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.