How Not Speaking German Has Helped Me In Austria

After a few days rain Vienna has run into another stretch of beautiful days. After class on Saturday we had a nice lunch in the park on the grass. And in keeping with that motif we went to MuseumsQuartier that night and had a few drinks on the steps of the MuMoK (but not before going to see the new Indiana Jones!). It was quite nice and the fact that it was cheap didn't hurt either. What did hurt was when I hit a security guard in the face with a frisbee.
ya.
We were tossing the disc around while walking out of MQ. As we were passing under the main archway we stopped and waited for someone to come back from the bathroom. I'd say its about 20 feet wide but the catch is there are columns that break up the space. Here we must pause to make clear a crucial fact. When a group of people who like to play frisbee are in possession of a disc, there is no restriction, physical cultural or otherwise, that will stop them from throwing said disc around.
So there we were throwing around in a confined space. It was great. Weaving in and out of columns. Dodging passer-bys, some of whom even got in on the action. There was one passer-by who was not so keen on the game though. Some security guard-esque man had grumbled something at us but not really done much before he just walked away so we continued on. At one point Josh cut behind a pillar so I stepped to the left and threw the disc where he should have been had his path and speed remained consistent. But where he should have been was not where he was. It was where the guard was.
The guard had cut infront of Josh presumably to tell him to stop running around, but I didn't see that. So when I threw the disc to "josh" i really threw it to the security guard, more precisely, to his nose. square in the nose. BAM.
Needless to say he was not thrilled and stormed towards me demanding my Identification. I got that much. Its not hard to understand someone yelling NAME NAME NAME NAME NAME at you, or rather, its german equivalent. But then he went on talking very quickly and very angerly. Matt says he heard something about having to pay, but i missed that. All I could say was excuse me repeatedly and then I finally had to bust out the old standard, I don't speak German. Perhaps my most used German phrase after, a coffee please. He seemed doubtful but eventually the dumb founded look on my face convinced him I was telling the truth. In the end, he just told us to leave. And we did, with haste.
Having learned our lesson we then proceeded to play catch over the Ringstrasse, central Vienna's main traffic artery, on the walk back to the UBahn. I mean we were outside so I don't see how that could have been a problem. I also want to clarify that I was not in the slightest bit drunk.
I'm still a little shocked.

I Need a Haircut!

The title more or less says it all. I got my hair cut the shortest its been since I let a high school teacher buzz my head on a bet (yeah i know it was stupid), but for me that doesn't really mean it was objectively short. I figured I'd could either ride out the semester or get a haircut here if need be. I was leaning towards the former because of my fierce loyalty to Laura (the woman who cuts my hair) but that lean turned into a definitive stance when I saw the hair styles this mystical land had to offer. Most of them are strange combinations of mohawks and mullets and I know, I know, that going abroad is about experiencing new things, but not that. I haven't got much time left here so I'll probably grit my teeth and bear it, but I'm starting to look like my good buddy Ralph so we shall see.


Ralph

Devendra Banhart -- Long Haired Child

i can't put up the music now for some reason or another but i'll try it again later.

Bonjour! Je voudrais ein wasser bitte. Danke.

Upon my return from 4 days in Paris I'm am confronted with a blogger's dilemma. To write a simple summary of the things I did over the course of those days would consume a lot of time and effort for a final result that would not be a particularly engaging read. But I can't just not write about Paris if I hope to continue this blog throughout the rest of my time abroad. There can be no art that doesn't take Paris into account. Quite the conundrum.
So then, the news in brief(ish).

Pianos in the Bathroom: A business associate of my parents recommended that during my visit I find an old friend of hers who rents rooms in her house to weary travelers. The business associate spent two years living in Paris and for those two years rented a room in the very same place. As a place in the middle of the 7th Arr. I expected a pretty big apartment with an extra bedroom. What I found, set back from the street about 30 yards, was a three floor house with a private garden and huge bedrooms for a temporary guests such as my self as well as three long term guests. In some ways it was an exercise in compromise. To get a huge bedroom I had to defend my bed from cats who thought themselves more entitled. To use my big private bathroom, complete with out of tune upright piano, I had to step over a line of ants dutifully working. Overall though it was a fantastic place. The private garden, the central location blocks away from the likes of Musee D'Orsay, and most of all, the incredible hospitality of my host could not be beat.

A Linguistic Reawakening: After about two hours of talking to strangers in Frallemand, or Franzödeutsche if you prefer, my faltering high school french skills came back and I was able conduct almost all cursory interactions exclusively in French. The most emblematic anecdote of my french usage came when I asked an older man for directions in french. He responded in a detailed manner also in french. Then again, in french, what I can only assume was his wife pulled him aside and asked him if he thought I understood. Not only did I understand the directions but I understood her doubt. I could get by fairly well, but nonetheless my french was not good enough to inspire much confidence in my conversational partners.

Tourist Extraordinaire: I hit most of the major sites (the centre Pompidou among my favorite heavy hitters of the trip), at least from the outside, and with the help of some people I know currently studying in Paris, I also saw a few things I'd never seen before. The Marais was one of the new areas we explored and it featured some of the best dressed orthodox jews I've ever seen. They waved good bye to the black suit/white shirt uniform long ago, but I'd expect nothing less of Paris. One of the most effective, not to mention cheap, ways to see a city in my mind is by walking around, and I spent a lot, like a lot a lot, of time wearing down the soles of my shoes. The fact that I'd be out for 14+ hours at a time also didn't hurt.

The Greatest Pizza in the World: Seriously. Its the greatest pizza I've ever had in my life. And I refused to leave Paris with having some again. And for you pizza purist know this, its not run by frenchmen. Its called Pizzaria Positano. The address is 15 Rue des Canettes. The phone number is 01 43 26 01 62. They're closed on sundays. They don't take reservations so be prepared to wait because I, and now you, are not the only people who know how amazing the food is there. Every time my parent and I are in Paris we wander the general neighborhood looking for this restaurant with success coming only after about an hour's delay caused by walking down the wrong street. It is a little tough to find but once I did I made sure to grab a stack of business cards so now I have proof of this place's existence that exists outside my imagination. Victory!

Paris into the Future: I'm thinking of going back and bumming around for a few weeks to a month after I graduate but I suppose that depends on what I end up doing with my life in the ever approaching future. But lets not talk about that quite yet.