It's Summertime

Or close enough to it. Iori alerted me to the fact that I haven't been blogging very much. There is a very simple reason for that. Well, there are two. One is that it's summer. The weather is nice and I want to spend it outside. And I have been. The other one is that I have more and more work that I have to get done so I can hopefully pass the classes I'm taking. So now, I decided I should continue my very successful procrastination efforts by resuming my posting.

A lot has happened since I last posted. I believe the most memorable event was last Saturday. Last Saturday was Kirstine's (a friend of mine) birthday, and she decided to have a picnic on the Donauinsel - the island in the middle of the Danube. It started at one, but since I've gotten into a bad habit of not waking up before one, I got there at three with Erkal, Ozan, Berk, and Mara. The weather was perfect for the picnic. There were frankfurter's, and a homemade potato salad (Kirstine and her boyfriend Michael are very good cooks), and Kirstine made a sort of apple cake that was delicious. Olga, Kate and Evgeny were there along with Gregoire and a host of other's that I didn't know. There was a volleyball and a football (American football) there. I think the people that brought the football were Australian. We bumped the volleyball around a bit and threw the football around. Later on, I taught a few people how to play 500. That was me, Ana - a Spanish girl, Ozan, Erkal, and Berk. Olga, Kate and Evgeny also joined us but Kate declared the game was a little too aggressive. We then started playing "fireball" which is very similar to dodgeball. The Turkish guys taught us that one. The night ended with a few of us walking away while some people farther down the island were shooting off fireworks. There need to be more birthdays.

Another thing: last Friday there was some sort of festival on Währingerstraße complete with a band on stage (two guitars and a violin) and a marching band. There were rides for children and all the shops were selling stuff on the sidewalks and in the street. I went to study and after getting back, I ran into Ozan who was in the lobby smoking with some other Turkish guys. One of the Turks, named Suat, speaks English very well and with a British or Australian accent. I'm not quite sure which. I had only met him a few days ago but he was sitting out in the lobby with an electric guitar and some other guy on acoustic. They were getting ready to go out on Währingerstraße and play. Ozan and I joined them after we bought a couple beers from the Spar. We sat out on the sidewalk listening to them play and drinking. That's something the US has got to learn from Europe is that there's no crime in sitting out in a public area drinking a beer. Turns out that Suat is a pretty good guitarist and I really enjoyed listening to him play. Hopefully, that'll happen again.

Last night, instead of doing work, I decided to go out with Ozan and Berk to a café. Nothing really substantial happened. Berk, who's a pretty small guy, got stuck in a statue and we video recorded ourselves a lot doing basically nothing. We were just hanging out in Vienna's center having a good ol' time. I'm going to miss nights like that one. But I guess I do the same thing in Oxford - it's just a little different when you're hanging out in such a different setting. It's nice to have that sort of change.

And the last bit of this post is devoted to Slobodan. Thank you for stopping me and helping me to make an appointment with the hair guy. I don't know his name and he doesn't speak English incredibly well, but he sure knows how to cut hair. He seemed a little limp-wristed, which supports what Milan said about him, but I think that could only help him in his line of work. It was a little strange, though, because he looked like he had just gotten back from a car wreck. He had a bandage under his eye and a neck brace. The other thing is that he works out of his home. The adjacent room was his kitchen. And he only takes cash, I think, and just ten euros! That's about the same as what I pay in Oxford, and this guy did a better job (though I will always be loyal to Temple). A way to avoid paying taxes probably - and I fully support that effort. Again: Thank you, Slobodan, for telling me about this guy.

And that's what I have for now. Maybe I'll get to posting about those other cities soon, but I think I'll skip Napoli, Pompeii/Vesuvius, and Florence, because I've already written accounts of them elsewhere. So there's Bologna, Venice, Budapest, Bratislava, and the London/Oxford/Egham trip. Let's see how quickly I can get them done... as soon as I write this paper.