Monday, July 5, 2010

Tom's Favorite Joke(s)

As promised, here's Tom's favorite joke (he says that it's his current favorite joke and he probably chose this one because it has an American theme):

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are sitting in a bar. A third man walks in, sees the President and Vice-President sitting there and approaches them, exclaiming "Wow! The President AND Vice-President here in my local bar! I can't believe it. I'm so honored to meet you both."

Bush replies "it's very nice to meet you too. Dick and I were just having an argument you might be able to help us with. See, we want to start a third world war and we're debating on how to get it started. I say we should kill 3,000,000 Arabs and one postman."

The man appears confused and says "Why one postman?"

Bush turns to Cheney and says "See, I told you no one cares about 3,000,000 Arabs."

______________________________________

You peeps are so lucky. Tom gave me TWO jokes for one measly joke of mine ( after which I apparently insulted him because I said I wasn't sure if he had heard of Superman, which was the punch line).

Joke #2:

The UN attempted to conduct a survey on various country's opinions of world food shortages. They sent out the following question: "Please tell us your opinion of the lack of food in the rest of the world." This survey failed because Western Europe didn't understand "lack," Eastern Europe didn't understand "please," China didn't understand "opinion," Africa didn't understand "food," and the United States didn't understand "the rest of the world."

Tom is obviously quite into political jokes.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Why Hello There

Work has become much better. Too good, in fact. I have so many projects that I had to request an extension on one of them. Hence, the lack of blog updating, which my friend, Arse, has not stopped bugging me about.

Arse asked me to include a dirty joke in my blog because he won't write one in his, but he really wants to link to one. I do not have a dirty joke. I do, however, have my coworker Tom's favorite joke.

Actually, I don't. I was going to ask him today at lunch, but he worked right through it so he could listen to the futbol/soccer game on his computer (he currently has his desk cleared of work and both his speakers and the screen pulled up towards him to watch the game - he's here and not in a bar because he still has to make billable hours). I will ask him on Monday and regale you with the hilarity. He's a pretty funny guy so I'm confident his favorite joke will also be funny. And maybe it will also be dirty and it will both entertain you and get Arse off my back. No pressure, Tom.

This is the last week that pretty much everyone other than Serious Man and Obnoxious Girl will be here, so we've been going big and not going home (until late). Well, it feels late, in reality it's about midnight, but I'm old and have to work the next day like a responsible adult!

On Wednesday night we went on a dinner cruise up the Danube and it was lovely and delicious. They served a bunch of traditional hungarian food that was pretty tasty. It's finally stopped raining, but on the downside it's become insanely hot. I can't decide which one I like less. Growing up in Southern California has definitely spoiled my range of comfortable temperatures.

On Tuesday we had drinks at the Four Seasons - it was so fancy and delightful! I'm obviously meant to spend lots of time in places like that. Along with the drinks they brought a tray full of olives, spicy almonds and mini cheese biscuits, which they refilled three times. I hadn't had lunch that day, so it was basically a free lunch with purchase of overpriced drink meal deal.

I would continue with the reverse chronology and tell you what we did on Monday, but I can't remember. I don't think it was very exciting. Oh! I do know that we saw the Amrican Embassy ... well, a conference room of the American embassy. Apparently most of the building is top secret. Not the world's greatest tour, but we did learn about a guy with a pretty awesome job in the foreign service - he basically is the american liason in Hungary for arts and entertainment (i.e., he helps out american artists who have shows in Hungary) and gets to attend pretty much all of the shows. I would want that job except for the living in a different foreign country every three years part. I like to travel, but I'd prefer to spend the majority of my time in the states.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

You Take The Good, You Take The Bad

... you take them both, and there you have the facts of life.

That theme song popped into my head when I decided to write this post. It's pretty apropos ... well, the lyrics, not the show. No, wait, scratch that, it's a bit similar to the show too - learning to live with people you aren't related to in a new environment. Sure, it's a bit of a comparative stretch, but I think it can work if you want it to.

Ok, away from delightful 80's TV shows and back to Budapest ...

Yesterday was a pretty great day. I arrived to work at 10am. I met with the Big Boss Man for about 5 minutes and he sent me back downstairs after handing me his business card. I have a feeling I won't be seeing him again any time soon. Very typical partner maneuver of giving the new kid a "hello, welcome, good luck, see you later." I think the assistants thought he would be assigning me tasks, and he thinks they're assigning me tasks, so I yet again had nothing to do but surf the internet (which, coincidentally, is my non-task for today, hence the blog post).

I left at noon from work to join everyone else on their tour of the Hungarian Parliament:

(all images stolen from Wikipedia because I can't upload my pictures onto my work computer)

It's an incredibly gorgeous building and the inside is just as striking as the outside. Randomly, the Speaker of the House (and, it seemed, possible new President soonish?), just happened to be in the rotunda as we were being given a tour and since the director of the program on the Hungarian side is friends with him, we were able to meet him. Seemed like quite a nice guy.

THEN we got in a bit of trouble after the tour. See, there was a sign on the wall that seemed to say "restroom", so we followed it and actually found a restroom ... so three of us used it. When we exited we found the tour guide lady and a very large guard, arms crossed and shaking his head at us as if to say "How ridiculous that they just wandered off and used a restroom they weren't instructed to use, I can't believe someone would do that." There was a LOT communicated in that shake of his head. They quickly escorted us outside, with more shaking of the guard's head. The rest of the group had apparently put their lives on the line (not really) insisting that there were some of us still behind in the building and the group couldn't quite leave yet. Seriously, do not mess with the guards in the Hungarian Parliament building.

After that little adventure, we walked around a bit and went to St. Stephan's Basilica, where they, kind of creepily, have his right hand in a glass case in one of the side chapels. The church is gorgeous, as usual. I have yet to be in a church here that wasn't completely striking and awe inspiring (Hmm, I have to think that's somehow intentional ...). I think I've been in church more on this trip than I have in the last couple years (sorry mom and dad).

After St. Stephen's we went to a famous pastry and ice cream shop: Gerbaud. It was beautiful and DELICIOUS. All four of us had something different and they were all so, so good.

I think that's actually three of the items we ordered. I had the white one in the back - crushed walnuts with creme between layers of cake. Ah-may-zing.

I headed back after snack time becuase my work shoes were definitely not hiking-around-Budapest-sight-seeing shoes. Once everyone else got back we headed down to the Gellert baths. Hot baths in intricately tiled rooms and great company? Yes please! I'd go there every day if I could. Ok, that's a lie, I probably wouldn't, but it was still amazing and relaxing.

After we towelled off and changed we headed to dinner. We were just walking down a street with a bunch of restaurants and stumbled on this great Italian-Hungarian restaurant, Rustico. We're all already kind of over the heavy traditional eastern european cuisine, so we all ordered off the Italian side of the menu. It was seriously some of the best Italian food I've ever had. I'm not sure why this surprised me, since we're much closer to Italy here than in the states. I'll definitely be going back while I'm here. We split two bottles of wine, one a delicious Rose' and the other, the traditional "Bull's Blood." The name is disgusting, but is one of the most delicious red wines I've ever had. I want to bring a couple bottles back home.

Aaaaaaaaaand after that very long day we headed back home and crashed out. One of the best days of the trip, so far.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Budapest!

I know, I know. It's been a couple weeks since my last update. In my defense I've been in places with very poor internet access.

I'm currently blogging because I'm at my internship office and the boss is almost an hour late and they have no idea what to do with me. So here I sit browsing the internet until he arrives.

Budapest has been great so far, other than the sketch train station and the pushy cab drivers.

When we arrived on Saturday the leader of the program from here in Budapest had his assistant waiting for us. We thought she would just check us in and take off, but instead she drove us all around the city. We had our own private tour and it was amazing. I'll post pictures soon (since I'm on the office computer I don't have access to them).

I've now walked across the three southern bridges between Buda and Pest, have been up to the castle and museums, been to Hero's square and up and down Vac´i street, which is a main shopping street kind of like 5th Avenue, only not quite as ritzy. It's a pedestrian only zone so it's more of an outdoor mall.

Ok, I think the boss is almost here!

P.S. forgive any typos. The keyboard here is different and it underlines almost all words in red, so I have no idea which ones are actually misspelled and which are just non Hungarian and I don't have time to read closely.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Eek, Behind Already!

I haven't blogged for a few (several) days because 1) I've actually been out and about doing awesome stuff that I will tell you about and 2) Internet has been even more hard to come by than normal. I will do my best to catch up!

I think I'm going to save my blog on the alternative walk home from class for a bit later because there is way more exciting stuff to tell you about.

First up:
MELK MONASTERY & DURNSTEIN

On our first day as a group in Vienna a Colonel in the Army gave us a tour around Vienna to show us the sights. His job for the army is to be a historian so he knows pretty much everything you could possibly want to know about Austria and Vienna. He showed up to join us for dinner on Friday, May 28th and offered to take us in his VW bus/van on a day trip out to the countryside so we would have a chance to see more than just the city.

Five of us took him up on the offer, he picked us up the next morning at 10:30 and off we went:

(me, Alecia, Laurin)

First The Colonel took us to the Melk Monastery. The pictures of it on the Wikipedia are more gorgeous than any I took, but I'll do my best.

The inside square of the monestary:


The entire monastery was gorgeous. It's up on a hill overlooking the Danube with an adorable village at its base. The entire village is historic and picturesque. It's easily one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.

From a window of the monastery down to the village:


Ceiling of one of the rooms:


The library was beautiful, but the nerd in me was so bummed that all of these gorgeous and ancient books were basically now decoration for tourists and were no longer read.


The beautiful church:


One of the strangest things I've ever seen. In each of the side alcoves there was a small display and area for people to pray to various saints. In this one there was a glass display case with the skeleton of an actual dead guy posing:


All of us in a gorgeous archway at the front of the monastery overlooking the river:


We hiked back to the parking lot, climbed in the van, The Colonel turned the ignition and the van wouldn't start! Luckily we were on an incline and, since it was a stickshift VW, we were able to roll it back and start it up on the roll.

We took a small road along the road through several adorable villages with cobblestone streets that just barely fit a car to Durnstein.


Me and the vineyards that were stoked to get a picture with me.

Walking through the town:


The ruins of the castle on the hill:


And the famous church tower. Apparently there's some scandal that it was painted blue. For a century it was yellow (which was referred to when used in other places as Durnstein Yellow), but when they did some repair work they found out the original color was blue and restored it to the blue. The villagers were pissed, but at least it's now accurate:


And AGAIN VW Bus refused to start and again we started it by pushing it down a slight incline. Say hello to adventurebus:


Coming up: Parliament and my birthday, Prague & Bratislava.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

The Nibs

"Nibs" is a word I've picked up from the Seattle Four (a group of 4 cool peeps from Seattle University who decided to come on the trip together), basically just means snack or food.

Authentic Viennese food is SO RICH, but delicious.

They don't really eat breakfast here. They go for a roll or croissant and a cup of coffee. In the afternoon they all go to coffeehouses and have cappuccino and some rich pastry. It's delicious and hopefully all the walking I do will make up for it.

Oh, by the way, I've fallen in love. I might not come back to the states because we're just so freaking happy together.

Meet my new life partner, Apfelsaft Gespritzt:


It's basically just apple juice with soda water, but who knew something so simple could be so delicious? We seriously need this in the states! Except, maybe not, because it probably has a ton of cals. I'm just ignoring that.

My first Vienna sausage:


Also incredibly delicious. They take a long, hard roll, cut the end off and push it down on this metal thing that punches a hole in the middle and kind of toasts the inside, squirt some mustard in there and put a sausage in. It's amazing. I'm trying to stop myself from eating one every day for lunch from the stand around the corner from the University.

In an attempt to save some money and not eat McD's or a croissant every morning, I picked up some milk and cereal at the grocery store. At least, when I bought it I hoped it was milk and cereal.



I bought the little "milch" in case it was actually some kind of weird milk and I couldn't tell. I figured if it had a cow on it, it had to be normal milk. Turned out to be just fine! And the cereal is super delicious.


And, of course, what kind of blogger who's posting a blog on food would I be if I didn't include the best part of Vienna: the beer.


That one is pretty good, but this one, the Mai Bock, brewed at 7 Stern Brau (the biergarten I usually get my wifi at), is amazing. I'm not really a beer connoisseur, so I can't really explain it, but it's a light beer, fairly hoppy and ... wheaty? I mean, it tastes heavier like a Blue Moon, but better. That's probably a really awful description of a really delicious beer.


Coming up: an alternative walk home from class, a massive monastery and adorable village, and Parliament.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

The Long Walk

My commute from the Academy to the law school is a little over a mile. Normally I'd be like "hell no! Where's the public transit?" but a combination of being completely baffled by the public transportation system (which I'm sure is actually quite convenient, but all in German) and the scenic walk makes me enjoy the hike every morning. I thought I'd take you along for the ride and take pictures along the way this morning.

My walk starts down this little street, which is part of Spittelberg, one of the oldest parts of Vienna and right behind the Academy:



World's smallest garage?


At the end of this road I make a right and after about a block, the Volkstheater is on the right (it's also the location of an underground station, but I have no idea where it goes or where it comes from, so as of now it's useless to me):


The entire next block is taken up by this building, which I honestly haven't figure out the name of yet:


The next block is an absolutely gorgeous park that I haven't yet seen the inside of because finding an actually open gate is nearly impossible. Oh! These sidewalk markings are INCREDIBLY important, ignore one and you'll either be run over by a cyclist or have them angrily thumb their bell at you until you move out of their way:


Across from the park is the Austrian Parliament, which we'll be visiting on my birthday (Monday, May 31st). Here's a sneak peak of where the Austrian magic happens:


I was super tempted to hop on this thing to figure out how much I've lost walking miles around this city, but then I remembered that there's no way in hell I'd weigh myself in public:


It's overcast today, but this shade is incredibly welcome most days:


Right after the park on the right is this building:


And on the left is this building:


And adorable cafe that I really want to try out but based on the fancy business looking dudes and ladies eating there I imagine it's roughly one billion euro for a cup of coffee:


Hang a right at this fine lady:


And after two blocks there is the University of Vienna Law School building that the architect says is supposed to look like a head, but really looks nothing like one (it's the glass one left on the end of the block):