26 September 2010

Mein Zeitzonenkater

After nearly 48 hours of travelling, I´ve arrived in Vienna where I´m spending the night before heading to Graz for orientation tomorrow. I had initially planned to blog from the sky, but was disappointed to find out that Jet Airlines does not offer to WiFi to its superbudgeteconomyclass. Instead I had to enjoy the many Bush-era reruns available on my Jet Airlines JetScreen™. Expecting the internet and not getting it, however, made me feel a little spoiled and it reminded me of this clip from Louis CK on Conan.

Today´s German word is der Zeitzonenkater, which is one way to say ¨jet lag,¨ but translates more literally to ¨time zone hangover.¨ To have einen Kater (literally a male cat) means that you´re hungover, as I hear was the case among victorious Brown students this morning.

18 September 2010

Hello and Welcome

In order to keep all of you updated with my life in Austria (and not out of sheer vanity) I have created this blog and I welcome you to it.

To start with the very basics, I am leaving the U.S. on September 25 and I'll be living in the town of Waidhofen an der Ybbs in Lower Austria (Niederoesterreich).

For the geographically inclined, here's a map

And for the etymologically-inclined, I plan to include a fun new German word in every post. I'll start with the title of the blog - fingerspitzengefühl. It translates to "instinct" or "intuition." My girlfriend Maggie mistakenly believes that it means "the feeling that you get in your fingertips when you meet somebody for the first time and you don't think you like him or her." She likes to use it to demonstrate how specific and funny German words can be and I find it amusing in any case - definitely one of my favorites.