Printemps à Paris Day One

We kicked off our Spring break extravaganza in Paris. I had horrible memories of Paris from when I was there in 1999. There were no bathrooms everywhere. The whole city was subject to public urination. They ate frogs. It was dirty. Dog poop was everywhere. So I was really setting up Beth, who had dreamed of going to the City of Lights ever since she was a little girl, for disappointment.

Fortunately for both of us, I was totally wrong about Paris. It was gorgeous, beautiful and magical. The food was delicious, the buildings were lovely, the grass was green and the sunlight glittered on the surface of the Seine. Trés Romantic.

Beth and I triumphantly got off our exhausting night train and navigated the metro to find our hostel. We fet very successful. First things first, we walked to the Notre Dame, eating so many pastries and bread on the way. Our hostel was in a very hip neighborhood with tons of bars, bistros, crêpe stands, and a market with stalls full of delicious things and disgusting looking seafood. There was also a bubble tea house, where we indulged in bubble tea twice durring our stay.

Notre Dame on the inside looked remarkably like the Cathedral in Prague, only much more enormous and cavernous. It took us an hour (although we were walking slowly) to see everything. Every nave was stuffed full of carvings, stained class, paintings and decorations. I took my first two graphite etchings, where I laid a thin piece of paper down on some texture and rubbed it with a stick of graphite. I did this all over Europe and was terrified that I would get yelled at for publicly defacing a bunch of 500 year old churches. Fortunately, nobody said anything.

Afterwards we went for lunch in a tiny little bistro and felt very fancy, especially since they don't really serve Fanta in Paris, they serve Orangina instead, and it came in the little glass bottle. Beth really was happy to feeling so French.

The Musee d'Orsay was next. We stayed there until closing. I was jumping for joy at every corner, particularly to see one my favorite paintings in the world, Manet's Olympia. Other highlights included seeing Manet's Luncheon on the Grass, and Matisse's Luxe Calme et Volupté. There is nothing in the world I love more than seeing Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, and for that reason, the Musee d'Orsay is number 2 on my list of top 5 favorite Museums in the world. (Number one is Art Institue of corse.)

I was so tired and sleepy after the first day I fell asleep at 9:30. This becomes a theme of the trip.

Obama on a Golden Ball

I had a nice time, after traveling for two weekends in a row, staying home in Salzburg. We were also having to think about planning our spring break, which me and Beth were avoiding with a vengeance. It is a miracle that we ended up with any hostels, train and plane tickets at all. I really have Beth to thank for everything, she was the travel queen.

We had an assignment for German class to research a statue in Salzburg, go visit it, and then write a paper about it. I chose a very interesting and unusual statue of a man standing on top of a giant gold ball. The only way I can describe it is "random". The man also has a very tiny wife carved out of wood who is set into a cove in the Mönchsberg above the tunnel entrance. When we were in London we saw another pair of statues by the same artist. My host mom said she thought the statue was fitting for the city of Salzburg because it looks like a man standing on a giant Mozart Kugel. My friend Hannah said it looked like President Obama standing on a giant gold ball. Both are apt descriptions.

Hannah was a student at Salzburg college last year, and after traveling around Europe for a while, and having a terrible failed experience as an Au-Pair, it was time for her to go back to the US. We were sad to see her go, but we decided to send her off with a fancy cocktail party on the terrace of the Hotel Stein, where you can see a beautiful view of the old city of Salzburg and the Hohensalzburg fortress. The cocktails were 9 Euros each. That is like 75 cents a sip! Still they were delicious and worth it for the special occasion. Afterwords we went for a cheeper drink to meet Hannah's Austrian friend at an Irish Pub. Here in Austria, instead of doing Tequila shots with limes and salt, they do them with oranges and cinnamon. It is a revelation.

By the end of the week, I had caught the "case of Communism" illness from Will, and was very feverish and shaky. It took about two hours to get out of bed, walk two feet to the bathroom, and get a drink of water. Needless to say I didn't go with the group to Upper Austria the next day. I missed a lot of beautiful scenery and St. Florian's church which people are still talking about. I also missed the trip to the concentration camp Mauthausen which I was partially disappointed about missing and partially relived not have to see.

I made sure that I made a point of using my sick time to watch the very educational "Barbie Meerjungfrau" movie in German, where a surfing Barbie finds out she is actually a mermaid princess. The mermaid city bore a striking resemblance to Los Angeles, but I think that may have gone over the head of the two year old Austrian Beatrix.

Cloudy with a Chance of Communism

Our trip to Prague was marked by a lot of hysteria. I don't know if there was something in the water there (most likely absinthe), or if we just saw too much grey for one weekend, but we were in fits of hysterical laughter and misery for the entire trip.

It all started when we got on our first Czech train. We were already confused since we didn't have any inkling how to read the language and didn't have a single Czech Crown to our name, let alone know how many Crowns to a Euro. We couldn't buy a bottle of water in the creepy dingy train station that had a tattoo parlor in it. The only phrase we could think of to describe the chance of scenery was, "everything's Communism!"

We then got into a train car with "Pizza Box" seats in the compartment. They were basically just slabs of plastic that folded up and down. "Total unbequem" as our German class would say. The hysteria started when I squealed that I saw a chicken outside, and then laughed about it. Beth, Sebastian and I were still giggling about the Hyperbole and a Half cartoon about Kenny Loggins reading minds, and Will asked, "Does he have a mind Kindle?" More laugher ensued.

The train station was very confusing. There were moving walkways that went down hill. It was like a moving walkway and an escalator had a baby. How were you not supposed to fall down it? Then it was another drama to get our money changed. The ATMs only spit out huge 1000 Crown bills, but no vendors were willing to give that much change. Unfortunately, the same vendors demanded that every purchase be made in cash. After making fun of the Czech word for tickets "jizdenki" or something to that effect, we went on the underground and made it to our hostel.

Unlike the group that went to Prague the weekend before us, instead of going to a Pub Crawl and drinking ourselves into an oblivion, we decided to go to the Opera. Carmen was playing that night. Buying last minute tickets meant that we had to pay a fortune, but it was worth it. The opera house was filled with gilded Rococo carvings, and Carmen is my kind of opera. Drama, romance, fighting, betrayal, sexy dancing girls, fans, bullfights, murder, it was right up my alley. Carmen is a cold heartless man-eater. My favorite part was when Carmen's lover sings a whole song about his devotion to her, and she looks so touched, and then the stands up two seconds later and screams "You don't love me! If you really loved me you would desert the army and run away with me to the mountains!" I literally snorted with laugher. That's my kind of girl.

After the opera we were starving and bought some questionable and inedible sandwiches from a stand. We were hungry practically the whole time we were in Prague because we couldn't figure out where a good place to eat was, and we had too much pride to go to KFC. Mostly, we bought food from the little grocery/connivence store next to the hostel. Next to the hostel was also a wig shop with disembodied mannequin heads displaying hundreds of different kinds of wigs.

The next day, it was our plan to go on the free tour of Prague and learning some history about the city. But as soon as we saw how many people there were, our intrest waned, and we ducked out to wander around. We were freezing, and it was grey and snowy, so we went shopping for hats and gloves. I bought a big furry red hat. It made me blend in a little better with the Czech people, but when we got back to Salzburg it immediately made me stand out. We were trying to find something productive to do, such as go to an exhibit of Dali paintings, or even find Prague's Sex Museum, whatever that entails. But we didn't do any of that. We just walked around the city giggling like idiots.

We finally found our way to the bridge and then to the Cathedral, which was beautiful. Outside we saw a fenced off area of the courtyard with nothing in it but with a mysterious insignia on a sign on the fence. Will informed us that it was Prague's famous invisible gazebo, and we all stopped for a photo-op of this famous landmark. It was right after that we found the steps of hilarity, just a random flight of stairs leading down a hill that took us over an hour to walk down because we kept stopping, doubled over in laugher. Everything seemed more funny than it was. We took a group picture sticking out of little alcoves down the steps, and when we finished, passersby started clapping. I tumbled out and bruised my butt.

We then went to H&M to find cool clubbing outfits for our excursion to "Central Europe's Biggest Nightclub". Brittany had been looking forward to going to the club for weeks, when she thought it was the WORLD'S biggest nightclub. Finding out that not only was it not the world's biggest, but it was not even Europe's biggest was quite the let down. The second let down came when I found a very pretty, floaty dress that everyone was convinced would look amazing on me. For some reason, I had to have it. It was like, if I were only able to get that dress, all of my dreams would come true somehow. Unfortunately, it was way too small. So we went hunting for it in another H&M. It wasn't until coming back to Salzburg that we found out that the dress didn't even come in a bigger size. There was never any hope.

Exhausted, we went back to the hostel. That's when Will's "case of Communism" really started to hit. He was feverish and had a sore throat and was so tired and sick. We decided to throw the lame disappointment of a nightclub (with only 5 measly stories of dance floors) to the wayside, and stay in. It was just more giggling, uncomfortably close story telling, and silliness. We were all beat and drained the next day, and when we finally switched back from the Czech train to the Austrian ÖBB train, we almost cried with happiness.

I told the group when we were laughing hysterically that if we were not having as much fun on monday morning I would kill myself. Sebastian told me to start sharpening my knives. But lo-and-behold, on Monday i was collapsed on the ground with a fit of laughter. I was lamenting the fact that we didn't get to see anything historical by skipping out on the guided tour, like the Jewish quarter. Will said "It's just a cemetery!" So sad, but so true. The Communism giggles apparently followed us home.

Amusing Anecdotes

I was having a conversation in German today with Konrad about the Beginning German 1 class’s field trip to Ikea, when Jason turns to me and says, “You know, when you speak German you get a different exsperession on your face.” I immediately covered my face with my hands and said, “I do?” “Yes,” he explained, “when you speak English you are so happy and smiley, but when you switch to German you get very serious. It looks like someone just kicked your puppy.”

Felix, my seven-year-old host brother LOVES reading Garfield. He sometimes gets all the books out and spreads them on the floor and asks me to come read with him. I tell him “I will try, but I don’t know if I can read in German. And he answers, “That’s ok, I can’t read either.”

Shannon got an internship for next term with the SPÖ, the Socialist Party of Austria. She fears for her livelihood should there be another McCarthy era.

Roman Holiday

Rome was the first trip we went on, a chance to see something else in Europe, just as we were getting used to being in Austria. I for one wasn't really a fan of traveling. I am not saying we didn't have a good time. But I felt in a lurch the entire weekend. We had just figured out how to use the bus, where to eat, how to ask people for directions...now we were in an entirely different country where we didn't speak the language and we didn't know the culture. And the culture and mood of Italy is very different from that of Austria. In fact, that was our favorite part of the trip was being able to be loud and rowdy without attracting much attention. It was nice to be in a place where we didn't stand out as loud wacky Americans.

Rome was really different than I was expecting, mainly, it was dirtier. Italy as a whole is pretty dingy, especially compared to Salzburg with its social programs and its meticulous separating of trash and recyclables. Everything in Rome was covered in Graffiti. I was hoping it was just down near the train station, where things tend to be dingy in all cites, but the run-down creepiness didn't end there. Beggars and pan-handlers pepper the streets and harass you wherever you go. We were pretty much traumatized before going because of Phoebe's horror stories of Gypsy mothers pushing babies into your arms in order to rob you of your life's savings and passport. We didn't have any problems, but it kind of put us on edge.

We walked around the first day just getting the lay of the land, and we went to the Colosseum. We narrowly avoided paying for a private tour from a potentially creepy person just hanging out around outside the Colosseum offering to give tours to gullible tourists, and got in the crazy long line. It was very cold in the inside of the Colosseum and we all huddled together for warmth while waiting to get inside. It was beautiful inside, and the sunshine warmed us up right away. Even though we couldn't figure out where to stand for the audio tour, we still learned a lot about the construction of the building and about gladiators and all that jazz.

We saw lots of interesting stuff in Rome, and lots of interesting churches, but we hardly knew what anything we were looking at WAS. We didn't do any research before coming, and so if I hadn't learned about it in art history, I didn't know what I was looking at. Things were pretty beautiful though, the sun came out and everything glowed orange. One thing I loved about Rome was its beautiful sunsets.

The next day we went to the Vatican. Our entry to St. Peter's Basilica was put on hold because of Sebastian. Ever a eagle-scout, he decided it was a good idea to have a utility knife with him. Unfortunately, the Swiss guard did not agree. He had to stay outside.

St. Peter's was incredibly amazing and lavish. It put the Baroque churches in Salzburg which I was previously impressed by to shame. It was enormous, and overwhelmingly beautiful. There were elegant statues, beautiful domes and gold gold gold! Marigrace immediately dragged me over to look at the Pieta, wich was very moving. I walked around in silence for a long time, just gazing upward at all the carvings and frescoes.

We went to the Vatican Museum next, and Sebastian was able to rejoin the group. In the entry hall was a fake-out copy of the Laocoön. I was really disappointed with how small it was until we realized it was not real. The real one was much more satisfying, especially after how much I had studied it in Philosophy of Art.

We went to the Sistine Chapel wich is a part of the museum. There was no photography allowed, and you were supposed to not talk because it is a holy space. People were breaking all these rules and so guards and loudspeakers were yelling at them to behave. It was kind of a mood killer. The frescos were pretty impressive, but after seeing so many reproductions of them, it is weird to see them all together. The most impressive part was that the walls and the celling were totally bare of all decoration other than the paintings. It was all Trompe-l'oeil. The only problem with Trompe-l'oeil paintings is that they always look flatter in real life than they do in pictures, because when you move the illusion is broken.

We got gelato when we got out of the museums and walked around to make sure we saw all important sites and landmarks. We accidentally ran into the Pantheon while looking for dinner. We were so exhausted and beat by the time we actually found a place to eat that didn't turn us away because they were filled with reservations. After dinner we went to the Trevi Fountain which was all lit up and beautiful at night, and will was cheated out of his last Euros when he bought Valentines day roses for all of us. It was a sweet end to a beautiful and warm day in Italy.

Roma

An account of my trip to Rome will be forthcoming, but the Understanding Austria midterm is tomorrow, I have a German paper due Monday, and will be going to Prague this weekend to visit the World's Biggest Nightclub at Brittany's request. Hopefully I will not forget everything by then.

E-I-E-I-O

I pride myself on not getting heckled here in Austria very much. For some reason, Bethany often gets laughed at by little Austrian kids on the bus. I assume it's because she talks loudly in English and has shiny blond hair and a pink Nike backpack. She is always sad about appearing like a tourist, but has made peace with it and mostly ignores the kids.

However, yesterday I got heckled. And it was not so much for speaking English loudly (although the boys were laughing at that), it was for being extremely fascinated by a baby cow.

I will be the first to admit it, I am a city slicker. Born and raised. The country and its way of life and all its animals and it muddiness completely escapes me. There are some people on this trip that live in the country, and even live on farms. Marigrace's brother keeps cows. But on our trip to the Winklhof Agricultural School, I was pretty out of my element.

First was a hike up to the horse stables. The school's equestrian program has large horses meant for farming and small ones (practically ponies) for pulling carriages. Mike got to sit on a horse, and elected to ride bareback. He wasn't expecting to have to trot around on the horse holding on to it's mane for dear life. It was a great photo-op, and Phoebe made fun of me for not brining my camera. I have a talent for missing out on photographing interesting events. That's how I knew I would make a horrible photojournalist without having to try it. I also learned an important lesson--Don't ever stand behind a horse. I will leave it at that.

After watching students in cute and sporty riding trousers and boots trot around the indoor training facility for a while, we went back to the main part of the campus. Boys were learning how to fix tractors and weld machine parts. It made me feel like a failure, like I hadn't done a productive thing in my life.

Then came the livestock. First pigs. Surprisingly cute. Very stinky. I was not too keen to see animals where meat comes from, since practically every meal here involves some form of pork. But it wasn't too traumatizing. Next we saw the cows. I literally can't think of a worse smelling thing in the universe. My clothes, my hair my skin was soaked in the terrible almost sweet and pungent cow smell. I could hardly breathe. Much worse than the pigs. When I got home at night, I told my host mother that we went to a farm and that I now smelled like a cow. She took one whiff of my hair and told me it would be fine after I took a shower.

Next was the slaughter house which I stood timidly outside of, too wary to enter, lest my delicate stomach be upset. All the agricultural students (besides those in equestrian studies) must learn to slaughter. Luckily for me, it was all clean and there were no dead animals in there except for in sausage form, and it actually smelled pretty delicious, especially after the cows.

Right before going to visit an English class to practice some intercultural conversation, we decided it would be a good idea to get a little toasted, so we toured the distillery, and were all given a sample shot of schnapps, the specialty of the region and the school. Everyone felt nice and warm. We went to the English class and met lots of teenagers. They were very funny, and had a huge crush on Sebastian who apparently resembled some pop star they loved. The girls I was talking to were very interesting in the drinking and smoking age in America. They were only one year away from being able to drink, just like me, except they were 15. And they thought it was hilarious that the smoking age was 18, they said many students at the school start smoking when they are 12.

Sebastian asked them what their favorite desert was that we HAD to try here in Austria. They said Sachar torte. We must be ahead of the game, since I already have eaten some.

Okjekte und Fotografien

It is probably bad form to get into a shouting match inside a quiet, contemplative modern art museum. Good thing I was able to contain myself.

I am kidding, but we did have a rather cathartic and energetic time at the Museum der Moderne on top of the Monchsberg yesterday. Will and I, the only students who will be working together in the Artist In Residence class next term, found we had some ideological differences. When I asked Will what he thought about the first exhibit with works of art dealing with bodies as "a plane for the projection of social inscriptions," he said "I don't like talking about art."

I thought this was crazy. I have no greater joy in life than talking about art! What he meant was that he feels that art is about relaying the artist's emotion, about expressing things that can't be put into words and about eliciting an emotional response, and that he didn't like how in Art History classes, critics and historians often tell you what the "correct" interpretation of a work is. I explained that discussion was so important for me because it gives me access to other people's emotional responses and makes me think about the work in a way I couldn't appreciate on my own. I also am a staunch believer that for a piece of art to be successful, it either has to have an aesthetic experience (i.e. be pretty) and emotional experience (make you feel something strongly) or be understood intellectually (make you think about a concept). The problem so often with modern art is that the actual visuals of the piece don't appeal to me at all, so I have to talk about it, read about it and learn about it to engage with it on a conceptual or emotional level in order to have any respect for it at all. If I find that the art doesn't have a strong visual, emotional OR intelectual basis, then that crap is not art, and it doesn't deserve my time or attention, let alone deserve to be hung in a museum where thousands of people get to see it and the artist gets rich. Bad art makes me so mad. And yes, I think there is such a thing as bad art.

Will thinks that everything in the world is art, from paintings to urinals, which I HIGHLY disagree with, but we will be able to unpack that later as we work together. I guess my ideas about good and bad art are mostly informed by my experience as a photographer. I see the world as a collection of things, sprawled out before me, and the art is picking those things out and capturing them in a specific way that shows personal vision. Will is a sculptor, which means that objects and space for him are all parts of experience. I don't always like interactive art or instillations, since they don't seem complete or composed for me. But Will is completely opposite, and got mad at some of the photographs, wishing that he was able to experience the scenes spatially for himself, instead of being only given one point of view, through the camera.

The art in the MdM was kind of boring. There was a drawing exhibit that was exciting for me only because there were some drawings by Egon Schiele Gustav Klimt, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, none of which were remarkable, but I get starstruck in the presence of works by famous artists. Then there was a rather strange photography exhibit that alienated me before I even saw it by writing in the description "Jürgen Klauke is not a photographer, but an artist, who uses photography as an instrument for questioning himself and the world." WHAT DO YOU THINK PHOTOGRAPHY IS? Anyway, the images were kind of interesting, except that they were nearly all black with shiny glass on them so they basically turned into giant mirrors, and we were too preoccupied with checking ourselves out to look at them seriously.

The BEST art was at the annex of the museum, the MdM Rupertinum, which we got into for only €2 because we had paid admission to the other museum. These were also photography exhibits. It seems to me that photography is really a prominent and serious art form here, since there were so many photography exhibits and they were integrated into other shows unlike in America where they are separated and relegated to the basement like at the Art Institute.

There was an artist Ilse Haider, who made these AMAZING sculptures with the photographs where she printed on wood and then sliced them to create wooden slats that made the picture almost unrecognizable when you moved but clear when you stepped far away. They are hard to describe. She also had pictures printed on Q-Tips. Some images were rather disturbing and unsettling, and I saw more penises than I would care to in one day, but it was still more interesting and thought provoking than at the other museum.

Silver White Winters that Melt into Springs

The other day, while standing waiting for the bus, I was surprised to look down the road and see, looming in the distance, the Untersberg. For several weeks all I had been able to see was a foggy field of nothing, and I assumed that I was looking at an empty space. But it turns out it was just sheets of snow and clouds that were obscuring the mountain. And that's how I know der Föhn had finally arrived.

Der Föhn (which means "the hairdryer") is a special weather phenomenon here in Salzburg where wind patters get trapped over the mountains and result in warm gusts of air sweeping through the valleys. One day it is snowing and freezing and ice is everywhere, the next day it is 50 degrees and sunny. I was so excited for this I can't begin to describe it. My hatred of cold and ice coupled with my tendency to succumb to Seasonal Affective Disorder makes winter hard to survive, even though snow here in Austria is much more gorgeous and white than back at home.

However der Föhn is more complicated than a mere heat wave. It is often blamed for erratic behaviors, headaches, and has been cited as the reason for many suicides. My mother recalled hearing about it durring her time here at Salzburg College. She said "They used it to explain all kinds of random occurrences and behaviors. Your mom is moody? Your dog is acting strange? Blame it on der Föhn. Feeling happy? Feeling sad? Feeling tired? Must be der Föhn!" For me, I very happy to see the sun again, and to be able to walk around looking at the mountains.

We finally watched the Sound of Music as a group. I have seen that movie so many times, it was one of my favorites as a kid. And I have been to Salzburg before, and so I remember being litte and so excited to get to see the gazebo, the gate by the river (at the Schloss Leopoldskron, former site of Salzburg College) and the Mirabell gardens. But now that I am living here, it is even more significant. I squealed quite loudly when the Maria and the children rode in a buggy by my favorite spot here in Salzburg, Herbert von Karajan Platz, where people once brought their horses to drink water. And it was an entirely different experience to be able to see the Untersberg on screen while being able to see it peeking through the window directly behind the TV.

But mostly, the Sound of Music made me feel very patriotic. Captain von Trapp's love for Austria is infectious. And the city of Salzburg looks so quaint and beautiful. Salzburg was its own country until 1810, and so the history of the province is much different than the rest of Austria. Seeing Austrians so proud of their country as well as the city and all its unique history really made me proud to live here.

Nächste halt, Mörkweg

I decided to walk into town today, since it is so warm, and it is a lazy sunday, and since my host family served me a huge lunch of potatoes and meat in a delicious sauce with vegetables soaked in butter and a honey almond pastry for desert and if I didn't start walking off some of those calories I would have most likely fallen asleep.

I bought a Monatskarte, or monthly bus pass for the first month here in Salzburg. It has been amazing, since I can ride any bus unlimited for the whole month. Bus tickets here are sold in the Tabbak Traffik tobacco stores and stands. I was pretty appalled that school children are basically forced to patronize tabacco stores if they want to ride the bus for less that €2.10 per ride. The bus ticket system is very strange. You buy the ticket ahead of time (unless you want to pay full price in cash) and then you validate it with a stamp when you get on the bus. The card is then valid from the time you stamp it until that same time whenever it is set to expire (a day, week, month or year). When you get on the bus, you don't have to scan or show your ticket to anybody, you just ride. Undercover ticket agents do random searches of people to make sure nobody is stealing. The fine for riding without a ticket is steep--Somewhere around €60. But I have been riding the bus for almost a month and I have never been stopped.

The busses are almost always on time. There are posted schedules with the time table in front of each stop and also in a book that you can buy. It is a little chart and on one side is the hour, and then it lists the minuets that the bus will come at. For example:

14: 05 15 25 35 46 58

The only problem is that I have to remember to look at the 24 hour time--Once I looked at the schedule for 9:00 instead of 21:00 and ended up waiting for an extra half hour. The same thing happens if you look at the Mon-Fri schedule instead of Sat or Sun. The Sunday bus only comes twice an hour. I end up waiting like and idiot in front of the bus stop a lot. I somehow am not good at timing things...and end up coming at 6:15 instead of 6:12 and then having to wait another 15 minutes. It doesn't help that the schedule book that my Guest family has is the 2010 and not 2011. It is slightly off.

The Golden Arches

Surprisingly, McDonalds here is a pleasant hang out place. I love going to McDonalds abroad and noting differences. Here in Austria, the food is mostly similar but the atmosphere is totally different. For example, McCafé is a different part of the restaurant, where you can order actually good coffee and tons of pastries including doughnuts. There is a seating area for the café and then an upstairs area for the rest of the restaurant. The most notable feature of McDonalds is free WiFi which means that us Salzburg College students without Internet at home frequent it on the weekends. Yesterday afternoon, Beth and I ran into Megan and Brittany using their computers in McDonalds.

The food at Austrian McDonalds (while perhaps not healthier) is of better quality than in the United States, and all of the food is locally grown and produced. They had an ad with a potato in a felt Alpine hat with feathers proclaiming "I AM AUSTRIAN!" The best dish that they have here that is not available in the US is Gitter Pommes, or seasoned waffle fries which they serve with sour cream sauce. They would be a huge hit in America, I am sure, and while Beth and I were in line to order them, about 4 other groups of high school students did as well.

The weirdest thing is the fees that McDonalds charges that Americans would never, ever in a million years tollerate. Ketchup costs €0.20. That's right. KETCHUP. However you can substitute the Sour Cream sauce for Ketchup if you order Gitter Pommes. To use the bathroom, you have to buy a €0.50 voucher for McDonalds. There is a turnstile blocking you from using the bathroom. I found out from my Host-Father that this is a legal grey area. There is a law that says that you can't charge to use the bathroom in Austria. However so many people were going to McDonalds to use the bathroom without buying anything, they made it so you have to buy the voucher ensuring that you will at some be forced to buy SOMETHING from McDonalds. I told him that in the US McDonalds was basically served as a road trip rest stop where it was common knowledge that you could stop and use the bathroom without buying anything. And you could stop and pump out a gallon of free Ketchup while you are at it.

National Socialism

Today was the first day we actually got into talking about Nazis.

I knew it was coming. It had been mentioned before, we saw various historical Nazi sites while in Munich, and we have a trip to the concentration camp Mauthausen scheduled for the Upper Austria field trip. I have mostly been avoiding the subject, as being the only Jewish student on this trip has the potential to end up like this:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/only-jewish-kid-in-class-asked-to-talk-about-holoc,5663/

But what makes this trip and these discussions different from the plethora of other holocaust lessons in school is the realization that THIS is where it all took place, and in particular, where it took place for my family. It is one thing to be in Germany, where I have been before, and know that the Holocaust was part of the historical legacy there, and quite another to actually be in the place where my family had their homes taken away from them. My Great-Great Grandmother received money from the Austrian government after the war as reparations for taking our house. That becomes all the more real when you imagine the posters, propaganda and political rallies we are seeing pictures of being experienced by people I have actually met, like my Great-Grandmother Hilda and her brother Ernest, who just recently wrote a book about his escape story and time fighting with the American army in WWII.

One of the problems is that I have never been a gung-ho "NEVER FORGET" kind of a person. It pains me to constantly be told to feel persecuted, or alienated when my actual social reality is that of a normal American teenager who has never experienced Anti-Semitism, or at least only in jest (which still really bugs me, but I understand that it is not serious).

For our Understanding Austria class, we have to write a paper explaining whether or not we think it is importnat that young people visit Mauthausen I can honestly say, I don't know. On the one hand, it is important to learn from those mistakes, and keep the legacy of those who died alive. On the other, these things we can't unsee, and they leave scars. I feel often times that I constantly live with the Jewish ethos of victimization; After all, we say every Passover that each one of us is to personally feel that we were delivered from Egyptian slavery. But even though I have the desire to shake off those feelings and get on with my life, which is wholly American and privileged, it may be more important to subject myself to things I would rather not deal with. I will have to see what my Gentile compatriots think about this too.

Everything Here is Something

Jason and I went today to find a coffee shop here in Salzburg worthy of hanging out and doing homework. He was adamant about finding a reliable internet connection, as well as finding the intelligentsia and youth culture. I was mostly looking for a place to sit down. We decided to go across the river Salzach as an adventure, since the Getreidegasse, the location of Mozart's birthplace, is riddled with tourists and is overpriced. We walked past many mouthwatering bakeries and Konditoreis, none of which had internet, and several of which were engulfed in carcinogenic clouds of smoke. While walking along a deserted alley full of bars, Jason spotted a sign reading "Immernett" and asked "Does that mean Internet?" I said "No, actually that means 'Always Nice'."

On the way, we found a discount store selling all sorts of odds and ends including gloves, which Jason was looking for, slippers, which I was looking for last week before finding a fuzzy pair at the mall, wigs and costumes for Fashing, the Fat Tuesday carnival this month, and erotic playing cards.

We finally gave up and made our way back to the school-side of the river, when we passed stairs leading up to "Coffee Symphony" which turned out to be a wonderful, warm coffeeshop where Jason ordered "the best carmel coffee I have ever had," as well as some Frankfurters mit Semmlen. When I asked for a bite, he offered me the piece off of his fork, unsure of how to transmit it to me. He said "I almost just fed you." and I said, "I almost just let you." it was almost romantic. My tea was served in a pot on a tray with a stick of rock candy. I was reminded of how Dad had said Europe would be "Civilized" like eating breakfast at Julius Minel.

The couple at the next table were giggling and I am sure it was because I was puzzling out my German homework aloud which I am sure any Austrian second grader could have done in about two seconds. In between the frustration of navigating this new country and negotiating simple transactions such as ordering food or going to the bathroom in McDonalds (where you have to buy a voucher to prove that you will buy something and not just use the bathroom and leave) I have to admit that Austria is designed to be quite relaxing and pleasant.