Snowboarding at Hochkar and upcoming niceties

Hello dear readers,

Spent Sunday snowboarding with the Oberstufen ("oh-bear-stew-fin", upper classes--isn't learning German fun?). We went to a mountain about an hour from Waidhofen called Hochkar. You can use the google to see where it is if you are interested, but if you just want to see pictures, you can also take a look at my facebook page--all the good ones and some of the not-so-good ones are loaded. I even overcame my inherent laziness to rotate most of them so that up is up. For some others you will have to tilt your head, but that's how life is sometimes. Sometimes things are clear the way they are, and sometimes you have to alter your perspective a little. Consider it a public service.

Snowboarding was awesome. It was a day made by God for winter sports enthusiasts. The snow was fluffy and perfect, the sun was shining, the temp was hovering a degree or so below freezing, and in the valleys below us there were clouds obscuring everything, which made it feel like we were snowboarding on a wintery island in a cloud sea. (Warning, swimming in cloud seas is not advised. Danger, cloudsharks.)

We got there before the sun crested the mountains, and the moon was in the sky by the time we boarded the bus. I ate some delicious schnitzel (pork that has been pounded thin, breaded, and fried--in case you've never had the pleasure) for lunch, and after a hard day on the slopes we had a beer in one of the chalets. Quite an adventure.

To change the subject, let's reflect a moment on the glories of blogging. The greatest part, as many have probably elucidated before, is that the blogger can start, stop, continue, stop again, drink, eat, listen to music, pause to go shopping, come back, type in his underwear, etc, all of which the bloggee remains blissfully unaware of. I am not blogging in my underwear (currently), but I did just make a small excursion to the store to buy a bottle of wine before they close, and I was amazed to see that it is snowing. It is one of those slow, light, fluffy snows that glistens in the street lights and somehow makes the air seem colder. And speaking of snow, we got about 4 inches last night, which was kind of nice, since our meager helping of frozen precipitation was quickly melting and being carried down the watershed in its inexorable route to the sea. So... again... winter wonderland.

Before I wrap things up, I thought I would mention my trip to Italy (again, or for the first time, I am no longer sure). I'm leaving for Vienna this Friday, and Saturday night I will fly out of Bratislava and get to Rome around 11:30. We're staying at a youth hostel, and should be pretty centrally located, which is a good thing for sure--but Rome is a big city, and a lot of the sights are kind of far apart, or so I have been told. So that means good exercise!

I am really looking forward to a nice relaxing trip, and a good professor friend of mine gave me some recommendations on the right wine to drink and some good places to dine, so hopefully that will give me a leg up while I'm there. Don't expect a lot of pictures of monuments, but I will snap some pictures of the action while there, you can be sure. I will write a full report when I get back, and if you want to see pictures of the sights, you can follow along in a travel guide from any library--seriously. My professor friend made a good point that unless you are a professional photographer with a professional quality camera, you can't replicate the quality of the pictures in a travel guide, so why bother? Take pictures of yourself having fun, and if you want to reminisce about the Colosseum, look in Frommer's.

Hope all is well! 'Til next time!

the peppermint tea rap --or-- why i no longer pity myself

I am not sure if I ever mentioned my dislike for peppermint or the story of accidentally buying a whole box of peppermint tea in any of my previous posts. I could go back and look, but that would take about 30 seconds, and would therefore would be far too time-consuming. So instead I will take the next minute to retype (or not) said story. Far less tedious for you to reread something than for me to actually take the time to look for something. This wouldn't be a problem if I tagged my topics. Oh blogging.

The long and short (okay, mostly long) of it is that I wanted to buy some tea without caffeine in it, and I thought I picked up a box of chamomile tea, but in reality it was peppermint. So, being the stubborn mule I am, instead of giving away the 50 (50!) bags of hated, despised, disgusting peppermint, I decided to drink it as punishment to myself. Oh the horror of drinking peppermint tea, and how I hated my miserable existence more and more with every sip.

Time passed...

Today I made yet another cup of peppermint tea, and realized that it has become palatable. What a shame, I was really getting into the pity(tea)parties I was throwing for myself. Now I am faced with the choice of pitying myself for coming to tolerate (if not crave) peppermint tea or just leaving the pity out of the party. Oh cruel fates. Anyway, I think that somebody more talented than me should make this into a rap. It would be an instant classic on MTV, and the soon-to-be-famous rapper would also be a soon-to-be-MTV-cribs star. Think about it. Do it.

In other news, I have applied officially to teach a second year at the same schools. I will find out for sure if I am accepted in April. So that's exciting.

Figure 1:

Also, I don't know if you have heard the rumors that I met a girl in Vienna. This has been floating around on the interwebs for some time now, and I am here to say that this is in no way true, as you will be able to observe for yourself in figure 1. The girl next to me is not named Lina and is not in any way acquainted with me. Just kidding. But I thought I would show yall who I am going to see in Vienna so often.

The bi-weekly post... :D

Again, been a while since I've updated. A lot has been going on and I have been really busy. It hasn't been very exciting business though. My trip through Germany ended well, and although I had a great time everywhere I went, I was really glad to get home. Berlin was really great over New Years--we went out to a club and danced our way into 2010. Hamburg was great too, really relaxing as compared to my other stops.

Since being back I have kinda gotten back into the swing of the school year. I have all new students at the technical school, so if I want I can recycle lessons. I am sure I will do that to a certain extent in the coming weeks, but I still have some really fun ideas that I didn't get to implement last semester. At the gymnasium I am teaching the movie "The Princess Bride," which is awesome. I'm talking about it in context of cult films--and I know it's not a cult film the way that... say... "Serenity" is, it still fits the definition, because people in the mid 20's to early 30's are still in love with the movie, and basically everybody else on the planet has forgotten about it. Anyway, the kids love it. Next week, the exciting conclusion... :)

Tomorrow I am going to a fancy dinner party at a friend's house. Everybody is getting all spiffed up, so it should be pretty fun. I haven't put pictures up for a while, so I will bring my camera and maybe even post some of the pictures if we do anything appropriate. ;)

Sionara for now!

a long time coming

dear readers

ich wünsche euch eine frohe Weihnachten und einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr.

its been a while since i last posted, but there has been a lot going on. i spent a week on a class trip in vienna seeing museums and other cultural points of interest. it was really quite cool. i think the highlight was probably the musical 'Tanz der Vampir'... it was really great. i was also in the karlskirche and the stefaner dom... the two most ffamous churches in vienna. stefans dom (the largest cathedral in vienna) is gothic, and karlskirche (also a cathedral) is baroque. they are just finishing a major restoration, so i got to go up on the scaffolding and look at the fresco on the ceiling up close. (also... just in case you are wondering, karlskirche is the only church in vienna that will ever be restored... if its not baroque, dont fix it, thats what i always say...)

it was really a stressful trip though. we were always up to something, and even though we never 'went out on the town', i always woke up feeling like we did. probably had something to do with me catching a cold about halfway through the week.

after the week in vienna i had one day of work, and then it was off to aschaffenburg to celebrate xmas with the fam. we opened presents on xmas eve, played cards, and etc. my host sister and i went out on the 26th to a movie and then we went and caught a concert at a local disco. (a little expensive, perhaps, and really smoky... cough.)

now im in harz, where i used to live during my exchange year. tomorrow evening im going to berlin to celebrate new years eve. then on the 2nd its off to hamburg.

i wish yall a good new year, and dont forget to eat black eyed pea soup, or else you wont have any luck in '010.

lend me your baseball bat?

i hope i have a future as a writer, because i certainly dont stand a chance as an electronics repair man. the last 3 hours have more than proven my inadequacies in the diy camera repair department. two weeks ago in bregenz my camera got dropped twice, the first time near-fatal, the and the second time finished it off. of course, being the resourceful man i am, i took it upon myself to see if i could fix it. i still believe it can be repaired--albeit by somebody more savvy than i will ever be (did anyone ever notice that savvy is spelled with a double v? are there any other words like that--with multiple v's in a row? other than vvvroom that is...). the lens housing doesn't quite run like it should. its like it thinks about popping out and focusing, and then decides to flip me the bird and go back to bed, all while making an ominous growling sound that one would more readily associate with waking up to find a tiger in the bathroom of your Cesare's palace villa.

i spent the last ~3 hours patiently taking it apart, tinkering, cleaning, aligning gears, learning about ccd chips, cussing under my breath, reading online how-to instructions, putting things back together, cussing out loud, and finally, three and a half cd's later, opening a beer and giving up. if a camera costs $150 dollars, and i can fix it in 3 hours, that sort of translates into $50 per hour. but, realistically speaking, by the time i get this right (or more likely, stab my screwdriver through the motherboard inside...) i will be earning McDonald's wages and about to cash my first social security check.

so i now have a great decoy camera to give to muggers if i walk down the wrong street in vienna. whoopie! time to invest in a new picture-taking, soul-stealing magic box so i can keep documenting my austrian experience. Yay.

moleskines

merry christmas and happy birthday to me. i finally decided what to get myself. i bought a moleskine notebook, and a moleskine planner for next year. in case you arent in the know, moleskine refers to a singular brand of notebook, supposedly popular with the hipster artsy fartsy types, but in reality they are just good taste. and i feel snazzy with one in my pocket. and each notebook also has a pocket. which can conveniently hold such things as ticket stubs, clippings, and etc. and as to the planner--i've always wanted to get organized, so why not do it with some class?

aside from buying expensive notebooks, i've been staying out of trouble. at least officially. i spent a night in weyer having dinner and general fun with a local TA, and then spent another couple days in vienna--really a phenomenal city. i dont think i will ever get bored there.

next week i will go to vienna with the 7th class in the gymnasium (~16-17 yrs old). that will be super duper cool because i will have to opportunity to do a lot of cultural stuff that i would probably never get around to alone. also, since we are buying en mass there is quite a savings.all in all a trip most fine. so... vienna's not out of the news yet, nor do i suppose it will be for the rest of the year. get used to it. ;)

now its off to making a worksheet about wisconsin for a class tomorrow. gotta get some questions about cheese, the packers, brats, and the badgers down on paper, ya know?

stay tuned, i'll post again in a couple two/three days or so.

Things that have beein going on that mainly have to do with but are not limited to Bregenz and Thankgiving

It's 10:07 and Alanis Morissette is wailing from her digital prison in my neatly organized iTunes folder. I got up an hour ago to my cleaning lady (actually, either there are several cleaning ladies, or the one just has a great make-up artist and is changing her appearance to drive me slowly insane) barging into my room without knocking. Really I can't blame her. Technically I work on Fridays. Well, every other Friday. Sometimes. Basically, what it comes down to is that half of the time I'm gone every time. But I digress. The important thing about having a cleaning lady is accepting that there will be some inconvenience from time to time. The question you have to ask yourself is: "Is getting woken up early on your day to sleep in worth 20 euro per month and having your trash emptied daily?" I am trying to reconcile that right now.

On the bright side, my coffee is black and delicious. If it was 11:00, and if I had just got up, I'm sure the coffee wouldn't taste so good.

I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving. And I hope if you had tofurkey it gave you salmonella. No, ok, you can eat tofurkey. Just don't tell me about it. I have a weak stomach in the mornings. Some people have asked me if we celebrate T/G in Austria. The answer is a resounding no, with undertones of yes. American T/G is uniquely American, but Austria has a harvest festival in October where they give thanks for their blessings. Doesn't seem to be widely celebrated, and nobody gets the day off of work.

I celebrated in Bregenz, which is as west as you can go in Austria. A teaching assistant and friend from college hosted and made a turkey. I came early and helped with some of the fixins. Others brought dishes to pass as well. We really did our job as cultural ambassadors as there was a healthy mix of Germans, Austrians, and Brits enjoying the festivities. Survey Says: 100% of those polled loved Thanksgiving. Next time I'm doing a turducken though.

Bregenz is on the Bodensee, which borders Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. (Oh Oxford comma... now that I know that to some you are a fount of discontent, I love you all the more). We took a gondola up one of the mountains (and these really are mountains) to look out over the landscape--really a sight. There's snow on top of the big mountains... (guessing here.. 2,000-2,500 meters) but the top of the one I was on was grassy still. (Not anymore, though. The night I left it apparently started to snow there. They got over a foot.) From the top I could see all three previously mentioned countries, which was cool.

Otherwise not much to say. I have the next 5 days off, so I am going to make the most of it. I'm visiting another local TA tonight to make some dinner and catch up. Saturday there is a Christmas Market in Waidhofen, so I'm going to check that out. Gluehwein for all! And Sunday I'm going to Vienna again to hang out a friend and see a movie. (I hear you ask yourself: "Why does he have to go all the way to Vienna to go see a movie? Aren't there any theaters close by?" Don't worry--there are movie theaters. This isn't quite Cambodia. So there must be some other reason to go to Vienna.)

Alright. I'm off to make another pot of coffee. Til' next time.

Oh yeah, and I think I'll keep the cleaning lady.