Spring in Vienna

Prague, Czech Republic

Surrounded by brightly colored flowers, the smell of new plant growth, and the rich sounds of classical music, Vienna woke up from it's winter slumber and started spring with fantastic weather and plenty of sun. During April and May we took advantage of every warm day, had many picnics and bike rides along the river. Since the warm weather has come Vienna has transformed into an incredibly bustling city, from the constant festivals, such as the bicycle fest in front of the Rathaus (town hall), to the Steiermarkdorf, a country festival celebrating Steiermark's culture, music, wine and food. We were able to make it to many of these festivals and are planning to see more.

Our average day here consists of waking up around 7, and after a slow breakfast leaving the house around 8, riding my bike straight through the center of town, riding past Museums Quartier, the Parliament, the Vienna State Opera, and the Stadtpark (big central city park) before finally arriving to the kindergarten where I work half day's in the morning. At kindergarten, I work with another teacher, a Spanish girl, and together we have a very fun and exciting classroom, where the kids play, and do lots of activities. I teach entirely in English (sometimes they don't understand me) and She teaches in a mixture of Spanish and German. It is very exciting for me, because my level of German has risen to a level where I can have productive conversations with people (with terrible grammar), and I can speak with my co-teacher in Spanish, which is also very useful, so I don't lose all I have learned in Mexico and South America.

After kindergarten, I will ride home or meet with Laina in a park nearby. I am lucky enough to have a two hour lunch break between my two jobs. Lately we have been meeting outside and playing Rummy, not the card version, but one with tiles, that is played very similarly to the card game. It's really great to just lie down in the shade of a tree in on of Vienna gigantic gardens and take a small nap before heading back to work. My second job is in Hietzing, a district of Vienna near the Schönbrunn Palace. At this small private English center, I am the primary teacher, as I teach nine classes and most other teachers only teach one or two classes. Three days a week I come here and teach three hours of classes per day. I enjoy this job because I am fully in charge of my class, and the center's owner gives me the flexibility to tailor the lessons and overall plan to what I feel is important for the student to learn. This last semester I have been incredibly sucessful recieved many compliments, and even was told that one of my students is now the best in her classroom (at school) at English!

In the evenings, when I have finished both jobs, I will go home and meet Laina, where we will make a delicious dinner, and make plans for the evening. Lately, we have been meeting up with friends at a restaurant (we know two really nice but super cheap ones, like 3 euros for dinner!), and then heading to Museums Quartier for chats and drinks. Museums Quartier is a large outdoor courtyard, very large, and it can probably hold a thousand or so people. This courtyard is surrounded by at least 4 Museums. I have never actually researched how many Museums there are, but there must be at least four. Sometime in the past it was decided by the young population of Vienna that this public courtyard is going to be the cool place to go in the evening and drink with your friends. Eventually the city started putting up these giant furniture chair/bench things for people to sit and started advertising it as a place to come at night to hang out. Now, many years later, there are tons of these weird bench things and now hundreds of people. The appeal is that if you buy your drinks from the grocery store, for a fraction of the price of a restaurant, you can meet up with a big groups of friends and spend time outside relaxing without having to be at a restaurant. Also, I should mention that you are allowed to drink in public here.

We live in the 17th district "Hernals", but we are really surrounded by the 16th district, "Ottakring", This part of town is known for it's gigantic market, the Brunnenmarkt, on Brunnengasse. The Brunnenmarkt is by far the best way to buy cheap vegetables. While there are many outdoor markets in Vienna, the Brunnenmarkt has the lowest prices, while still maintaining good quality. If you visit on Saturdays, the whole area is super packed with people buying their weekly vegetables. The tight competition between the vendor is nearly tangible. As you walk by the tomato stands, you will notice that one stand will have so many people you cannot see the tomatoes themselves, as you push through the crowd, you may hear the vendor shouting 3 kilos for 1 euro, or may realize the same by seeing the overfilled bags that each customer is handing him with a small gold and silver 1 euro coin in their other palm. Especially around the Brunnenmarkt, you will notice that the vast majority of people are not Austrians, and they don't speak German. I guess you could call our neighborhood "Little Turkey", since such a vast majority of people are Turkish, and it really adds to the appeal and funness of living in the 17th district.
 
Prague

We knew that it was just a matter of time before we would travel to Prague, Czech Republic, the capital of Bohemia. After finding tickets for 14 euros each way, we decided to head out right away. Our friends Gerry from Greece, and Elisabeth from Germany came with us! Laina and Elisabeth headed out a few days before Gerry and I, since I had to finish the week at work. As we caught the bus from the Praterstern bus station in the north of Vienna, the sky started to darken, and we were worried about having bad weather for the weekend. 4 hours later we rolled into Prague, right as sun was setting and some rain clouds settling in. As you pass over the last hill and head down into the city, you can see why some call Prague "The City of a Thousand Steeples", the blanket of red roofed building was pierced all over by wiched black and gold gothic steeples from the variety of churches and administration building all done in this style. After buying some of the local currency, Czech Krowns, we took the metro to meet up with Laina and Eli. Our weekend was full of seeing the different churches, walking through the parks, and trying many of the local Czech "Pivo" their word for beer. Czech out the pictures! (no pun intended!) :)


Laina’s Farm Adventure

I just returned from three weeks in the Austrian country side, where I spent my time on two different organic family farms. I had a wonderful time, despite the fact that Nick was unable to join me, it was very relaxing and enjoyable. I was also able to do research for our family, which we hope will be inspiring for our future. The country side of Upper Austria is very quaint, to me it looks like "storybook land" a place where Cinderella or little red riding hood could have taken place. It is essentially all farm land with rolling green hills and different fields of wheat, barley and spelt or pastures, punctuated by old farm houses and barns, with the occasional small village and bit of woodland. Occasionally, there is the ruins of an old castle or windmill. Small twisting roads weave everything together and the pace of life is slow.

I started my farm stay in Augendobl, Dorf an der Pram, a very small village in the Pram river valley, Upper Austria, about 45 mins from the border with Germany. Here I worked as a tree nursery helper. I spent my days driving the tractor to build big pumpkin heaps, using tools to clear out the green house, spending hours in the sun planting apple trees and also planted tons of tomato plants. In my free time, I was able to harvest and drink my own fresh tea from wild plants in the yard, create some of the most delicious salads using fresh greens such as red and romaine lettuce, mustard greens, and arugula, my favorite. The pace of life was really slow, and it reminded me of my summers in Donnelly, minus the large family and lake. Nick came and visited for four days and during his time there we found a second farm for me to go visit. After he left, I headed to the farm I would stay at , The Time Walk Garden in Neu Kirchen am der Wald, even closer to the German border. Here I spent lots of time with different animals! Pigs, sheep, goats, chickens and cows! The little piglets were my favorite!

The resaon that I spend this time on two farms is that it is part of an idea that Nick and I have for our future. We have be toying with the idea of living of eco-village somewhere, in the future. The idea of spending 9 months a year, living as part of a community (in the tropics), raising kids and farming, sounds very appealing to us. Of course this would have to include three months a year spent in Idaho in the summer and the occasional two year international living/traveling trip, and probably supported by some time of teaching, either part time at a small country school, or with 2 year contracts internationally. However, these are some dreams we have been coming up with, and it was great for me to spend some time farming to see if I actually like it.

Here are the pictures from Spring 2011:

Laina's 25th Birthday/Sushi dinner

Turkanshanz Park

Picnicking in the park

Awesome swing at the Praterstern

Barlauch (wild Garlic) in Lainzer Animal Garden

Biking in Vienna

Schoenbrunn Palace

Budapest, Hungary

Baths in Budapest

Hero's square, Budapest

Oma and Nicky playing rummy

Brunnenmarkt

Brunnenmarkt

Nicky's 25th!!

Our Kitchen

Our room!

Tram in Prague with Eli and Gerry

All of us couchsurfers touring through Prague

Thousand steeples, Prague

Prague

Prague

Prague

Upper Austria Farmland

Upper Austria Farmland

Nicky herding the sheep

Laina and freshly milled and baked homemade bread (we milled it ourselves)

Augendobl farm

Chickens!

Piglets!

Castle and Upper Austria Farmland

Castle and Upper Austria Farmland

Josefstädterstraße

Things are going really great for us! Since we posted last, I got two jobs, we moved into a new place, went to Bratislava and Budapest!

Here are some recent pictures!

Wien Stammtisch

We have been really having a great time living at our house here in the 10th district. From here, you can take the U1, subway to pretty much anywhere in the city, with a transfer or two. Things have been generally cold, but we have seen snow fall every few days, and sometimes when I am waiting for the subway, the snow falls onto the tracks at the street level station and it's very pretty. I have certainly getting into the hubbub of daily city life, which is fun, running for the bus and every time you come out of the subway stations, you are in a different part of town, and some of the stations open into big streets with beautifully decorated buildings and cobblestone streets, it is all a very unique feeling.

The good news is that I have gotten a second job at a kindergarten, and now my work week has been filled up! I was very surprised that here in Vienna the demand for native English speakers as teachers for your children is huge. Perhaps it is the lack of native English speakers without the papers to work here.

Last Friday we went to the Wien Stammtisch at Cafe Benno, a few blocks from the Alserstraße stop on the U6. "Stammtisch" is a German term for "Regular's Table". The Vienna couchsurfing group put together their Stammtisch on the 11th of every month. There are 6,500 members in the Vienna couchsurfing group, so you might imagine that quite a few people were going to show up. Stefan, the couchsurfer who set it up, reserved the entire downstairs of the bar. When we showed up at 10pm, there were at least 120 people there, all couchsurfers! Everyone had name tags, so I got a name tag, .5l of beer, and headed to the back room to make some friends. At first I met up with Massi, and Italian guy started the sustainability group here in Vienna. At the time he was running the "Free Box", a table covered with free stuff that the 120 or so people had brought that they did not need. Then I ran into a guy from Vienna who had traveled through the USA, and had actually traversed through Idaho from Boise to Coeur d'Alene, what a small world! I met up with an American guy that had just gone through the process of getting his residence permit here and gave us some tips for Laina's. The event grew and there were so many people in the bar, i couldn't believe it, and before I knew it, it was 2 and the bar was closing. They practically had to push out all the couchsurfers. It was a great time. The public transportation runs 24/7 on the weekend, so we were able to get home by 3 for a good nights rest.

Other News: Laina just got her paperwork in for her residence permit, so she may be able to work in 4-5 months! We are chugging along with our school work, and Laina got her health insurance trough my work! We're still looking for a place to live, and having a hard time because we're a couple and most people don't want two people instead of one. I went two five different interviews, got 4 job offers, and now I am working in two jobs!

Ah, Vienna!

We've been settling in pretty well, working our way through the job interviews and visiting different flats. Vienna's been pretty cold lately, down to -6 C! I have been going to the school and last Tuesday I taught my first English class solo! Pretty much all of our time until last Tuesday was spent split between Starbucks and Oma's house, and playing Bauernschnappsen (an Austrian card game) over slivovitz until late.

We moved into a flat, only temporary, in the 10th Bizerk, in south Vienna. We're having a great time, we have three roommates, Elizabeth, Kay(its his room we're subletting), and Shawna. From our house, we're only a block from the grocery store, and 2 blocks from the Turkish grocery store. If you don't know, Vienna has a huge international population, many people from eastern Europe, especially Turkey. Walking down the streets here, you most certainly will see a Doner Kebap stand on almost every corner. and in the stand you'll see a big rotating meat slab in which the server will slice you off delicious shreds of lamb or chicken. It's not healthy, but you can buy them for 2.50 euros, and they can feed two.

We spent Australia day with a big group of couchsurfers at a local Australian pub in the inner stadt(city). We had a great time together, and what diversity! There were people from Spain, Mexico, Uruguay, Australia(of course), Canada, and Germany. We had a fun time chatting over Cooper sparkling ales, and talking about the in's and out's of Austrian paperwork, and what it takes for Laina to get her residence permit (green card).

School has been crazy, as you may or may not know we are taking classes online from George Mason University, which we are really enjoying. We are trying to find a balance of time, since they are graduate classes, and require a lot of reading and intelligently written papers. I think we'll get by. All in all things are going well, and we are really looking forward to this weekend, they say it'll be 50 on Sunday, and it is free museum day in Vienna! Sweet!

p.s. The photo is of Stephansdom, a giant cathedral right in the center of the inner stadt. It's super old, it was completed in 1160.

Vienna

After an amazing week touring through England, we left for Vienna. We arrived at night, and by some stroke of luck managed to mumble the correct words in a very rusty German to the bus driver, and got a ride from the airport to the Westbahnhof, right by my grandmother, Oma’s, house. We spent the next few days touring the inner-stadt (city center), hanging out with Oma, and I had an interview for a position as an English teacher, at a small private English center. After a few days, and a few class observations, I got the job! Great!
Vienna is a beautiful city. The building are all very magnificent, old and rich with history. Even outside the center of the city you will find plenty of buildings that you can’t help but stare at in awe. The Schönbrunn, a castle further away from the center, is an absolutely fabulous area to spend an afternoon walking around. There are gigantic gardens, a huge hill overlooking the city, countless statues, and an epic statues scene of Neptune and the Tritons overlooking a fountain. The whole area is so ornate and well manicured, you can’t not think you are back in time, and walking around as if you were from the 17th century.
We are absolutely loving it here, and as things calm down, expect more blogs especially about some very important thing I need to catch up on!

Baja Camping @ El Salto

6/8/2010

San Diego, California

We got up early, before the Las Vegas heat hit and sped down the highway straight to Loma Linda, California. When we arrived ], Jim was outside his apartment and showed us where we could park. After warm greetings we spent some time swimming in the hot tub and lounging around the apartment. We all went out to a nice dinner with Jim's old time friend. We headed out to Palm Springs to visit Shiela, Jim's friend, for the day. We had a great time picking lemons, going to the mexican market and eating some delicious food. On Sunday Jim took us down to San Diego, our new home!

We spent our first week at my great Uncle Jerry and Aunt Yoshi's house. We had a fantastic turkey dinner our first night, and I got to re-meet all of my extended family out here in San Diego.

Our first weekend in San Diego, we got invited to a Couch Surfing camping trip in El Salto, a small campground about 1 hour south of the border. Octavio (a couchsurfer) told us that he would pick us up on the other side of the border, at McDonalds. We jumped on the trolly, took it all the way to San Ysidro/Int'l Border, and crossed on foot. Back inf Mexico! It felt great, street tacos, loud "Banda" music, fantastic! We waited for Octavio at the McD's and then headed down with him to his house to wait for a friend. While we were staying at his house, we got to talk to his mom, who turned out to have a cake baking/ decorating hobbie on the competetive label. Laina and her hit it off immediately, rattling off in spanish different ideas they both have, and how they can make their cakes.

Eventually, we left and headed down to El Salto, a pretty drive down the northern Baja. With minimal directions, we finnaly made it, and arrived at the camping site with about 10 couchsurfers already there. Everyone greeted us warmly, and we all got comfortable and started sharing stories. As the sun started setting many more couchsurfers showed up, at one point, i believe we had 30 people around my "asado-style" fire, with a spot to drag out hot coals, so we could cook while continuing to keep a fire going. The party went late into the night, with multiple rounds of food cooked on the grill, and some really good conversation.

Morning brought a hot sun, and a fun group around the now cold fireplace. We somehow continued the vigor of the conversation last night, and once everyone was ready we headed into the canyon and the water fall. Hiking into the canyon was beautiful. the rock was black and smooth as polished stones. The hiking was ideal for the barefoot. There was so much to climb too, all the rocks were steep with many cracks and ledges for foot holds. When we finally got to the waterfall, you could climb down almost 150 feet on these rocks into it. Our big group was almost all barefoot, and we brought a drum. Some were singing, others playing drum beats, some climbing, others swimming, and that was how we spent the remainder of the morning. Once back in camp, everyone was hungry. We packed up, and then headed to a little town "La Mision" which was holding a festival that weekend. We walking in, watched some of the folkloric dances, and then to the food stand. Prices were great, as we expected ,and we got an assortment of delicious homemade mexican food.After this quick stop, we headed further south, to Ensenada, home of delicious "Mariscos" Seafood, in all different forms, and all delicious. We had such a great time, a big table for 18 or so people, we all ordered different things, and everyone shared. On the way back home, we made a quick stop in Tijuana, which turned out to be a really long stop.

After giving Carolina a call, she told us there was a big movie presentation in town that night and we should all go and see it. Once we figured out how to get to her house, and then making the necessary home calls, we went over to her place to change clothes and then we hit the road again to see the movie. When we were in the parking lot, it dawned on me, that I had no idea what the movie was about. Carolina said the movie was for the bicentennial 2010, 200 years of Mexican Independence. The Mexican government was funding a nation wide showing of a documentary/national pride movie, that weekend, and we all got to see it.

The movie starts 20,000 b.c., in tropical yucatan, showing all the nature flourishing, and so on. It is done in an interesting style, not quite cartoon, and not quite real footage. Eventually the time scale moves up to the different cultures of native mexicans, Toltecs, Mayans, and then to the Aztecs, where there is a model Tenochtitlan, and the huge pyramids, and sun stone. Then comes the huge bolt of lightning, and the date: 1519. The year Hernan Cortes first landed on the shore of Mexico. From there the screen became darker and grey, with many violent scenes, and louder music. After this, there was footage showing the formation of New Spain, and the different stages of growth. Then there was a lot about the rebellion against the Spanish, and in 1810, the independence of Mexico. Another interesting part was shortly after, where there was a silhouette of Mexico, with the states of California, New Mexico and Texas breaking off and the mexican flag falling to the ground. Then more footage of the beginings of the formation of Mexico, and the begining of music, art and culture. The winning of the world cup, protests in Mexico city, Frida Kahlo and more. Once these scenes ended, there was a very dramatic singing of "Mexico Lindo y Querido" by a very famous Ranchero singer, which brought many spectators to tears.

The next morning, we woke up and shared a delicious breakfast Carolina had made us (we couchsurfed with her and her family). We then headed back to the US, and waited in line at the border crossing for 2 1/2 hours!!