"Austria Is Not a Member of NATO" and Other Things I Learned in Luxembourg and Brussels

     

A few months ago the Austria Fulbright Commission told us about a week-long Fulbright EU-NATO seminar in Belgium and Luxembourg. They asked us to write proposals telling how we would benefit from attending if we were interested. Apparently I can write one hell of a proposal, because they picked me and a guy who is actually here to study the EU named Gergely to go. 

The seminar was a few weeks ago. It was intense. We had "briefings" (sounds so serious, I know) every day from 8-4 or 5 at various EU and NATO institutions, which didn't leave us with much free time. It was also intense because most of the people who attended it, who were Fulbrighters from almost all of the countries that are members of EU and/or NATO, studied Poli Sci or Econ and were "on" all the time. They would seriously forgo food and sleep for a chance to debate the political and economic implications of Angela Merkel's choice in footwear. I am not like these people.

Fortunately, they all turned out to be REALLY nice and fun, and there were also plenty of people who study other things. My roommate for the week Allie for example studies Bio-E toxicology in Norway. In the picture above in the Grote Markt (which is beautiful) four of the guys study Econ, but the other two are doing Sociology and Anthropology projects about immigration.

In the free hours we had at night we managed to enjoy plenty of these:

(my personal favorite is topped with cherries, chocolate, and whipped cream)

Followed by plenty of these:                                           

(After careful and thorough taste testing I can say that I prefer Chimay Blue)

Such gluttony was made possible by the fact that we received a 175 Euro per Diem to cover seven meals. Even in Brussels, which is fairly expensive, you can eat for way less than 25 Euro per meal. Lunch was provided every day and was just like European Studies, where we would get three courses and dessert was always delicious. Belgium is famous for its french fries, too, and a few bowls were served with every meal at every table. French fries are also drunk food and you can buy them from carts late at night. Europeans eat them with mayonnaise. Bleh.

I shouldn't make light of all that I learned, though, because the briefings were mostly really interesting and informative. We started at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg (sort of like the Supreme Court), whose towers are designed to look like shelves full of books and documents, celebrating a "long tradition of justice." These towers are supposed to be gold but are really that awful 70s mustard-yellow color that polyester suits were often made of. The color looks even worse in bad weather, which we had all week (the picture below of from google). During a briefing with Judge Lanaerts (who seemed like a celebrity to me because Joel and I saw this picture of him on Wikipedia while I was frantically trying to learn something, anything about the EU before I left) we started learning about the "supra-national" character of the EU, meaning that the EU doesn't seek to create a new nationality, but rather to transcend the nationalities of all the member states. This was what I found most interesting. All the court proceedings are conducted via translators in the 23 languages of the 27 member states, and rulings are available in each of the languages. Cases are brought to the Court of Justice by groups or individuals when a country has violated the terms and conditions of membership.

As a point of reference, here's a map of EU member states:

Throughout the course of the week I also learned what all the other branches of EU government do, which is a feat in itself. The Commission drafts legislation, while the Parliament, made up of elected officials, and the Council, made up of the leaders of the member states, pass the legislation and make important decisions. Parliament is huge (736 members!) and the entire EU seems very bureaucratic (Europeans seem to like bureaucracy- evidenced by the fact that I had to talk to three different people to change one number on my matriculation form). We also met the ambassadors of Luxembourg (she reminded me of the type of Sewanee mom who would have a cocktail before breakfast and liked to hang out at frats) and the US Mission to the EU (who seriously looked JUST like Obama) and got lots of freebies (pens, notepads, bookmarks). Best of all I now understand things like:

1) Turkey will not be let into the EU any time soon not so much because it is Muslim, but because it doesn't recognize the sovereignty of the president of Cyprus (and Cyprus is a member state), and because it is so big that its membership would tip the balance of power from Germany-France to Turkey.

2) Greece isn't the only country in serious debt and lots of other countries hid outstanding loans in order to join. Greece is just the only country it's backfired on so far.

3) Sweden is not on the Euro just because the have a strong currency and didn't want to be (they're actually supposed to join), but because they purposely fail to meet the criteria for joining with some little detail or through some sort of loophole every chance they get. Sneaky Swedes.
 

At NATO and SHAPE (NATO's military base) I learned that Austria is not a member of NATO (who knew?), they are redesigning their "Strategic Conept" (military speak for mission statement), and that NATO has a gift shop- where I bought Andrew's birthday present-, but I was most interested by how different the atmosphere was in these places compared to how it was in the government buildings. The government buildings were very open and mostly glass to emphasize transparency, but here the architecture was very rectangular and boxed in. The people who led the briefings were completely different in the demeanor and language, too. At the governmental institutions we had talked to a lot of diplomats who had long and fluffy answers for most questions, but at NATO and SHAPE answers were direct and were delivered in bullet points. I have to say that SHAPE fed us one of the best lunches of the week, though.

And for those of you who are curious, here are the NATO member states:

I didn't take many pictures because we were told that cameras weren't allowed in the buildings we visited during the week.

On our last day we had a little extra free time so Gergely and I went to the Bozar art museum to see an exhibit on Frida Khalo. We both liked this painting the best:  

It made sense that we would like it the best because the description said that it was one of her early, European-influenced paintings. So to keep from being too Euro-centric (I'm interested in other parts of the world, really!) I'll post another painting that I liked, which is a self-portrait of Kahlo portraying herself at St. Stephen and showing her body supported by a brace she had to wear after a bus accident and the crumbling pillar within her. 

Brussels is a little rough around the edges (Let's Go warned that girls should beware of super-aggressive men) but I really like the city. It feels really alive and there are lots of fun sights, like the cathedral and the Mannekin Pis. Had I not been to Brussels two years ago with Catherine I would have been really disappointed that I didn't get to see more of the city because there are lots of fun sights, like the cathedral and the Mannekin Pis. 

But luckily I have lots of fond memories like this, when Catherine (wearing my clothes because her luggage was MIA) and I went to the brewery museum that looked like a spaceship and got in free because the door was unlocked and no one seemed to be working. How could you not enjoy a city with good beer, great chocolate, awesome waffles, and unsupervised museums?

The Jig Is Up

I returned from Belgium to find the streets of Graz snow-free and the skies a rare color called "blue." I thought Spring had come and was looking forward to putting away my wool socks and turning down the radiator.

Unfortunately, today I woke up to this:

It's snowed a lot this year. There was a constant layer covering the ground from December to January that varied in depth from about an inch to upwards of one to two feet. And yet every time it snows, including today, the people of Graz act totally surprised.

I don't like snow. It's cold, it gets dirty really quickly, and it's hard to walk through. Part of the reason Graz sounded so appealing to me when I was filling out my Fulbright application was because I heard that it had a milder climate and thus less snow than the rest of Austria.

So, the first few times the Grazers acted surprised to have snow, I believed them and was surprised right along with them. But after the fourth or fifth time I stopped believing them when they said, "This never happens!"

Actually Graz, it does happen. A lot. I was here a few weeks ago when it happened. And I was listening then when you pretended it never happens. And the time before that. And the time before that too. Let's all just admit that it snows in Austria. I doubt that the rest of the world is surprised to hear this.

Budapest: How I Learned to Be More Patient

        

To balance Joel's stay in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire we spent a few days in Budapest. Rick Steves had nothing but good things to say for the city so I obviously had high hopes for it.

But it turns out that all the Rick Steves Podcasts available on iTunes couldn't help the fact that I didn't know how things worked in Budapest. I had assumed that because it was so close to Vienna (2 1/2 hours by train) that it wouldn't be that different from Austria (in my mind I guess I really skimmed over that whole "Communist Era" "Iron Curtain" thing. Oops). I really need to stop assuming.

Our rides on the Metro (which is the second-oldest in the world and was originally horse-drawn) are a perfect example of how confused we were for much of the trip. I read something about stamping your ticket every time you switched lines, but we weren't sure where to do this and there were police EVERYWHERE checking tickets. This wouldn't have been such a big deal in Austria, where you only have to stamp a ticket once and you probably won't be checked for one anyway. (A Fulbrighter whose dad works for the state department said that an excess of police, bureaucrats, and government officials is a left-over of communism. I think the metro cars are too, as I can only describe them as the Trabis of subways). 

Budapest was fascinating and new and different, but the "different"  part took me by surprise. I had my list of things I wanted to see and got frustrated when I couldn't check them off as quickly as I wanted to.  I didn't know the Hungarian name for anything and we were always getting lost. The things we did do and see, and even getting lost along the way, all turned out to be great experiences, though. So to recount our trip to Budapest I think a little game of High-Low is in order.

High: We made it to Budapest in one piece.

Low: We got lost on the way from the train station to the first hostel we stayed in. A recurring theme.

High: The hostel turned out to be awesome. It was a converted private apartment and the people that worked there were so nice. It had a really homey feel and lots of nice touches- like comfortable beds, a room full of computers that we could use for free, friendly guests, and a staff that made coffee with the espresso machine for each of us individually in the morning.  So, I recommend staying at the Goat Hostel in Budapest.

Low: The first night we went up to the Castle Hill on the Buda side. Every where we turned there were cool things to see, like this archway and fountain, but what we really wanted was to find a place to eat. We couldn't. We tried to go to one of the museums to I could see the Hungarian Impressionists collection. It was closed. The castle is huge. We got lost. I was hungry and cranky. 

High: It turned out that we just hadn't walked far enough and eventually found a cheap cafe where we inhaled ham and cheese sandwiches (if you eat it fast enough it doesn't even taste like ham!). Then some nice people took a picture of us overlooking the Danube and we enjoyed the view of the Chain Bridge and Parliament.

Another high: Later we went to a place called Faust Wine Cellar in the Dominican Cloisters, which are in the basement of the Hilton (seriously). We decided to splurge and go on a "wine tour", which meant we each tasted 5 wines, had bread and cheese, and was awesome. 

We were the only customers and the man who worked there was really eager to please us. Seriously eager. He kept mentioning his fiance's family, and Joel's theory is that he came from a peasant family up the hills, wants to marry the girl whose parents own the cellar, and working there is his one chance to impress them. When I asked where a certain wine came from he ran and got a giant map. When I grabbed a blanket (which they provided because it's cold in cloisters) he offered me a few more. We each tried Palinka, which a Hungarian wine brandy, and Bukavir, which is a wine that translates to "bull's blood" and is supposed to make you strong. And we got to KEEP the wine list. On the way back to the hostel we stopped at the Matthias Church which, like the cathedral in Graz is a mismatch of styles, but way cooler looking because it's a mixture of Gothic and Turkish architecture (it's been both a mosque and a church). One of the minarets is in this picture.

Low: The next day we switched hostels because I found one that was cheaper. We should never have done this. The hostel itself was nice enough (although weird... there were teepees over a lot of the beds...) and the man who worked there showed that same eagerness to please when he gave us a welcome drink (more palinka!) and offered us various coupons, but things got strange when he said that the woman who would take us to our room would be there soon. I told him that we could just walk down the hall to our room ourselves, but when a Hungarian woman carrying a huge bag of oranges showed up and told us to follow her we realized our room was some where else.

The room, which the man at the hostel marked on a map and told us was "10 minutes away, 10 minutes away," turned out to be a private apartment 20 minutes away. The lady with the oranges left us with the keys and the inexplicable plea to not turn the radiator up to 7, "Never 7! Never 7!" 

High: We went out and explored Budapest for a while. After a picnic lunch where we enjoyed the fact that you can drink beer in public in Europe, we went to Szent István-bazilika (St. Stephen's Basilica). It's beautiful. It's also home to the right hand of King Stephen, the first King of Hungary and the man who Christianized much of it. We paid 200 Florints or something to see it lit up. We also stopped by Parliament, which is a really pretty neo-Gothic building.

Low: We decided to go back to the apartment. We used the map the man at the hostel had given us, but after about 10 minutes of walking around the marked area realized he had just drawn a red "x" on a random spot. To say that we were lost is an understatement, but by some miracle after about an hour we found the apartment and sat down to rest for a while.
This was when we discovered how weird the apartment really was. The oven had no door. The water heater was in the shower exposed a flame that would roar when the hot water was turned on. A tiny shower curtain in the shower covered not a soap dish, but, 

wait for it... 

a CIRCUIT BREAKER BOX.

Is there a worse place for one of those? 

High: We went to the thermal baths at Szechenyi. Although it was really confusing at first and we couldn't tell if we had no idea what we paid for or what we were doing, the baths turned out to be really relaxing and fun. I love water and I love being warm, so the baths provided the perfect combination. Hungary has lots of hot springs and people go to the baths to relax and socialize. Szechenyi is supposedly the biggest and nicest of the baths with lots of pools at different temperatures. There were floating chess boards and a circular pool with a really quick current that swept groups of kids (and me and Joel) around in circles. The indoor pools were nice, but we spent most of our time outside. It's not often you can sit in an outdoor pool in February.

On the way back to the apartment we stopped by Hero's Square, where all the statues depict Hungarian heroes and I took a picture of Joel that's blurry but I really like. It's too bad he's not Hungarian, it looks like he's discovering his Magyar roots.

Low: We went to the grocery store to buy dinner. This should have been simple. We should have bought our food and walked right out, but I decided to go find salad dressing and more food to because lately I've been plagued by the irrational fear that I won't get enough to eat. I left Joel holding a bottle of wine, salad, cheese, lunch meat, and a loaf of bread and standing next to the only decipherable sign we saw in Hungarian, which said something like "No alcohol sales after 11 PM." It was about 10:30, and there was a short, chubby man with a thick mustache and a uniform there to enforce the rule (Joel has since named him "Mario."). While I was gone Mario started pointing at the wine, the sign, and Joel in succession. Joel nodded his head over and over, but Mario didn't get the message and started poking him. I came back right as Joel dropped the bottle of wine and it shattered on the floor, which really upset Mario. He didn't speak English or German, but luckily there was a young guy there who spoke English and offered to help us explain that we would pay for the wine and get out of there as soon as possible. So we paid and fled the scene.

High: On our way back to Graz the next day we sat in the restaurant car and had a few beers. We rode through little villages and decompressed.

 

I didn't check off all the things I wanted to do on my list, but there were definitely more highs than lows. I'd be painting an incomplete picture of our experiences in Budapest if I didn't include characters like Mario, shower breaker boxes, and hostel workers who can't read maps, and from now on I'll probably not need to stick to my lists as much. But of course I'll still make them. 

Vienna with Joel

A trip to Austria without seeing Vienna isn't quite complete. When I told the teachers and students at both of my schools that Joel was coming to visit, most of them asked, "You'll take him to Vienna, won't you?" (actually, with the students, who don't quite understand future tense, verb placement, or the sound the letter "v" makes, it was more like "Take you him to Wienna?") Like I've said before, there's an idea that Vienna is THE Austrian city, and places like Graz, Salzburg, and Innsbruck are "willages" with plenty to see, but only after you've seen Vienna.

So I carried out my duty as a temporary Austrian and took Joel to Vienna. I shouldn't make this sound like a chore, though, because I really like both Joel and Vienna, so it was a win-win situation for me. As the seat of the Hapsburg monarchy (there's a map of the Austro-Hungarian empire that they ruled over above), Vienna was built to celebrate wealth, power, and hierarchy. These are all things that make me a little uncomfortable, but Vienna is (was) so good at being an imperial city and was designed so well to fit this purpose that I can't help but like it. Within the ring (the city center), many of the streets are wide, pedestrian, and grand, and the Hofburg (imperial palace) dominates the way you would expect an imperial palace to dominate. Imagine walking down an already-impressive street like this, which is the Graben...

...turning a corner...

... and bam! having an imperial palace right there waiting for you as a perfect photo op. It should be noted that in this picture of Joel, me, and a lamppost standing in front of the Hofburg you can only see a small part of the palace. It's massive.

 The squares, celebrating various heroes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire are super-sized, as are the statues depicting these heroes in the middle of the squares. Here I'm standing in Mariatheresienplatz in front of the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Fine arts Museum), which perfectly mirrors the Naturhistorisches Museum (Natural History Museum) on the other side of the square. The statue in the background is my good friend Empress Maria Theresia.

Joel and I spent a few hours at the Naturhistorisches. We saw a huge collection of precious stones and minerals, an interesting exhibit on Darwin, and the Venus of Willendorf, which is one of the oldest known artistic representations of a woman and pictured left, but the most exciting part of the visit was the fact that we saw an actual (dead) coelocanth, preserved in formaldehyde. To me they look a lot like the giant catfish at Dawson Springs, Cerulean Springs, or wherever it was that we had to do Open Water Certification for Scuba class. And dad you're right, Joel will need a really big tank if he ever hopes to have one as a pet.

Vienna isn't the friendliest city and it's not known for its hospitality (it's too busy being proud of its imperial past), but it makes up for it with institutions like the Viennese cafe, where you can sit and enjoy the good life over a cup of coffee and seriously delicious cake. Joel and I went to Cafe Central, which is the biggest and most impressive cafe (and also where Trotsky planned some of the October Revolution!). There's usually live piano music in Central, and, joy of joys, we went on a day when they happened to be playing showtunes. And yes, Meggy and Mary, they did play both "Memory" and "Music of the Night." And yes Meggy, I did play both of those in orchestra. Later we walked by the Opera House but only had the patience to take a picture in front of it, not to wait in line for hours to see an opera neither of us could probably stay awake for.

We saw the cathedral, a few other churches, and other sites, but I really need to mention the quirkier side of Vienna. After treating ourselves to the "Luxury Menu" at a nondescript Chinese restaurant for Valentine's Day (spring rolls, soup, entrees, and dessert!) we went out to the Prater, a famous amusement park that's sort of like Coney Island minus the hot dogs and plus the German language. I've wanted to ride the ferris wheel at the Prater for a really long time, so Joel and I waited in line, paid a lot of money, and crammed into a car with a chatty family of Italians. About 30 seconds into the ride, though, I realized how old the ferris wheel was and how high up it was taking me and decided I didn't like it anymore. I blame my dad for my distrust of amusement park rides (Dad at Holiday World before riding the Banshee: "See that timing chain, Emmy? That snaps and you're done for.")

We also stopped and saw the power plant designed by Austrian architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who was known for hating straight lines and creating buildings that were in harmony with nature (his apartment building in Vienna has trees growing out of windows).

Overall I don't think Joel was as enchanted by Vienna as I am, but he did really enjoy seeing the coelocanth and drinking all the Viennese coffee. And who couldn't be intrigued at the very least by Hundertwasser's power plant? Plus, we ate off the "Luxury Menu", and that just doesn't happen every day.

Visitor #2

BIG NEWS.

Ok, it's probably not news to anyone anymore, but JOEL CAME TO VISIT FOR TWO WEEKS! It was a semi-surprise. I had thought that he would try to come sometime in March, but he asked if he could come in February instead and within a week he was here. I had a week off for my semester break and only had to work 3 other days while he was here, so for 14 days my life was all Joel all the time. This is the longest amount of time we've spent together since graduation and it was fantastic.

Joel received a really warm welcome from me (of course), from my roommates, and in a shocking display of hospitality, a 4th year class of English students at the Fashion School.  His first night in Graz Laura (Italian roommate) and some of her Italian friends made pizza and we had a nice, long, and loud Italian dinner (Laura and her friend Chiara are in the picture). This also happened to be the night that Joel kicked off his self-guided Bier Tour of Austria, which was mostly conducted from the comfort of my house but included excursions to Vienna and Budapest.

The next morning the 4th year students at the Fashion School had a breakfast for us and brought in fruits, bread, cold cuts (Austrians LOVE cold cuts), and lots of different kinds of jam. One girl even brought in a Sacher Torte that her mom had made. I don't usually like to eat really sweet things for breakfast, but Sacher Torte is an Austrian specialty and I couldn't pass it up (Sacher Torte is a chocolate cake with thick chocolate icing and apricot filling). Plus I couldn't risk hurting the girl's feelings by not eating it (I rationalized all the other unhealthy food choices I made throughout the next three weeks in a similar fashion).

As if the Beer Tour weren't exciting enough Joel also got to see the sights of Austria's second largest city. Wyatt Harper, who has a Fulbright in Romania this year and we graduated with from Sewanee last year, came through Graz while he was traveling so we met up with him. We walked around and I showed them the cathedral, which is a complete mismatch of Gothic structure, Baroque decorations, and Victorian chandeliers that make it look like it was put together in the dark, the mausoleum, where one of the Kaisers (whose name I can't remember right now, but is safe to say was Wilhelm, Josef, Franz, or some combination thereof. Anyway there's a picture of Joel and I outside of it here) lies and was designed by Fischer von Erlach, the Herrengasse and Hauptplatz, which make up the city center, and the Schlossberg ("castle mountain"- Joel and I had dinner on the Schlossberg at a restaurant aptly named "Schlossberg". Austrians can't be expected to be clever all the time), where the Uhrturm (clock tower), is located and Wyatt was kind enough to take a picture of us. We had a great lunch with Wyatt, and while neither of us had really hung out with him in college (ok, to be honest, Wyatt and I had never even spoken before I got a facebook message from him about coming to Graz), it was a lot of fun. Wyatt even made me feel a little grateful for Austria when he told me about his heat going out and not being able to get his landlord to fix it. The landlord's solution was to tell him to put his over on high and leave the door open. Apparently there are several oven-gas-related explosions in Bucharest every winter.

Joel and I also spent a day at Schloss Eggenberg, a castle right outside of Graz that has a surprisingly nice Medieval art collection (triptychs, and birth plates, and tympanums, oh my!) and where peacocks roam the grounds. Who knew peacocks don't mind snow? And who knew that they don't like to snuggle? Every time I got close to them they moved away, and something told me that they're not only freakishly pretty, but also freakishly fierce and could mess a girl up. Sort of like Ellie Bear.

It was really good to get to show Joel around Graz and to give him a point of reference for when I tell him about things going on around the town, in my college courses, and at both of my schools. He's also now experienced first-hand the difficulties that stem from being someone who only likes ham when Uncle Sonny's cooking it and living in a country where even the turkey is "turkey ham" and older people's musk literally reeks of eau de pork. I'll end with a picture of Joel and his beard enjoying a frothy brew because, although his face might tell you otherwise, he was really happy in this moment.

Party Like It's 1899

Ball Season just recently came to a close.
Yes, formal balls are such a big deal in Austria that they have an entire season devoted to them that lasts until Mardi Gras. Vienna, especially, takes balls and waltzing very seriously.

A man with some connection to Fulbright invited all the Austrian Fulbrighters to attend the ball for the Technische Universität at the Hofburg (imperial palace) in Vienna. I'm not sure exactly this man was, but he was apparently important enough to invite 20+ people to the ball and wore some sort of medallion, indicating that he belongs to an exclusive society. I'm 90% sure it's the Order of the Phoenix. Fulbright paid for Megan (L), Emily (R) and I, who all live outside of Vienna to stay in the same hotel we stayed at during orientation, but this time they booked us the honeymoon suite, complete with a huge bathtub and fireplace.

Before going to the ball I had assumed that ball was often just another word used for dance. In Austrian high schools the graduating class has something called a "Matura Ball" that I had always just likened to prom, and I figured that the TU Ball would be a slightly more formal Mountaintop. I had also assumed that most Austrians didn't actually know how to waltz.

I was wrong on both accounts. To get into the ball you had to have a floor-length gown. Unless you knew some one really high up, this was strictly enforced and I saw quite a few people get turned away for not being dressed nicely enough. The TU Ball was also a debutante ball. I couldn't see any of this happen because there were about 4000 people all crowded in to watch, but the night's opening ceremonies largely consisted of the girls making their debuts in pretty white dresses. This wasn't strange to me. What was, though, was the fact that not only could the debutantes and their escorts all waltz perfectly, but so could almost all of the attendees. You can see them whirling and twirling in these two pictures.

When I went back to school on Monday I asked my students if they could all waltz, too. They all said yes because, duh!, they had taken dancing classes. Dancing classes seem to be some Austrian rite of passage (to me this is also a very Germanic idea, that dancing is something that you have to be taught how to do in an orderly way, rather than thinking of dancing as a form of self-expression). Emily (Fulbrighter in the first picture) was told by an Austrian friend that he took waltzing lessons because "that's what you do when you're 15." Even Tatjiana, one of my students who has pink hair, probably listens to Gwar, and shops at a store called "Trash" said that she enjoyed waltzing. I tried waltzing a little with Gergely, who is a Fulbrighter in Vienna and behind me in the group picture, but it turns out that that one time I waltzed with Dan in high school wasn't sufficient preparation.

I think the balls are a definite celebration of Austria's grand imperial past, but there are some modern updates that I'm sure have Franz Josef rolling in his grave. In addition to the ball room where waltzes were played, there was also a room for dancing to jazz music. And in the basement there was not only a disco (imagine a bunch of Austrian debutantes shakin' it the beats of Kanye and a trippy light show), but also a Heurige in the basement. (A Heurige is like a beer garden but with wine. They're really informal and you sit at long picnic tables and eat sausage. This is where I spent a lot of my time.)

I also need to mention that in this picture with Olivia I'm drinking the free tap and nursed the same glass of wine for a really long time because although the tickets were expensive, and I did get an espresso cup as a party favor, there were only cash bars. WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?

The ball went until 5 AM, but we left around 3, exhausted from trying to waltz, being in the Heurige, and making various puns on the word "ball" (because we attended, did that make us ballers?, and lots of other that I won't repeat here). The next morning I went to Schloss Belvedere, which houses a really big collection of Austrian art, including Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss", and has a great view overlooking the city center. I also took another self-portrait and have to say that I think all the practice in Ljubljana paid off as I now look directly into the camera when I take them.

Visitor #1

Way back in December a one Ms. Makena Timmins came to visit me. I hadn't talked about the visit on here yet because I'm waiting for Makena, who seems to be busy because she's getting ready to go into THE ARMY, to email me a few pictures of us in Vienna, but in the spirit of Christmas and continuity I'll go ahead and write about it.(For those of you who are wondering, she didn't have any outbursts. No hissy fits when the train was late. No abrasive defenses of 'Merica and God's Capitalist way when she couldn't find Tide at the supermarket. Not even the declaration that she was going to hire a driver when we missed the bus!)

Other than her unusual calmness, the visit was everything you'd expect a visit with Makena to be. We went to the Christkindlmarkt in Hauptplatz here in Graz, and once Makena had drunk their Glühwein supply dry we went to a Cuban place called Cohibar (like Cohiba cigars, get it? Clever Austria!). It was all really fun and we stayed out really late and cooked a huge pasta meal at 4 AM, and it was REALLY good to see some one from Sewanee, but the point of this is more to explain what Makena and I saw in Vienna.

Vienna was gorgeous at Christmas. The Christkindlemärkte didn't sell anything different from what they sell in Graz (with the exception of the commemorative mug I got with a picture of Haydn on it!), but the streets, which are already beautiful, were lit up with tiny, white and glittering Christmas lights. There's a blurry picture of the illuminated Graben (a big pedestrian street) here.

Over an entrance to the cathedral was a giant Advent wreath. Austrians take their Advent wreaths pretty seriously- there's even one in every classroom. Word to the wise, though: one of my teachers accidentally caught her Persian rug on fire this year when she left the room for a second. So never leave your Advent wreath unattended- if you play with fire you'll get burned. Unless you're Andrew at age 5 and Dad smells the sulfur from the matches you've been playing with in the TV room. Then you'll just get accused of farting.

We were in Vienna pretty close to Christmas, but Christmas trees were just beginning to be sold. Austrians don't put their tree up until Christmas Eve. They don't decorate it, but the Christkind (Christ child, who is actually a spirit) comes, decorates it, and leaves presents. The parents ring a bell after he's come and the kids run in and open their presents.

I'm allergic to horses. I found this out this summer when I requested that the nurse test for guinea pigs and horses during my allergy testing after that little brush with exercise-induced anaphylaxis (never again will I eat shrimp and then go running). But I always like to go by the stables for the Lipizzaner stallions (the ones that can prance around on their hind legs a la Molly Sue Feitl, R.I.P.), and Makena and I happened to see them on their way to practice. This made me really happy, as did the Leopold Museum, which has a really big 20th century German and Austrian art collection and is one of the best (and only) places I've found to apply what I learned in all those Survey of German Lit. courses (note to Meggy: try it! You'll feel smart and your education will seem relevant!).

All this sight-seeing and late-night pasta cooking wore us out, so we stopped to refuel at Cafe Central. There's a picture of what we ordered here that I think really captures the essence of our personailites. Take a wild guess as to who had what (keep in mind that it was around 4 in the afternoon, but also that I had dragged Makena to a museum and she was feeling a little down at this point).