world spotlight

i just love how the only two stories to come out of austria since ive been here are the serbian riots in vienna and the incest family thats all over the news now. this place can get preeetty crazy.

i heard Wendy's is opening back up in Champaign so that made my day.

ive been reading up on Salzburg and i found out the beer gardens there are amazing, so ive gotten a little more excited since i thought all i was going to see was mozart's house and the sound of music tour.

i forgot to tell the story of the only person to die on the eiffel tower. the guy was a tailor from austria and was convinced he made a suit that could fly. can you guess if he survived his demonstration? the official autopsy report indicated that he suffered from a heart attack before he hit the ground. i guess he died before he could effectively use his flying suit.

tonight is yet another 21 birthday celebration but before that im going to kriterium to watch the champions league game.

cheers.

Berlin and Paris

Besides Vienna Berlin is probably my favorite city with Prague and Barcelona trailing behind. What did it for me was the free walking tour, the beer, and the hostel. The hostels in Berlin are regulated by the government so they were really nice and had the most comfortable beds I had slept in since I left home. We had two days in Berlin and one of the days we checked out the East Side Gallery which had the largest section of the remains of the Berlin Wall. We heard the night life was great so we tried to go out but got lost (again) and ended up at this gothic-like club that looked like a cross between an opium den and a vampire hideout. We left about 2 minutes later. The next day we did a free walking tour where the guides only work for tips. They took us around all the sights including more Berlin Wall, Brandenburg Gate, Hitler's Bunker, Holocaust Memorial, etc. Hitler's Bunker was pretty funny; it was essentially covered up by a place where you take your dogs out to crap. There is however a small sign that tells you what you are actually standing on. I felt that it was an appropriately for a fascist leader to die because around the bunker was old communist housing (the bunker is in East Berlin), the Holocaust Memorial, and a gay bar across the street. This walking tour company also does pub crawls at night. They usually go 5 nights a week but they said because its Berlin they go all 7 nights. Since we struck out the night before we entrusted the night to them, and they came through for us big. We went to 6 bars and clubs with about 50 other people through the night and had a blast. We stayed out until the wee hours of the morning and managed to get a couple of hours of sleep before our train to Frankfurt. At the last club I befriended a guy from Dublin and we took tequila shots all night (WITH LIMES!!). I forgot to mention my camera had died by this point so no pictures for this post. Frankfurt was more of a layover because we were only staying for a night. Remember when I said my dorm was in the Vienna red light district? I kind of exaggerated. I live near the red light district. But Frankfurt's hostel....was definitely IN the red light district. Our hostel was above an adult video store. We had a nice last dinner and drank the local apfelwein (apple wine) and called it a night and returned back home the next day.

I thought Paris was going to be overrated but it was actually pretty cool. The Louvre was HUGE. You can spend days in there. For those of you who are were wondering no I was not allowed to check and see if Mary Magdeline's sarcophagus was buried underneath the Louvre. We saw the Mona Lisa but I was shocked at how small it was. We took the free walking tour from the same company but opted out of the pub crawl because we met friends there who took us out. The guy staying there named Jake made me try this beer that actually is 12 percent alcohol by volume called Amsterdam Maximator. Jake likes to describe the taste as "drinking a bottle of SKOL vodka and pissing it out into a can". I'll leave it at that. Of course we went up to the Eiffel Tower. We went at night and it was absolutely freezing. Its a good thing I brought my jacket on this trip.
We also saw the Arc de Triumph which is the finish line for the Tour de France. It is also the memorial to the soldiers who fought for France and even has a tomb of the unknown soldier. At the base of the arch is the eternal flame, which has never gone out...except once. On the walking tour the guide told us that when France won the World Cup in 1998 they were celebrating around the arch and some drunk mexican pissed it out. oops. So there was this huge international crisis between Mexico and France and the Mexican Ambassador had to come over and take part in the re-lighting ceremony. Oh and btw the culprit is banned from ever returning to France. The last day we saw the Notre Dame and the Palace of Versailles. From then I've sworn off traveling to gigantic cities because frankly I'm getting tired of the whole tourist thing. And also the metro line sucked in Paris.

I'm heading to Salzburg for the weekend with about 12 people. We are going to check out the Stiegl Brewery and do the Sound of Music Tour (great). The hostel apparently plays the movie on a loop constantly so I should have a good grip on the songs while we are frolicking in the hills (sigh).

For those of you who want a funny story a guy on our program got a letter from the police yesterday saying he was due in court next week for property damage. The problem is he doesn't remember damaging any property nor does he remember talking to the police. There were witnesses of him talking to about 10 cops (and no he wasn't looking for Chipitos). Now would be a good time to start learning to EU Laws...

I just realized that people are actually commenting on this blog thing. That made me happy to see people actually read this thing. Keep it up.

the end.

ok fine...

enough is enough. i just got back from soccer and dan and i walked a mile across the river in the pouring rain so im soaking wet and not caving into peer pressure to go out tonight. so im spending the night with you...

im going to tarentino this a little bit and jump around in time so bear with me. we got back from paris the other day. i was a little tired so i decided not to head out and have some me time and watch a movie or something. a quiet little saturday night. about 5 minutes into the movie amy storms into the room, closes my dvd player, rips the covers off my bed, and shoves a beer in my face "GET OUT OF BED THE RATHAUS HAS BEEN TURNED INTO A CLUB TONIGHT" soooo next thing i know im downstairs with that same beer in my hand heading out. it was really cool though, they turned town hall into a club and pulled out all the stops including loud sound system, giant bar, professional dancers, and my favorite, ten euro cover for guys. now, im taking a class called gender, diversity, and the workplace, and i believe this classifies as gender discrimination. tell me im wrong.

so the next day was rapid vienna's last home game and like i said before if they won the game they won the league. ten minutes into the game rapid was winning 2-0. the place was bonkers. nobody was sitting and the stadium was blaring the white stripes "seven nation army". my ever-growing knowledge of the german language enabled me to do the chants after rapid scored. since i know my P's and Q's, and can count to 100, i was set:
(in english)
announcer guy: Rapid!
crowd: 2
announcer guy: Altach
crowd: 0
announcer guy: Thank You!
crowd: You're Welcome!!

i couldnt have been happier. perfect weather, a half liter cup of ottakringer in my hand, some suprisingly good soccer, and a giant celebration after the victory (final score 3-0). it honestly rivaled an afternoon at Wrigley Field. We got to storm the field afterwards and celebrate with the team as they were awarded medals for winning the cup. utter bliss.

back in time (Wayne's World doo-doo-do doo-doo-do doo-doo-do) to about a month ago: Spring Break Part 2!!!

so we wake up in Avignon, France, and to be honest cannot wait to get out of there. Arriving at the train station we find out theres a train strike in France and we cant get to Barcelona. shoot me. fortunately something worked out and we transferred about two times and got there. out of woods right? of course not. we get into barca at about midnight and call the hostel for more specific directions. turns out this hostel has a nice little program going on. they let people stay there for free if they man the desk and answer telephones. thats all fine and dandy until one of them doesnt know how in the world to get us there!!

idiot at the desk: Where are you?
us smart people: We're next to Port Olympico.
moron: What's that?

THE HOSTEL IS 2 BLOCKS FROM PORT OLYMPICO! 1.5 hours later we are in bed, very angry but happy to not be in france.

so we hit up the hot spots: Sagrada Familia (did you know the flippin thing isn't even finished yet?) Montjuic Castle, Las Ramblas, Gaudi Park, etc. Las Ramblas is the main street with performers and vendors and really creepy statues.
look at that monster peering over that guys shoulder at me. oh yeah i almost forgot. in an attempt to subdue me with happiness so that they could shop later, the girls took me to the Barcelona soccer stadium Camp Nou. although i am not a Barcelona fan, it was really cool to see.
the stadium was massive. but anyways the plan worked and i was in high spirits. moving on, the nightlife was pretty sweet.
its a spanish tradition to basically go all night and then sleep in afternoon. i believe they call it "siesta". the institutionalization of the nap is fine by me. unfortunately we had things to do so that was out. one of the places we tried to get to was called "chipitos" which in Catalan i think means "shots" or "spirits". So we were lost naturally and i attempted to use my spanish powers on some police officers but im sure all they heard was "where are shots". you can imagine their confusion and general concern for my well-being after hearing that. needless to say we got really really lost that night and couldnt find anywhere to go, until, lo and behold, another irish pub!! they never fail me. another night we went to a sweet fountain show, but before we went we had to kick off the night right with some champagne.
farther down will be a pick of the fountain show but im having editing difficulties. i think it was raining at the end of the night so we had to take a cab and the driver couldnt speak english. yay. so once again my spanglish of "rights" "lefts" and "stops" eventually got us home. next stop was Amsterdam. Once again a cool city but we ended up seeing the things i had already seen when i was here in my youth like Anne Frank House and Van Gogh Museum. by the way, why arent any of the famous van gogh's in the van gogh museum? they had the bedroom one and the sunflower one. but, we did walk through something i was not allowed to see last time: the Red Light District. im gonna be honest with you, i thought it was going to be a little more...subtle.
so only one day later we were headed to berlin, but i will have to take a break because berlin was my favorite city and if i started now i would sound like a 10 year old explaining pokemon to his parents. if i forgot anything ill throw it in another time. i will leave berlin and frankfurt for the final segment of my quick spring break wrap up hopefully tomorrow but i gotta be honest this is tiring.

lazy

so really sorry that i haven't been up to speed on the blogging. i did just get back from paris which was cool but i was limping around the city the whole time cause of my almost broken foot that i hurt while playing pick up with some turks on the Donau Insel. ill talk more on that later. i also have to write a self-reflection paper on gender and diversity and how it has affected me in the workplace. that should be interesting. what im getting at is once again im putting off the spring break and now the paris post because i have to read 60 pages and do the paper. and im also not getting that done quickly because today is RAPID VIENNA'S LAST HOME GAME!!! most of the program is going and i checked out the table and if rapid wins this afternoon they win the austrian bundesliga and a spot in the champions league tourney (if you are totally confused at this point don't worry about it). so needless to say a win today and the place will be going nuts. get excited for sub-par professional austrian league soccer whooooo!!!

bye

nice little friday

went to graz. climbed castle hill. saw the clock tower and the old armory. had some schnitzel and gelato. another 21st birthday bash tonight. all in all a good day.

Graz

sorry for not finishing the spring break post. its coming. i actually did school work today. im taking a day trip to Graz, Austria (home of the Governator) tomorrow. its supposed to be a pretty cool town. i will end the recap of spring break this weekend.

back from break

Hello everyone. After 53 hours of train-riding, 10 hours of layover, and learning how to say "do you speak english?" in about 5 different languages, I am back in Vienna. I never thought I would be so happy to see my local kebap vendor, the easy-to-use metro system, and even djavad. My trip was incredible. I saw so many cool things and met the most interesting fellow travelers. There is honestly too much to say so I'll try to hit the highlights without boring you too badly...

Easter Sunday I train it for about 19 hours to Nice, France. I'll say now I was a skeptic of France but I was pleasantly suprised:


Don't be fooled, it wasn't that warm. And did I mention I didn't bring a coat? Setback number 1 for the trip. There wasn't much to see in Nice, but it was a really cool beach town city. I don't know if you can tell but those beaches aren't sandy. Because there wasn't a whole lot to do except "take it all in" it didn't take long for the girls to find the stores...

So I dealt with that for a bit (I found a bar). A thing I like to do is sample the local/country beers wherever I go. So I went up to the bartender and asked, "Can I try a French beer?" The guy literally laughed at me and said, "French beer? There is no such thing as French beer." And he hands me this disgusting beer that actually is brewed in France called Pellforth. Look it up. That was the end of that.

Since there really wasn't anything else to do we took a 3 euro bus trip to Monte Carlo, Monaco. Some fun facts about Monte Carlo: its the second smallest sovereign nation in the world behind the Vatican, its home to one of the most prestigious annual formula 1 races, and it is essentially where the rich and beautiful come to play. Along the harbor lay million dollar yachts and well-dressed attractive people strolling about. It also has the famous Monte Carlo casino. Unfortunately I was wearing my sandals that day and was denied access into the casino. Setback number 2. I mean c'mon, how cool would it have been to say you've gambled at the Monte Carlo casino (sigh).

So we leave Nice and head for another French city called Avignon. Some fun facts about Avignon: Nothing. I was told this place was chosen because another place was all booked up. It turned out to be a more relaxing time in France because of the lack of sights and I am always down for not moving a lot. There was however a very large "Palace of the Popes" that we did not go in because of the cost but shoved our cameras through the holes in the wooden door and snapped some blind pictures. How's that for Europe on a Shoestring?

The older part of the city itself was pretty cool because it is walled in with ramparts and whatnot. It had a famous port thingy on the river that ran outside of the city but it looked more to me like a bridge that wasn't finished. I will not show you this picture because you might look and it and begin to not be jealous of my spring break trip. I want to point out now that I did not book this vacation. There wasn't even a lot to do at night. We did however find an Irish pub, which we spent approximately quadruple the amount of time there than the time we spent snapping pictures. We left the pub in waves but were too preoccupied with "fun" that nobody cared to think about "responsibility". Nobody knew who had the only key to the hotel. And worst of all, the hotel decided to actually lock the doors after a certain time. So me and Anna being the last wave from the pub showed up with no idea what to do. And to complete the perfect storm of bad things that can happen to you in a crappy french town, nobody was answering their phone. My next move was to go around to the back and try to get anybodies attention via the back window that I was "bonjouring" out of in a Beauty and Beast-like fashion only hours ago. The only thing I found that I could throw was an empty McDonald's cup lying on the street. So I began to throw...

That is the cup, with the straw in the lower left-hand corner. I am putting this picture up because I wanted you to know I did not make this up. But by putting this up and by posting today you know that I eventually got upstairs and am still alive.

There's more to the story but I want to move on to other exciting places like Barcelona and Berlin. I'm getting hungry though so I'm taking a break. I may post later today or if I go to Loco (it is Wednesday after all) I will do it tomorrow. peace.