23 May 2011

Austria: A Year by the Numbers

Number of cows I've been chased
by on a bike: 2
A numerical summary of 243 days in Europe. 

Countries visited: 12 (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia, Croatia, England, Liechtenstein) 

Bordering countries visited: 7/8 (damn Switzerland!)

Austrian provinces visited: 8/9 (damn Carinthia!)

Degrees Celsius when I went swimming in the Danube: 5

Liters of beer consumed (est.): 170 (based on national average of 108.3)

Average number of ice cream cones per week: 3

Bikes ridden: 7
Reflective moments spent
overlooking Innsbruck: 1

  Metro systems used: 9

  Airplane trips: 2

  Train trips (est.): 86

  Trips to Vienna: 20

  Balls attended: 4

  Public restrooms begrudgingly paid  for: 1

  Number of hostels visited: 10

Number of nights spent in a hospital: 1

Number of nights not spent in a hospital: 242

Classes visited: 28

Lesson plans created: 90.4 MB

Students murdered: 0

Number of blog posts: 64

Books read: 11 German, 10 English

Free time during the week: lots

Number of chickens in my backyard: 3

Kilograms of stuff I'm allowed to bring back: 46

18 May 2011

The Trouble with Treffpunkts

A Treffpunkt
One of the first things I noticed after arriving in Austria was a curious green sign that seemed to greet me everywhere I went.  Using my skills of deduction I determined that they either served to indicate places where groups of four are pointed at and ridiculed or where bald people perform a cappella.  I found out later that these ubiquitous signs are Treffpunkte, or meeting points. 

Meeting points in Europe, like their scarce brethren in the US, are logically and conveniently located in places like train stations, airports, and shopping malls.  What is most peculiar, however, is that they are also illogically and inappropriately found in places like dark alleyways, open fields (see photo), loosely-populated neighborhoods, and bodies of water.  Having spent some time considering the possible cultural significance of this phenomenon, I've come to the following Treffpunkt theories:

Where was everybody else?
-Austrians are incapable of identifying or describing natural landmarks.

-The traffic sign manufacturers' union has an unusual amount of sway within the Ministry for Placement and Installation of Unnecessary Traffic Signs.

-Austrians like to have tweetups in the woods.

-Americans just don't like to meet up as much as Austrians.

-Austria's abundant Treffpunkts have been set up by an underground network of drug dealers who have never heard of cell phones or when2meet.com.

Feel free to add any further theories as comments.  Together we can unlock this mystery!

15 May 2011

Fon in London

About two months ago I spontaneously booked an irresistibly cheap round trip fair to London with Ryanair - the preferred airline of tightwads, people with very low standards, and the Irish.  The many luxuries of flying with Ryanair include walking across the tarmac to the plane, qualifying a newspaper as "carry-on luggage" and holding your pee, but the price is just unbeatable. 

I was excited to go see this painting as I once
taught a lesson about this topic, despite
being majorly unqualified to talk about art.


After arriving at Stansted, I took a shuttle into the city, which I found to be astoundingly modern and multi-cultural in comparison to Austrian cities, despite the UK's alarming adherence to driving on the left.  The weather in London was uncharacteristically unbad, so we spent most of our time outdoors, walking from site to site rather than checking out the over-priced and over-hyped indoor attractions.  We did stop by to see the Tate Modern, home to the famous Roy Lichtenstein painting Whaam! (see right).  I also ran quickly into the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon Marbles.  The museum described the latter set of statues as more or less "protected from the careless Greeks", although I remembered that in Athens they were essentially described as "stolen by the greedy British".  Museum politics are rarely so interesting.

Other than one English breakfast and a scone (sadly without clotted cream), I mostly stayed away from English food, which is often boiled and infrequently praised.  However, although England has a less-than-sterling culinary reputation, I thought that London was a great place to eat as there were restaurants serving food from just about every ethnicity imaginable.  And if you forget about the crushingly unfavorable exchange rate, the prices almost seem cheap!

Other than one English breakfast and a scone (sadly without clotted cream), I mostly stayed away from English food, which is often boiled and infrequently praised.  However, despite England's less-than-sterling culinary reputation, I thought that London was a great place to eat as there were restaurants serving food from just about every ethnicity imaginable.  And if you forget about the crushingly unfavorable exchange rate, the prices almost seem cheap!

I've always had an odd interest in massive, nineteenth-century department stores, so naturally I also checked out Harrods - the UK's largest shop and once home to one of the world's first escalators (which apparently caused such a stir that distressed ladies were given smelling salts and cognac to calm their nerves).  Having seen both Harrods and Buckingham Palace, I admit that it's hard to say which is actually grander.

My short trip was rounded out with a trip to the West End to see Wicked, which is even more fun than the reviews suggest. 

 

09 May 2011

Things I'm going to miss about Austria

Waidhofen Stadtturm, with
our 25 meter tall maypole!
I'll be leaving in just over two weeks, and I've started to think about the things I'm going to miss once I move back to the USA.  A bulleted list:

-Lovely springtime weather in the Ybbstal.  This valley is absurdly lush and it's been an amazing place for hiking, jogging, cycling, swimming, and outdoor napping.

-Practical, non-Amtrak train travel.

-Having things to blog about

This spring Waidhofen got really
green, really fast. 

-Drinking outdoors not necessarily indicating that one is a degenerate. 

-Having sales tax included in the listed price of goods at the store and thus feeling as though I do not pay sales tax.

-Practicing German.

-Topfen (also known as Quark in Germany), a type of curd cheese that is a healthy, tasty, cheap, dress-it-up-dress-it-down miracle food.

-Austrian Gemütlichkeit

-Being employed.

-Austrians, Americans, and even Brits that I've met, blahblahblah.

-Referring to people with definite articles before their names, as Austrians tend to do.
Ex: "Hello, I am the Scott, it is nice to meet you." "Hello, you may call me the Helmut.  Are you friends with the Carinna?" "Do you mean the Baumgärtner Carina." "Yes, her." "Oh, then I am friends with the Carina."



Stayed tuned for things I'm not going to miss about Austria (a much shorter list).

03 May 2011

The Road to Vienna

Translation: "A sign with the Austrian flag, this must be the way to Vienna!"
Austrians in the countryside tend not to be crazy about the Viennese, espcially when driving.