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| Vienna is right in the heart of Europe. |
Once in Vienna, we went through "customs", although we really only got our passports stamped, had a bit of money exchanged (for the outrageous rate of 0.62 Euros on the dollar), and found our way to transport services. Don and Hannah decided to take public transit, but the remainder of us were too tired and with too much luggage to embark on that adventure. We instead squeezed eight of us into a van, with all our luggage, and had our first views of Vienna. For Noelle and I, the trip was especially exciting because we sat in the front seats, next to the driver. To my surprise, we drove on the right side of the rode. The driver was almost consistently uncomfortably close to the cars in front of us, and we were nearly cut off at least twice. The speed limit seemed a bit higher (or perhaps any speed limits are ignored). We were not on the infamous Autobahn in Germany, but we might as well have been!
After our high-speed half-hour journey, we arrived safely at the Happy Hostel. Our rooms would not be ready until noon, so we had a few hours to kill. Most of us hung around in the one room that was available, and tried hard not to fall asleep. Sleeping upon arrival can be disastrous for re-setting the biological clock; most of us did end up taking a nap later in the day. After taking a stroll down Mariahilfer Strasser, a street with many shops and small cafes, we returned to the hostel and were able to move into and unpack in our own rooms. As some of you may know, one of my rituals upon arriving in a new place is to unpack, organize my things, and sometimes re-arrange the room if I will be staying a while and don't like it's setup. So, I move my bed from one side of the room to the other, switched mattresses twice (once after a poor night's sleep), and hid a dusty table cloth in the closet. This process helps me to feel more at home. For me, having a place in which I am comfortable and to which I can retreat is very important.
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| My small but cozy room, with a south facing window for light! |
On Saturday evening we went to dinner with Craig, the Principle Investigator (PI) leading the IGERT program, and Alan, one of the co-PIs. We went to Mythos for dinner on Saturday night, and they served the most delicious Greek food I have ever eaten. The service was very friendly, as well. There, we learned how to say Leitungswasser, which means tap water. One of our hosts, Jan (an expat from the United States), informed us that if we are not specific about ordering "Leitungswasser", we will be charged for water. This is because all other water will come from a bottle (e.g., mineral water, sparkling water, etc.), whereas Leitungswasser is tap water. Tap water in Vienna is straight from the Alps, unfiltered, unadulterated, and free. And it tastes delicious. This tip will be saving us a lot of money. Once back at the Hostel, I should've went straight to sleep but instead found myself attempting to turn my Nook into a normal tablet for too many hours (and which I successfully managed to do after 2 days of trying).
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| Leitungswasser (tap water) |
On Sunday, Hannah and Ilonka, my two roommates (and friends!) and I went searching for some food to eat for breakfast. However, as in Canada, many places are closed on Sundays. We had a nice walk, but did not succeed in locating the grocery store we thought would be open according to my research. Fortunately, I only needed to pay 1E at the Hostel to have a bowl of cereal to tide me over until lunch. We had dim sum (Chinese dumplings, or small dishes) for lunch, and the food was very authentic (at least what Alan and I ordered). After this, we walked to Saint Stephen's Cathedral to start getting oriented in Vienna.
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| A treble clef in flowers in front of the Mozart statue. |
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| St. Stephen's Cathedral roof and probably constant maintenance. |
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| The organ inside the cathedral. *Drool* |
On the way back from this brief walking tour, Craig, Anil, Danielle, and I took the subway (U-bahn) back to the station nearest our hostel. We purchased our tickets from machines. Craig bought his first and spent 2.20E on his ticket. The rest of us purchased tickets labeled "Concession", which were 1.10E. We could not figure out what "Concession" might mean, and we figured we could claim stupidity if our tickets were discovered to be wrong by a ticket checker. We made it home without any event, but I looked up later what Concession actually meant. Turns out we were traveling with tickets meant for either children or dogs. Glad no one stopped us!
Monday morning Ilonka and I went out for some groceries to supplement what Hannah had already bought at 7:30am (she woke up starving and went to the store before it was even open) so that we don't have to continue eating out and spending all our money on expensive food. We made a deal that Ilonka and Hannah would do the cooking and I would do the dishes. I hope they stick to this, because cooking with limited resources is difficult for me (I follow recipes and don't get too creative with my menu).
Monday afternoon was spent with Jan and Piotr, who is taking the lead with us IGERTs while we're here. We introduced ourselves and talked about what our goals are for this trip. Professionally, I hope to learn about how Europeans do conservation, and specifically how they might incentivize private landowners to do conservation. I am also interested in learning whether there are any collaborative efforts between private landowners to do conservation. I also want to use our group project (which I will discuss on the next blog post) to learn how to work with stakeholders and engage people effectively, which will be a crucial component of my dissertation research.
Traveling to a new place is exciting and exhilarating, but can also be exhausting and intimidating. It takes me a long time to be comfortable in a new place, especially in a foreign country. I start out feeling like every person that walks past me on the street is going to pick-pocket my wallet, that everyone knows we're Americans and treats us poorly, and that we just simply don't fit in. But after these first few days I'm starting to feel a bit better and more comfortable, know where to go for groceries and how to get to our place of work, and am not quite as concerned about being pick-pocketed (although I keep my guard up). Most people have been very friendly (except for the barista who didn't like that I did not want to order any coffee a the cafe we went to), and are helpful.
I'll finish this post with a few observations about Vienna. One of the first things I noticed was that almost all (probably at least 95%) of cars are standards. This is fascinating to me. Why are they standards? Are Americans lazy and that's why we use automatics, are Europeans trying to use environmentally friendly technology, or is there some other underlying reason? I've also noticed a difference in the way Europeans show their affluence. They spend their money on expensive cars (all the cars here are BMWs, Volvo, etc.), fancy clothing and accessories, but don't seem to spend much on updating old facilities like bathrooms and kitchens. I'm not sure if this is a function of the difficulty in updating aging buildings, or in the fact that they want to show off their affluence in a more outward manner.
I am very much looking forward to getting to know Vienna and Austria better, and doing some traveling to nearby countries.I intend to continue practicing German so that I can engage more in the culture, but will also need to start getting work done (I am, after all, a graduate student!).
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| This is what many of the streets look like in Vienna. |
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