The other night

I took these photos from my kitchen window last Saturday around 9:15. I love this time of evening.

Another look at Stephansdom

See the large version here.

I've really become interested in style of composite photographs. I've seen them called panographs or hockneyesque photos (after photographer David Hockney) or joiners (the name Hockney gave this style). Whatever you call it, I like it. You'll probably see more photos like this in 2009. :)

Happy New Year

I have a good feeling about 2009.

We spent the evening at home biding our time until the fireworks kicked up shortly before midnight. We've been hearing fireworks since about 3:00 this afternoon (it's already getting dark by that time), but the real show doesn't start until close to midnight.


Fireworks over the city of Vienna.
The fireworks are not like what I'm used to on the 4th of July in the U.S. where the city hosts a firework display and you may be able to see other shows way off in the distance. Here everyone seems to get in on the action and you're surrounded by fireworks. There was a guy in the building next to ours who was lighting fireworks from his balcony or maybe from his window.


Fireworks a little closer to home. This is the view from our balcony.
And then there were a couple of people standing across the street who had quite a stash of fireworks. I'm sure I could feel the heat from some of them as they whizzed past us on our balcony.


And this is the view from our living room.
It was fun, but bitterly cold standing outside on the balcony. I hope that you have a safe and happy new year! Happy 2009!

On a hill overlooking the city

Photos taken from Kahlenberg, a mountain in the 19th district of Vienna.



Get a better view here.

Photohunt: Blue

I had a hard time picking between the photo below and this photo. But in the end, I had to go with the blue Danube.


Technorati Tag: PhotoHunt

PhotoHunt: View

I'm participating something new. PhotoHunt, hosted by tnchick. Each week there is a theme and on Saturday tnchick and all of the participants post a photo along that theme. So, here's my first.

This week's theme is view and I've selected a photo of the view from our balcony. Brian actually took this photo, but I edited it. We make a good team.



Technorati Tag: PhotoHunt

Jammen

For those of you trying to keep up, here's something else to add to your list of things to learn in order to be like Alisha: how to make jam. In all fairness, I think it's significantly easier in Austria because they have this lovely sugar that contains pectin, so that takes a lot of the scariness out of canning.

Let's start at the beginning. Last week, one of Amanda's neighbors invited her over to show her how to make jam. Now, this woman called it marmalade, but when I looked up the difference between "marmalade" and "jam", I realized what they made was actually jam. After a little more research, I discovered that the English word "marmalade" is translated to "Orangenmarmelade" in German. And the German word "Marmelade" is translated to "jam" in English. I also learned that "jammen" is the German verb "to jam". That's not really related to the food jam, but I found it amusing.

So, Amanda learned to make jam from her neighbor last week and she taught me how to make jam this week. Now I must teach someone how to make the jam within the next week. It's the David Watson method of jam-making. (I know that only a handful of people are going to get that joke, so don't worry if the last sentence didn't make any sense.)

Here goes... How to make strawberry jam.

Start with fresh strawberries. I bought some of these from the Naschmarkt and the rest from the grocery store. The ones from the Naschmarkt were definitely better (looking and tasting), so next time I'll make sure to get enough from there. And while I was at the Naschmarkt, I took a few photos for Almost Daily Vienna. They'll show up over the next few days.

Let's get started. (Have I said that already?) Wash the berries.


Next, hull and slice the strawberries.


Then, add a little water to a large pot (enough to cover the bottom) and toss in the strawberries. Bring to a boil over a medium high heat while occasionally stirring and mashing the fruit. The juices will be released as it heats up. When it becomes juicy, add gelling sugar.

I had never heard of gelling sugar before and I don't know if it's available in the U.S. It's sugar that contains pectin (to gel) and citric acid (to preserve). When I googled it, the first site returned was a store in the U.S. (German Deli) selling the imported German brand, so it may be hard to come by in the U.S.


After it cooks a bit more, pour the hot jam into sterilized jars. I washed my jars in the dishwasher and then popped them in the oven for a few minutes to sterilize them. Put the lid on, then let them set overnight. Amanda's neighbor's grandmother used to always wrap her warm jars in a blanket so they would take longer to cool down. Neither Amanda nor I knew the reason for this, but we did it anyways.


My 7 cups of sliced strawberries made 5 jars of jam. I think I may try to make jam with other fruits

And so it begins

Yesterday I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few things. I try to avoid the grocery store on Friday because it's always crowded, but I made an exception this time. As I was trying to gather the few items I needed, I couldn't help but notice the amount of beer in some of the carts. I saw several people with 4 or more cases of beer. (A case contains 20 bottles. I know this because I counted, in case you're wondering.) I saw at least 1 guy with 8 cases. Surely this wasn't an every-Friday amount of beer. So I started thinking... Is there a holiday this weekend? Is there something special going on? What it is?

When I mentioned it to Brian, he said it was probably because the games were starting this weekend. Oh, yes, THE GAMES. That must be it.

If you're living in Europe, then you probably know exactly what games I'm talking about. Only the third largest sporting event in the world after the Olympics and World Cup. Still racking your brain? It's the UEFA Euro2008! Soccer! Uh, I mean, Football!

The games are hosted by Switzerland and Austria this year with the championship game in Vienna on June 29th. Vienna has been primping and preening for months. These little fellas have been popping up around the city:


And the bushes have been properly trimmed and decorated:


Even the statues in front of Künstlerhaus are getting in on the action. (No, the statues don't normally wear cleats.)


So from now until the final game on June 29th, this blog will be all about Euro2008. Okay, that's not true. I'm sure I'll mention it another time or two this month. But I also have a garden, sewing projects and day to day minutiae to write about. Never a dull moment.

Bad boys, bad boys

Today at the grocery store I witnessed a little confrontation. I was on the beverage aisle and had just placed some Diet Pepsi's in my cart. (Yes, I, the avid Pepsi-product-loather was buying Diet Pepsi. A 2 liter bottle of Diet Pepsi is less than half the price of a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke. Plus, neither Diet Coke nor Diet Pepsi taste the same here as in the U.S., so I've decided to let my dislike of all things Pepsi slide.)

Anyways, I had placed the beverage in my shopping cart when suddenly I hear a lot of yelling and scuttling about behind me. I turn around and there an employee and a customer yelling at another customer. Apparently, the first customer -- let's call him Ludwig -- saw the other customer -- we'll call him Kumar -- eating something he hadn't paid for and had reported it to the manager. (Maybe I should say Ludwig allegedly saw Kumar eating something -- but I'm not sure whether the whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing works over here.)

Kumar is all like, "What, what did I do? I don't have anything." And then Ludwig went rummaging around in a display case thingy that was loaded with chips and pulls out an empty foil wrapper. Then Kumar changes his story. Instead of, "I don't have anything," he starts saying, "I've already paid for it. Why can't I eat it? I've already paid."

Meanwhile, I'm stuck between two of those display case thingys full of chips with my back against the wall-o-sodas, my grocery cart in front of me and these yelling people right in front of my cart. I wasn't really scared that something bad was going to go down, I just felt quite uncomfortable. It's not like I could just turn around and inspect the soft drinks and act like there wasn't a huge scene going on behind me. I had to stand there and watch! The whole thing probably lasted less than 30 seconds, but it was a pretty tense 30 seconds.

Ten or 15 minutes later as I was leaving the store, I saw the manager and Ludwig talking to two police officers. There was no sign of Kumar. I should have checked the backseat of the police car out front to see if they had him in custody.

And speaking of cop cars, I took some photos a while back I wanted to show you. The police cars here look a bit different than what I'm used to from the U.S. The first photo below shows a typical police car.



But this one is my favorite police vehicle.

Photos announcements

I upload almost every photo I take to Flickr, but I've decided to make many of the photos private. Specifically, I've decided to make any photo that has a person I know visible only to family and friends. The main reason I've decided to do this is because I've noticed more and more traffic from people I don't know. And while the photos are all innocent enough, I still feel like it's not entirely right for me to post photos of other people. Plus, I have a feeling that these strangers looking through my Flickr photos are more interested in the travel photos or craft photos and not the family and friends photos.

I've debated removing all of the "people" photos from my blog as well, but decided to keep them because almost everyone in the photos have their own blogs. I try to be sensitive about how much information I post about other people because I don't want to infringe on their privacy. So if a story is ever a little vague or missing someone's name, that's the reason why.

So... all of that to say this: If you want to see all of my photos, tell me and I'll add you as a "Friend" so you can see all of the photos I'm hiding from the public. You have to have a Flickr account, but who doesn't have a Flickr account these days. That's like not having a gmail account! (Okay, so I know some of you don't have a Flickr account, but it's really easy to set up and it's free. Plus, if you have a Yahoo! account, I think you can use the same email and password, so you don't even have to remember anything new.) So if you want to see more of my photos, leave me a comment, send me an email or send me a Flickr contact invite and I'll make you one of the chosen ones.

AND ALSO... I've started a new photo project. My plan was to post a photo of Vienna every weekday. But after trying it out for a month, I realized that my plan was a bit lofty. So now, instead of posting a daily Vienna photo, I will post an almost-daily Vienna photo.

If you can't get enough of Vienna, check out my photo project at (almost) Daily Vienna. Some of the photos are famous sites of Vienna, but some are just ordinary everyday objects. And some of the photos are not taken in Vienna. I've added a "not Vienna" label to these photos just to keep everything honest. All of the photos link to Flickr where you can (usually) find more information about the photo. (They're all public, so you don't need to be a "Friend" to see them in Flickr.) You can also download the photos from Flickr and hang them on your mirror or plaster them on your walls or put them in a frame. You can even alter the photos and use them to make a cool banner like the one at the top of this blog. Or like the one at the top of that blog. The possibilities are almost endless.

Vienna Zoo

I mentioned our trip to the zoo a little over a week ago, but wanted to write more about it and share some photos of the animals. I was amazed at how many professional photographers were there. I was snapping away with my point-and-shoot and I think I got some decent photos.

One of the highlights was seeing the polar bears. There are two polar cubs that we were hoping to see, but at first we only saw one bear pacing around out front. He seemed a bit agitated.


Not long after, we realized that he was just trying to distract us from the mama and baby bears around the corner. The mama stood like this for hours while her two cubs wrestled behind her.


We walked back past the polar bears an hour or two later and found them like this. I hope every day isn't this exhausting for them.



I think this was the first time I had seen polar bears, but there were other animals I had never seen at a zoo before. For example, penguins and grasshoppers.



And yes, there really were grasshoppers in the zoo.



In this same area, there were also maggots and cockroaches. But I didn't take photos of them because I knew no one would want to see them. There were also some glass cages with crickets. My mom pointed out that there was ample room for the crickets to escape at the back of the cage where the glass didn't go to the wall. And sure enough, right below the cage we noticed some crickets that looked suspiciously like the crickets in the cage.

The crickets weren't the only animals escaping their containment. I don't know if you can really tell in this photo, but this is some kind of woodland creature slipping under the ropes to head back into his area. Right inside this wire fence is a small electric fence. But apparently it's not working because we saw several of these critters scamper right over it.



And we found this peacock sitting behind a sign. I'm not even sure he has a cage -- maybe he just wanders around.



Oh yes, the penguins. We finally found them as they were receiving a quick shower. What's up with that black furry penguin in the middle? I've never seen anything like that.



The zoo also has a baby panda that has been big news in these parts. She was born last year and I believe she is one of the few pandas conceived by natural means within captivity. If you visit the zoo's website, you can even see photos of those natural means by which she was conceived. But this is a family website, so I'm not going to show those photos here. We didn't see the baby panda because there was a half-hour wait to get into the building and then there was guarantee that she would be out at the time.

We saw a lot of other animals as well. A buffalo, birds, giraffes, monkeys and such. But I only have one last photo. I think this is the creepiest looking bird ever. That eye just makes me shudder.




You can check out the rest of the zoo photos on my Flickr page.

Views of the city

Last Thursday, we took the family to Leopoldsberg, a well-known lookout on the northern edge of Vienna. I've seen a lot of photos from this spot and have been waiting for a reason to visit it. I would have preferred to go on a sunny day, but we only had one or two of those during the week and Thursday was not one of them. We could see a storm heading our direction while we were on Leopoldsberg, so we went back into the city for a late lunch rather than continuing our trip to a town on the other side of the mountain. By the time we finished eating lunch, there was a full-fledged snow/ice storm raging outside. I think it's pretty cool when it's snowing and thundering at the same time.

It didn't come across very well in the photo, but from the lookout you could tell where it was raining and where it was sunny in the city. You can see the rain way off in the distance over the Danube River. I think it's very interesting to see the green countryside and then the huge city of Vienna.


When we arrived, the weather looked very nice to the north of us. We were planning on heading into Klosterneuburg after leaving Leopoldsberg, but the weather looked pretty menacing that direction by the time we left. Klosterneuburg is situated on the west side of the Danube and the city of Korneuburg is on the east side of the river. You can see the Klosterneuburg Monastery on the left edge of the photo below. (You can click on the photo to go to Flickr and see a larger view of the photo. Just click on "All sizes" in Flickr.)


We were able to snap some nice photos, but on a clear day I imagine you can get a much better shot of Vienna in the background.

A day at the zoo... and other places

Today we headed out to the zoo. It may be the only day we have nice weather this week, so we took full advantage.


I think the sea lions were playing with us. They kept swimming right up against the glass.


And isn't this the cutest little puppy.

After the trip to the zoo, we headed to the town center for some ice cream.


And then we saw my favorite street performers. Lots of fun. I'm too tired to write more, so enjoy the show.

Spring is in the air

We've had some lovely weather the last few days. After class, Brian and I decided to walk to the u-bahn station so we could walk by Votivkirche and through the nearby park. There were a lot of people sitting out enjoying the sunlight and warmth.


While trying to take that photo, a young boy approached us to try to sell us flowers. You see this fairly often around Vienna. Young girls and boys walk around touristy areas holding out a flower. If you take it, they insist that you pay for it. Sometimes they will thrust the flower into your hand and then refuse to take it back. I suppose this works for tourists who may be confused and not want to cause a scene, but I think it's also a front for pickpockets.

This boy was waving his flower in front of my camera and when I turned my camera directly on him, he gave me a big smile.


After I took the photo and a few others of the park, he wanted to see the photo of himself. As I showed it to him, I wondered if this was a ruse to pick my pocket. The sad fact is that many of these children are trained by their parents or other adults to become thieves. This was one of the topics (the trafficking of children) that was discussed in a recent forum hosted by the UN in conjunction with UN.GIFT -- the UN Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking. I hope to write more on this topic in a few weeks.

My Vienna :: My u-bahn station

I'm going to try something new. I don't know how long I'll be able to carry on, but I thought it might be fun to periodically show you some sites from my daily life. I'll start with a place that I visit almost everyday -- my u-bahn station.

This is Aderklaaer Strasse station. It's a five to ten minute walk from my apartment. Eventually, there will be a shopping center in this large field in front of the u-bahn station.



This is a fairly new station and it's much cleaner than the stations on the other side of the river. It's not always so sparsely populated. I just happened to arrive right as the u-bahn was leaving, so the place was empty. The sign on the left side of the photo shows the names of the stops for each direction. You can see that this is almost the end of the line. There are electronic signs that display the end station and how many minutes until the next train. You can see one of these signs on the right side of the photo.



There are a lot of signs at each station. There are several signs like the one below -- I guess so you always know where you are.



There's usually more than one exit from an u-bahn station, so at every exit there's a sign that says the street name. This is the exit we take from the Aderklaaer Strasse station. Most u-bahn stations are underground, but this one is above ground. However, you still have to walk UP stairs to get out. Outside the door you walk down stairs to get to the ground level. Austrians love their stairs. I love their escalators, but unfortunately they don't have escalators at the smaller stations like this one.



And here's a quick glimpse of the inside of an u-bahn. This is the new model and it's completely open from the front to the back. You can walk the entire length of the train if you want to do so. The older models have individual cars, so you're pretty much stuck in the section where you enter.



I hope you enjoyed this little tour of my u-bahn station. I have several other places in my part of Vienna that I plan to show you in the coming weeks.

The big bang

Wow.

About half an hour before midnight the sky starting lighting up with fireworks. No longer was there one firework here and then another one there. There were fireworks everywhere.

Brian and I spent about 40 minutes running between the windows in the living room and the kitchen. I've never seen anything like this. It's not just the city putting on a firework show, but it seems like everyone is participating. There were people in the soccer field right outside our apartment setting off fireworks. There were people out on the street setting off fireworks. We even saw some come out of apartment windows! Several were so close to the building I was afraid they might fly into our open window. At midnight, I turned on the radio to listen to Strauss' Blue Danube Waltz, which is always played to welcome in the new year.

I know it's never the same on video, but here's a small sample of the fireworks from our kitchen window. It was so loud, so turn up your volume to get the full effect.

Downtown

Have you noticed the trend in naming posts after songs? I just can't help myself.



I'm not really sure where "downtown" Vienna is located, but I headed into the city today. Some might say, I went downtown. I don't know if I would say it. I think I have a bit of cabin fever and I just needed to get out for a while.

I've been thinking about sweet potatoes a lot lately and the only place you can find them is downtown -- no, wait -- at the Naschmarkt. This was my first visit since it's been really cold and I definitely noticed that the crowd was smaller. The last time I was there, the place was overflowing with sweet potatoes. You couldn't turn around without bumping into one. But this time they weren't quite as plentiful. I guess I should have bought them during the fall.

Oh well, there were enough. I loaded up on sweet potatoes and bought a new pair of mittens. I have gloves that I like, but I've been wanting a pair of mittens that have the top part that you can remove so you can actually use your fingers. I hope you know what I'm talking about because I'm too lazy to get the camera.

However, I did snap some nice photos at the Naschmarkt. They're not for the faint of heart. If you prefer a little mystery with the food you eat, maybe you shouldn't continue. because there's no doubt with this food.

I'll start you out with some cute bread -- just so you won't have to see anything you don't want to see. Unless, of course, you're just scanning through the photos. In which case, you get what you deserve.

The pig is a symbol for good luck, so you see all sort of pig-paraphernalia around New Years. One of the bakeries at the Naschmarkt was selling bread shaped like a pig's head. Pretty cute, eh?



But just a little further down at the butcher, you can find real pigs' heads. Notice the one on the right has a cigar in his mouth.



Have you ever had shrimp scampi and wondered what it looked like before it was on your plate? Wonder no more.



If you're more of a fish kind of person, here's your dinner. The one on the bottom looks surprised, the one above it is a little angry and the one above that one is just down-right sad.



If you're eating fish in Austria, it may not look much different when it arrives at the dinner table. I'm pretty sure they serve it with the head intact.

I've saved the most disturbing for last. This was actually the first thing I photographed at the Naschmarkt. I've never seen anything like it. I'm not sure what it was, but the hoof is still there!

Oh, I wish...

Are you singing it yet?

Sometimes I wish I had a really nice camera with lots of different lenses and could take all these amazing photos. But then I realize that I would have to actually learn how to use the camera and learn all that photography lingo like aperture and f-stop. And not just learn what it means, but how it affects the photo I'm taking. Plus, I'd actually have to get out and take photos! Not just hop off the u-bahn and snap some photos from the platform.

So I guess it's a good thing I don't have a nice, expensive camera. I don't think I could handle all that other stuff. Maybe one day. And my point-and-shoot does a pretty decent job most of the time.

Here are the latest photos that I took from the u-bahn platform. It's been pretty cold here for a while and the Alte Donau (Old Danube) is frozen over. It's quite a site to see.









If you look at the last one closely, you can see three people on the ice. There are areas where you can ice skate when the river freezes over, but I think these people just went out on their own. I imagine they're wearing shoes -- I doubt you could skate with the snow on the ice. I can't believe they're in the middle of the river! I hope the ice is thick.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Actually, it's been looking like Christmas around here for a while. I first spotted Christmas candy in the grocery store in September. SEPTEMBER! Decorations started appearing in October. Vendors selling roasted chestnuts showed up about the same time. And now that we're approaching the end of November, the Christmas season is in full swing.

One of the most famous aspects of Christmas in Austria (and I guess in most parts of Europe) is the Christkindlmarkt (literally, Christ-child Market) or Weihnachtsdorf (Christmas Village). All over Vienna, small villages of wooden stalls are set up where vendors can sell their wares -- whether it's wooden toys, hand-painted ornaments, or fresh-baked sweets. Most of the Christmas Markets opened last weekend and the remaining are opening this weekend.


Sunday evening I met Kari and Kim in the city to visit one of the Christmas Markets known for it's "artistic" handicrafts -- whatever that means. But silly me, I forgot to look up the exact address and we were never able to find it. So we headed over to the Rathaus to visit the largest Christmas Market. As we were approaching, before we could see anything expect the lights on the top of the Rathaus, Kim said, "I smell cotton candy!" And she was right. As we approached, the smell was heavenly. I first noticed the scent of candied nuts. I wasn't sure what I was smelling, but it was sweet and sugary and it made me interested in the food stall. (The fact that it was about 7 p.m. and I hadn't eaten dinner yet probably also contributed to my piqued interest in food.)

There were other smells too. Chestnuts roasting. Sausages and various types of fried potatoes. Sweet baked goods. And the punch. I didn't try the punch, but I could smell the berries. One stall had a chocolate fountain and you could get a waffle bowl filled with fruit or nuts or marshmallows covered in chocolate. I tried bananas and pineapples and they were delicious.

Some of the stalls were very nice, but many were a disappointment. Many sold the same items you can find in tourists shops. But then again, this particular Christmas Market is the one most visited by tourists. I'm hoping for more authentic goods at other markets. I liked the stalls with hand-painted Christmas ornaments. The one below is my favorite. It's hard to tell in the photo, but the glass is clear and on the front is a picture of a window and the girl standing in front of the tree is painted on the backside. So when you look at it from the front, it's like you're looking at the scene through the window.


And, of course, I also enjoyed looking at the stalls with Christmas sweets. The heart-shaped cookies you can see hanging from the stall in the picture below are very popular. Well, I see them everywhere, but I've never actually seen someone buy one. I believe you are supposed to buy one for your significant other. (They have messages like "I love you" on them.) They're on a long ribbon, which your significant other can use to wear the cookie around her neck. Maybe someone who is familiar with these cookies can give more details because I'm not sure what they're called or whether I have the story straight.


Even though some of the stalls were a bust, I had a lot of fun checking out the scene and eating the food. I'm sure I'll visit more before the season is over.