The Serbian Express

Música: Schönberg’s Verklärte Nacht. And what a gorgeous Nacht it is. Last night I went to a performance of the Vienna Philharmonic—what many consider to be the world’s best orchestra—and they played this piece during the program, with Pierre Boulez conducting. I stood there in the Musikverein, in all its Romantic splendor (um, yeah that gold you see ain’t no paint) and listened to music which was at once mysterious, sexual, sumptuous, (etc. etc., just think of any adjectives used to describe really excellent ice cream being eaten by your favorite supermodel), played by people whose level of talent I can’t really begin to understand, and conducted by a man whose name is on at least 10-20 of my CDs. Maybe this is my suburban middle-class upbringing talking, but when the sound of horse hair rubbed on cat gut over a piece of wood can cause an audience to examine and appreciate the magnitude of beauty that art can contain in a single moment, perhaps life was never meant to suck.


It takes a decent amount of time to realize the birth, the growth, and finally the death of an era. About a month, actually. I know this because I have indeed been in Austria for a little over a month, and I have indeed known a great transition in my life… the end of free maid service.

I live, you see, in the dorm for the University of Music. During the summer, as the building is not occupied by students, it becomes a very affordable hotel. (University summer in Europe, by the way, usually extends from June to the beginning of October). Now, picture your first college dorm. As a hotel, it probably wouldn’t have scored too highly in a Fodor’s review. Neither would this one. This is not the Waldorf. There is, however, one very important difference between this place and your average youth hostel: the service provided by 4 adorable Serbian ladies, ranging in age from maybe 30 to about 85.

My first encounter with the former citizens of the Soviet Bloc went thusly:

It was very early on the morning of Sunday last, and Julia and I were still very much asleep. We’d had a sizable German exam the Friday before, and had decided to unwind through Saturday. It would take at least till midday for our minds to filter out the night’s liquor consumption. We had not set an alarm, we had no plans to awaken before noon. ‘Twas not to be.

It sounded rather like a man being thrust against the door by a powerful kick, à la Jackie Chan movie. Or a battering ram. In any case, it was incredible fear of the most agitated explosion of sound I’d ever heard that caused me to fall from my bed and stumble to the door. I saw my clock as I ran: 7:14

My bed is maybe 12 feet from the door. There were at least 15 more knocks before I reached the handle. I thrust it open, mid-knock, and was faced with the meatiest fist I’ve yet to encounter. It was as if someone had stolen it from a Rodin statue and placed it on the end of her arm. The fingers were like clenched ham hocks, and the thumb nail was glacially large.

This enormous hand and its arm were only a prelude to the rest of the appendage’s owner. The colossal woman before me was much more than the sum of her parts: I didn’t have my glasses on, but she had to be at least 6 feet tall, and only the narrowest slivers of light from the hallway were able to escape from behind her and flow into the bedroom through the doorway.

“Frische Handtüche und Sauber?” the beast thundered. You’ve all had hangovers, you know what I mean when I say “thundered.” I was still in the one-eye-half-closed stage of wakefulness, and as such was not at all able to comprehend Goliatha’s request. Her moustache shook with indignation. “Frische Handtüche?!” she cried, impatient and unable to understand why she wasn’t getting answers from the pathetic figure standing in the threshold. [I was at this point still in my skivvies, and after a night of drinking and the sudden frigidity of being out of bed, I’m sure I looked like the sickly ET—horribly pale and thin, with skeletal fingers and a pair of tiny, pointed nipples]. I couldn’t answer. I hadn’t the mental capacity at that point to form words in any language, and I was more than a little intimidated and confused by the angry middle aged giant with nun’s shoes and a woman’s voice. Just then, Julia appeared behind me. She didn’t look any better than I did, but managed to push the words “Ja, bitte,” out of an abused and dry-sounding throat.

As if the starting gun had been fired, the maid burst into the room. Her entourage was not a step behind her: a young woman with rose-red Mary Janes and knee-highs of soft pink, carrying a pile of sheets; another middle aged woman who had obviously long ago rejected the notion of the bra as a necessity, carrying a number of hand towels; and finally an ancient woman, who looked not unlike Zelda Rubinstein and came up to about my navel, doing an admirable job of wielding a vacuum cleaner that looked as if it had been stolen from a museum devoted to homemaking. I mean, it could have been a 1950s atomic powered model.

Nascar has nothing on these ladies. They ran past Julia and me and into the room, each to a different task. The younger one ran at my bed, tore off the sheets, and began to remake it. The 2nd middle aged woman was not in the room when I looked—she had replaced the bathroom hand towels and was throwing the old ones in a basket outside in the hallway. She returned carrying neatly folded bath towels. Zelda had already vacuumed half of the room and was furiously thrusting the head of the apparatus at the area by Julia’s bed. With her bed being made, Julia had no means of escaping the vacuum, and she was dancing around Zelda’s attacks like a cowboy in a Western whose feet are being shot at. The 1st middle aged woman, however, who had been barking orders in an eastern European language, was still. She wore a look that would have been more appropriate for being branded or walking on hot coals. The look was aimed at me.

“Ihre Kleide?” she commanded, pointing at my jeans and t-shirt which had been lying near my bed from the night before. “Entschuldigung,” I begged, the tone of my voice telling my mistress that I very much wished to live and would do whatever penance necessary to avoid incurring her wrath. I leapt at my clothes and hugged them close to me. She began to clean the surrounding area and to dust the furniture.

Zelda came at me like an angry silverback—I leapt away just in time.

It was over before I had time to remember that “frische Handtüche und Sauber” meant “fresh hand towels and vacuum.” The leader was the last to finish, and they all fled the room as though Julia and I had Ebola. With a thickly accented “auf Wiedersehen” and a slamming of the door, they were gone. I felt like I was standing in a Midwestern barn that had barely survived a tornado. But what a clean barn! The beds were beautifully made and turned down, the towels in the bathroom were folded and smelled of fresh laundry, the furniture spotless, and the floor immaculate. I looked at my alarm clock: 7:17.

Their other visits (we discovered they occurred twice weekly) were less harrowing, and after learning on which days they came, we had the room ready for them every Sunday and Wednesday morning.

Up until now, Julia and I have been about the only guests in the building. This last week, however, has seen a number of students moving in. This Sunday morning, with the floor ready, I was up and waiting for my favorite Formula 1 team—they never showed up. I asked at the reception, and was told that the place was no longer considered a hotel, and that maid service was available at 15 euro per week. I would weep for the loss of the cleaning ladies, were it not for my black and stony heart.

Listening to Bulgarian folk music sung by a female a capella choir. It’s a very cool sound they make—quarter-tone harmonies sung with a kind of “correct belting.” I don’t really know how else to describe it. Since it’s all women, the songs are about everything from weddings to giving birth to menstrual pains, and the music is sometimes very harsh and real. I know they’re not really from the same region, but I can’t help thinking of the cleaning ladies… tough music for tough broads. They make Rosie the Riveter look like a debutante.

Sturm und Drang

Listening to Gus Mahler’s sixth symphony, the Tragic. Whoever coined the name Tragic (it wasn’t Mahler) wasn’t kidding—this bitch tears at the heart. The last movement begins with a soaring theme of Hope that fights against its enemies throughout the piece. At the last statement of the theme, it seems to be pulling away from the evil it’s been fighting—it grows and pulsates with life, and at the last moment, the theme turns to minor, as the opposition grabs hold of its ankles and violently pulls it down into the dregs… an hour and a half of struggle, and Hope loses. Not the feel-good symphony of the summer.

The blog gets happier, I swear. My little musical things at the beginning of each entry are in no way to be interpreted as “thematic” or related in any way to the blog. I just gotsta feel the passion sometimes. I’m also near the end of Atlas Shrugged, and Ayn, that big freaky capitalist, is totally making a nerdy recluse of me.


Oh, that’s right so I was spending this semester in VIENNA! No more talk of boring things.

Speaking of talk, my freshman physics class, which once could claim the title of “Carl’s Time of Greatest Stupidity and Helplessness,” has been dethroned by a single night of partying. I shall explain:

The three weeks of the German Intensive now over, we IES kids have a weeklong break before normal classes begin. Most, including my roomie, decided to go on the so-called Three City Tour—nine days of touring Krakow, Budapest, and Prague. Others chose to travel independently, and went in small groups to Italy, Switzerland, the UK, and Croatia (site of what are supposed to be some incredible beaches—the tricky thing is getting through Bosnia and Herzegovina, which Americans aren’t really supposed to do, seeing as how Americans and Balkan unrest go together about as well as Palestinians at seder).

Long story short, I’m the only one I know currently in Vienna, or even Austria. Don’t misunderstand—I love this situation. I’m going to spend this week getting to really know this amazing town: its museums, cafés, musical offerings, parks, architecture, history, and its people. Which brings me to my story (I didn’t forget it in my tangenting) and why a party made physics look like a cakewalk. Since there wasn’t going to be anyone here, my Austrian friend Sally (she’s not the only one, naysayers) invited me to a “small” party she was throwing at her flat. Great, I thought, what a fantastic way to get to know some natives and practice some Deutsch. Ha.
Sally: Carl! So glad you could make it!
Carl: Totally, Sally. Hey, I brought some wine.
Sally: Oh, cool! Come in, we’re on the balcony.

[on the balcony, where there are 30-40 people].
Sally: [to her guests] OINF DOIBR BS LK Carl JNBW!
Guests: sSDFGLOLB cool eigonq 124 RT FLOKJ!
Sally: You speak German, right Carl? Yes, I’ve heard you, you’re pretty good.
Carl: Well, a little. [ever optimistic and confident] But this is the best way to learn.
Sally: Definitely. I’m gonna go get some more food, I’ll be right back.

Guest 1: [to Carl] sO Sally told us you're from tje USA USA?
Carl: [hoping his answer works, and with great effort] Ja, ich komme aus Kalifornien. Ich studiere hier bis Dezember.
Guest 1: Und was studierst du?
Carl: [spurred on by his understanding the question, answers loudly and over-excitedly] MUSIK!
Guest 1: [weirded out] Ah, ok. [points to Guest 2] GVLIUBRG FND45 Musik.
Guest 2: dfvoihskkkkk ndogvoasgflj ;p jsnwu8572 djs.
Carl: ………………… er, langsammer, bitte? [slower, please?]

And so progressed the evening. It was like talking to the Sims.

I’m probably exaggerating a little, in that I did understand a good amount. They were also very kind, and were not above translating a word or two for me if I had the face I used to make after my mom would ask, “CJ, did you take the cookies?”

I‘ll not place blame on the American educational system, seeing as how my ability with a language is entirely up to me, but I will say that it pretty much sucks balls in comparison to the Austrian system, whose products were completely bilingual, if not tri- or quad lingual.

Bottom line, I did ok, but not great. I mean, I would have felt less helpless and idiotic had I no motor skills, but was in an English-speaking city. Because of my German diction classes, everyone said I had a wonderful accent. “You speak more clearly than I do,” said a sprightly little psych major from Innsbruck. Fantastic. Now all I need are some words to speak and the knowledge of how to put them together correctly. Back in a flash….

I did make one awful mistake, but to my credit, this one was due to a regional dialect kinda thing, not just plain ignorance and stupidity. Someone asked me how I liked Vienna’s weather. “Das Wetter hier ist so schön,” I exclaimed, “es ist nimmer feucht.” My new friend had to sit down after spilling his beer from laughing. I thought I had said, “The weather here is so beautiful. It is never humid.” Well, I had—but this was Berliner Deutsch I was using. In Viennese German, “feucht” is the adjective applied to a human female’s sexual organs when she is in heat. “It’s never a wet vagina,” is basically how I described the weather. But I can’t win for losing—it turns out the Viennese word for “humid” is “schwül.” The Viennese word for “gay” is “schwul.” A small difference in vowel sounds is all it will take for me to screw up again. And it will happen, I’m almost positive.

But all in all the night was a success. I felt like I learned quite a bit, and could do passably well on a one-to-one basis. Parties, I feel, are as of yet a little beyond my reach.

* *

Ok, so you saw my little pause stars and probably thought, “My God, how much more of this is there and should I get up and pee before continuing?” Pee if you must, but I won’t go on too much longer.

As foolish as I felt at Sally’s party, I’ve caught myself being viciously happy at the fact that I haven’t made some of the cross-cultural faux pas that some of the other Americans have made. I consider myself lucky that my only flaw is to have no understanding of these people’s language—I've no international incidents under my belt.

Friday night, I ran into Sally and her friend Sam on the U-Bahn (that happens here… a city of 2 million and yet it feels quite small). I was with a couple of my American friends, and we were coming home from a party. Sally, ever the heavyweight, suggested that we accompany her and Sam to a bar on the Danube. I’m still not quite over the incredible romanticism of this city, and sipping Sturm by the Danube seemed like a phenomenal idea.

[Sturm, by the way, is the second of three stages in wine making here in Austria. The first is just the crushed grapes (Weintraubensaft), then it begins to ferment, but is still sweet like grape juice (Sturm) and finally it becomes wine. Oh my, Sturm. It goes down smooth, like 3-year-old-drinking-apple-juice smooth, and although it has a lower alcohol content than wine, 7-10 glasses will do the job nicely.]

So there we were at the Strandbar, (literally Beach Bar—there’s a man-made beach along the river in the center of the city) sitting in cabana chairs, sipping Sturm and sangria, and listening to (of course) Bob Marley. We even met some random Wieners and invited them over to our little beach spot. Generally having a pretty damn incredible time. The Austrians asked us where we had gone and what sites we had seen. Our German classes included some interesting excursions, and so we told them about our trip to the Rathaus (city hall).

Now, because one didn’t need any prior German knowledge to come to Austria, there are a number of German classes and different levels of instruction. Intermediate I, the class into which I was placed, and Beginner 2 usually went on these excursions together. For the Rathaus trip, however, all of the German classes went along. We were regaling the Austrians with hilarious tales of American naiveté when Sally asked, “Wow, how many of there were you?” Whereby my somewhat bitter friend John replied, “Well, they put all the classes together, so there were about 150 of us. It was totally a German Anschulss.”

I choked on my Sturm. Sally made no motion whatsoever, and Sam kind of gaped. The other Austrians looked as though they’d been slapped. Hard. Cricket, cricket. Sally glanced at John with a horribly pathetic look of pity on her face, and she turned to our new friends and changed the subject to the weather.

Coming home that night, John was beside himself. He had no idea what he had said to so utterly and completely kill the conversation. He thought he’d made a pretty good joke, involving Austrian history with some vocab from class (anschluss means “annexation”). What he was unaware of, however, was the fact that the Anschluss in the late 1930s was perhaps the worst period in Austria’s history—when Hitler not only entered the country, but was greeted by a ticker tape parade. It’s as if John had made a Japanese internment joke in San Francisco. But much worse. The Austrians are still fairly touchy about this subject, and it is, as John discovered, not for joking. Ouch.

But back to gaiety… classes start the 26th! I’m a big fan of my schedule:

Monday-
10:20-11:30—Gustav Mahler and Turn of the Century Vienna
11:55-1:10—German
3:15-6:20—Music History

Tuesday-
10:30-11:45—German

Wednesday-
10:35-12:05—Mahler
3:00-4:30—Music History
6:10-7:40—Vocal Performance Workshop

Thursday-
10:30-11:45—German
4:35-6:05—Vocal Performance Workshop

Friday-
Free as a child molesting pop star.

Listening to: Mozart’s 40th symphony. I saw the house where he wrote this. No words, no words at all.

Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance.

Listening me to some: Agnus Dei (Barber’s famous Adagio for Strings arranged for boys choir). Ethereally beautiful, if somewhat of a priest’s wet dream. Highly, highly recommended; listen sparingly, however, and never while operating heavy machinery.

As of last night, I am no longer a euro-club virgin. I fulfilled a life’s ambition of dancing [insert preposition here… try fun ones like under, through, without…I’ll go with “at”] at a crowded, loud, incredibly wild and thinly-veiled-as-dancing European sex fest. I’m not sure where on the long-term goals list this one stood, but it was probably somewhere in between “Get a Doberman” and “Try Kobe Beef.”

These people don’t fool around when it comes to clubbing. The club opens at 11:30 (I’m sorry, 23:30, or dreißig nach dreiundzwanzig… “11:30” is just far too vague, it seems), so my friends and I thought we’d begin our journey around 23:45. Poorly planned. We arrived at U4 (so named because of it’s proximity to a stop on one of the local subway lines) at 00:05 to find the line backed up two blocks. Sally, an Austrian student at the University of Vienna and an all-around cool person, said this was standard issue. A few of us decided to detour to a bar while 2 non-drinking compadres held our place in line.

All one need know about most European bars is this: buy whatever you want, the strongest drink on the menu even; you won’t taste it. The haze of cigarette smoke is far too thick and oppresive to allow for anything as uncool as the sense of taste. Here’s the best way for me to explain it: picture yourself skiing down the Alps, the cool, clear wind whipping your cheeks a brilliant red. To inhale air of this quality as you head down the slope is a marvelous feeling. Faster and faster you rush through the cold, but then!… you reach the bottom of the mountain, and you’re in Mexico City or Pasadena. It’s that abrupt. I didn’t have to worry about secondhand smoke, though, seeing as how I was coughing way too much to inhale.

Sufficiently liquored, we returned to the club and rejoined our line holders. After 15 minutes, we had reached the front of the queue of sexily dressed Volk. We paid the cover, and the velvet rope was pulled away.

It’s been a few years, but I honestly think the only time I’d felt this excited was when I walked into Chuck E. Cheese for the first time. That’s not a bad analogy, actually… with the strobe lights, loud music, and expensive drinks, all we needed was some of that tar-like pizza and some animatronic entertainment in bad need of repair, and the line between club and 5-year-old's birthday party would have been irrevocably blurred.

But I digress. The club was laid out thusly: a long stairway led to a small chamber that lay between two large dance rooms. The smaller of the two rooms was pulsing with some hardcore hip hop, and the larger one (and it was huge) boasted German techno and 80s pop (also German). Now, I did visit both rooms in the course of the night, but naturally I went first for the techno room. Old habits die hard, I suppose, and I wanted to feel again the heady rush of my glow-stick days.

So into the pop room I went, and there must have been half the under-25 population of Vienna. It was like a stationary stampede, except these wildebeests smelled of Acqua di Giò and were sweating like a hockey team.

My friend Lauren and I began to dance, and that girl had some sexy moves (she’s from a rough Philadelphia neighborhood… tough as nails and just a downright sex kitten). We got some interesting looks—don’t get me wrong, the Austrians were all over one another, but they weren’t quite practicing their tango penetrado as Lauren and I were. Jinkies, we were sexy.

The music ranged from Tina Turner (which was great, because Lauren and I got on the stage and with our dancing and our total knowledge of the lyrics, we were bigger than Strudel), to hardcore-lose-yourself-in-a-trance German techno, and we had a blast—our blatant and far too over-the-top sexuality proved fruitful, indeed. We had our picture taken and a number of people offered to buy us drinks. Word to the wise: absinthe is not conducive to any form of exercise, dancing certainly included. Man, that drink… it’s as if the contents of Pandora’s box were introduced to a wine press, and then you drank the liquid thus produced. Death, be not proud. I have tasted thee, and thou hast made my breath taste like bile, but I have survived.

The most difficult part about clubbing in another country is the language barrier. No, there’s not much talking that goes on, seeing as how the music is worse for one’s hearing than a marathon of The Nanny, but there is (unsurprisingly) a good amount of music in German. When they said 80s night, they were thinking Berlin Wall, not the Gipper. So there’s quite a bit of this:

[Dancing, woo, lost in the music and the crowd and the noise, kinda sounds like Prince’s Austrian cousin but who cares woo]

[DJ cuts the music, apparently at a spot in the song whose lyrics everyone knows, and they all scream:

“Wir gehen zur Party wie im Jahre Neunzehnneunundneunzig!”

Yes. Turns out it is indeed Prince’s famous “We’re Gonna Party Like It’s 1999,” but in German. With the crazy techno beat, I couldn’t begin to recognize it. I was later told what the hell I was dancing to].

Many were German songs never heard by anyone stateside. These were always more fun and I got to practice my German while being jiggy on the dance floor.

Really an all around incredible night. Another friend, also named Lauren, found out this fun European clubbing rule: after dancing with a new partner for 5.46 minutes, it is de rigueur that said partner makes out with you hardcore. Lauren actually had quite an international cartel of boys going, and we have since banned her from Brazilians and Serbians.

As a fun prize for slogging thru the blogging, please visit this website:

http://www.arctur.si/mkajfez/helmut.html

That sexy Austrian is our Student Services Coordinator, Helmut Summesberger. It’s hysterical for us, seeing as how he’s basically our camp counselor, and he has a personality straight out of Salute Your Shorts, but if you want to enjoy it on another level you’re more than welcome.

Currently enjoying: Der Rosenkavalier, in preparation for the performance I’ll be attending tomorrow at the VIENNA STATE OPERA?!!?! This can’t be reality I’m living, but the dream sure is nice. Now all I need is… wait, here comes Helmut. Ciao.

Willkommen in Wien

Currently listening to: A flute, a horn, and a soprano playing (and singing) scales in different keys. That's right... I'm hanging out near the practice rooms at the Institute here in Wien, and this place is at all times filled with one of two sounds: 1) Incredibly fast and hearty Austrian German, or 2) Music in practice rooms whose acoustical barriers are about as effective as the current American drinking age.

Firstly, an explanation for the lengthy pause since my last post. Second semester, although full of ups and downs and laughs and tears and death and hope and joy and betrayal and sex and murder and pathos and poetry, was relatively standard. No strange teachers, no weird dates, only the daily (and wonderful) grind of class, framed by the new (to me) process of building a life around someone you love. Had I been blogging during this time, you would have fallen asleep while reading and woken up with drool and computer key markings all over your face. No one wants to read a semester of:

Dear Diary,
After some hard-boiled eggs, I went to class. We learned about nothing useful or interesting in particular. Then for lunch I had an omelet. Out of meat today, cheese only. I practiced for a while and then translated Italian. Then Zach came over. I made Tuna Helper, with eggs. Zach watched me drink coffee, we had Private Selection English Toffee ice cream, then retired to my room. Zach left an hour later. My, it's cold in January.

See? So in fact it's a rather great thing that you were spared a semester of this tedium. Not to say it was boring, it just wasn't terribly funny. My Italian teacher was a bit of a loon, but material can only be rehashed so many times.

SO THE PRESENT! I'm not sure where to begin... watch out, this blog might be a bit discombobulated.

Austria is stunning. I have no better word, and for that I apologize, but it's true. We spent the first weekend in the Alps. There's more justice in the OJ trial than in the gross understatement that the hills are "alive." These things just have to be seen. We took a little trip to the Erlaufsee, a "small" lake in the middle of the Alps. After hiking around on the lake, I sat on a dock with my feet dangling in the water, taking in the living postcard in front of me. You can't help but wax philisophical at that point, and it's a small wonder how people like Beethoven and Mahler got their inspiration. After thinking about life and love and meaning and truth and beauty and art, I thought for a while how nice it would be to own one of the €25,000,000 houses that inhabit lake's edge. But then crazy/beautiful architecture in idyllic settings is nothing new to these people... Jesü Christ. I just turn a corner in the city and make the "Thank-God-You-Knew-the-Heimlich-Cuz-that-was-a-Huge-Piece-of-Schnitzel" face. Wiener Schnitzel, by the by, is not a big phallus covered in sauerkraut and generally made to look as unappetizing as possible. It's usually a veal cutlet, sometimes turkey, that's been breaded and fried. A lot like cordon bleu, only if you call it cordon bleu a huge man named Helmut comes out of the shadows (or out of an indescribably small car), and pummels you. Don't be fooled by the long hair and pleasant Austrian manner: Helmut is one Wiener who doesn't fool around when it comes to his Schnitzel.

But yes, so as an example of the stunningness... I'm writing this blog in a large room in the Institute. The walls are gilded, the doors (also gilded) are 20 feet tall, there are... wait, I'm counting... 10 magnificent carvings adorning the spaces above the doors, the ceiling (gilded) is painted to look like a serene, cerulean sky, there are enough mirrors to make Paris Hilton happy, and the chandelier is probably on loan from the last Viennese production of Das Phantom der Oper. And that's all fairly blase compared to the velvet carpeting, marble columns, oak, ebony, and mahogony walls, and intricate stone-lace designs which decorate the rest of the building. This is the Palais Corbelli, the home of the IES Institute, and it's on an unimportant, untouched side of the street in the middle of Vienna. This building, which in any American town would have a spot on A&E and be perused by an army of Antiques Roadshow appraisers, pretty much fades into the unbelievable splendor on every street. I've been aghast (and I'm not just being dramatic, aghast is what I feel) at every corner. I really had no concept of "ornate" until visiting this Imperial City.

So I'm learning Deutsch like a psycho person... we're in the middle of the "German Intensive" which dominates the first three weeks of the program. My teacher, Frau Schachermeier (I can't make this stuff up), is a wonderfully cute Austrian native who is perhaps the most spry and delightful teacher I've ever had. She nurtures as if she were just one large breast, and she has a voice that could charm the honig right out of the beehive. There is absolutely (under no circumstances and penalty of death) English spoken in her class, but when you get stuck (which is fairly often) she approaches you sweetly and her lilt becomes even more pronounced. Her eyes get wide when she speaks, and all you want to do is get your place on the rug for story time and hope that caca-sandwich Susie didn't take your spot for nappy time.

Ein Student: Kann ich die Toilette... um... er...?
Fr. Schachermeier: BenÜTZen?! naTÜRlich!!!

She's just a big bundle of Austrian goodness.

But I'm learning a lot of German very very quickly, which provides a good deal of satisfaction. Class is certainly helpful, but most of the learning comes from street life. For instance, today I ordered a Käsekrainer, which is a massive piece of meat in hot doggish form that is filled with melted cheese. I mean, I bit into this thing and it splurted all over me like some kind of delicious pustule. When I ordered, however, the man behind the counter just handed me this cheese-oozing item without anything but the flimsiest of napkins to hold it. I couldn't be expected to grasp this giant wurst, bleeding as it was with grease and gouda, with only a simple piece of paper. So, knowing I didn't know the word for "bun," I said, "Können Sie englisch, bitte?" His response was to lift an eyebrow, point to my meat, and say, "Ja, Käsekrainer." This answer was insufficient. Thinking that mental images were certainly the best way to solve a language problem, I grasped the meat with my hand and proceeded to vigorgously rub it up and down. This way, I thought, I can show that I'm looking for an item that will cover the dog in its entirety. "Do you have a bun?" I asked in English. Obviously he thought my Käsekrainer masturbation was pretty funny. He brought his friends over to watch me make an unbelievable ass out of myself. After about two minutes, I realized what I was doing to this poor food and put my then-greasy hand at my side.

"Did you want a bun?" asked the first man. Wanting to preserve any semblance of dignity, I denied his request and went to the table, where I gnawed on the best hot dog of my life and drank down a half-liter of Ottakringer (the local everyman's beer, which, incidentally, is excellent. I've never been a beer fan, but that's because I only had Natty Light and Milwaukee's Best to work with).

One young Austrian, my age or maybe younger, approached me on Mariahilferstraße, one of the see-and-be-seen shopping avenues.

Austrian: *Lots o' German, maybe every 5th word of which I understood*
Me: Entschuldigung, ich kann deutsch nicht so gut.
(Austrian looks at me disbelievingly)
Me: No seriously, I really can't speak German.
Austrian: Well, do you have an Austrian bank account?
Me: No.
Austrian: Ok. Well, then, you are allowed to go away from me.
His permission granted, I left.

I know this blog is a long one, and I could go on and on (some more), but I'll try and wrap it up and save some for later.

I'll finish with my living situation. I live in the dorm of the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst (University for Music and Performing Arts). For the sake of brevity: classes take place in District 1, Johannesgasse 7. I live at Johannesgasse 8. Schön as all get-out. I live about 30 steps from Kärntnerstraße, which is basically the Michigan Avenue or Rodeo Drive or 5th Avenue of Vienna. Full of tourists, but very happening, especially at night. Oh, and there's the single largest building I have ever seen about 3 minutes from my place. Stephansdom, or St. Stephan's Cathedral, is a gothic masterpiece situated at the very center of Vienna. I hear the bells ringing as I wake up. All I need are some birds to come and draw my curtains, revealing a late summer morning as they chirp Mozart tunes, and I'd be a real Austrian.

Once I'm able to relax my "I-just-witnessed-a-triple-homicide" wonderment face and get used to the place a little, the blogs should become a little less descriptive and a little more narrative.

Listening to: German rap from my roommate's computer. She thinks it will help our language study. This particular song is a list of commercial acronyms. I don't quite see the usefulness in knowing "KNY, GmbH, MCO und BMW, yo!" BMW, by the way, is pronounced here as "bay-em-vay" and they're like Fords... a 7-series in every garage. The garbage trucks have Mercedes logos. What a sexy place.