We arrived in Copenhagen to find that our hostel, Sleep in Heaven, was kind of far from the city center, but we didn't mind walking.  We spent the day walking all over Copenhagen, which is gorgeous and I want to go back to so much.  There were swans everywhere.  Hans Christian Andersen is also everywhere.  We went in the cheesy little exhibit for him, and I remembered just how depressing all of his stories are.  I guess I forgot about how The Little Match Girl actually ends.  We also went in a Danish castle, which I loved because it didn't look like any other castle and was also not overwhelmingly spectacular.  The crown jewels were inside it.  We then managed to find a harbor out to the ocean, before becoming unbelievably cold and eating a nice Italian meal in the confusing Danish currency.  We will also have to figure out Swedish Krona soon.  Weird.

Okay, almost time to go get on the Danish train system.

I am not doing anything tonight.  Rachel and I tried to go see a play, Alice im Wunderland, but there were no more tickets left, and neither of us really had the energy left to actually do anything.  So I've been relaxing in my room for awhile, passively listening to my roommate and her friends speak some German, every once in awhile concentrating on it enough to understand something.

I have been to all of my possible classes by now.  This weekend was the Musik Seminar, ending with a Konzert on Monday evening.  It is taught by a man who looks somewhat like I imagine any number of the famous old Viennese composers to have looked when they were young and alive.  Yesterday we did Arnold Schönberg, and went to the Arnold Schönberg museum, which has lots of old musical manuscripts of his and some of his artwork.  Today was Beethoven, Motzart, Haydn, and Debussy.  We listened to some of their string quartets.  The professor handed out music and we followed along, while I realized how much I´ve missed being musically involved somehow.  One of my program directors mentioned she found a place I could take voice lessons, I will have to remind her.  On Monday we are going to see a concert, and then there will be no more of Herr Crazyhair for me.

At the Uni, I went to two different classes, and already know which one I will be keeping.  Epische Lieder (Epic Songs) was by far easier for me to follow than Liebe, Ehe, und Ehebruch in mittelaltlischer Literatur - that professor spoke incredibly fast, and there were also hundreds of people in the classroom, making it extremely difficult to concentrate.  I was able to understand about half of what the Epische Lieder Professorin said, and I think the more times I go the easier it will become.  We looked at a section of Beowulf, which I luckily remember well.  However, a translation of Old English into Modern German was one of the more confusing things I have ever read.

The way classes work here is interesting.  They are in gigantic lecture halls, people can come and go when they please, and no one is really expected to be quiet or pay attention the entire time.  This is difficult for me, because if I don´t pay complete attention then I will get completely lost and not understand anything.  I am also finding some cultural differences a little strange - such as the fact that here it is acceptable to blow one´s nose loudly in public, or when giving a lecture, zum Beispiel.  But the personal space thing is weirder for me.  It is smaller here.  I guess I didn´t really notice in Schwäbisch Hall because there were not enough people for it to matter, but here people will get really close to you.

The Central classes are all fine.  I think I´m dropping the Theatre one, because I will just have way too much to do otherwise.  I still have Deutsche Grammatik und Stylistik (necessary for me to somehow keep learning grammar, I still don´t understand passive or subjunctive at all), the required Austria in Context class, and German Literature from Realism to the end of the 20th Century, taught by Austrian Alan Alda.  

I also saw both No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood recently.  No Country had German subtitles, and I enjoyed finally being able to pick out how subtitles differ from what people are actually saying.  Anyway, No Country was clearly better, in my opinion.  There Will Be Blood was a little too much on the crazy for me, and I´m glad all the Austrians in the theatre were also laughing nervously at inappropriate times.  Call it, friendo.

Schönbrunn palace was one of the prettier places I have ever seen.  We ventured there a few days ago, and didn´t actually go in the palace.  Wondering the grounds took long enough, and we can always go back...we do have four months.  It, and several other places in Vienna, do not actually look real.  Vienna might just be a fake place, out of someone´s bizarre dream where all the buildings look absolutely unbelievable.  Schönbrunn had an old gate of some sort, where we sat and looked out on all of Vienna for awhile, as seen in the photo.  

I also had an adventure to Zentralfriedhof by myself.  One of the first things I wanted to see in Wien was the graves of musicians, so I took some U-Bahn for awhile followed by some Strassenbahn for awhile (but hey, I understand the public transportation system a lot better now) and ended up at the giant graveyard.  I wandered around for awhile, found the circle of Austrian presidents, and various other extravagant graves, before locating the Musiker.  All the oldest and most famous ones are buried in a circle together, where I just stood and got weirdly emotional for awhile.  People had put flowers all over their graves, and unfortunately the best I could manage was picking up a flower off the ground where it blew away and putting it back on Strauss´s grave.  Somewhat pathetic, I wish I´d had my own.  I then spent awhile trying to find the old Jewish section, but the cemetery is approximately one billion kilometers in every direction, so I never made it.  Besides that, it was very cold.  But I love graveyards, for some strange reason.  I don´t get scared in them, just calm.