loose lips sink ships

hello, stranger, it's been a while.

i've been going from museums to classes to bars. i've been trying to learn german and took up a cooking class, which is an adventure all its own. i've gotten used to the subway being my main form of transportation. i've drank more wine and eaten more cheese in the past four weeks than i have in the past year. i washed my hair the other day. i sewed a button back onto my peacoat. the european keyboard is still a mystery to me. all time low sold out before i got tickets. i still haven't figured out how to work the laundry room, pay my cell phone bill, or get 8 hours of sleep a night, but that's what tomorrow's for.

i went to the 'power up' female pop art exhibit at the kunsthalle museum and loved it. i know, i know, more pop culture, but i think it's beautiful. it's full of energy, colour, and freedom. even the way it's set up in the room brightens everything up. it's what i want hanging on my walls someday. i fell in love with kiki kogelnik's art. rosalyn drexler was also really good. i wish i brought art supplies out here.

we're still playing tourists (and probably will be till june), and since mozart used to live in vienna, we went to go see one of his flats. the apartment he actually lived in that was turned into the museum is in the first district but there's no documentation of what it exactly looked like while he was there. it was all just guesstimation. kind of disappointing. i didn't know he had such a gambling problem, other than that i didn't get much out of it. except some mozartkuglen.

"what cannot be said in our day is sung"

the nash market is the most popular outdoor market in vienna, so we went there to get some falafels, veggies, and cheese. it's definitely tourist geared but it was nice to see.

i've been spending my nights in different bars and clubs in the city. there was an international party the other weekend, and we had a big get together last night. we stayed out till sunrise and it reminded me of the mornings back home where we start the driving back home as the sun's rising. it's the only time i ever see the sunrise, but i'm okay with that.

on a whim, i signed up for a cooking class here. it's at a tourism/hospitality school, so everyone pretty much knows what they're doing...and then there's the group of six exchange students. while most people are making real food, i chopp vegetables and made a chocolate mousse which was quickly dubbed a chocolate mess. it was intimidating at first, because lets be real we all know my cooking skills have yet to make it past ramen and sandwiches. i had to buy a chefs jacket and apron, so if nothing else, it looks like i know what i'm doing.

so far i've only had classes two or three times a week, but in may it'll definitely pick up. i have a pr class that has been kicking my butt, but besides that i only have german. i start a media and society class this week, and then finish up the pr class within the next two weeks. i have to pass my classes here with a c or higher to get credit at hpu, so hopefully that won't be too hard.

i've gotten extremely comfortable here and i love it. according to studies, i'm currently in the "honeymoon" phase of my study abroad experience. i think that's bologna and the whole trip is going to be amazing, not because of what "stage" i'm in but because i'm doing something different again. i was starting to grew a little restless on the small island of oahu, and this is the perfect change.

i go to bed absolutely exhausted here pretty much every night, because the days here are always spent doing something, whether it's attending classes, sight-seeing, or just walking around enjoying the city. i think it goes without saying that the vienna nights aren't half bad either.

i'm starting to fall asleep, it's time to catch up on the sleep i didn't get this weekend. guten nacht, world.

ps. saw an hpu ad up at the school, small world

slow down, you crazy child

i rarely post songs, but this one is absolutely amazing.
please take the time to listen to it, and take a few extra minutes to let the lyrics sink in :]


vienna waits for you; billy joel
http://www.4shared.com/audio/d-EX8ApU/billy_joel_-_vienna_waits_for_.htm

Slow down, you crazy child 

you're so ambitious for a juvenile 

But then if you're so smart, tell me 

Why are you still so afraid? 

Where's the fire, what's the hurry about? 

You'd better cool it off before you burn it out 

You've got so much to do and 

Only so many hours in a day 

But you know that when the truth is told.. 

That you can get what you want or you get old 

You're gonna kick off before you even 

Get halfway through 

When will you realize, Vienna waits for you? 

Slow down, you're doing fine 

You can't be everything you want to be 

Before your time 

Although it's so romantic on the borderline tonight 

Tonight...

Too bad but it's the life you lead 

you're so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need 

Though you can see when you're wrong, you know 

You can't always see when you're right. you're right 

You've got your passion, you've got your pride 

but don't you know that only fools are satisfied? 

Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true 

When will you realize, Vienna waits for you? 

Slow down, you crazy child 

and take the phone off the hook and disappear for awhile 

it's all right, you can afford to lose a day or two 

When will you realize,..Vienna waits for you?

And you know that when the truth is told 

that you can get what you want or you can just get old 

You're gonna kick off before you even get half through 

Why don't you realize,. Vienna waits for you 

When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

i'm not saying anything you haven't heard before

my itunes library is my connection to home - interchangeable between vegas and hawaii. so it's strange that as much as i love music, i can't focus on anything else while i'm listening to it. i've always had to do homework, read, and write in silence. i can't do homework or read with music because i listen to the lyrics instead of focusing and i can't write because most artists express what i'm thinking so perfectly, i can't figure out how to put it into my own words.

a couple of years ago i started carrying a journal with me everywhere i went so that i could jot down thoughts during the day and expand on them later in the evening, when i had time to focus. of course, among the pages was also a plethora of to-do lists, lyrics, inspirational quotes, recommended books, and doodles. i've been doing the same here, and i've recently been fascinated with two quotes i found in the albertina museum, the first being:

"maybe this is what life is: a dream and a fear"

-alfred kubin

it's a very simple statement and at first i didn't think it required a second glance, let alone an analyzation. it was broad and while i did like it, i didn't really get anything out of it. as i walked on and saw alfred kubin's works, i was drawn back to his biography and this statement. he was an expressionist, an occasional writer, and was a part of 'der blaue reiter', or the blue riders. his art isn't filled with colours and life, which is what i prefer. his work is grey, black, and brown. on the walls of the room hung images of skeletons, morbid nudity, suffering, and fear.

this brought me back to another quote i read earlier in the exhibit, one i also liked but didn't really connect to anything of significance:

"art does not reproduce the visible,

rather, it makes visible."

-paul klee

klee was also involved with the blue riders and work was more abstract, containing more colour and life than kubin's.

when i first read this quote, i associated it with nature and the beauty that is often not seen until one looks at a stunning photograph or a well-done painting. however, after the two artists clashed in my mind, i was reminded that beautiful art is not always nature. in fact, i find nature art extremely boring, so i'm not sure why i connected those two in the first place.

klee's quote helped make the "fear" part of life visible for me. up until this point, i've been living based on the dream rather than the fear. i hope i never let fear guide my life, but without it, our dreams wouldn't be dreams. it's important to be reminded that we are fragile creatures, we are breakable, but this fear can't control our lives.

i think a large part of our generation is no longer chasing their own dreams, but the dreams of someone else. think about what you're striving for right now, what are you trying to achieve? is it really what you want, or is it what your parents want for you? what is your goal? is it your goal, or is it what your friends say you should do? will it bring you genuine happiness, or are you blindly following in the direction society is telling you to go in?

then again, i'm not sure if i like the word 'dream'. it makes it seem extravagant and out of reach, but a dream house doesn't have to be massive, your dream job doesn't have to pay well. a dream vacation can be to a third world country and your dream car can be a bicycle. as long as it's what you want, and it will make you happy. that should be enough, and i think at some point, we all forget that.

my parents have been dragging me around famous art museums for the past 10 years and unfortunately, i'm just now starting to understand art. i've learned that art is much more than the painting on the wall. it's the thought process (or lack thereof) behind it. it's the time period, the location, the way the artist danced around the canvas, or perhaps the way he sat in front of it for hours on end, perfecting every stroke.

it's a form of expression. sometimes it's inspiration. it can be a reminder. it's an opportunity for thoughts, discussions, questions. but sometimes it's not inspiring, it's not thought provoking, it doesn't stir up a discussion and no questions arise. and that's okay too, because art is also for the individual artist, not just for the audience. it's okay if you don't get anything out of it, it's okay if you think it's ugly and your little brother could do better. the artist got something out of it, and at some point, someone will stand (or has stood) in front of that piece of art and it changed them.

hello there, how ya doin',

i've got all these thoughts just floating in my brain

they bump and they collide

and cause a flurry of confusion and it's getting on my nerves

-where i belong, motion city soundtrack

self observation, alfred kubin

free fallin'

I've been getting more and more acquainted with the city, and it's absolutely beautiful. I think it's safe to say I'm going to be completely broke by the time this semester is over, but hopefully Smashburger will take me back ;] haha.

We had a traditional Austrian dinner on Thursday night at Brandauer's Bierbogen and of course I had schnitzel and loved it, a lot of people had ribs because apparently that's also a very popular/common dish here - go figure. It's also one of the few dishes where it's completely acceptable to get a to go "box". Here they're not boxes, they just wrap your food in tin foil and you carry it home. I was a little surprised when that first happened but hey, when in Vienna...

We woke up early to go to Schonbrunn, the former summer residence of the imperial family. It was massive, absolutely beautiful. It made me wish I really had married a prince like I planned to do when I was 5. The family had a zoo in their "backyard", which is still open and there's pandas there, but we didn't go.

The exchange students are still all new and we tend to travel in a pack of about 30, and went to PraterDome on Friday night, an amazingly large club. People started to leave around 2 but when I went back upstairs to find the rest of the group, I got lost and was walking around through different rooms and hallways and bars for a solid 10 minutes before I decided it was a lost cause and I ended up going home too, probably a good thing. I kept it classy and fell asleep on the subway and woke up to a completely empty car sitting still at the end of the route, that was a surprise. Thankfully I was only three stops away and the subway runs all night on the weekends, so I just hopped on the other one and made it home. :] Success! The nightlife here is great though, a lot of dancing that I'm actually starting to enjoy, strangely enough.

Most of us spent today walking around Vienna, seeing the city center. We went about halfway up one of the towers of St. Stephan's Cathedral, 343 stairs to be exact. The view was amazing, but I feel really bad for whoever had to walk up those stairs on a regular basis.

I also got my school schedule and it's rather strange. I'm taking five courses here which is technically half a semester here, so I have a lot of free time, beautiful! Not all classes last all semester, there are some that only last a few weeks. I plan on heading to Spain for the first week of March because I have a week of no classes, and then going to Czech to visit my grandparents. Lots of traveling :]

I think coming here was one of the best decisions I could've made. I'm so thankful that I'm here with the people I'm here with. Everyone is so open and willing to try new things, I love it. I'm sure it will dissolve into smaller groups as the semester goes on, but we're all growing close extremely fast and I think that bond will last all semester.

My roommate just made me pasta, and it smells delicious. Dinnaaaa time, ciao!

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost

we'll live where we smile most

the past few days i've been getting settled in my dorm (which i actually really like), getting to know the other exchange students (who i also really like) and getting used to drinking tap water (which i'm trying to like). i'm really happy here, and i'm happy i came alone because i've been forced to meet new people and create friendships so quickly, although i was terrified at first because it seemed as if a lot of people were coming with friends from back home, but it's not really the case.

i went grocery shopping on saturday and got bread, grapes, wine, vodka, and orange soda. i was graced with a large nutella from the family we stayed with for a few nights and i'm completely content. you can't go wrong with nutella lets be real.

there's about 40/50 foreign exchange students this semester, and it's a really diverse group: china, south korea, finland, holland, lithuania, france, argentina, portugal, czech republic, slovakia, and of course, canada. there's two of us from the USA, and of course i've been representing us well. jaws hit the ground when i drank wine straight from the bottle on our way out, and i was practically laughed out of the room when i said i wanted to wear sweatpants to school. i was told it's "extremely american" and unacceptable here, which  might be a problem later in the semester.

most grocery stores, malls, restaurants, cafes, bookstores, etc are closed on sundays, so a group of us spent the day walking around the city center and trying to familiarize ourselves with the surroundings. i've learned i have a terrible sense of direction and it's probably a good thing i'm never in charge of leading us to the subway. i have yet to successfully figure out where and in what direction to transfer when we travel. if i was on my own, i'd probably be halfway to russia by now.

the city is beautiful, i went to the albertina art museum where kandinsky, klee, and lichtenstein (among others) were being featured. it's amazing to see the art when you have some knowledge of the artists, and unfortunately i only knew a couple, so i got through the exhibits rather quickly. i realized i enjoy art museums, but only for the first hour or two, and i really only appreciate the first couple of rooms. of course i liked lichtenstein's works the most, and i was quickly reminded that i'm a pop culture child, but i'm okay with that.

i spent my saturday night going from a bar called dick macs to waxy murphy. so far, drinks have been fairly cheap but i'm not used to how much people smoke here, all the bars and pubs are extremely smokey because of it.

monday we had a campus tour, and i really like the school. it's a nice change from HPU because all of the classes are in one building and it's extremely modern. i believe it was built three years ago, but i'm not positive...and i'm really too lazy to look it up.

i ate pizza with a fork and a knife for the first time, and i found it time consuming and strange but people here have incredible manners. i already know i'm going to be the token american who doesn't know how to properly use utensils or hold a wine glass...story of my life.

it's just before midnight and i'm absolutely exhausted. due to a long night and my amazing dancing ability, i managed to lose my keys last night and haven't gotten new ones yet. i'm going to the office tomorrow but i can't really leave my room tonight, and it's probably better. last night i got practically no sleep and ate too much salami.

from 830 am to 530 pm today we had one big austrian culture lecture, and although we got delicious snacks (little breads and sachertorte) i was more than ready for bed afterwards, but first we had a waltz lesson. anyone that knows me knows i am not a graceful dancer and don't know what a beat is, let alone how to keep one. so it was really great when the dance instructor personally showed me (in front of everyone) how to add the quarter turn to the box step. it was also great how the entire time i was dancing i had to chant out loud "left right close, right left close, left right close..." and even better when my dance partner and i knocked into just about everyone while trying to put the moves together. we more or less got it in the end though, and it was a lot of fun. i think the sparkling wine helped though.

at first my sarcasm didn't translate very well, especially since the majority of the students are not native english speakers and came here to improve their english as well as their german. i'm so happy i speak fluent english, but i do feel ignorant when i walk into a store/museum/office and i can't say anything in german. german class starts tomorrw though (630 pm to 945 pm..what?) and hopefully that'll help me. but as everyone's english is improving extremely quickly, i think everyone's understanding my humour a little more now. there's a group of people here from the czech republic and slovakia, so i'm speaking czech with them to brush up, and hopefully lose a little bit of that gnarly american accent i've acquired.

i'm starting to doze off, so i'll take that as a sign that i need to get into bed. sweet dreams, world. :]


'cause we can live anywhere
yes we can live anywhere
pack your things up, come on let's go
didn't you know that we own this world
we can live anywhere
-big d and the kids table, we can live anywhere

things have changed for me

i can honestly say up until now, i've never had to worry about translating webpages from german to english or worrying about ordering lunch at a restaurant because the server might not understand me. it's been a while since i've had to start over and move into a new place. it's been a while since i've lived in a room and not had my walls covered in posters, drumsticks, and concert tickets. it's also been a while since i've been thankful for itunes radio, the truly kind people in the world, and the fact that my parents are open to new ideas and situations.

until tonight, i've never sat in a room with a group of students and been the only one who speaks "native" english. when was the last time you sat with people your age and not a single one of them knew who brand new, taking back sunday, death cab for cutie or lil wayne was? but at the same time, when was the last time you sat next to someone who knows dj tiesto because they're both dutch and come from such a small place? ...and when was the last time youtube didn't let you watch a video because "it contains content from _________, who has blocked it from your country on copyright grounds?" :/

tonight's my first night staying in my dorm (finally!) and it's strange because my dad's still here, about a 20 minute car ride away, but i'm still starting to finally feel the "study abroad" independence, although i did take full advantage of the fact that my dad's friends forced their son to run errands with me today. trust me when i say he was 100% my translator when i got my public transit pass, bank account, cell phone, and country registration. also trust me when i say i actually did very little to understand what anyone was actually saying to me because he was there to save the day.

marijuana cards don't exist here. food is ridiculously expensive. most people don't own more than one or two really warm winter jackets. i have nothing to put on my walls or in my shelves. the subway system here is absolutely amazing. mcdonalds serves sour cream sauce with chicken mcnuggets. there's an amazing music store just steps outside of my dorm (think guitar center, mac, and best buy rolled into one). i couldn't unlock my door tonight. my electric toothbrush doesn't charge here, even with an adapter and a converter. i visited hard rock cafe in prague, and i can say i've become one of those weird obsessed-with-visiting-hard-rocks-all-over-the-world people. breakfasts here are absolutely amazing. i finally visited my school, and it's such a nice change from HPU. 

although i think i stick out like a sore thumb (where did that saying even come from?), i'm happy i'm here with the people i'm here with right now, because we're all here to try something new, experience different cultures, and learn a little bit more about ourselves in the process. i don't have any expectations because it's impossible for me to have any right now, and i think that's what makes it so beautiful. i have lived my day one day at a time up until now and i don't plan to stop. i mean obviously i want to travel, and i have certain cities i want to see while i'm here, but i think they'll all fall into my schedule accordingly. amsterdam, ireland, paris...we're coming for you, prepare yourself.

"all journeys have secret destinations of which the travel is unaware." -martin buber

classical music and coffee

I don’t have much to complain about, I mean sure I’m still waking up at ungodly hours and the whole learning German thing is probably going to be a little harder than I thought, but that's just small potatoes. Well, and the fact that I have to use an adapter and converter to charge my toothbrush. But I refuse to convert to a standard, non-electric toothbrush. No sir, I just can’t do it.

I arrived in Vienna yesterday, after a few days in Marienbad and Prague. Both were beautiful, although I spent most of the Marienbad trip sick in bed, sleeping during the day and wandering around the house during the night. Prague is always beautiful, and it was good to see my grandma, cousins, uncle, etc again. I have to applaud anyone and everyone that lives with their extended family, mostly grandparents, because there’s not a chance I could do it (Sorry to my cousins if you stumbled upon this blog). I love my grandma dearly, don’t get me wrong, but when she started to wrap half her dinner in a napkin so she could shove it in her purse and take it ‘to-go’, my dad and I nearly lost it. She still doesn’t believe that restaurants offer to-go boxes.

My grandma, being the amazing woman that she is, got us two concert tickets for Saturday night. I know, I know, what grandma goes to a concert? Well, when it’s a classical music concert, lots of grandmas do. And grandpas. And old people in general. Oh, and me.

I’d never been to a classical music concert before, and it sounded like something a very classy and sophisticated person would do (it took me three tries to spell sophisticated, even the computer knows I’m a phony), so I told my grandma I’d go with her. Although I did feel very classy using the coat check, I quickly felt un-classy when I realized everyone was in floor length evening gowns and I was kickin’ it in black boots and leggings. And again, I felt fancy shmancy when we sat in the fourth row, and then not so fancy shmancy when I fell asleep five minutes into it and the instrumentalists could clearly see me from the stage. Sorry, grandma! Regardless, it was an experience and I now know classical music puts me to sleep.

I don’t have an alarm clock with me, and I’ve never been one to wear a watch, so I have no clue what time it is here. I’ve found a solution for the time being: I’ve been googling the current time. 8:36 am.

I’ve also realized people here drink a lot more wine than I’m used to. And coffee. And tea. Not so much water. The wine and tea I’ve gotten used to, the coffee I’m still working on. I’m hoping that acquired taste will come with time. But I’m still not sure what I’m going to do about the beer.

I’m moving into my dorm today, and I’m really looking forward to it. I’m glad my dad’s here to help me get a cell phone, bank account, speak German for me, etc, but I’m looking forward to meeting my classmates/roommates/people my age.

I really have to pee, but it’s freezing cold and I don’t want to get out of bed. Tough life, huh?

What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do - especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.

-William Least Heat Moon, Blue Highways