Franz And The Gang

Week three in Vienna, Austria in the year of our Lord two thousand and whatever.

Three words best describe these last weeks - Snow, Snow, Snore.

The snore because I have apparently found my new favorite late night activity. To be fair, snore should be extended to include talk, laugh and kick. Snoring actually happens a lot less than the other three, but all of them serve to keep Lindsey awake.

And snow because it has been snowing non-stop for the last 7 days. It's the kind of snow that flies at you sideways - not the happy, soft kind. Also, no matter what direction you are facing in this city, the snow is blowing directly into your eyeballs.

This is our street tonight


We did manage to get down to the Viennese Ice Dream. It is a huge ice skating rink set up in front of the castle-esque Vienna parliament building downtown. Of course, we couldn't bring ourselves to go skating in the 22 degree weather, but at least we got some hot chocolate and a tasty crepe.



Today (Saturday) I woke up, braved the cold, and purchased Lindsey's happiness - a heating pad. Back problems have been a real downer, so having a heating pad has become a real necessity. Also, I brought home some Vanilla donuts... which are awesome. These donuts called "krapfen" have raised the bar in a way that threatens to end my love affair with American donuts.

Have a taste:


Also, we've noticed that we go through a period of America-withdrawal a couple of weeks or so after we get to a new country. Today it came on pretty strong for me. So to nurse myself back to sanity, I took an extra-strength dose of David Allan Coe - king of outlaw country. Whenever I hear the rugged twang of DAC, blue and white start coursing through my veins to match the red of my pure American blood. Just look at his picture. And don't worry, he is as talented as he is beautiful.



But the big event for the day was our visit to the Military History Museum. It is weird to think about, but Austria has been involved a LOT of wars. I always assumed that whenever they were under threat of attack, they just sent Arnold Schwarzenegger to the front line to crack some skulls, flex some thighs, and it was game-over. Apparently I have been living under a complete misapprehension. There is tons of non-Arnold gear at this place. But by far the coolest thing among all the awesome things that the museum houses is the vehicle Archduke Franz Ferdinand was riding in when he and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo back in 1914. Also available for your viewing pleasure is the Archduke's uniform he was wearing when it happened - blood stains and all. It's crazy to think that we saw the actual blood that started World War I.

Check out these babies:


You can check out all the pictures from today by clicking here. I apologize in advance for the quality of the pictures. Our camera is... having troubles.

I'd love to write more, but there's a lot of American cola that I should be drinking right now. We hope you're warm wherever you are, and that you enjoy having your own vehicles to drive to the places that you want to go to, when you want to go to them.

Brett here.

We have survived our first week in Vienna. Here are our initial observations:

1) Austria is not America
2) Euros love wacky haircuts
3) Consuming alcohol in the workplace is expected

This being the second time we've left the country together, we often find ourselves comparing this adventure to the one we had in Jordan. When we do that, we can't believe how much crap we put up with when we were in Jordan.

We got in last Friday night, and Saturday we got some groceries to hold us over for the weekend. It's always interesting to me to see what kind of American food stuffs are lacking in the countries I go to. In Brazil there was no peanut butter. Jordan had mostly everything we wanted, but there were no tortillas. In Austria, there is no mustard. It was pure confusion when I found the red bottles for ketchup, and then quickly grabbed a yellow one next to it... which turned out to be mayonnaise. What kind of deceptive country is this?

Austria quickly redeemed itself with this:


That's right. When I'm out of the country, I only drink American cola.

Today we did find a store that carries things like mustard, pepperidge farms cookies, and the following Scottish Oats:


We went to bed Saturday night about, oh midnight-ish. And were surprised when we woke up the next day and the clock read 17:20. The clock was not wrong. We slept from midnight until 5:00pm the next day. THAT IS 17 HOURS OF SLEEP!

Anyhoo, today we spent some time downtown by all the museums and stuff. This city is so awesome. There is so much cool stuff to see. And there is so much to smell! Specifically, I take a train to work every morning about 7:30am, and it is IN-CREDIBLE how much peoples' breath reeks of alchohol at that time. They have truly mastered the art of substance abuse.

Slowly but surely our bodies have been getting used to the time difference. It seems like it has been a lot harder for me this time than the last. Lindsey doesn't have "regular" work hours so she can just kind of do whatever she wants to as far as sleeping goes. I myself don't have that flexible of a schedule. I'll sleep about 4 hours and then go into work pretending that I don't feel like someone has been punching me in the face all night. But I think I'm over that now - hopefully.

So we're settled in and ready for the next six months. Probably the best decision we made as far as being equipped for the long haul was bringing our imac along.



I'm not one of those "I love my apple so much, I wanna give it ikisses" kind of people. But it does have a nice big screen, with lots of our movies stored on it, and it was surprisingly easy to travel with.

Something else that will make life easier is the fact that we found a Mexican restaurant that is actually pretty good (better than the one in Tel Aviv anyway). And the owners speak perfect English. Swish!



So here is the first blog of our Austrian adventures. Feel free to leave comments even if you are technically "only Lindsey's friend." She contributed to this one, and reads the comments. Don't be stingy. You can see more photo's from today's adventures here

Also this: