My Minnesota Strawberry

I think my strawberry was trying to remind me that I will be going home to Minnesota soon!

Fever Ray

Last night I had the chance to see Fever Ray. Fever Ray is the solo project of Karin Dreijer Andersson, one half of the Swedish electro brother-sister duo The Knife. I have a long history with the Knife, originally falling in love with them nearly a decade ago but I never had the chance to see them perform live. They refused to preform live until a couple of years ago, so seeing Fever Ray sort of filled that void for me. That's not to say that Fever Ray isn't great on its own. Fever Ray released their first album this past March and it's fantastic from start to finish. You can watch the videos for the first two singles here:

If I Had A Heart from Fever Ray on Vimeo.

When I Grow Up from Fever Ray on Vimeo.

Anyway, last night. It was the opening night of the annual Electronic Beats festival in Graz and the opening concert was held in the old prison of an old fortress called Schlossberg that even Napoleon failed to capture. The prison still has the original walls intact, and the cavernous nature of the structure made for some incredible sound. Here's a pic of the venue so you have an idea:










Here's how you get to the venue and the view from the top:













So the location was pretty majestic in and of itself, and Fever Ray was stunning, like watching a painting -- a very dark and captivating painting. Photos can't really do it justice, but here are a couple from the show:
















The rest of the set, including a couple of video clips, is on my flickr account.

I wish i could go back and do it all over again. It sort of seems like I might have dreamed the entire thing.... I think I might be making that road-trip to Chicago this fall to see them after-all.

Hiking

So I've spent the last two Sundays hiking in the area around Graz. Still haven't made it to the Alps to hike, but I'm hoping I can swing that before I head back to the States this summer. Last Sunday, I went with some friends to a mountain called Schöckl, about 15km from Graz. At an elevation of about one mile, it was a pretty decent hike. The hail, rain, and sleet we encountered on the way up made it even more difficult. But in the end, it was totally worth it. Gorgeous views, gulaschesuppe, and some sort of bread with meat/fat spread. Not a lot more one could ask for. Pics here.

This morning, my friend Petra talked me into a 9am hike through the outskirts of Graz. We started at the northern end, just a 5min walk from where i live. We headed up to a small mountain called Platte and then back down to the other side of Graz -- all-in-all, about a 3-hour hike. I had no idea you could actually "hike" in town. Streams, bridges, mountains, dirt paths --- all ending in a tram stop at Mariatrost to get us back home. I can't wait to check out more of these urban trails. You always fine the coolest stuff right before you have to leave...

Pics from today's hike

May Day Celebrations

April 30 and May 1 are so much more fun abroad. In Sweden, you have Sista april and Första maj, where Sista april (literally, The End of April) falls on the 30th and is basically an all-night party that leads into the 1st, which is a public holiday: International Workers' Day. In Austria, Labor Day falls on May 1st as well, and all stores and schools are closed in recognition. But more importantly, April 30th marks the day of the Maibaumaufstellen in Austria and a number of other surrounding countries. All over town, giant trees carved with various symbols, decorated with ribbons and flowers, draped in greenery, and hung with large circular wreaths are raised into the air, sometimes by hand, and sometimes with the aid of a tractor. People in traditional garb drink merrily and dance around the May Pole while bands play. On my way to class, I stumbed across one of these celebrations at Geidorfplatz in Graz. On the way home from class, I had to cut through a group of dancers who appeared to be connected by ribbons that were also connected to the May Pole. Of course I didn't have my camera with me, but I found some photos from last year's celebration online. Here are some favorites:

Sweden!!

Been back in Austria for about a week, teaching, going to class, and getting rained on whenever I leave the house. (Which is super-weird cause it never rains unless i leave the house.) Anyway, I managed to post some photos from my trip to Sweden today if you are interested. Pictured here is my new sushi-making outfit, it's pretty cool.

Easter Vacation!

After two weeks of class and teaching, we are now on Easter break for two weeks. Perfect timing because it's been around 75 and sunny in Graz, the magnolias are blooming and life is good! I spent the first week sitting in the park drinking coffee and doing nothing. My birthday was on Thursday and was rather uneventful apart from some delicious sachertorte with my friend Petra and then spotting a dead body in the street.

On Easter Sunday, I headed out to visit friends and family in Sweden. I went with the cheaper ticket from Vienna, which I'm not sure was the best idea in retrospect. My day looked like this: Alarm at 5am. Tram at 6am. Then Bus #1. Then Train to Vienna. (around 3 hours.) Then Bus #2 to Airport. Then Bus #3 to terminal. Then plane to Sweden. (2 hours.) Then car to Dalarna. (Around 3 hours.) By the time i got to Sweden, I felt like i may as well have traveled to the States or something. But now that i am here, things are great! Staying mainly with my old host family in Vassbo, sort of in central Sweden. They have a beautiful old house on a lake, so a majority of my time has been spent drinking tea and looking at the lake. Also lots of walks with my old host sister sofia and her dogs. Very relaxing, and it's been wonderful catching up with everyone. Going to sweden always feels like coming home.

I'm now waiting for Karin to pick me up so we can enjoy a fika in Falun, perhaps some delicious kanelbullar or syltsnittar! I wish I could stay here forever. Or at least until july.

Jealous Much?

I even got a bit of a sunburn yesterday!

Yum, A Kiwi Sandwich

So I was really excited about finding English muffins at Billa today, but I'm still a little perturbed by the toppings Austrians apparently put on them. Kiwi? Really?

Back to the Grind

Trying to get back in the swing of things here! I'm taking a German class in the mornings now and it's actually challenging! I'm ecstatic because while I understand quite a lot, I can still barely string together a sentence. I feel like a little baby. In English, I'm all "of course this is a blatant attempt to subvert the dominant paradigm" and then in German, I'm like "me wants now pizza, hungry tummy are." It's mortifying.

Teaching two Swedish classes again. So far so good! In the more advanced course, we are reading a novel by Henning Mankell, which is pretty great because it's something I would do in my freetime anyway.

So where should I go for Easter Break? I'm thinking Sweden? But a beach somewhere on the Mediterranean is pretty appealing too... I'm open to any and all suggestions, just trying to keep it affordable. Something off the beaten path is cool too! Ideas so far:

Sweden
Croatia -- Rovinj or Rijeka
Italy -- not sure where? Maybe Florence and Venice since a friend will be there at that time?
Zurich
Romania

Back in Graz!

So finally a new post! I'm back in Graz after a wonderful trip home. Lots of snow, lots of sitting in front of the space heater and lots of eating way too much pizza and burritos. In my brief time home, I managed to visit the Ice Caves in Bayfield with Pete, spend some time in turtle lake with my mom and her cat, walk dogs, play lots of shows (including a Midwest tour of Lincoln, Kansas City, Lawrence, Witchita and Omaha), get my hand slammed in a van door, catch a bad cold, fall on the ice in a blizzard and mess my knee up, fix the toilet, get a new muffler, do my taxes, pay some bills, pet my cat, get a tattoo cover-up, and hang out with friends. It was just what I needed and now I'm back in sunny Austria, which is blowing my mind after spending 4 rainy, cloudy months here. Spring has hit, the sun is out and I'm looking forward to getting settled back in.

Oh, and after a 24 hour trip back to Graz, the water was broken in my apartment. I guess there had to be a hitch somewhere. It's just too bad it involved all the things i wanted to do when i got home, mainly use the bathroom and take a shower.

A slow month....

So it's been a hell of a long time since my last update. Not much has happened really. Pete was here. We made dinner, watched tv and generally enjoyed being unemployed for the first time together. Pete went home. Then I went back to school, took a couple of German final exams and am about to give my last Swedish final exam of the term. It's strange. I have spent the last two years of my life running around like a crazy person. Walking dogs, grad school, teaching, playing in bands, etc. It's been so nice to have four months with hardly anything to do. I think I needed it. I've been sleeping a minimum of 10 hours per night, catching up on movies and television shows I have missed over the past few years (Hello Battestar Galactica!), reading, and knitting. I have been traveling as well, but for the most part, I am just relaxing and taking a break from everything that was controlling my daily life. (And of course I miss a lot of those things -- my dogs, my cats, playing music -- but it's sometimes nice to take a break even from the things you love.)

I've put up some newish photos. The first set is from a hike Pete and I took on the outskirts of Graz. We climbed and climbed until we crossed the snow line; suddenly it changed from drab, grey drizzle to winter wonderland right before we reached the Ruins of Gösting Castle. The castle ruins were gorgeous and there was even a little bar/restaurant in the ruins. I still don't understand how they get their supplies up there.

Ruine Gösting Photos


The second set is from another castle in Graz, except this one is not in ruins. Schloss Eggenberg been restored and houses a very nice art collection. But my favorite part was the peacocks. Peacocks wandering all around the castle grounds, some sunning themselves, some beached on the frozen ground, and all bold enough to come up and beg for corn or bread.

Schloss Eggenberg Photos

And finally, I just returned from a weekend trip to Berlin. I got to see my friend Andy who was in town for an art opening, and I stayed with Marnie and Linda, some grad school friends I met in Minneapolis. I fell absolutely in love with Berlin. I usually don't care for big cities but something about Berlin really struck me. It was so comfortable, it almost felt like i had been there before. We wandered around in the nasty, drizzly winter weather, looked at the remnants of the Berlin wall and drank coffee to keep warm. I can't wait to see Berlin in the summertime. I think I need to spend some time there; perhaps a summer or something. I didn't take a lot of pictures, my fingers always got too cold when I would take out my camera.

Some Berlin Photos


Now I'm off to give my last Swedish final exam. I haven't been outside today, but the weather has been just horrible. Lots of rain/sleet/almost snow. Never cold enough for a good snow but just cold enough to make the trek to the tram and to the university miserable. I am looking forward to digging out my long-johns and my Sorel boots. I can almost hear the sound my boots make on the cold, dry snow in Minneapolis and I can't wait to see the sun. It feels like weeks since I last saw it.

Happy New Year!

New Year's in Graz was amazing. I'm not sure I can even describe it. A large projector projects 2009 images on the town hall (look left) and they set up a big stage in the center of downtown with various acts, including fire dancers and cover bands. They also sell champagne, beer, and the last of the season's glüwein. People run all over, setting off fireworks and firecrackers, so much so that about an inch of confetti and discarded paper covers the walks by 10pm. A little before midnight, the big fireworks start. Pete and I climbed up the mountain in town to watch the big display and could see a panoramic view of the fireworks going off all over the city while the big city display was set off right in front of us and lit up the entire city and the River Mur. It was incredible. I've put up a few photos, but it's difficult to do it justice.



Another New Year's tradition in Austria is to sell little tokens of good luck. Booths are set up all over town selling these little tokens, including tiny pigs, mushrooms, clovers, lady bugs, and chimney sweeps. Most of these symbols of good luck are derived from old fairy tales and to the unaccustomed eye, seem totally insane. Like these plush pig hats for instance:



Even if you didn't get a lucky mushroom for New Year's or a plush pig hat, I still wish you all a Happy New Year!

Prague

So Christmas pretty much came and went. Pete and I had dinner with a friend of mine and her family, and on Christmas day we finally got a good snow here in Graz, which made me pretty happy. This is the first time we have both been on vacation at the same time, so we are trying to figure out what to do with ourselves. Lots of eating, walking around, and eating again. We did manage to take one side trip and visited Tara in Prague last weekend. Prague is a really cool city, I was starting to think once you'd seen one eastern European city, you'd seen them all but Prague really impressed me. It helped that they were selling sausages the size of a toddler's arm for about a buck fifty and the goulash soup with dumplings was about four dollars. We did a lot of sightseeing, Tara took us all over Prague but we mainly hung out around the Christmas markets in the Old Town Square. On our last day in Prague, we took the train to Kutna Hora to check out the Bone Church, which is a church decorated with the bones of 40,000 plague victims. Pretty intense. And after stopping to have a drink in a "sports bar" blaring Sinead o'Connor and the Cranberries, we figured out that English doesn't do a person much good outside of the city. It was pretty much impossible to even order a beer. And despite a rocky trip home, (they had sold us a return ticket from a different train station in Prague but failed to mention that, thus we missed our train; luckily we managed to get on another train and made it home safe and sound) it was a really nice trip. It's good to be home though. Here are some photos from the Prague trip:

PRAGUE PHOTOS

Hope everyone had a nice Christmas!

Just Touched Down in London Town

So nothing as cool as the Krampus has happened over here. The weather has taken a drastic turn for the worse as well, lots of upper 30s with rain and sleet and fog. Pretty dismal. Pete arrived last week. I hopped a flight over to London and met up with him there where we did the whirlwind tour of London and then headed back to Graz. Ryanair gets more ridiculous every time I take it. I guess selling lottery tickets isn't enough, they also have to come up with a slick new theme song. I can't get over how awful it is. Take a listen:



I think my favorite line is "sweets, sweets, lots of goodies on the trolley for you, whatever it is that you need of us, the friendly cabin crew." You know, just in case that 10 dollar sandwich wasn't satisfying.

Krampus!

I quickly discovered that today is what I hope to be the creepiest holiday in Austria. (If it gets any creepier than this, I might have to come home.) Today is Krampus in Austria. Krampus is often depicted as a horned, shaggy, bestial, and demonic creature, complete with red skin, cloven hooves, and short horns. While St. Nicholas goes around rewarding the good children with nuts and fruit, Krampus runs around town carrying a switch with which he beats bad children. Some versions of Krampus carry chains and most have large belts with jangling metal and bells around their waists. It is absolutely terrifying. Groups of these Krampus creatures stampede around town scaring the living crap out of children. I saw one little girl screaming her head off and hiding after being charged by a Krampus. A friend of mine said when she was 6, a Krampus grabbed her, put her in a wagon and took her blocks away from her parents and dumped her there. Despite how terrifying it is, it is one of the most bizarre and exciting things I have seen in a long time. I have embedded a couple of videos so you can experience it for yourself. The first is a video of artist depictions of Krampus and the second is of the Krampus invasion of Graz last year.

My Crib

So people have been asking me if I could put up some photos of my place here in Graz, so I decided to do a little "Martha's Crib" blog. I don't exactly live in the suburbs, but I don't live very central either. I live at the end of the city tram line in a quiet residential area called Andritz. Lots of apartment buildings and lots of kids. This is my building:

I live on the ground floor, nearly dead-center in the photograph. Fairly non-descript place, but tidy and dead-quiet after all the kids go to sleep. I'm subletting, so the place is furnished which was a huge bonus.


My apartment is nice and cozy. Here are some photos of the inside:



I either take the bus or the tram to school. There is a direct bus, no direct tram but buses make me feel like vomiting so I usually opt for the tram:



I take my German classes at Karl-Franzen-Universität in Graz. It's a small campus with many beautiful old buildings.



I teach a little distance off-campus in a small, old building on Johan-Fux Gasse. Basically you hike up this steep hill at the edge of campus for about 8 minutes and you will end up at my place of employment. The building is located in the middle of the botanical gardens, which is pretty great apart from the hornets' nests. It's not very fun to teach with hornets buzzing around your head.



If you want to see more photos of my place or where I work, I put some up on flickr. (I'm looking at you, Mom.) Click here.

Thanksgiving Dinner

My friend Sam saved me a generous serving of the Thanksgiving dinner she made yesterday for her American boyfriend. It's funny how I never really missed Thanksgiving dinner until I was some place I couldn't get it. I'm currently in the food coma y'all were in yesterday.

Example 2: Why textbooks should never try to be "cool"

Because I am positive you all listen daily to the "Tag, wie geht's-Rap" I posted some weeks back, I decided to add another song to your playlist. This one is called "Der Einkaufsbummel-Rap" or "The Shopping Spree-Rap" and is another prime example of the painfully embarrassing attempts of textbook writers to be cool. I love it.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

Budapest!

So I am running around like crazy. I need to slow down! Met up with my friends Tara and Bennett in Budapest last weekend. Favorites: the amazing marzipan sweets, the cheap eats, the Buda Labyrinth, and this amazing bar called Szimpla Kert. It was kind of a gutted warehouse hidden in a residential area heated by propane and nearly as large as a city block. Lots of hot wine was consumed while watching the first snowfall. I can't imagine a better weekend.

SOME PHOTOS

I'm not totally broke anymore!

Amazing. I guess all I needed to do was blog about my problem and it would go away. Who knew?

I'm off to buy a bike and a real meal. I still think I might be dreaming.