They could be brothers

Is it me, or do these two have the exact same expression on their faces? I'm going to assume that the glare in their eyes is due to the sun, because they both seemed really happy to see me.

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.

Hamburger weather

Last week in German class we were reading through a text about Hamburg, Germany. The text mentioned something about the weather and referred to it as "Hamburger Wetter" (Wetter = weather). One girl -- who is very smart, mind you -- asked the teacher, "What is Hamburger weather?" The teacher looked at her to see if she was serious, then answered, "The weather in Hamburg." Everyone got a big kick out of it.

I wonder if she was imagining hamburgers falling from the sky.

When I hear "hamburger weather" I think about grilling. And I've been thinking about grilling a lot lately. Good hamburgers are really hard to come by in Vienna. We have a T.G.I. Friday's restaurant that has good burgers, but with the current exchange rate, the cheapest burger on the menu is about $15. Yes, you read that correctly. Fifteen dollars for a burger from Friday's.

So I've decided that I'm going to learn how to make excellent burgers. And I'm hoping you'll help me. Do you have any tricks or unusual ingredients you use when making burgers at home? I'm not looking for anything extravagant, just a simple burger that taste great.

What about toppings? Is there anything in particular that you like to add to your burger? I'm dreaming of topping a burger with cheddar, barbecue sauce and some of these. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Mo' Photo

Have you stopped by my other blog yet to check out the photos? Most of the photos I've posted are taken around Votivkirche, a church in the 9th district of Vienna. That's because Brian and I walk past it almost everyday on our way to class. But there's plenty to photograph around there.

So here's the deal with the photos, in case you're wondering. I try to take at least one photo each day. And I try to post it on the same day, but that doesn't always happen. If I take a suitable photo, I will eventually post it with the date that the photo was taken. If I don't take a photo on a certain day, I won't post a photo for that day. In other words, I won't post a photo I took three days earlier or a week earlier or whenever. I don't write anything about the photos on the blog, but I do on Flickr. So if you want to know more about the photo, just click on it to get to Flickr.

Yesterday Brian decided he wanted to be in all of my daily Vienna photos. Kind of like how Michael Scott tried to get into all of the photos at Phyllis' wedding. So here are the outtakes from this week. Can you spot Brian in each photo?

Weekend update

I don't really have much to post, but I thought it was time to post something so you wouldn't have to keep coming back and seeing the message about my birthday. That was so last week.

It's been a busy weekend, but it doesn't seem like I've accomplished much. Brian and I have a test in our German class on Monday. Plus I have an oral presentation on Monday (and Brian has one on Tuesday). And we each had to write an essay on whether we prefer city-living or country-living. Usually my essays are between 100 and 120 words and this one ended up being over 200 words. It's nice that the writing is coming a little easier, but speaking is still such a struggle.

We've also had guests this weekend. Four people from Switzerland are visiting to pray for this part of the city and a married couple is staying with us. It's been very interesting to hear about what they're doing in Switzerland and how similar it is to what we would like to accomplish here in Vienna. Saturday while they were walking around the neighborhood, they noticed a poster for a church that meets in a community building only about 10 minutes from our house. It's surprising to me that Brian and I have looked at the place where these posters are hung many times before and never noticed this one. We visited this group this morning and found a congregation of about 70 to 80 people. They are in the same building as the library that I visit and I never knew they existed. It's so easy to overlook signs when everything is in German. But this has encouraged me to pay a bit more attention. You never know what we'll find next.

Today is the day

Brian thinks that my birthday should be on April 4th. But it's not. It's today. It has always been on the 3rd. But I think Brian is trying to get it legally changed to the 4th. Apparently he has already convinced the good folks at Memorial Road because they published my birthday as April 4th in the church bulletin. And once you convince the church, you're halfway to making something legal.

It was a pretty nice day. I had my cake several weeks ago, so there was no red velvety goodness today. But my German teacher gave me some chocolate and the class sang Happy Birthday (in German) to me. After class, Brian and I stopped by one of my favorite cafes for lunch. Then we headed home to clean. It may be my birthday, but I still have responsibilities.

This photo is completely unrelated, but I thought a photo might spruce up the post. This is me and my niece the morning my family headed back to Texas. If she looks a little groggy, that's because we woke her up for the photos. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos with my other niece the morning they left. Not sure how that happened, but it could have been because my sister and I decided it would be better for us to stay up all night rather than get a few hours of sleep. Amber probably regretted the decision since she spent the next 12 hours or so getting home. But I didn't mind since I spent the next 12 hours or so sleeping at home.

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.