Coming home tomorrow!

I have had a simply wonderful time here in Austria. I hung out with friends, took lots of pictures with my new camera, and went shopping, ate good food, lazed about in the backyard.... essentially everything that I have to work to make time for at home.

Here are my favorite pictures from my trip: Schloss Belvedere, Ruine Aggstein, Stift Melk, St. Stephen's Cathedral interior, and part of the fountain at the Parlament.

Austria

I am currently enjoying a short (9 days) vacation in Austria, which you can see documented in great detail with my new camera on my flickr page. :D

It was a spur of the moment decision in January, and now I'm so thankful I decided to go. It was a great break from my schedule - constant working, essentially - and my schedule when I get back - constant working.

For now, I'm going to fully enjoy the remainder of my vacation, and I hope you all are doing well! Here is my favorite picture I've taken on this trip thus far:

working...

I have decided to declare hibernation for the foreseeable future.

Here I am at work, at 6:20 in the morning, and I was here until 9:20 last night. So any of you who have any interest in seeing or talking to me - wait until my one day off a week. ha!

Lucky for me, I actually like my job and actually get paid for all the time I put in, otherwise I wouldn't be putting it in. :) This week, I will be trained in the remaining orgs that I have not been trained in yet, and will start training to be a law enforcement liaison. When someone gets a subpoena for records, I would be one of the people contacted. Cool thing is, I'll be doing that for Germany, so I'll get to putter around in German all the time. Doesn't matter how dull the job actually is when you make it all in German or French - the inherent interest level virtually skyrockets.

I am very much looking forward to my ten days off next month when I travel to Austria again. I can't wait to stuff myself with yummy kaesekrainer and schnitzelsemmel and gelato... mmm.... *happy sigh*

Back to work!

article endings and bridge jumpers

When I recently sent out an email about my new domicile, I received a reply from one of my old teachers in Vienna, Austria. I haven’t actually written anything in German since May, and I was never a brilliant writer anyway, so I had to look up a couple words (Geburtstermin is baby due date, fyi) and didn’t even bother to double check my articles. I’m sure half of my adjective endings were wrong too. But then, the beauty of writing to a native German speaker is that they never actually expect you to get them all right anyway.

This morning, I kept hearing many, many sirens on my way to work. A little while ago, I was informed by a coworker that a man had jumped off a bridge onto I-5 and stopped traffic and caused a giant hubbub. What is it about people committing suicide on bridges over I-5? Maybe they’re committing suicide because they think no one cares and everyone who has to drive on I-5 and public service personnel will HAVE to care about them for once if they cause a huge problem. I remember being told about a Navy nurse and his buddy who used to have a lot of problems with suicide attempts on long sea voyages. They decided to post a list of effective and ineffective ways to commit suicide because they were tired of cleaning up the mess after someone failed to succeed in their goal.

I will never presume to understand the mentality of someone who wants to end their life because I’ve always been too in love with life to want to end my own. But it seems to me that if I ever changed my mind, I would at least want to get it right, and not inconvenience an important part of a city or medical personnel in the process. There are other people who actually want and need their help who did not choose to hurt themselves.

Peasant hats and Gothic statues

Today on my walk up to work (my employer confirmed today that my trial period was successful, yay!), I saw a young Afro-American male wearing a style of hat that was popular during the 16th century, when Peter Bruegel was painting. Except, instead of thick homespun, this young man's hat was made of blue mesh fabric. Most odd. On the bus, another young Afro-American was wearing gangsta-style clothes, the flat brimmed hat, gangsta brand pale blue jacket, the half laced sneakers, etc. But he lives near my mom - I don't care if you are black, you are NOT gangsta when you live in the suburbs.

Here are my two favorite statues in Europe. These are from the Mirabellgarten in Salzburg, Austria.