Update

I haven't written much lately, not for lack of activity, but rather for lack of finding anything worthy enough to follow my entries about ball season. I move from the Hofburg Palace, home of the former Habsburg dynasty, to the glorious ... high school classroom?! Hmmm.

So what have I been doing lately?

Yesterday I registered for classes for the spring semester, which begins next week. I should be taking one class in water and sanitation technologies for developing countries and another class in geographic information systems (GIS). There are a few other classes I want to take, but at the moment, they all conflict, so I have to figure out what to do about that.

Last Friday I went to a cabaret show, hosted by the rowing club of the head of my engineering department. (If you have some spare time, look up "Raimund Haberl". He's apparently been the world champion in men's rowing. Here I thought he was just an engineer!) The cabaret was absolutely hilarious. There were 20 pieces with topics ranging from lazy government officials to Turks in Vienna to a modern version of Hänsel and Gretel. Each piece, performed in Viennese dialect, poked fun at Austrian culture. I'm not sure which was more amusing for me: the storylines or listening to the dialect ... I understand dialect now, but it still sounds so strange to my ear!

On Saturday, I had some friends over for dinner and movies. I made some Indian curry and was going to pick up some naan (Indian bread), only to find that you cannot buy fresh naan in Vienna. The guy in the Indian grocery store told me that the climate isn't right in Vienna to make naan. I didn't know that the climate had anything to do with the temperature of the oven, but he seemed convinced this was true. In the end, we went naan-less, but had lots of other goodies instead.

Tomorrow I'll be going to see my school's play "Teechers", performed by the English drama group. I'm looking forward to it, especially since I know most of the students in the play.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!
Valentine's Day in Austria is another one of those weird holidays, like Halloween, that never used to be celebrated but has gained popularity with younger generations in the last decade or so. Store shelves are lined with heart-shaped chocolates, bottles of chocolate liqueur, and flowers of all varieties. When I was at the grocery store today, an employee dressed up in a black tuxedo and red bow tie was giving daffodils to each woman walking out the door, so now I have a daffodil sitting in a vase on my windowsill. It hasn't bloomed yet, and hopefully I don't kill it before it does!

This past week has been fairly quiet otherwise. I didn't have any classes because the schools in Vienna are closed for the semester break. Vienna's school break was actually a week earlier last year, but since the dates this year coincide with school breaks in Germany, Holland, and Belgium, the Austrian Minister of Tourism asked the schools in Vienna and Lower Austria to postpone their break by one week. Why? For the skiers, of course! There aren't enough lodges in the Alps to accommodate so many visitors, assuming that families from Austria, Germany, Holland, and Belgium all decide to go skiing over the break. In the words of the tourism minister: if the school breaks are all held at the same time, everyone will suffer.
Imagine living in a country where tourism dictates school schedules!

Ball Season

As I mentioned in my last entry, I went to two balls recently, both hosted at Vienna's Hofburg Palace. The first ball was sponsored by the BOKU, the environmental university with which I am affiliated. The second ball was sponsored by the Technische Universität (TU), Vienna's engineering university. My connection to the TU Ball is an interesting one. One of the chairs of Fulbright's alumni association teaches physical chemistry at the TU, while his wife (the other co-chair of the alumni association) is also one of the co-chairs for the TU Ball. Therefore, Fulbright organizes tickets, a table, and even waltzing lessons for those attending the TU Ball and consequently, many Fulbrighters pick this particular ball to attend.

Here is a group picture of the Fulbrighters at the TU Ball:



...and a better picture of me, where I'm not half hidden behind someone's shoulder:



Each ball features an official opening ceremony, which includes dancers from the host organization. The dancers must attend rigorous rehearsal sessions before they are even allowed to dance in the opening ceremony.



The opening ceremony, like any other ceremony, also features speech after speech after speech. One of the administrators from the TU mentioned in his speech a "Parallel- nicht Konkurrenzveranstaltung", a "parallel, not competing, event" on the same night as the TU Ball. He was referring to the infamous "Opera Ball", which has historically been accompanied by anti-fascist protests outside the opera house. The reasoning behind the protests is that the Opera Ball, attended typically by celebrities, politicians, and foreign dignitaries, is claimed to be a charity event. However, it is widely rumored that all of the proceeds (between 230 and 17000 Euros per ticket) actually end up in the bank account of organizer Richard Lugner. In any case, the TU administrator was correct; nobody attending the TU Ball would even consider going to the Opera Ball, and vice versa.

While the TU Ball was a classy formal affair, the BOKUball was by far the more fun and down-to-earth of the two. This was mainly because people attending the BOKUball had the option of dressing in evening wear or in "Tracht" (Dirndel, Lederhosen, and other traditional clothing). The TU Ball, on the other hand, set strict rules for evening attire; I actually heard of one man being refused entry because he was wearing a white tuxedo instead of a black one.

Nonetheless, both balls were a tremendous amount of fun and offered a glimpse of "high society" for a night. Now I just have to find other occasions to wear this dress!