Fast am Ende der Woche

This week has been busy and tiring, but altogether good. Tuesday afternoon we had this long, awfully boring information session about mostly things that we should already know, like how to register. I pity the person trying to register this week, only to find out that all the English classes are full.


The past three days my german classes have been awfully boring. One day we talked about egg donation, yesterday was energy (oil, wind, coal...), and today traffic. Seriously. Can we get any more boring??? I think not. I mean, I love talking about traffic or listening to traffic reports in Austin, but we were talking about increased truck traffic after the iron curtain (soviet empire) fell.


After german on Wednesday was the sign-up for all the trips through the Buddy Network. They had organized trips to Oktoberfest, Budapest, Prague, and two ski trips. There were only limited spots on each, and 450 of us, so... the line went down the stairs and out the front door before the sign-ups officially began. I'm like the sixth person on the Budapest wait list. They said it's very likely that I'll get to go, but it makes me nervous. I just want to go to Budapest! It's October 26-28.

Anyway, that line took forever, so it was like 2:15 before I got down here around Westbahnhof. Since I was *starving* (21 hours without food does that), I went to McDonalds. Whatever they say, I think Europeans like it as much as we do. I got two cheeseburgers for 2€. I never eat cheeseburgers at McDonalds, and I don't like ketchup, but I just scarfed those down.

Wednesday afternoon Tina took me to a mall that's right next to the Burggasse subway stop - which is the closest subway stop, meaning the mall is really close. I probably would have never noticed it, since that side of the street has lots of places like "Erotik Shop" and "Peep Show," so I don't like being over there. At the mall I had to buy a power cord for my laptop. I have a plug adapter, but my plug doesn't fit into the plug adapter. I also had hot chocolate (me) and coffee (Tina) because the high that day was like 60° F.

Thursday afternoon we had a tour through Swarovski crystal shop. I think they expected us to have heard of them before... but I definitely hadn't. Oh well. Then we took a tour of the first district aka the middle of the city. We saw several churches, and it seemed like every other building had a sign that said "Mozart did ____ here." Ok, thanks, we get it - Mozart lived in Vienna. There was also one for Franz Grillparzer, whom I quoted at Robert's memorial service. Most of the churches get to be a drag, but I never tire of looking at the grand organs they have. I've not yet been inside the St. Stephen's Cathedral, but I look forward to it. I bet the organ is beautiful. That tour took two hours and really wore me out, so I spent last night chilling out and watching One Tree Hill on dvd.

Today we had a lecture on government in Austria. I've never been able to understand exactly how these European parliaments are set up, and Austria seems especially confusing to me. President, Chancellor, 5 political parties, equal representation... It's all so confusing. And there was so much swapping of land in the 20th century in central Europe that it's mind-boggling. I also learned that Austria had been split into four the same way Germany had after WWII, and (like Berlin) all four were in Vienna. After the lecture, we went to the Parliament building. It's a beautiful building, with a very very strong Greek influence. If you look at my pictures you'll understand what I mean. The tour wasn't very exciting, but who would expect it to be?

Tomorrow we have the day off and I hope to go to the Albertina gallery. Sunday is Graz.

And, of course, you can look at all of my pictures here. I will work on captioning them, but it's very difficult because I don't know what all of it is. Bis später!