Austrian mothers

We had a discussion here at work today about Austrian mothers - well, mother-in-laws, really. Not mine! Mine is great, but coworkers were sharing stories. It seems fairly common that Austrian mothers enter their son's (and, therefore, daughter-in-law's) apartments without notice and clean from top to bottom - including laundry and underwear! Luckily, as I said, mine is great and does not do such things. But I have heard of a number of Austrian moms (of boys, of course) who do - what's up with that?!

Another Austrian tradition seems to be for parents to buy their kids houses. Well, not tradition exactly, but it's more common than in the US. Hasn't happeend to us but I have heard of it much more frequently here, too. Now, that would be nice! I guess it's a give and take!

Binh is putting me to shame!

Binh started a Blog and is making me feel lame. I checked this thing and realized that I last blogged August 31. I can't believe some of you are still loyal to me! True friends. I will try again. I know you have heard this before.

So, what's happened since August? Well, I'm still working at HIAS (www.hias.org) - have been since October 2005 - but now only three days a week. I am working with A Letter to the Stars (http://www.lettertothestars.at/) Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you visit the sites, you'll see why both organizations interest me...the latter maybe a bit more than the former, but I am happy and proud to be with both.

No new travels, except a weekend here and there. First weekend of March, Rolli and I are going to Salzburg for skiing (cross country - I'm a wimp) and to visit my brother- and sister-in-law and the second weekend Les is giving a presentation at a conference in Budapest and I'll hang out with her for a few days! Our last weekend as single girls! Oh, wait, I'm not single...

Okay, maybe I can be more creative and regular with these things and not just boring updates. Pastor Wicki is my blogging inspiration and Binh is my kick in the ass...love and thanks to you both!

Slovenia and Italy

Roland and I went to Ljubljana and Piran in Slovenia and Trieste and Udine in Italy for summer vacation this year. Here are a few pictures. We highly recommend Slovenia! Here's Roland at sunset in Piran.

Here I am on a pedestrian bridge in Ljubljana.

Fun with English

With all the native English speakers in Vienna, I can't imagine why they don' t pay us 5 bucks to make sure things are okay before printing.

Case and point - see picture above. It's an advertisement on a car for a race car sponsored by Bank Austria. Note the web address.

Why choose to be all cool and use the English word "team" but then go for the German for "ace?"

Dumbstruck, starstruck FOOLS

So, Gwyn and Rod Perkins visited us in Vienna last week and we had a great time touring around and catching up, gossiping about all of you...

We also had the Gwyn/Betsy experience of a lifetime at a Viennese Heuriger.

Heurigen are Viennese "wine gartens" in the same style as German "biergartens," so you can already begin to see why we enjoyed this wonderful Viennese tradition. On this particular day, however, magic happened...

While sitting there, eating all kinds of great food and drinking wine out of pitchers...a wedding was setting up. We started talking to the groom and his groomsmen and Gwyn and I noticed that one of them looked like Sean Lennon. Of course, we thought it was the wine and our blind Beatles obsessions at work. At one point, I even said, "Look at him - he knows it, man, he's working it!" or some other such crap, as if twenty-something guys normally go around trying to look like the son of a dead Beatle...

As we talked to them more, though, it became clear. One guy introduced them all as "musicians" and started pointing out who played what instrument. When he got to our look-alike he said, "And Sean here, well, he's more into rock and roll." Gwyn quietly asked him to confirm and he did, with an oh-so-pleasant condescention and irritation at his friend's celebrity. I am sure he was thinking, "Stupid Americans..." but who cares! We immediately turned into stupid teenagers, taking photos of the wedding party! We had even been chatting with Sean a little bit before the "realization," and then we found out who he was and were dumbstruck, starstruck FOOLS.

Coincidentally, Gwyn and I had been talking about my 30th birthday earlier that very same day and I told them the story of Stefan getting "John Lennon" to sing Yer Birthday to me from the stage (best birthday present EVER!). They dared me to tell Sean, "Dude...a guy pretending to be your dead father sang happy birthday to me a couple of years ago and it was, like, the most meaningful moment of my life..." But I didn't.

So, here's the proof. An anonymous hand (seriously, not one of ours!) is pointing him out for you.

Our question is, of course - if you want to be inconspicuous, why the shaggy hair and round, gold glasses?

John's in town!

Malkovich, that is. They previewed the Director's Cut of "Klimt" in Vienna this weekend and we had tickets tonight. For anyone who doesn't know, I have a strange fascination with JM but a little damage was done to that this evening, maybe while watching him slowly lose it with syphilis on the big screen. We also saw the Schiele exhibit today at the Albertina and, after the Klimt movie, I think I have a posthumous crush on Egon now. Freakshow, I know, but still...I recommend the movie, the Schiele exhibit and the actor who plays ES in the movie. The movie is slow at times but, as Roland pointed out, it was Director's Cut. Tons-o-Klimtesque naked girls, if they don't cut it out of the American version. But how can you do a movie about Klimt without? At any rate, it was fun to recognize streets of Vienna and also to see John again. I love talking about him as my friend. Roland doesn't seem to mind, except the John rejected our dinner invitation. Well, Brad and Ang didn't stop by last week either. We are getting used to it.

It is snowing here, despite Roland's promises of spring. Spring through fall in Vienna is really perfect and so I am anxiously awaiting the start of about seven months of Wien in all her glory. The other five leave a bit to be desired, as should and may be illustrated by our upcoming photo series, "Depressed Wieners in the Gray that is Wintertime Vienna." Coming soon, we hope, to a blog near you.

Just got back from Tirol!

Betsy on the balcony.


Here we are on top of Gaisslachkogl.


Another view from Gaisslachkogl.


Roland at the spa.


Betsy at the spa.

A few of Vienna...

I had a request for some photos of Vienna, so I am adding a few from my parents' visit last fall. Let's see what we have here...


Shopping Passage.


Cobblestone streets...


This is the walkway outside the Minorettenkirche in Vienna.


Outside Cafe Central, complete with horsedrawn carriage!

One of my new favorite things!

www.pandora.com

Check it out! I will write more soon - promise!

The good and the bad of no English TV

When we moved to Austria, Roland and I decided not to invest in the big cable package that included some American and British channels. We decided it would force me to watch TV in German and more easily learn the language. What this actually did was made me an excessive CNN watcher, forgoing any attempt at Austrian news early in the morning. Maybe I know more about the world but it's only out of laze. Sometimes I watch Fresh Prince and The Simpsons auf Deutsch, but mostly the lack of good ole American trash TV has just helped cut television out of my daily life...daily life that is...it also encouraged BINGEING.

(I just love that somehow it would be more productive to watch Fresh Prince than CNN!)

Bingeing - I started my 4 to 8 hour binges with the series 24. I can rent a DVD with four episodes of a series for a couple bucks at an English bookstore/video store nearby. During 24 binges, I was sometimes sometimes known to pick up 2 or 3 at a time. Despite the right-wing propaganda , Roland and I became completely addicted. We justified watching a FOX TV show by saying we were doing "socio-political research," looking for examples of ridiculous FOXy-type crap. (For example, please note that on 24 good guys seem to watch FOX News and terrorists watch CNN!) Really, I was just renewing a teenage crush on Kiefer.

After finishing 24 - up to the present season - I watched the entire first season of the new version of Battlestar Gallactica in one weekend. Roland did not participate in this weekend of sloth and thinks I am insane. I am hooked and dying for this season to end so the new DVDs will come out!

But, most favorite of all and the show that manages to make me cry every single episode (and speaking of rekindling teen-dream lust...Hello, ROB LOWE!) - "The West Wing." I love to see the random shots of DC, to determine down which streets characters are walking and to annoy Roland with explaining in detail how "it is impossible for a motorcade to go THAT way to the Capitol"...etc. I am looking forward to season 3, DVD #3 tonight! Until recently, I loved the fact that I still have 3+ seasons of entertainment to go. But then I heard that Leo died. And then I heard the show is cancelled after this season! I am not sure what to do with myself but know I need to slow down.

So, there you have it. I was never much of a TV-watcher before moving here but now, starved for weeks without American TV, I go on rampages! In a couple months, I'll need recommendations of other addictive series. For now, I will savor Rob's last few shows and anxiously await the arrival of Jimmy Smits!

Spa fetish!

Want to be jealous? Check out the spa in Tirol that Roland and I will go to for four days next month!

http://www.aqua-dome.at/therme.html/lan/en

Most important discovery in Austria

You will all be relieved to know - as am I, quite literally - that after almost 16 months of living in Vienna, I have found an Austrian equivalent to Excedrin! I will still smuggle back Sam's Club-sized bottles of The Headache Medicine on trips to MD, as it costs about the same for 30 pills here as it does for a bottle of 250 in the States! But, in a pinch, I am covered. You can all rest easier now, I am sure.

Cutest girls in the world!

Okay, there they are! I dare anyone to challenge that title! (Okay, Rudy, I know you have argument with that...but you understand!)

Rachel 

Ellie 

Lisa's Elly 

Photo

Oh, that photo is so big! I was really trying to add to my profile so you could see my face when looking at the blog. I can't figure out, however, how to add it to my profile. So, if you want to see me, scroll down! Also note that this photo is from my wedding and I look completely different now! My hair is much longer than any of you remember. Shorter, if you haven't seen me in 10 years...but well below my chin. I also wear my glasses a lot these days, so I look exceedingly intellectual at all times. (Really, my contacts dry out in a minute, so I can only bear the specs.) I will add photos of the most adorable girls in the world as soon as possible. You know who they are!

Betsy 

I'm back!

I am not so good at this blog thing, huh? I was thinking about what a great and effective way blogging might be to communicate, allowing me (and you!) to avoid mass-email annoyance. And then I realized - I have a dormant blog! So, I am aiming to revive it and fill you in a bit on our life in Vienna. I also won't pressure myself to come up with cute stories and funny stuff because, contrary to public belief, I am just not that cute and funny!

To update everyone - I am now working for HIAS (the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society) , helping Iranian religious minorities seek refugee status in the U.S. Yes, I am an actual social worker again! I interview three or four families a day about the persecution they have experienced and write reports for their cases, which go to a DHS officer. The officer reads their statements and interviews my clients and decides whether they are in or not. So, it is true, friends - Paul McCloskey and I are working on opposite sides of the same system! No, I don't see any debates in our future...just as there were none in our past, right?!

Roland and I did some running around before Christmas, after I gave him the "you-promised-me-the-heart-of-Europe-and-we-haven't-even-been-to-Graz" speech. I went to Berlin for a weekend to do some work with two extremely cool women I will be doing some programs with in the future...then Roland and I went to Budapest for a weekend...and then spent another weekend at a spa for Roland's annual birthday spa trip! I was in the U.S. for one short, short week and then back to Vienna. We are kind of staying put a while but planning to use Christmas money to go to another spa in February and we'll try some cross country skiing! Wish us luck! :)

Okay, I WILL be better at the blog, promise! Now that you are updated a bit, I can proceed with day to day life in Vienna...stay tuned, if you are interested!

Interesting impressions of the U.S. - #1

Some of the most interesting things you learn living abroad are not so much the new ways of the new culture. Sometimes learning how people of new culture see your home can be quite enlightening.

That is, what are the perspectives that everyday Austrians have of the U.S.? Often, they seem colored by Hollywood and the media. Sometimes, it isn't so clear where these ideas come from! I try to withhold judgment, though, seeing as most Americans think that "Edelweiss" is the Austrian national anthem!

A good example of a surprising U.S. stereotype comes when one asks an Austrian what images come to mind when you say "Chicago." For me, as an American, it might still be Michael Jordan and the Bulls, a lot of cold weather and wind in the "Windy City." I don't know, maybe the Lake?

Not so for the average Austrian. This is interesting and best exemplified with the following anecdote.

There is a story that the Mayor of Chicago was visiting Vienna a few years back and, though he didn't speak German, noticed the word "Chicago" on a campaign poster on the street. He asked his host, the Mayor of Vienna, what it meant and the embarrassed Austrian had to explain that this poster was part of a campaign against organized crime! It said something to the effect of "Vienna cannot be allowed to become Chicago!" In his defense, this was a campaign of a right-wing party here in Austria but was embarrassing, nonetheless.

And it indicates that just the word "Chicago" invokes clear images of organized crime for the average Austrian and is still synonymous with Al Capone, so much so that it's used in an anti-crime campaign to effectively get the point across to the general public!

Very funny for an American girl with her own stereotypes about organized crime being primarily based in New Jersey...the problem with stereotypes...