Stadtlaufen

 Saturday was the 27th International Waidhofner Stadtlauf Footrace and, despite a fairly steep registration fee to pay just for the right to run in a big circle four times, it was a real blast.



The weather was fantastic and I'd never seen so many people out on the streets.  What's more, all of the runners earned free sausage and rolls at the finish line, which I thought was much cooler than the bananas and Kool-Aid you get at the end of an American race.*  We also got a sweet bag full of snacks, toothpaste, and a lighter (not sure what message that combination of goodies was trying to communicate).

Me, castle door in background



The course itself was 6.1km and consisted of four laps around the city, during which you cross the Ybbs River twice and climb the so-called Badberg once (the "Berg" does not live up to its name and reputation and, in fact, barely qualifies as a hill).



The children featured on the event's
poster do not reflect the actual
ferocity of the competition.



Despite the multicultural sounding title of the event, I'm pretty sure that my friend Luke and I were the only foreigners in attendance.  In fact, we were disappointed that "Fastest Foreigners" wasn't a category, since we certainly would have taken first and second.  I also thought that special prizes should have been given out to anyone brave enough to hit up the castle/nightclub event the night before and still race despite the hangover. Massive shiny trophies would have made a nice, if difficult to bring home, souvenirs. 

After the run and the sausages came the Siegerehrung, or awards ceremony, which you had to sit through to reach the Tombola, or raffle, which was clearly rigged to favor the Austrians in attendance.

*Interestingly, I also found out recently that Austrians get red wine instead of cranberry juice after giving blood.  Typisch.

Volleyball

2009 Champions - the Spiked Punches,
(non-Austrian)

I consider it a major strike of luck that one of the only team sports I'm even remotely capable of playing is also among the most popular here in Austria.  Since October I've been expanding the international profile of 2009 Brown University P.E. Low Division Intramural Volleyball Champions 'The Spiked Punches' (see right) by playing with my school's team almost every Wednesday.

The older players are mostly quite talented and an extremely high percentage of the students (in comparison to volleyball teams in American high schools, at least) take part.  Volleyball, in general, is taken much more seriously here than it is in America, where it's much more likely to be played one-handed by beer-holding old men in their backyards between a round of horseshoes and seconds at the grill.  In fact, the nearby town of Amstetten (population: 23,000) even has its own professional volleyball club - consisting of at least 25% unemployed American volleyball stars.  Other similar towns (or metropolises, depending on your point-of-view) also have professional teams that compete with each other and, somehow, make money out of the arrangement.   

But back in the small time racket, I've been enjoying our weekly practices despite embarrassing myself at times by grossly misunderstanding information, rules, and gender-specific instructions.  The local dialect, always difficult for me to understand, becomes even more difficult to understand when it's screamed by enthused and competitive sixteen year-olds on the court.

 

I have, however, learned some fun and useful volleyball vocabulary*:

Meine Schuld - my fault

Deine Schuld - your fault

Schlagen - to serve (to hit)

Aufspielen - to set
Netz - net

Wie steht's? - what's the score?

Out - out

In - in

Spike - spike

Block - block

English has, apparently, influenced the game's terminology abroad.

Although it`s been too cold for outdoor/beach volleyball for some time, I hear that my town has a 3x3 snow volleyball tournament planned for February.  More on that later...

*Note: German volleyball vocabulary is, in fact, only useful for playing volleyball in a German-speaking country.  For something actually useful, click here.

Things I See While Jogging

So I've finally settled on a fixed course that I use just about every day to go running.  It's about 6 or 7 kilometers long and it offers a number of truly amusing sites.  Some are delightfully Austrian and some are just charming in their own right.  I usually run by:



Waidhofen's Cool Viaduct



-A self-service schnapps bar

-A fresh milk automat (milk appears to come directly from cows)

-Several foxes, a family of deer, and an emu

-Two cemetaries, one of which is adjacent to a retirement home

-A cool viaduct

-A restaurant that advertises "Five Euro Schnitzel Wednesdays"
-Three traffic circles

-A full-time castle, part-time nightclub

-A mountain

-Packs of older Austrians who seem to love their Nordic walking sticks, but also seem to ingore proper Nordic walking technique







I question the necessity of using poles.

And as a follow-up to my last post, the castle club night was a fun and successful adventure.  I have collected some real, live Austrian friends, one of whom taught me my new favorite German word and today's offering - das Kuddelmuddel.  It's an unbelievably adorable word for a mess or a mix-up, especially one that a child would create.