Dear Sweet New Kicks and Jacket That I Bought When I Didn't Have Enough Money To Do So But Did So Anyway:
You make me look awesome! Or at least feel like I look awesome! Or feel a little like I should be on a field somewhere reporting live while bombs explode in the distance, or maybe starting a revolution with a lot of scraggly university students who haven't shaved on purpose, and I don't even care that 3/4s of your pockets are fake! And these kicks - check it, they have ANCHORS on them! Why!? I don't know! Keep up with the good work.
Dear Penny:
I know you are not reading this, because you are a dog, and last time we saw one another your vocabulary included the words "suppertime" and "monkey" but little else (though we tried our damnedest to teach you "perambulation" as a synonym for "walk"). I would just like to express how much I appreciate your sub-human, don't-know-any-better devotion to me, because you are always up for hanging out, even if your definition of quality time means crawling all over the book I am trying to read and then waiting patiently at the door while I slip outside for a front-porch smoke before my parents get home. I saw a dog in Copenhagen and was reminded of you, as I am always reminded of you whenever I see a dog that I can't borrow, but this dog especially was Penny-esque, as it couldn't take more than 4 steps without flopping on its back and rolling in the grass of the Danish Palace Lawns, solely out of sheer, doggy glee. Clearly the happiest creature in all of Denmark, probably all of Scandinavia. I had a very obvious epiphany today, Penny, while the spring we'd been enjoying vamoosed, replaced with a dreary cold wind and hail, and I was sitting in my room again, looking out the window, realizing I spend far too much time alone. This is not a new problem, and it's something of a writerly burden to be cooped up in one's head continually, having the maddening capacity to re-write reality and imagine things that are always better but always unattainable, living anywhere and anywhen but in the here and now, but it's something that shouldn't be going on, not while I'm 21 and in Europe at least. And that is why I miss you so much, stupid little pig-shaped dog of mine - because you always think I'm awesome, regardless of how I did my hair if I did it at all and how I think of myself, and you are always ready for an adventure and think an adventure is a fearsome game of chase through the house. If you kick the bucket anytime soon, I really will never forgive you, and I promise we will perambulate like we have never perambulated before as soon as I'm in Tulsa again.
Dear iPod:
Holy shit, you rock! What a brilliant being you are, all pocket-sized and hand-holdable, and jam-packed with goodness! Like Spoon! I forgot I even liked Spoon! But man, I've spent the past day and a half skipping down sidewalks humming the horn part to "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" and I'm pretty sure it's one of the most idiotic songs I've ever heard, but then I have visions of Strassenbahns full of dancing Austrians! Magical! You provide a soundtrack, which then tells me the mood of the scene I am in - poignant when it's raining and I'm listening to "Take Five," hysterical when the track switches to "Bossa Nova U.S.A." You kept me going in Oslo when the solitude was about to overwhelm me, because I've come to understand Of Montreal, at last, after seeing them live twice. You kept me company in all those train rides, made it possible for me to imagine for a moment we were leaping off the furniture in Keehn again, probably with the strobe light going, rapping to "99 Problems" or dancing like madfiends to "We Share Our Mother's Health." And Modest Mouse - I have the mix CDs of my entire life in my hand! Relive high school with some Arcade Fire, the Unicorns - Freshman year and Andrew Bird. Incredible! You are astounding, like all other iPods in the world, and may you not break (by falling on the tracks of the U-Bahn, for instance, a scene I have imagined uncountable times) until I have enough money to replace you. Which will probably be never. Amen.
Dear Vienna:
Do you like me check yes or no.
Love,
Rachel
02 April 2008
30 March 2008
back from outer space. also known as scandinavia.
On my last night in Oslo, when I was completely beat from the whirlwind tour of 5 countries in 2 weeks, I was sitting in the hostel reading and chatting with my two British roommates, a blond bloke named Jack and his Italian compatriot Vince who had just eaten whale steaks and were prepping for a night on the town, and Jack, after demonstrating his girly scarf with a catwalk across the room and approving of my massive Oasis catalogue (the first time that has ever happened) on my iPod, asked me what my favorite part of my Grand European tour had been. And I had no idea what the answer was, nor do I have any idea how to go about writing about it, so bear with me if this post rambles the way I rambled from Austria to the Czech Republic, across Germany to the Netherlands, up to Copenhagen, Stockholm, and finally Oslo. Also, there's a veritable bonanza of photos on Facebook, so have a look at those if you have time to sift through three entire albums.
I set off from Vienna in the afternoon, and by dawn we were back in the sick NYU dormitory, watching the sun rise over Prague from the roof-top terrace they have, more than adequate for soul-searching cigarette breaks. Johanna met me at the station, thank God, because Prague is dirty and full of bizarre Czechs, only out-bizarred by their language, which has absolutely no vowels, as far as I can tell. Prague itself is lovely and the club scene is far more jumping than Vienna - there's a scene in Lost in Translation where the two go out to a club and end up at a karaoke joint, and that was pretty much me, wearing Johanna's jewelry and Jamie's shirt, chain-smoking and beer-chugging. 4 a.m. stop-over for fried cheese sandwiches and then I collapsed on someone else's bunk bed - a rollicking way to start the whole mad adventure. We took the next night in, watching a movie and drinking fine wine, after spending the day marauding around the city and seeing the necessary sights: the Charles Bridge, the Lennon Wall, that big two-towered church and the busy Easter festival set up in the square. Much of the stay was based on being around people as much as possible, having conversations with Johanna that resembled the streets themselves - twisty and with no clear direction - because I'm going back to Prague with the Central Abroad group in something like two weeks, and I can't wait.
After a Kafka-esque scramble through the city to get me on my train to Amsterdam via taxi, the maddening train system (I mean, there's something to be said for Austrian Efficiency when it comes to public transportaion), and lots of wandering, which inevitably failed, I ended up on a train bound for Frankfurt. I swear, if I never see Frankfurt until my flight out of there in July, I'll be thrilled. Before that, though, it was 5 in the morning, I was on a train station in Fulda, Germany, fairly happy because I can at least understand Deutsch, and the sleepy German passengers were being booted off the train for reasons my groggy mind couldn't grasp, so there I was, the lone American, sitting on my backpack with 100 other Germans waiting for the final train to godforsaken Frankfurt. That's something like 5 trains in less then 12 hours, but finally, finally, it was Amsterdam.
Of course I smoked weed in Amsterdam, and I'm sorry to report, I absolutely cannot enjoy the sticky-icky, the dro, the ganja, the mary jane - but the whole escapade was completely worth it, just to walk into a coffeeshop (appropriately called Amnesia), go up to counter and say, "I'd like to buy some weed please." Of course, the answer to this should be "WELL CERTAINLY HERE YOU ARE" and not what the woman actually said: "Would you like to get high or stoned?" "HIGH!" I blurted, and then I was the owner of half a gram of premium weed. So then a kind local rolled us a joint and there we were - 2 puffs in, though, I felt my heartrate triple and my thoughts go into hyperdrive and I was frantically nodding my head to the ridiculous music and we went and got pancakes afterwards, after giving the remaining stuff to some old American biker dude sitting behind us, who laughed and said that he'd been in the same situation himself. Zoso, though, has never sounded so good.
Had a much better night when we went out bar-hunting after a day ambling beside the canals and dodging bicycles. Heard some incredibly legit blues coming from an unmarked door and dove inside - these incredible Dutch dudes, wailing away on guitars and fiddles, singing about their women and their dogs and all the ache they were in, and then they'd start bantering in Dutch. Alabama in Amsterdam, and plenty of beer to wash it down with. We ran around Madame Tussaud's wax museum, posing with all the mannequins, went to the Van Gogh museum (featuring many things from Vincent's own trash can, including a probably priceless doodle of a shovel), and got hailed on a lot. Which was annoying, but Amsterdam is beyond gorgeous, the Netherlands is still the coolest country name in the universe, and I'm going to retire to a windmill surrounded by tulips.
Copenhagen was full of swans and rain and coldness - kind of a comedown after Amsterdam, really - plus, we were only there for a night due to these alleged terrorists who clearly wanted to kill us. We saw no such violence - a lot of parks and swans and more swans and Hans Christian Andersen basically leaping around every corner. Went in an old castle and saw the Danish crown jewels, most legit indeed. It was Easter weekend, though, so the city was fairly quiet in general. We ended up splurging on an Italian meal because we didn't understand the currency at all, and still don't - not nearly as good as all the pancakes we had in Amsterdam, or the fine Indian feast we treated ourselves to, complete with a bottle of shitty white wine, or the incredible brunch we had where they gave me an entire pot of coffee. But I was just glad for blue skies and blue seas and to finally be there, in Scandinavia. Just say "Scandinavia" a few times and you'll get the feeling.
A quick jaunt over the water and we were in Stockholm, where things got completely unpronounceable. Dutch just looks like German with more vowels, but Swedish is a class of its own - this was before Norway, which has all those lovely circles over its letters and lines through its O's. Accosted some old man for directions, checked into our hostel, and prepared to battle the cold - and man, it was cold. I bought some tights in Copenhagen which turned out to be mandatory for setting foot outside in Stockholm, and added a Swedish hat and some gloves THAT I STOLE from a tourist attraction (I was trying to do one ridiculous thing per country) to be as bundled as possible. We took a boat out to the archipelago, ate some delicious shrimp chowder (Karli, I understand your love of soup now), and coped with the Ice Bar being closed until May by getting giant beers at a better bar, anyway. Old Town Stockholm, aside from being rife with tourists (making it very easy to shoplift a pair of over-priced gloves), looked so much like Schwaebisch Hall - windy streets and narrow buildings. Again, due to the holiday, pretty much everything was closed, so we sought warmth in some churches, said "Sweeeeden" a lot, and were not at all surprised when the Swedish Royal Drum Corps performing outside of the palace burst into "Dancing Queen." It's Sweden, after all. Fruitless voyage to Ikea, which was fucking closed, and a feast at TGI Friday's because they apparently realized the city would be full of homesick tourists who would appreciate the free refills. I had 4 Pepsis, for the record.
Annie and I split ways and then I was off to Oslo - like Berlin, like Scandinavia, half of my infatuation with the place was based soley on the name itself. Oslo! I was supposed to press on towards Bergen, on the other side of Norway, where all those fjords are, but when I got off the train at Oslo, I realized, horribly and scarily, that I was alone in Norway, starving and light-headed, and sans cigarettes and a bed to sleep in that night. So I made some decisions, with the help of some cigarettes, and decided Bergen could wait (it was also snowing ala Hamilton last February), I was staying put in Olso. Which turned out just fine, in the end. Traveling alone, though, has its pros and cons. It was incredibly nice to feel only responsible for myself, to know if I was bored it was just me being bored, to take my time walking around and basically not plan anything in advance - but these are small consolations for the god-awful act of Dining Alone. I'd rather starve than sit in another restaurant by myself, eating a meal for one, talking to no one besides the waitress. There's nothing lonelier in the world than that. Fortunately, the Indian waiters were fairly chatty, the soup I had on my first night was mind-blowing (and hot, which was something I hadn't experienced in an entire week), and the last time I was on my way to the Philharmonic so I could've cared less. I did see the Oslo Philharmonic, which was fantastic, if only for the incredible parade of the elderly. Also saw The Scream, after chasing it down, and some Viking Ships, and a Stave Church.
But this might have been the best thing I experienced in my entire time there, if you're still reading (and I know this is longer than Proust right now). I took a boat out to these islands where all the famous museums were, and I was about to rush to get the boat back to the mainland when I saw a little stretch of coast - probably no more than 30 feet of rocks. But I sat there and missed the boat entirely, digging for shells and sitting in the sun and jumping back when the tide started rushing in. That may have been my favorite part of the whole nutty voyage - just sitting quietly in Norway with the water, not thinking anything in particular, looking for the best shells.
So there it is. The epic tale of Rachel's Spring Break, the Scandinavian Tour. Now I'm off to call the fam-o-rama from a phone booth.
I set off from Vienna in the afternoon, and by dawn we were back in the sick NYU dormitory, watching the sun rise over Prague from the roof-top terrace they have, more than adequate for soul-searching cigarette breaks. Johanna met me at the station, thank God, because Prague is dirty and full of bizarre Czechs, only out-bizarred by their language, which has absolutely no vowels, as far as I can tell. Prague itself is lovely and the club scene is far more jumping than Vienna - there's a scene in Lost in Translation where the two go out to a club and end up at a karaoke joint, and that was pretty much me, wearing Johanna's jewelry and Jamie's shirt, chain-smoking and beer-chugging. 4 a.m. stop-over for fried cheese sandwiches and then I collapsed on someone else's bunk bed - a rollicking way to start the whole mad adventure. We took the next night in, watching a movie and drinking fine wine, after spending the day marauding around the city and seeing the necessary sights: the Charles Bridge, the Lennon Wall, that big two-towered church and the busy Easter festival set up in the square. Much of the stay was based on being around people as much as possible, having conversations with Johanna that resembled the streets themselves - twisty and with no clear direction - because I'm going back to Prague with the Central Abroad group in something like two weeks, and I can't wait.
After a Kafka-esque scramble through the city to get me on my train to Amsterdam via taxi, the maddening train system (I mean, there's something to be said for Austrian Efficiency when it comes to public transportaion), and lots of wandering, which inevitably failed, I ended up on a train bound for Frankfurt. I swear, if I never see Frankfurt until my flight out of there in July, I'll be thrilled. Before that, though, it was 5 in the morning, I was on a train station in Fulda, Germany, fairly happy because I can at least understand Deutsch, and the sleepy German passengers were being booted off the train for reasons my groggy mind couldn't grasp, so there I was, the lone American, sitting on my backpack with 100 other Germans waiting for the final train to godforsaken Frankfurt. That's something like 5 trains in less then 12 hours, but finally, finally, it was Amsterdam.
Of course I smoked weed in Amsterdam, and I'm sorry to report, I absolutely cannot enjoy the sticky-icky, the dro, the ganja, the mary jane - but the whole escapade was completely worth it, just to walk into a coffeeshop (appropriately called Amnesia), go up to counter and say, "I'd like to buy some weed please." Of course, the answer to this should be "WELL CERTAINLY HERE YOU ARE" and not what the woman actually said: "Would you like to get high or stoned?" "HIGH!" I blurted, and then I was the owner of half a gram of premium weed. So then a kind local rolled us a joint and there we were - 2 puffs in, though, I felt my heartrate triple and my thoughts go into hyperdrive and I was frantically nodding my head to the ridiculous music and we went and got pancakes afterwards, after giving the remaining stuff to some old American biker dude sitting behind us, who laughed and said that he'd been in the same situation himself. Zoso, though, has never sounded so good.
Had a much better night when we went out bar-hunting after a day ambling beside the canals and dodging bicycles. Heard some incredibly legit blues coming from an unmarked door and dove inside - these incredible Dutch dudes, wailing away on guitars and fiddles, singing about their women and their dogs and all the ache they were in, and then they'd start bantering in Dutch. Alabama in Amsterdam, and plenty of beer to wash it down with. We ran around Madame Tussaud's wax museum, posing with all the mannequins, went to the Van Gogh museum (featuring many things from Vincent's own trash can, including a probably priceless doodle of a shovel), and got hailed on a lot. Which was annoying, but Amsterdam is beyond gorgeous, the Netherlands is still the coolest country name in the universe, and I'm going to retire to a windmill surrounded by tulips.
Copenhagen was full of swans and rain and coldness - kind of a comedown after Amsterdam, really - plus, we were only there for a night due to these alleged terrorists who clearly wanted to kill us. We saw no such violence - a lot of parks and swans and more swans and Hans Christian Andersen basically leaping around every corner. Went in an old castle and saw the Danish crown jewels, most legit indeed. It was Easter weekend, though, so the city was fairly quiet in general. We ended up splurging on an Italian meal because we didn't understand the currency at all, and still don't - not nearly as good as all the pancakes we had in Amsterdam, or the fine Indian feast we treated ourselves to, complete with a bottle of shitty white wine, or the incredible brunch we had where they gave me an entire pot of coffee. But I was just glad for blue skies and blue seas and to finally be there, in Scandinavia. Just say "Scandinavia" a few times and you'll get the feeling.
A quick jaunt over the water and we were in Stockholm, where things got completely unpronounceable. Dutch just looks like German with more vowels, but Swedish is a class of its own - this was before Norway, which has all those lovely circles over its letters and lines through its O's. Accosted some old man for directions, checked into our hostel, and prepared to battle the cold - and man, it was cold. I bought some tights in Copenhagen which turned out to be mandatory for setting foot outside in Stockholm, and added a Swedish hat and some gloves THAT I STOLE from a tourist attraction (I was trying to do one ridiculous thing per country) to be as bundled as possible. We took a boat out to the archipelago, ate some delicious shrimp chowder (Karli, I understand your love of soup now), and coped with the Ice Bar being closed until May by getting giant beers at a better bar, anyway. Old Town Stockholm, aside from being rife with tourists (making it very easy to shoplift a pair of over-priced gloves), looked so much like Schwaebisch Hall - windy streets and narrow buildings. Again, due to the holiday, pretty much everything was closed, so we sought warmth in some churches, said "Sweeeeden" a lot, and were not at all surprised when the Swedish Royal Drum Corps performing outside of the palace burst into "Dancing Queen." It's Sweden, after all. Fruitless voyage to Ikea, which was fucking closed, and a feast at TGI Friday's because they apparently realized the city would be full of homesick tourists who would appreciate the free refills. I had 4 Pepsis, for the record.
Annie and I split ways and then I was off to Oslo - like Berlin, like Scandinavia, half of my infatuation with the place was based soley on the name itself. Oslo! I was supposed to press on towards Bergen, on the other side of Norway, where all those fjords are, but when I got off the train at Oslo, I realized, horribly and scarily, that I was alone in Norway, starving and light-headed, and sans cigarettes and a bed to sleep in that night. So I made some decisions, with the help of some cigarettes, and decided Bergen could wait (it was also snowing ala Hamilton last February), I was staying put in Olso. Which turned out just fine, in the end. Traveling alone, though, has its pros and cons. It was incredibly nice to feel only responsible for myself, to know if I was bored it was just me being bored, to take my time walking around and basically not plan anything in advance - but these are small consolations for the god-awful act of Dining Alone. I'd rather starve than sit in another restaurant by myself, eating a meal for one, talking to no one besides the waitress. There's nothing lonelier in the world than that. Fortunately, the Indian waiters were fairly chatty, the soup I had on my first night was mind-blowing (and hot, which was something I hadn't experienced in an entire week), and the last time I was on my way to the Philharmonic so I could've cared less. I did see the Oslo Philharmonic, which was fantastic, if only for the incredible parade of the elderly. Also saw The Scream, after chasing it down, and some Viking Ships, and a Stave Church.
But this might have been the best thing I experienced in my entire time there, if you're still reading (and I know this is longer than Proust right now). I took a boat out to these islands where all the famous museums were, and I was about to rush to get the boat back to the mainland when I saw a little stretch of coast - probably no more than 30 feet of rocks. But I sat there and missed the boat entirely, digging for shells and sitting in the sun and jumping back when the tide started rushing in. That may have been my favorite part of the whole nutty voyage - just sitting quietly in Norway with the water, not thinking anything in particular, looking for the best shells.
So there it is. The epic tale of Rachel's Spring Break, the Scandinavian Tour. Now I'm off to call the fam-o-rama from a phone booth.
10 March 2008
topics.
Children: I shall not document it here, but there was once a terrible time known as Freshman Year when I spent the greater part of both semesters answering to a name that was not my own, and that had the title of "mother" thrown in there too. Irony of ironies, there's a few steps necessary to the art of producing children in which I am severely debilitated (see also: every party I've ever been to), but I sure do like me some kids. My internship began today, and I spent the entire morning and part of the afternoon surrounded by Viennese chit'lins, teaching them some of the good old English. They ranged from the tiniest 7 year olds I ever beheld ("My birthday is five October two thousand" - "TWO THOUSAND?!") to snarky 10 year olds who were completely smitten with my Chuck Taylors ("Do you know Guns N' Roses? Justin Timberlake?"). All in all, it was pretty awesome - my goal is to remember all their names (there's at least 50 in all) and to teach them all the art of high fives. It took me back to my dreadful days as a Girl Scout camp counselor (lots of French-braiding was involved), but they were all incredibly excited and eager to meet me and practice their English skills. And all the teachers were highly complimentary of my pitiful German skills. Major woot, no?
Food: I do not know how to eat. In Germany, at the Goethe Institut, breakfast and lunch were provided for us (PASSIVE VOICE OH GOD Sharon Williams is gonna kill me), but here, there's nothing. As I am invariably wont to do, I've been thinking about it and realized I have no idea how I fed myself for the past 21 years - my mom was always working, so we were never the sit down for family supper type, and I can't cook beyond making a mean slice of toast. At school, the Diner has always been my eatery of choice, not because Black Russians are incomparable, but because the meal is already there - drink, sandwich, fries, done. It's weird, having to consciously ask myself, am I hungry? am I full? should I bother with the crackers or just eat the Nutella from the jar? (joking. kind of.) We'll see how it pans out in the end - yes, my jeans are falling off, but they are also very dirty.
Men: AUSTRIANS APPARENTLY HAVE DIFFERENT STANDARDS THAN THE MALE POPULATION OF HAMILTON COLLEGE. By which I mean, in the course of a single day, I had three separate encounters with men ranging from Austrian business men shouting "FRAULEIN" at me as I was scribbling away in a cafe with my coffee and smokes to some wolf-whistle from a passing car. I'm not complaining, really. But it's certainly something new for me.
Speaking of scribbling in cafes, when I saw them in Berlin, Jamie and Johanna told me they saw my future self in Prague. "How so?" I asked. "She was chain-smoking and writing and she ordered another beer when she still had half of one left, and when the waitress brought the new one she chugged the one she had." Could be worse, I mean.
I leave on my Spring Break odyssey on Friday, so I won't be back on the interwebs for two whole weeks. Enjoy yourselves, out there, whoever you are. A simple epiphany that descended on me during the string quartet concert tonight that you, too, should have, not unrelated to the Sesame Street skit with the yellow anchorman: This is your life. You'd better start living it.
Food: I do not know how to eat. In Germany, at the Goethe Institut, breakfast and lunch were provided for us (PASSIVE VOICE OH GOD Sharon Williams is gonna kill me), but here, there's nothing. As I am invariably wont to do, I've been thinking about it and realized I have no idea how I fed myself for the past 21 years - my mom was always working, so we were never the sit down for family supper type, and I can't cook beyond making a mean slice of toast. At school, the Diner has always been my eatery of choice, not because Black Russians are incomparable, but because the meal is already there - drink, sandwich, fries, done. It's weird, having to consciously ask myself, am I hungry? am I full? should I bother with the crackers or just eat the Nutella from the jar? (joking. kind of.) We'll see how it pans out in the end - yes, my jeans are falling off, but they are also very dirty.
Men: AUSTRIANS APPARENTLY HAVE DIFFERENT STANDARDS THAN THE MALE POPULATION OF HAMILTON COLLEGE. By which I mean, in the course of a single day, I had three separate encounters with men ranging from Austrian business men shouting "FRAULEIN" at me as I was scribbling away in a cafe with my coffee and smokes to some wolf-whistle from a passing car. I'm not complaining, really. But it's certainly something new for me.
Speaking of scribbling in cafes, when I saw them in Berlin, Jamie and Johanna told me they saw my future self in Prague. "How so?" I asked. "She was chain-smoking and writing and she ordered another beer when she still had half of one left, and when the waitress brought the new one she chugged the one she had." Could be worse, I mean.
I leave on my Spring Break odyssey on Friday, so I won't be back on the interwebs for two whole weeks. Enjoy yourselves, out there, whoever you are. A simple epiphany that descended on me during the string quartet concert tonight that you, too, should have, not unrelated to the Sesame Street skit with the yellow anchorman: This is your life. You'd better start living it.
08 March 2008
letting the days go by.
The two highlights of my past week in Vienna:
1. Getting swindled by some young boy on Mariahilferstrasse. He flung a rose in my face, then asked me for 2 Euros, and I gave it to him because I was actually terribly charmed, and now the rose is slowly wilting away in a tea bottle on my desk.
2. Petting a passing dog in the U-bahn. The problem with dogs here is they are either itty bitty or attached to intense-looking Austrian men - fortunately, this one was at the perfect height for a discrete head-scratch, and that dog smiled and wagged its tail and I don't think anyone's been that happy to see me since I left my own dog back in Tulsa.
Your mission is to find connections between these two events, describe why exactly they were the highlight of my week, and then tell me what the hell's the matter with me and prescribe some form of change.
Not that this week was bad - far from it. You, out there, whoever you may be, are probably nursing hangovers and prepping for another rollicking night of debauchery (apparently that Buffers spandex party is tonight, marking the only night I've ever been completely black-out drunk), and I'm in my dorm room on a Saturday night, sober as a stone, waiting for Adventure to come knocking and smoking Lucky Strikes in the bathroom in the meantime.
We went tromping around the grounds of the Schoenbrunn Palace one afternoon, and, just like Potsdam, the experience would have been tenfold better if it was actually 1911 and we were all decked-out like bourgeois (I totally misspelled that) nobility and cantering about on ponies. As it was, we settled for photographs a-plenty and gandering long and hard at the actual palace, which is, to me, a lemon cake. Vienna does enjoy its yellows. Other than that, our adventures have been slow, solely because its really damned cold outside - we've made many trips to a gelateria a street away from giganto St. Steven's cathedral (where, one day, some dude dressed up like Darth Vader was just chilling), loitered in bookstores, and had Doeners that will never be as good as the ones back in Schwaebs. Also, despite having been to the nearest sushi place three times in the past week, I am still hopeless when it comes to chopsticks.
And then there are classes. I know now that Hamilton has been a very individualized experience for me, because Wednesday afternoon found me in a lecture hall with 250 other students, most of them coming and going as they pleased, with a professor rambling auf Deutsch for 2 and a half hours. Fortunately, my other classes through the University of Vienna (which, needless to say, also looks like a cake to me and is full of busts of important old man and ornate staircases and basically Hamilton is, as we've always said, a summer camp in comparison) are in English, so maybe I won't resort to doodling that caricature of myself that I've perfected over the years. I'm also enrolled in three courses through Central Abroad, taught American-style (with assignments and midterms, versus the European way of take a lot of notes and then a final at the end) but also in German, which are nothing noteworthy as of yet, aside from the readily available cheap coffee. On a whim, I signed up for the Music Seminar, which met today and yesterday and concludes with a concert on Monday night, and all I really learned was how much I miss Booker T orchestra and that Beethoven still kicks Mozart and Haydn AND Bach's collective dead asses. And that I need to listen to more Steve Reich because someday someone will also love Steve Reich and we will bond over how his music, in the immortal words of my old Milbank neighbor, is like an "ear bath."
An honest question, then, if I've still got your swiftly-wavering attention: How'm I doing with this thing? I have no idea if this is what people (what people? exactly!) want or expect from a "study abroad blog." I'm not fishing, so much as wondering if you're wondering about those things my father gets mad at me for neglecting to tell him - like my dorm room or my meal plans or hell, I don't know. Lemme know.
Also, who wants a postcard!?
1. Getting swindled by some young boy on Mariahilferstrasse. He flung a rose in my face, then asked me for 2 Euros, and I gave it to him because I was actually terribly charmed, and now the rose is slowly wilting away in a tea bottle on my desk.
2. Petting a passing dog in the U-bahn. The problem with dogs here is they are either itty bitty or attached to intense-looking Austrian men - fortunately, this one was at the perfect height for a discrete head-scratch, and that dog smiled and wagged its tail and I don't think anyone's been that happy to see me since I left my own dog back in Tulsa.
Your mission is to find connections between these two events, describe why exactly they were the highlight of my week, and then tell me what the hell's the matter with me and prescribe some form of change.
Not that this week was bad - far from it. You, out there, whoever you may be, are probably nursing hangovers and prepping for another rollicking night of debauchery (apparently that Buffers spandex party is tonight, marking the only night I've ever been completely black-out drunk), and I'm in my dorm room on a Saturday night, sober as a stone, waiting for Adventure to come knocking and smoking Lucky Strikes in the bathroom in the meantime.
We went tromping around the grounds of the Schoenbrunn Palace one afternoon, and, just like Potsdam, the experience would have been tenfold better if it was actually 1911 and we were all decked-out like bourgeois (I totally misspelled that) nobility and cantering about on ponies. As it was, we settled for photographs a-plenty and gandering long and hard at the actual palace, which is, to me, a lemon cake. Vienna does enjoy its yellows. Other than that, our adventures have been slow, solely because its really damned cold outside - we've made many trips to a gelateria a street away from giganto St. Steven's cathedral (where, one day, some dude dressed up like Darth Vader was just chilling), loitered in bookstores, and had Doeners that will never be as good as the ones back in Schwaebs. Also, despite having been to the nearest sushi place three times in the past week, I am still hopeless when it comes to chopsticks.
And then there are classes. I know now that Hamilton has been a very individualized experience for me, because Wednesday afternoon found me in a lecture hall with 250 other students, most of them coming and going as they pleased, with a professor rambling auf Deutsch for 2 and a half hours. Fortunately, my other classes through the University of Vienna (which, needless to say, also looks like a cake to me and is full of busts of important old man and ornate staircases and basically Hamilton is, as we've always said, a summer camp in comparison) are in English, so maybe I won't resort to doodling that caricature of myself that I've perfected over the years. I'm also enrolled in three courses through Central Abroad, taught American-style (with assignments and midterms, versus the European way of take a lot of notes and then a final at the end) but also in German, which are nothing noteworthy as of yet, aside from the readily available cheap coffee. On a whim, I signed up for the Music Seminar, which met today and yesterday and concludes with a concert on Monday night, and all I really learned was how much I miss Booker T orchestra and that Beethoven still kicks Mozart and Haydn AND Bach's collective dead asses. And that I need to listen to more Steve Reich because someday someone will also love Steve Reich and we will bond over how his music, in the immortal words of my old Milbank neighbor, is like an "ear bath."
An honest question, then, if I've still got your swiftly-wavering attention: How'm I doing with this thing? I have no idea if this is what people (what people? exactly!) want or expect from a "study abroad blog." I'm not fishing, so much as wondering if you're wondering about those things my father gets mad at me for neglecting to tell him - like my dorm room or my meal plans or hell, I don't know. Lemme know.
Also, who wants a postcard!?
04 March 2008
schnell!
I AM NOT DEAD I AM IN VIENNA. More to come when I get the internets in my dormitorium.
Two Hours Later Edit:
To reiterate: I AM NOT DEAD I AM IN VIENNA. I AM IN VIENNA. I AM IN VIENNA. These are the things you forget when ansteigening and aufsteigening on the Strassen-Bahns and the U-bahns and pretty much every Bahn you could ever dream of. We got in on Thursday night, after a long, lovely bus ride where we bid farewell to Dear Old Schwaebs, took a plane from Stuttgart, were thrown in a cab and deposited in our respective dormitories all over this glorious city of ours. And now it's Tuesday. I mean daaaamn.
On Thursday, I threw my ungodly rolling luggage (Dear Ariel Weaver: if you are reading this, many thanks for the use of that big blue beauty of a suitcase) into my room, left a note for my anonymous roommate, and flew through the streets to a strange venue in some random sector, because, babies, I had to get my indie on, and I'm not sorry because it was awesome. Showed up halfway through Frog Eyes' set - after seeing the first half of a Frog Eyes show in Chicago, I can successfully say I've seen an entire set - ran outside for a Doener during Six Organs of Admittance (though the chick in the band is admittedly intensely hot, my ears couldn't take it), had unnecessary front row viewage for Dirty Projectors (too many notes! but still pretty sweet), scooted upstairs for Deerhoof and Final Fantasy. My new mission in life: join Deerhoof. The poor drummer spoke some ass-backwards German and the Viennese just lapped it up - meanwhile I was asking every passerby for a light, AUF DEUTSCH, because I wrongly assumed the entire crowd would be Europeans. Not so. This merits a new paragraph:
The Anecdote of the Indie Grandma commences like this. I'm hungry, got a new shirt tucked in my purse, so I buy a Doener outside, and while my dinner is being prepared, some 70-odd year old woman in a white sweater and trademark old lady glasses asks me, in perfect American English, "What is that?" So I explain. "It's chicken?" she says. "Where does it say chicken?" "Huehner means chicken," I say. And then I sit and have myself a Doener and ponder - is this lady lost? Clearly this is an event for 20-somethings with asymmetrical haircuts and clothes bought in the wrong size on purpose. Not only that, but you can't be in a German-speaking country for 10 seconds without encountering a Doener - like going to the U.S. and asking what a McDonald's is. Also, shouldn't she be in Florida? Retired? So I go back inside, and who do I see but Indie Grandma, sitting in the midst of a crowd of chain-smoking indie kids, with a cigarette in her hand herself. If anyone can explain this, I'll give you a shiny 2 Euro coin, which is worth about 15 American cents given the exchange rate.
Another night, following a dinner of sushi and broken German interactions with Asian waitresses, Robinson, Annie, and I took to the streets for a night wander, where we discovered that Vienna, like the name itself, is IMPERIAL itself. Look up "imperial" and there is Vienna. Every corner there's something huge and ornate - Germany was all about castles, but Austria is all about palaces - and we spent a good hour just sitting on an oversized statue of some Kaiser or another, looking at this big old palace and hoping to see some ghosts. We didn't. And apparently it's just me, but all these buildings look like cakes, with the exception of the Rathaus that looks like it should be full of bats and shadowy figures and maybe a wayfaring mummy, so every time I pass a church or the hyper-secured American Embassy up the road, I just want to slice that building up and eat a piece.
And though this entry is already bordering on "Rachel please shut up" (ala DOING THE COCKROACH MEREDYTH I'M LOOKING AT YOU), I have to announce that I am SO AMPED about my internship, which, from what I gathered from my visit today, involves me sitting at a small table and speaking English with TINY VIENNESE CHILDREN. The enormously tall Principal of the school took me through the classrooms, and a sea of little faces just stared at me, and a few brave ones actually waved. It's going to be awesome.
The whole group went out to dinner and racked up a 600 Euro tab, which is pretty impressive, but not as impressive as the mere existence of a 500 Euro bill, which is green and which I doubt I'll ever see again. We visited the zoo and a giraffe got all up in my grill. I've already begun my Third Man tour of the entire city, because THE Harry Lime doorway is all of ten minutes from where I'm sitting right this second, and because the main cemetery is always good for a quiet wander.
I mean, all in all, this is pretty legit. I'm broke, I'm tired, I'm happy.
Two Hours Later Edit:
To reiterate: I AM NOT DEAD I AM IN VIENNA. I AM IN VIENNA. I AM IN VIENNA. These are the things you forget when ansteigening and aufsteigening on the Strassen-Bahns and the U-bahns and pretty much every Bahn you could ever dream of. We got in on Thursday night, after a long, lovely bus ride where we bid farewell to Dear Old Schwaebs, took a plane from Stuttgart, were thrown in a cab and deposited in our respective dormitories all over this glorious city of ours. And now it's Tuesday. I mean daaaamn.
On Thursday, I threw my ungodly rolling luggage (Dear Ariel Weaver: if you are reading this, many thanks for the use of that big blue beauty of a suitcase) into my room, left a note for my anonymous roommate, and flew through the streets to a strange venue in some random sector, because, babies, I had to get my indie on, and I'm not sorry because it was awesome. Showed up halfway through Frog Eyes' set - after seeing the first half of a Frog Eyes show in Chicago, I can successfully say I've seen an entire set - ran outside for a Doener during Six Organs of Admittance (though the chick in the band is admittedly intensely hot, my ears couldn't take it), had unnecessary front row viewage for Dirty Projectors (too many notes! but still pretty sweet), scooted upstairs for Deerhoof and Final Fantasy. My new mission in life: join Deerhoof. The poor drummer spoke some ass-backwards German and the Viennese just lapped it up - meanwhile I was asking every passerby for a light, AUF DEUTSCH, because I wrongly assumed the entire crowd would be Europeans. Not so. This merits a new paragraph:
The Anecdote of the Indie Grandma commences like this. I'm hungry, got a new shirt tucked in my purse, so I buy a Doener outside, and while my dinner is being prepared, some 70-odd year old woman in a white sweater and trademark old lady glasses asks me, in perfect American English, "What is that?" So I explain. "It's chicken?" she says. "Where does it say chicken?" "Huehner means chicken," I say. And then I sit and have myself a Doener and ponder - is this lady lost? Clearly this is an event for 20-somethings with asymmetrical haircuts and clothes bought in the wrong size on purpose. Not only that, but you can't be in a German-speaking country for 10 seconds without encountering a Doener - like going to the U.S. and asking what a McDonald's is. Also, shouldn't she be in Florida? Retired? So I go back inside, and who do I see but Indie Grandma, sitting in the midst of a crowd of chain-smoking indie kids, with a cigarette in her hand herself. If anyone can explain this, I'll give you a shiny 2 Euro coin, which is worth about 15 American cents given the exchange rate.
Another night, following a dinner of sushi and broken German interactions with Asian waitresses, Robinson, Annie, and I took to the streets for a night wander, where we discovered that Vienna, like the name itself, is IMPERIAL itself. Look up "imperial" and there is Vienna. Every corner there's something huge and ornate - Germany was all about castles, but Austria is all about palaces - and we spent a good hour just sitting on an oversized statue of some Kaiser or another, looking at this big old palace and hoping to see some ghosts. We didn't. And apparently it's just me, but all these buildings look like cakes, with the exception of the Rathaus that looks like it should be full of bats and shadowy figures and maybe a wayfaring mummy, so every time I pass a church or the hyper-secured American Embassy up the road, I just want to slice that building up and eat a piece.
And though this entry is already bordering on "Rachel please shut up" (ala DOING THE COCKROACH MEREDYTH I'M LOOKING AT YOU), I have to announce that I am SO AMPED about my internship, which, from what I gathered from my visit today, involves me sitting at a small table and speaking English with TINY VIENNESE CHILDREN. The enormously tall Principal of the school took me through the classrooms, and a sea of little faces just stared at me, and a few brave ones actually waved. It's going to be awesome.
The whole group went out to dinner and racked up a 600 Euro tab, which is pretty impressive, but not as impressive as the mere existence of a 500 Euro bill, which is green and which I doubt I'll ever see again. We visited the zoo and a giraffe got all up in my grill. I've already begun my Third Man tour of the entire city, because THE Harry Lime doorway is all of ten minutes from where I'm sitting right this second, and because the main cemetery is always good for a quiet wander.
I mean, all in all, this is pretty legit. I'm broke, I'm tired, I'm happy.
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