Fun with Fall and Other Such Alliterations
First things first, I must proclaim to the world that I have tickets to the midnight showing of the new Harry Potter movie on November 15!! (Yes, for you Americans, I do believe that is TWO FULL DAYS before the movie opens across the Atlantic!! And yes, I will be watching it in English without any sort of annoying dubbing or subtitles :-D) Hurrah!! I'm pathetically excited by this development in my life, isn't that sad? HA! I don't care -- I still get to see Harry Potter before my sisters do...mwhahahaha!!Right. So now let's talk about things that I have been doing that are actually exciting rather than pathetic and sad :-) Considering that last week was "fall break," and I thus had nine days to roam free in my new city, I actually have a lot of adventures to relate.
Fall has officially broken in Vienna. The leaves are turning, the wind is picking up, and before the gray skies set in, we had a few glorious days of brilliant blue sky to complement the golden leaves. We Fulbrighters decided to indulge our fall fancies by trekking up Leopol
dsberg to the Kuerbisfest (pumpkin festival) at the top. The day could not have been more gorgeous (although it was a bit chilly!), and the festival was everything that an Austrian festival should be. Namely, there were cute kids, cute parents, and cute old people (wearing lederhosen and dirndls) and lots and lots and lots of alcoholic beverages. Pumpkin beer, pumpkin punch with rum, gluhwein, spiked cider, regular beer, regular wine, you name it, they had it. I decided to be festive and went for the pumpkin punch with rum, which was warm and delicious. And strong. Alexis finished mine. Pumpkin carving was of course another fun feature of the festival (ooooh nice alliteration to me!) Farmers were selling pumpkins and squash of all sizes and shapes off the back of a large wagon, and there were tons of tables set up with carving equipment. However, I think my favorite feat
ure of the fair (good grief this alliteration is getting ridiculous) was a quartet of old men in traditional Austrian clothing who went around singing for their beer. They had an accordian and their voices, which they used to coerce each stall out of four cups of beer. I actually was able to get a video of them singing, and it is a hoot! However, since I can't post video on here (I think), I will instead put up a photo. After the festival, the group went out to dinner at the Bunion *ahem excuse me* the Banyon, a Chinese/Japanese restaurant, and then Kelly and I decided, on a whim, to catch the 9pm showing of ummmm, well, Pride and Prejudice. It was my third time. I swear, I am seeing it with each of my friends individually, because I think I'm going again tomorrow with Alexis. Aahhhhh it's so good!!!On Monday, I went to my first aerobics class, which was soooo fun. I really enjoy step aerobics, and it was really a good workout. I was feeling my legs and tummy muscles the next day, that's for sure!! Monday was also Halloween, which has apparently only become popular here in the past 10 years. Globalization in a nutshell, I guess. I, however, have been celebrating Halloween since I was born, so I did not feel bad about attending Kim's party :-) It was fun -- Danny, Kelly, Jen and her fiance, Ted, Chris and his wife, Claire, and I all went to Kim's for candy, chips, wine, champagne, and all sorts of odds and ends. I rented The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Ring to put us in the Halloween mood...we watched the first and saved the second, so that night at least, I didn't go home completely freaked out :-) It was a fun night, and very low key.
The next day, All Saints' Day, is another Nationalfeiertag. Austria is officially a Catholic
country, so we get all important Catholic holy days off :-D We wanted to do something really Viennese and creepy at the same time, so Kim, Alexis, Jen, her fiance, and I made the trip out to the Zentralfriedhof (the ginormous cemetary on the outskirts of Vienna) at dusk. The cemetary is absolutely beautiful. The gravestones are all totally ornate and fancy, and especially around All Saints/All Souls time of year, people really keep the graves looking nice with flowers and candles and even paintings. We spent about an hour and half there, and we only left when it got too dark to read the graves. The Zentralfriedhof is well-known for being the final resting place for Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Johann Strauss, and Salieri (Mozart's competetion in Amadeus), among others. We, being silly, did not look up beforehand where these graves were located, so the only famous musician's grave we found was this one:
I don't know if you can read the name on the grave, so I'll just tell you. It says "Falco." To those for whom no bell just rang, join the club. It took me a while to realize that Falco is the recently deceased man who sang the classic song "Rock Me Amadeus." Ahhh Austria...I think it's absolutely priceless that we found Falco, but not Beethoven. :-) In any case, we decided to continue with our creepy night, and Kim, Ted, Kelly and I went back to Kim's apartment to watch The Ring. I honestly don't know why I did that to myself -- I've seen it before, and I couldn't sleep for three nights afterwards!!! Hahaha this time I only had to sleep with the lights on for one night.
Wednesday was a relatively light day in comparison. I met up with Alexis to go jogging/power-walking in this huge, gorgeous park near her apartment, which was sooo much fun. Then we went back to her apartment and carved her pumpkin from the Kuerbisfest. Alas, we were silly and gave him the name "Just Jack" because he was so darn cute. Afterwards, we treated ourselves to schnitzel at Centimeter, which in all likelihood completely counteracted the effects of power-walking, but why excercise if not to feel good about eating bad-for-you food? ;-D That night, Kim, Alexis and I went to a concert at the Musikverein. The Cleveland Symphony Orchestra (one of the best in the States) played Schubert and Stravinsky. The highlights were Schubert's Unfinished Symphony and Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms. Most of the pieces were for chorus and orchestra, which I, naturally, enjoy even more than just instrumental music, and the entire concert was just fabulous. What's even better is that tickets to the Musikverein (standing room tickets, anyway) are cheaper than movie tickets!! Irony.
On Thursday Kelly and I got Thai food and coffee on a very gray day, and because of the weather and the allure of coffee and conversation, I played hooky from my other aerobics class. Meh. I don't regret it at all!
Alexis, Kim, and I had talked about taking a trip on Friday or Saturday, but Alexis decided last minute to accept an invitation to go to Switzerland for the weekend, so I ended up staying in the city, which was actually probably a good thing because next weekend I am going to Munich to visit Antonia, which should be a blast :-D So on Friday, rather than going to Budapest/Bratislava/Salzburg (all of which had been discussed), I did some shopping with Kim, who was also nice enough to help me change my bank account. For some unfathomable reason, Bank Austria won't give foreign students an ATM card that works at ATMs that are not exclusively for Bank Austria. Which sucks. So, with Kim's help, I finagled my way into a normal bank card that can also be used for debit. Hurrah! Friday night was the Vienna opening of Elizabethtown, which a small group of us attended. Danny is actually from Elizabethtown, KY, so we of course had to go :-) We met for dinner at Maschu Maschu, which is this really yummy Middle-Eastern restaurant where you can get a full meal for about 3E. The only downside is that both times I have been there, there have been couples full-on making out at the table next to us. Ick. Is that really necessary people? I think not! Anyway, after dinner we saw the movie, which I really enjoyed. I know the critics have basically panned it, but I actually thought it was rather good!
Saturday I had to do some birthday shopping for my sissy (happy almost birthday sissy Meggie!), so Kim, Kelly, and I met up to shop at/explore the Julius Meinl (Austria's equivalent of Whole Foods.) That place is seriously insane, and I LOVE it!! Besides Meg's present, I also bought some peanut sauce (oh my favorite food ever), and the three of us decided that it was a chocolate sort of day. So we splurged and split a 10E cup of imported-from-France chocolate-caramel fondue. Oooooooh boy. We picked up some apples, bananas, pretzels, and waffle cookies for dipping utensils, and thus armed, we went to Kelly's to have a delicious dinner of rice, peanut sauce, white wine, and fondue to go along with our movie selection of 13 Going on 30. Girls' night? I think so!! So that was about as fun as fun can be (we also watched clips of Jon Stewart on the internet which is always entertaining!)
Sunday. Day of Rest. Day of Grad School Applications. I'm getting there. Really. I also met up with Jo for coffee, which was lovely :-)
Which brings us to today and my return to the real world. I shouldn't complain, today I worked as many hours as I did during all of the last week I worked (lest you be confused, more work is a good thing), and I had my step aerobics class again, which was quite a workout!! Alexis and I grabbed coffee, and I tried to mail my present to Meg. I have to say, I love where I live. I went to a post office in the 9th district because my aerobics class is next door, and the experience couldn't have been more unpleasant. Both attendents were unhelpful and decidedly nasty, so rather than argue, I though "bah i'm going to my post office in the 8th district." And I did. And they couldn't have been nicer!! The attendent was actually trying to figure out how to reduce my costs! Same with my video store -- the guy who owns the place (across the street from my apartment) is practically my best friend, and he made opening an account so easy, unlike the (again) nasty guy at the video store we went to on Saturday night. Yay for Josefstadt!
Short travel update: it's looking more and more like we'll be heading to Tunisia in February, which should be amazing!! My goal is to ride a camel on the beach. I'm not kidding. I will do this!! Anyway, hopefully we'll book our vacation packages soon (I've never traveled like this before, but for a student on a budget, a round-trip flight/7 days at a resort/2 meals a day for 300E is looking pretty good!)
Well I guess that's it for now...new pics will be posted on my photo page sooooooon (like in the next 30 minutes or so), so check those out if you are interested.
Love you and ciao :-)
posted by Carly Fowler @ 8:00 PM
9 Comments:
screw you for seeing harry potter before me (for some reason right there i kept typing pooter instead of potter and that makes me giggle)
p.s. i looked at your pics and that picture of the thai food looks scrumptious!!! you're taking me there when i visit....and then we have to go back to your apt so i have a potty readily available juuuuust in case
ummmm....EW. But okay.
you love me and think i'm funny.....don't lie, you laughed
Maybe I laughed, but if I did, it is because I know just how true that statement was!
love you sissy :-)
Carly, you're so awesome! and meghan, I laughed too. and I laughed at what carly said back. I know I asked this as a comment on your last blog, but I don't know if you check both, so are you coming home for christmas?
Oooops that wasn't Kim, it was Carly :-) I'm on Kim's computer.
I will be home for christmas too! Not for long--from the 18th to the 26th (which actually is a really long time for me to take off work, but it just doesn't seem like that long).
Just so you know, Sissy Meghan is quite disgusting!
And, I'm insulted by your blog...the word verification was basically "uarefat.." Well, it was uuorfat...but say that fast. I'm heart Carly's blog...like a knife wound to the heart.
Post a Comment
<< Home