Today, I'm a Bum

The nice thing about studying abroad is that you don't have to play the tourist 24/7. You can kick back and not do anything for a whole day and not feel like it's wasted. This is especially nice on those rainy days. And I found this here. Thank you, Instapundit.

This is Great

I found this on Greg Mankiw's blog.

Where in the World?

I went to my first opera tonight. Carmen. It was awesome, in all senses of the word. I wasn't quite sure what to expect since I've never been to one and they aren't incredibly popular in the U.S. I went with Sam. He told me that the pit orchestra is where the Wiener Philharmoniker scouts for talent. Actually, some of the pit are members of the Wiener Philharmoniker. So seeing an opera is similar to seeing a performance of the Wiener Philharmoniker.

When I went, I didn't think I'd know any of the music. Apparently, though, Carmen has seeped its way into popular culture. I recognized most of the pieces. There is the overture, of course. Then, there is Carmen's famous song. And there is the toreador song. I liked that one the best, though it is included in the overture.

The sets were incredible. I've never seen a set on any stage before that I thought might actually be real. These were. Or at least, they were as close as it could come. The perspectives made it look like the set actually continued on past wherever the back was - you really couldn't tell. The third act's set was by far the best. It was in a valley at night. There was fog all around, which you could see obstructing the moon. It honestly did not look like the actors were inside. Instead, they were in some desert valley in Spain. The set designer is Franco Zeffirelli. Sam told me he is also the guy who directed the 1968 film of Romeo and Juliet - the one in which the actress who played Juliet went on to become a porn star (if you've seen her outfit in the movie, you know that porn isn't that far of a jump... though her outfit is actually more historically correct than what you'd expect). Franco is one talented dude. Sam also told me that when he went to the Met, Franco was awarded some set designing honor and they put up a plaque with that date on it, so there is a plaque hanging in the Met commemorating the day that Sam went there.

On the way back from the opera, Sam and I saw a cop getting all up in some kid's face. It was a pretty entertaining night all the way around.

Oh, and I had my second class today. It's international monetary economics, and I think it'll be interesting. The prof seems a little less violent, too.

To sum everything up, the opera is highly recommended - as long as it's the Staatsoper. I can't really speak for anything else (the music is always good, though).

And next time, I'll remember my camera.

You Don't Want To See This In The Rearview

Seized from a guy who had drugs hidden in the car, the cops in Hoover, Alabama repainted it and added a wing and lights. This is just a heads up. Don't run from the cops in Hoover. You probably won't get away.

Before I Forget

I had a conversation with an Iranian last night about politics. It was a little tense. He thought all the newspapers (Zeitung) are full of crap. He said they'd take pictures of a Pakistani woman and say she's Iranian. He talked about all the footage we have of Iranians praying on Fridays. He said they go back home and forget about it; that it's just a show for their bosses or their friends. They have to be seen praying for social reasons. Still, it seems like a huge infringement on a persons freedom to require them to pray. And he was telling me about the student protests a while back, when the Iranian government shot into the crowd. He says that Iran's safe now. People know not to protest and anyone who does protest gets shouted down by the general public. The Government doesn't have to do anything. The Iranian government seems very successful if controling the public through fear is a success.

And a common theme I noticed is that everyone feels: we don't have a problem with you, just our governments have a problem. It's almost like the governments don't really speak for their subjects....

And Peter Nalitch writes some very interesting music. http://www.peternalitch.ru/
I downloaded his whole album. For free. Good stuff. Радость простых мелодий is what it's called. It means The Joy of Simple Melodies. I don't think there is a better way to describe his music. Oh, I almost forgot. Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOzkN8dHnjk

A Couple of Places

Karlsplatz: This is where all the junkies hang out. It's an odd location for them to pick, since it is such a central place. From Karlsplatz, you can get to the Musikverein, the Oper, the Grand Hotel, the Secession, the Wien Museum, Karlskirche, and, of course, Karlsplatz. It's also a kind of mall with lots of different shops and other touristy things. It has a Ströck and an Anker. Also, there's a McDonald's and a Starbucks. The U4, U2, and U1 run from here and that's the most trains connecting at one station. All the other stations have, at most, two trains. I was walking through it once and a guy kept wondering around looking at people and saying, "hashish."

Gasometer: This is almost equivalent to Cincinnati Mills, except for all the appartments surrounding it. The idea is actually pretty neat. They took these huge gas tanks built in the late 1890's and turned them into a shopping and housing area. It even has studentwohnheim, but it is a little too far out of the city to be worth living in. The actual mall area has some nice shops but there are a lot of places that are closed and boarded up á la Cinci Mills. There are also roving hoards of young teens all over the place. There is the walk of fame Gasometer style that has different celebs signatures and foot/handprints. David Hasslehoff has his name there.

Also. Today I had my first class. The prof - Pichler - was trying to start an overhead but he couldn't seem to get it to work. So he got pissed off and threw it against the wall. Walking out of the room, he said, "Maybe I can go steal another one." The whole class looked around saying things like "scary" or "psycho." I don't think I've seen a prof do anything like that before. The class, International Development and World Monetary Systems, should be interesting from the way he described it, though I don't think I'm ever going to be late.

Ströck is very good, by the way. I should've eaten there sooner.

Slightly Jealous

My roommate got a tablet PC today. Those things are so fucking cool.

What the hell is Anaconda wrestling?

Today was great. I went with Sam to the Musikverein (which means "The Society of the Friends of Music") and saw the Berlin Philharmonic play pieces by Messiaen and Bruckner. The Messiaen piece was written sometime in the 1970's or 80's and was very good, though unconventional. There was this big ass gong which was rather imposing. At one point during the performance the gong player (is there a technical term for them?) crescendos and it's the loudest thing I've ever heard. This lady near the front gets up holding her ears and leaves. LOL (I couldn't think of a better way to express myself). All in all, a very good performance and a very good concert. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but for standing room tickets you have to line up very early and then race to bar to get a good place. I mean, you literally have to run, push people out of the way. Sam said he's seen fights break out. It's quite the experience. Oh, and this is the Musikverein.

After that, we went and got a kebap, which was delicious, and then we went to the Wien Museum. The cool thing about the Karlsplatz station is that you can go to so many different places underground. And when you walk to get to the Secession building, you pass a mirror wall and on the mirror is written π out to some many digits. Very cool and Iori's gonna luv it. You also have to walk past a McDonald's to get there.

Anyways, the Wien Museum houses the history of Wien, from when it was Vindobona all the way until now. It's got some great models of the city, mostly of the first district, and it was fun to go through and see all the places I knew from a bird's perspective. There was a special exhibit about Emilie Flöge who was a clothing designer and "wife" of Gustav Klimt. They were never married, though, and it was more like a partnership. She wore jewelry made by the Wien Werkstätte. Honestly, it was some of the coolest jewelry I've seen. Much better than anything in Macy's or where ever.

Sam and I then decided to go to Haydn's house. We walked there and stopped by Sam's place. He's lives on the penultimate floor of a rather old arpartment building. It was actually a really cool place besides the lack of an elevator. The stairs went in oval spirals and looking down the middle was very cool. Almost like out of a movie. So we left there and trudged onward, looking for Haydngasse - the street where Haydn lived (go figure). It was called Kleine Steingasse during Haydn's lifetime, and that translates to little stone street. At least I'm pretty sure it does. Anyways, we got incredibly lost and had to go to an Ubahn station to look at a map.

We finally found the place, and it was worth the trip. I learned a lot about Haydn and a lot about Wien. Apparently, where the house was located was the suburbs at the time and was surrounded by fields. Today, it's surrounded by buildings. And it took an hour to get from the city center (Stephensplatz) to the house. Now, I live farther away from the city center than the house is, and it takes me at most twenty minutes to get to Stephensplatz. A few things change over two hundred years. It's exactly two hundred years since Haydn died, by the way. May 31 is the exact day.

We left and I came back to my dorm at 6ish and made supper. Then a few other guys who'd made some food invited me to eat with them. That was how I met Tom, the only other native English speaker in my building. He's from Scotland. I got back to my room around 9ish and messed around till 10 when I went to play football. I brought my roommate with me, and luckily there was another Turkish speaker there because Erkel's (my roommate) English isn't so good. I think he had a good time. I hope he did, because it didn't seem his day was going too well. He didn't have much to do and he's alone in a big city. For him, it's like getting dropped off to college for the first time - except very few people speak your language. It makes it a little rougher.

So that was my day. Good times. Oh, and the title refers to a shop - a "video erotic shop" - Sam and I passed that advertised Anaconda wrestling on the window. What the hell? And the website was www.extreme-pervertosity.com or something to that effect.

Neuen Mitbewohner

I have no idea if that is correct grammar. We didn't really talk to much about grammar in class. But anyways, my new roommate showed up today. I wasn't expecting him until the 1st of March. This doesn't bother me, though. I don't want to make it sound like that. Anywho, he's Turkish - from Istanbul - and speaks very little English. This will be a challenge for me, but it should be fun. Unfortunately, I didn't quite catch his name. I keep having this problem. Someone will tell me their name, and I'll have no idea what they said. It's like they're speaking a foreign language.

Anyways, I realized that I'm going to be here for a decent amount of time. I needed some speakers for my computer. I figured, "Well, I'll look but they're probably going to be 15 or 20 euro and that's just not worth it." I found a pair and decent speakers - they're much better than my computer speakers - for 9 euro. Awesome. So now I have a pair of speakers. I originally bought a pair of 6 euro speakers, but they were actually worse than my computer's speakers. Returning them was sort of fun because the cashier didn't speak English, but it worked out pretty well.

Also, I learned last night that in Russia it is bad luck to poor your own drink and that people who whistle will be poor. Just some Russian superstitions. I listened to the Russians - *Eugene, *Kate, and Olga - who live in my building sing Russian songs. A Russian man named *Arthur played guitar. It was really cool. I had no idea what they were singing about, though. They'd explain it to me. One song was about a Russian pilot shooting down a US pilot from Texas during the Vietnam war. Many were about nostalgic love or something along those lines. We also listened to a lot of Red Hot Chili Peppers. And Placebo apparently has international popularity.

Sometimes I'm asked to explain English sayings. For example, the term "hung up" as in "I'm hung up on you." Apparently, there isn't an equivalent expression in Russian. Or the difference between a pickle and a cucumber or the difference between "organize" and "organise." All very good stuff.

*These aren't their real names. I can't pronounce those very well except for Eugene's but I can't spell what his real name is. I'm not even sure that Arthur is the accurate translation of his name.

It's snowing... again

And I can just picture the head of GM and the other 2 people sitting around in a dark, expensive bar having a conversation á la Jim Taggart and Orren Boyle.

Moments

There is a Turkish women in the Währingerstraße/Volksoper Ubahn station who sings for coins. Her voice is beautiful and haunting.

The other day I watched a mouse in the Spittelau station. The only people who seemed to notice it were me and a girl.

I was on a tram and saw a boy walk out of a shop. He had a toy gun and "shot" me with it.

That is all.

Kitchen Party!

There was a small party in the kitchen Friday night. It was fun.

This morning Péter invited me to go with his friends and family to see the Hundertwasser Haus and the Treasury. The Hundertwasser Haus is architecture to which I can relate. From what I can tell, there are three buildings designed by Hundertwasser in Wien: The KunstHausWien (a museum), the Hundertwasser Haus (a low income housing project), and the Fernwärme (where they burn their garbage). Hundertwasser thought straight lines and flat floors weren't very humanizing, and this shows in his architecture. The buildings are a hodge podge of colors and shapes and the floors are uneven, which makes walking on them quite the experience.

In the Treasury, which was in the Hofburg palace (famous because it was the residence of the Hapburgs and Hitler gave a speach to a huge crowd from the balcony of the new building in 1938 when he declared Austria and Germany to be one). In the Treasury are a lot of relics and clothes. For me, the coolest things in there were the cradle for the child of Napoleon and Marie Louise and the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor. All in all, it was a lot of fun.

A Few Sites

The concert last night was spectacular. The bar, 1516, Sam took me to for dinner is very good, though slightly American. The menu was in English. The Wienerschnitzel was great and the beer was delicious. It was brewed there and was unfiltered so it had a cloudy look and was kind of sweet. Anyways, here are a couple things:

http://www.frakincool.com/

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2009/02/numbers-in-the-news.html

I don't want to forget about these sites.

Classes and a few other things

Orientation and the first day of classes were yesterday. They had us take a test to see how well we know German. It was multiple choice and since I don't speak any German whatsoever I chose my answers based on whether or not I knew one of the words in the answer. Apparently, that was good enough to put me in level 5 (out of 8). The teacher was speaking completely in German and I couldn't understand a word of it. I let him know and he told me the room of a beginner's class. It's much more to my skill level. The teacher wears her hair in dreadlocks pulled behind her head and it's dyed blond. It's a look that works for her, though, and she's cool. She asks us what we want to learn and how we want to learn it. There's a lot of class input into the teaching methods and material. I think the class benefits a lot from it.

Some observations:
* I hate February. Mostly because it falls in the worst part of winter, but that is no excuse. The snow and frigid temperatures are inexcusable. And February is bad no matter where you are in the world.
* I hate snow. It's pretty watching it falling and it's fun to play in, but overall the negatives outweigh the positives. First off, it's cold. And it's wet. You have to clean it off your car and driveway if you want to go anywhere. After the first couple of days the snow gets dirty and ugly. Snow is basically only good for a white Christmas and unfortunately that didn't happen this year.
* The best pizza I have ever had is from a stand in the Spittelau Ubahnstation. You get two huge slices - basically half pie - for 3.80 €, which is a little less than $5 at the moment. The second best pizza I've had is Avanlanche in Athens. Still, the fact that a pizza stand in a subway station in Vienna has better pizza than anything I've had in America leads me to believe that there might still might be a better slice out there somewhere.

By the way, the two pizzas I know to be famous are the Chicago Style deep dish and pizza from NYC. I haven't had the Chicago pizza yet, so I can't compare it to what is reputed to be the best in the US. All that really means is that when I get back home, I need to take a little trip to Chicago.

Oh, and the rant about the snow was inspired by the weather today. What also sucked is that is was raining, too. Actually, I was looking out my window watching it rain this afternoon. I look back at my computer and literally a second later Peter walks in and says, "Oh look, it's snowing!" The weather really couldn't make up it's mind today. Then, Peter decided to go to a Turkish market that's a few Ubahn stops away and asked if I wanted to tag along. That market might be the cheapest place to buy fruits and probably clothes as well. He says that on weekends the markets get much larger. I think I'm going to make good use of that info especially when it gets warmer. My main problem right now is that I have nothing with which to cook. I think this week I might go to a flee market and see if I can find some cheap pots and pans. And spatulas, too. (All the eggs are brown here. You really have to do some hunting to find white eggs. I wonder if they taste any different.)

If you couldn't tell, I'm pretty bored right now. The weather is not at all conducive to going out what with the cold and the snow/rain and all. Oh well, that's why I decided to study here second semester. I'll be leaving here when it's warm, on a good note. So I'll just have to tough this crappy weather out. But tomorrow I'm going to meet Sam and we're going to the Musikverein to see the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from Amsterdam play the Dvorak Requiem. I don't know the piece but I'm sure it'll be outstanding.

Oh yeah. Last night was the "Erasmus Lounge" at the Ride club which means free cocktails between 7 and 8. Peter and I went and I had a gin & tonic, a long island ice tea, a vodka lemon, and a cuba libre all for free. Then I had to pay for a sex on the beach, but that was only 1.90 €. And I had to check my coat, which was 1 €. So for five drinks and a very sincere recommendation to go travel to Morroco, I paid 2.90 €. That's about $3.75. So cheap and all the drinks were very tasty. We left around 9:30 and when we got back, this girl who was leaving today asked us to play football in the basement. I've never really played football, but what the hell, why not? It was more fun than I remembered it to be, but that might also be because I had had a few drinks.

So this has been all over the place and I think I'll leave it at that.

Two Very Related Stories and Nothing to Connect Them

First story: I was bored last night, since I don't know anyone here yet so I set off for a walk. I found a restaurant that was open and I went to order some food. This guy starts talking to me and it's apparent he's quite drunk. He invites me to eat with him and he shares his fries with me. We start talking and it turns out that he's an economics professor at WU. That's what he said, at least. I'm only partially inclined to believe him. Anyways, he gets us a couple of beers and winds up paying for the whole meal. Actually, I'm not sure he paid, but whatever. I got a free meal out of it. Then he badgers me into following him and he takes me to this bar and asks me to pay for the beer. I say alright, and we walk into this small little bar with about six people. I met them all. They were mourning the loss of a man, Mike Malloy, who apparently was a great basketball player in the states playing in the ABA and he coached ball in Austria. Mike was close friends with Dr. J. His son Ryan, who's 20 was at the bar and the bartender kept passing out shots. There was a Scotsman named Gordon who has lived all over the place. He once spent a couple days holed up in Nepal with his wife playing cards and drinking with Mr. and Mrs. Robert Redford. He says Robert keeps asking him to come to Sundance to hang out. There were a lot of cool people there and it was a really good time.

Story number two: I woke up in Floridsdorf - the 21st district in Wien - with no idea how to get home. I walked in circles until I realized the tram stations have maps in them. That's how I discovered that I was on the wrong side of the river. And it was raining. It took me a bit but I found the U6 subway which goes right to where I live.

And that's all I have to say about that.

My First Austrian Post

Gutentag. I think that's right, but I haven't started taking my German classes yet. Those start Monday.

My flights were easy. I was on three different planes. One from CVG to Dulles. One from Dulles to Munich. And finally, one from Munich to Vienna. The one to Dulles was uneventful. The flight attendent's name was Ariel, which I thought was cool, and she was nice. The one to Munich lasted seven and a half hours and I sat directly in the middle of the Boeing 777. I didn't mind, though, and I was able to get some sleep and watch Burn After Reading! The movie was odd, though, because they didn't edit out any of the "fucks" but they blurred the dildo. That didn't make too much sense to me. Other than that, the ravioli was good but a little undercooked around the edges and I ate yogurt in the morning. I despise yogurt so that is a testament to how hungry I was. The flight from Munich was so short that by the time we got into the air we had already started our descent. The blueberry muffin that Austrian airlines served was incredible and came in a chinese takeout style box. I had a window seat for this flight, too. It was a little scary because Vienna was foggy when we landed and I couldn't figure out how the pilots knew where to bring the plane down.

Bernhard, my buddy through some exchange program, picked me up at the airport and drove me through Vienna. This was my first look at the city and it's definitely European. Go figure, right? We went to my residence - the Kolpinghaus in Währing - and got my key. The room is like a dorm with a bathroom. The shower isn't in a tub, it's just a curtain that cuts off a corner of the bathroom. The whole floor gets wet.

After we got my key, Bernhard and I went to the University on the U6 line so I'd know how to go. It turns out that my dorm is in a nearly perfect location. It may not be the prettiest part of town but it's right next to the 40 and 41 tram lines and a three to five minute walk to the U6 subway line. We ate at some restaurant (whose name I can't remember but it's right across the street from the University). The place served Austrian food and I had a chicken schnitzel. There's a german word for it based off of the german word huhn (which means chicken) but I don't exactly remember the spelling. The potato salad was particularly tasty.

Anyways, after I got back to my dorm, I talked to my roommate a little. He's a Hungarian named Peter. He's been very helpful by giving me a clementine and a map and telling me all the stores are closed on Sundays. I basically passed out at 4:30 pm and slept until 7:30 this morning. That's a good 15 hours of sleep there.

This morning I went for a walk down Währingstraße. There are a ton of different shops on this street and I found a Tmobile store so I bought a phone. I was very careful not to let the sellsman see my credit card. It has a picture of the USA flag with "Don't Tread on Me" written over it. Now I've got to go back out and buy some food so I don't starve tomorrow.

The last US post

I had dinner with my family tonight. The Old Spaghetti Factory. I love their food. They really do it right. I went out with Bryan to 45 East in a sort of going-away-I'll-see-you-in-half-a-year thing. We had a few drinks and now finishing packing is going to be awesome. I've just got to go eat my Taco Bell first. Cheers, America - I'll be back.

Before I go

So. I'm spending the next six months in Vienna, Austria. Since I haven't had anything to do for a while, I got to thinking: maybe I should keep a journal of some sort. This is the journal. I'm doing this mostly for my own amusement so I have some written memories of my time spent studying in Vienna (rather than just pictures). There will probably be other thoughts, too. But now, if you run across it, you know what it is. This is to cover my ass.

So for starters: I leave on Thursday in about 34 hours from now. I'm just starting to pack (and I'm writing this instead). Packing won't take long. It's strange. The idea that I'm leaving hasn't hit me yet. Well, maybe that's not so strange. This will be the first time I have lived somewhere other than Oxford for more than two weeks. I just don't feel like I'm going anywhere - yet. Leaving will be a nice escape. Plus, I get "Italian" food (read: Old Spaghetti Factory) as a going away dinner with my family. Tasty.

By the way, the name of the blog is a sort of double entendre; probably not a good one. Escaping Oxford is part of the inspiration and, for those lucky few who know some ring theory, I hope the other part is somewhat self explanatory. Though maybe it isn't. It was the cleverest thing I could think of in five minutes. And yeah, it's gonna be like that.