Cramming, Tourist-Style

Apparently, Val and I took a long, hard look at this weekend and decided that we'd let the mindset of a tourist in Vienna for only 24 hours dictate our decisions. This turned out to be not a bad plan at all, but good lord, what a busy weekend!

Saturday was sightseeing day (pictures on facebook), as Val and I engaged in an exercise of the blind-leading-the-blind and took another American along with us for the ride. We started the day off at Naschmarkt, where there were stalls-upon-stalls of excellent fresh food, including meats, fruits, veggies, and all sorts of delightful prepared food. I wanted to eat it all but walked away with nothing. Fortunately, Naschmarkt is open Mon-Sat, and I intend on doing all of my grocery shopping there from now on.

Next, we headed to St. Stephen's Cathedral, which was really quite a sight to behold, inside and out. Like many European cathedrals, it has impressive spires, stained glass windows, and an appropriately somber and spiritual atmosphere within. We appreciated all of this, but who are we kidding: we were there for the catacombs. The tour of the catacombs was conducted in German and English, which was most fortunate because we learned many fascinating tidbits. For example, previous emperors' organs are kept in this cathedral (with other organs and the actual bodies kept in other cathedrals that were all competing to be the place that could say, "and the emperor is buried here!"). We got to see crypts where priests were buried, and we got to to see the renovated and old sections of the catacombs.

The old section was my favorite - appropriately spooky, low-lit, and very, very old. There were tons of skeletons piled up in various chambers. At one point, bodies were buried in the crypts because Vienna outlawed cemeteries in squares above ground. However, the smell was so bad, they had to store them in even deeper areas. Convicted felons were then charged with cleaning the bones and neatly stacking them, gathering like bones together (eg, all femurs stacked here, skulls stacked there). This resulted in what looked like a knobby looking wall, which was, in fact, a tightly packed stack of bones. There was one pit where the bodies of plague victims were stored. Apparently, people feared the plague so much, they just threw the bodies down this hole. We could see through the grating into a room just filled with bones.

After a fortifying hot chocolate, we were on our way to Belvedere Palace, which has extensive grounds, a beautiful palace, and lots of amazing artwork (including Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss"). This will be a nice place to walk around when it's not so cold and the gardens are blooming. Afterward, we had a hearty Austrian meal at a pub.

After that, it was off to Zentralfriedhof, Europe's second largest cemetery. There are over 2.5 million people buried there - more than the population of Vienna. We entered the cemetery with absolutely no plan at all for how we'd walk through it…and goodness gracious, this place was massive. It just kept stretching on and on as far the eye could see in every direction. There were very ornate graves that had intricate sculptures, more moderate ones that just had tombstones, and graves overgrown with weeds (most likely older Jewish ones, apparently). But the real stars of the cemetery were Beethoven's, Schubert's, Brahms', and Strauss' graves. We had no idea where these were, but an astonishing combination of dumb luck and attentiveness led to us stumbling upon them. Amazing!

That evening we wandered around in search of food. I may or may not have led us briefly astray into a hookah bar by accident...we were food-focused so we left immediately. Instead, we ended up at a fabulous tiny Italian restaurant that served the best pasta ever. After, we tried to go to Mozart's House, but were turned away with the excuse that it was "too late," despite my guide book saying it didn't close for another hour. Harrumph. Still, a full and wonderful day in all and a great opportunity to make a new friend.

Today, Val and I decided to go hiking (pictures on facebook), which, it turns out, is the healthiest thing we could have done today. Austrians love hiking here, and there are many trails that are both well-maintained and well-marked. What's also nice is that all of these trails are easily accessed by public transportation. So, we took the D tram out to the end of the line in Nussdorf, where the Vienna government's website told us the trail started. It was a little unclear as to where exactly we were supposed to go, but a man charging up the hill thrust his hand repeatedly in his direction while passing us…so we decided to follow him. Later, we were given a choice of two parallel paths, and he again waved us on to the correct path (while he took a different one). Thanks nice Austrian man!

After walking through the town, the trail took us into the vineyard-filled countryside. Val and I were kicking a rock along, and a runner ahead of us paused, looked back, and simulated kicking it back to us. We both laughed, and he then said a bunch of stuff in German while gesturing at his face. After asking if he spoke English, he said he'd just commented on how nice it was to see such happy faces when most people are so serious. Turns out he's a Russian who's lived in Vienna for 20 years, working as an anesthesiologist. A very friendly man!

Our hike took us through forests, another little town, and finally a really lovely view of Vienna near the Kahlenberg hotel. It started snowing at this point, and it got to be really cold as we were hiking down back to Nussdorf. The rest of the trail took us along some more vineyards and huerigers, along the Danube, and finally back toward the tram station. We got a little lost at the end there, but we were able to find our way back just fine. All in all, I'd say we hiked about 5 miles.

After being the point person for directing our travels yesterday and today, I'm feeling more comfortable with the public transit system and with the layout of Vienna as a whole. Not bad for a first week!

My Neighborhood

I actually had to stare at the title for a bit because it looks wrong without a 'u' in there. I have a feeling my spelling is going to be very confused by the time I return to the States. People will read my writing and wonder, "Is she American? Is she British? Is she illiterate?"

As I mentioned in my previous post, I live in an apartment rented by a family. They actually rent the two apartments on the top floor of my building - the mother, father, and son live in one, and their two daughters live in the other. Their older daughter is studying abroad this year, and so they are renting out her room to me. So, yes, this means I am living in a two-bedroom apartment with a 13-year-old as a roommate. I haven't actually seen her much at all because the family has been gone on a ski trip, but she seems nice and I've been told she barely spends time over here.

My kitchen is just the bare bones of what you'd need to cook, and that suits me well. Lack of a microwave and oven makes leftovers a slightly sad and cold affair, but really, I'm discovering leftover food tastes just fine cold. There is a grocery store right across the street, which makes food purchases very convenient.

The apartment is right across from the metro stop, which is only 2 metro stops from work. On a bad day, it takes me 15 minutes to get from my apartment door to my office chair, which is just plain silly. The same metro, in the opposite direction, gets me downtown in 10 minutes. The buses and trams are quite convenient too, and many stops have an electronic sign telling you when the next bus/tram will arrive.

I walked around a bit last night, and I found an Asian food store, owned by an Indian man and selling mostly Indian goods. The poor guy was quite put-off by the fact that I wandered into his store and left without purchasing anything, but hopefully I can redeem myself when I return to buy Naan and curries. There's an Orange store here, as well, where I can add money to my phone. I also found a Georgian/Russian/Viennese shop that's open 24-hours a day, and I nearly keeled over from the shock of it because most stores (except restaurants) close at 6-6:30pm here and are closed on Sundays. It sells alcohol and a few food items, and I kind of want to go one night in the middle of the night, just to see if anybody is actually on the streets at that hour and visiting that store. I mean, there'd have to be a story behind an excursion like that, right? Right by the metro is a shop that has the major bases covered in its name: "News - Snacks - Alcohol." There are also 6 or 7 cheap food stalls and takeout places within a block of my apartment.

By far, the most entertaining store is the unmarked and low-lit bong store. Its display windows are in black light, with glow-in-the-dark bongs and house music blaring. Inside are shelves filled with bongs of various sizes, and (can you believe it?!) a no-smoking sign. Outside, there was a frantic little dog tied up and barking at just about everything. That dog seriously needed to chilllllll man.

Beginnings

I know I said I'd never have a blog, but I failed to take into account one very crucial aspect of my personality: I am way too much of a bumbling American to not share my ridiculousness with my friends. Put another way, this blog will be my investment into the Great Karma Piggy Bank, providing you all with daily feelings of schadenfreude (hah, and I say I don't speak German! thanks Avenue Q).

So, let's start at the beginning. I arrived on Thursday, having slept very little despite having one of the most comfortable cross-the-pond flights imaginable (I love half-empty flights). I experienced my 3 hour Heathrow layover in a daze, made worse by the very questionable fashion choices of my fellow passengers in Terminal 3. White high top sneakers with zipper embellishments? Really? Anyway, my taxi was waiting for me at Vienna's airport, and I made it to my apartment with no problems.

My building is a little on the old side, so I was at first concerned I was entering an abandoned warehouse. After making it to what I assumed was my apartment, I realized Sarah (previous occupant, friend extraordinaire) was not there. I actually started calling out her name, and my voice echoed loudly throughout the 4 flights of stairs. I'm sure my neighbors already love their new crazy and loud American neighbor. I'm just doing my part in keeping those traveling American stereotypes alive!

Sarah arrived just 5 minutes after I started balefully bleeting her name, and after she and David helped me carry my embarrassingly heavy bags up the 4 flights of stairs, they took me on a lovely walk through the center of the city to a cafe. I also met the family that owns these apartments, and they're wonderful. By the time 8pm (Vienna time) rolled around, I'd been awake approximately 36 hours and was pretty much a complete mess. Sleep that night was awesome.

The next day, I discovered that I have no idea what approximately 30% of the items in the grocery store across the street are, and that I had no idea how to get grocery bags. So that's how I ended up carrying 5 bags of heavy groceries in vegetable bags, while local Viennese gave me puzzled looks. That evening was the IAEA Ball, which was just as enchanting as I'd thought it'd be (pictures are on facebook). It was held at Hofburg Palace, and it was pretty amazing to realize the very glamorous 1000-odd people in attendance were all nonproliferation nerds. I loved it and hope I can go again some day.

My internship started on Monday, and I'm very excited about the work I'll be doing and my research project. The VIC is very official looking, but I must say that I find the triangle-shaped buildings completely bewildering. For example, I know one pathway to the bathroom. Logically, there should be at least two, but I find the turns all so confusing that I am afraid to try getting back to my office via alternate routes. All of my coworkers are lovely, and I'm loving all of the varied accents that surround me. My Texan accent pales and seems hillbilly in comparison, and I've found myself tempering it in favor of an Eastern American/neutral/maybe-it'll-verge-on-old-school-hollywood? accent.

And so, that brings us to this evening, in which I told Val I had figured out how to get to a rock gym. After studying google maps intensely for 25 minutes (I'm not kidding), I'd found our route. Being the bumbling American I am, when it came time to change from the U-bahn to the tram, we just rushed out the first exit that looked plausible and boarded the tram that pulled up as we left the station. I don't know how people know what stop they're at on these trams, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure it out. Not a street sign was in sight, no announcements were given, nada. I got the sneaking suspicion we were going the wrong way, so we got off the tram a few minutes later. It turns out we were right, and we fortunately got on the right tram going in the opposite direction. We got off at the appropriate stop…and had no idea how to find the gym. After flailing around for a bit, Val was inspired by some signage that, upon closer examination, had the gym's logo!

End result is that after taking an hour to get to a location that was only 20 minutes, tops, away, we arrived at the gym. It's huge! Routes of varying lengths, some extremely long. And TONS of lead climbing. I'd say there was an equal amount of lead climbing, top roping, and bouldering going on. But also, GASP, all of the routes were in European. I have no idea how to convert the American ratings system to the European one, so I just eyed the routes and guessed which ones Val and I would enjoy. We ended up finding a chart as we were leaving with the conversions…but they seem off to me, and I swear that their own ratings weren't internally consistent. I'm still confused.

We finished off the evening with a doner and a schnitzelsommer, sold to us by a man who knew very little English and therefore kind of talked to us like we were five year olds. Like a privileged American brat, I've been starting every conversation with "Do you speak English?", and I've been rewarded with great patience and lots of help. Vienna is such a lovely city!