Sorry to future me for posting this so infrequently. I'm going to be missing a lot of details that I may wish I had later on down the line. But I think it's understandable to not want to do this kind of thing. There's way too much to get out and do here.
Went swimming in the Danube this week. Felt great. Nice and cool, deep, slow-moving... Just fantastic. Kylie taught me and Mac some gymnastics on the other side of the river when we swam across. I think we'll be going back sometime in the coming week to jump off the bridge. It seems like everyone thinks that the bridge is really high. I'm pretty sure it's only about 40 feet into an open river, so that seems pretty safe to me. Saw some kids do it when we were leaving and they swam right out. Hopefully I won't be the only one wanting to jump off.
Went back to Munich again this weekend to sample all of the local fare. I ended up getting a plate with (literally) fat with roasted fat on it. Needless to say, I didn't eat too much more of it when I found out what it was. Still kinda makes me cringe when I think about eating it...
Drinks were all good though. I really enjoyed the Franziskaner. I guess those monks knew how to brew.
Saw the Neuschwanstein castle as well. I'm told it's the most famous castle in Bavaria. And I can see why. That thing was amazing and it never even got finished. It's been cold and raining this weekend though. That's right. I said it. COLD. I've never been cold in July before. It was a really strange feeling.
DeWayne and Mac bought Lederhosen.
Back from Munich now and I'm going to get into a spiel about music libraries. Don't waste your time reading this if you don't want a bunch of opinions.
This all basically came up because Emily was letting me explore her iPod. Which was a really cool thing to do for a few reasons. First, cause she's giving me her iPod for a few hours. She didn't even ask for mine in return, she just gave me hers and said have fun. Second, because someone's iPod can say a good bit about them. I know that that's probably pretty obvious to most people, but it goes a lot further than 'Oh, this person has a lot of pop on their iPod. They must be a party person.' Emily's iPod was filled with more music that I'd never heard of before on a single media device than I'd ever seen. I consider myself to have a very broad taste in music. To be honest, I listen to some strange stuff. Not all the time, but it's just there. And Emily's iPod wasn't laden with just off the wall songs.
There were several bands that were just some guys she knew from high school or from around Auburn, there was a lot of folk music, there was foreign music, there was some really provocative/sensual music, there was classic rock and fun-every-now-and-then rap, and she had such a conviction behind the music I got to hear her talk about that made it all even more interesting.
Of course she had the extremely popular bands, but even those were different. It wasn't the same set list that you see on everyone else's RHCP list, for example.
It probably sounds kinda silly to be writing this just to express how privileged I feel to have been able to really pick through someones' entire music library like that. But I think everyone really grows attached to their music library. I even go so far as to get a little bit offended when someone asks me if they can wholesale copy my entire library for their new device. It feels like they're taking from me for some reason. I know that they won't like all of it. But than I know that if they didn't want to go through the trouble of slowly assembling a library that they're very familiar with, that they'll hear a song come on that they don't like and just say 'Meh' hit the next button, and never do anything with the song again. If you want to load up your device with music and never know what it is, who it's by, what it's about, or anything like that, be my guest. But don't ask for my music and then not sort it out and get to know any of it before some of it gets thrown down to the bottom of the barrel to rot on a portable HDD.
I doubt that she really thinks/thought about it like that when I asked her for her iPod, but I can't help but superimpose it into her decision making process. That is why I felt lucky. Because in my mind, she had given me the power to take HER music and potentially squander it entirely, but convinced herself that I would not.
I don't really WANT this to sound any one particular emotion. I haven't read back over this to see what this last bit has sounded like, and I don't intend to. I don't feel mad or anything while I'm writing this, but I have the feeling that anyone else who reads this will think I'm being either OCD or unreasonable about it. Oh well.
Need to wrap this up so I can get some sleep before I go meet DeWayne and Mac in the morning.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Stupid U-Bahn
U-Bahn, also known as the subway, broke down on me today. Took about 2 hours longer to get home than usual. At least I knew where I was this time. I didn't want to taint the glory of my earlier post with this setback.
Salzburg and Munich this weekend. Pictures to follow, of course. At least some time in the future.
Salzburg and Munich this weekend. Pictures to follow, of course. At least some time in the future.
Maxwell v. Mothra
So it's kinda hot here with no AC. I know I said it wasn't a problem before, and it wasn't. But now it is. It's about 35 C here each day, which is 95 F. No AC. Not even fans. And I can't open the windows or else I'll be marauded by the most vicious mosquitoes I've seen since Ft. Benning.
Two nights ago I began the war by killing 15 mosquitoes. I felt pretty proud of myself, but I was using crude weapons, mostly just clapping them. I had to retreat into the other room to sleep because this room had been overrun, but I would not go out quietly. I moved to reseal the windows, but the mosquitoes tried to head me off at the larger window by sending in their most fearsome creature. I have dubbed it Mothra, an homage to the Godzilla movies, if you're not familiar. I kid you not, this mosquito was larger than my passport. I could hear it buzzing from across the room with over the ear headphones and music running. It even moved up into my bunk area. This is when I knew the battle was lost for the night. Retiring, I closed the doors and forced the mosquitoes into either cannibalism or starvation and planned to return ready to fight the next eve.
On the 13th of July, the war heated up. Windows remained sealed this night, but the buggers kept finding ways in from downstairs, even with the door shut. Clearly the ones that I trapped in my room last night had scouted for weak points before their demise and reported back to the main effort. I had of course upgraded my arsenal to include an empty soap box and sprite bottle. The box was perfect for crushing the sneaky buggers who liked to sidle along the wall, and the bottle served as my main weapon to swat the beasts right out of the sky. It made a satisfying ping and allowed me to chase them to the carpet to finish the skirmish. I have yet to return to my bunk, and also have no sign of Mothra's corpse. Perhaps it escaped. I feel this conflict can see no resolve until one of us is defeated.
Casualties here high yesterday. Mosquito bites numbered in the near dozens, but so did their losses. No fewer than 33 mosquitoes have been slain in my room alone to this point. The wretches have made no advance this night.
The eve is mine! Carpe Noctum! Revel with me and relish the sweet reward of a Radler!
Two nights ago I began the war by killing 15 mosquitoes. I felt pretty proud of myself, but I was using crude weapons, mostly just clapping them. I had to retreat into the other room to sleep because this room had been overrun, but I would not go out quietly. I moved to reseal the windows, but the mosquitoes tried to head me off at the larger window by sending in their most fearsome creature. I have dubbed it Mothra, an homage to the Godzilla movies, if you're not familiar. I kid you not, this mosquito was larger than my passport. I could hear it buzzing from across the room with over the ear headphones and music running. It even moved up into my bunk area. This is when I knew the battle was lost for the night. Retiring, I closed the doors and forced the mosquitoes into either cannibalism or starvation and planned to return ready to fight the next eve.
On the 13th of July, the war heated up. Windows remained sealed this night, but the buggers kept finding ways in from downstairs, even with the door shut. Clearly the ones that I trapped in my room last night had scouted for weak points before their demise and reported back to the main effort. I had of course upgraded my arsenal to include an empty soap box and sprite bottle. The box was perfect for crushing the sneaky buggers who liked to sidle along the wall, and the bottle served as my main weapon to swat the beasts right out of the sky. It made a satisfying ping and allowed me to chase them to the carpet to finish the skirmish. I have yet to return to my bunk, and also have no sign of Mothra's corpse. Perhaps it escaped. I feel this conflict can see no resolve until one of us is defeated.
Casualties here high yesterday. Mosquito bites numbered in the near dozens, but so did their losses. No fewer than 33 mosquitoes have been slain in my room alone to this point. The wretches have made no advance this night.
The eve is mine! Carpe Noctum! Revel with me and relish the sweet reward of a Radler!
Prague. I want to make puns out of thy name.
Prague was not that much fun. Too many tours. Eric thought he got pickpocketted, but he really just left his phone in the hostel. That was pretty silly. Eh. Don't really feel like writing about a place I didn't like very much.
People weren't friendly, things were incredibly overpriced, the train ride back didn't have any form of airflow (who would have though windows went out of style) so it was about 105,000 in there, and we missed most of the world cup finals.
I also tried a McDonald's for the first time in memory. Had a Big 'n' Tasty and it actually lived up to it's name. Except about 2 hours later my stomach was hurting a bit. And I consider myself to have a pretty strong stomach, what with my random fare and all. Don't think I'll be jumping back into state side McD's any time soon though. That's about it for Prague. I finally got pictures from up until yesterday on the computer, so if you know me on Facebook, you can go check those out.
People weren't friendly, things were incredibly overpriced, the train ride back didn't have any form of airflow (who would have though windows went out of style) so it was about 105,000 in there, and we missed most of the world cup finals.
I also tried a McDonald's for the first time in memory. Had a Big 'n' Tasty and it actually lived up to it's name. Except about 2 hours later my stomach was hurting a bit. And I consider myself to have a pretty strong stomach, what with my random fare and all. Don't think I'll be jumping back into state side McD's any time soon though. That's about it for Prague. I finally got pictures from up until yesterday on the computer, so if you know me on Facebook, you can go check those out.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Moving Ahead
So I'm pretty bad about keeping up with this. We're going to move forward in the action to the weekend. Just imagine it's like one of those 'classic' football games on FSN or something.
The plan was to meet up at the Albertinaplatz, which is this rather large and unmistakable statue area near the institute, at 9 AM. Not quite sure how or why, but I either slept through my alarm or it didn't go off (it's prone to doing that, I swear), and I woke up at 9. Being the go-getter that I am, I decided that I should just go straight to the train station. To many people's surprise, mostly my own, I got to the station without a hitch. Well, except for the fact that I was still alone and trying to find the group that I was supposed to be in Bratislava, Slovakia with soon. The train we agreed to take was leaving at 10.25 and I waited around on the platform until about 10.23. By this point I had decided that I was going to just have to take the 11.25 train and then tour Bratislava by myself and maybe run into them over in Slovakia somewhere. A long shot, but why not.
Well, at about 10.24:30 I meandered down the platform just far enough for Victoria to peek out the window and just yell at me. With the speed of one of those lizards that can scamper across the water, I sprinted around the platforms (of course I was on the wrong platform as well) and saw the train door starting to close a few paces away. Got up there just in time to shove my arm in the door so that it couldn't close, and was able to hop on the train in time. Gotta thank Victoria a lot for that one, because as soon as the door shut behind me, the train was moving.
Paul tells me that there's a saying about finding luck in un-luck. But I'm not really sure whether I would consider myself generally lucky or not. I think I'm just mostly bad at getting places on time, but it seems to work out most of the time. Eh.. I guess that is kind of the definition of luck. Oh, I also forgot to write down Boris' phone number in my rush out the door, so we couldn't even get in touch with him when we got to Bratislava, but it ended up being really easy to find him. He pretty much just walked up on us in the station because it's about as big of a meeting area as the senior lunchroom, you Grissom people. For those not... well. It's small.
I was a bit disappointed because there was a gay pride parade going on in Vienna that day that I really wanted to see, but it was definitely worth it to go see Boris. Please no comments on the parade. I got enough when I was visibly excited about the possibility of going to it earlier in the week. Don't you even tell me that it wouldn't be fun to go watch a parade like that.
Bratislava was actually and awesome town. It had a pretty lame castle, as far as castles are concerned anyway, but an amazing view from up there. Boris was a really good tour guide too. He knew all kinds of stuff about the town. Showed us what is the Slovakian White House and such. He also hates Communism, which is awesome. If there's one thing I'm passionate about, it's hating Communism. And not just in the pro-America way. I hate the entire idea of it. Just ask Brian. But that's something else entirely.
About 4 o'clock, the rest of the group was getting tired and they wanted to leave, but I, at least, was under the impression that we were going to stay and at least have some dinner with Boris in Bratislava before we left since our tickets were good for a return trip any time that day. But they wanted to leave, and it's certainly not my place to tell them what to do. Nobody wants that. So we all went back to the station and they hopped on the train and had, from my understanding, a lovely night out with someone who was most likely either an avid supporter for, or member in the parade that day. I hear he was loads of fun. Sarcastically, of course.
Back to the west side, where me and Megan were kickin' it... Boris started calling up all his Slovakian buddies to see if they wanted to hang out, but I think they were all going to a wedding or something. Anyway we ended up going to this really cool bar called the Demon Bar and watching the world cup matches. Megan and I also discovered that Boris is incredibly good at English. I mean, people can talk politics out of their you-know-where all day, but Boris was using very technical terms that I think most Americans (myself included) may not understand. And these weren't just buzz words. What comes to mind is when some banking things came up and he started talking about hedge funds and all these terms that he took the trouble of calling a bank and having them define what they actually were for him. It was really quite impressive.
I had Boris sign my little notebook and tried to forget my backpack in the bar and Chinese restaurant about 4 or 5 times altogether, but he helped me keep track of it. Now it was about 9 or 10 PM and Boris told us that he had a friend back in Trnava, Boris' hometown that was going to be spinning (like a DJ, not a dancer) that night. Obviously we couldn't pass up an opportunity like that, so we ran on over to the train station and snagged a few tickets to Trnava and hopped on board. Cutting to the chase, Michael was a really entertaining DJ. He was spinning at a club called Havana, if I remember right. Strangely enough, that's the name of the club that the Vienna group had planned on going to as well. He also introduced Megan and I to his favorite liquor. It's a rather tasty pear liquor. Don't think I could pronounce the brand though. Slovak languages are pretty cool, but when you start putting accents over consonants, I get lost in pronunciation.
Strolled on back to Boris' place and racked out there. Apparently I slept in a pretty funny position on the bed. One arm way over to the left, one way up behind my head, head cocked back, and mouth agape. I think there may have been something in the pear liquor that didn't quite agree with me though, because my eyes were kinda swollen for most of the day. It was real strange. But we met his parents that morning and took a quick picture with them before we left. I'm also told that Boris' mom makes some amazing mint tea. Grows her own peppermint, has an aunt or some female relative that keeps bees so she gets fresh honey, and just steeps it all right there. I was still asleep when she was making it though. Sad day.
Last bit. Picking up some food before the train home left and when I walked up to the severely Slovakian food vendor, I heard Rude Boy. Rude Boy! I didn't even know what that song was until late this semester, but I sure didn't expect to hear it in Bratislava, Slovakia. Oh, remember how I said that the train tickets were good for any round trip that day? Well, we got checked for tickets on the way back in and got busted. So that kinda sucked. Just had to buy some new ones though.
Anyway, I'm proud of me and Megan, I guess. Proud's really the only word I can come up with right now, and as you know, I'm no word-ologist. But a spontaneous overnight trip to Slovakia to see a friend from high school where he shows you around his hometown and his DJ friend's hangout... well, that was pretty cool. Might just be my favorite experience so far.
But we ARE going to Prague tomorrow, er, THIS morning. So we'll see how that goes. I'll wrap up this week on Sunday, I guess. And maybe I'll cover the Prague trip as well.
Night.
The plan was to meet up at the Albertinaplatz, which is this rather large and unmistakable statue area near the institute, at 9 AM. Not quite sure how or why, but I either slept through my alarm or it didn't go off (it's prone to doing that, I swear), and I woke up at 9. Being the go-getter that I am, I decided that I should just go straight to the train station. To many people's surprise, mostly my own, I got to the station without a hitch. Well, except for the fact that I was still alone and trying to find the group that I was supposed to be in Bratislava, Slovakia with soon. The train we agreed to take was leaving at 10.25 and I waited around on the platform until about 10.23. By this point I had decided that I was going to just have to take the 11.25 train and then tour Bratislava by myself and maybe run into them over in Slovakia somewhere. A long shot, but why not.
Well, at about 10.24:30 I meandered down the platform just far enough for Victoria to peek out the window and just yell at me. With the speed of one of those lizards that can scamper across the water, I sprinted around the platforms (of course I was on the wrong platform as well) and saw the train door starting to close a few paces away. Got up there just in time to shove my arm in the door so that it couldn't close, and was able to hop on the train in time. Gotta thank Victoria a lot for that one, because as soon as the door shut behind me, the train was moving.
Paul tells me that there's a saying about finding luck in un-luck. But I'm not really sure whether I would consider myself generally lucky or not. I think I'm just mostly bad at getting places on time, but it seems to work out most of the time. Eh.. I guess that is kind of the definition of luck. Oh, I also forgot to write down Boris' phone number in my rush out the door, so we couldn't even get in touch with him when we got to Bratislava, but it ended up being really easy to find him. He pretty much just walked up on us in the station because it's about as big of a meeting area as the senior lunchroom, you Grissom people. For those not... well. It's small.
I was a bit disappointed because there was a gay pride parade going on in Vienna that day that I really wanted to see, but it was definitely worth it to go see Boris. Please no comments on the parade. I got enough when I was visibly excited about the possibility of going to it earlier in the week. Don't you even tell me that it wouldn't be fun to go watch a parade like that.
Bratislava was actually and awesome town. It had a pretty lame castle, as far as castles are concerned anyway, but an amazing view from up there. Boris was a really good tour guide too. He knew all kinds of stuff about the town. Showed us what is the Slovakian White House and such. He also hates Communism, which is awesome. If there's one thing I'm passionate about, it's hating Communism. And not just in the pro-America way. I hate the entire idea of it. Just ask Brian. But that's something else entirely.
About 4 o'clock, the rest of the group was getting tired and they wanted to leave, but I, at least, was under the impression that we were going to stay and at least have some dinner with Boris in Bratislava before we left since our tickets were good for a return trip any time that day. But they wanted to leave, and it's certainly not my place to tell them what to do. Nobody wants that. So we all went back to the station and they hopped on the train and had, from my understanding, a lovely night out with someone who was most likely either an avid supporter for, or member in the parade that day. I hear he was loads of fun. Sarcastically, of course.
Back to the west side, where me and Megan were kickin' it... Boris started calling up all his Slovakian buddies to see if they wanted to hang out, but I think they were all going to a wedding or something. Anyway we ended up going to this really cool bar called the Demon Bar and watching the world cup matches. Megan and I also discovered that Boris is incredibly good at English. I mean, people can talk politics out of their you-know-where all day, but Boris was using very technical terms that I think most Americans (myself included) may not understand. And these weren't just buzz words. What comes to mind is when some banking things came up and he started talking about hedge funds and all these terms that he took the trouble of calling a bank and having them define what they actually were for him. It was really quite impressive.
I had Boris sign my little notebook and tried to forget my backpack in the bar and Chinese restaurant about 4 or 5 times altogether, but he helped me keep track of it. Now it was about 9 or 10 PM and Boris told us that he had a friend back in Trnava, Boris' hometown that was going to be spinning (like a DJ, not a dancer) that night. Obviously we couldn't pass up an opportunity like that, so we ran on over to the train station and snagged a few tickets to Trnava and hopped on board. Cutting to the chase, Michael was a really entertaining DJ. He was spinning at a club called Havana, if I remember right. Strangely enough, that's the name of the club that the Vienna group had planned on going to as well. He also introduced Megan and I to his favorite liquor. It's a rather tasty pear liquor. Don't think I could pronounce the brand though. Slovak languages are pretty cool, but when you start putting accents over consonants, I get lost in pronunciation.
Strolled on back to Boris' place and racked out there. Apparently I slept in a pretty funny position on the bed. One arm way over to the left, one way up behind my head, head cocked back, and mouth agape. I think there may have been something in the pear liquor that didn't quite agree with me though, because my eyes were kinda swollen for most of the day. It was real strange. But we met his parents that morning and took a quick picture with them before we left. I'm also told that Boris' mom makes some amazing mint tea. Grows her own peppermint, has an aunt or some female relative that keeps bees so she gets fresh honey, and just steeps it all right there. I was still asleep when she was making it though. Sad day.
Last bit. Picking up some food before the train home left and when I walked up to the severely Slovakian food vendor, I heard Rude Boy. Rude Boy! I didn't even know what that song was until late this semester, but I sure didn't expect to hear it in Bratislava, Slovakia. Oh, remember how I said that the train tickets were good for any round trip that day? Well, we got checked for tickets on the way back in and got busted. So that kinda sucked. Just had to buy some new ones though.
Anyway, I'm proud of me and Megan, I guess. Proud's really the only word I can come up with right now, and as you know, I'm no word-ologist. But a spontaneous overnight trip to Slovakia to see a friend from high school where he shows you around his hometown and his DJ friend's hangout... well, that was pretty cool. Might just be my favorite experience so far.
But we ARE going to Prague tomorrow, er, THIS morning. So we'll see how that goes. I'll wrap up this week on Sunday, I guess. And maybe I'll cover the Prague trip as well.
Night.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Loooooost Innnnn Viennnnaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Pigs in Space? Muppet Show? Anyone? Oh well.
Let's just jump on in. First day here I was pretty hungry so I went to go find some dinner after unpacking. So I started walking down one of the larger roads in my neighborhood, which I now know as JagdschlossStrasse, looking for an open restaurant. I walked out for about 30 minutes trying to find one, but it turns out that shops and such in Europe close a lot earlier than in America. So after 22.00, you're really not gonna find a whole lot to do except for bars and clubs. That is, unless you're in a heavily toured area. Which I'm most certainly not. A little disheartened, I decided I'd walk back. I knew I lived near the top of the hill in this area, so I thought it'd be a good idea to start walking back through the neighborhood. Turns out this neighborhood is actually a modern day replica of the Labyrinth. True story. Walking around for probably about an hour before I decided that I really need to ask someone where my street is. I happened upon a park and saw some younger kids hanging out, so I asked them if they knew where my street was. They told me that Stock im Weg (actually just a street close to mine, the bus stop) was directly behind me and to the right. So I walk out and take a right and see a hill. Well while I'm walking up the hill I start hearing this clinking noise behind me like someone walking with spurs on. I turned my head to check and there's this goth'd out kid walking up on me. Since I could hear the clinking getting louder, I knew he was getting right up on me, and I'm not gonna lie, I was getting a little worried at this point. This was my first night, and your imagination can tend to run for a second when you've got Gothzilla raising up on you. Well, obviously he ended up leaving me in the dust, but not long before I got to the top of the hill and saw the road leading through another park.
oming from a campfire area and I wanted to check it out. Well when I got closer I realized I just ran into a small child's birthday part, or something similar. So there's little kids running around playing on the playground, and I just walked into this park with Gothzilla, and the parents are staring at me, and I'm just standing there because I couldn't say hardly anything at this point... ah, it was a little weird. I just kinda started at the parents for a while and then 180'd and left.
Started wandering around again and found a street sign for Straddler Weg (which I assume to be what the kids thought I was looking for) and started checking out random streets. Again, my only cue on getting home at this point is 'on top of a hill' so I'm just walking up and down every hill I can see. Pretty tiring.
Ah, quick wrapup. I saw a Chinese restaurant that got me back on JagdschlossStrasse and I got home in about another 20 minutes to Wester's bow-wow at the door.
We'll pick up getting lost again later, if you're interested. It's a little after midnight and I have to write some real journals for class in the morning. Or afternoon, rather.
Bah-bah
Let's just jump on in. First day here I was pretty hungry so I went to go find some dinner after unpacking. So I started walking down one of the larger roads in my neighborhood, which I now know as JagdschlossStrasse, looking for an open restaurant. I walked out for about 30 minutes trying to find one, but it turns out that shops and such in Europe close a lot earlier than in America. So after 22.00, you're really not gonna find a whole lot to do except for bars and clubs. That is, unless you're in a heavily toured area. Which I'm most certainly not. A little disheartened, I decided I'd walk back. I knew I lived near the top of the hill in this area, so I thought it'd be a good idea to start walking back through the neighborhood. Turns out this neighborhood is actually a modern day replica of the Labyrinth. True story. Walking around for probably about an hour before I decided that I really need to ask someone where my street is. I happened upon a park and saw some younger kids hanging out, so I asked them if they knew where my street was. They told me that Stock im Weg (actually just a street close to mine, the bus stop) was directly behind me and to the right. So I walk out and take a right and see a hill. Well while I'm walking up the hill I start hearing this clinking noise behind me like someone walking with spurs on. I turned my head to check and there's this goth'd out kid walking up on me. Since I could hear the clinking getting louder, I knew he was getting right up on me, and I'm not gonna lie, I was getting a little worried at this point. This was my first night, and your imagination can tend to run for a second when you've got Gothzilla raising up on you. Well, obviously he ended up leaving me in the dust, but not long before I got to the top of the hill and saw the road leading through another park.
oming from a campfire area and I wanted to check it out. Well when I got closer I realized I just ran into a small child's birthday part, or something similar. So there's little kids running around playing on the playground, and I just walked into this park with Gothzilla, and the parents are staring at me, and I'm just standing there because I couldn't say hardly anything at this point... ah, it was a little weird. I just kinda started at the parents for a while and then 180'd and left.
Started wandering around again and found a street sign for Straddler Weg (which I assume to be what the kids thought I was looking for) and started checking out random streets. Again, my only cue on getting home at this point is 'on top of a hill' so I'm just walking up and down every hill I can see. Pretty tiring.
Ah, quick wrapup. I saw a Chinese restaurant that got me back on JagdschlossStrasse and I got home in about another 20 minutes to Wester's bow-wow at the door.
We'll pick up getting lost again later, if you're interested. It's a little after midnight and I have to write some real journals for class in the morning. Or afternoon, rather.
Bah-bah
Recounting a Bit
Ok. Well, this might be a bit rambling because I'm going to try to go back over the first week here in a post or two. I may throw in a commentary every now and then to make it a little more interesting than 'Today I X'd and it was cool.'
First I guess I'll tell you about my host family. They're the Stockners. Umlaut over the 'o' They're older, but not old. Maybe 55-60. Two sons (Georg is the only one i've met, think he's a police officer - more about the police here later). Interesting fact about Frau S. She's the daughter of one of the other host mothers. The mom's family made the clocks that are pretty much all over Vienna for public time telling. So thats cool. Herr S. works in time management for the city and planning and that sort of thing, so maybe that's how they met?
They're really nice people. I think it's funny when Frau doesn't know a word in English and she'll just make an onomatopoeia or something to help me understand. She'll say things like, when people come home Wester (Vester, the dog).. she make Bow-Wow at them every time.' And then Herr will agree and also say bow-wow. It's just silly. Can't blame her though. I do the same thing. She likes to watch horse shows on TV cause her other son works with horses. She also borrows books from her friends and types them into her laptop while she's reading them. Which is a pretty cool thing. But she only writes up the parts of the book she enjoys. I thought it was funny, anyway.
House is nice. REAL far away though. Pretty sure i'm the farthest away of all. But it's also cooler and cleaner out here. Not that downtown Vienna is dirty, by any means. I think that living so far away is why I get lost so much. At least that's what I'd like to think :P It could very well be my bad memory. I've also taken up the practice of not turning around while I'm walking alone. Not like... I'm consciously unaware of what's going on behind me, I just don't backtrack. Makes things interesting. I also think I've probably seen more of the city than most people. Not entirely by choice, but I shouldn't complain. Nor should I REALLY be making that assumption. It seems a bit rash and almost insulting. Maybe it just feels more like i'm bragging. Don't like that.
TANGENT: Sorry about the stream of consciousness writing style. I think I'm going to also make a general rule that I don't backspace while I'm typing this up unless it's for corrective reasons. Also, I think it's weird that I never used emoticons until I started playing wow a while ago. Now I find myself using them quite often. As well as 'lol' and such.
Back on track.
Actually. I think i'm going to end this post for now. I'll start up the next one immediately, but don't want to have any one of these entries getting too long.
First I guess I'll tell you about my host family. They're the Stockners. Umlaut over the 'o' They're older, but not old. Maybe 55-60. Two sons (Georg is the only one i've met, think he's a police officer - more about the police here later). Interesting fact about Frau S. She's the daughter of one of the other host mothers. The mom's family made the clocks that are pretty much all over Vienna for public time telling. So thats cool. Herr S. works in time management for the city and planning and that sort of thing, so maybe that's how they met?
They're really nice people. I think it's funny when Frau doesn't know a word in English and she'll just make an onomatopoeia or something to help me understand. She'll say things like, when people come home Wester (Vester, the dog).. she make Bow-Wow at them every time.' And then Herr will agree and also say bow-wow. It's just silly. Can't blame her though. I do the same thing. She likes to watch horse shows on TV cause her other son works with horses. She also borrows books from her friends and types them into her laptop while she's reading them. Which is a pretty cool thing. But she only writes up the parts of the book she enjoys. I thought it was funny, anyway.
House is nice. REAL far away though. Pretty sure i'm the farthest away of all. But it's also cooler and cleaner out here. Not that downtown Vienna is dirty, by any means. I think that living so far away is why I get lost so much. At least that's what I'd like to think :P It could very well be my bad memory. I've also taken up the practice of not turning around while I'm walking alone. Not like... I'm consciously unaware of what's going on behind me, I just don't backtrack. Makes things interesting. I also think I've probably seen more of the city than most people. Not entirely by choice, but I shouldn't complain. Nor should I REALLY be making that assumption. It seems a bit rash and almost insulting. Maybe it just feels more like i'm bragging. Don't like that.
TANGENT: Sorry about the stream of consciousness writing style. I think I'm going to also make a general rule that I don't backspace while I'm typing this up unless it's for corrective reasons. Also, I think it's weird that I never used emoticons until I started playing wow a while ago. Now I find myself using them quite often. As well as 'lol' and such.
Back on track.
Actually. I think i'm going to end this post for now. I'll start up the next one immediately, but don't want to have any one of these entries getting too long.
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