End of the Semester

As I sit here crossing things off of my rapidly shortening to-do list, I still am amazed that my first semester is already finished and it's time for summer.  I felt like I should do an end of the semester reflection type post to put some sort of bookend on these 4 plus months before I head home in a few days.  

Much like the first year or two I was in New York, parts of living here still seem so surreal.  I often find myself walking down the street or riding the u-bahn and stopping myself for a minute to realize that yes, I do actually live in Vienna, and all those years of thinking about perhaps maybe one day being able to live somewhere like this...it's here now...and that's amazing.  The past year and a half or so has taught me especially to live in the seasons you are in, and try to fully appreciate each one.  In early November 2010, just after Marcus died, I left a comment on a blog that several of my friends read...on a post about gray vs. colors, and embracing both as they come.  When I moved to Vienna, a very good (and wise) friend sent back to me those words I wrote at the time:
    

"13 days ago one of my best friends was killed in a bike accident. Six of us had all moved to NYC about the same time several years ago, and have formed an amazing family here together. So now, as the 5 of us try to figure out where to go from here and what life will be like now, I am taking a cue from the cold rainy weather today and just enjoying the beauty of the gray. Life sucks right now. I know it won't always be that way, and colors will find their place again, perhaps in slightly different shades, but they will return."

And yes, 16 months later as I was leaving New York, colors had returned, in very different shades, but they did return.  And now this Vienna adventure has brought on entirely new palettes of colors, and I am constantly amazed at how blessed I feel to be able to experience it all.  

When I was packing up and leaving home in February, I'm not really sure I had any idea what I was getting into, but I was definitely excited for the opportunity that had been placed in front of me.  And looking back now, it was one of the smoothest transitions I've ever had.  Going back to school wasn't as scary as I thought, living alone is totally doable, pulling German from the deep recesses of my brain is still a work in progress...but i'm doing it.  I learned to do laundry on unfamiliar machines with tons of settings without ruining my clothes, grocery shopping no longer takes me a ridiculously long time, and I can easily buy train tickets and be in another country in a matter of hours!

To my friends and family at home - I'm not sure I'll ever be able to convey to you appropriately what your complete love and support meant to me through this time.  I'm amazingly lucky to have a support system who's response to "I think I'm going to go to grad school in Europe" was never to try to talk me out of it, but was nothing but encouragement (at least to my face :)).  Your emails and letters and facetiming/skyping at odd times have been invaluable, and I am so excited to get to spend this summer with many of you.

To my Vienna friends - this semester certainly would not have been the same without all of you, and I'm so thankful for everything from weekend trips to low key dinners to nights enjoying wine and the beauty of the city...and of course group projects and long days at school...and all the countless ways my cultural knowledge/appreciation is being expanded constantly...I hope all of you have restful summers, and I'll see you in September!

I'm still going to blog some while I'm home over the summer...how much exactly is yet to be determined, but I am really enjoying having this written record of things and there are a few things at home that I'd probably like to have properly written down somewhere.  

Tschüss!    

Adventures in Baking

A couple days ago several of us were sitting in the park enjoying some afternoon sunshine, when my friends Jelena and Antonia asked me if I knew how to make cupcakes.  I said yes, of course, and they suggested we attempt to make some...I admitted that normally the extent of my cupcake baking is dumping a box of mix into a bowl and adding some eggs and oil and throwing it in the oven, but since boxed cake mixes don't really exist here, we decided we'd try to make them totally from scratch.  Since I don't have a very big kitchen (and no oven) I was just happy to be able to cook something slightly more complicated than my normal 4 ingredient dinners.  So yesterday the three of us met up at Antonia's apartment to make our cupcakes.  But first...some amazing homemade Croatian and Greek food for lunch...yum.

Jelena found these at the store!  When we were in Slovakia sitting around the fire I was talking about how this would be the perfect time for some s'mores, which of course is a very American thing...so they all thought I was nuts, but hopefully I can bring back some graham crackers (which are nowhere to be found here) at the end of the summer and I can make them all try some.  

Now on to actual cupcake baking!  Most of our ingredients...

The recipe...which I then tried my best to convert into European measures...which was a bit tricky. 

Measuring out things on the pumpkin scale

Mixing the butter and sugar...definitely called for more sugar than any desserts here...

Measuring out dry ingredients and trying to be as exact as possible with the faint lines on the side of the measuring cup.

We have batter! Success!

Filling the cupcake tins

And they baked!...and smelled amazing!  We were pretty excited at this point...

Perhaps not the prettiest cupcakes ever...but nothing a little frosting won't fix.

We couldn't find vanilla extract for the frosting, so we used this powdered vanilla from Greece...and it worked quite well

Our colored batches of frosting in the fridge.  The past few days have been really hot here, and nobody has air conditioning or anything, so all of our apartments are quite warm, and the frosting was a bit soft...but it worked.

Getting creative with our decorations

Our finished cupcakes!  Thankfully we had an end of the semester party to take them to last night so we weren't stuck with tons of cupcakes...

We did it!  They turned out really well! Rich chocolatey and sugary and I think everyone enjoyed them!

Wind Park Excursion

Yesterday a group of us from school were able to go on a little excursion out of Vienna to get a tour of a wind energy park.  It was also one of the hottest days we've had so far this year, so we tried as best we could to stay hydrated and not melt in the 90 plus degree heat and bright sunshine.  We took the train out to Deutsch Wagram, which is just east of Vienna in Lower Austria.  From there we had about a 30 minute walk outside the town and through some fields to the actual wind park. 

passing the thirsty looking corn...

They really are huge when you're standing right underneath one...it's hard to capture the exact size of this, but the base of the sort of "mast" part is large enough for about 10 people to stand inside with the machine.

The guy who works there gave us a bit of history of the technology and exactly what happens to the energy that is collected here...these are actually sort of co-op windmills, shared by residents of the local town, which helps keep some of them happy about having these sitting out there.  Through a mix of German and English we got lots of information and had time to ask questions, and I know I definitely learned a lot that I didn't know before. 

We also all got to go inside the sort of control room in the base of the windmill.  Sort of amazing that this huge machine is run by this tiny little control panel...but sure enough, we were able to change the direction of the blades, and start and stop the whole thing.  I also don't know if you can see this guy's shirt very well in this picture, but I thought it was really cool...it's the nuclear symbol morphing into a windmill. 

After we were finished it was a long walk back through the hot fields and into town again to catch the train home...we did however all stop for some ice cream on the way back, not a bad end to our little field trip.

Slovakia Weekend

A few weeks ago, a friend from school mentioned that his family has a cottage house in Slovakia...and would anyone be interested in going there for the weekend.  Of course several of us jumped at the chance to get away for the weekend with friends, so fast forward to last weekend and off we went!  It ended up being 7 of us...from 7 different countries (Australia, Austria, Croatia, Mexico, Russia, Slovakia, and the US!)...and speaking 6 different languages.  It was definitely a weekend of cultural appreciation and knowledge expansion for all of us.  We left Vienna about 9:45 Friday morning...and it would have been a 4 hour or so drive if we had gone straight there...but we stopped a few times, and got to the cabin about 7:30pm...but the journey was definitely part of the fun (my Austrian music knowledge has expanded quite a bit).  

navigation set! (ignore the time in the car...this was taken later)

passing all sorts of little towns complete with castles perched up on hills

Our first stop was for lunch, which was about 2 hours, but really good food, and nice to be out of the car for a bit and just hang out.  Our second stop was at Miro's house, where his mom spoiled us with a seemingly endless supply of sandwiches, coffee, tea, fruit, cookies, etc.  The house and the outside eating space was fantastic, and definitely the perfect tea time stop on our road trip.

our sandwiches, so fresh and so delicious

our first group photo before heading off to the cabin

We did make one more stop in here, to a local sheep farm to pick up some fresh cheese for the weekend...yum yum yum. 

our cabin...we made it!!

our outdoor eating space, where we spent the majority of our time, although the cabin did have a nice living/dining room with plenty of seating and space for us, but the weather was plenty warm for us to stay outside.

the first of our home-cooked meals.  Grocery shopping was a bit of an adventure with all of us, deciding what actually belongs in a salad...what proper side dishes are...(the Russian among us insisted on potatoes, which were really good) but we figured it all out and ate quite well all weekend.

Saturday morning we went on what Miro called "a light hike through the valley" which we all took to mean fairly flat...perhaps by some water...sounded lovely and relaxing.  While this hike was lovely, it wasn't exactly "relaxing".  It was more like hike straight up and then overlook the valley...then walk down into the valley...then back up to the ridge...then back down.  But we did make it.  And there was a cool working mill at the bottom of the valley once we got there.

We aren't entirely sure which way to go

We made it to the mill!

The mill was really neat, and they let you walk around inside, even though water is running through and all these belts and gears are moving around...I guess it's your own fault if you stick a hand where it doesn't belong.

and back up we go...

We stopped in a poppy field on the side of the road to check out the flowers.

After our hike we were all pretty hungry, and eager to try local foods, so we went to a restaurant by a campground nearby and let Miro order a bunch of things for us that we could just pass around.  We ended up with several types of soup, noodles with bacon, trout, pork, potatoes, venison goulash, some other sort of venison, and duck.  I think I remembered everything... 

and we ate just about everything. 

just because we're out in the woods doesn't mean we can't live stream a Euro Cup match on an ipad while we enjoy the fire and a glass of wine...

Saturday evening we cooked another wonderful meal on the grill and all hung out and talked and laughed way into the night.  Sunday morning we intended to get up fairly early and get on with our day, but that didn't exactly happen...but after a nice brunch at the cabin Miro had a few local sites for us to see...starting with the natural thermal pool.

we're only slightly out of place here... 

and then onto a nearby lake

And then it was back to Vienna!  Which still didn't take us 4 hours...we had to stop back by the local sheep farm...and back by Miro's house for "lunch" although I think again that was 4pm.  We made it back about 8pm on Sunday I think.

It was such a fun weekend, such a beautiful country, amazing food, and of course good friends to make it all even better!