I live on a COMPOUND

Okay, my supervisor just came to help move my massive luggage with her car. All this time, I kept thinking, maybe "compound" is a harsh word for where I'll be living. Vienna is a lovely city. Full of historic charm. How could anything be like a bombproof shelter? Or a place where animals go? Or a bone fracture?

Well. This place is a bit short on charm... it's a string of "townhouses" that look bland. Behind a giant fence with a noticeable lack of swirly twirly decorations on it. Every other building  in this city has swirly twirlies. Not fair!!! It's better inside... very spacious. White brick walls. Small back yard. Two stories. Kitchen, Entry, Dining, Living, 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, and utilities room. I'm the first one here, so I nabbed the room with the queen bed. Was that the right thing to do??? I hope my future roommate isn't upset. Maybe we could have an arm wrestle or thumb war or trivial pursuit contest when she gets here.

I have two questions for whoever lived here before me. (1) Where are the coffee filters? and (2) Where are the coat hangers?

Lonetree

Today, nothing is going to stop me from wandering around in Vienna! There is too much to experience. So, go ahead rain. Just give up now.

In Texas when it rains, we don't do much. It only rains < 10% of the time, so this makes sense. It probably rains 75% of the time here... so it's time to get over this "AH it's raining! Stay inside!" syndrome.

Exciting News
Background [In one of my classes this semester, we learned about a Marine named Clayton Lonetree who was stationed at the Embassy in Vienna in the late 80s. He was a lonely guy who fell in love with a Russian swallow working for the KGB named Violetta Seina. She introduced him to her "Uncle Sasha" who convinced him to steal documents from the Embassy and provide the building's floor plans. Lonetree's conscious tormented him, and he confessed his crime at a Christmas party to my professor Mr. Olson  (who was the CIA Chief of Station in Vienna at the time). Lonetree is the only Marine ever convicted of espionage.] Well. I asked one of the Marines stationed at the Embassy now if they learned about Lonetree's case. The guy said yes, and that he actually sleeps in the same room that Lonetree slept in!!! How awesome is that?!

Here's the wikipedia if you'd like to read more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_J._Lonetree

Sleuthing

It's funny how much it's possible to surmise about the inhabitants of a house. And I've had time to draw some conclusions about this. Before I share my theory, I thought I'd share the facts and let you all think about it.

Clues
- Brooks Brothers tag in master bedroom
- Make up power in dark shade on upstairs bathroom sink
- 2 drawings done by a kid approx 4 years old
- Spaghetti noodles under dining table
- Pizza menu that had been stapled
- Half drunk box of white wine table wine
- Dirty dishes inside cabinets

Rainy Sunday

It's raining right now... It's neat to see the dark thunder clouds over the hills and forest. BUT I wanted to go for a walk in the woods today, so I hope it stops soon! Apparently the northwestern edge of Vienna is known for these rustic little wine gardens named Heuringer (or something). You take a street car to the end of the line, and then get on a bus that takes you into the vineyards. The Viennese are very proud of their local wine and drink more of that than beer. They mostly produce white wines. I tasted a red yesterday at dinner, and it was really tangy. There are a few of the wine garden cafes on the street I'm staying on, but I wanted to go farther out to see the real countryside.

Yesterday, I met up with some of the other interns/marines and wandered around central Vienna. It is a beautiful city! Vienna is set up like a bulls eye - the center is surrounded by the Ringstrasse and then the next ring out is called the girdle. Most of the tourist attractions are in the bulls eye. So, we just went there to look around and eat dinner.

The buildings are so tall and stately. They are mostly neoclassical with columns and statues embedded into the walls. The streets are fairly wide. It's funny because parts of the city look like Rome in the classical style, parts look like northern Italy with colored tile, parts look like Bavaria with the green dome rooftops, and parts look like Paris, with the wrought iron facades and steep roof line with dormer windows. I guess Vienna gets to be the mix in the middle.

The city is famous for producing Art Nouveau (known here as Jugendstil). That was the popular movement when Vienna was at its peak before WW1. Gustav Klimt worked in Vienna and sort of epitomized this era of beauty. Vienna then was the cultural capital of Europe. It's where the artists and musicians and writers wanted to work.

Culture is still very important to these people... I was looking at the calendar of events for June yesterday, and there is an opera every night of the week! This is a fairly small city (~2 million), and they have about 40 shows running in the theaters. Most of them are in German, so they aren't just for tourists.

While we were out, we passed 2 different festivals with live music and tents set up downtown. Soooo, my first evening out in Austria and where should we eat? Weinerschniztel und apfelstreudel? No. Not this team. We went to Ribs of Vienna (not my idea, but it was delicious!) I got amazing hunks of grilled meat on a shishkebab resting on roasted potatoes on a wooden cutting board. The others got ribs. They bring you ONE METER of ribs for only 13 euros. Bargain. On the streets, vendors sell 1 meter sausages. The only food product we have at home sold like this is Fruit by the Foot. Come on, America!

Notes from Today - Hello from the Vienna Woods

I'm writing this post from a dark wooden desk in a 4-bedroom house on the north side of the city near the forest. Its previous residents must have just departed because tomatoes in the fridge haven't gone bad yet. The only downside is that the cleaning crew hasn't been here! So, this post is brought to you by Jeremy's request and because my sheets aren't dry.

The washing machine sounds like a wailing UFO that might levitate this house. It is marked with unusual settings - Pflegeleicht? Intensiv Fecken? Schleudern 1200, 1000, 800 or 600? Extraspulen? Knitterschutz? I have no idea what these mean and just pretended I was choosing the answer to a multiple choice question. The dryer spins liquid out of the laundry that collects in a reservoir. You have to empty the little container before starting another load!

So, guess who was an hour early for work this morning! Apparently, Austria has daylight savings time, too! This means Texas and Austria are 7 time zones apart, not 8. The security guards thought I was casing the joint because I walked by at 8:45 to see where to go, 9:00 to get in and then again at 10:00.

My supervisor had to escort me around until a badge could be made. It's blue. Why hasn't anyone declared "Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!" all day? We picked up keys to this house and the apartment I can move into Tuesday. The other interns seem fun.

The rash I noticed last night still hasn't gone away. The pharmacist said it was an allergic reaction. But to what?? Austria? One of my favorite sentences in German - Haben Sie eine Salbe gegend Windelausschlag? (Do you have an ointment for diaper rash?) - finally paid off big time! This encounter was actually a milestone in conversational German. How did she only ask questions I understood and knew the answer to? Anyway, she told me to go see a dermatologist at the hospital, but that seems a bit "rash" at this point.

Reasons Why So Far Austria is Better than France

(1) Everyone seems to say Guten Morgen to you. Even when you obviously haven't had coffee yet.

(2) They sell seedless grapes.

(3) The streets are not laden with dog poo.

(4) Blonde hair is common. People are regularly sized. I look normal here, not like a Nordic Giantess. This NEVER happened in France.

(5) Cars stop for pedestrians.

Gute Reise?

This is a story I’ve been dying to write all day.

All the odds and ends were tied up – well the most important ones anyway like buying packages of Texas Pecan Coffee – and I’d had a few weeks to see dear family and friends, so nothing was left standing between me and Austria. I finished moving out of the RV and agonizing over what work clothes to bring. Dad dropped me off with a giant hug and a monstrously heavy blue suitcase. It weighs exactly 24 kg (laden with books, not shoes). Getting on the plane, I felt like I was leaving a small and rational place for one that is huge and old.

Plane neighbor in seat 29B: man from South America. He reminded me of a mountain in the Andes. Not Andes like the cute chocolate mints. Andes like huge and with an expansionist nature and I HATE being jostled. He began with his elbows on the armrest. I couldn’t contend for that ground. No matter how hard I tried to keep my right shoulder far away, his kept coming closer. Then, he outstretched his leg in front of my seat! I was determined not to cede any of my 20 inches of territory, so I firmly planted my foot and began reclaiming the ground. For some reason, Andes also snorted frequently and ordered the vegetarian entree. The lady in 29C wore a hairnet, drank 4 glasses of Malbec and never stopped chatting with the man in 29D. What about the individual video screens? Aren’t those meant to deter Talkie VonChattersons?

I read for a bit, and the movie choices weren’t great, so mostly I sat with my eyes closed, quelling the urge to accidentally elbow Andes in my “sleep.” The in-flight magazine discussed transferring at Heathrow from the infamous Terminal 5 to the horrid Terminal 3. They recommend allowing for a 2 hour transfer time, which was worrying because my layover was only 2h20min. I should not have been worried about being on time for the plane to Vienna (it was certainly not on time!). Terminal 3 was teeming with British icons that make me happy including: Yo Sushi! Boots, W H Smith and Marks and Spenser.

Got on a smaller Boeing plane that looked aged and had once read “Saudi Arabian Airlines.” It was hardly confidence inspiring, but I zonked out. In my sleep coma, I feel us taxi away from the gate. I hear engine revving several times and open my eyes expecting to see cloud cover. Instead, the view through the window is of the tarmac. We are surrounded by men in neon green vests making large arm gestures. Turns out we blew a valve to the hot air for the AC… The captain says not to worry, and it would be a “Quick Fix.”

That was a lie. We sat on the plane for an hour while engineers looked at the engine, then disembarked. BA gave us a 5 pound voucher to buy grub… but the airport doesn’t sell much for less than 5 quid besides side salads and bagels. The goat cheese wrap I ate had delicious creamy goat cheese, confit of onions, sundried tomato and oak leaves. That’s right. Oak leaves. Apparently they are the new grape leaf? Texas needs to catch on to this, we have loads of those. In fact, the RV has been covered in them for several months. See photo. Then we sat in the lounge 2 hours, nodding in and out of sleep. We boarded another plane, this one bright blue, and sat there another hour before taking off. We were 5 hours late.

As we approached Vienna, the plane looked as if it were about to land in a dark green forest. There was no sign of a city anywhere, only tiny dorfs and patchwork fields. We disembarked in the drizzle. All I could think of was finding a sign with my name on it, riding in a car to an apartment and falling into my future bed. Unfortunately after walking through the doors into the waiting throng, I saw no sign saying “Joost” or anything resembling it. Only ones reading “Siemens” or “Hotel Europa” or “Princess Cruises.” There closest one was Laurent Ukmbmoene. I carefully pulled my suitcases through the crowd, searching for my ride home.

Two hours later, I gave up and decided to find my own way. Half an hour after that, and I was booked in small hotel 8 numbers down from the American Embassy and riding in a taxi driven by a Pole. The booking agent showed me how I might catch a train to the city center, then switch 2 lines on the metro, then open up a detailed map and walk the rest of the way. However, the stairs would have been too impossible to contemplate that option. The cab ride was the first chance I’d had to practice my deutsch sprechen in about 7 years. It was mostly a smattering of German vocab tied together with several French words and interspersed with English words spoken with a German accent. “Monsieur, Konnen Sie mir fahren ummm a Boltzmanngasse? C’est –noo- es ist umm proche in der 9th.” Ach du lieber. “Hotel ja?”He drove me around the city center and pointed out the great gorgeous buildings and carried my luggage in the hotel. While I was trying to tip him, I accidentally smacked him in the head as he reached down to catch a tipping suitcase. AHHH.

The front desk knew immediately who I was. “Fraulein Joost?” Apparently the booking agent had warned him about my pigeon German and what we will refer to as “fatigue”. After re-remembering that room 105 is on the 2nd floor in European hotels, I crammed into the tiny elevator and into my quiet room filled with duvet covers, a flat screen and a fully-stocked mini-bar replete with schokolade, rotwein from Wein, and pretzel sticks with a funny walking pretzel man who is wearing red polka dot shorts, sunglasses and yellow converse sneakers. I wonder where he is going, dressed like that.

Who should I have an email from when I'm finally online but my work supervisor wondering where I am! Apparently the driver got confused about the flight delay. Oh well. We meet tomorrow morning at 10.

laurasinaustria: coming soon

If only I could change the name of the blog to laurasinaustria

My toothpaste and shampoo bottles are nearly empty again so it must be time to leave. [These are undisputedly reliable gauges of travel readiness.]

Wednesday afternoon one of the few British Airways flights that has not been canceled due to the union strike will go from Houston to London... and guess who gets to be on board! Waiting to hear whether or not the flight would depart was a real nail biter-- there's no way I could have afforded to buy another plane ticket that would have me at work by 8am Friday... So, this prayer request was put in the offering plate at church on Sunday and answered Monday when a high court put a ban on strikes and then again on Wednesday when the court lifted the ban, but my flight was still listed. Thanks be to God! The website says it will be operating with "minimal service." Hmmmm. Who wants to go with me? We can bring our own pretzels and cashews and tiny cups.