SitRep

Due to the full schedule during the last couple of days I haven't been able to update this thing here regularly so here's a quick rundown on what I've been up to for the last week.

I've been twice to the Malmöfestivalen, which basically is like Donauinselfest in back in Vienna, but without the island and not that huge. Nevertheless, there were some cool local bands like "The Sounds", for instance, but the most rockin' act were definately Gogol Bordello and boy, did they rock. Normally I'm not into punkt music but that was probably the most awesome stage performance I ever whitnessed. The play a sort of gypsy-punk-rock-folk mixture and the energetic frontman Eugene Hutz (for those movie nerds out there, he actually played the leading role in "Everything is Illuminated", a film that I can only recommend to everyone).

Saturday I went to a so-called crayfish-party, which is some kind of swedish tradition to celebrate the last days of summer, with lots of nice people, swedish snaps, singing and, of course, loads of crayfish (not the freshest but still tasty, at least I didn't get a fish poison).

The next day it was all about football (and I don't mean the game played with an egg-shaped ball) and the keyword was Cordoba. Yes, exactly, the old famous story where we (the Austrians) once beat our most beloved neighbours ("se Germans") back in 1978, but due to the fact that there were only 3 native players of every country on each side, we had to adapt. What works in international leagues these days worked for us and so I quickly found myself playing alongside an Canadian, a Swedish guy and a Frenchman. Se Germans nationalised some Swedish Guys and an Italian guy so the match was supposed to get interesting (France-Italy surely rings a bell, doesn't it). In fact no headers or other tendernesses have been exchanged and I guess everyone enjoyed himself. We played till dawn, I have to admit I can't remember when I've done that the last time, must be somewhere back in the 90s.

Anyways, today I faced some kind of a test of manhood: catching one's own food (fishing that was). Me and my mate Henrik from Sweden went out on the sea with a small fishing boat as early as 9 a.m. When we reached open water Hendrik put a rod in my hand and guess what, 5 minutes later I had already caught my first hering, which made me somewhat proud. After spending some 4 hours on the sea the total catch was 6 hering and 3 codfish and guess what, the codfish went directly to the frying pan later that night to face its doom :-) Cut into filets and being accompanied by a nice homemade mashed potatoe and some mustard-sauce this fellas actually tasted delicious (but there's always a bonus to self-prepared stuff I guess).


Well, that's all for the moment, later on I will upload the corresponding pics to my photo album, and btw, for the guys who have asked for some "impressions" there will be some stuff too.

the renaissance of the "academic quarter"

since it has already been buried in Austria (at least at my alma mater) I was all the more pleased when I heared this sentence yesterday

when we say 14.00 we mean 14.15!!!!

oh, how beautiful is Sweden!

(sorry, janosch ;-)

"ned bled, de schweden"

After my first days here in Lund it's time to give a short update about what I've been up to for the last couple of days. I arrived here on the morning of Wednesday, Aug 16th, after a gigantic 18 hour trip by CAR. The navigation system in Axels car projected an overall travel time of 13 hours but what it couldn't project where the two hold-ups at the Austrian-Czech and Czech-German border, which cost us 4 hours. After driving trough Germany, which is like always going straight ahead (driving a German motorway reveals a little bit of the German soul, I guess), we finally arrived in Sassnitz where we went on the ferry to Trelleborg. I was looking forward to getting some hours of sleep but due to the constant noise of the ships engine. We then arrived in Trelleborg at 6:30 and it took us another hour to get to Lund.

Fortunately our early arrival saved as a lot of cueing up at the registration desk. Anyways, what catched my attention was the efficency and warm welcome of the Swedish people at every step during the arrival & registration process.

The next day we went to our first Nation party at Lund, actually it was Lunds Nation (Nations are societys of students organising partys, dinners and other leisure activites, not really comparable to the Austrian "ÖH"). Really nice place, good music and much cheaper booze, compared to what you have to pay at a normal club.

The next two days I was "out of order" because I suffered from a sour throat. From now on the clock was ticking because I had to get fit by Saturday evening as the Welcome Party for all exchange students would take place at this date. Which meant for me grabbing another pullover and staying in bed, sweating like a pig, to recover.
Worked for me and therefore I found myself at the entrance of Karhuset, where the welcome party was, at precisely 22 p.m. I wasn't totally fit but after 2 (or were it 3?) screwdrivers the pain was like "washed away". Anywho, party was nice but nothing special, 200-300 people and the very same music you'd hear if you go to a ordinary austrian club.

Two things worth mentioning: Swedish don't smoke inside of clubs, restaurants etc and I have to say that it was kind of new to me but I enjoyed breathing in fresh air whilst dancing. The other thing worth mentioning was me getting to know a guy from Manchester (unfortunately my command of phonetic spelling is to poor to exactly reproduce his pronuciation of this word :-) After being told his name (which was something like Ranz "like Franz in German but without the F") I virtually didn't understand a single word this guy was talking to me, just nodded my head now and then an quickly was payed a beer by this guy. So sometimes you just have to make the right gestures. Clubs in Sweden normally close at 2 a.m., which isn't that bad because you get to sleep earlier and therefore can make more use of the next day.

Which I did by talking a walk through the city center of Lund and shooting some photos. Lund is a really beautiful and calm town, the architecture and the atmosphere is just great. Actually my decision to apply for Lund may turn out as one of the best I ever made in my life. If you want to, you can find all of these, if you follow the link that says My Photos of Sweden on the right side.

Enough for now, have to prepare my swedish course tomorrow and watch the season finale of Hells Kitchen!

Hej da!

road trip!!!

After spending some wonderful days in Prague with my girlfriend (we even met the Dudsiman) my batteries are charged up for the next big adventure in my life.

Today at 0930 I will start my trip to Sweden. I've been looking forward to this for the last year or so but I have to admit that leaving behind all of my family and friends for quite a bit of time (4 1/2 months) was not as easy as I first thought and made me a little bit sad. Fortunately we live in the 21st century and the blessings of today's technology make it cheap and convenient to stay in touch.

If everything works out as planned I will be back online on Thursday, probably already uploading the first pics of Lund, the town where I will be studying.

Don't rain & drive

As I've mentioned before I should by lying on the beach on the Croatian Coast by now, but sometimes things don't work out as supposed. Unfortunately we experienced a car accident due to the heavy rainfall and the bumpiness of the road on our trip to Croatia. Luckily neither my girlfriend nor me got injured in the process, which is a small wonder, considering our "landing point on the slope. The only thing that was damaged, was obviously the car, but this too remained driveable.



Nonetheless we give it a second try tomorrow an will travel to Prague for 3 days. This time we will take the train, seems to be a little bit safer, although the passage will take like 5 hours. I hope I'll manage to find picture postcards as entertaining as they have them in Croatia.

vacation

finally! Did my last shift at Halle Café Restaurant today and I must admit that I was a little bit sad when I said goodbye. I really have to say that this was the best part-time/summer job I ever had. Not only in terms of payment but also in terms of working atmosphere. I've been into construction, worked at the line buidling trucks, worked at a bank twice but never had such nice people around me. Hopefully I'll be able to work there again when I return from Sweden.

So much for the melancholic part of this posting. Now onward to new shores (Croatia that is), today we're going to Istria, the northwest part of Croatia. By we I mean my girlfriend, who turned 25 two days ago (all the best once again). I've really been looking forward to this, I hope we will have better weather than here. People I know should be constantly watching their snail-mail-boxes within the next days, for Croatia is the paradise of awesome picture-postcards. Therefore this public disclaimer:

I have a biro and I'm not afraid to use it!

Manwash

found out yesterday that axe is called lynx in english speaking countries (at least I guess so). they always built their brand image about how their products could help you as a man improve your relationships with women. in austria up to now I only knew the campaign about the so-called "axe-effect". if you click on the link in the title, you come to a site where you can watch the latest brand-building video.

I want one of those places in Vienna as well ;-) but luckily I'm going to Sweden in 14 days

the salvation of the austrian health care system

Yesterday me and my girlfriend happened to stop by a rather new shopping mal in the 19th district, which is normally known for its posh and distinctive inhabitants (some would probably refer to them as upper-class but after geeting to know some exponents of this species at my university I wouldn't hold them in high esteem). Anywho, after buying myself a new digicam (Casio Exilim EX-Z70, for all the nerds out there) we went to the local supermarket to fetch some food for dinner. When we entered the gateway with our trolley we quickly came to a small accumulation of trolleys at the veggie section. A unusual huge bunch of people tried to fill their trolleys with various kinds of vegetables. At first I didn't give a s*** about it, just thought that this may be due to the higher income of the people in this district, and ent on towards the exit, where fate would reveal its destiny for us :-) Due to a vast tailback at the cashpoints we were forced to wait for like 20 minutes, before we could get back to freedom and see daylight again. Whilst waiting we noticed that every other cart was stuffed from top to bottom with hilarious amounts of vegetables. My girlfriend by the way heard what all the fuzz was about: the supermarket would grant a 50 % discount on all veggies and fruit from 18 to 19 pm. But it nonetheless it would make no sense to pack such amounts of veggies/fruit, especially with temperatures like we have them at the moment, as most of the bought goods probably will rot quickly.

The whole story leads me to two different estimations: either people in the 19th district must be the healthiest throughtout whole Vienna or rich people have an even bigger fear of the future, as the are stockpiling ridicoulous amounts of food? (Maybe they fear the blue collars coming into power ;-)

Later that evening we went to the movies and watched the summer-block-buster (at least it was said to be) Pirates of the Carribean II: Dead Man's Chest. Although Johnny Depp, who according to local experts scores only 7 out of 10 on the hot-or-not-scale, did a solid job, playing Captain Jack Sparrow, the whole movie didn't impress me that much. Given the right amount of alcohol (probably rum, aye) I suppose even some friends of mine could come up with a similar story. What remains are the admittedly sometimes super-impressive special effects and the score by Hans Zimmer (have I mentioned that I like big orchestral scores like in Star Wars, Gladiator etc.) Who do you people think of film music?

c- to z-celebs

As I mentioned before I'm currently working in the MQ (short for Museumsquartier, the biggest cultural urban space in Vienna) as a waiter. The place I'm working at is called Halle. As it belongs to the imperium of Bernd Schlacher, a renowned society caterer it happens from time to time that we get to serve some different celebs from politics, television etc. Most of the time so-called z-celebs get lost at our place. For those who want to hear some names: for instance Sabine Petzl, Karin Resetarits, Mathias Euler-Rolle and Alex Krause (yes, the host from the acclaimed and beloved show MoneyMaker, unfortunately he wasn't wearing his slick green jacket from his show :-).
Sometimes we also get to see more colourful animals of the Austrian society.

Today one of the latter showed up at our place. Wolfgang Ambros, a famous singer/songwriter, who is famous for hits such as "Da Hofa woars", "Hupf in Gatsch" and of course "Schifoarn", came to my station at around 19:00 p.m. One could immediately recognise people gazing at "Woiferl" (not to be confused with W.A.Mozart) and also some colleagues came to me and made bets on who much this guy is going to spend. "Zum auffaunga amoi a Seidl" (For starters a small beer). Hearing that I estemeed that he would stay quite a bit of time, drinking some beers, especially as he appeared a little bit tired. Unfortunately he drank his beer in one draw, payed and left right after that. It is unknown why this critical incident happend, maybe it was because he recognised we don't serve Gulasch at our restaurant :-)