A Year in Vienna

Today, the 10th of May 2008, marks one full year in Vienna. One year ago today, May 10th, 2007 I arrived in Vienna, terrified, sleep deprived and thinking I had made a huge mistake. In the 365 days since then I have made a lifetime of memories, made friends from all over the world, visited 17 different countries, written 57 posts, and lived in 5 different rooms in 4 different districts of Vienna. Not too shabby!

It's hard to imagine what my life would be like now if, back in December 2006, my housemate Jaymie hadn't convinced me to be decisive and submit my application. I was indecisive because I liked the life I was living. I had good friends, and the predictability of my life was comforting. Before coming to Vienna, the longest I had been more than 1 hour from home at a single time was 11 days, 11 days! If this past year has taught me anything it's that you need to take chances and push your boundaries or you'll never realize your potential; an sometimes people like me need a helpful nudge in the right direction.

To celebrate the completion of my first year, the city of Vienna has staged a series of concerts, and parties today. Some people say that these are to celebrate the opening of the 9 km extension of subway line U2, but I say it's just a coincidence.

So, I'm sure many of you are wondering what I've been up to since Prague. The most interesting thing that has happened is that from May 1st to 7th my friend Andrew Cardinal (Toga Andrew) came to visit from Canada. He was going to be in Belgium for a wedding and took up my offer of an airmattress and a spot on my floor. He arrived on the first day of a 4-day weekend, so we spent the majority of the time wandering around Vienna, seeing the sights.

However, I took the opportunity of having him here to see some things I was always intending to see but never really got around to. One example is the "Last Supper" mosaic in the Minoritenkirche. It is a full-sized replica of DaVinci's Last Supper made out of 20 tons of coloured marble and is almost 4m tall and over 9m wide. It is huge, and the level of detail is amazing, especially considering that it's made out of little pieces of stone. The mosaic is also a very important historical record, as it was made in 1809 when the original Last Supper in Milan was in a better condition. In the 200 years since, the original has deteriorated considerably to the point where many of the details in the mosaic are no longer visible in the original, to the point where the last major restoration of the original used the mosaic as an artistic guide. It's a shame that the mosaic is almost completely unknown, and in a church tucked away in the inner city off the beaten path.

Another site I have wanted to visit since arriving in Vienna is the United Nations building, the third most important UN site after NYC and Geneva.
The site, built by the Austrian government in the 1970s, and looks it, like something inspired by the Jetsons. The Vienna office houses the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, and many other smaller organizations. To go through the security check at the entrance you need a passport because you officially leave Austria and theoretically enter all 192 member nations simultaneously. So now I've basically been everywhere! There are one hour long guided tours in English for only 3€, which take you through the buildings and tell you all about the history and structure of the UN in Vienna.

Exiting the security check, you pass by the 193 national flags (which include the 192 member countries and the Vatican). I was pretty good at identifying most of them, but it was easier than you'd think because they are arranged alphabetically by the countries' names in English. So, for example when you see the random flag between Spain and Sudan there is only one country that fits, Sri Lanka.

The alphabetical listings make the flags easier to identify, but must be a hassle for the building staff, especially when you consider that with every new member state, a new pole has to be added and every flag after must be shifted down. Inside the entrance hall there are.. more flags!

In the Office of Outer Space Affairs there is a chunk of moon rock, and several UN flags that have been to space and back.
On Andrew's last night in Vienna we went to see the opera "Le Nozze di Figaro" by Mozart. It was long, 3.5 hours, but was very funny, and had four amazing, huge, sets for the four acts, taking advantage of the four movable (hydraulic) stages at the Staatsoper which can be set up ahead of time and moved into place in a matter of minutes. The physical humour and convoluted Jerry-Springer-esque plot (at one point everyone realizes that the old woman who Figaro is being forced to marry to pay off a debt is actually his mother) made it my favourite opera to date.

As this weekend is also a long weekend, and my mom arrives on Friday, I only have 3 days of work left. I knew I would be at the office fairly late on Friday (3:30pm) and most people would be gone, so I took my camera to get photos of my lab. It was hard to take a good photo because all the exterior walls are window, throwing all interior equipment into shadow due to the high contrast. If you look though, you can see my computer to the right of the column, with my electrochemical cell hooked up beside it.
From my lab window I can look out at the Schneeberg (Snow mountain), which is the easternmost Alp over 2km high. The Schneeberg actually looks much closer in person, this photo makes it look like a blip on the horizon. This weekend many people are out of the city, but Stefan and Ariana have their big joint birthday party tonight, so it should be fun. Who knows, I might go ride the new part of the U2 out to the Euro Cup stadium so I can say I've been there when I see if on TV in June.

As I said before, my mom is arriving on Friday. On Saturday the 17th we leave for our Italian adventure; Venice-Rome-Pisa-Monterosso (Cinque Terre)-Milan. From Milan, we fly back to Vienna, and spend a few days seeing the city and packing, with a day trip to Salzburg. From Vienna, we fly home, with a 3 day stopover in Paris, arriving home the night of June 4th.

I'm not sure if I'll have time to post much before arriving home, when I'll finish this blog with a post or two about my trip with my mom, and a final summary. I have to say, even though I've been less than diligent about posting since Christmas, I'm shocked that I've kept this going for a full year. So, don't be sad that it's almost over, be happy that it's lasted this long.

Prague

For those of you who have been waiting on the edges of your chairs for a while now when I announced that I'd be taking another trip, my destination was, of course, Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.

Sorry that this took so long to be posted. I was waiting for photos from some other people, but they've apparently disappeared. They're all the fun photos from the nights, because I never took my camera out. I'll add them when I get them.

For those of you who remember my first experiences in the Czech Republic, it's easy to say that this time was much better. For those of you who haven't read it, or need a refresher, see the end of my post on Krakow, Poland.

I arrived in Prague on Friday May 4th at noon after a 4 hour bus trip from Vienna. I had to meet Henrik and his friend Matt at the main train station at 2:45, so I had some time to kill. First, I wandered through the streets in the direction of the train station. After some wrong turns and a little eavesdropping on other tourists, I found my way to the train station. The Prague train station must have been extremely beautiful at one time in the past. Sadly, however, that is no longer really the case. The old entrance has been closed and turned into a small café. The 'new' entrance must have been built in the 60's or 70's during the height of communism. Thankfully, the station is now under renovation to clean up the modern sections and restore the old parts.

Below you can see the original entrance to the station, which is now only meters from a busy freeway. There is a large domed ceiling covered in plasterwork and murals in need of serious attention, but you can still imagine what it would have been like in it's glory days. On second glance, this picture doesn't look all too bad, although you can see some damage on the left.
Now with my proper bearings, I set out to explore the city. Prague is famous for many things (including its image as the new Amsterdam), but also for the prevalence of black-light and marionette theatres for tourists. The posterboard below is for "Yellow Submarine", a blacklight show performed to Beatles songs. The shows are all about the images created using blacklight puppets and sets, and most are completely dialogue-free.
We never got the chance to see a blacklight show, but neither has my Czech coworker, so it's not like I really missed out on an integral facet of Czech culture, just another tourist trap.

There are a lot of interesting museums in Prague, including the Museum of Sex Machines and the Museum of Communism with the cool poster below.
When it was about time for Henrik and Matt's train to arrive, I headed back to the train station and sat in the abandoned old waiting room with a sleeping backpacker and group of Czech teens.Being a bit bored, I walked around the front of the building. Hopefully the renovations get to the facade before it all crumbles away, although dilapidated beauty has its own charm.
When we met, we decided to go to the hostel and ditch our bags. The hostel turned out to be an amazing deal; it was close, cheap, and clean, what more could you ask for? Free breakfast? They had that too. The two people I met up with were my Swedish friend Henrik who is a former IAESTE Vienna trainee now going to school in Munich, and his friend Matt who is from Oxford, England but also goes to school in Munich. It was nice to see Henrik again, the first time since Oktoberfest, and Matt turned out to be really cool.

Our first big destination was the Old Town Square. The square is a big change from the narrow old streets which empty into it, a real medieval town, one of the only major cities in Europe to escape WWII without much structural damage.
The Church of Our Lady in front of Týn is one of the main attractions in the square. It was built in the 14th century, and has an almost creepy vibe, especially at night when the small windows in the towers are lit with orange lights. The main entrance is very odd. The row of buildings in front if the church in the photo above are actually attached to the front of the church. The only way in is through a fairly hidden and narrow passageway built into one of the buildings which leads to a very small courtyard.The other sight int he old town square is the astronomical clock which has components dating back to 1410! The clock not only tells the time, it also tells you the date, sunrise, sunset, hours since sunrise, zodiac month, lunar cycle, and more. Hard to believe it's all based on 15th century mechanics.
There are also some animated figures which move on the hour and at other times throughout the day. The two pairs on either side of the calendar represent the four things which were despised by the people of Prague, they are death (skeleton), vanity (the figure with the mirror), greed (the figure with the money bag), and last but not least, the Turkish (the figure with the turban). Nothing like a beautiful old racist clock. There are also statues of the 12 apostles which rotate though the two doors at the top. We just happened to be there when it was going off, and it was a little disappointing. The huge crowd of people gathered below made me think it would be a bit more exciting.

From the old town we wandered down to the river. Across the river on top of the hill is Prague castle, the largest ancient castle in the world, we decided that we should leave it for Saturday.
We passed a fountain outside the Kafka Museum that everyone who visits Prague has to see. I found a video of it running here on Youtube. Unfortunately only one of the guys was working, the other just lazily peed in one spot.
Many of the restaurants along the river face the street but have cafés down by the water. The little passage between these two buildings leading to a café was so long and narrow that there was a traffic light.
The oldest bridge crossing the river is the Charles Bridge which was started in the mid 14th century. The wide stone bridge is lined by 30 stone statues, installed around the year 1700. The bridge is currently being completely restored, but thankfully they're working on it section-by-section, so most of it is still open to the public. The only downside of the bridge is the large number of vendors and buskers selling everything from portraits to marionettes. It's hard to imagine how packed it must be in the height of the tourist season.
The "biggest music club in Eastern Europe" one of the many places we went Friday night. It has 5 full floors, all with different styles of music. The whole block of buildings (including the club) is built out over the river which passes beneath.
One of the many marionette shops in Prague, to some people being surrounded by this many marionettes would be terrifying, I just found it a little creepy. I was going to buy one as a souvenir, but they were all pretty expensive.
On Saturday we walked up the fairly steep hill to Prague Castle.
The site dates back to the year 870, but a millennium of additions and renovations has left little that looks more than a few hundred years old. The castle was very eclectic; every piece seemed to be of a different style. This made it interesting, but also made it seem much smaller, because you could never be sure what was castle and what part of the surrounding buildings.
At the center of the castle is the gothic St.Vitus Cathedral. It was started in 1344, but not finished until the 1920's.
The older gothic sections of the cathedral had gargoyles. I love gargoyles.
The stained glass windows were amazingly detailed, colourful, and all matched, something very rarely seen in Europe. Normally most or all of the windows were damaged in WWII, and are therefore either missing or mismatched.
We crossed back across the river to see the Dancing House, a building designed by a Czech architect in co-operation with Canadian architect Frank Gehry.

From the Dancing House we went back to the hostel for a siesta. Instead I watched some BBC World, which I have really been missing ever since October when we had to move out of Albert Schweizer Haus.

For supper we decided to check out a "dinner entertainment" restaurant by the hostel. It was caveman themed, and actually turned out to be a lot of fun. The restaurant was decorated with mammoth tusks, furs, bones, and fake rock, and the waitresses were dressed as cavewomen. All the food was very basic (meat and potatoes) and you had to eat with your hands. We sat down beside two Dutch women who were really funny, especially when the "show" started. The show was a drum circle around a caveman who was sniffing a large bowl of dry ice. I think it was supposed to be some kind of spiritual ritual, but it went on way too long. I was just worried that the poor guy would asphyxiate and we wouldn't be able to finish our food. After the 'ritual' they made us all get up and dance to the drums. Overall it was a fun, random, and completely unexpected. After dinner we stopped in a few places but eventually settled at a bar called "Harley" where we ran into a Canadian girl from Toronto and her class of Czech girls learning English. We ended up hanging out with them the entire night and had a lot of fun. (I'll add photos when I get them)

On Sunday it was raining, so Matt and Henrik decided to take a 1pm train back to Munich. As we were walking toward the train station, we passed the brightly coloured Jerusalem Synagogue. The architectural style and bright decoration make it look entirely out-of-place in the rather drab neighbourhood. It would have been cool to see inside, but it was closed. Too bad.
After saying goodbye to Henrik and Matt I still had 4 hours to kill. I wandered throughout the city and eventually found myself in a market. One stand sold different types of candy, including Czech "Smarties".
Another stall sold marionettes, there were characters from fairy tales, like Puss in boots and the big bad wolf, but also Harry Potter and Hermione.
I wandered some more and found myself in the old Jewish quarter. According to a few sources (which may or may not be true) the Jewish Quarter in Prague wasn't destroyed in WWII because the Nazis intended on making it a "exotic museum of an extinct race". This terrible intention resulted in a lot of Jewish artifacts and synagogues being preserved. One of these preserved sights is the Old Jewish Cemetery, which dates back at least as far as the 15th century and is believed to contain 12,000 graves.
The gravestones are grouped very close together, at odd angles, and various states of decay. The fact that graves are stacked and layered allows for the estimated 12,000 people to have been buried in such a small space over the ~350 years it was in use.
Walking from the Jewish quarter back towards the river I spotted the Prague Metronome. To get to it I had to pass back over the river via a bridge decorated with this statue.
A view down the river from up on the hill beside the 75 foot tall metronome.
The walk to the bus station from the metronome took me through the old town square one last time. I stopped and took a picture of the monument to Jan Hus who was burned at the stake in 1415 for proposing a reformation of the Catholic church in Bohemia. The tower in the photo below is the old city hall, which contains the mechanism for the astronomical clock which is on the lower part of the tower.
I arrived at the bus station far earlier than I should have. When I arrived I looked all over for a screen displaying departure platform and times, but couldn't find one. Then I realized that the bus station is by no means modern, so I had to go to the large schedule board, find Vienna, and find my bus. It was easy to do once I realized that I had to do it. As I was very early, I wandered around, and took a few last photos.
I really enjoyed my trip to Prague and can't wait to show you the photos from the evenings. I would really like to go back some day and check out some of the museums, see a black-light show and tour the castle.

In less than a month now I will be done work and in Italy with my mom, can't wait. On Thursday I'm taking the day off work to see my friend Szilvia's PhD defense. It will be interesting to see how it all happens and then we'll either go out to celebrate her success or drown her sorrows. Her brother Laslo is also coming from Serbia. We haven't seen him since we were in Serbia last November, so it should be a good weekend.

At the beginning of May my friend Andrew who was my neighbour in residence in first year will be coming to visit. Should be fun, hopefully by then it's a bit warmer and a little drier.

Only a few weeks left in Europe. I can't wait to come home and see everyone again, but I never want to leave. It's a good thing I can't afford to stay in Europe this summer and still go back to school in the fall, or else I'd be really tempted.

March... where did it go?

The month of March was filled with many memorable moments, but flew by so fast that it's hard to believe it was even there.

Near the beginning of the month I noticed that my hair was getting a little long. As I've mentioned before, haircuts in Vienna are expensive, painful, and bad, therefore I really wasn't looking forward to getting one. So, I figured I'd do what most other guys do, and cut it myself. How hard could it be? I borrowed a pair of electric clippers from Daniel and decided to do it myself without any help. As I didn't want to get hair everywhere and I don't own a broom, I stepped into my shower, plugged the clippers in above my mirror, set it to the longest length and started with the back. It went pretty smoothly and felt about the right length, so I took a leap and went right down the center of my head, a reverse mohawk. To my horror, I discovered that "8" was much shorter than I had expected, but what was done was done. After what seemed like much too long, I was done, with a pile of hair on the floor, and far too little on my head.
The next few days were spent finding small patches of long hair and snipping them whenever I tracked down a pair of scissors. Now that it's begun to grow out, it's becoming a mullet dangerously fast, so, I might have to give in and get it cut properly, but not for a while.

On Saturday the 15th (the "official" St.Patrick's Day) I met up with Nicole, Ali's friend whom I had met a few weeks before, and went to see Carmen at the Volksoper. The Volksoper (the people's opera) only performs shows in German, meaning two things, Carmen was performed in German instead of the original French, and there were no subtitles. So, we didn't understand much, including the entire first half of the second act. However, one thing that amused me throughout most of the show was how poorly German lends itself to seductive arias like the famous song by Carmen. Instead of lightly trailing off the notes, as can be done in French where they leave out half of the word anyways, the propriety of German pronunciation occasionally requires harsh consonants at the end of words, which sound more like someone prepping for a spittoon than a seductress. Afterwards we met up with Andres, Daniel, Gabi, and Szilvia and went to a pub, which was pretty dead for "St.Patrick's Day", but we made the best of it.

When I returned from Canada after Christmas I brought back real maple syrup, and when Ali visited in February she brought me a box of pancake mix from home. Since Christmas, Cora and I had been talking about making a big pancake breakfast. Finally, the weekend before Easter, Sziszi offered to host a pancake brunch.

In the photo below (Going around the table clockwise from the bottom) are Gabi, Andres, Daniel, Carolina, me, Cora, Raphael, and Sziszi. Karin, Sziszi's roommate, was taking the photo.
Cora and I thought we'd get creative and make all the girls teddy bear pancakes with banana faces. We also made some x-rated pancakes for the guys, which they thought were funny. People were shocked that Cora and I were so talented at making things out of pancakes; we didn't tell anyone how easy it is.
After stuffing ourselves with far too many pancakes, we decided to go on a walk. Most people decided to go home, as it was already mid-afternoon, but Cora, Szilvia, Karin, and I went to Schönbrunn to wander through the Easter market. The Easter markets are a lot like the Christmas markets except on a smaller scale. There were a few booths overflowing with hand-painted eggs.
There were also a few spots where kids could play with some simple, old-fashioned toys, like stilts. Karin, Sziszi, and Cora tried out the tandem-walking boards, which were fun, for about 30 seconds...
On the Wednesday of the next week there was a talk by Dr. Frank Wilczek at the Fachhochschule (technical college) in Wiener Neustadt which is only a few minutes away from our offices. José, Szilvia, and I went from ECHEM and met up with Cora, Stefan, and a few others from AC2T. Dr.Wilczek is an American physicist from MIT who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction (quantum physics). His talk, which was entirely in English!, titled "The Universe is a Strange Place" was actually very entertaining and easy to follow. He talked all about quarks, gluons, dark energy, dark matter, and everything in between. If you're keen and look carefully at the photo below, you'll see I didn't actually take it, it's from 2005, but it's the same lecture. A few times in his presentation Cora and I were the only people who laughed at a joke because everyone else got a little lost in translation. For example, he made the (rather nerdy) joke of "so, it turns out you can have your quarks and eat them too!", which just confused all the non-native English speakers, but made us laugh awkwardly.On Easter Sunday I went with Nicole, her brother, and her brother's friend (all from Canada) to see the ballet Swan Lake at the Staatsoper. It turned out to be the premier, meaning the line for cheap tickets was long by the time we arrived, so we got crappy spots where you could only see half the stage at once. The ballet was interesting, better than most operas, and had a pretty cool ending, where the lead guy drowns on stage in a stormy lake. As it was the premier, during the bows people chucked bouquets of roses onto the stage from the boxes along the sides, like in the movies.

On Easter Monday, I was supposed to see the opera Tristan and Isolde by Wagner with Cora and Ariana, but thankfully Ariana had to cancel on us. I say thankfully because it is 4:45 long, a bit too long for my liking. Instead, I went with Caren and Ariana that Thursday to see Ariadne auf Naxos, a funny opera written by Richard Strauss where the first act, which is set backstage, shows everyone arguing when they find out that the serious opera and the comical dance show the Duke ordered for his party must both be performed simultaneously. The second act shows the performance on the stage, which has been flipped 180 degrees to the audience's perspective. The show was funny, and had a good elaborate set, so I enjoyed it. I find the minimalist modern adaptations a lot less entertaining.

The last weekend of March was very warm (~18C) so Szilvia, Gabor (Szilvia's boyfriend who was in town last weekend), Andres, and I decided to go to the Lainzer Tiergarten for a hike. Andres forgot about the time change, so it ended up being just the three of us.

The Lainzer Tiergaren is a 25 square kilometer wildlife preserve in the southwest corner of Vienna. The route we selected was about 7km long and wound through the "hills". We had only been walking along the path for a few minutes when a large wild boar came walking towards us in the other direction. It was pretty tame, so Gabor got as close as Szilvia would allow, to get a photo.
There still aren't many leaves on many of the trees here. Lots of buds, and leaves on bushes though, so it's only a matter of a few more weeks.
At the top of one path there is a sloping lawn which looks out over all of Vienna. We stopped for a bit and ate some pears that Sziszi had brought along.
From the lawn we walked another few kilometers down to the old royal hunting lodge and gardens. In the more sheltered gardens, many of the trees already had leaves.

Hard to believe this was a weekend hunting lodge.

I really like this photo with the dormers, chimneys, and clock tower all jumbled in together.
The main house is connected to the stables on either side by these verandas which Szilvia fell in low with.
A little ways down from the house there is a small "zoo" with some deer and mouflons like the one below.
After the hike, I went back to Haus Döbling and signed into Skype for a phone interview. The interview was for a job at Queen's as an "iCon" during the school year. I found out today that I got the job, so that's some good news, now all I need is a summer job. If anyone knows of anyone hiring for jobs in Brockville starting after June 9th, the please let me know.

So, as I said, March was an interesting month, I just don't know where it went, it was over so quickly. April is my last full month of work, and hopefully the nice weather will bring some adventure with it.

Speaking of adventure, I leave for my next one on Friday morning. I'll be meeting up with my friend Henrik who's living in Munich, but I won't tell you where until I return. Should be fun, but apparently the weather is supposed to be crappy, c'est la vie!

Vienna through Ali's cold, wet eyes

I meant to do this post (the last of the Ali trilogy) justice, but I have too many other things to tell you, and not nearly enough free time. (Actually, once I got started I couldn't stop and fleshed it out pretty well)

As I said in the last post, we arrived in Bratislava with the intension of touring the city before heading back to Vienna. However, the bus to Vienna was coming soon, it was cheaper than we were expecting, and we were tried and hungry. So, plans of seeing Bratislava were quickly replaced with plans to relax in Vienna and cook supper. By the time we got to Vienna we were starving and our supper plans turned into McDonald's while waiting for the tram. Good start.

On Thursday and Friday I had to work, so Ali toured the city by herself with her little Vienna City Guide. Thursday night when I got back from work we made pasta (well, Ali made it while I "helped"). One funny thing is that Ali attempted to make an alfredo sauce, which is exactly what Pat tried to make when he visited in August, and both of the sauces inexplicably ended up separating into a curdy-oily sauce. It must be the milk here, maybe the preparation and pasteurization methods are different. Anyone have any idea?

After our delicious pasta (it doesn't matter what it looks like, just what it tastes like), we went out to one of my favourite breweries with Cora and her sister's (now-ex) boyfriend. The reason I picked this place was because they let you buy beer by the Maß (1L), like Oktoberfest, which is something different and kinda cool.
After work on Friday we went to the Staatsoper to see "Nabucco" an opera by Verdi. It was a modern adaptation and was pretty good, although we hadn't looked up the plot online first and were pretty confused for most of it. "Is she a princess or a slave? or both?" After the opera we went across the street to Hotel Sacher which is the nicest hotel in the city, and is world famous for the chocolate cake invented there, the Sachertorte.
After our cake and coffee we wandered down Kärtner Straße, past all the expensive stores, like Swarovski.
On Saturday it looked nice out, so I took Ali to the Zentralfriedhof, the huge cemetery in Vienna where all the composers are buried. However, while we were there, walking through the cemetery, the storm-of-the-century started within a matter of minutes. We were drenched, but only on one side of our bodies as the rain was horizontal.
We darted to the tram and headed into the city center where the rain would hopefully be finished. It mostly was, so we wandered around, stopping into some of the big landmarks which I have mentioned many times before. In the mid-afternoon we met up with Ali's friend Nicole who goes to McGill with Ali and had just recently arrived in Vienna on a semester abroad. We sat at an Aida, a Viennese coffee and dessert café and talked over some pastries and coffee. As we were leaving, Nicole invited us to her house-warming party that night.

For supper we met up with Szilvia and Gabi, co-workers of mine, for running sushi. It was a lot of fun, a first for Ali and I, and I ate far too much. There was just too much there to pick from and it was all-you-can-eat so my normal gluttony/frugality balance, which keeps me from being 300lbs, was upset.
After stuffing ourselves with sushi we walked to Nicole's place, which was just a few minutes around the corner. At first the party looked a little lame, a bunch of people sitting around a small table playing their own version of "Hedbanz" in German. Ali and I joined in, I was James Bond, she was Falco. At least we didn't lose, guessing our identities well before some others. Ali tried to play in German and did very well, copying questions asked by others or making half-English half-German sentences.

From Nicole's apartment we went out to a club, actually a first for me, at least in Vienna.
On Sunday we had planned to take the train to Salzburg, but bad weather and non-existent funds led to us just relaxing all day.

Ali's flight back to Montreal was to leave early Monday morning, so early that we thought the first airport-train wouldn't give her enough time. So, we planned for her to catch the last train Sunday night a little after 11pm. However, due to the windstorm (which blew trees onto the tracks, and toppled a crane onto Südbahnhof, Vienna's main train station) the train never came...

I freaked out a bit, thinking that Ali would miss her flight, and phoned my friend Stefan to try and figure out what I should do. He phoned the airport-taxi company, but they were booked solid. Finally, we decided that the only realistic option would be to go back to my place, and order a cab which could take Ali to the main airport-train station (which would hopefully still be open and running) in time for the first airport-train. She would have to rush, but would get there. It ended up working out, and Ali avoided an uncomfortable night in the airport, so it wasn't all that bad.

Overall Ali's visit was a lot of fun; expensive, but worth it. It's too bad that more of my friends couldn't visit, but the $1000 trans-Atlantic plane ticket is a harsh reality. The next post will cover the entire month of March (which felt 8 days long), and should be done soon, as I'm leaving on Friday for a spur-of-the-moment trip, which I will tell you all about when I get back.

Barcelona: Tapas, Tapas, Tapas

This post is part 2 of 3 chronicling my trip to Venice and Barcelona with my Canadian friend Allison.
We landed in Girona and took a hour long bus to the center of Barcelona. By the time we arrived it was already dark out, so we found the subway, and took it directly to our hostel. When we arrived at the front door to our hostel the front gate was locked and none of the buzzers on the door listed the name of the hostel. There was a sign though, with an arrow pointing over to another door, so we tried the buzzer there and got a really angry reply in Catalan, not what we wanted. Eventually a group of American girls walked right up to the door and unlocked it, they said we could follow them in.

The hostel was pretty nice, with big common areas including a kitchenette and a TV room with a whole pile of DVDs. That night we went out to a restaurant around the corner and sat outside drinking wine and eating tapas. Tapas are basically small appetizers meant to be bought in groups and shared around. As a rule they are delicious, and interesting. However, their cheap price and deliciousness forces you to order much more than you really should, as we were to learn...

The firs morning (Monday) we headed straight for the most iconic tourist attraction in Barcelona, the Sagrada Familia. The Sagrada Familia is the only modern church of this scale currently under construction in the world. The church was designed by the famous architect Antoni Gaudi who also designed many other buildings, and a park, in Barcelona, and construction began in 1882. Almost every piece of stone in the building is uniquely shaped based on complex geometries or natural forms, so construction was expected to take hundreds of years. However, due to modern advances in computer modeling, the expected date of completion is 2026.

The Nativity facade was the first portion to be completed and is therefore more or less true to the original Gaudi designs. If you click on the picture to see it in a larger version you'll notice the detail and rich colours of the steeples and the tree covered in white doves. Every inch of this building is covered in layer upon layer of detail and symbolism.
The addition of modern cranes and techniques to the construction of the church has taken centuries off of the construction, and created an odd mix of ancient stone craft and modern technology.
The Sagrada Familia is a unique site, attracting millions of visitors a year, who's admission fees help pay for the cost of construction. One thing that makes visiting the site so special is the organic character of the building; it is constantly growing and changing, making each visit unique and unrepeatable.
The Nativity facade features scenes from the birth of Jesus from the classics which would be expected to odd things like the killing of the innocents (a statue of a roman soldier killing an infant).
During the Spanish civil war, most of Gaudi's sketches, designs, and plaster models were destroyed. The remaining pieces were compiled, and the plaster models are still being reconstructed from the fragments today. As detailed images of the original design have been lost, and out of respect for Gaudi, subsequent architects haven't attempted to pass-off their work as Gaudi-esque, instead using their own styles inspired by their own era. The Passion facade illustrates this perfectly, with its simplicity starkly contrasting the organic detail of the Nativity facade.The statues on the Passion facade portray events from the Passion (the final days of Jesus' life), such as the last supper.
The square on the wall between the Roman soldier and Judas betraying Jesus is called a "Magic Square" and is included because the numbers in all rows and diagonals of the square can be added up to 33 (the age of Jesus during the Passion).
The simplicity of the sculptures directly contrasted with the complexity of the large bronze doors which are covered in religious words from the Bible.

Peter denying Jesus.

Close-up of the door

The columns which support the roof and the massive towers still to be built really show Gaudi's genius. First, the cross section of the columns is continuously changing, starting as a square then becoming am 8-pointed star, then shifting into a circle. The square to star pattern is generated by rotating two squares in opposite directions and looking at the overlapped area. You may also notice that the large columns are also different colours, this is because they are built from different types of stone depending on the weight they are required to carry. Instead of changing the size or spacing of columns, as is done in all other buildings, Gaudi simply chose to build the columns which support more weight out of a stronger and stronger stone.
The vaulted ceiling is meant to resemble a tree canopy, notice the light pouring in from the section where the roof is not yet complete, and the complete lack of windows.
After spending a long time touring the Sagrada Familia we decided to tour the historical city center. This courtyard is the old rector's house by the main medieval cathedral, the palm tree is 115 years old, and the walls of the house include parts of the city walls built by the Romans over 2000 years ago. Across the street from this house a woman sat singing in a doorway to the church, her song sounded very eerie and added a whole different calming mood to the courtyard.If you lived to be 115, you'd need some help standing up too.
The cathedral, originally built between the 13th and 15th centuries was under extensive exterior renovation, so this is the only portion I could get a photo of without scaffolding.
The woman who was singing the eerie song was sitting in the doorway below this facade.
From the cathedral we decided to walk towards La Rambla, a large boulevard and shopping district in Barcelona. Walking through the narrow streets we passed some unique stores. One had this statue holding a blue neon tube out front, giving Ali and I the opportunity to take cool colour-select photos.
When we finally got to La Rambla, there wasn't much to see, likely because it was a cool Monday afternoon in February. One of the highlights was La Boqueria, a huge covered market.

From the market we took the subway down to the end of La Rambla to the Arc de Triomf, built in 1888 for the Universal Exhibition.

The Barcelonan Arc de Triomf is much smaller than the Parisian one, but just as detailed.

I especially liked the bats holding up the arches.

The Arc de Triomf is located within a large park, which had palm trees, and working fountains, a rare sight in February, even in Barcelona.

The central fountain and pavilion was under renovation.

After the park, we decided to do as the Barcelonans do, and go back for a siesta. The subway exit closest to our hostel was directly in front of a famous Gaudi house, Casa Batllo, which also shows his organic, almost skeletal, style of architecture.
That night we went out to another Tapas restaurant which had a placemat covered in photos of the 60+ different tapas selections to chose from. We just kept ordering, as everything was amazing, which resulted in the bill being far higher than either of us would have ever expected... but it was definitely worth every penny.

The weather on the Tuesday was much nicer, so we decided to visit Park Güell, a large public park designed by Gaudi. The way from the subway to the park was up a very steep still, with outdoor escalators!
Even though it was warm enough to walk around in short sleeves in February, seeing the cacti growing wild in the park was what really made me realize how nice and warm Barcelona was.
In the center of the park there is a large pavilion designed by Gaudi as a location for a public market.

Many of the surfaces are covered with broken tile mosaics in cool patterns. From the top of the pavilion you can look down on the park, which was already in bloom and filled with birds chirping away.

This photo, taken by Ali, makes the trumpet player look all alone. In reality, there were crowds of people all around selling cheap souvenirs and sitting around taking in the atmosphere. The entire edge of the plaza was lined with a continuous bench covered in the same broken tile mosaics in organic and creative patterns.Gaudi's designs are inspired by nature; this colonnade is a wave of stone.
If you look closely or enlarge this (slightly fuzzy) photo you can see the family of small green parrots living in the palm tree (in the upper right corner). They reminded Ali and I of our friend Seanna's pet parrot Squeak. We kept on hearing the parrots, but it took us a while to actually find them, hidden away in the palm tree.
From Park Güell, built up on a large hill, you can look down on Barcelona and out to the Mediterranean. By far the most recognizable sight on the skyline is the Sagrada Familia surrounded by cranes. This view will change as the other facades are built and the central steeples grow to their full height which will be taller than the highest crane. There's a model of the finished design showing the same angle as this photo here.
From the top of Park Güell we took the subway down to the sea.
The Barcelonans were bundled up against the "cold", but the dumb Canadians decided to roll up their jeans and walk right in. Surprisingly, it wasn't even that cold, about the same temperature as the St.Lawrence in June (which we voluntarily swim in).
While walking down the beach we passed kids playing on this play structure. I found the red geometrical structure set against the horizontal bands of light sand, aqua sea, and blue sky punctuated by playing children fascinating. This is definitely my favourite photo from the whole trip, and possibly from my entire time in Europe.
We walked around the harbour and decided to find the monument to Christopher Columbus.
It was 22C, but the wind coming off the water cooled it down, making it feel like ~12C. I think this is the first time in my entire life that I have felt temperatures this warm in February, -22C plenty of times, but never +22C.
The monument to Christopher Columbus it placed right at the end of La Rambla by the harbour.
From La Rambla, we walked around, stopped into a little bar for a drink, and then went back for a siesta. For supper we went back to the beach and found a little tapas restaurant suggested to us by a woman who worked at the hostel. No one in the restaurant spoke English, and being a true tapas restaurant there was no menu (or listed prices...) so, Ali used her caveman communication skills to order us a little bit of everything and a bottle of wine. When we got back to our table, it had been taken by someone else, but we managed to find a seat inside. The wine came first, in a chilled bottle with two ice-cold frosty wine glasses. The only reason I could think of for serving chilled red wine in frosted glasses was to make a cheap home-made wine taste better. Anyone have any other ideas? It tasted fine. Then the food arrived, dish after dish. It's hard to remember everything but it was all amazing, the best food of the trip, by far. We had shrimp, pork, mussels, potatoes, olives, and many more delicious things. It's too bad we were too concerned with devouring the food to stop and take photos of it. When the bill came, we were a little shocked, but our stomachs were full and we were content.

From the tapas restaurant we walked off the meal then took the subway to "Manhattan" a jazz club in the old city center. It was really cool, I had never really seen live jazz before, but we only stayed for a while because we wanted to catch the last subway and we were dead tired.

The next morning we caught our bus to the airport and flew back to Bratislava, Slovakia which is the closest Ryan Air airport to Vienna, about 90min away by bus. Our initial plan was to tour the city before going back, but we were hungry and poor, so we decide to go straight back and make supper.

Ali's few days in Vienna will be covered in the third, last, and shortest post of this series on our trip which will hopefully follow very soon as I have other things I want to get to.

Venice: The city of water... and fog

Ali arrived last Friday so I left work early to meet her at the airport. For my birthday she gave me a really cool Moleskine book for Venice with maps, and lots of room for notes. It ended up coming in really handy to keep everything together and help us get back to a cheap pizza place we found by the Rialto, which I will definitely visit when I go back in May.
When she arrived we took all her stuff back to my room, then went and got a schnitzel from the "Schnitzel Haus" across the street. While we ate schnitzel and watched an episode of Extras we packed our big look-at-me-I'm-a-tourist backpacks and then set out to see the city.

The Vienna transit system is an honour system, enforced with random checks. However, these checks are almost entirely (if not only) on the subway system and night buses. Therefore, you can take unlimited trams and buses without much fear of being caught. So, we took a tram into the city center.

We had about 2 hours to kill, so I showed Ali the major sights as we took the scenic route to the train station. Since late January there has been a large ice rink in front of the Rathaus (city hall) which also winds along the paths throughout the park. As the Viennese winter is like early fall in Canada the rink is laid on top of a mat of refrigeration tubes to keep it frozen. This comes in really handy because it has been very very nice here, having "snowed" only TWICE since Christmas, with never enough to completely cover the grass before melting away. Sorry Canadians, had to rub it in...
We got on the night train to Venice around 8:30pm and settled into our bunks for our 12 hour trip.
We arrived in Venice at 8:00 Saturday morning to find the city waking up to a light dusting of fog, which we assumed would lift as the day went on...
The ferry to the island of Lido (where our hostel was) was an hour long but it toured down the grand canal, under the Rialto bridge, and past St.Marks square, making it more of a treat than a trip.
Our Hostel "Livia Oliva" was a small B&B on the island of Lido, and was actually a nice woman's house with 3 extra rooms and a small dining room for guests. We dropped our heavy bags off in our room (we were upgraded to the ensuite room!), grabbed our keys, and headed back to Venice across the lagoon using the direct boat which was much faster and closer to the B&B.

Venice is a city like no other, it maintains it's charm in spite of the tourist trade, because it has no other practical options. Gondolas anchored to wooden piles are cheaper and easier to run than the few small boats anchored to fancy docks, so they stay.
The city felt like a movie set or a Disneyland attraction because it was so drastically different. A city without cars, trucks, buses, bikes, skateboards, or mopeds, in places all you could hear were people talking in a smattering of the world's languages underscored by the continuous lapping of waves and trickling of water.
We wandered around the small alleyways on the main island of San Marco until we came upon the Piazza San Marco. The highlights of the Piazza are the ornate Basilica di San Marco and the Campanile (bell tower). The Campanile has been there in one form or another since the 9th century, but this one was finished in 1912 after the previous one collapsed in 1902.
The Piazza San Marco is probably most famous for the huge flock of pigeons which infest the square and mob the tourists and children who voluntarily cover themselves in bird food as if to say "Hey Ma, look at me! I'm covered in disease!". This woman was selling the packages of food for 1€, and had lots of friends to keep her company.
We decided to avoid bird flu and instead chased the pigeons. It was tempting not to kick them, a they get so close to you. They were like little smelly footballs with legs. Smelly? Yes. Even on a cool day, a large overfed flock of greasy dirty pigeons have an overwhelming aroma of... greasy dirty pigeon.The symbol of Venice is the lion. This is because the Venetians stole the remains of St.Mark the Apostle and smuggled him out of Alexandria, Egypt in the 9th century to place him in their basilica, and St.Mark's symbol is the winged lion. Apparently back in the day some Venetian s would keep live lions in their gardens as a symbol of status. The thought of walking through the twisting alleyways of Medieval Venice at night with only a torch to light the way surrounded by the roars of lions is terrifying. This lion, on display in the Piazzetta San Marco was apparently stolen from the Turks at some point in the past.
The basilica was very ornate, made from a rainbow of marbles, mosaics, and gold. The photo below is of the main entrance, as photos weren't allowed inside. The interior was amazing, with domed ceilings completely covered in golden mosaics in all different styles dating from the 11th-16th centuries.
After touring the basilica we wandered around Venice, stopping to take photos here and there.
We turned a corner and came upon the Rialto bridge. The bridge has three sets of stairs, with the two narrower side staircases separated from the large central one by a line of store booths selling souvenirs. The stone bridge is over 400 years old, meaning the small arched booths now selling tacky souvenirs have seen dozens of generations of owners work their entire lives beneath them. The bridge was completed 5 years before Shakespeare wrote the Merchant of Venice, that's some good engineering.
The View down the Grand Canal. To the left you can see the large ferry-buses which allow you to get throughout the city fairly easily.
A photo of me sporting my only Venetian souvenir; a wool scarf to keep warm in the chilly
That night we went to a Vivaldi concert in a former church. Before the concert we waited around outside the church and Ali helped me discover the wonder of a 15 second shutter. My camera is so much better than I ever thought, so many cool options I'm only really discovering now.
With 30 more minutes to kill and a bathroom to find we headed back to the Grand Canal, taking photos with a 15 second exposure as we went.
The concert was very good, an ensemble called Interpreti Veneziani with 4 violins, 1 viola, 1 cello, 1 double bass, and a harpsichord. They played Vivaldi's 4 Seasons and some other pieces. They all looked like they were having a lot of fun, except for one guy who was very serious and hardcore, having memorized the entire show. However, his solos (every violinist was 1st violin for 1 season) were amazing. Their encore performance was the best of all. They all put down their bows and plucked out a song on the strings of their instruments.

After the concert we headed back to catch the ferry to Lido. When we transferred ferries near the Piazza San Marco, I got this cool photo of the Bridge of Sighs (using a 15 sec exposure). The motor boat which passed through the photo is nothing but a ghost ship with wake.
The fog in the lagoon was so thick that we couldn't see anything other than the lights of the ferry reflecting off the thick white mist hovering over the aquamarine water, until the lights of Lido suddenly appeared out of the mist when we were meters from the dock.

The next morning we slept in longer than we intended because the bed was far too comfortable. When we woke up breakfast had been laid out in the small dining room and the other guests, a young couple from France (or Switzerland?) were already eating. This place was so nice, and such a great deal that my mom and I will definitely stay there when we visit in May, its already booked.

The day before we had hoped that the light fog would lift so that Sunday would be warmer and better for photos. Instead, the fog was much thicker. You couldn't see Venice across the Lagoon, but you could hear all the church bells tolling eerily in the distance.
We got off at the Piazza San Marco and went to the base of the tower to get audio tours. However, it was closed on Sundays, so we took a photo of the gate.
The Doge's Palace is directly beside the Basilica (which was formally the Doge's chapel).
We toured the Doge's Palace, the bridge of Sighs, and the dungeons. The Palace was very impressive with huge ornate old rooms, but like many historical buildings there is little original furniture so the palace looked fairly empty, and was chillingly cold. If it wasn't for all the velvet robes and wigs the Doge, his family, and the other politicians surely wore the palace would have been a pretty uncomfortable place in the winter.

One last foggy view of Piazza San Marco.
Inside the city the fog was much lighter, but we had run out of time to take a gondola ride.After some stressful running around we got tickets for the bus to the airport, which we had to wait for anyways, and traveled the 65 minutes to Treviso, a city on the mainland with a small airport serviced mainly by Ryanair and Sky Europe, Europe's largest low-cost airlines. From Treviso we flew two hours to Girona, Spain then took a bus to the beautiful city of Barcelona.

Our two days in Venice were an amazing, but very expensive experience. I can't wait to visit again in May with my mom, but my wallet sure can.

Visitor from Home, Venice, and Barcelona

For the past 10 days my fiend Allison Hess from Brockville has been visiting me. We took a long weekend trip to Venice and Barcelona then spent the remainder of the time here in Vienna. I'm just about to upload the photos, but I'll do the post in three parts so that it'll be finished before May.

Happy Birthday to Me

As most of you know, today is my 22nd birthday. Last week my mom sent me photos to put up here today, so here they are.

First, we go way way back to 1987; my first birthday.
Then, we jump ahead 10 (?) years to my mad-scientist Halloween costume.
It may have been a long time since these photos were taken, but some things never change. I'm still a huge nerd who likes to open presents, but gets easily distracted by small things, like delicious wrapping paper.

As today is Sunday, we went out for my birthday last night instead. Cora, José, Szilvia, Nikola, the 4 Colombians, and I went to a Japanese restaurant for supper. The place was very hectic, and even though we had a reservation we were shuffled all around the restaurant waiting for our table to become free, but it was ok because the Colombians were late anyways, shocking... The food was really good, except for José's Japanese beer which was apparently sour and numbed his mouth, and Szilvia fell in love with a little Japanese baby eating lychee fruits. As fairly inexperienced Japanese food connoisseurs we all got Bento boxes, my favourite.

When we finally arrived at our favourite Irish pub, Charlie P's we were over and hour and a half late for our reservations, but the bartender cleared out or corner for us. Over the next few hours a bunch of people showed up. Every time someone new would arrive they would be very 'discretely' pulled aside to sign my card. Everyone had pooled their money (and stray hairs) to buy me some chocolate and give me the "Joe Steele Hairy Italian Fun Fund". The money is to pay for me to do something fun in Venice next weekend (I'm thinking gondola ride), and the hair is for me to glue onto my chest so I can blend in and look more Italian.

This morning I was woken by the sun with only a mild hangover (thank you McDonalds). The first thing I did was open Megan's gift which has been sitting beside my bed for the past week since it arrived. It contained chocolate, candy, sparklers, and a bottle of craft glue, which really confused me, until I opened the last part, a kit to make a cardboard dancing robot. I have to say Megan knows me pretty well.

At 11 I went out for a birthday brunch with Cora, Raphael, Arianna, and Johnny at a cool restaurant around the corner that we walk by every day on our way to the U-bahn. The food was very Austrian, with potato salad, schnitzel, and cold cuts instead of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon, but it was really good and filling.

My mom just phoned to fill me in on the details of the huge birthday feast she's preparing for me back home. After hearing what they're eating I might pass up the instant rice and canned soup that I was planning to make and go across the street and splurge on a €1.80 kebab.

Tonight I'm going to the opera with Cora and Arianna. Arianna is an opera singer so it will be cool to get her perspective on everything. The opera tonight is actually two 1 act operas, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci. Should be fun.

The next week will be pretty crazy as I get ready for my trip to Venice and Barcelona, which we have been talking about so long that it feels like it's never actually going to happen. I will be sure to take loads of photos, and if I find any decent photos from last night I'll throw them up here later.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Sorry that your birthday wish isn't as cool as mom's was, but I really haven't been anywhere cool since being back. I probably could have gotten the King from Ghana to hold up a happy birthday sign, but I only thought of it the next day...

Wish I could be home, not only for your birthday, but also for my birthday dinner mom's planning for Sunday. To those of you in Canada who will be at my birthday dinner, have fun, I'm jealous.

Here in Vienna I'll be going out with friends and coworkers (who are also friends) on Saturday for dinner and then to our favourite Irish Pub. Then, the morning of my birthday some of us are going out to brunch at a restaurant where they have "Geburtstagkinder Essen Frei!" (birthday children eat free) painted on their window. Apparently the word "Geburtstagkinder" applies to everyone, not just children. So, free food! What more could I ask for?

My friend Ali from home comes in 9 days, can't wait for our adventure to start.

First some work, then the month of parties

I've been putting off writing this blog as I was waiting to get photos from people, but who knows when that will happen, so might as well start now before I forget everything.

Wiener Neustadt Civitas Nova
As most of you already know I work in the city of Wiener Neustadt in the light industry park known as Civitas Nova. Last December I began bringing my camera in the hope of getting some cool winter photos. The one below shows a platform of the Wiener Neustadt train station where we switch trains every morning to board the smaller regional train that takes us the 3 minutes to Civitas Nova. The train to the left is a double-decker "Weasel" train that I love but normally never get to take. The train to the right is an old model regional train; the new ones are more streamlined and flashy than the space shuttle.
ÖBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen) is the Austrian equivalent of Via Canada. Above the locomotive you can see a part of the pole connecting the train to the electrical wires over the tracks. These wires crisscross all of Europe. Trans-continental travel with zero emissions, gotta love it.
From the ghetto Civitas Nova platform we walk through a field to work. The field used was once covered with factories that produced engines, parts, and whole fighter planes during WWII. At one point Wiener Neustadt had the original Daimler factory and was the largest producer of fighter planes in Austria. All of these factories were either bombed, burnt, or abandoned after the war and subsequently torn down. The only sign which remains is the solid reinforced concrete bomb shelter sticking out of the ground. The tunnel leading to the underground shelter is now filled in with gravel, making me wonder what's still down there. Was it hurriedly filled in to hide secrets or left open for decades, looted, and only filled in when it became a drug den for teenagers?
Directly across from the bomb shelter is our building. There you can see Cora and Stefan walking ahead through the "snow". That is the most snow I've seen yet, and you can still see the dirt through it. Also, ever since I've returned I haven't seen a single flake of snow. The average daily temperatures are around 10 degrees!
From our building (but not my office) you can see the Schneeberg (Snow Mountain); it is the most easterly Alp with a summit above 2000m. I took the photo below from the train platform while waiting for the train home last week after work.
BOKU Ball
The few weeks between new Years and Shrove Tuesday (Carnival) are the ball season here in Austria, with apparently over 300 different balls in Vienna alone. On Thursday January 17th Cora and I went to the BOKU Ball. BOKU (Universität für Bodenkultur, The University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences) hosts a ball every year in a wing of the Hofburg palace. The unique twist of this ball is that many people come dressed in traditional clothing, as you can see by FJ's lederhosen and Cora's borrowed dirndl.
Before going to the party we went to an IAESTE Vienna member's apartment to meet up with his friends, and then we all went together. At the party I managed to cut myself while trying to open a beer bottle with a rolled up paper bag (it did work at first, but the more we used it the more ripped and damp the bag got, until it failed catastrophically, resulting in me bleeding all over). Thankfully I got it cleaned up before it stained my shirt, but I looked very classy arriving at the palace with a big red sore on the side of my hand...

The main dance floor was in one of the large ballrooms with soaring ceilings covered in gold leaf, murals, marble, and crystal. There was an orchestra playing waltzes, polkas, tangos, and other traditional songs. I didn't stay here long because it was very crowded and I didn't know any of the dances.
In some of the other rooms there were bands playing other types of music. This room was retro music. I think they need a few more chandeliers.
We ended up spending most of our time in the discothèque in the basement (which is where they play modern dance music, not Disco). Also, as it was a Thursday, we left fairly early (~1:30am) so that we could actually get to work the next morning. It was fun for my first ball, but little did I know it was only a warm-up for the Bonbon Ball on the following Friday.

Aleksandra's Party
The day after the ball one of my coworkers who lives in Wiener Neustadt had a housewarming party which she had been promising since she moved in November. It was a lot of fun, and it really showed us what we're missing out on by living in Vienna, space! Her apartment, which she shares with her Austrian boyfriend, is huge, and her rent is only a few Euros more than what I pay for my jail cell of a room. We were having so much fun that we lost track of time, only realising at 11:10 that the last train back to Vienna was leaving in 20min. We said our goodbyes, grabbed our coats and ran through the narrow medieval streets of Wiener Neustadt to the train station, just catching the train on time. The 7 of us crammed into a 6 person compartment and had a great ride back to Vienna.

Opera Ball
The 31st of January was the Vienna Opera Ball, the highlight of the annual social calendar in Vienna. I obviously didn't go, because it is outrageously expensive, but I thought I'd mention it. They build a set on stage that perfectly mirrors the auditorium, where the floor has been raised to be flush with the stage. This year one of the celebrities there was Teri Hatcher from Desperate Housewives. She was interviewed for Austrian television, and you can watch it on youtube here. There is also another video which shows more of the ball here. This is worth watching just to see how terrified the debutantes and their dates look, but the ballet tribute to Euro Cup 2008 is also pretty cool. Maybe someday when I have a few thousand Euros burning a hole in my pocket I'll come back for the Opera Ball.

Bonbon Ball
On Friday the 1st of February, the day after the Opera Ball, Cora and I went to the Bonbon ball with two friends Caren and Robert. Cora and I took the subway (feeling slightly out of place) and met them at their apartment where we had some wine and then took a cab to the Konzerthaus where the ball was being held.

The Bonbon ball is run by the chocolate and candy companies in Vienna. So, when we arrived we were given cloth bags to fill with candy throughout the night. All through the hallways there were people handing out samples of chocolate, jelly beans, and other things. Off to a good start!
When we first walked into the main ballroom we caught the end of the debutante entrance, which you can see a bit of below. All the girls in white dresses are the debutantes. I got a video of them all waltzing together, but I'm having trouble with youtube, so you might have to see it later.
The bundles of balloons and Jelly Belly mascots hanging from the ceiling all had vouchers attached to them for large bags of assorted candy, cookies, and chocolate. Every 30 minutes one bundle would drop. We would plan to be there every time, showing up 5 minutes before and waltzing into the centre. Maybe it was the fact that neither Cora or I know how to waltz, or maybe it was because everyone was trying to get to the center to be right under the balloons, but waltzing felt more like bumper cars than some classy dance. I think we were just so bad that we couldn't keep up with the flow. When the balloons finally fell everyone would rush to grab the vouchers, which normally fell off as the balloons fell from the ceiling.
Smart people, like Robert, went for the vouchers; we went for the empty balloons.One important part of the ball is the Miss Bonbon competition. The winner of the competition is placed on this bright pink scale and given her weight in candy. This year she was given Manner cookies, which are very light wafer cookies. I wasn't there when the winner was weighed, but even a toothpick of a girl would need a whole lot of wafer cookies to balance out. Cora and Caren were saying that the only reason they give them their weight in candy is to ensure that they never win again.
Down in the discothèque they were playing a lot of modern or fun retro music, so that's where we spent most of our time.
At one point Cora and Caren, still distraught over not catching a single balloon or inflatable Jelly Belly saw a few added to a light stand as decoration, stole them, and proceeded to corrupt them.
One of the guests of honour at the ball was one of the Kings of Ghana. He opened the Miss Bonbon competition, and signed autographs for 30min during the ball. I figured if I had a chance to meet a King and get his autograph, why not? One funny thing is that he knew very little German, so when I talked to him in English we actually had a little conversation. I told him I was from Canada and had a friend from Ghana, and he asked me what I was doing living in Vienna. One more random thing to add to my list of life experiences.
On the way out of the ball we passed the 'throne' where the king had been a few hours before. So, we took the opportunity to make some classy photos.

Showing the leopard some love.

Faschings Feier
Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday, the last day of Carnival before Faschings (Lent) begins. Apparently it is a big thing in Austria, with people dressing up in costumes (even more so than Halloween) and parties (Faschings Feier). At lunch there was a party paid for by ECHEM. It was a normal work party with trays of cold cuts, cheese, vegetables, and juice. This party was missing the cases of sparkling wine which normally accompany parties like this, but instead they had boxes and boxes of Krapfen, the Austrian word for the doughnuts called "Berliners" in German German (Ich bin ein Berliner). They replace the stacks of pancakes synonymous with Shrove Tuesday in North America.

After work a group of us went to another Faschingsfeier hosted by a coworker in Wiener Neustadt named Beate. The cool thing was that Beate and her husband run a 3 screen movie theatre, and that's where she had the party. Since it is closed on Tuesdays we had the whole place to ourselves. We ate, drank, and played Foosball which I only then realized is an English bastardization of the German word for soccer, Fußball. It was lots of fun.


I really need to get back into the swing of writing posts at least once a week, because these monster posts take forever to write. Nothing much planned between now and the 22nd when Ali arrives and we leave for Venice, Italy. Well, except for my birthday, but as it's a Sunday I think we'll just go out for Chinese or Japanese food and finish off the day at an Irish pub. On the subject of my birthday, I received a package from my friend Megan on Monday. There were a few Queen's newspapers which have been fun to read, a gift (which I still haven't opened - now that's self control), and a classic-Megan birthday DVD. The DVD shows a bunch of my friends from Kingston, and even a few from Brockville wishing me a happy birthday. There are also some funny special features. It made my day.

The last month and a half

I figure it's about time I update everyone, seeing as my last post was on the 2nd of December...

The time before Christmas flew by, with most evenings and weekends spent at the Christmas markets or in my German class. One weekend a group of us who work in Wiener Neustadt met up at Szilvia's to make Christmas cookies. They were all split up equally so we could take them home and eat them throughout the next week or two. Mine were half gone before I even left the party...

My last day of work was the 14th, and I flew out on the 16th after saying bye to Jasmina, Andrew, and Predrag who returned home for good over the holidays. My flight from Vienna to Toronto was direct and pretty uneventful. It was the first time I flew over Europe during the day when there weren't many clouds. I saw Amsterdam from the sky, with all it's canals glimmering in the sun, and the snowcapped jagged mountains of Greenland.

As we came to North America a huge snowstorm was in full force, but our plane managed to land pretty smoothly in Toronto; one of the only ones that day as most other flights had been canceled. With the chaos and delays resulting from the snowstorm it took me a long long time to get home from Toronto with a Via train, arriving home around 1:30am, which was 7:30am to me, completing 24.5 hours of sleepless travel.

The next three weeks were spent with family and friends. I had a lot of fun and did far too may things to even include an abbreviated list here. One of the highlights was seeing a Cirque du Soleil show in Montreal with my family. It was absolutely amazing, I recommend that everyone sees a show at least once, it's expensive but worth it. Also, while I was home we got more than a few bad snow storms. The photo below shows the snow being removed from my street with dumptrucks the day I arrived home from the snowless streets of Vienna.
My three weeks of holiday were up before I knew it. My return flight was much longer as I had a 7 hour layover in Paris. Thankfully I found a cheap airport hotel and slept through most of it after an uncomfortable sleepless flight from Montreal.

I started work the next day only to find that my boss Rakesh wasn't yet back from India and no one knew when he'd be back, or how to contact him. He eventually returned a week later.

Since being back things have been fairly uneventful, a few nights out with friends, and a going away party for Paola, one of our former coworkers who also went with us to Serbia who is moving to the Netherlands.

Some things that I'm really looking forward to now are the Bonbon Ball on the 1st, and a trip to Venice and Barcelona at the end of February when my friend Allison visits from home. The ball is a full black bow-tie, waltzing ball like you'd see in a movie, except it's run by the dessert industries in Vienna, so you get a gift bag of sweets and chocolates, and as well there is also modern music in other rooms. I thankfully didn't take my suit home at Christmas like I had planned, so all I need to buy is a decent pair of dress shoes and a black bow-tie. I'm thinking I'll buy one that you have to tie by hand instead of a pre-tied one, it might be hard to master but it'd be a cool skill to have. I'll be sure to bring my camera and take plenty of photos.

Sorry for the almost complete lack of photos with this post but many are sure to follow in these last few months as I try to cram everything in before returning home for good.

Christmas in Vienna

The last few weeks have been some of the best but busiest yet with work, my German lessons, Christmas shopping, and making sure I make the best of Andrew, Jasmina and Predrag's last few weeks in Vienna.

When I returned from Sweden most of the Christkindl/Weihnachtsmärkte (Christmas markets) were finally open. There are many different markets; all with a different feel, a different clientele and different price ranges, spread throughout the city. Some are big, colourful, and packed, like the one in front of Rathaus, some are moderately expensive like the one in front of Karlskirche, and some are obscenely expensive like the one inside the Hofburg. There you can order, among other things, yachts, marble statues, diamonds, and personal jets. Needless to say, I've stuck to the cheaper ones, not that I wouldn't love to buy everyone a 70 foot yacht for Christmas, but there are so many options (colour, wood finishes, platinum or gold fixtures... ) I just wouldn't want to mess it up.

Almost all of the markets are outdoors and are made up of a collection of wooden huts decorated in lights and packed with stuff.
Here you can see a small section of the market in front of Rathaus. This photo was taken in November, so none of the windows (which act as the world's largest Advent calendar) are open yet. Frankly, I was a little disappointed when they did start to open. Every day is just a different back-lit abstract painting, a wash of pastel colours with no discernible pattern or style.The Rathaus park is also decorated with many different theme trees. The one below is filled with glowing hearts. Others are filled with large glowing candy, Santas, angels, snowmen, candy canes, stars, nutcrackers, lanterns, teddy bears, and the oddest one of all: baby seals.
On MA's last weekend we went to the Schönbrunn market. We were there when they lit (plugged in) the tree, so there was a lot going on, with a band playing carols and later a choir.The markets are filled with just as many Viennese people as tourists because they are not only a place to buy gifts, but also a place to socialize. Every 10th stall is a Glühwein/Punsch stall where you're served delicious warm drinks in collectible mugs. There are also stands selling fresh cookies, sandwiches, pastries, and my favourite, "Käseraklettebrot mit Speck" which is where they take wheels of 2 or 3 different cheeses, melt one edge under a heater and scrape the molten cheese onto a piece of bread covered in bits of bacon. It is artery-cloggingly delicious.

On our second trip to the Schönbrunn market we took a tour of the palace and walked up to the Gloriette where I snapped this beautiful night scene at around 4:30pm. Thankfully the markets alleviate most of the winter-woes brought about by what feels like continual darkness.
Around December 1st, after MA had returned to Canada, all the Christmas lights came on, making Vienna even more amazing. Many of the different main streets have bright, creative lights. The street with the giant red spheres is to the right of Stephansdom.
The Kohlmarkt is decorated with a canopy of small white lights, if you enlarge the picture you can see the dome of the Hofburg lit up in the background.The Graben takes the prize with a dozen enormous chandeliers made of small white lights. They are suspended by cables attached to the surrounding buildings so that at night they appear to be simply floating overhead, swaying in the wind.
I passed this window display while walking home one night, thought it was pretty cool.
I have more photos from skating and other markets, but haven't had time to upload them yet. I will hopefully get to it soon, after this long of a wait you deserve more.

I will be home in less than a week now, can't wait to see everyone, it's hard to believe I have been gone for so long. I'm sure some things will be hard to get used to. I think the worst one will be having to account for tax when buying things. I've gotten so used to the common sense approach of tax-included pricing that it might drive me crazy.

At work we have an 'invisible friend' (Secret Santa), mine is great, (s)he has given me lots of chocolate, and a pointsetta and a snowman for my desk. The person I'm buying for is really difficult to buy for, I guess I shouldn't write anymore in case more people from work are reading this than I'm aware of, don't want to ruin the surprise.

On Sunday Andrew, Predrag, and I went to the Technisches Museum (Technical museum) which is like the Ontario Science Centre, except that it's designed for an older audience, so the stuff is just as cool and there are only a few kids hogging all the fun toys. The best thing is that it was just recently converted from German to German/English bilingual, so we could actually understand everything.

Stockholm, Sverige

So, a long , long time ago (about 11 days ago) José, Daniel, Carolina, Wilson, and I traveled to Stockholm, Sweden for a whole 2 days. The Colombians had found really cheap round-trip tickets from Bratislava for only €18 with Ryanair. They ended up getting the last of the heavily discounted tickets, so I sucked it up and bought the more expensive €51 one. What an outrage! €51 for a round-trip airline ticket!?! If you broke down an Air Canada ticket you probably pay more than €51 for the pillow.

On the bus to Bratislava (~1.5 hours) we met a group of around 10 Mormon girls from Brigham Young University in Utah. They were also going to Stockholm for 2 days, and would be on both our flights. We ended up stealing their itinerary as none of us had planned anything, so we were continuously running into them.

The flight was great, I will definitely consider using Ryanair in the future. When we arrived in Stockholm there was a thick layer of snow on the ground and it was pretty cold, especially for José and the Colombians who just recently learned that thermometers don't stop at zero.José had organised for him and I to stay with a couch-surfer while the Colombians stayed with Maria, a friend of ours from Vienna who is studying in Stockholm. Our couch-surfer from here on named Elina was amazing. She had made us a lasagna for supper, and had sheets, mattresses and towels for us in her res room. That night José and I tried to go out to a student pub, but it was closing when we arrived, which was later than we planned because we got terribly lost while trying to find our way in the maze of cookie-cutter residences. Apparently that night I woke Elina while talking fluently and clearly in my sleep, apparently I was ordering wine at a restaurant. When she told me I was both amused and horribly embarrassed, she said it was pretty funny. The next morning she gave us an extra key and said that she'd be staying at her boyfriends that night and that we could just drop the key in her mailbox when we left on Saturday. She was very trusting and accommodating , even offering us more food if we wanted it.

We eventually got up and took the subway to the city centre where we met up with Maria and the Colombians. First thing on the Mormon girl's itinerary, a tour of city hall.

The city hall is a lot older than it looks, as it was designed to look like a medieval castle. The flag infront is the Stockholm city flag showing the head of St.Erik, a Swedish king who was beheaded in the 12th century.
The antechamber before the main political hall contains caricatures of prominent Stockholm politicians.
The ceiling of the chamber represents an overturned Viking ship. Apparently during bad storms and in the winter, the Vikings would bring their ships onto the shore, turn them over and take shelter beneath them. It was said that under these ships this first Swedish political meetings were held.
A window in the large tower looking across the water to the old city.
The Golden Hall is covered in glass mosaic tiles containing real gold. The mosaic designs were really different, having been designed by a young, modern artist in the 1920s. The mosaics depict the history of Sweden, and the giant woman in the centre represents "Princess Stockholm" a common theme in Stockholm. Many people were (and are) angry about how ugly Princess Stockholm looks, with big eyes, big feet, and big hands. Many people over the years have tried to have her replaced with something that better represents their beautiful city.
Every year the Nobel Prize Ball is held in the Golden hall, while the dinner is held in the blue hall (which is not, and never has been, blue) a room that was initially intended to be an outdoor courtyard until the Italian architect realized that an outdoor courtyard isn't very useful in Stockholm for 9 months of the year, and added a roof.

After the tour of city hall, we wandered around the old city, wandering into a church to warm up.
Only a block away from the church we found a cool restaurant built in a 700 year old underground prison. The food was actually cheap (an uncommon occurrence in Sweden) and the atmosphere was cool, with barrel-vaulted brick rooms covered in everything from needle-work pictures of kittens to old guitars and bagpipes. The old tiny cells were private booths for couples.
Another block away from the restaurant we came upon a courtyard with very Swedish architecture, a big Christmas tree, and an old hot-water dispenser. The hot-water dispenser was a large brick oven with spouts around the edge. I guess hot water would have been pretty important during a medieval Swedish winter.
Some of the small streets were already decorated for Christmas, however most of the stores on these quaint little streets were way out of our price range.
The old city is built on a fairly hilly island, so many of the narrow cobble-stone streets wind up and down. The old city of Stockholm looks how I pictured all of Europe to be, I suppose this is primarily due to their neutrality in WWII, resulting in a completely preserved architectural history without the devastation experienced by Vienna, Paris, and many other large cities.
The image of St.George slaying the dragon to save Princess Sweden is a common theme in Stockholm appearing in statues like this, shrines in churches, and even the animated glockenspiel set into the tower of city hall.
José, Daniel, Wilson, Carolina and myself infront of the very plain looking and oddly square Stockholm Palace which overlooks the harbour. It is still the official residence of the Swedish royal family, and is one of the largest palaces in the world still in use with 609 rooms!
From the palace we walked along the shoreline towards the Vasa Museum. Along the way we passed many old wooden sail boats, many of which appeared to be inhabited despite the cold weather.
The Vasa Museum was definitely the highlight of the trip. The Vasa is a warship built in 1628 which sank on it's maiden voyage, 15 minutes after it set sail, right in the middle of the harbour with everyone watching. At the time it was the most expensive, largest, and most modern ship ever deployed in the Baltic Sea.

The ship sat at the bottom of the harbour until it was re-discovered and raised in the 1950s and 60s. The water-logged wood which had been preserved by the cold, brackish water was treated with polyethylene glycol for 17 years to prevent it from crumbling away when it was slowly dried (for an additional 9 years).
The ship has been fully re-assembled with over 90% of the original timber and ornamentation, the few re-created prices are highly visible as they are lighter in colour. The ship was very very large and surprisingly very heavily ornamented, with the transom and bow completely decorated with sculptures of roman emperors, saints, mythological heroes, lions, and the king himself as a young boy.
Even more surprising was how heavily painted and gilt the ornamentation was. The pigments have all been found through detailed study of the wood fibres in which fragments were trapped even after 333 years under water.
The most impressive part of the ship was the transom, showing the original darker carvings and the lighter pieces re-created to fill in missing or heavily damages ones.
From the Vasa museum, we met up with Maria again and walked down the main shopping street in the old city, which is where I found my Viking friend below. the street was an odd mix of everything with jewelry shops and high-end dress stores directly beside 7-11s and emo clothing stores.
Back in the modern city centre we stopped for supper and watched a wood-splitting competition.
That night we stopped in at the weekly Stockholm couch-surfing party to say bye to Elina, but left after a few minutes. From there we went back to the room, relaxed infront of the TV (which plays un-subtitled English shows), laughed at the Swedish commercials, and got ready for an International student party we were invited to.

The next morning as José and I were leaving I took this picture of the cow pasture in the middle of the University of Stockholm campus. Apparently the cows come and go, but Elina had never seen how, she just assumed they had the ability to become invisible.
We met up with the Mormon girls again at the bus station to the airport and had a fairly uneventful flight home, with the exception of the 2 hour wait for our bus back to Vienna, at the oh-so-exciting Bratislava airport.

Stockholm was fun, and the city was beautiful, but I'm sure a visit in the summer would be better, as the cold wind and 3pm sunset really put an damper on the trip. Overall, Stockholm reminded me the most of Ontario out of any place I've been to so far. The trip to the airport could have been any section of the 401 between Cornwall and Oshawa.

Yesterday I moved into my new (and hopefully permanent) room. It is nicer, but apparently one of the girls on the floor has lived there for ~12 years and is more than a little crazy. There was a sign on the bathroom door accusing MA of stealing a bunch of her kitchen stuff, and asking the housekeeper to look for it in his (now my) room... Oh well, it'll keep life interesting, and I only have 2.5 weeks until I'm home for Christmas and New Years!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Petrovaradin Fortress, Novi Sad , Serbia
"Srecan Ti Rodjendan""Shop" Gasbar, Middle-of-Nowhere, Hungary
"Boldog Születésnapot"

Vimy Memorial (Canadian Soil), Vimy, France
"Happy Birthday"

Eiffel Tower, Paris, France
"Joyeux Anniversaire"

Bratislava Airport, Bratislava, Slovakia
"Vsetko Najlepsie K Narodeninam"

City Hall, Stockholm, Sweden
"Grattis PŒ Fšdelsedagen"

Christmas Market at Karlsplatz, Vienna, Austria
"Alles Gute zum Geburtstag"
Happy Birthday Mom, wish I could be there.
I'll be home before you know it.

Paris: le bon, le mauvais, et le coûteux

On October 31st, MA and I flew to Paris to be joined by Cora on the 1st for 6 days exploring Paris and whatever else we felt like seeing. As expected, I took many many photos, which I have edited down to... about 90. I figured photos are worth 1000 words, so, instead of writing a 90,000 word tome, I'll just briefly comment on photos. The comments are going to be very brief initially, because I leave for Stockholm tomorrow and want to have this up before I go so I don't get backlogged again.

Wednesday - Halloween
The flight was very quick, only 2 hours. After dealing with some annoying French ticket machines at Charles de Gualle that kept going out of order, and rejecting my Visa, saying, "sorry we only accept Visa" we got to Paris. The Metro map look like a cobweb, but was easy enough to decipher. Dropping everything off at the hotel we headed into the city to find some Halloween fun. Everything we passed was either closed or way too expensive, but we found a cool restaurant where we split a duck, ham, and potato salad, some wine, and had a conversation in French-German with only a bit of English thrown in for clarification. We wandered around the city looking for a halloween party, but barely saw a costume let alone a party. We ended up in a seedy Turkish bar by our hotel where they closed the metal security curtain over the door at 11:30 forcing us to leave by the emergency exit.

Thursday - Versailles Parks, Montmartre, Nighttime Wanderings

Thursday was All Saints Day, a holiday in Europe where 'all' the museums are free. So, MA and I decided to go to Versailles. After the 30min train ride there we realized that it wasn't free and the line was really long for tickets. So, we decided to check out the gardens, which are free, then head back into the city.

The gardens are like those at Schönbrunn, just much, much larger.

Sadly, as of November 1st the garden is put into winter mode with the statues covered and the flowers pulled up.
Many of the fountains were turned off, but the fountain of Apollo was still very impressive, with the exception of the seagulls resting on each head.
There is a giant 'canal' system in the shape of an X with a perimeter of over 5.5km. You can rent rowboats and enjoy the view through the gardens. We just walked towards the center and grabbed some photos.
When we got back to Paris we met up with Cora at the hotel and walked to Montmartre and the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur where there was a view out over the city. The tour of Sacré-Coeur was a bit odd because there was a mass going on, but you had to walk all the way around in behind the altar and back to the front to get out.
We walked down to a little restaurant with fuzzy walls. I had my first French french onion soup. Due to the fact that meals take time in France, and because the restaurant only had one waitress, we were there for over 3 hours. After supper we walked a few blocks to the Moulin Rouge. For some reason I expected the Moulin Rouge to be in some kind of classy artisan neighbourhood, but, it was in a full-blown redlight district surrounded by seedy strip clubs.
At that point Cora left to go to bed and MA and I took the metro to Notre Dame.
The entrance is heavily decorated with sculptures of martyrs and angels. This guy had it rough, first he was martyred, and now he's been holding his own head for over 800 years.

From Notre Dame we walked to the Louvre.

There was hardly anyone around, and the fountains were off, forming glass-smooth reflecting pools.

Old meets new.

Friday - Versailles Tour, St.Denis, and the Louvre
Friday we went back to Versailles in hopes that the weekday crowd would be smaller than anything we could hope for on the weekend. Unfortunately, the lines were even longer, but we were there, and weren't leaving. The Royal apartments were over the top, much more ornate than those in Vienna, but packed tighter than the Serbian-Hungarian border.
The hall of mirrors was very cool, hard to believe so much history could happen in one place.

The royal chapel

The hallway to the royal opera hall which was under renovation.

Out in the gardens I found this fountain decorated with amphibians, reptiles, and frog-people.

After Versailles we went to the Basilica of St.Denis, the burial place for the ancient French royal family. Before the revolution there were over a hundred marble sculptures of the kings and queens lying over their remains. Now, there are far less, but still a lot of amazing sculptures. Also, this was one of the first churches I've seen in Europe with nice stained-glass, most other churches had it all blown out during WWII.
Many of the sculptures are covered in graffiti. It would normally be a shame, but it was almost historical in and of itself. The one below is from 1593.
If anything, I think the graffiti turns what would otherwise just be another marble statue into a uniquely personal work of art.

Tomb of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (heads and all, I assume)

That night we went to the Louvre, as it is free for students on Fridays evenings. We got there a bit early, so we walked towards the Champs-Élysées.
When we were let in, there were hoards of people heading in one direction, towards the Mona Lisa. On the way we happened upon the Winged Victory of Samothrace, which I found to be most beautiful thing in the Louvre, by far. It's hard to believe that it was carved over 2 millenia ago, yet still manages to convey such a sense of motion and optimism, even missing it's head and arms.I thought this painting, Liberty Leading the People, was very nice and powerful, little did I know it was one of the museum's most famous pieces..
The small, and rather uninteresting, Mona Lisa. The crowds around the painting were ridiculous and it was hard to even see the painting, let alone the "no photography" signs through all the camera flashes.

Art with characterThe rather boring and uninspired Venus de Milo, notable only for the fact that it is so old. Apparently it would also have been originally fully painted and covered in jewelry.

'The Captive' by Michaelangelo.

This sculpture was so simple it was amazing. Her face is merely implied by the folds of the fabric, yet it is still so easy to see. Something like this deserves far more recognition than something like the Venus de Milo.There were many giant paintings in the different galleries.

I thought this painting was pretty cool, something different in a sea of portraits.

Saturday - Arras, Vimy, and Nighttime wanderings take 2
On Saturday MA and I thought we should be good Canadians and visit the Canadian war memorial in Vimy. We left on a TGV high-speed train from Gare du Nord.
There unfortunately wasn't a speedometer in our car, but we made the 180km trip to Arras in one hour, and that includes the fifteen minutes or more it took us to get out of Paris and reach full speed and the deceleration into Arras. We were going insanely fast, MA kept saying that it felt like we were in a plane about to take off.

We had time to kill in Arras before the short train to Vimy. So, we wandered into the city centre, following the sound of a band that faded in and out somewhat randomly. We squeezed through the markets setup in the narrow streets and came upon a large square where the music was the loudest. Finally we found the band, at the top of the city hall tower under the clock.
After taking the flashy TGV train from Paris, the rusty graffiti-covered antique sitting on grassed-over tracks seemed a bit out of place.
When we arrived in Vimy we were a little weary about even getting off the train. The station was all boarded up and looked like it had been abandoned for decades. There weren't any garbage cans let alone tourist information booths to tell us how to get to the memorial. So, we started walking. About 5 minutes down the street an old man pulled over and asked if we were going to the Canadian memorial. He proudly pointed out the Canadian and Quebéc flag stickers on his windshield and offered us, and another Canadian student named Calvin who happened to be walking down the road behind us, a ride to the memorial which was over 5km away.

We arrived at the information desk and the man said he would return at 5 to take us back. The memorial took 11 years to complete, was finished in 1936, and sits of land given to Canada by France. Being Canadian soil, all the workers were Canadian university students, something which was a nice surprise to find in the middle-of-nowhere northern France.
The whole memorial had been covered by scaffolding for a major renovation for the past three years, only being re-dedicated in April. So, all the stone was glowing white as it would have 70 years ago.
They fly both the modern Canadian flag (who's maple-leaf design has a lot to do with the battle of Vimy ridge) and the Red Ensign which was the Canadian flag during WWI.The grounds around the monument were left untouched, and show how the battlefield was filled with winding trenches and large craters. However, the thick layer of green grass and stands of cedars make the site a picturesque calming landscape which would have been unrecognisable to the soldiers who actually fought in those trenches.
There are two large cemeteries field with Commonwealth soldiers, many of whom were unidentified or as they say "Known unto God".
There were also tours of the tunnels which connected the front lines to different sites further back from the Germans, allowing troops and messengers to move around unseen.
On the walls of one tunnel there is a maple leaf carved into the wall, which was becoming the recognised symbol of Canada, placed on the Canadian uniforms to distinguish them from other Commonwealth soldiers.

A view across no-man's-land to the German trenches

By 3 we had seen everything there was to see, but still had two hours until our ride. So, we wandered back to the memorial and talked with the tour guides. We found out the man who drove us in is a retired resident of Vimy who passes by after every train (3-4 times a day) to shuttle tourists and chat with the staff.
When he finally returned,we were all ready to leave. He dropped us off downtown so we could take the bus back to Arras, and handed us little pieces of paper with his name and address. I'll have to remember to send him a postcard from home at Christmas.
MA and Calvin (random guy we met from Medicine Hat, Alberta) waiting for the bus and eating our poor-man's supper of baguette, cheese, and Sunny D.
After a lot of frustration Calvin boarded a train to the only city in the area with a student hostel, and MA and I got tickets for the TGV back to Paris. Calvin was on a two month tour of Europe which was just coming to a close, his next destination was the city where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.

When we arrived in Paris we decided to tour some more because if we went back to the hotel we would just crash and waste the evening.

We walked to the Eiffel tower in time to catch on of the light shows which occur every hour on the hour once it's dark. The tower which normally glows gold is covered in bright blue-white strobe lights which flash randomly making the tower sparkle.
The tower was so much larger than I had ever imagined, and is an amazing example of Victorian-age ironwork where artistic design merges with the utility of geometric mass-produced ironwork to create beautifully simple structures.
From there we walked to the Arc de Triomphe which was closed, but we still got to see the outside which was also far far larger than I ever would have expected.
From the Arc we went back to the hotel, buying a bottle of wine on the way. At the hotel we threw on the TV only to find the Canadian episode of the French version of American Idol, with guest stars Avril Lavigne and Celine Dion. Needless to say we turned very quickly. Eventually we found the movie "Quest for Fire" which was perfect because although it was "in French" it is about cavemen and therefore has no speaking.

Sunday - Père-Lachaise Cemetery, les Invalides, Pantheon, Arc de Triomphe
Sunday morning MA and I went to Père-Lachaise Cemetery. It was very crowded, with graves and mausoleums built side-by-side with no room in between. The streets wound through the site which is built upon a large hilly piece of land in the eastern end of Paris.

Chopin's grave, completely covered in fresh flowers

Some of the oldest parts of the cemetery are crumbling, with cracked-open graves and mausoleums.
Jim Morrison's grave with it's third tombstone. The first two were a metal shield and then a bust, both of which were stolen. As the grave is in behind others, there has been heavy vandalism of the surrounding sites and at one point he was going to be evicted.

Oscar Wilde's grave, covered in years of lipstick

The Paris subway system is called the Métro. This stop, like many in the center of the city has an old sign from the turn of the century.
We stopped for some Quiche by the Opera, but couldn't tour inside because there was a show going on. I returned on Monday, so scroll down for some pictures.
Passing through the Tuileries gardens in front of the Louvre on our way to les Invalides.

Boats along the Seine with Notre Dame in the distance.

We walked all the way to les Invalides, built by Napoleon as a veteran's hospital and now also the location of his tomb which is in the large church in the center. For the first time since arriving we also saw some blue sky! The roof of the church is covered in real gold. You had to pay admission to see Napoleon's tomb so we just peeked in and decided to leave it for the next time we're in Paris as money was getting pretty tight.

Blue sky!Back across the SeineA few minutes south of the island on which Notre Dame stands is the Panthéon. I personally had no idea this building even existed, but it was really cool. Originally built as a church, it was later converted to a building to glorify (and hold the remains of) important French citizens.

From the central dome hangs (a replica of) the original Foucalt pendulum. In the crypts beneath the main room the remains of Voltaire, the Curies, Braille, Hugo and many more are interred.
From the Panthéon we walked to a small restaurant where I had my most Parisian meal: red wine, bread, French onion soup, duck, and Crème brûlée. We then went to the Arc de Triomphe in time to walk to the top.
The interior rooms were being renovated, so entrance was free. On the walls in the main room right beneath the observation deck at the very top, the arched walls were decorated with metal palm fronds which are tributes to the unknown soldier buried under the main arch.

From the top of the Arc you can see the entire city.

Of the 12 boulevards which radiate out from the traffic circle around the Arc, the largest by far is the Champs-Élysées which ends at the large Ferris wheel in front of the Tuileries gardens (and the Lovre).
Monday - Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Opera
Monday morning the three of us stowed our luggage at Gare du Nord and headed for the Eiffel tower. We chose the cheaper, and more fun option of walking up, stopping at the first and second floors.
The very top is only accessible by an elevator with long lines and an additional fee. So, we decided to leave if for another time, as we wanted to get to Notre Dame before we had to leave for the airport.
Notre Dame is very large and decorated on the inside, but resembles many of the other cathedrals I've been to, all of which are starting to blur together. One cool thing about Notre Dame is that many of the stone alcoves are painted with designs in bright colours.
After Notre Dame we all split up, with MA going to another museum, Cora going in search of a market, and I decided to tour the Opera.
The guided tours were expensive, so I chose the cheaper self-guided one. Most operas are very ornate, but this one was incredible. Every surface was covered in marble, gold, bronze, or velvet, with not one thing overlooked (with the exception of the bathrooms).
The chandelier actually resembles the prop from the Phantom of the Opera, which is set in the Paris Opera. As in the musical, there is also a large lake in the deep basements due to the marshy soil it is built on. Any attempts to water proof the basements would lead pressure buildup behind the walls, threatening the founation.

One of the set mock-ups from the 20s or 30s in the Opera Museum.

We met back at Gare du Nord, and had a nice, uneventful flight home.

Watch your fingers as this post comes to a close.

Apparently I need to visit France more often, I was gone for 3 days and got 5 comments on the post! Nice to know that people are still reading.

Novi Sad, Serbia - My Third and Final Former-Yugoslav Adventure

This past week has been crazy, so I just finally got time to sit down and write this article. Novi Sad was a really great weekend, but this post is going to be quick so I can start my Paris post, sorry Laslo.

Two weekends ago 6 of us went to visit Szilvia and Laslo's hometown of Novi Sad, Serbia for the long weekend. Cora, Daniel, Paola (from ECHEM, originally from Spain), and I went in Paola's car. Szilvia drove with Roland (Paola's Austrian friend). We drove through Hungary and into Serbia, arriving late on Thursday. We stayed in Szilvia and Laslo's uncle's old apartment which was packed with food, including beer in the fridge, hot supper in the oven, and the inescapable schnapps in the cupboard. Their uncle had cooked us a huge quiche-like dinner filled with eggs and cheese with a flaky crust on top, it was really good.

Friday we went to the Petrovaradin Fortress across the Danube from Novi Sad. There has been a fortified settlement at that location since before 3000BC, but the majority of the fortress that we saw was built by Austria-Hungary about 300 years ago to protect Novi Sad from the Turks.
The clocktower at the fortress, the symbol of Novi Sad, was under renovation, hence the missing arms. The long arm on the clock is actually the hour hand, as it is the only one visible from Novi Sad, and apparently the locals weren't too concerned with the exact time, so that's all they needed.
From the fortress you can see the three bridges across the Danube which have been rebuilt after being bombed by NATO in 1999, along with the oil refinery, electrical, communications, and drinking water infrastructures, as well as some residential areas...
The fortress has now been converted into a museum, a 5 star hotel, a 1000 star hostel ("because it has pieces of the roof missing, so you see the stars through the holes in the ceiling" - Laslo), and an artisan community. The artist's houses have galleries on the ground floor and apartments on the upper floors. The fact that the fortress is always filled with artists has resulted in a lot of cool outdoor artwork.
A bit cold and damp from the fortress we went to meet Szilvia and Laslo's parents. Unfortunately they speak German, Hungarian, Serbian, Croatian, and Macedonian, but no English. Their father could speak some "Tarzan English" as they call it, and my poor German and Laslo and Szilvia's translations got me through the rest. They had prepared a delicious Hungarian paprikash, which we ate with noodles, wine, and of course, schnapps. After dinner we watched some Spanish 'Telenovela' soap operas with Cyrillic subtitles with their mom, random but a lot of fun. Most Serbian media is left in the original language with Cyrillic Serbian subtitles, to which Szilvia credits her knowledge of English.
That night we went to the city centre, which was really nice, like a small Vienna. In the central plaza there was an exhibit of painted cows where we found some now worthless old Yugoslav money on the street. I found a 50,000,000,000 Florin bill (uncontrolled inflation) and Cora found a 100,000,000 Florin bill.
Before going out we stopped at a Palačinka (Crêpe, č=ch) restaurant. We got delicious dessert versions, mine was a banana split, filled with ice creme and topped with bananas and (sweetened!) whipped creme. They were delicious, huge, and cheap. Even cheaper considering that Laslo paid, thanks again! In case you don't recognise them yet (which you should by now) the photo below is of Laslo and Szilvia.

That night we went to Szilvia's favourite bar, a tiny hole-in-the-wall club with faux-fur walls and a disco ball. The music was great, so Paola, Daniel, Szilvia, and I stayed until 3am or so, and were the last ones to leave. I taught them my full range of expert dance moves, including: the fisherman, the sprinkler, the grocery cart, the lawnmower, the standard car, and many more. I'm sure I tarnished the name of Canadian dancing in Serbia for many generations to come.

The view from the apartment:

The five of us crammed into Szilvia's little car to tour a bit before going to their Grandma's for a BBQ dinner.
The control for the windshield wipers was broken so Cora had to run out and squeegee the windows as fast as she could at red lights and stop signs.

Daniel, Paola, and I crammed in the back seat.

Their Grandma's house had a big kitchen building in the backyard, perfect for huge family barbeques. The photo below is of Szilvia and Laslo with their dad, grandma, and two cousins who speak better English than I do. Their dad cooked a whole pot of burgers, sausages, porkchops and bacon, with skewers of vegetables for Roland (who's a vegetarian).
Szilvia was singing along to the radio when her grandmother said, in sweet-old-lady Hungarian, "why, you still sing so badly..." and when Cora joined in (and neighbourhood dogs started to howl) she said "now the other one has started, God save us!". After dinner we decided to go skating with Laslo, and I shattered the stereotype that all Canadians are good at hockey.
The next morning we had a big breakfast, and were joined by their cousin, a friend, and the DJ from the faux-fur-covered bar who had burned us all CDs.
We left at 1:00 to beat the rush at the border as everyone returned from the long weekend. Reaching the Serbian border we stopped behind a sea of cars. Moving at a rate of 1 car every 5 min we crawled to the border. An hour later when we reached the border we saw why things were moving so slowly, from the other side of the border in no-mans-land there were cars as far as you could see heading towards Hungary. Stuck in the line with no escape we began the crawl forward as the sun began to set. After 2 hours and a minor altercation where we saw what happens when you mix a girl with a French temper and an American mouth with a frustrated Serbian man, we arrived at the border. In order to speed up the crossing Szilvia, Daniel, and I walked through the non-EU border while the cars went through the EU border. They were checking the cars very thoroughly, but they somehow missed the 2L of home-made schnapps in Roland's back seat (which he received from his long-lost relatives who he visited that weekend after tracking them down through birth certificates to a small city near Novi Sad).

Four and a half hours after we left Novi Sad, we were 1 hour away, but officially in Hungary. The rest of the ride went quickly, and we were back in Vienna by 10:30.

As it's taken me this long to finish this post, the Paris one might be a long time coming, although I guess I should finish it before I leave for Stockholm on Thursday.

Things are going great in Vienna, it's nice to have a relaxing weekend, and this morning it snowed for the first time. As of today I have been in Europe 6 months! I can't wait to see everyone at Christmas, which is just a few weeks away. However between now and then I have Stockholm, my German class, and the Christmas markets to keep me distracted. Once I return from Stockholm I will start writing posts about daily life in Vienna again, with lots of photos of the city decorated for Christmas.

Croatia

Last weekend was our trip to Rijeka, Croatia to see the sea and visit our friend Marina, who you may remember from Oktoberfest.

Attila, MA, José, and I left Vienna at 9am hoping to get to Rijeka around 6. However, we had to stop in Wiener Neustadt to pick up Farkhod, a 30 year old IAESTE trainee from Uzbekistan. We crammed him into the already packed car and headed to Croatia. On the way we stopped in Slovenia for lunch; the food was good, but nothing special. The wine was cheap, and tasted like it. We finally arrived at the Slovenia/Croatia border and that's when everything went wrong.

You probably won't be shocked to hear that people from Uzbekistan need visas to enter other countries, and as Croatia isn't EU, Farkhod's EU visa was useless. After a long discussion between Farkhod the the border officers he was finally allowed to leave Slovenia on the condition that he was allowed into Croatia. So, we pulled ahead 400m to the Croatia border, where we were stopped again, trapped in no-man's land while Farkhod tried to convince them to let him through. Surprise, surprise, he had to go back. So, we drove him back into Slovenia, and left him with his food, some clothes, and his wallet to find his own way back (he somehow ended up in Munich on his way back to Vienna, don't know how he managed that one).

After being thoroughly checked again at the border to ensure there were no more Uzbeks hidden in our car, we entered Croatia and drove the 20min to Rijeka. As we were entering the city, the sun was setting over the Adriatic.
After driving in circles attempting to find a parking spot, we found a spot to idle and phoned Marina. Looking for a landmark, Attila and MA discovered that we were right by Nikola Tesla's elementary school, now a part of the University of Rijeka. She met us there, and took us to our hostel. The hostel was run by the Red Cross and was really really cheap, at ~€8/person/night for a large 5 person room with an amazing view.

As the others weren't leaving Vienna until around 4pm, we went out to eat. We stopped into a pizza restaurant and read through the menu, someone jokingly pointed out that there was a smoked horsemeat pizza, and one thing lead to another...
It wasn't that bad, it tasted like prosciutto. After that, we went to a bar on a boat, then an English pub where we were finally met by the others.

The next morning we woke up late and missed our boat tour (which we weren't too upset about because it would have been €20). While everyone was getting ready I took these pictures of Rijeka and the Adriatic from our window, I told you it was a good view.

On one of the utility room doors in the hostel we found this sign; no grinding.

The central streets of Rijeka have been turned into a large pedestrian mall. One random thing is that the pedestrian street was paved in marble, the local stone, very classy.Unlike Bosnia, there were flags everywhere in Croatia. However, the flags of most of the Balkan countries and the Bosnian province of Srpska look very similar, with red, white, and blue stripes in different orders and occasionally a crest. Croatia's flag was no different.
Near the bus terminal there was this very ornate church, parts of it reminded me of the fisherman's bastion in Budapest.
The hills around Rijeka are filled with houses, our hostel was also on one of the hills, which was so steep that the buildings all along the street were set back a few meters and connected to the walled sidewalk by bridges one or two stories up from the ground floor.
After a super-cheap ($1) hearty lunch at a student cafeteria we drove about 20min to the tourist-town of Opatija, parked the cars and went right to one of the rocky beaches.
The water was clear blue and warm, considering the fact that the air was ~8°C. It wasn't warm enough to swim in, by European standards, but felt like the St.Lawrence in June.

Predrag, me, Attila, José, and Andrew.Jasmina (Macedonia) and CoraFrom that beach we walked along the seawall infront of large homes, hotels, and parks.

After walking around to the harbour and through a large park we came upon a coffee and cocktail bar with a sandy beach and lounge chairs. It was their last day of operation for the season so we had the place mostly to ourselves.
After a cappuccino we headed straight for the lounge chairs. José found it very cold, as winter in southern Portugal is about as cold as a warm fall day. Andrew on the other hand proved that 8°C is Canadian sunbathing weather.

Our short coffee stop turned into a long lounge by the Adriatic.The architecture and feel of Western Croatia is very Italian, because at one point it was a part of Italy, and is only 90km away from Trieste.

That night we toured around Rijeka, and ended up back in the now-very-crowded boat bar. The next morning we decided to part ways with one car (Attila, Cora, Jasmina, and myself) going back through Ljubljana, and the other car (MA, Predrag, José, and Andrew) taking the longer route through Zagreb, dropping Marina off at her parent's house on the way.

We opted to keep driving instead of entering Ljubljana, and got the Slovenia-Austria border just as it started to get dark.
We arrived back in Vienna at 8:00, and had the girls over to our place to celebrate Attila's 24th birthday.

Today (25th) I leave for Novi Sad, Serbia. Sounds like Szilvia and Laslo's family is very excited to meet us, it should be great. It'll be fun to hang out with Laslo again, and enjoy the extra long weekend (holiday + 1 extra hour from daylight savings).

After Serbia I have 1 evening to pack (for the move and Paris) and move into Haus Döbling, then Tuesday evening I have my first German class, and Wednesday I leave for Paris, so the Serbia post might be a while, and might be really quick to make room for what is sure to be a novel-length Paris post.

Gradiška and Banja Luka Bosnia

I know what you're thinking, Bosnia? There was a change in plans and our Bosnia and Croatia weekends were swapped. I would just like to say that I know the country is called Bosnia and Herzegovina, but that it far too long to write over and over, so I'll just call it Bosnia.

So, Friday at 3pm Andrew, MA, José, Cora, Predrag, and I boarded a bus for Gradiška (š = sh). The trip took 7.5 hours, taking us through Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia. Thankfully the bus was nice and modern and not full, giving us some room to stretch and sleep. We also had one rest stop somewhere in Slovenia where we played frisbee and I took the photo below. Although it still felt like home we knew we weren't in Kansas anymore.
We arrived in Predrag's home town of Gradiška at 10:30, 30 minutes ahead of schedule because we flew through the borders. We were met by Predrag's half-sister Milana and some of his friends. They took us and our 500lbs of luggage (I brought a normal sized backpack, I don't know why others (Cora) felt the need to bring enough for a week), to a really nice bar where his sister bought us a gigantic pizza (which came with bottles of sweet and spicy ketchup, something common in Eastern Europe) and a round of beer. Like in most Eastern European countries the beer was very cheap and good, around 1€ for 0.5L. From there we went on to a bar with live music. The place was very smoky, but the Serbian music was half decent. I asked Predrag to burn me a CD which I'll bring home at Christmas.

At that point we headed to Predrag's house as it was getting late. We were greeted by his mom and dad. His dad spoke broken German (about as much as I know) so we could communicate alright, but his mom only spoke Serbian, so Predrag had to be our translator. Even though we had just come from a bar and a giant pizza we were quickly offered a beer, a big piece of delicious pineapple cake, and our first shot of home-made plum schnapps (I would guess it was at least 60% alcohol, 1% plum, and 39% fire). By the time I finally got to sleep I was out like a light.

The next morning we had a chance to explore a bit before breakfast. This is Predrag's house, with the separate kitchen building to the right.To celebrate our visit to Bosnia, Predrag's parents killed one of their pigs, which is a big honour. Here is Predrag's dad roasting the pig.
Someone must have been sitting there all day turning it while we visited Banja Luka, because there was no motor, just a wooden pole.As a pre-breakfast snack Predrag picked us some white and black (red) grapes. They were really sweet, and the black ones tasted like artificial grape flavouring, who knew it was actually a real flavour?
Here is Predrag's niece Leo watching us cautiously as we checked out the pig pens.
The pig pens were filled with a bunch of 3 day old piglets. They were really cute, but we had to keep in mind that they were the younger siblings and cousins of supper, not pets.
The fields behind the house were filled with old-fashioned haystacks
After a hearty supper of eggs, chicken, bread, and pita (a mixture of egg and cheese topped with a thin crust) we drove to Banja Luka (Бања Лука), the second largest city in Bosnia, which was about 45 minutes away. On the way we met up with Laslo, our Serbian friend who used to used to work in Wiener Neustadt with Cora, José, and I.

In Banja Luka we stopped for coffee and beer at a bar in Predrag's dorm. The coffee was served in tiny little cups and wasn't very strong. I opted for a Pepsi, which was good but tasted almost nothing like the North American version. The guy between Andrew and MA is Sascha, one of Predrag's roommates.The beer (pivo or пиво) everyone drinks in Bosnia is Nektar, but in most cases you see it written in cursive Cyrillic like below.
Knowing my Greek letters from math and science courses, and receiving a quick crash course from Laslo I was able to read most of the Cyrillic writing, which when translated was usually easily understood. For example try and read the sign below.Mashinski Phakultet Banja Luka = Banja Luka Machining (Mechanical Engineering) Faculty.

After the bar we stopped in to see Predrag's room which he shared with 2 other guys. It was fairly small, but clean, much
nicer than the room we had in Budapest. The floor's bathrooms were pretty sick, just a row of dirty squat toilets. However, he only pays 5€/month so it was understandable, and worth it.

While walking down the street Andrew saw someone he had met in Austria at a conference the weekend before. While they were talking about their random encounter in Banja Luka, Cora, MA, and Laslo tried to balance on one of the a small poles which line the sidewalks. Thanks to my amazing photographic skills it looks like they actually managed it, when in fact they failed miserably.
Throughout Bosnia we saw churches and mosques being built. Many were destroyed or damaged in the recent war or in previous invasions. This Orthodox church with the gold roof was being re-built in the centre of the city where it once stood 100 years ago.
The high-price shopping street with painted plaster buildings reminds you that Bosnia used to be part of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire, and that is is recovering, slowly, from the war.In a large communist-era department store in the center of town we found this Popeye ride.
The Cyrillic street signs just looked really cool. The second line on the yellow part (градишка)
reads Gradiška. This sign also shows the prevalence of English as the international language of tourism, with both airport (aerodrom) and town center (centar) being written in both languages.
We checked out a few markets and walked over to the Kastel fortress. Unfortunately I don't remember much about the history of it, and the Wikipedia (Википедија) article is in Cyrillic Serbian. Either it was built to defend the city against the Ottomans or to protect the Ottomans against other invaders.

Me, Cora, Laslo, Drazen, Predrag, Sascha, Andrew, Ma, JoséParts of the fortress were still in ruins.

Taking a break form all the walking.

Downtown Banja Luka

On the walk back to the cars we passed this church, it looked like something from Expo '67 or the Jetsons.
Banja Luka is the capital of the Republika Srpska, the new (post war) Serbian portion of Bosnia. The government buildings were almost complete, but there were still some very brave construction workers on some very sketchy scaffolding.
We peaked in on a soccer game between FC Radnik from Bijeljina and FC Borac from Banja Luka (I directly translated the names from the poster, so they're probably spelled wrong). We didn't stay long, but it was cool to see.
On the way back to Gradiška we stopped into a restaurant for, you guessed it, a beer. When we finally got back Predrag's mom had made an amazing 3 course dinner with chicken noodle soup, cabbage rolls, pickled peppers, coleslaw, and pork. There was also plenty of bread, beer, and schnapps (surprise, surprise) and more pineapple cake for dessert.

Predrag and Leo

After dinner we just stayed around the table drinking and singing while MA played the guitar. Predrag's dad and friends sang some Serbian songs and we sang some English ones. It was a really fun night which reminded me of hanging out with friends at home.

Sunday morning I wandered around some more. Here are all the nuts they've gathered from the trees on their property. They became our pre-breakfast a few minutes later.
The ugliest bird I've ever seen. It is called a guinea fowl and is used as an alarm for the chicken coop. When scared by a snake or any other predator it apparently screams, alerting the farmer.Here we are eating nuts and pretzels for pre-breakfast. The guy in the white hat is Predrag's older brother.

What's breakfast without some home-made schnapps? For breakfast we had everything from the supper before, again, including the beer. I think I had more alcohol this weekend than I did last month at Oktoberfest! but, when in Rome...A group photo infront of the house right before we left. There were others where everyone is looking into the camera, but I like this one because Predrag's mom is laughing.

We got on the bus to head home at 2:30. Laslo, Drazen, Sascha, Leo, and Predrag stayed to wave goodbye. Predrag was going to stay another day and come back on Monday. The second bus was packed, and the guy I sat beside stank, so I knew it was going to feel like a much longer journey. What I didn't expect was how long we would have to wait at the borders. At the Bosnia-Croatia border and Croatia-Slovenia(EU) border we waited for over an hour, and had to get out of the bus to go through passport control. However, as I was sitting beside a smelly Bulgarian who kept pushing me further into the aisle, I was happy to get out of the bus to show my passport and stretch my legs. The trip ended up being over 9 hours long, but thankfully I caught the last tram home.

I would have to say that this was the best weekend so far. Seeing a country from the perspective of the locals is so much better than being a tourist and living in a hostel. So many people had warned me about Bosnia being a scary impoverished place, but I saw it as a country with a rough history and the desire to change and grow. As it is with all poorer countries I've been to, the people seem nicer and more sociable, with plenty of time to relax with friends and family.

This weekend we're going to Rijeka Croatia by car. While there we're going to hang out with IAESTE Rijeka, hike, and hopefully visit the coast. I'll be sure to take lots of photos for all of you who read this regularily (and never comment).

I've been going over old posts at work and finding lots of gramatical and spelling mistakes, so, if you find one (which many people have) please tell me so I can fix it. For example, in the Oktoberfest post I had written Liederhosen, which Szilvia reminded me means songs-pants, and that she was pretty sure I meant to write lederhosen which means leather-pants.

Moving, Munich, Oktoberfest, and Füssen

Yesterday (Saturday) we finally got the Internet up and running, so I'll start this post now and see how long it takes to finish. Last Thursday after work I moved out of Albert Schweizer Haus and into Attila (Slovakia) and I's new apartment. At that point there was only one (pullout) bed and the apartment was freezing cold so I wasn't too pleased, to say the least. Now though there are two beds, and we've broken up the corner couch, putting one half in the entrance way, making the living room a bedroom. Also, now the heat is 'on' and the wireless is up, so it is much better. Here are a few photos of the place before we moved the beds and couch around:

The Kitchen

Bathroom. Notice the personal water heater (very common)

A tub in Europe?!?!! I think it's the first one I've seen.

The living room before we moved stuff around. Now my bed is in the far corner.

The entryway where my bed used to be and where the couch is now.I'll take a photo of the outside of the house and the garden next time I'm home during daylight hours, might be a while...

That night MA and I took the night train to Munich. This train was much nicer and much more organized than the others I've been on. I guess that's the difference between Western Europe and Eastern Europe; one has complementary chocolate croissants and bottled water, the other has angry border patrol officers and complementary near-abandonment in the Czech republic.

Friday - Oktoberfest
We arrived at 6:30am and were met by Henrik and Marina who arrived from Croatia at 5am. After a nap at Henrik's we walked down to Oktoberfest, arriving around noon. As it was pouring rain we ran into the first tent we saw, the Löwenbräu tent (Pronounced "Loovenbroy"). These 'tents' are only in place for the three weeks of Oktoberfest but they are huge arenas. The Löwenbräu tent was mid-sized and held 4,400 people all sitting at tables, some hold over 8,000!
Inside was just one huge party, with over half of the people in lederhosen and dirndl. In the center you can see the large band-stand where they played German drinking songs including the classic "Ein prosit, ein prosit, der germütlichkeit!" Which roughly translates to "a toast, a toast, traditional good times" it's hard because gemütlichkeit really doesn't have an English translation, think having fun playing board games around a fire at Christmas with family as opposed to having fun at an amusement park.As we arrived 'late' there weren't any unreserved tables left. So, we grabbed a table that was free until 5pm and bought our first round. At Oktoberfest the only volume of beer you can buy is 1L Maßes, and Oktoberfest beer is stronger than normal beer, about 6%. Here you can see Henrik's whole €200 lederhosen getup, which was complete with shirt, socks, and traditional shoes.
People were constantly walking around with stuff for sale, from large bready pretzels, to radishes, to cool felt hats. I have to say I was a sucker for the felt hat, but it was a wise purchase as it kept the rain off my head for the rest of the day.
1st litre almost gone...
But don't worry, there's always more the instant you want it. I was amazed by the brute strength of the beer maids, some were holding even more Maßes, with a few stacked on top in a second tier.
Needless to say, in a beerhall filled with 4,400 drunk patrons drinking out of glass mugs, there are a few casualties.
We randomly met a guy named Ben who was an American living in South Africa, and stopping over in Munich on his way to Sweden. He was an interesting guy, who was pretty proud of his bad German. After many claims that he was going to drink 5 Maßes, he fell asleep on the table after about 2.5. After 5 hours, half a chicken, a pretzel, and 4L of beer each (except Marina and Ben, of course) we were kicked out of the reserved seats. We wandered around, made some friends, and eventually left the tent. Outside the rain had stopped, and the vendors were out in full force. A common sight were the booths selling iced gingerbread hearts with love notes printed on them. There were ribbons through the top and girls wore them around their necks.
We wandered through the tents, but most were closed to new people or had impossibly slow moving lines. The fairground looked fun but we were tired and poor, so we got back on the subway heading towards the city centre.
We checked out the Hofbräu Haus downtown but the lines were too long, so we wandered around, stopped into the Hard Rock Café and eventually went back to Henrik's.

Saturday - Munich
Saturday was our day to tour Munich. We started at city hall, which was really nice, but not as nice as Vienna's. That's the problem with living in the most beautiful city in Europe, almost everything else is very nice, but not as nice.
Some random tower, by city hall. We stopped near the base for a breakfast sausage.We climbed a church tower to get this amazing view of the city. Mom, Dad, and Aunt Marilyn, recognize this view?
In front of the city hall there was this 'fish fountain' which was first installed to be filled with fish during market days to keep them alive and fresh.
From city hall we walked though the city to the Englischer Garten, a huge park in the middle of the city. In one part of the garden there is a large Chinese tower with a 7000 seat biergarten open all year long. There was a big band in the tower, and a decorated horse-drawn beer wagon below.
From the garden we got lost walking around but eventually took the U-Bahn to the Olympiapark, the grounds from the 1972 Munich Olympics. We went into the BMW Museum, checking out the old motorcycles and cars, including a cool little car like the one Steve Urkel drove, with the door on the front.
The Olympic arenas and swimming pools were all made out of this metal and glass fabric mesh, hard to believe it was 33 years old, it looked really modern.
When we returned to downtown, we passed city hall and saw this dragon attacking some stone villagers. Imagine someone proposing a building today, and saying, "Now, I know it sounds a bit crazy but I think we should have a large bronze dragon scaling the building, scaring away some hand-carved stone villagers". This is why I love Europe.
Around the corner from the city hall there is the Frauenkirche, a large brick church built in only 20 years, but severely damaged in WWII, not being fully restored until 1994.
From the Frauenkirche we wandered around some more, stopping first for a beer, and then for some ice cream. In recognition of Oktoberfest they had Beer-flavoured ice cream, which I had to buy, but would never buy again. I don't know what I expected, but it tasted like stale beer mixed in with vanilla ice cream... yum...

Sunday - Füssen
Early Sunday morning the four of us bought a €33 Schönes Wochenende ticket, which gives unlimited train travel in Germany all day for up to 5 people. The 2h train to Füssen passed through the Bavarian Alps, a picturesque landscape of grazing cows, small villages, green rolling hills, black forests, and blue mountains.
From the train station we took a bus to the base of the hills the two castles are built on. We took the scenic route up to the Marienbrücke, stopping to take photos of the amazing views down to the lake and Schloss Hohenschwangau which you will see later. Here is a picture of Marienbrücke taken later from Schloss Neuschwanstein.
The only reason people have been trekking to Marienbrücke for over 100 years is this amazing view of King Ludwig II's Schloss Neuschwanstein
Neuschwanstein is a 19th century palace built by "crazy" King Ludwig II of Bavaria. It was inspired by the opera Lohengrin, and was designed by a set designer, not an architect. This imaginative design was the reason Walt Disney chose this castle to be the inspiration for the Disneyland castle. It was one of the short-listed 21 wonders of the world, and is supposedly the most photographed building in Germany. I assisted this statistic by taking dozens and dozens of photos myself. Here are my favourites:
After walking around the outside of the castle, we walked down to a viewing site for the waterfall beneath Marienbrücke which you can see in the photo above. From the waterfall we walked the 20 minutes to King Ludwig II's parents castle, Schloss Hohenschwangau.
From Hohenschwangau we still had about an hour left, so we decided to check out the Alpensee (Alpine lake). It was crystal clear, with a tropical aqua tint, and best of all it must not have been in the Japanese tour books because it was deserted.
Walking around the lake we came across this view of Schloss Hohenschwangau on the left, the town of Hohenschwangau in the centre and Schloss Neuschanstein on the mountain to the right. Let me remind you that you can always click on all the photos to get larger full-resolution copies. The fall colours and cool temperatures really reminded me of home, and were very relaxing. It was hard to leave knowing that we had a 2h train ride back to Munich, then a 2h train ride to Salzburg, and finally a 3h train to Vienna.
The train from Munich to Salzburg was very entertaining as it was packed full of drunk people in liederhosen, with most of them still drinking.

On Thursday we went to our friend Stefan's apartment to watch Arrested Development on DVD using his projector. It was really relaxing and reminded me of hanging out with friends at home. On Saturday Szilvia, Cora, Sladjan (works downstairs with Cora), and I bought tickets to the 'Long Night at the Museums', where for €10 you can get into 89 museums across Vienna from 6pm-1am. We saw the planetarium, Belvedere Palace which contained permanent paintings by Klimt and other famous Austrian artists as well as the exhibit 'Wien-Paris' with paintings by Picasso, van Gogh, Gauguin, Monet, Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cézanne, and more. From Belvedere we went to the museum of architecture (boring...) and the Museum Moderner Kunst (Museum of Modern Art). In the MUMOK there were many 'interesting' things, some I would consider art, and some I consider disturbing. The highlights were 'art' by Yoko Ono, and a phone call from my family having Thanksgiving at my Aunt Moe's in Québec. Apparently my conversation was a bit loud, as my friends said they could clearly hear me on the other side of the gallery... Oh well, it was nice to hear everyone's voices again, hard to believe I've been gone so long, and that life goes on without me. From there we finished the evening in the Naturhistorisches Museum (the Museum of Natural History). It was cool, there was a hot air balloon which kept rising and falling through the large hole in the heavily ornamented lobby ceiling, identical to the one in the Kunsthistorisches Museum from my June 10th post. We saw the dinosaurs, then got very tired very quickly and decided to go home, as it was already 12:30 and the special museum buses which were going to take Szilvia and Sladjan home were almost done for the night. Overall, the night was a lot of fun, and gave us the chance to see a lot of things which we normally wouldn't have paid the €8 individual entrance fees for.

This weekend is my trip to Croatia, so hopefully this extra-long post will keep you happy until then. Remember to post a little comment if you can (apparently it doesn't work form some people), I love to hear who's reading.

Moving, Munich, Oktoberfest, and Füssen

I don't have Internet at my new place yet, so it might be a while before I get a post up, especially because I have to cut down the 45 pictures I have set aside for this post or I'll be uploading them all week.

My new place is ok, ASH was much nicer, warmer, more private, and cheaper, but this place is alright. My weekend in Munich was great, had lots of fun; it was cool seeing Henrik again. I've been away from work for 4 days now, so I guess I should start being productive...

I will post as soon as I can.