scrawls.

scrawls

still cheaper than therapy*

31.1.07

every which way

you are walking in this city, the wind is blowing directly opposite.

It is very annoying.

Labels: vienna

scrawled @ 18:52

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27.1.07

just, no

So it was frustrating that for six months until, like, just now, we had no time when it was just us. living with other people is all well and good for, maybe, a little short time, but this place is the first that we have had where there was Nobody Else Living There, for ages and ages and ages, so i just want to breathe on our own here for a while. And though it gets a little bit boring to not know anyone here or almost anyone it is so, so refreshing to not think about anyone else and to have this freedom and independence and lack of crazy people being constantly nearby. Or even not-crazy people. Any people. Wonderful. even though the place that we have is tiny. even though we have to move again in a week, for the maybe sixth time (i think) in a month and a half. even though we haven't unpacked in more than half a year, more than half a year, and haven't had a proper place to call home. even though we have no proper telephone or internet for more time yet and have to trek laundry halfway across the city and have this teency kitchen which is not the best equipped, partly because i refuse to buy anything at all when we know we are moving in another week again. but this space to breathe, it is so sweet.

Labels: house

scrawled @ 15:08

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out of context

two-for-one wine sale. Under three bucks. We should start.

you were totally hit by a strassenbahn.

yeah, i haven't yet got the fine art of Wearing a Hat and Not Having it Fuck Up My Hair yet.

Me.

i don't think i'm so into the modern art scene. Not for this.

Labels: random

scrawled @ 14:53

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21.1.07

More pictures

bildung auf Wien. i think. Of note: we are huge nerds, as evidenced by Pi, but so is the city; the wizard-of-oz shit at the museum of modern art; Policeman With Gas Chamber; Tiny Fat Cherub (and/or Gnome) Killing a Basilisk (i think); Monument to Boiling Oil; "eggwhite" apparently meaning "protein" in German (weird); and, the Noob Cafe.

scrawled @ 15:26

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16.1.07

just a few pics

until we get real internet, or figure out how to make an english flash drive talk to a deutsche computer.

Labels: vienna

scrawled @ 16:48

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15.1.07

new program

the Involuntary Diet and Exercise, and Also Learning to Type Funny, because you try and go to a grocery store at five on a saturday and the first one you can walk to is closed and the second one you can walk to is closed and the third one you can walk to is closed and by now you've been walking for forty-five minutes. and this y-z thing is going to fuck up my typing for EVER. i can just tell. also the semicolon is not a semicolon any more, but at least now i know how they make the funny characters. wööt!

finally we are in an apartment for long enough (2 weeks, ish, or maybe 3) that we can unpack, and repack, and not have all the winter clothes scattered between seven suitcases to even them all out to exactly 50 pounds. We were the people repacking in the airport, yes. It is not as embarrasing as it sounds. but unpacking! yes! finally! after moving 4 times in 4 weeks.

scrawled @ 15:25

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13.1.07

yes, you wanted to know

that the Austrian so you think you can dance has the same theme song as the american one. i have no mechanism, however, for evaluating the quality of the dancers, except to say that unlike on american shows, where if you are watching on mute and the last two people are standing up and when they announce a name, the first thing they do is hug so you can't tell who won, oh no, here, the first thing the winner does is emote. Because they're dancers and that's what they do, jump up and down and wave their arms around. right?

scrawled @ 16:24

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11.1.07

mmmm, fleische

the inuit have, what, eighty words for snow? and the french a solid dozen for love? so it wouldn't surprise me at all if the German language had a good five or ten each for meat and potatoes (sources say they have four words for "butcher," too).

also, Rosti are good. That's German for "potatoes," mark at least four that we've seen so far. see also: Kartofell, Erdapfel, Knolle, Pommes frites, and some we haven't run into: Tuffel, Patüffel, Kantuffel, Katuffel, Erdbirne, Herdopfel, Knulle, Nudel, Schacke, Grumbire, Grudbirne, Appern, Erbbirn, Potacke, Eschtöpfe, Gromper, Jromper, Krumbeere, ...

also, onions are Zwiebel. and garlic is Knoblauch or something.

Labels: food, vienna

scrawled @ 20:00

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9.1.07

in which we can't do anything

so we find our way home on the subway-tram-thing. Ok. We find directions to the apartment we're supposed to locate on our own, with my new favorite website. Success. We get there and find the right house and don't know which apartment-number we're supposed to ring to get in the building (which, to be fair to us, was never information we had in the first place). A nice frau with a cigarette buzzes us in and as we're inspecting the mailboxes trying to find our contact's name, the house manager finds us and we travel all over the building trying to find W, only nobody knows him, because it's his roommate's or maybe his ex-girlfriend's name on the door apparently and of course we have no idea what that is. but we had the right place. And it's lovely altbau and has stained glass in some places and wrought iron on the stairs.

so we found it. and we navigated the public transportation system. and we managed to convey to the austrians that we were wohungmete-sucheing and that we were looking for wolfgang (i think) and i know we conveyed our sheer gratitude and that got across.

But we also failed to have dinner, because everywhere here starts to close at maybe eight, and they turn off all their lights so they're harder to find, and we have no proper kitchen, and we have no proper food. And we walked enough miles today that m got a blister. M does not believe in blisters from walking. The way my mom does not believe in ice-cream headache. she thinks somehow it's a conspiracy, to the point that when there was a seinfeld episode about it, he was in on it too. anyway. Disappointing. Tired. Hungry. Aargh.

Labels: expat, vienna

scrawled @ 22:26

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7.1.07

from another country

So this is when i get to be all weird and say nasty superior things about americans and generalize like mad, only i did that when i lived there, too, thanks.

Expat Generalization no. 1:

SHUT UP! Shut up, you Americans! You always talk, you Americans. You talk, and you talk, and say "let me tell you something" and "I just wanna say this". Well, you're dead now, so shut up! [With a bony finger, the Grim Reaper pokes Geoffrey in the eye.]

Cheers. Terry Gilliam was the american, i believe. so. i talk. that's what the whole "blogging" thing is. personal being political, and voting with one's feet and/or pocketbook, and so on and so forth. there's the quote they had, that whatever you're looking for, you will find, but isn't that really applicable anywhere? anyway. so. let's see what i'm looking for, then.

Labels: expat, vienna

scrawled @ 21:47

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Tag Ein in Wien

we had dinner with m's new boss, K, which was something very traditionally austrian: Macaroni and cheese (in which the macaroni was, um, not technically macaroni, but some lovely eggy dumplings which may or may not have been spatzl, and the cheese was not just cheese but also eggyness and chives and oniony bits, which might be zweibel, and bacon, which i think is called speck, and also fried crusty things which i think were onions on top) and it was called something that began with an H. Very rich. Lovely. Except when i google it it might be eierknockerl so it might have been something like that, only with another word up at the beginning. H-bacony-eierknockerl. and then, having both been sick and also having just arrived and had, at best, two hours of sleep on the plane, we went to bed around 7. And woke up promptly at (we think) 2 a.m., we think, because the clock here may or may not be off an hour and we were not feeling the most reliable. And we had some airborne (which clearly doesn't start working if you take it and are already sick, so whatever) and some NyQuil (mmmmm, the 'Quil, my old friend, that i smuggled through Customs even if there was noone there to ask) and went back to bed and slept until noon. Ish. And then we went and had lunch with K and his family for traditional Czech food, which is yummy duck* and more dumpling and saurkraut.

Happily K was able to get us a guest-room at the institute where M will be working so we didn't have to worry about where we were staying the first few nights. But we have a week to find and appropriately furnish a liveable flat. also happily, there is a bus from the middle of downtown to ikea, which is pronounced eekahyah instead of eyekeyah. Approximately. also, they have Aldi, but i have never been to an Aldi, so this is no help.

*note: i would eat Bambi if he was put in front of me. or Wilbur. or any of them.

Labels: food, vienna

scrawled @ 20:38

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and the first thing i do is

find the german-language Trading Spaces, on marathon.

Labels: vienna

scrawled @ 13:12

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5.1.07

oh, my FUCKING god

i'm moving to another country tomorrow.

Labels: vienna

scrawled @ 03:19

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1.1.07

dear Borat,

how the fuck are you supposed to have gotten a live chicken through airport security? Of all things. This, coming from The Best Packer The World Has Ever Seen, or, all our shit fits in four suitcases, and not all that big ones either. Not counting, you know, all the stuff we left in florida, but still.

If i break out in hives again i'll know it was the coat. But then it'll save room. dear Borat, if you are looking for a coydog, look somewhere else. this one is MINE. love, liz

Labels: emptor

scrawled @ 05:03

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