Quote

Abroad Quote of the Semester

"You're an expatriate. You've lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see. You hang around cafés."

- Chapter 12, The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

A Bentley Student's Guide to Vienna

Alright, so your meeting with Barb, students who studied abroad, and Austrian students, all of that will only prepare you to a certain extent. By the time I go home I am going to forget the best advice. Therefore I hope I can direct people to this blog post to help aid the transition and provide a run down of Vienna.

Housing Abroad
Live in Haus Erasmus.

Haus Erasmus is the bee’s knees. It’s clean. It gets cleaned on a weekly basis by these silly/funny/cute/aggravating Austrian cleaning ladies. Only one of them speaks English. These women have an attitude, but they are also very motherly. Here in Vienna, you have to separate the garbage: plastics, paper, cans, glass, and everything else.

Lord help you if you put your tissue in the plastics or your paper in the garbage! They will wake you up and ream you out. I, however, have a different relationship with the cleaning ladies and maintenance men than most Erasmus residents. I live on the first floor. There are NO positives to living on the first floor. I live above the party room, so my floor will shake to “Das Geht Ab” until 5 am several times a week. We also have a TINY kitchen that often gets invaded by Asians. We also have the music room. Normally, I would like listening to people practicing the cello and the band that practices, but there is these flute players. These flute players are insufferable. They like to practice at 9 am and do nothing but scales. It is so bad. The only thing that is worse than the flute music is the cigarette smoke that flows underneath my door from the cleaning lady break room. Directly across from my door is the break room and 2 supply rooms for the staff. From what I’ve seen, 60% of their work day is spent smoking cigarettes, gossiping, and eating cookies.

The main piece I can offer to you about living in Erasmus is that you should try to have Bentley kids live on different floors. I am also going to ask Bentley to request that students live on different floors. That will give you exposure to new groups of people. Sharing a wall makes it far too convenient to hang out with your Bentley neighbors, but living on different floors introduces you to new social groups. Of course Bentley kids will always find each other to hang out, but from what I’ve heard and it’s the people that get put on a separate floor that really diversify their friend groups.

DO NOT LIVE IN HOUSE PANORAMA
It feels like a prison. Homeless people sleep in the lobby. It is close to the university, but far away from anything else. There is nothing cool around it, just office buildings. You have to walk or take a bus to the nearest Ubahn station. It is gigantic. People jump off the top floor and commit suicide. The only positive thing I can think of is that you get a single bedroom. I would definitely suggest a roommate. I have had two roommates. My first Austrian roommate and I only lived together for about a month before she moved in with her boyfriend. She still paid for October and November, so I lived alone in a double for 2 months. That was pretty sweet. Now, in December, I have a really clutch Armenian girl. Before I met her, I had never met anyone who lived in Armenia. One of the best parts of studying abroad is meeting new people. If you have a roommate, you are exposed to them and their group of friends too. I don’t care how much you value your privacy, having a roommate when studying abroad is one of the easiest ways to enhance your experience.

Classes
Go to more classes than you plan on taking. The academics here are not stellar. There are good classes, but there are also a lot of bad classes. I went to a class the first two sessions, and by the end over ¾ of the class had dropped it. My Bentley classmates are going to end up only transferring back 4 classes because they have had to drop some.

I over-registered and will end up transferring back 5 or 6. If you don’t get into the class when you register online, you can always show up to the first day of class and ask to be added to the roster. I have not met any exchange students who were denied entry into a class when they showed up the first day. Also, if you show up to the first day and you don’t like the professor, the grading rubric, or anything; you can easily take a different course. Dropping a course here is as easy as sending an email. The main complication is what courses Bentley will accept. The best class I have taken here is still pending as to whether I will receive credit or not. Check with Bentley right away so you don’t get stuck at the end of the semester taking classes that won’t help you graduate.

Also, you can ask for a 1. Some teachers don’t like giving 1s. On the Austrian grading scale, a 2 is a 3.3, so you definitely want a 1. I am 50/50 with this, but if you explain to your professor that by American standards you need a 1, and that you are willing to work to get a 1, they will oblige. I had an American teacher here (not even a real professor, just a business man) who gave everyone in the class 2s (as far as I have asked). It was a 3 day class about leadership…total bullocks. I still have 3 grades to come in, so we’ll see how my strategy works in the other courses.

Travel
By Bus
To Prague: Student Agency Bus http://www.studentagencybus.com/
To Budapest: Orange Ways Bus http://www.orangeways.com/en

By Train
Get the vorteils discount card for 20 euro (gives you 50% off tickets) from the Austrian rail system and take the train across europe (http://www.oebb.at/en/index.jsp)

By Plane
To Rome: Wizz Air http://wizzair.com/
Ryan Air flies out of Bratislava and is super cheap for destinations across Europe http://www.ryanair.com/en

By Rental Car
Find someone who drives stick, take a bus to Bratislava, and drive across Europe. Driving in Europe is very similar to the US. Some roads have no speed limits. Plus, it’s a rental car, so you can pretty much drive it likes its stolen because in Bratislava they don’t really give a darn in what condition you return the vehicle.

Groceries
Always keep a cache of food in your room. In Vienna, almost nothing is open on Sundays. If you don’t keep food in your room, you are going to end up living off of kabobs, which shorten your life span with every garlicy bite. Around Haus Erasmus there are several grocery stores. BIlla is the most convenient, but has the least selection. When you first get there, take a Billa card form and fill it out so you can get discounts on sale items. They have the cheapest beer and often have sales on wine and liquor.

The alternative grocery stores are Hofer, Zielpunkt, Merkour, and Spar. Hofer is the Aldi in the US. It is by far the cheapest, but is also the cheapest. Zielpunkt has good selection, but not necessarily stellar sales. Billa has good sales fairly often, but their fruits and vegetables are not very good looking. Merkour is located in the basement of Lugner City (a mall right next to the Ubahn stop Burgasse Stadhalle). It is just like an American grocery store. They have an amazing selection of everything. If you have money to burn or desire gourmet cheese or Johnny Walker, this is the grocery store for you. If I am feeling extravagant I will go to Merkour and pick out some pre-marinated meat or fish and some exotic fruit or fancy cheese.

Vegetables (specifically potatoes) are super cheap here. Organic food is also subsidized by the government to the point where organic food is sometimes cheaper than normal food. Yogurt, chocolate, and rice pudding are way better here than in the states. Everyone in Haus Erasmus starts out cooking pasta…and by the end of the semester greatly expand their repertoire. The best way to expand your pallet is to cook with people from other countries. It works out great if you cook for them one night and they cook for you the next. This semester I have eaten tons of new foods from across the globe, not just Austria. I have learned to use a rice cooker, made sushi, eaten poutine, etc.

One few small things about grocery stores here: they charge you for plastic bags. It’s only like 20 cents, but if you bring your own bags then the whole grocery shopping process is easier (and more environmentally friendly). Also, if you want to use a cart you need to insert a 1 or 2 euro coin that you get back when you put the cart back. Also, if you don’t eat pork, be very, very careful in Austria. I bought Puten (turkey) once and it ended up being ham slices. One Muslim girl here ate ham for the first time in her life because it was labeled as puten, but was actually schinken (ham). Most dished here revolve around some sort of pig product. If you are worried about eating ham it is best not to eat meat here unless you yourself are cooking chicken breasts or something similar.

Friends
Don’t just hang out with Americans. I know it is tempting, but if you wanted to hang out with Americans you could’ve stayed at Bentley. Plus, when else are you going to meat Armenians, Serbians, Hungarians, Danes, Fins? After your semester abroad you will have such a better grasp on understanding other cultures because you will know a Slovenian and how they act or a Korean or even a Canadian. (Canadians are the most similar to Americans…but you can normally tell the difference if you hang out with them long enough.)

Money
A lot of kids got bank accounts here. If you are a student, your banking account has no fees and is very easy to set up. However, with the exchange rate for USD to Euros being the worst in history, I decided to not wire my money over in hopes the dollar would rally. The dollar did not rally, and I paid a lot of ATM fees. However, it was convenient to use ATMs so I wouldn’t have done it differently.

Your budget here is entirely up to you. If you want to live the Viennese lifestyle you can live pretty cheaply cooking, taking night buses home, pregaming before going out, getting student discount admission to club and museums and movies, and other local thrills. You can also go all out and spend like no tomorrow: going out to eat, taking taxis, clubbing on weekends, flying to Amsterdam, Cairo, Paris, etc. If the dollar was stronger I would’ve traveled more, but I am still content.

Electronics
Bring an adapter, preferably a voltage adapter. If you can, you should also bring an external hard drive. 2/3 Bentley students here got a Russian malware virus that totally screwed our hard drives. We were both lucky enough to save our files, but an external hard drive helps buffer your chances. Another advantage to bringing an external hard drive is that you can put movies and music from other students onto it. There are people here with tons of ripped movies (because other countries don’t honor copyright laws) you can take. The internet here is so slow that you can’t stream hardly anything and the TV is all in German except International CNN and MTV Reality shows (if you even have access to a TV).

Bring a cheap cell phone that has a SIM card, preferably already unlocked. That way you can buy a SIM Card here and put money on it. If you buy certain SIM cards, you can call the US for 2 cents/minute. It is all pay as you go, so you don’t have to worry about cancelling contracts or hidden fees.

Your camera is the second most important electronic you will bring. Make sure that you remember to bring your charger and cable. If your camera is not very nice, it is worth the $150-$300 to buy a new camera. The pictures you take here will be far more valuable to you in the future than any souvenirs you will buy.

Clubs
Despite Vienna’s small size, there are tons of clubs and bars. After living here for 4 months, I have my favorites.
Praterdome – on weekends it is expensive and full of D-bags. Thursday night is Lady’s night and student night. It costs 6 euros for boys and 3 euros for girls and you get 10 euros of free drinks on this club credit card. Bottles of Heineken and Becks are 2 euros and tequila shots are 1.50. On Thursdays they only open up 4 of the rooms, but it is still a good time. I have gone the last 7 or 8 Thursdays straight. The music in the hip hop room is always good and you always see exchange friends there. I normally end up getting schnockered and staying until the Ubahn starts running at 5 AM, paying a total of 4 euros (3 for entry, 1 for coat check) and having a time.

Fluc – a super sketchy bar with live music right next to the Praterstern stop. It has no coat check, no entry fee, but some awesome fussball players and live music.

Ride Club – ride club has no cover for WU students and has free drinks from 7-8. It is also really easy to get home on the night bus. Ride is located one stop away from the University under the U6. Other than that, Ride Club is hot, crowded, and plays lame music. But, someone will drag you out almost every Monday and you’ll go because you won’t have anything better to do.

Restaurants
7 Star Brewery – 4.80 lunch specials and microbrewery beer http://www.7stern.at/

The Turkish Bakery – open 23 hours a day. Delicious Turkish food. Right next to urban loritz platz.

Cardinale Pizza – from 11 PM to 2 AM they have a 5,5,5 pizza, calzone and pasta deal

Bamboo – Super good asian buffet. From 3-5 PM they have happy hour where the buffet is only 6.90, as opposed to 13 euros at dinner

Happy Noodle – An asian food stand in Schwedenplatz that never disappoints

Must Do Culture
Go Running at Schonbrunn Palace
Visit the Tiergarten Zoo
Walk around the 1st district (take pictures)
Get student tickets (10 euro) or standing tickets (3 or 4 euros) at the State Opera House http://www.staatsoper.at/Content.Node2/intro.php

Hope this is helpful. Enjoy your time abroad!

Blog Now. Paper Later.

I should be writing a final paper. I took an epic four hour nap today after going to Naschmarkt (a gigantic flea market). I am listening to the song “We Used to Vacation” by the Cold War Kids. Paper later, blog now.

I have less than 4 days left in Europe…Back to Bentley for the Spring…Who knows where for a summer internship…last semester at Bentley…graduate in December…then a job and the rest of my life. Taking all that into account, I don’t know when I will be back in Europe. I had grand plans to visit Spain, Paris, London, Dublin, Berlin, and Amsterdam. However, Vienna was fresh to death, and I didn’t want to peace out every weekend. I did manage to hit up lots of Central and Eastern Europe:
Bratislava, Slovakia
Graz, Linz, Mauthesen, Salzburg,Innsbruck, Vienna, Austria.
Zurich, Switzerland
Verona, Venice, Milan, Italy
Budapest, Hungary
Brno, Prague, Czech Republic
Munich, Germany

Most of these hotspots I visited on the ultimate European road trip. I still need to write about this, seeing as that it was the highlight of my abroad experience. Now that I am packing (aka shoving copious amounts of chocolate into my suitcases) I stumbled upon Bentley’s “Education Abroad Handbook.” This handbook covers all topics: AIDS, homosexuals, women’s equality, and provides groundbreaking insights such as “Walking alone at night should be avoided.” Thank you Bentley.

The section I am reading now is the “Returning Home” section.
“Your international study and travel experiences can help you become more mature, independent and worldly than your peers who remained at home…You may be disappointed when friends and family do not share your interests”
I don’t know how your interpret this, but to me it sounds like because you lived somewhere else you will be granted with some paradigm shift in the way you view life and those peons who stayed in America won’t even understand you anymore.

However, the hand book goes on to explain that, “You may find that people are not interested in hearing your travel stories as you had hoped and would much rather talk about their own affairs.”
AKA Nobody gives a sneeze how much you miss pints were in your favorite pub or how much you miss eating a kabob when you take the first ubahn of the morning home from Praterdome. I have noticed this in my friends/acquaintances that come home from abroad. They are homesick for their abroad host country and talk about it 70%-98% of the time. It gets old fast. Therefore, right now, I give permission to anyone who reads this to slap me if I constantly slip into nostalgia for Austria. I can see it now, “Christina, if you mention the Turkish bakery/public transportation/proximity to other countries/people from abroad one more time, I will slap you.”
Ok, so I really should be writing my Ecological Economics final paper. What I really want to write about I can’t project all over cyberspace. I want to talk about people, things, places, here. Regrettably, since the link to this blog is on facebook, I don’t want said people, places and things to read about themselves by mistake. This last week I have watched all of season 1 and 5 of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” It makes me wonder if Larry David’s family and friends get mad at him for how they are depicted on his show. Same things with novelists. I know Truman Capote’s friends got pissed for how he wrote about them. In order to avoid social castigation, I won’t write about those nouns until a later date. Or better yet, ask me about the characters here. (Please take note that if YOU ask ME about abroad, you are not allowed to slap me for talking about it :D).

A Series of Tubes

I've been reading some other blogs in order to improve this one. Some people update their blogs several times a day. In the spirit of twitter, facebook, and all other internet portals that allow people to overshare, I will do the same by clogging the information superhighway with totally useless content. Here I go.

Current Location: WU, computer lab, Computational Corporate Finance II, computer #SR328

Last Movie Watched: I'm Not There

Last Song Listened To: "London's Calling" The Clash

What am I doing?: Sitting in class, supposed to be creating financial models on Visual Basic

What am I actually doing?: Reading about Amanda Knox (best abroad experience ever?)

Plans for the rest of the day: Business German, European Law & Economics, Case Race

Current Annoyance: A toss up between all the errors on Facebook and the flaws of a German keyboard.

What's getting me through my classes today?: The promise of at least 2 Liters of beer during the Case Race.

Bittersweet December

Today is December 4, 2009. That means in 19 days I will fly across the Atlantic Ocean and back to reality. It also means that I can eat a chocolate out of my teddy bear advent calendar! Now that reality is settling in I am making winter break plans, applying to internships, and making my Christmas card.

This year Julianne and I are making Christmas cards. I don’t know what age you are supposed to be to do this, but I guess I have gotten there. I think that people send out Christmas cards after they get engaged, or married, or have pictures of rugrats to put on the front. Luckily, my sister and I have avoided all of those things up to this point in our lives and have no pictures of puppies, husbands, or kids to display. So, what could be better to send to all of our friends who have kids, mortgages, first homes, etc, then pictures of us gallivanting through Europe?

I’ve lived here long enough were not every week has been filled with incredible goings-on. One day this week, instead of going out to the hookah lounge for happy hour with my friends I went to the book store. I spent close to 2 hours there. After much debate, I ended up buying “American Pastoral” by Philip Roth and A PUZZLE! I know, it’s sad, but that night my friends went out to two bars, and I stayed in to do a puzzle. I totally made the better choice. Plus, this puzzle is epic. It’s a 1,000 piece puzzle displaying rows of European and American beers.

It’s my last month in Austria and people are disappearing like pieces from my puzzle. People are starting to pack up and go home. It’s pretty bittersweet to think about returning to the land of the free. I’ve decided to buffer my expectations by doing what I do every day for pretty much every situation: make a list.

Things I am excited for in America
1. Customer Service
I miss it so much. When I go home I am probably going to hug the first customer service representative that I see.

2. The majority of the population speaking a language I can understand
English or Spanish
3. My family
Especially since I am coming home at the best time of the year: CHRISTMAS!
4. American Dollars
the size, the smell, the color, the value, woohee it sends chills down my spine
5. Driving a Car
6. Real Schoolwork
I am 100% disappointed in the courses here. I am a nerd who loves learning, but my classes here have been terrible. I have two more left this month. I am hoping they will salvage my opinion of European education.
7. Capitalism/Democracy
The political/governmental situation here is…kind of unsettling. I don’t feel like you have real freedom here. I don’t want to go into detail, but some stuff has gone down here that would NEVER fly in America.

Things I will miss about Austria
1. The food
Specifically the creamy chocolate and the Turkish food. Turkish food here is like Mexican food in America. It's almost as good, if not better than it would be if I was actually in Turkey. However, Mexican food here is bad, as I expect Turkish food would not be as good in the US as it is here. I will not miss traditional Austrian dishes, because they normally consist of breading, pork, and pork.
2. All my friends in Haus Erasmus
People are already starting to go home and it’s very sad. It’s like the end of summer camp: you tell them you’ll be friends forever, but you’ll probably never see them again.
3. Being able to go clubbing several nights a week without affecting my schoolwork AT ALL.
I am not a party girl. I like throwing a few back and hanging out with my friends, but the amount of clubbing I do here is bordering on insanity. The problem is, I never have an excuse not to go clubbing. I don’t have work in the morning, homework to do, or any other semblance of responsibility. Last night at Praterdome, I realized that I had been there 5 Thursday nights in a row, if not more than that. I don’t think I will be able to maintain that kind of record stateside.
4. Being able to take public transit at all hours of the day
So, I do miss driving my car, but always having a designated driver is awesome. Thanks Wiener Linen for always having a night bust, S-bahn, or U-bahn for me to ride home.
5. Cheap and delicious beer and wine
You can buy wine and champagne here for one euro. If I spend 2.50 euro on a bottle of wine, I expect quality. Half a liter of beer from the grocery store is normally just above 50 cents. Even vodka here ranges from 5-10 euros. When I go back to American the cheapest wine I will be able to buy is Carlo Rossi or Franzia, for over $10. Going back to that swill will be very tough to cope with.

I am almost done with my European Adventure and I have not even come close to filling this blog with all of the shenanigans I have been up to. Perhaps people will just have to find out the old-fashioned way and ask me in person.

KZ Mauthausen

On Wednesday, I set out on a sobering day trip to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp. I hopped on a train from Westbahnhof to St. Valentin. Despite WWII having had such a significant effect on Europe, it feels like they want to pretend it never happened. If I was Austrian I would want to pretend that my people were ever capable of such cowardice and cruelty as well. After WWII, Austria painted itself as the first victim of Hitlerite aggression. This is such BS. The majority of Austrian citizens in 1938 supported the Anschluss (union of Germany and Austria). Many Austrians considered themselves to be similar, if not culturally identical to Germans. When the plebiscite was held on April 10, 1938, 99.7% voted in favor of the Anschluss! As was evident during Kristallnacht, Austrian aggression towards Jews was stronger and more virulent in Vienna than in most German-occupied cities. Austria’s most famous person, Hitler, wanted to make the Austrian town of Linz his ideal cultural capital. The concentration camp I visited, KZ-Mauthausen, is located about 20 kilometers away from Hitler’s beloved city.

The Austrian Resistance movement was close to non-existent. Let me take this moment to highlight the Polish Resistance Movement which supplied the Allies with intelligence, disrupted Eastern Front supply lines, and saved thousands of lives of groups persecuted by the Nazis. In contrast, the Austrian populace seemed to be ambivalent if not supportive of their supposed “occupiers.” Let me make clear that I am not blaming modern day Austrians, their national heritage is not their fault as much as the historical mistreatment of Native Americans or African Americans is not my fault. But, after the defeat of the Third Reich, Austria played the victim card and got off with 10 years of Viennese occupation by the Allied Forces and was later allowed to regain their state sovereignty.

My strong feelings towards this subject were stirred up during my visit to KZ- Mauthausen. Finding ended up being an ordeal in itself. The first town we got off at, St. Valentin was still about 30 km away from the camp. We went into the hotel across from the train station and asked for directions. We were told that a cab would be about 25 to 30 euros. We insist that there had to be a train. The concierge looks up a train to the town of Mauthausen, which ended up costing us only 1 euro. (Thanks Hotel zur Post).

On the train, Ethan and I enjoyed a bag lunch of wurstsemmel. My kinder bag lunch had a kitty puzzle inside, which was probably the happiest part of my day. When we get to the Mauthausen train stop, we are told to once again take a cab up to the camp. Me, being stingy, decided to walk the 6 km. It was an abnormally beautiful day for late November. The sun was shining and the temperature was around 21 degrees Celsius. It was so nice outside I got slightly sun burnt. My companion and I walked the containment wall running along the Danube for a few kilometers until the road turned off to a cute little Maria Hilfer town.

To make sure we were heading the right direction, we walk into a little castle named the Schloss Pragstein. The signs outside advertised an Apothecary museum inside. The doors were open but no one was inside. We walked all the way to the top floor, but could not find anyone in the castle. It was eerie, and possibly trespassing, so we hightailed it out of there and got back on the road. We follow the road signs through beautiful woods and quaint Austrian houses that looked like ski chalets until we reached a 2km uphill turnoff road. At the very top of the hill was KZ- Mauthausen.

We bought our one euro student tickets, got our audio guides and went inside. The camp was nearly devoid of emotion-wrenching exhibits. The audio guide was extremely informative and business like. The information it told us was beyond horrendous. The first stop on our tour was the Wailing Wall. New prisoners brought to the camp were forced to face the wall for hours, if not days, as the first act of dehumanization. Afterwards, their personal possessions were taken and they were forced to be shaved, showered, and deloused. The barracks of the camp were broken up into different sections according to what type of prisoners was held there. One thing that makes Mauthausen unique is that it housed many different enemies of the Third Reich: Soviets, Jews, the intelligentsia, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Spanish Republicans, Polish, homosexuals, and anyone else who disagreed with them. The prisoner’s classifications were displayed on their uniforms. The camp had clear placards throughout the camp which explained what occurred at different stations.

Mauthausen was the only Grade III camp, reserved for those who were Incorrigible political enemies of the Reich. Mauthausen’s purpose was extermination through labor. The labor was exploited for many profitable companies that made prisoners mine at the granite quarry outside of the camp’s stone walls and electrified fences for 12 hours a day. The bottom and top of the quarry are linked by the Stairs of Death. These stairs are extremely steep. Prisoners had to haul huge stone blocks weighing anywhere from 50-100 kg up the 186 stairs. If they made it up the stairs, it was customary for them to be lined up at the Parachute Wall. At this sheer rock face, prisoners would be forced to push the prisoner in front of them off the wall or be shot so they would fall to their deaths. It was named the Parachute Wall because the falling prisoners were like parachutists without parachutes.

The camp had several other horrifying ways to kill people: icy showers leading to hypothermia, gas chambers, shooting, medical experiments, hanging, starvation, lethal injection, drowning, beaten to death, pushed into 380 volt electrified fence that took hours to kill someone, and forcing prisoners past the limits of the camp and killing them so it looked like they tried to escape . Once killed, their gold teeth and tattoos would be removed and they would be buried or cremated. Life expectancy once in the camp ranged from 3 to 6 months. Different types of prisoners had better or worse chances of survival. At the top of the prisoner hierarchy were criminals, at the bottom, Soviets and Jews. The Jews were given half the rations that other types of prisoners were given. When a new shipment was expected, the guards would kill all the Jews in the barracks to make room for the incoming transport.

The tour was very matter of fact and had a lot of personal accounts. The most emotional part of the trip for me was in front of the Crematorium. Many personal plaques and memorials to victims were hung on the walls and draped on the oven. This one is my favorite:

Outside of the camp there are lots of sculptures and memorials from the various groups that had members die within the walls of Mauthausen. After our tour, I walked down the Stairs of Death and stood in the quarry. From the time the camp opened in 1938 and when it was liberated on May 5, 1945 between 120,000 and 300,000 victims died at Mauthausen-Gusen camp system.
At the entrance to the camp there is a sign thanking the Americans for liberating the camp. American soldiers said that when they liberated the camp some people were able to only walk a few steps outside before collapsing to their deaths. They held out just long enough to taste freedom one last time. Some who were too weak to speak or stand just propped themselves up and in recognition of their liberators.

Going to this camp was a profound experience. Everybody knows about the Holocaust, about the evils of the Third Reich, but when you are walking on the Stairs of Death or inside of the gas chamber, or next to the Wailing Wall, it is more than just statistics. Its peoples that needlessly went through hell because go

od men did nothing. People looked the other way, voted for the Anschluss, conceded to tyrants, and millions died.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” – Edmund Burke
Thank you Allied soldiers for taking action against the evil in the world.

If you are interested in learning more about the camp, their website is extremely informative. http://en.mauthausen-memorial.at/index_open.php

I will upload the rest of my picture to Picasa soon.

Thanksgiving

Right now I am watching a History Channel documentary about the Knights Templar on Google Video. I am still wearing pajamas. I’ve only managed to go outside my room to make dinner…at around 7 PM. Thanksgiving really kicked me hard this year. This is my second Thanksgiving spent in Europe. Last Thanksgiving I was in Nantes, France dancing on the bar at the LC Club. This Thanksgiving I went to my normal Thursday night club: Praterdome. I hate to try and make my blog seem like I am a Tucker Max-wannabe, but clubbing may be my new Thanksgiving tradition.


One real Thanksgiving tradition that I upheld this year is making dinner for foreigners. Although no Native Americans live in Erasmus, I did make dinner for 15 Americans, Canadians, Chinese, Mexicans, and even a Brazilian. Having no class on Thursday, I went to Hofer and Merkur in search of American Thanksgiving ingredients. Austria has a lot of good food, and vegetables here are really cheap, but some ingredients were impossible to find. The signature item of any Thanksgiving dinner is the pie. Whether it be pumpkin or pecan, pie is the hallmark of a delicious Turkey Day dinner. Much to my dismay, pie is a foreign concept to Austria. They don’t sell pie crust, pie tins, or pie fillings. The other trademark dish: a full turkey was not possible due to oven and pan restrictions.


Yet, by 7:30, thanks to my tiny Chinese helper/vegetable cutter and some American helping hands, I had a full spread on the table. Turkey breast, stuffed chicken, stuffing, corn, mashed potatoes, gravy, caramelized apples with ice cream and whipped cream, cranberry sauce, glazed carrots, semmels, wild rice, brussel sprouts, pomegranates, and some desserts that were brought by others were served. Maybe not as good as grandma makes, but still pretty darn good.


I have a lot to be thankful for: a loving family, good friends, my health, the opportunity to study abroad, and citizenship in the best country in the world.

Oktoberfest 2009

Once a year Bavarians and beer lovers alike gather in Munich, Germany to celebrate the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese. OK, ok, to drink copious amounts of German beer while wearing dirndls and lederhosen. Having a liter of beer at Oktoberfest was one of my life-travel goals. It’s right up there with drinking a mint julep at the Kentucky Derby or celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in Southie, Boston. The night before October 1st, over 100 foreign exchange students boarded the party train from Vienna, Austria to Munich, Germany. The train consisted of sleeper compartment cars and one party train. A party train is a train car which is completely empty except for a DJ booth and a bar. Part of the cost of the trip to Oktoberfest was all you can drink train rides there and back. The Buddynetwork, which put on this whole shindig, had gone to Hungary to buy cheap alcohol. For the rest of the night, they served use off brand hard liquor, beer, and whatever mixers they had left in tiny plastic cups. All you can drink the night BEFORE Oktoberfest. Once the train pulled away from the Vienna station, I had my first warm beer placed in my hand. As the night wore on people coupled up, the mixers dwindled, and the bathroom became saturated with vomit. The main problem with drinking on a train is not the fact that you spill your drink often (did I mention how sticky the floor got?); it’s the fact that you cannot drink the water on the train. It’s non potable. We have 100 plus drunk kids and NO water. I cleverly managed to swipe a bottle earlier in the night in an attempt to wake up sans hangover.
Munich is a town I am proud to have been hung-over in. Being hung-over seems like a German national pastime. I walk into Munich and lose the entire group. I am not even hung-over yet, I am still drunk. While walking the streets of Munich I manage to find some representatives of her Majesty’s empire (England, Scotland, and Australia) and I breakfast with them. And by breakfast, I mean all I can stomach is a cup of coffee. After breakfast, it is off to my main goal of this semester: to buy a dirndl.
Once in my dirndl, I follow some gentleman wearing lederhosen to the Schottenhamel tent at the Oktoberfest fair grounds. By 12:30 I have a liter of beer in my hands and 5 suave looking German gentlemen around me.
Oktoberfest is a Carnival of Beer. Over 6 million people attend Oktoberfest. In addition to having several “tents” serving different German beers, there is also a huge fair ground. There are tons of kiosks selling silly hats, pretzel necklaces, candy apples, steins, and anything else Bavarian.
Scattered across the fairground are what the Germans refer to as “beer corpses.” If you have ever taken a liter, or 5, of beer to the face, you will understand the feeling. After spending the afternoon drinking beer, carousing with VUEW buddies, taking pictures, dancing with Germans, singing drinking songs, and eating Hendl (chicken), I decide to take a walk around the fair grounds.

So, I am walking, eating a candy apple, and I see a pair of shiny white shoes on a hillside. There is only one person in Europe I know who would wear such a pair of shoes: Ethan. I haven’t seen either of my Bentley companions for awhile, and I was getting slightly concerned. On this hillside there are several beer corpses. But as I get closer I see my two friends sleeping in the most uncomfortable positions possible. I wake them up, and after a lot of drunken confusion, we end up having one last liter of beer and making the all you can drink train home to Vienna. Oktoberfest: the best festival in the world.

Vienna/Amsterdam

So I just wrote a huge blog post on a stolen (ok, borrowed) computer, and HTML deleted it. I hated HTML in IT 101 and my opinion of it has not changed. I will now attempt to recreate the brilliant blog post which got eaten by cyberspace.

I have been on more tours in the last 2 1/2 months the rest of my 20 years combined. (Not including tours given at Bentley University). I used to think that I hated tours: stuck with a bunch of strangers, snapping photos of things you won't remember, being glared at by locals. Not true. I LOVE tours. I love all of the obscure facts and dates. I guess I should've suspected my hidden love for tours when I decided to be a tour guide at Bentley.

Many of the tours I've been on have been called "City Walks." I think they put the work walk in the title because they don't want you to expect a convertible Skoda or horse drawn carriage. So, in a City Walk, you spend 1-3 hours hobbling over cobblestones and avoiding piles of horse shit while being told about neo-gothic architecture this and Medieval Tower that. Vienna is a cool, cool city, so we have started taking city walks into our own hands.

The walk I went on last night I will entitle "Vienna: the Amsterdam of Central Europe." A trio leaves Erasmus, takes a small detour to the Turkish bakery, and heads out for a walk. We walk past cool store fronts, hole in the wall bars, cozy, cafes, and of course, tons of specialty stores. In Vienna, there is a store to buy the left shoe and a Turkish store across the street where you can buy the right shoe. It's not that bad. But, we did walk past the Billa (grocery store) that has two stores across the street from each other. One sells produce and the other Billa sells everything else. Two Billas, two sets of products, same street.

After awhile we end up getting lost. Not a big deal, Vienna is a safe city. We're walking around, looking for landmarks, and a bathroom, and we see bright lights illuminating the sidewalk ahead. As we get closer, we see 4 full grown marijuana plants sitting under grow lamps. We had stumbled across Bush Planet: a head shop and grow shop. At Bush Planet you can buy smoking paraphernalia and everything necessary to grow marijuana, from fertilizer to plastic sheets. When I picked Austria to study abroad I thought of the Danube River, The Sound of Music, goat herders, Mozart, chocolate, NOT head shops.

We stop, we gawk, we take pictures, we move on. Eventually we end up on MariahilferstraBe. MariahilferstraBe is a 2km long shopping street that starts in Museums Quartier and ends between the 7th and 15th district. That area, right next to the U6, is the red light district of Vienna.

I'm walking, enjoying the warm weather and good company, by this point totally numbed to all of the brothels we are passing. I look into a shop window where to heavily done up mannequins are lounging on the ground inside of a shop window. One of these mannequins blinks at me. It scared me so bad. I totally forgot that brothels do that. Two girls were sitting in the front window likes puppies at a pet shop waiting for some John to lay down 25 euro for a lay. It was disgusting. Apparently Amsterdam's window shopping is pretty similar. And this is why, if I were ever to give this tour, I would entitle it the Amsterdam of Central Europe.

Europe Internet Fail

Europe is where American computers come to die. As of this morning, all 3 Bentley laptops in Austria were infected with a virus. This means, that to check my email, facebook, the news, etc I have to get on the subway and take the 20 minute long ride to school. Today is the first day I have ever been to the computer lab on a Sunday. The computer lab here is like Fort Knox.

To get into the building you have to use your ID code and pin. Then, you go downstairs to another card scanner. Once you scan your card and enter the pin, you stand inside two glass doors on a pressure pad. It scans you, beeps, and then you enter the room leading to the computers. Before you can get the computers, you have to put your things into a locker. After all of these steps, I can check my email. It is pretty ridiculous. Especially because the computers in here are old, not really worth stealing. The computer I am currently using has a German/Russian keyboard. I have a 6 page essay to write on this keyboard. Basic punctuation marks are scatterred across the keyboard, and the z and y button are swapped. My hard drive has been stuck in the New York customs office for over 2 weeks now, so the chances of me having my cp back in Austria is looking slim :(

Current Location

Sorry for my dissappearance. My hard drive has not even arrived in the US yet that I know of. I am currently in the living room of the Advantage Hostel in Prague, Czech Republic. Julianne is sleeping on the couch. Our bus doesn't leave until 12:15, and we've already explored all of Prague...twice. I hope to update y'all as soon as I finish this paper about Foreign Direct Investment in Central and Eastern Europe. I better write it soon, because I will be in the good old U.S. of A. in about 5 weeks. Loving Europe, but excited to go back to the land of the free.

Late October

Since my last post I have watched Mozart dance the Macarena, went to the oldest zoo in the world, and saw a huge collection of Nazi memorabilia on accident.

On Austrian National Day (October 26^th) I went to the Technical History Museum. It was pretty cool, full of hand on exhibits ranging from smart wheelchairs to solar energy. They had old automobiles, airplanes, heavy machinery, and lots of random dioramas. I think the highlight for me was the sign posted next to a chair at the global warming exhibit.

I do very little abroad. I like to think I am taking this semester to lessen global warming. Where is my Nobel Peace Prize?

After the Technical Museum we went across Vienna to the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (Military History Museum). Outside the brick walls they had WWII airplanes and running tanks. The architecture of the building has elements of Byzantine, Hispano-Moorish, and Neo-Gothic. It The main entrance hall (The hall of strategists) has 56 statues of famous strategists.

I think we must’ve walked backwards through the museum, because the only exhibit I saw was tons of Nazi stuff (aka the Republic and Dictatorship. Austria between 1918 and 1945). They had artist interpretations of the atrocities that featured dismembered bodies and skeletons eating brains. It was disturbing. The rest of that exhibit had lots of Nazi memorabilia: pictures of Hitler, old uniforms, armbands, etc. Before we could go on to the next exhibit, the museum announced that it was closing time. I wish I would’ve been able to see more of the museum, because that exhibit was extremely disturbing.

Everything in Vienna closes SO early. Museums and the Zoo close at 5. Grocery stores close at 7:30, and banks are open sporadically. The only thing that is consistently open is kebab stands. Kebab stands and this delicious Turkish bakery. This bakery has the best baklava I have ever eaten. I went two days in a row, that’s how good it was. The bakery is open from 5 AM to 4 AM. If I could have one thing from America in Vienna it would be customer service. The only place I have experienced customer service here is at hotels. However, I have also gone through the worst customer service in my life at hotels in Europe (harassed in Venice, double charged in Zurich, etc). I don’t think that most employees have a profit motive, so getting them to do anything extra or make exceptions is close to impossible.

This week I went to the Tiergarten Schönbrunn (zoo). It’s by far the coolest zoo I have ever been to. It started as the imperial menagerie of the Hapsburgs (located right next to their 1,000+ room summer residence the Schloss Schönbrunn). It had polar bears, panda bears, giraffes, rhinos, elephants, hippos, pretty much any animal you would want to see at the zoo. I loved it so much that I bought a season pass.

The other big event was Halloween. Halloween is mainly a North American thing, but we did our best to get the Europeans to celebrate it as well. Kids don’t even get to trick or treat here! Halloween and Christmas are the two best holidays when you are a kid, and these kids don’t even get Halloween.

I bought some Buffalo Grass Vodka (which came dressed in a costume), dressed as Wednesday Friday Addams, and tried to celebrate like I was in America. A huge group of exchange students went to the Ottakringer Brewery Halloween Party. My last surviving electronic, my camera, almost didn’t make it through Halloween. The evening was pretty uneventful: lots of nuns, a couple Waldos, and a few criminals.

One of the events of the evening that sticks out in my head is the coat check Gestapo. Austrian Law dictates that nightclubs have to have coat checks. So, everywhere you go you have to pay .80-1.20 euro to check your coat. DON’T EVER LOSE YOUR COAT CHECK TICKET. The nun who was with us lost his coat check ticket while dancing. We argued with the coat check people for at least 15 minutes about getting his coat back. We spotted the coat, described it, it was hanging next to my coat, but they refused to believe that we weren’t just trying to steal it. It was so ridiculous. We finally wore them down and got a North Face back.

This week I am trying to write two final papers while I have a break in classes. This weekend I am going to Prague. I am uber-excited for Julianne to come visit in one week!

Luddite

Hey Guys,

So late on Wednesday night my computer got destroyed by a virus. The virus disabled my network adapters so I could not get internet access. In an act of desperation I tried to remedy the problem myself. When that didn't work I turned to the Bentley Help Desk, which is the worst thing I could have done. Now, my computer will not boot. So, it looks like for the time being I will not be updating the blog until I can get my laptop fixed. (Seriously considering becoming a Luddite.)

Over the past week I have spent a lot of time in class. Not too exciting . Today I went hiking in the Wienerwald (Vienna Woods) and ate at a delicious Heuriger (Austrian Tavern open in the Autumn). Also, thanks to having no phone, no TV, no Ipod, and no internet I have gotten a lot of reading done. Maybe I will finish Atlas Shrugged sometime this decade.

Tomorrow is Austrian National Day, where they celebrate their neutrality after post WW2 occupation. Celebrating neutraility is sure to have a very different flavor than the American 4th of July.

-Christy

(Miss you n00b14nn3)

$1.50

The euro just topped $1.50. Not only is it bad for me, it's bad for Europe. Almost every currency except the Yen and the Euro are holding down their exchange rate. Come on monetary authorities, do your job!

The MANkiw and Sumner

Alright, so far the lectures in my Economics classes here in Vienna have been less than scintillating. (Nothing like Mankiw's Ec 10 lectures at Harvard.) In light of this, I have been reading Greg Mankiw's blog and Scott Sumner's blog to supplement. Not only does Mankiw write a good Macro book, give funny lectures, all while devilishly handsome, he also constantly updates his blog with interesting insights into all things economic.
Scott Sumner is a Bentley professor who has of unconventional ideas about monetary policy. Not only that, but sometimes he likes to stick it to Paul Krugman, and Paul Krugman deserves to be stuck every now and then.

(I know, not a very exciting post, but educational.)

24 Hours in Budapest

Budapest. Around 3:30 we head out on strassenbahn 18 to Sudtiroler Platz to catch the Orange Ways bus to Hungary. It’s supposed to be 1500 Hungarian Forints ,but since we did not buy them ahead of time it cost us 15 euros. My 4 friends and I shell out the euros and get on the bus. This is the nicest bus I have ever been on. Even better, we are the only ones on it. The bus has a stewardess, a cute stewardess, who serves you cappuccinos and hot chocolate. The scenery between Vienna and Budapest could easily be mistaken for the Midwest. The landscape consists of wind turbines and corn fields. I watched “Failure to Launch” in Hungarian with English subtitles. One thing I’ve always taken for granted is the fact that most of the entertainment I watch originates in America. My favorite bands, movies, books, TV shows, pretty much all American. Here, their favorite bands, movies, books, TV shows are mainly American. Hungarian-speaking Sarah Jessica Parker is not nearly as attractive as English-speaking SJP. Same thing with the 007 movie I watched on the way home. 007 is not nearly as smooth in Hungarian. On a related note, watching TV here is horrible. When good shows come on they are in German. Not only are they in German, they don’t even attempt to imitate the voices and inflections of the actors. House’s sarcasm and derogatory comments are just not as cutting in when dubbed.
Ok, so private bus to Hungary. Beautiful Scenery. Delicious Coffee. Cute Stewardess. Comfortable seats. Harvest Landscape. Now we arrive in Budapest. At the bus stop we go directly to the ATM. The exchange rate between HUF and USD is about 180 to 1. My buddy tries to take out money, but is denied. We decide to go to a more reputable ATM later. We go underground to the subway system in search of a hostel. Having no Forints we use our credit cards to buy Subway passes. In Austria the checking of tickets is a sting operation. You can free ride the public transport 95% of the time. However, if you get caught you get a 70 euro ticket. Luckily, I have never been caught. The one time I did get caught I spoke in Spanish and got out of it with my invalidated ticket. In Hungary, they have people standing at the entrances and some exits checking tickets.
We take the subway into the center of the city and start to wander around in search of a hostel. While we are searching I go to take money out of the ATM. Once I get to the ATM I freeze. I can’t do math. Hungarian units of currency are in such huge numbers that I screw up a zero or two. Encouraged by my two friends, I take out 100,000 Hungarian Forints. Checking my banking statement today, that equates to $560 USD. I hate currency. If any future employers are reading this (and I pray to G-d that they are not) I am telling you right now do not make me work with currency. I hate currency and exchange rates. I like all of the financial instruments except currency. When the dollar was king, I loved exchange rates. In Canada, your money was worth twice as much, in Europe it was about equal. But now, our money is worth bunk. If we want 1 to 1 we go to Canada, if you want 1 to 1.5 go to Europe. If you want to blow all your money go to Switzerland (100 USD to 104 Swiss Francs).
So, we are wandering around Budapest. We stop, ask for hostels, get a free map, and then see the word “hostel” spray painted on the sidewalk. My Oregonian travel buddy had been saying all evening “Just look for sketchy alleyways, walk down it, and then you’ll find a hostel.” Sure enough, the spray painted arrows lead us around a dark corner, into an alleyway, up a flight of stairs, to two hostels. There were two hostels across the courtyard from each other. After talking to both proprietors, we go for the Gingko Hostel. We get a pretty sick 5 person bedroom, lock our stuff up, and head out for the night.
By this time we are famished. We embark for on a quest for Hungarian Goulash. We wander, we ask for directions, we get hungrier and hungrier. Finally, we send someone into a nice hotel to ask the concierge, and just around the corner is the perfect restaurant. We walk into the warmth and head to their second floor. We have a private dining room. We order wine and are presented with a delicious menu written in Hungarian and English. Everything looks so good that no one want to order Goulash. I had ham that was covered in cream, garlic, spices, thinly sliced potato, and cheese all baked in a crock. Five of us eat a great dinner which ends up costing around $40 USD. It was one of the best meals I have had so far in Europe.
After dinner we head to the Old Man’s Pub. We go in and we come back out. Next door there is a cafeteria style bar. A half a liter of beer costs 250HUF. 4cl Absinthe shots are 600HUF. It’s the weirdest mix of people I have ever seen. There are punks drinking wine and raspberry drinks, old people drinking beer, and tons of youngins taking shots of whiskey. We stay in the bar long enough to watch a soccer match, a boxing match, and sing along with Hungarians. One very drunk Hungarian man comes up to our table and starts speaking to us in English. “I want everyone in the here to sing. Do you know American songs? How about Backstreet Boys …You are my fire, my one desire…” Minutes later the whole bar is singling and clapping to “Stand by Me.” We sing another classic hits and head out.
On the way home we stop at a real club. We head downstairs to check it out. The bar was pretty cool, so I figured the clubs in Budapest might be pretty cool. I have never seen a more wiggers in one room in my life. Another thing I don’t understand is how so many Europeans dress like American gang members. I doubt they even know what a Blood or a Crip is. They imitate American culture with no concept of where those fashions originated. Baggy Jeans, backwards caps, and graphic tees with random English words. I’ve seen people here with shirts that just say “North Dakota” or “Minneapolis, Minnesota” not to mention all of the “I<3ny".>We spend a total of 90 seconds in this club before turning around. We go back to our hostel, do some history homework, the boys get gyro kabobs, and it is time to sit in the hostel and let the absinthe wear off.
Sunday
After breakfast at the hostel we don our backpacks and head out for some sightseeing. The Danube in Budapest is much more impressive than the chopped up Danube that we have flowing through Vienna. The city is very similar to Vienna, but has a distinctively Eastern European feel. There are a lot more open green spaces than in Vienna. We hit the main sights and head back to the bus station. We look all around Budapest for some Hungarian Goulash, but many of the restaurants are closed on Sundays. We make it back to the bus station with no since breakfast. The only option is Burger King. We all get the Whopper meal (which is way more expensive than our meal the night before) and take advantage of the free restroom. A few hours later I am back in Vienna. 24 well spent hours in Budapest.