Weekend in Vienna Part 4

So, as the travel gods would have it, I now have broken the tie between Vienna and Karlovy Vary for most visited places. For this weekend, I travelled for the 4th time to Vienna. But to add a little spice to it, I did it by bus, which is something I have yet to do. It was quite a lot of fun, and a lot of relaxing times were had. It was my first time to be there while the weather was quite warm. So that was fun. So anyways, let me tell you about a little bit of my trip to Vienna.

I left Prague at 8AM on Friday (for I don't teach on Fridays this year which is something I plan on enjoying since i have to work my butt off the first 4 days to achieve this great feat. So anyways, we got there at about 1230 or so and made our way to the apartments that I had reserved online. It was quite interesting and I wasn't quite sure how it was going to work out. First thing it wasn't a hostel or a hotel that we were staying at, it was like a real apartment, and there wasn't a real home office where I could check in at or anything. I just told on my reservation that I would be there between 1 and 2. And so we got there after a few botched directions which i claim the fault of bad translation to English, but whatev. And so we got there and wouldn't you know it, that the lady showed up within minutes after we got there at about 125ish or so, give or take. But, another interesting mix to throw into it was that the lady didn't speak English at all, and though I claim to have impeccable German, I'm a bit of a liar and know only enough to almost survive never ever in Germany, so that was fun to explain everything we needed and what we should do when we leave, but it all worked out.

From here we headed out to the town to see what we've been waitin for. After walking around a bit, it was time for a beloved reunion among comrades. One of my fellow colleagues, Zdenek, with whom i've taught with my first two years moved to Vienna and is now working down there. And so, as luck would have it, his schedule just so happened to be free most of the weekend, so we were able to meet up.
First things first. We met up at the center where the big cathedral of Stephen is and from there went to a nice little coffee shop called Aida, where all the little fools there wear pink. But the cakes there are quite tasty and delicious a thousand times over. I also got a "grosser brauner" which is like a strong cappucino or something like that. It's coffee. We'll say that and keep it at that. From here we all took a little stroll around the city for a bit, and as the night started to show itself quite clearly, we stopped in for a bite to eat (thus dinner) which was a tasty meal. I believe I had some kind of gulasch which was an interesting little bit of information considering it tasted a lot like chilli. So it was rather good, but filling and i couldn't finish it. And oh how I enjoyed the fact that the itty bitty drinks in western europe cost as much as the meal.
So I sampled a little bit of Austrian culture, something called "sturm". If you've been to Czech Republic anytime around this time, in czech it's called "burcak", and in english it's called "young wine", but don't worry, you've never heard of it in english. This was quite good and a bit different from czech burcak, so i was happy to experience a little bit of history in this adventure.

After this delicious meal, we went to and made our trek across the center of town to the far center near where I was staying to where was "the best icecream in the world!!" or so says Zdenek's friend. But it was rather good. The icecream was pretty darn good by the way. So that was a lot of fun. After this we watched a big celebration on the canal and retreated to our headquarters for a nice worryfree sleep.

As the sun crossed paths with the earth once again in the morning, we elected to get up and commence our day. It just so happens that our living arrangements (which were great by the way. Quiet and beatiful) was in the middle of the turkish/orthodox Jew/other weird foreigner district. And right outside was this pretty sweet market. Went to a bakery, got some pastries and milk and headed off. And you wouldn't believe it, but at 830, the place was just hoppin. the place being the center of vienna. People everywhere, just walking around, working, doin all sorts of crazy things you wouldn't believe. We walked along just as normal and had decided that we wanted to go and visit the great Albertina Museum.
In this museum was a special exhibition that had just opened a few days before. It is called Monet to Picasso: The Batliner collection. This collection of artwork consisted of over 500 pieces of art. These pieces had been acquired one at a time by the Batliner family and had been hanging on the walls throughout their house for numerous years, but now the Batliners donated all their millions of dollars worth of artwork to the Albertina Museum and it really was a pretty amazing collection. You could only imagine how amazing the house must be that the Batliners live in for all the pieces of art to fit inside. It's quite crazy actually. We were there for 3 hours and then commenced walking around again the city. And of course I can't forget our walk to the Hundertwasser Haus. It was pretty cool looking and well worth a look at.

Another thing of note was the beautiful story of The Sacher Hotel. Now this hotel makes a world famous chocolate cake which is indeniably very tasty. You should go and try it. The story goes as followed. The king wanted the chef to cook something up new and the chef just threw some things together and poof, there you have it. Hm... maybe look up the story on the internet. I don't remember it that well. But its a cool story.


We met up with my friend Zdenek and another friend and we drove about 45 minutes outside of Vienna to a small town called Gumpoldskirchen. This town is unique in the same way every town in Austria is unique. This town, of about 5-7000 people is a big wine village, and in these villages there aren't really restaurants, but the homes turn into restaurants. And each home is only allowed to be a restaurant for about 2 or 3 weeks every 3 or 4 months, and then it moves to another house and they are the restaurant hereafter for the next few weeks. It's really pretty cool. So the village must be really close. It's cool. ANd they only serve wine (which was excellent by the way), no beer. It was a really cool experience. It's strange to go to a small village of 5000 people and see all these tourist buses driving in and parking and all going to these restaurants. Apparently it's something awesome... which it is if you didn't hear me say it first. So that was awesome, and then we came back

After this meeting, we came back and walked around a bit at night time and saw lots of beautiful memories and then came back and went to bed. We woke up the next morning and came back home... :)

Uplifted Spirits

So, my spirits were uplifted after last night when a special message was written on the napkin that came with my dinner at the local restaurant next to my house. It really hit home to the innermost of my being. So please take to heart the words of wisdom spoken to me through this napkin...

Teaching... Round-3-Style

So... as it has it, next week is my very first full week of teaching. Hm... not really looking forward to it. As it stands now, I'll be teaching a bit more than usual (or even than i'm supposed to), but there is a good side to this. I don't have to teach on Fridays this year which is pretty cool, and I only start at 8 once a week which is also really sweet considering last year was 3 times a week and twice at 9. But of course there should be some downsides to this schedule of awesome proportions, yea? Well... there is. I do have to teach quite a few nights actually, 3 to be precise, and my dinner schedule is still up in the air as it has it now, for twice a week due to the fact that I am teaching from 4-8 twice a week. Hm... 330 is too early for dinner i assume, and 830 is pushin it cuz there's a good chance i'll be pretty darn hungry. I'll think of something, don't you all worry one bit.

Aha, and the other cool thing about my full schedule is that I got to make a cool little calendar of a normal week (actually i just took my high school schedule and added my private lessons to it. See!!! Yea... i'm ready for the year i guess. I'm lookin forward yet dreadin it all at the same time. I'm excited about winter and Christmas

You know I think I've finally decided... after almost 23 years of life (wow i'm old, that's crazy) I've decided on the difficult decision between summer and winter, and I've decided I like winter about a million times more. I've always said that in the winter i'm lookin forward to summer and in the summer, i'm lookin forward to winter, but now after living in a winter-minded country, I actually quite like the cold. I like waking up in the morning and going outside and feeling the briskness of the air and I love the feeling of being so freezing and then walking into somewhere that's warm. I like drinking hotwine, I like the snow, but most importantly, I love the feeling of the Christmas season. I love listening to christmas songs just about all the time and it's just the happiest time of the year for me. Wow... all of a sudden I'm just really happy :D Today will be a good day I think. Hm... I really don't know why I went off on that tangent, but I did, and I'm quite satisfied with it, so i'm leaving it. Actually I could talk about winter and about the awesome things about it all day long, but i can't right now cuz i have to go, but i'd love to pick up this convo with you all again later. Ok cool. latelr

The Adventures of Getting a Hotdog

So... I was in Prague today doin a bit of some shopping (which was awesome by the way. I live for it) But about noon or so I was on the main square and I had a bit of a hunger for some good home cookin. Unfortunately there's not this kind of food on the square which is readily accessible to me. So I decided to opt out for a hotdog and a beer. So i went up to the little food stand, walked up and said, "Hello, I'd like a hotdog with ketchup." And then they asked me if I wanted a cappucino. I said no (who has cappucino with a hotdo?) and said a beer. And then they said which and i told them the one on tap, and they told me that this bottled beer is better, and i said no, i like on tap better. And then they asked me where I was from and blah blah blah, but it was strange because they definitely weren't czech cuz their czech didn't sound native and their english didn't sound czech. THey were weird and then they asked me if i wanted to take a shot. I laughed and told them no. And then they said, no, you'll have one with us! I laughed some more and said no thanks, and then i just tried to pay as fast as i could and got out of there. Weird expereince of the day. But fun in retrospect.

Weather of Calamital Beauty

So as the summer goes on and continues as usual, something just doesn't seem quite as usual as it should. I came back from America where the weather was about 100 F (38 C) everyday to now being in the Czech Republic where it's just really cold and frigid every day... I don't know... about 50's F (10-13 C) So as you can see, it's quite different., but also nice. I quite like the colder weather because it feels more fresh for me. To walk out in the morning with a brisk wind in your face and a really cold temperature is just great and it wakes you up and you can just be happy. As so is as I seem. So... it's also funny because this is stull summer yet, it's in the 50's and maybe colder I don't know. We actually have about still 2 more weeks of summer, so go figure. It really wasn't this cold last year, til... well... i guess like never... maybe no, maybe February or something like that, but last year was great. But the year before was quite cold, but it still didn't get this cold this year. That's the strange thing. But I hear it's supposed to be a bit warmer next week so I'm lookin forward to that. Well... actually i pretty much like all weathers so I'm just lookin forward to the continuation of life in general. Thanks. That's it for now. Just wanted youa in America to know how cold it is here. Later

Feeling Aquaparkish?

Today I experienced something that I feel that everyone who visits the Czech Republic for an extended amount of time sould do. I experienced myself an official Aquapark. Now... what is this you might say.... Well it's just like a really really mini waterpark, yet still fun. Here's some fun pic



Wait wait wait. Don't think that this was as cool as it looks. It definitely looks really sweet, and mind you, it was. it was a lot of fun and i'm quite glad that i was able to go, and i might even go again sometime. It had a few sweet slides and a lazy river, and some waterfalls, and a hot tub, and some water vapor saunas or whatever they're called, and it was sweet. Quite confusing going into it though. walking into it, following the rules are a bit difficult. First we had to of course take your shoes off to fend off the dirt and all, and then... the changing room, rather... the changing hall, which was unisex and quite abrasive. You don't really know you're there until you walk in and then you see people walking around in towels and you think you're in the wrong place... but you're not, don't worry, just grad a locker and get ready. But the more confusing thing was that the changing room was unisex, but the showers weren't and so you're changing in the room with everyone and then you go to the shower, but if you're not paying attention, you're gonna walk in the wrong one. I was utterly lost and it was an interesting experience for me to say the least. But nevertheless, i survived and it was a lot of fun. The funny thing is that they had a little food restaurant there which was serving traditional dumpling meals and like normal czech traditional meals. It just was funny to think someone would be swimming and be like "hm... i could really go for some pork and dumplings right now, i guess i'll just take a break for a half hour and have a normal lunch here even though i'm paying by the hour..." Hope I conveyed myself clearly there. Ok, so... that was my experience for the day. School starts tomorrow, so hoefully that rocks out and all. Ok, later

Test Time

So... I was reading through this one book I got and I noticed an ad for this language agency where you can go to learn english, and other crazy langauges. And I noticed they also had Czech for foregners, so I thought it would be interesting to look at. I went to the website akcent.cz and found some online tests of language ability. I saw a challenge and i went up there and grabbed at it. Well, now with all my tests being over, I feel like it was a big waste of time. The tests consisted of 150 questions and it was just long and a big bowl of suck. Anyways, I felt rather well after I took the Czech test. Though it was pretty difficult, I got 105, but I think the beginning ones were rather easy, so it's not really that good. But then I proceeded to take the english one, cuz i like to see how good my English is compared to my Czech... :) Well, like always, I always suck it up and with stupid British english, I only got 135 right. So that made me feel a little bit better about my czech score, just cuz the english one sucks. Anyways, that's my story for today. But don't worry, it's not gettin me down. I still feel rather confident in most situations with my english. I guess I'll keep practicing and see if I can improve on this.