there ARE kangaroos in austria

my family visited me this week. i would classify it as basically a semi-tour of vienna followed by a mega tour of european beer drinking. we also got to see bratislava and i took them to the same two places i went last time i was in bratislava: the crappy castle and the awesome restaurant. we had the famous zlaty bazant slovakian beer. unfortunately they did not get the same "bratislava" experience i did in the sense that i had to run away from falling debris the moment i arrived in the city, but they got the idea when i sort of reenacted it. i took jake out to LOCO on wednesday night an we met up with some other friends who were still in town. much to his disgust i made him take the tequila shot with a slice of orange and told him to "think of my pain every wednesday at 6 pm your time". in hindsight the tequila may have been a bad move because i later saw jake become a little overly-patriotic about his own country to some of the locals. i later learned that some "locals" actually turned out to be american as well. we stayed out after public transportation ended and tried to find the night bus but failed miserably and ended up walking 3 km back to haus erasmus (reminiscent of walking home to the north pole last semester). at one point in the night i had given up hope and thought we were wandering around aimlessly in vienna so i finally shoved jake into a cab and by some divine miracle remembered the street address of my dorm. the cab drove a block, turned, drove another block, and dropped us off at the front door. i just wasted 5 euro.

the best part about the trip (besides seeing the fam of course) was this australian bar called Billabong. the parents had been there while jake and i were at LOCO and suggested it. as soon as we walked in we saw 3 screens of NCAA basketball that was to be on all night. thats all the reason i needed. ive fallen in love with this bar for the following reasons:

1. they speak english
2. 2 euro pitchers during happy hour
3. they show all the basketball and soccer games
4. they play (what i consider) great music
5. they asked me to play on their bar cricket team

im not kidding about the last one. im heading off to my whirlwind tour of europe today. ill be on the train for about 22 hours. no more posts for about 2 weeks unless something utterly hilarious happens and i simultaneously find an internet cafe. happy easter everyone.

cheers.

do you believe in miracles?

i think there is a little bit of magic left in this illinois team. i can hardly contain my excitement today. ill be huddled around the computer at 9 oclock austria time watching the score updates.

...

nothing much going on. had some authentic gelato tonight. the last time i had gelato was last summer. it made me actually miss custard cup. everyone who has spring break plans have fun and be safe. if you're reading this chances are i miss you and cant wait to hear from you.

cheers

small world

i woke up this morning and just realized that at LOCO last night i talked to a brazilian who played soccer for urbana high school.

spring break

spring break is pretty much figured out. we have a grand total of 3 weeks to try to get into as much trouble as possible around the continent. the first week ill stay in vienna while the rest of my group is in italy. im fine with missing italy for multiple reasons. the reason im staying is cause my family will be here for 5 days. we'll be in vienna mostly but my dad wants to head east to somewhere like budapest. my brother is coming too. we're gonna rock this city.

the next two weeks is a clock-wise tour of western europe starting with two mediterranean french cities. i forget the second one but the first is Nice. Paris will be missed but we are planning to do that at another time. Next we are heading to Barcelona. it wont be so much 'spain' but more 'catalonia' but im really really really excited for barce. then its a flight to amsterdam. this wasnt my choise seeing as ive been here before but you cant win em all. the final cities are berlin and frankfurt. berlin should be really fun too, and i dont see myself getting much sleep there.

other possible destinations outside of austria include paris, munich, and some countries out east including hungary and croatia, but not the ukraine. ukraine is weak.

im making some progress on my german. im at the point now where i can ask a couple questions, but i still cant interpret the answers. so that really gets me nowhere. i really confuse the locals by creating the illusion that i am able to speak their language.

i learned the ever famous pick-up line "hey, whats your major" the other day, so now i can successfully pick up austrians at the clubs.

Was ist dein Hauptfach?

some culture

went to an art museum tonight. the admission was free for some reason so that was a plus. some rich family bought up all of these monets and picassos and put them on display for the world to see so that was pretty cool. ive come to realize i have a huge problem with what i think is called "modern expressionism" type art. other art i can look at and see it took a lot of time and skill to create, but this new art just kills me. i found myself literally staring at a black background with two parallel vertical straight white lines stretching from the top to the bottom. what is that? oh btw the name of the "art" was "untitled". of course.

somebody send me some el toro asap. dont forget the cheese dip.

Return of Schnitzel and the Plague

so today marks the 7th time djavad has been sick since ive been living with him, and when he gets sick he really gets sick. im talking deathly ill sick. i've come to call it The Plague. i usually stay out of the room or take a double dose of vitamins to defend it. unfortunately it got me today, and gave me a bit of a cold. so i missed my day trip to Graz, Austria and got to spend the day with my suffering roomy. im trying to think of a new name for room 606. i was thinking either 'sick bay' or 'the deathly hallows'.

On the other hand, the game last night was a lot of fun. it wasnt the game so much that was exciting but the extracurricular activities of the fans next to us. we sat in the section next to the opposing fans section. their part was fenced off but that didnt stop them from throwing flares onto the field and firecrackers and non-alcoholic beer at the group of people i was with. we werent even wearing the home teams colors (i for one was wearing neutral austrian red). we were just the closest people on the upper deck for them to hit. Once the home team Rapid Wein went up 2-1 with ten minutes left the amount of thrown firecrackers intensified, and i eventually became more obsessed with making sure one didnt land on me than on who won. by the end of the match police in full riot gear surrounded the other fans to make sure fights didnt break out. all in all it was a pretty good night.

Amy's dad is flying into Vienna for the night so we are going out to Centimeter, a popular restaurant in the city. i will probly have some more schnitzel, since thats all they serve in Austria. i have had so much schnitzel in the past month and a half and i am soooo sick of it. its not even that good. its just fried meat. thats all it is. i dont understand why its so popular here. here, you can be the judge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schnitzel

at least the beer is good here...

zlaty error

I apologize for misleading you on the alcohol content on the Slovakian beer. In my defense the bottle did have a percentage sign after the number 12 but it did not mean amount of alcohol in the beer. Your questions will be answered here: http://www.fgslovakia.com/2007/9/23/slovak-beer

Tonight should be fun. We are going to see a club soccer game. The local team, Rapid Wien, is playing the club team from Graz, Austria. Rapid Wien is in first place in the Austrian Bundesliga, and Graz is in 4th or 5th. Then afterwards its a 21st birthday celebration.

cheers

djavad!

I wanted to dedicate an entire post to my roommate Djavad Rahimi because I could write pages and pages about this guy. He is a 23-year old 100 pound Iranian studying Math and German at the Wirtschaftuniversitat, and he is a character to say the least. I don’t even know where to begin. I will start by easing your fears that he loves America. This is because he loves me, ergo he loves America. This is his rationale. I’m ok with that. I just hope that an international conflict doesn’t break out in the next 4 months or so. Things could get awkward in room 606. We occasionally do get into political discussions, but I try to avoid them if at all possible. When I do come home drunk I have once or twice asked him if his country is making nukes. I feel that I at least have to ask. He is learning English so I am helping him with that. Sometimes I feel that I do him more harm than good because I teach him things that aren’t exactly a part of the English language. For example, instead of saying “What’s up?” I have taught him to say “WASSSUP” (think Budweiser commercials). He thinks it is hilarious. He is teaching me German too, and a little Persian on the side. We have already come across some culture clashes. For example, when you are offered food in Iran, it is rude to decline it. I declined Djavad’s food 5 or 6 times before he finally told me, and then I had to explain to him that it was equally polite to accept or deny food offered to you in America. Also, the other day he finally told me that a thumb’s up was the exact same thing as the finger in Iran. I had inadvertently given him the bird at least 15 times in the last month or so. oops. There is so much I am not telling you about him. Everyone here thinks they can turn us into a reality show. I will only do it if I can do a spin-off “The Bachelor” or “Shot at love” reality show afterwards, except I wouldn’t be deciding if I was gay or not. There will be many more stories and anecdotes about this guy that I am sure will come for the entire semester, but that’s all for now.

Bratislava: gotta love that exchange rate!

A few of us crossed the iron curtain into Bratislava, Slovakia last Saturday. In case you don’t remember it’s the really crappy city in Eurotrip with the awesome exchange rate. Slovakia is in the EU but has not yet adopted the euro as their currency. The abbreviation is the "Sk". I think its the Slovakian word for "crowns" but for the day I just called them "slovaks". The dollar can still buy a lot of slovaks. It’s only a 45 minute train ride from Vienna and a “nice little Saturday trip”. I was really happy I went because it was everything I expected and more from Bratislava: cold and rainy with strange people and a crappy castle. As soon as we walked out of the train station huge gusts of wind blew construction debris off of two buildings across the street. We and everyone else had to literally run back into the train station to avoid it. I had my camera out but I unfortunately I wasn’t recording or else I would have come excellent Cloverfield-esque footage. After about an hour the weather calmed down a bit and we were able to walk around the city. Bratislava is making a slow but steady transformation from Cold War times. Looking across the river from the castle into the older part of town, all the buildings are built the same in a typical communist fashion. Before leaving we checked out “Old Town” Bratislava and tried the local dishes. I of course opted more to try the local beer. It turns out the famous Slovakian beer is called Zlaty Bazant and has a 12% alcohol content. Once you start talking to the people they are actually a lot more friendly than Austrians. I bet it’s mostly because they get really excited when anyone comes to their country and takes interest in it. So, in short, Bratislava isn’t really that cool but I still think worth the trip. And, as a friend pointed out, it is the “40” of Europe: cheap and alcoholic.

p.s. I changed the settings so that anyone can comment on posts. I don’t know who is reading this but if you are out there feel free to talk back

I'm back

I’m back from the Middle Ages and now have the internet. And no I was not downloading porn. Djavad would disapprove. Its been about two weeks so I have no idea where to begin.

I’ll just knock off Prague real quick. Prague was a lot of fun. Like all European cities it had old buildings with lots of statues and whatnot. I found the city to be kind of dirty though. A fellow study abroader said “it smells like an ashtray, indoors and out.” There were also a lot of tourists but what the hell I blended right in. My only complaint was the large number of gypsies roaming the streets. They have so many tricks to try to get your money like distracting you with children and candy. The night life was pretty fun. Absinthe is for the most part is legal in Prague and I also found the sweet 5 story club on the river that Kojich was raving about. Unfortunately both nights we got completely lost and couldn’t find our hostel. The first night we took a streetcar outside of the city. We were too drunk to realize it until we crossed the river (oops). So we got off before we reached Poland and somehow had to rely on the French language to get us back to our hostel. The second night was a typical “its 5:30 am public transportation isn’t running anymore” night, so we ended up walking across the entire city and got back to our hostel just about when the sun was rising. All in all it was a good weekend.

But I live in Vienna, which is another freakin’ sweet city full of history and culture and dog poop on the sidewalks. I live in the Haus Erasmus, which is another name for International Scott Hall. I’m not going to question the legend that is Scott Hall but Haus Erasmus can get pretty nuts. There are no RA’s here so we can’t get written up or “fuck with Dave” but there is a guy who runs around in a mad scientist lab coat who can fine you for not partying in the designated “party rooms”. It’s a pretty sweet deal except they shut off you internet for leaving iTunes open for the masses to stream, but I’ve learned that lesson. Haus Erasmus is pretty much in Vienna’s Red Light District. If you are walking by yourself next to a brothel the girls will try to grab you and pull you inside (very nice, how much?). The night life here is excellent, but I have some complaints. First of all, they serve their tequila shots with slices of oranges instead of limes. Its less of a chaser and more of an after-shot snack. Tequila shots are the main course at a bar/club called “Loco” where every Wednesday night is karaoke night and we get to watch people fall over the microphone singing Backstreet Boys or Michael Jackson. They also tend to make girls’ drinks a lot stronger than guys drinks. That’s ok by me except I have to recruit the females to go get them for me to get the most out of my euro. We haven’t had a whole lot to do so we went out a lot the first couple of weeks. We can get pretty ridiculous which is to be expected, but the one story I have to tell you about is the time when Pat was singing “Born in the USA” at the top of his lungs and fist-pumping without any regard to where he was while scores of angry Europeans stared at him. I’ll post more about Vienna later but that’s all for now…