Graz, Austria half marathon weekend!

It's weekends like this that remind me why I travel and chose to live in other countries. I slept in Saturday morning, then made my way to Sudbanhof train station. The D tram is a few block from my house and goes straight to the station (life here is easy). It is almost ridiculous how easy it is. I miss having a car at times but when I remember how much money I save taking public it is ok. sometimes taking public can be tricky. My tram was late but no worries, Anika was going to buy my train ticket and I could meet her on the platform a few minutes before the train was scheduled to leave. The a small twist was thrown into our schedule, there had been a small crash on one of the tracks and our train wasn't able to leave on those tracks anymore. We now had to take a train to the station in the center of town and go from there. We only had a few minutes to run from one train to the next or then we would have to wait an hour. Needless to say, we made it and everything was just fine.
Graz is a beautiful city. I love all of the red roof tops. A day of shopping and dinner at a Greek restaurant with friends. The race felt good for the most part. I started to lose it a bit around kilometer 16 but managed to still finish under two hours.
I think my favorite part was Champaign on the train ride home! More adventures to come! I love Fall in Vienna!

OKTOBERFEST Munich, Germany 2009

The event has some impressive statistics: 14 giant tents with a total seating capacity of 100,000. It serves 5.5 million litres of potent ‘March beer’ to over 6 million people, more than 600,000 fried chickens and 84 heads of cattle. The annual commercial value of the whole thing is estimated at a minimum of 0.7 billion Euros....


I was lucky enough to spend the 3rd weekend in September (known as Italian weekend) in Munich. Oktoberfest is an even that should be well researched before diving in headfirst. I will definitely be heading back to Munich in 2010 with an Oktoberfest strategy!


This was the year of the unknowns...Showing up without a hotel room...without table reservations and after 11am... Somehow we wheeled and deeled and figured it all out. In truth some of my favorite times in life are the ones not planned, where you simply turn up and fly by the seat of your pants. What isn't there to love about randomness and spur of the moment fun! There is a bizar thrill of not knowing if you have a place to sleep and trying to figure out the best possible scenarios for the evenign at the last minute. I think it stems from my childhood and my family always being the "last minute people" at everything we did. We couldn't get our acts together to even get to church on time...


Be warned though, Oktoberfest beer at around 8% is strong stuff


Opening Times
Oktoberfest 2009: September 19th to October 4th 2009
Most of the tents on the Wiesn open at 10.30 in the morning and shut at 23.00 and some like Käfer, Weinzelt at 01:00. However even there they won't let more people in after 22.30. Beer Serving Hours are from 10am to 10.30pm during the week and from 9am to 10.30pm on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. The fairground rides are open from 10am to 11.30pm (Mondays to Thursdays and Sundays) and from 10am to 12am on Friday and Saturday.


Ein Prosit

Do I really live here?!...

I guess reality hasn't hit me 100%...I actually live here! My apartment is beginning to feel a little more like home each day. I know I don't have everything that I "need", but that will take sometime.

I have learned that moving from the Middle East to Europe can make a teacher poor rather quick. I never really had to think about money when I lived in an oil rich region and worked for a "corporation/business" (in Vienna we call that a school) which paid for my housing and flights, and whose government had 0% tax on my salary (why did I move again?). Not to worry, I have a feeling once my paintings and pictures are on the walls this place will feel a little more like "me".

I still can't seem to get used to "life on the streets" I feel paralyzed whenever someone speaks to me in German. I immediately shut down and think to myself "what did they just say... oh no, I don't speak German."  " Entschuldigung, sprechen sie Englisch." This is where they say " a little" or "nin" ...

I feel quite comfortable on the U-Bahn (Vienna's underground) and the trams and buses. Sometimes I manage to go the wrong way but haven't done that for a while. I should carry a map, but I don't. Walking from place to place is manageable with a good pair of shoes. I am beginning to read restaurant menus and have mastered the art of reading a pizza menu so that is always at the top of the dinner choices.

I don't quite have my weekend places figured out and can't recommend many restaurants.

I guess a new city is like a pair of new shoes...you have to walk around for quite a while until it feels comfortable. So, here is to new faces and new places and figuring it all out. I guess I better buy a new pair of shoes to go with my new city!

Sturm and Conkers!

You might be wondering what Sturm and Conkers are... so was I the first time I heard these words. Here is the story...
It was officially the first day of fall 3 days ago. The leaves have just started changing and falling off the trees. My students started talking about playing a game called "Conkers" and naturally I thought this was the latest kid fad or some kind of toy. One student attempted to explain it to me, but I still didn't understand so I had to Wikapedia the rules.

Around the same time, I started noticing people caring bags of little brown nuts on the tram and metro. I wondered what they were and if people could eat them. They had clearly been collecting them from somewhere, but where? It wasn't until I went for a run in the Prater that is how I picked up on where these nuts could be found. As I ran down the running path, I was lucky enough to dodge these brown speeding bullets (nuts) as they crashed to the ground from the trees above. Americans would probably just call these strange nuts Chestnuts. But these are "special Chestnuts" but suposidly most people collect them to play a game. (ah... the connection)

The game

• A hole is drilled in a large, hard conker using a nail, gimlet, or small screwdriver. A piece of string is threaded through it about 25 cm (10 inches) long (often a shoelace is used). A large knot at one or both ends of the string secures the conker.
• The game is played between two people, each with a conker.
• They take turns striking each others conker until one breaks.
  
  hmmm... not too sure I'll be playing this game, but my 2nd graders sure are crazy about it... I think I'll stick to the Chestnut schnapps that I keep hearing about.
  Sturm is an entirely different story... I kept seeing this word posted in the restaurant and bar windows. Then a few soccer friends came to visit for a few days from Dubai, they discovered Sturm while they were out one day while I was at work.
  Sturm is basically a young wine that is only produced for one month between September and October. It is made from young grapes right after the harvest. The shelf life of Sturm is only a week or two. They don't properly cap the bottles and it goes bad rather quick. It comes in either Rot (red) or Weis (white) and is quite cloudy. This young wine has a very sweet taste similar to champagne. I guess its another reason to be out and about in the fall and is what I'll be drinking until I'm freezing cold and Gluvein (mulled spiced wine) starts to appear in the streets! So for now...bring on the Sturm!