You Eat What The Animals That I Eat, Eat

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Sunday, 8/10
I slept in to try and get over my sore throat. Our original plan was to visit Baden, a town south of Vienna with thermal baths. Since many businesses are closed Sunday and websites often in German only, it was difficult to figure out when and if the Baden baths were actually open. However, there was another location, Oberlaa, that was open Sunday (and much closer than Baden) so we decided to go there instead. The baths weren't exactly what I had expected, less of a "hot springs" idea and more of a health club with multiple pools. There were indoor and outdoor pools, both with connector channels so you could swim through the building if you wanted. There were also whirlpools and saunas. In typical Austrian no-sense-of-liability fashion, there were no lifeguards and I could not smell any chlorine. The pools also had little coves with six jets equally spaced apart and at various levels. You are supposed to start at jet 1, the lowest, and massage your calves until you hear the buzzer and move to jet 2. I got a kick out of seeing all the old people in their jet-massage rotation. We tried out the herbal saunas, which were very relaxing. I even had a fellow sauna-goer speak to me in German. More often than not, the Austrians talk to me in English. I have no idea how they know, but its refreshing when I'm addressed in German, as if I am not wearing a sign over my head saying "I'm a tourist". Something I observed is that for all the hype about Europeans being slim and good-looking, I saw an awful lof of average-looking tubs. Honestly, I saw the same range and ratio of physiques that I would have expected at a similar venue at home. The cool thing about the complex was that, upon entering, they gave us each a wristband with a chip in it. We got to use the chip credit-card-style to pay for whatever we wanted throughout the day, and we would turn in the chip at the end of the day and pay for everything at once. I had some postcards to mail, so on the way out of the complex, I found a box which is most likely a mailbox. I wasn't 100% sure, but sure enough that I decided to take the risk. We headed home, holding our soaking towels the entire time as we sat on the subway. The wet towel actually let to a rather fortuitous chain of events. Remembering that the dryer was free of charge, I decided that I would throw my towel in the dryer when I got home. I was baffled as to which drying program to select, and had to experiment a bit to figure out which setting was simply 'dry'. While I was pushing buttons on the dryer, two of my classmates arrived hoping to do some laundry themselves. I tried as best I could to teach them how to use the washing machines. As I was explaining the complicated system, another dorm resident arrived into the room to pick up his clothing from the top of the washing machine. One of my classmates asked him for laundry advice, and his response was "Do you want to know the legitimate way? Or..." and walked over to the electronic box used to pay for your load. He opened the power box next to it, flipped a switch, and instructed us to start the washing machine. What he had just taught us was how to dupe the washing machine into believing you paid... or a better way to describe it was tricking the washing machine into forgetting that it needed to be paid for. I can't BELIEVE the stroke of luck I had just experienced. The system of laundry here is unbelievably ridiculous in terms of how many steps stand between you and clean clothes. I was at banks across town trying to work on it, to no avail. Thank goodness I have nothing to worry about anymore. I was torn between sharing this valuable knowledge with my classmates or keeping quiet to avoid getting in trouble. It's not an issue of money, I would have happily paid for my laundry. But the hoops I would have had to jump through to make that possible make me want to use the flip-switch method for the rest of the month and just give the dormitory the equivalent money at the end of my time here. After my successful laundry experience, I got ready to go get dinner at the Rathaus. I found a stand that makes smoothies (thank goodness!) and got one of those. I decided to split a chocolate crepe with Kelly, and as we were standing in line, this random guy started chatting it up with Kelly (who is like a million feet tall and stands out- literally- in a crowd). He invited us to his table, and in the interest of trying to get to know the Viennese, we accepted the invitation. There were four guys, and all of them were lawyers. Kelly and I, both being pre-law, found that this gave us all a lot to talk about. As the conversation carried on, the guy who invited us to the table bought a bottle of champagne for us to all share. I was chatting mostly with the guy next to me, Georg (pronounced 'Gay-og' like Captain Von Trap!). We talked about the legal profession, the differences in law schools between Austria and the US, American politics and the election, as well as Austria's perspective on World War II and the generation gap between the older and younger Viennese in this opinion. The guys told Kelly and I that in the city of Gratz, where Arnold is from, they built a stadium and named it after him. However, when Arnold endorsed the death penalty as California governor, they re-named the stadium. The guys asked Kelly and I what we had for dinner, and our response was 'smoothies and crepes' to which they teased us about how Californian of a dinner that is. We discussed food, and Kelly and I began to describe a real Californian salad bar (I visited the salad bar at Oberlaa earlier in the day- lots and lots of sauerkraut). We didn't even get past the lettuce options before one of the guys commented that "You eat what the animals that I eat, eat!", which explains the Viennese love for meat. They tried to convince us to go with them to a club, but we weren't interested in partying on a Sunday night. Kelly and I said our goodbyes, and headed home.

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