Spring has sprung

Complete with rain and sun and 65 degrees! Yesterday was a perfect spring day, where the sun was verging on hot and you could feel its dangerous effects on your skin. I would have taken a picture if my digital camera weren't broken. Yes, that's right--the digital camera I have had for three months is already broken! It was dropped a couple weeks ago for the first time and now the pictures are overexposed on one side and completely dark on the other side. *sigh* That'll be going back to Canon, to whom I certainly won't admit I dropped it.

I saw a strange play on Sunday night at one of the theaters in town. It is called "The Goat or Who is Sylvia" and is by Edward Albee, an American playwright. It's about a guy named Martin who has an affair with a goat. Yes, you read that correctly. The entire thing is played out in two scenes. In the first, Martin is being interviewed by a close friend regarding a big architectural project he's working on. Martin decides to tell Ross about the goat, which turns out to be a big mistake. In the second scene, Martin's wife Stevie gets a letter from Ross, spilling Martin's secret. Naturally, she goes bezerk, which results in 1.5 hours of hysterical fighting between the two, during which she destroys nearly everything in the apartment and kills the goat. The end.

It was certainly interesting...not bad in any way, but I'm not entirely sure what the point was. Maybe there is no point? The actress who played Stevie was very annoying--the character is apparently supposed to be high strung anyway, but as she pranced around the stage and cackled during the first act before the shit hit the fan, I wondered if she was supposed to be drunk. My diagnosis: an acute case of over-acting.

Life's a rollercoaster

That's not just a song by Ronan Keating, but the reality of my day-t0-day existance. This past week I've been up and down and up and down, hurtling between the two points at breakneck speed. Positive moments included getting flowers from a special guy, eating a giant ice cream sundae at my favorite ice cream parlor, meeting an acquaintance on the street and going for coffee, a visit from a friend, laughing at a friend's antics over fondue at my place. Negative moments include the other dinner guests at the same fondue dinner, nearly crying in class on Friday, job rejections, mysteriously no longer being able to log into my bank account here, and general stress. Things are generally up as I write this, for which I am thankful.

Why was I about to cry in class? I guess I'd chalk it up to my last nerve, which was stomped on by a student when it was most vulnerable. Everyone remember that post about not wanting to return to the United States? Well, on Friday I was ready to move back right then and there so I could avoid all the ignorant Austrians! The subject of this lesson was cultural differences between Austria and the US, a favorite among teachers. I've done this lesson a million times and defended the US two million times, so it shouldn't have come as an surprise to me that the students would pull out stereotypes, but I wasn't mentally prepared for it. I asked the students what cultural differences exist and the first answer I got, stated matter-of-factly by a girl who has obviously watched one to many Michael Moore films: "There are a lot of criminals in the United States." I put my head in my hands and sighed. "There are! There aren't nearly as many in Austria." Another sigh, followed by a poor attempt at containing my exasperation. I told her she can't compare Austria to the US because there are nearly 290 million people there, whereas Austria has a population of eight million. Of course there are going to be many more criminals! If we multiplied the crime rate in Austria by 32, it might not be that different! Another student chimed in saying that if I were going to react "like that" then they were just better off not saying anything at all. That was it--the point that the tears threatened to pour out. I tried to put my emotional reaction into a context that they might be able to understand. "You're saying that to me is like me repeatedly stating as fact that all Austrians are Nazis. How long would you be able to stand that?" I managed to calm myself down and the students lightened up after I asked them to simplify it and tell me what differenes a tourist would notice.

So yeah, maybe I do want to return to the United States. At least there I won't have to defend it every day to people who claim to know everything about it but have never set foot on its soil.

Is it spring yet?

Oh where, oh where has the spring gone? This winter is just dragging out in Vienna...we are back down to temperatures below freezing and the forecast calls for snow and/or sleet several days this week. The soles of my snow boots are cracked and they leak, which means that the longer it snows and sleets and melts, the longer I run around with plastic baggies tied to my feet to prevent them from getting wet. I don't want to buy new ones because I don't want to carry them home. Besides, the spring/summer shoe collections are out already, meaning snow boots are few and far between. *sigh* I think it is depressing me, along with other things.

I had my first "fight" with my roommate tonight. It was about something silly, which she then overhead me telling a friend on the phone about, although I was in my room with the door closed (which is another reason why I wish me and everyone I knew spoke a remote language so I could avoid speaking the language everyone in the world can understand!). I'm certain she complained about me to her boyfriend on the phone minutes before I complained about her. At any rate, when I got off the phone, I was confronted with "What's your problem?" in her nastiest tone. I think we're squared away again after some explanations and an apology on my part. We managed to go nearly five months without any tensions escalating to a fight, so I guess we're doing better than most roommates do!

Seen on the street

"Kiss me before I go home"

Written on the side of a cab. Very clever--made me smile at 9am as I emerged from the gym this morning.

Snow and Ice

Tonight was the night for ice skating in front of the City Hall. Skating there is a tradition--I have to go at least once a year if I live in Austria. Being that today was the second to last day, I made sure I went.

It was snowing steadily, which just added to the overall atmosphere. The City Hall is probably my favorite building in Vienna. At night in the snow, all lit up like a firework display is when it looks its best; therefore it was in top form tonight.

Christopher met me and we skated around and around and around. The DJ had cheesy apres ski hits and oldies playing. In the picture I am on what they call the Traumpfad, or dream path, which runs on the sidewalks through the park in front of City Hall. The path has always been my favorite part: in amongst the trees, away from the really loud music and crowds in the main rink. The only thing missing from my evening was a mug of piping hot Glühwein (mulled wine), which probably would have been the last of the season. The part of the night I could have done without was my unspectacular crash right on the path...I'm not sure what happened, but all of a sudden I was sprawled on the ice, tripped up by my own lack of balance apparently. I'd say that Sasha Cohen and Co. have little to worry about in terms of me taking their places on the Olympic team.

Friday night I attended a concert, during which two famous opera singers and a concert pianist performed. Their names are Marjana Lipvosek, Martin Burgstaller and Anthony Spiri (an American!). Marjana is a true diva with fire engire red lips and cascading robe to boot. It was such a pleasure to watch her, because one could easily tell that she gets such joy out of doing what she does. Her aura was magnificent, as Christopher said. Burgstaller, on the other hand, was as stiff as a corpse--someone made the comment that it appeared as if his arms had been cut off because he never moved them. He seemed very austure and aristocratic, which just sort of added to his overall stiffness. The pianist was great fun to watch as well--he was sooo into it, rocking back and forth and from side to side, throwing his tails out behind him, making grand gestures as he played.

The concert was at an off-the-beaten-path auditorium and it wasn't full...apparently events at this place are never full, although the musicians are of extremely high quality. Bernd, Christopher's boyfriend, says it's only empty because people prefer to say they saw the same act at one of the big name concert houses in town. Seems silly to me. Bernd did say that the audience was a veritable who's who of Vienna society, including the president of the national television station ORF and the press director of the Salzburg Summer Music Festival, etc. etc. I didn't recognize any of them myself...I'm not so up on Austrian societal figures. Nice to know that I'm in the with the cream of the crop though. :)

Sunny Bristol

Finally! Here it is, in a somewhat shortened version. I mean, it's practically ancient history by now!

My trip to Bristol started out on Wednesday the 8th with a flight on Ryan Air from Bratislava's airport. Bratislava, the capitol of Slovakia, is about an hour and a half away from Vienna by bus. It had snowed and rained the day before (crazy weather!), but I was expecting that a country where snow lies on the ground up to 100 days per year would know how to handle the inclement weather. I was proven wrong almost immediately after crossing the Slovak border--the roads appeared as though they hadn't been plowed at all! The bus arrived exactly on time at the airport despite the poor road conditions, but the airport hadn't been cleared out either. My flight was delayed by one hour and 45 minutes, which was enough to blow all my cushion between plane and buses, causing me to miss my bus to Bristol. We were actually lucky though, seeing as another flight that was supposed to take off three hours before ours was still sitting on the ground as we took off. The missed bus to Bristol resulted in me having to buy another ticket at more than three times the price of the first one, which I had purchased online for a special web fare thanks to my friend Gareth's advice on booking bus trips in the UK. I just said "ouch" and forked over the money, while stuffing my invalid ticket back into my bag.

Alanna was waiting for me at the bus stop, waving excitedly. It turns out a girl from her course at uni was on the same bus as me and she thought Alanna was there to see her! Alanna and I had a good laugh over that. It was great to see my little blond pixie & we spent the night talking with Alanna's roommate Cordelia (aka Cordy) about anything and everything.

I got to sleep in and take a long breakfast on Thursday morning while Alanna went to her French class. Upon her return we kicked it into tourist mode and took Bristol by storm. We wandered down Park Street to the Cathedral and then to the river Avon, on which Bristol is located.

Something's funny, but I'm not sure what.

Our goal was the SS Great Britain (see me in sailor cap in an earlier post), which we knew was on the Avon. It ended up being on the other side of the river though, which we didn't realize until we had walked quite a ways towards the mast, which we could see over other buildings lining the shore. There aren't that many bridges over the Avon in Bristol, so we ended up walking to the motorway to cross! We probably walked for about 45 minutes in one direction, so it really wasn't that far, but Alanna had worn her purple suede boots and wasn't properly equipped for walking so far. We finally made it to the right side of the river and around to the ship, which was seriously impressive. It is hailed as the "world's first great ocean liner" and was built in Bristol in the 1840s by a guy named Isambard Kingdom Brunel (bet he got made fun of as a kid!). They've set up the museum so you can not only go on board and walk around the ship, but you can also go into the dry dock and check out the ship's underbelly. After we finished our tour of the ship, we rode a ferry taxi back into the center of Bristol and continued to walk around town, speaking German the whole time, which got us some curious looks.

Thursday evening we met up with Joanne, another former Salzburg assistant, and went out for a few drinks with some of Alanna and Cordy's friends. We were pretty tuckered out from our extensive tour of the town and didn't make it too wild of a night.

Friday was another day for the super tourists. We went from Alanna's place to the Colston Tower, which affords a great view over Bristol. Our next stop was Clifton Village, a neighborhood in Bristol that has a bit of a village feel to it, right down to the local butcher. Shopping was in order and we both came home with excellent sale items. We kept on and visited Brunel's Avon Gorge Suspension Bridge (that Brunel was multi-talented--he also designed railroads) before winding our way through various other neighborhoods to get to Alanna's old apartment and the university. We rounded out the evening with the Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics.

Saturday I returned to London and met up with some of the people I had met through Webster University's soccer tournament the previous December. We went out at Old Street, an up-and-coming area of London. David, an Austrian, suggested we start out the night at the Bavarian Beer House, after which we moved on to several other bars, most of which I don't remember clearly. David, Lauren (my hostess) and I braved the night bus and crawled into our beds at about 5:45am.

I met up with Rohit, a former coworker from NYC, and his wife Jas for brunch the next morning in Kensington, not far from where I got my four hours of sleep. It was great to see them & be in their world for a while. That's the best part about visiting friends.

The return trip was uneventful and on-time, getting me back into Vienna just in time to fall into bed before returning to school the next morning. The End!