Oct 29: Halloween Party!

Since Halloween is on a Monday this year, Tiny and I decided to celebrate a bit early with a party on Saturday night! Face paint, dessert eating, and, most importantly, pumpkin carving was the order of the evening. This major get-together included three other pumpkin designers who were not at all afraid to get their hands dirty. J Between shoving gummi worms, ladies’ fingers (decorated to look like real fingers by the incomparable Tiny), dark chocolate, and Mars bars into our mouths, we covered the floor with all the junk flyers we received in the mail so that we could take out all the pumpkin guts with minimal damage to the floor. ;-) By the end of the night, we had two very tiny Jack O’Lanterns, grimacing gruesomely into our cameras. While Tiny and I did remember to pick up balloons for the evening, we forgot tea lights to put in the pumpkins, but fortunately A from Taiwan brought her flashlight, which did a marvelous job in illuminating the pumpkins from the inside. And since it wasn’t a candle, uniform light shone out (better than seeing candle flame through the smile...). J

Before the party, Tiny was kind enough to let me loose on the facepaint. What she didn’t realize was that she would be transformed…into a wood nymph! We had a lot of fun taking pictures. Tiny drew bats flying over a castle and across the moon on the left side of my face. The most important lesson of the evening? Don't touch the greasepaint!!

Tiny's pumpkin.

The wood nymph's gaze...

And the mischievious smile!

A (TAI) and the caramelized apples (well, kind of...)

M and her bat face.

R (USA) from downstairs and another M (USA).

Drawing faces.

The drama face. Unfortunately, I can't make my mouth go in opposite directions...

Eew, pumpkin guts!

Tiny at work.

Winky emoticon.

Winky.

Drama.

Oct 27: "Vienna's Lost Daughters"

I met a friend for lunch today so that we could discuss a film that we will be presenting for my Austrian history and culture course in a couple of weeks. It’s a documentary called “Vienna’s Lost Daughters”, which shows the lives of a number of Jewish Austrian women now living in the United States. When they were only children, these women were sent away to England by their parents before the start of WWII so that they could escape the Nazi concentration camps. It was amazing to see how they created new lives for themselves in a foreign country while having to live with their memories of their families and their previous lives in Austria. Most of these women never saw their family again after they left Austria. Family and friends they left behind were taken away to be murdered in the camps. In the interviews with these women, they described their love for Austria as being bittersweet – while they really cherish their culture, language, and traditions, their Austrian identity is inseparable from the war’s terrible impact. While some of the speakers freely mixed English with German, some did not want to speak in German because the memories were too painful.

But all made a new home for themselves in the U.S., building their family and circle of friends. The film also showed the audience the relationships between these women and their children and grandchildren. The families are tightly knit, but the children and grandchildren struggle with their parents’/grandparents’ past. Many spoke of how difficult it is to grasp this concept from second-hand experience, but still feel a deep emotional impact of this history since it is a part of their own story too.

It was an incredibly thought-provoking film. When I think of how I sometimes miss home and everyone there who is important to me, I realize how lucky I am. I can talk face-to-face to those at home more than once a week, instantly send pictures and stories of what I am doing, and will be able to return home safely when I’m finished my studies. The stress of settling into a new place here can’t begin to compare to the confusion and loneliness that these women felt when moving to a new country – a move that was not made by choice, where they lived away from their families, never knowing when they might receive word from home. And then the disastrous news of hearing that their families were gone…

If you have some time, you should see it.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDPlkRCdJWM

Oct 26: Österreichische Nationalfeiertag (Austrian National Day)

Today was a very important holiday – Austria’s celebration of independence after WWII. Though the war was over in 1945, Austria was occupied by the four Allied powers (Soviet Union, United States, Great Britain, and France) for ten years after. October 25, 1955 was the day that the last soldier left Austria, so October 26 marked the first day of Austrian sovereignty since 1938.

Traditionally, people tend to go on hikes or walks to promote fitness and good health, but since it was raining, guess what we decided to do? What else but spend the whole day in E & P’s kitchen making Gulasch, Striezel, and Topfentaschen! ;-)

P’s mother brought a whole bunch of ingredients so that we could make the traditional recipes. A (FIN) came as well. We were divided into two teams so that we could make the Gulasch and the Striezel at the same time. No competition, of course! ;-) (By the way, German nouns are capitalized, so I’ve kind of reached a conundrum – do I capitalize German words when using in an English sentence? Thoughts?)

It was so much fun to make everything from scratch. We even tried braiding the Striezel with six strands (pictures to come!), which we thought would be really complicated at first, but turned out to be very feasible with the help of YouTube. E & P also have a rolling pin that can customize the thickness of the dough you’re rolling – simply by snapping wheels on the end that raise the rolling pin a certain height off the counter. I think this just about made Tiny’s afternoon. J  And needless to say, the end results of all three recipes were delicious!

Groups 1 and 2 begin!

Onions!!!

E kneads the dough

Gulasch (right), dumplings (left)



E & P in their NEW KITCHEN!



P's mother consulting the recipe book.

Auspicious beginnings...:-)

Making snakes (A (FIN), Tiny, P's mother).

The art of rolling.

"Like...this long?"

The marvellous customizable rolling pin!

Topfentaschen.

Oct 25: Finally, a Paper Topic! (Plus Choir)

I gave a short presentation today for one of my musicology courses (Music, Religion, and Consciousness). It was pretty easy – give your background, explain a topic you’ve previously researched that would be relevant to the class, and suggest a topic that you’d like to focus on for the term paper. Talking about a previous topic wouldn’t be too hard, because last term I had done lots of research on Kepler and his concept of harmony within the universe (he calculated that the mathematical ratios of the planetary orbits actually corresponded to the mathematical ratios of certain musical intervals…pretty amazing). But I was having a terrible time in coming up with a new topic for this course’s term paper. Then, as I was trying to get out the door for class this morning, I actually came up with a new idea! If a musician and a non-musician listened to the same piece of music, how would they perceive it differently? What parts of the brain would be used in both cases? Would the musician be able to separate themselves from the performer’s perspective if this is a piece they’ve played a lot?

(Of course, I’ll have to be very careful to define what a “musician” and a “non-musician” is, and I’ll have to narrow it down further, but I think it gives lots of options. But when I’ve gone to a concert and talked to a few different people, I sometimes hear very different reactions to a performance. Some non-musicians think it was wonderful, and then I talk to some musicians and all they can talk about is how distracting the performer’s technique was (or something similar). How easily can performers get out of an analytical mindset?)

As for the rest of the day, I came home, had some delicious gummi bears we bought on the weekend. There’s a designated gummi bear store in the downtown area, and we went in with E & P when we were in the vicinity…J

In the evening, I went to the first university choir rehearsal! We’re singing something called “Christvespers” which seems like it’s a compilation of traditional Christmas songs as well as at least one Bach piece (there’s a beautiful Chorale in there). It was a lot of fun and I met some wonderful people. Lots of German practice…although a whole bunch of the director’s instructions went RIGHT over my head. As long as I got the right bar number, I was ok…;-)

Oct 24: Artwork, Printers, & Orchestra

Today was a fairly ordinary day. I had the usual 8:15am class (it's still way too early!), then tried to print a document at the university. Well, it wasn't going to work for me today. After 20 minutes of waiting for my Gmail to load so I could view a document, I found that it wouldn't open with that version of Adobe Reader! But I ran into N, and we had a lovely chat. :-)

Since September, my roommate Tiny has covered her wall with little sticky notes with interesting quotes. All the little notes will eventually make up a kite...and it loks pretty awesome from my side of the room. But my wall is depressingly bare. She's been telling me I need to change that, but this week, I actually came up with an idea that should put some more colour in our room! I was given a beautiful travel set of watercolours for my birthday by a certain C (thank you!!! ;-), and I haven't had the chance to use them yet. So today I bought a thick sketchpad and ripped out about 12 sheets to paste together into a kind of mural. I will tell you more as it develops...but I'm thinking it'll be a giant circle with pie slices for each month where I can write, paint, and sketch whatever...I...like...;-)

I hadn't given up on printing today, but by 3pm I finally knew how to use the printer in my building! I have to buy paper, but other than that, I don't have to pay anything to print! It's great.

Tonight, I had my second rehearsal with the university orchestra (it's for the Karl-Franzens, medical university, and technical university students). We're playing Cesar Franck's Symphony in d minor, which is a really beautiful piece. Tiny and I actually saw it performed on Oct 10 (see the Oct 10 post!).

Ok, I'm going to bed now. I'm appreciating my Monday nights when I actually get the chance to sleep in till 8am! :-D

Oct 14: Thanksgiving!

I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get around to posting this, but I FINALLY am writing a post about our wonderful Thanksgiving meal!!! (Sorry, it looks like we’re back to the food posts…) The official Canadian Thanksgiving weekend was October 8^th-10^th, but since some of our new friends weren’t going to be available, we decided to hold it on Friday the 14^th.

After a week of searching for ingredients, accumulating recipes, and planning the logistics of cooking 6 dishes for 15 people on our 2-element stove, we were finally ready. Fortunately we both had the best part of the afternoon off, so there was basically no stress in the actual cooking. Our friend N came by early to help out, and R and C from downstairs were very generous in allowing us to use their stove too!

The week before, I discovered that there is actually one more floor to our apartment than I thought…how is it possible that I’d been living in this building for a month and a half and didn’t realize there were two floors above us?? Anyway, at the very top is a very large study room with tables and skylights…perfect for our 15-person party. J We had to borrow a few chairs from the media room, but everyone fit!

The meal was delicious, and everyone who came contributed something. In addition to traditional Thanksgiving foods (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, honey and cinnamon carrots), there was salad with pumpkin seed oil dressing, fruit and cheese, and a wonderful apple strudel that E & P made. Thanks to everyone who contributed!

I also have to mention our pumpkin pie… When we first mentioned Thanksgiving to all the non-North American students, they were intrigued with the idea of pumpkin pie. So we decided that we’d just have to make one! We got a great recipe from home and successfully found ALL the ingredients. (Ok, the crust was pre-made, but we thought we’d save that experiment for another time. ;-) But we realized it would be a little difficult since we didn’t have a designated oven…until we realized that the mysterious microwave oven in our room has a “Crisp” function that can actually cook pies…in 15 minutes! Our first pie turned out so well that we made a second one too. It was a great success, especially smothered in whipped cream and honey. J

Cranberries and carrots

Salads, juice, crackers, wine!

Stuffing and turkey.

Bread and fruit & cheese plate.

Mashed potatoes and gravy.

A (Finland) and Tiny.

The whole crew!

Tiny and Teddy with the pumpkin pie.

Mmm...

The typical Styrian...pumpkin seed oil on everything! ;-)

The marvellous apple strudel! (Should I mention that we had it for breakfast, lunch, and possibly dinner the next day?)

Oct 10: CARMEN!

I’ve realized, in the last couple of weeks, that my blog is incredibly food-oriented. The theme may no longer be “studying abroad” – I think it fits better under “eating abroad”! So here’s a post that’s a bit more diverse…

I heard from a friend that there are orchestral concerts about once a month in the Stefaniensaal, a beautiful concert hall in the old town. So I decided to book tickets…to “Carmen”!

The concert was marvelous! It featured highlights from Bizet’s famous opera, but it wasn’t all about Carmen. There were pieces by Debussy (La Mer), de Falla (a collection of Spanish songs), and Cesar Franck (Symphony in d minor). A mezzo-soprano came in to sing the excerpts from Carmen and the Spanish songs. It was varied and exciting – a night of ear candy! :-D

If you’re interested in what it sounded like, take a look at these YouTube videos:

Asturiana (de Falla) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtUTqoPPWgk&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL0D7D539DE26D7605

Carmen: Habanera (Bizet) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGFUKsv1epk&feature=related

Stefaniensaal.

The concert hall from the outside.

Tiny and I had a ball. :-)

Outside the concert hall - chilly night!

Oct 9: 400 Year-Old Church & Kitchen Reno

Today, I visited a 400 year-old church for their 10am Mass. It’s really beautiful. I haven’t taken my own pictures yet, so I used Google’s handy image search to find some helpful photos. I still can’t quite believe that I can walk down the street and see buildings this old. It’s also really interesting to see modern restaurant or clothing store logos superimposed on some of the building fronts in the old town…you’re walking along, admiring the view, and suddenly you see a cell phone store appear, taking up the ground floor of one of these buildings.

The Mass was in German, but aside from the language, it was almost the same as at home. There was even the same chant used in the blessing of the bread and wine before Communion. There is also an area at the back of the church where a person can light a candle to offer a prayer for someone they’re thinking about. It’s one of my favourite parts of these churches – it’s so peaceful and offers space for reflection.

And did I mention they had a full pipe organ?! The music was fantastic!

In the afternoon, we helped E & P with their kitchen renovation. They were putting in a new floor, so we got to break out the X-Acto knives and markers! (We had way too much fun cutting the floor in the middle of the parking lot…:-D) Afterwards, to try something different, we went out for Asian cuisine and had the all-you-can-eat Mongolian Grill. Really great food, and we got to try out a number of different sauces. The peanut sauce and the curry coconut sauce were so delicious!

Mariahilferkirche from the outside.

From the inside.



Tiny.




A productive Tiny, a less than productive M. ;-)



P & Tiny working on a corner.

Oct 8: Gösting Ruins and Sacher Torte

Today we decided to take a trip to Gösting (an area just outside the city limits) to see the ruins of a medieval castle. It was misty and overcast, a perfect day to take a leisurely hike through the mysterious green wood up to the top of the hill where the remains of the castle stand, covered in red ivy. From the top of the hill, you can see the most amazing view. To the southeast is Graz – the Schlossberg is a tiny green bump when seen from the castle walls. To the southwest, the terrain becomes more uneven as the valley is replaced by hills…and far, far in the distance, a glimpse of the snow-capped mountains! It was an incredible morning. I felt like I had stepped back in time, it was so far removed from the bustle of the city.

We had a chance to see inside the tower and the chapel. Behind the main chamber in the tower was a narrow stone corridor. As we walked along, a doorway appeared on the right hand side, and suddenly opened into the dim, cavernous chapel. Shields and crests were arrayed on the walls, and a plain crucifix hung above rows of modern chairs. Could they still celebrate Mass there? The castle is currently owned by the Auer family, famous bakers in the Graz area, so maybe it’s used from time to time.

After exploring, we had something to eat at the tavern in the castle. Käsebrot (bread with cheese), Schinken-Käse Toast (basically a ham and grilled cheese sandwich, but with really good ham and cheese), coffee, and tea. Then, it started to rain, and SNOW! I think. (Tiny is convinced, and it was chilly enough that I can believe it.)

We caught the bus back to Graz, and decided that we weren’t quite ready to go home yet. So we rode our bikes into the Old Town, and walked into the Sacher Café to try the famous Sacher Torte. I believe it will celebrate its 180^th anniversary next year, and was originally served to royalty and elite guests in Vienna at the Hotel Sacher. Unfortunately, I can’t say it’s my favourite dessert, but the dark chocolate and apricot combination is pretty spectacular…J

First view of the castle wall.

The hike up.

Ivy on the castle walls.

View of Graz (the Schlossberg is that tiny green hill in the distance!)

Towards the mountains...

Snow-caps!

Tea and Kaesebrot.

We were here! ;-)

The Sacher Torte (complete with stamp of authenticity). ;-)