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.