The Ball

Here is a video of the UNI Gala that happened a couple weeks ago. If you follow my photos on face book, you will probably recognize a lot of faces http://www.kt1.at/lokales/video/uni-gala-2012/

Snow!!!

I have only encountered Klagenfurt snow two times and both times it has been perfect. The snow here is the best packing snow I have ever come across. Scoop it off a tree, a fence, the ground, anywhere, and it makes the best snow balls. I woke up this morning and looked out the window and the world looked like a snowglobe. I went out to the University to buy my ticket for the ball tomorrow, and the campus was gorgeous! The pictures from the ball should be fun. There is a large chandelier above where smokers usually  stand. and everything is covered by a red carpet. On my snowy venture I went to the store to buy myself a new water bottle. I walked along the frozen and snow covered canal to the store. Here is someone else's photo of the canal http://www.flickr.com/photos/peter-piabdesign/5248259411/. There was no one on the path besides me and one runner. He was quite the looker, with long hair and a great big bushy beard. He was gentlemanly enough to hack his loogie after he passed me. The snow is starting to melt already, but I am so glad that I got to feel the sting of snow at least once this season. So far the day is going well :)

The New Year

My new years resolution this year is to blog more, so here I am. Christmas was amazing. I had the best time at L'Arche Killkenny. We got to go so many places and meet so many people and they were all beautiful. While in Callan we did a lot of eating, cooking, bananagrams, drinking (guiness of course), and hiking. On one of our walks up by Kilmagenny, we made fast friends with some dogs, which I loved due to the fact that I have been dog deprived for a while. Another thing that helped on that score was Hannah. Rachel's friend Hannah was dog sitting the cutest puppy, and I thoroughly enjoyed him. Rachel took us into the city of Killkenny and it was gorgeous and so much fun. (Oh, my goodness I just had one of the hard candies that Uncle Andy sent over and it tastes like dimetapp YUUUMMM!!! :D) In Killkenny we went to the castle and took a tour which was fun to see. My favorite part of the castle was the banisters. Rachel and I had decided that it would have been the perfect place to play hide and seek or sardines. Also in Killkenny we went for a bit of shopping where I bought a 7 euro dress for this summer and afterwords we went to the Mocha Cafe. At Mocha I had a very yummy goat cheese and red pepper jelly, toasted sandwich. Rachel took us to her favorite food store which was this great Asian market with fruits and teas. I got a good throat coat tea there, but I have already run out. On Boxing Day we went to the cliffs of Moher and they were quite majestic, however my favorite place that we went to on that day trip was the Burren. Rachel took us to an area that was very near where Nana, Papaw, Andy, and her stayed while they were in Ireland, and it was amazing and so much fun. We also got to see a lot of cool ruins. They are everywhere in Ireland, and I love it. A little piece of history around every bend.
In London, I stayed with my friend Sunny who lives in Uxbridge which is a part of London that is more in the country side. We went to Tate Britain and saw  some paintings then she took me to her favorite Mexican place which was amazing. Oh, my goodness how much I have missed good Mexican. We then went down Oxford Street where I had the chance to go into a Urban Outfitters and American Apparel. On our second day we went to a shopping center that took my breath away!!!! There were two floors and two sections. The first floor was just like any other mall, but will stores like Hugo Boss and Armani, but the second floor was the height of two stories and each store had both stories filled with stuff. My favorite part was the "Village" which was the designer section with stores like Tiffanys, Mui Mui, and Burberry. At the very end of the "Village" was a designer department store that reminded me a lot of Von Maur. Due to the Starbucks' everywhere, my trip was fueled by my favorite drink of the season, a venti soy peppermint white mocha.
Thank you all for the presents and Mac, I will enjoy it and think of you. I hope your Christmas was great!   

Everyday Life

I haven't really know what to blog about because nothing really exciting has happened. Mostly what I have been doing is going to class, eating, watching online tv, and hanging out in the Irish pub. I recently went to Venice, Italy and it was gorgeous. The city is crumbling apart and looked to be doing so a quite a fast rate, however that just added onto it's charm. My classes consist of History of the American West, Cultures in Context, British Empire in Australia, and Romanticism. They are all quite interesting and I am enjoying my studies, however I do not enjoy the teaching style here. When the professors ask questions they are looking for a certain answer, and I was surprised to realize that I have never had a teacher like that before I came here. I think that really speaks to the quality of my education and the teaching style of America.

A Lot Has Happened: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday

On Sunday night We all went out for Mexican, which was good, not very Mexican, but still good. Then some of us went to the Irish pub to toast Sunny finishing her Graduate dissertation. On Monday we had class again and after, some of us went back to the public beach, however we did not encounter anything untoward. On Tuesday Ellie, Sunny, and I went to the private beach and enjoyed the chilly water. Then we went and had dinner at Ellie's where we ate a bean salad as well as a fruit salad and some gnocchi with a red veggie sauce. It was very yummy. After that we went and hung out with some of the exchange students living in Concordiaheim. We have discovered a beautiful Austrian version of Baileys. It can be bought as white, milk, or dark chocolate and it is so incredibly delicious. Today after course Gemma, Darren, Sunny, and I went into the city center to go shopping. On the way to the shopping center we passed a kiosk by the road where a man had chestnuts roasting on an open fire. It got me singing Christmas songs the rest of the day.   

A Lot Has Happened: Saturday

One of the many mountains we could see from the dock.

 On Saturday we went to the public beach and were quite scandalized. Not all of us had brought money, so we decided to try to find a public bock in which to hang out, and we did. However there were some problems. None of us but Sunny, from London, were confident enough to actually people watch and see exactly what kind of trouble we were floating on. Originally, it was just us sitting on the grass by the dock, talking and eating chips/crisps/tatos, depending on which native speaker you ask. An older man passed us and went onto the dock where he proceeded to strip into his birthday suit and get into the water. For a couple seconds we were frozen in place. Some of us stopped in mid sentence, some mid bite, but all of us were staring at each other with our eyes and mouths wide. Then we had a major suppressed giggle attack then tried to act natural. When he was done with his swim, he got out, put on his boxers, and layed on the bock, in the sun, reading his periodical. Then an older woman came along and swam in her swim suit, however she changed on the grass by where we had been sitting eating out chips before we vacated to the edge of the dock. when she was done swimming, she dried off naked. Sometimes turning to the bush to be modest, but also turning towards the man on the dock who was enjoying the view. Then another older man came along on his bike with a bushel of grapes and a tree branch in one hand and a lunch box with a uncooked, unhusked, ear of corn in the space where a water bottle was supposed to go. He sat down on the park bench overlooking the public dock and stripped down to his tighty whiteys and began to jerk off. After this, he gave his tree branch to the couple sitting on the bench next to him and the grapes to the man laying in the sun on the dock. It was all very obscure. When we returned on Monday we did not encounter the same problem though, so maybe it was just the day and the time in which we decided to visit the dock. 

This is the Lindwurm at night. We went down to the pub Saturday night to watch and listen to a cover band. They played well, the cider was wonderful, and the company was amazing, so I had a good time.

A Lot Has Happened: Friday

Nothing much happened on Friday besides a party on one of the Hostel roofs that wasn't much of a party, more like three tables spread 50 feet apart littered with all kinds of alcohol. No one really mingled or moved away from their table besides Ellie, Gemma, Darren, and I. After a while everyone decided to move the party to the city center and caught the last bus into town. Our first stop was Havana, a bar with interesting people, great rock-n-roll, and overpriced drinks. At one point Darren ordered Vodka, thinking that he would get a mixer with it, but instead they charged him 5 Euro for a glass of straight up vodka. He turned to me and said, "What am I supposed to do with this?" He ended up buying a coke to mix it with. The Turkish girls and Italian girl did not enjoy the music and talked with worried faces about how they did not like the music or the place or the crowd. Everywhere our group went they complained about the crowd, however what do they expect when twenty international students go into a bar. It gets crowded. After Havana, I took a taxi home. Somehow I ended up in a very nice taxi... hmm I wonder how that happened. It was a Mercedes town car and exceedingly comfy. One thing that surprised me was that the taxi driver waited to make sure I got into the building before driving off, not something I am used to from Chicago or New York.