Photos photos photos

it just me or is this year going by really fast? Although the weather here seems more like early October than November. Today I walked around in just a t-shirt which made going to the Christmas market feel very odd. As it is, I haven't done anything super wild or crazy that I feel would merit it's own write up. Instead I shall treat you to a cornucopia of random photos from recent events. Enjoy!

My Halloween Costume, and incomplete mummy. The vampire fangs were just a necessary addition.
You had to pay money to go in, but man did these look swanky. Even had opera music playing.
At a Spainards birthday party. He couldn't be contained by just one party hat.
Coolest little kid ever, made even awesomer by the fact that his parents wore matching leather jackets.
Thomas showing off his mad paper airplane skills
Outside a swim hall. Oh the humanity!!
Sergio putting up a doohickey to measure the tree's height during our Inventory field trip.
Brad demonstrating the many uses of a caliber.
Something's cooking!!
Everyone got a turn at making sushi which led to some unsuccessful put together rolls, but still belly pleasing results.

These stickers are everywhere and I don't know what they're for, but some day I shall find out.

Day of Awesome Fantasticness

Allow me to describe for you all the events of last Thursday (29.10.09) which shall from now on be known as the day of all things awesome and good (DoaTAaG for short).
It began in quite an annoying matter, since I had to go to Mariahilfstrasse (known for lots of swanky stores) and return a camera charger since I thought I could use it as an adapter since mine died. Upon arriving home yesterday I realized I was gravely mistaken and resigned myself to enduring the Returning of Electronics. If any of you think I'm over exaggerating, realize that all my experience with electronics and their returns are based off the less than simplistic return policy at Best Buy (i.e "haha sucker now we got your money"). Imagine my gleeful surprise when I was treated courteously (despite my lack of German) and left the store in less than 10 minutes minus a camera adapter but plus 10 wonderful euros.
Walking back to an U-bahn station I noticed a sign for alternative clothing and piercings. Since I time to kill I figured it was worth checking out, just so I could know where a store was when I inevitably lost my eyebrow ring (it happens, a lot).
Walking and walking and walking, but still no store, what did my eyes find but a comic book store. Inside, tucked away in the corner was the staple of every poor comic book reader's diet, the bargain bin. Figuring they might have something of interest (even if it was in German, I'm learning) I was skimming through when something caught my eye. Not one, two, but three issues of a 4 part run from the 90s featuring none other than.....Deadpool. For those of you who don't know, and really I think all of you are aware of this fact, Deadpool is one of my favorite comic book characters. However, due to recent events his character has gotten so popular that all oldish (from the 90s) issues of his cost many many moneys. Since the three issues weren't priced I worked up the nerve to go to the cashier and ask "Was kostet diese?" (How much do these cost). When he answered I heard angels sing, each issues was 50 cents! Really, I'm not exaggerating here, those issues are normally 5 or 6 dollars each. I think I might have scared him a little at the maniac smile that lit up my face but we traded money for comics, in the most glorious of all consumer transactions, and I left a very happy Hannah.
But then, what's this? Right next door was a......vegetarian restaurant. It ever had a small store for fake jerky and the like. Not only that, it was pretty cheap. I feasted upon a delicious mock chicken burger with a mango lassi. Full of tasty food I was paying when another customer's dog came up and started sniffing me, giving me the excuse to pet it (Austrians are pretty protective about their dogs). Then, for a most excellent dessert I went to a street vendor and bought what is best described as an ice cream cone dipped in chocolate. Only, instead of ice cream, it's some sort of heavy cream, like marshmallow fluff, kinda.
So from the details so far I must seem pretty materialistic. My day was made awesome by money, comics, and delicious fake animal muscle. However, the day still improved.
In the evening I met with people from field camp to exchange all our blackmail...I mean photos for the week we spent hiking through the freezing woods. The place we went to was an all-you-can-eat Pakistan restaurant that also had an intriguing payment method. That being that you can pay what you want. After we were all stuffed a few of us continued hanging out by walking over to the Welt (world) cafe. A very nice and mellow cafe, though my first choice was the Rock pub. A wonderful bar that had heavy metal music blaring and a bartender who looked like an old Morticia Adams. I feel that Paddy would have loved this place.
Around eleven the siren call of classes the next day drew most people home, but not I. So I met up with an American Rebecca, (who is half Austrian) and her boyfriend (Fabio, I kid you not, how awesome is that?). It may have just been the music (80s rock. Kids in America came on and all I could do was laugh and imagine when Arizona, Kate, and Sarah were gleefully singing that at the top of their lungs) or the conversing was amazingly awesome people, but the hours flew by and eventually we had to go our separate ways.
So in summary, a darn enjoyable day. Now all I have to worry about is making too many excuses to go to the corner of joy (where the comic book store and the vegetarian cafe are) or all my money will go bye bye.

Nationalfeiertag

"Where is she?" You may all be wondering. Have I fallen victim to some horrifying space monkeys, or perhaps a rare Austrian land-shark? Truth is I've just been pretty busy with trying to work out little errands, as well as school and socializing. This past Monday (26.10.09) however, I got a small break from everything as it was Austrian's National Day.

In front of the town hall Because it was a day of specialness, the Parliament building was opened to the public so me and some other international students went to go marvel at the awesome architecture. Think I'm over exaggeration? Behold:

Man fighting a horse, a statue necessary for all government buildings

The line to get in was pretty long, and mostly involved us standing outside in a huge crowd and attempting to push toward the entrance with the rest of the people. I felt like I was attending some kind of grand opening or a concert of sorts.

I told Habib to look pensive, instead I think he went for terrifying :-P Saddly once inside the building my camera died quite rapidly, so I only managed a few photos.

Me forgetting flash doesn't alway make for good photos.
The inside of the building was pretty cool, in that there was all this fancy scrollwork, statues, paintings, and more importantly, doorknobs shaped like snakes.

Mom if you're paying attention, I want these for my birthday!

On the other hand there were parts of the building that were so very current looking it made for a fantastic contrast. After touring around we went to Volksgarten (which is a large park) that was packed with people, stands, and...military vehicles. I don't know if it's because La Crosse isn't big enough to have a huge thing on the 4th, but I found it really odd that the military played such a large part in their national day. Don't get me wrong, I know there's some military involvment, but here there were tanks and planes people could check out, and many many booths that had info about the military (I think, it was all in German). Around 3:45 I maddly dashed off to try and find the Opera Ring, which was hindered in part by the fact that I went in the wrong direction. However, I did eventually find the building, which only led me to the next task of trying to find where to buy standing tickets (3 euros). I was actually tempted to just stand outside, since there's a huge tv screen showing the performance, but Claudia and Tita were waiting inside for me so I perserveared. Which leads me to my next point, Austrians are so un-shy it's a little frightening. I'm so used to the Finnish tactic of only talking to strangers when necessary that when I finally asked a woman if she knew where the tickets are sold, that her willingness to help was a nice suprise. While taking me to the booth we even chatted and bit and she helped me buy a ticket before leaving with a smile and a wave.
Standing tickets are just what they sounds like, you stand, for 3 hours. I didn't think it would be possible for me to actually do that, but time went by pretty fast. Also, has anyone here seen Swan Lake? Because I left that performance very very confused. I had thought there was only one main man and woman character, but it turns out there were three of each. However, even with the lack of plot, I really enjoyed it. The dancing was increadable.
What I feel should be noted is, there was one part where I had to supress much laughter. Towards the end the prince (I think) was trying to get the swan lady back, but the bad guy (he was wearing black, obvious bad guy) jumps between them and starts swishing his looooong sleeve arms in a sort of figure eight pattern. It might be the infused wildlife lectures, but all I could imagine was a big old swan rearing, flapping its wings, hissing and saying "mine! My female! Mine! Mine!" The image was....interesting

But most importantly, Halloween has a slight influence here. Some bakeries sell tasty Halloween treats, such as a square of white sponge cake with a layer of chocolate creme topped with apricot jam and covered in marzipan. Including a small sugar black cat.

It. Was. Delicious.