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The first three days are over, culminating in a party last night for the Copa del Rey soccer game featuring Barcelona vs Athletic Bilbao. Thus far, it's been a tiring adventure. I only acquired the key to a bike from a neighbor last night meaning I have spent the entire three days exploring the city on foot. It's only about a 10 minute walk to the city center, but the walk to the University takes an hour.
My first goal upon arriving was to see what was in the near vicinity of my flat. So I went for a stroll. The only real points of interest nearby were the small bank branch, a small grocery store and, a few other useless stores (for things like mattresses, vacuums, and cars). So I headed to the bank, I needed to open an account ASAP to get my funds. The problem? It's only open from 8-1230. Guess I'm coming back tomorrow. So I head down the street to the grocery store and spend my remaining 7 euro on bread, cheese, turkey and bananas. Should feed me for a day and a half. I head home and deposit my new treasures in one of
the fridges. Boris had come home from school at this point so we chatted for a while. Then he offered to take me to the mall to try and locate a rather vital accessory. When I purchased a power converter back in the US, it's American input was of the two pronged variety. My laptop has 3. Damnit. So we head to the mall to look for another converter. No luck. Hopefully I can figure something out when I visit the university tomorrow. He buys some beer at the market before we head home. At home we proceed to drink them and hang out with most of our flatmates. I went to bed at 8 oclock. I blame it on the time difference. And alcohol.
Reality Check: I was incorrect in my earlier post regarding my flatmates. Kata (the Russian girl) and Eva (the Lithuanian) do not live on my floor. They live upstairs, but just hang out here alot. Phillipe (from Columbia) lives on my floor. The Brazilian girl is Mari. At least I think that's how you spell it. The other three flatmates are all out of town, resulting in my assumption that the girls lived on our floor.
The next morning I wake up at 7am and prepare to face the day. First order of business: the bank. I head up and tell them I want to open a student account. They direct me to the main branch since they don't have the capacity to open one for me. He tells me its a few hundred meters down the road. Either his knowledge of the city is terrible, or his english is terrible, because I walked a long time and never found the city center. But I did end up finding the university. Via a long roundabout path. So I walked in and headed up to the International Office. Quite helpful. I got a ride to the bank, opened an account in 5 minutes and headed back. It seems I needed to make a left turn before crossing the river to make it to the city center. Thanks for the heads up little bank man.
Next order of business, check in with my advisor. All well and good. Student registration and tour of department to follow. I got my access card for the labs (terrible picture of course), and an adapter to let me charge my laptop. Success! There's also another student here from LSU (Ph.D) on the Marshall Plan. Gernot (my advisor) is taking him shopping later to pick up some essentials. I opt to tag along. Grabbed some necessities at the mall and got dropped off at home (it was on the way). 1 hour walk avoided. I passed the remainder of the afternoon killing time.
Another 7 am wakeup, another walk to school (different route, less scenic, same time) and I spend most of the day waiting for the student who offered to rent me a bike to show up. I write emails, I write a blog, and generally kill time in the lab since I can't start working yet. He doesn't show. I leave. Upon getting home I see an email saying he would be at school at 4pm. I left at 330. Pretty sure I passed him on the walk home. Whatever. Who goes to school at 4pm on a Friday? I got the key to my landlord's bike from a neighbor later that night anyway. There's also an abandoned bike downstairs I plan to acquire.
Once home, I kill some time until everyone else returns. Then we head out to a grocery store to pick up beer for the football game. Let me first say that beer in Austria is cheap. Real cheap. It also comes in bigger containers. Metric system and all that. Normal cans are a half liter (or 16.91 oz). Bottles the same. They also sell beer in 1.5 liter bottles. (Daniel, if you're reading this, it's the same price as a 40, which is 1.18 liters). They sell individual cans of their cheapest (terrible) beer for .45 euro each. We bought 2 cases (around 30 per case, I didn't count). I also grabbed 6 individual bottles of various breweries. Villacher is the main local brewery. Their lager was decent. Their dark beer was great. Most of the evening was spent drinking and talking and paying little attention to the football game. All in all, quite a successful night. Around midnight, the guys decided to head to the local club. I opted to head to bed isntead. Clubs realy aren't my thing. Especially after 18 hour days that involve over 2 hours of walking. And lots of beer. I hear the plan today is to head to the lake. It has a volleyball court....
Word of the Blog: Dunkel
It tells me when the beer is dark.
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Sara Sea
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Oh the Little Things
The little bank man thing, so entirely classic of traveling and the first few days living in a new place. Haha, that exact same thing happens all of the time, every time--to me, and I'm sure to everyone, but you captured it perfectly :) good on ya for drinking with friends already.