Heuriger (wine tavern) and Getting Settled

Wine Tavern and Weekend

On Friday we went to a Heuriger where we were able to drink some of the wine that is made right here in Vienna. We were supposed to go on a 30-minute journey through the hills before going there… but we ended up walking for about 2+ hours. Seriously. Even today (Monday) they made a joke about “the people who survived that trek.”
It was definitely worthwhile though. Since we were able to climb up some stairs into a lookout at the top of a hill which allowed me to take ^that^ picture. It was awesome. I might even have to get a copy of it printed so that Lukas (guy whose room I’m renting) can add it to the awesome collection of pictures that he has on the walls.

After the wine, I went out with some of the people in the course. We went into a club that was underneath an intersection (?). It was interesting, but it was a cool place. As soon as I got there, some guy I started a random conversation with said that he owned the place and he handed me a vodka & Redbull.
Was he legit? Did he really own the place? I don’t know. I got my free drink and no one complained. So that’s that. (p.s. yes, I saw the bartender make the drink, and there wasn’t any shady code word or anything when he placed the order, so don’t dial up Liam Neeson after reading that)

Over the weekend I was mostly at home but I did get out on Saturday to walk around the city with Blanka (Hungary) and Adriana (my fellow beaner/Mexican). We went to the Mexikokirche (again) and then walked around the area.

Let’s just say that once my German gets decent I will likely be spending some time in this neighborhood. The pictures that I took don’t do any justice to the bar/restaurants that are located by the Danube [River] where we were. If you’re in KC, try to picture the atmosphere of Westport, with nice outdoor restaurants like the Plaza but next to a river that doesn’t stink. And these were directly next to the river. There were some people drinking a beer with their feet by the water. It’s so “next-to-the-river” that at one point you can even cross the bridge into less-nice-looking places (I don’t mean “more ghetto” I simply mean “less cool”).
[Sidenote: Damn. That wikipedia link to the plaza in KC has some sweet pictures]

Anyway, that was my first impression of these restaurant/bars. I will have to let you know more the next time I go when I actually spend some time there. If it is as cool as it seemed, I will definitely have to take people who come visit. (Update: I found out this place is called Donauinsel, and it seems legit. Go to the German Wikipedia for more pictures.)

Settling In

Things I finally bought:
–some running shoes (after a week of saying I would). Those bad boys cost me €13 (aka $17), which was fantastic. The place where I got them had a lot of other cheap stuff but they don’t look super cheap, so we’ll have to see how long they last.
– a new plug for my cell phone, so I am officially retiring my U.S. wall plug for an indefinite amount of time.
– a beard trimmer for €13.99 (because they also do that .99-pricing crap here, although they don’t add anything after that)
– a “Vorteilscard”  for one year at ÖBB (Österreichischen Bundesbahnen – Austrian Federal Railways) which gives me a 45-50% discount on any train ticket I buy to travel around Austria. I will definitely be using this to get away (as if I even needed to get away from Vienna).

Last on the update list is the National Library that we went to. It was a pretty cool place, but I got a bit tired of walking around it after a bit (as with any museum). One of my favorite things on there besides the video with images from WWI was this map that someone made which made a character out of all the countries involved. Their characterizations are pretty funny to me, so I took a picture, but you can’t really read too much of what it says. I love how the Spaniards are showing drinking and watching everything happen while the Italian guy says “You made me love you, but I didn’t want to”.

Quick Observations
–OMG Dat Weather – For real. That weather. It has been da bomb. If we’re talking Fahrenheit, it’s been between 75-85 during the days. But then at night it drops to high 60s/lower 70s (I’ve pretty much had my window open 24/7). Every morning when I get out of the apartment, it says the weather is close to mid-80s and I fear for my life. But then I walk outside and I’m like “Damn. That’s actually really nice.”
The down side of this is that I’ve realized that my body still considers sweating a full time hobby.
O well, at least it’s nice out. Hopefully my body just needs to acclimate to good weather after those brutal KS summers.
–Food: I’m finally back [attempting] cooking. My first attempt at Wiener Schnitzel can be seen here->
It was pretty alright, but I will have to master this as well as some Mexican dishes. No promises on how far I will get if I attempt some KC-style BBQ.

“Chales!“
He dicho esta palabra chorromil veces desde que llegué. La Mexicana y yo nos hemos pasado hablando español y ella me enseñó esta canción, que le hace burla a esta canción. Probablemente es super vieja en México pero yo no la conocía, y ahora que la escuché me acordé que “Chale” no tiene nada que ver con “Chales” porque “Chales” es 10,000,000 veces más chistoso. También me acordé de esto porque las españolas siempre dicen “subir para arriba” lo cual nos da gracia a los de las Américas.

Bueno, pues ¿qué más decir? Estoy seguro de que mi madre y mi hermano estarían muy sorprendidos de que puedo cocinar más o menos bien cuando lo intento. Pero la verdad es que en la casa nunca lo intentaba. Ahí les tendré que mandar fotos de algunos de mis intentos (como los schnitzel de ^ahí^ arriba).
Y a mi hermano le tendré que seguir mandando fotos de Kebabs para que se ponga bien celoso 😀

Ahora si ya no se qué más decir, y estoy medio forzando este artículo para poder ya cambiar de tema en vez de tener que acordarme del Heuriger y todo eso hasta que escriba sobre ello.

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Basta di Pasta!
Beh, se hai letto la parte in inglese di questo post, hai visto che ho cominciato a cucinare… ma da dire la verità non avevo cucinato niente di buono fino ad oggi. Poiché il ragazzo cui stanza sto affittando ha lasciato molta pasta, questo è tutto che ho mangiato per alcuni giorni. Certo, non ho mangiato pasta OGNI giorno perché l’accademia ci ha dato cibo alcune volte, ma per non essere al verde avevo deciso finire il cibo che resta prima di comprare più e quello vuol dire: pasta pasta e ancora pasta.

Come ho detto nella parte in spagnolo, non so su che altre cose scrivere e sto forzando questo articolo solamente per parlare su alcune cose prima di dimenticarle.
Ma posso dire questo: se stai leggendo questa parte in Italiano, sei fortunato perché questa probabilmente sarà la lingua che uso per dire cose più segrete. Adoro scrivere in inglese e probabilmente quella parte sarà più eloquente, e la sezione in spagnolo sarà sicuramente letta per la mia famiglia. Ma l’italiano non è una lingua troppo comune, e non voglio dimenticarla allora che sto imparando tedesco; quindi non ho tante persone per cui devo scrivere in italiano ed ho più libertà di dire quelle cose che voglia praticare e che non voglia scrivere per tante persone. Insomma, spero che questo che scriva in italiano sia divertente, particolarmente perché questa è diventata un po’ la mia lingua personale (anche se l’inglese sarà sempre la mia lingua più potente).