Long Post covering 2Weeks!!

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I apologize (like I do every week) for my inconsistency of writing. I promise you I have a reason (see: new home!). There is a lot to talk about in this post, as it has been an eventful two weeks with much more coming soon, so I will get right into the details.

Stammtisch

Stammtisch: noun. A rough English translation meaning 'The Regular Table.' A traditional gathering of 'regulars', typically men, once a week at the same bar. The gathering is often encouraged by the bar hanging or displaying the beer mugs of the regulars throughout the week and reserving the table.

The Vienna interns hold a Stammtisch every week. However, unlike the self-defined definition above, it is a gathering of both men and women from a large variety of nations, and each week it is held at a different bar/restaurant/pub. The point of course is to introduce everyone to everyone, get to know new friends, see the different bars of the city and just have a great time outside of work.

On the first day of October we met up for a Stammtisch, and it was one of the largest yet. Approximtely 30 people or so turned out for the evening. We met in the bar called "Das Meuble" (The furniture), where you are able to buy anything in the bar from the tables to the light fixtures to the chairs and handtowels in the washroom. The staff were super nice for having been pulled every which way by 30 internationals, and the drinks were delicious. Afterwards we moved onto another bar, I have no idea the name, but it seemed a little sketchy. We entered into an irish pub at first, and thought we had lost the people ahead of us (leading the group). We were about to leave the pub when they yelled for us at the back of the pub. We went to them and noticed the stairs leading to the basement. Once downstairs it was similar to a club, but in wine cellars. It was dark, sort of moist, packed with people. It looked nothing like the place up above. We danced and had a good night and I returned home back to Allisons.

An old friend and a new home!

Well, my sublease was up at the end of September. And since I had no where to go I booked some hostels to stay in for the weekend, until I would hopefully find something. When Allison found out I had done such a thing she yelled at me. Her and Florian were heading to Oktoberfest that weekend (first weekend of October) and gave me the keys to stay there for the weekend. So, once again, I moved to my little room under the stairs (like Harry Potter) and set up shop for the weekend. This move was marked by only one incident where my jar of olives opened in my backpack and soaked everything with olive juice, including the bag. I now have a pleasant smell of olives where ever I go.

I found a couple of apartment interviews. One was through a friend, the girl I met was Angelina. Very nice girl, and the apartment was shockingly amazing. Unfortunately, completely unfurnished, and she told me she had others to interview and she would make up her mind on the 7th! Well... I needed a place sooner than that, and I couldn't hedge my bets on a maybe a week into the month. I went to another appointment on Monday and was told I could move in the next day If I wanted. It was furnished and the roommate seemed okay so I said I would.

For those who follow Eliza's blog you will have heard of the roommate troubles. Ugh... who gets angry over such minimal things on the first day of living with someone? A couple of dishes left soaking for 15hours (sleep + work) and he gets angry. It's not like there wasn't additional dishes he could have used! Anyways... since then Roman and I (I call him Roman on here because he's from Romania... no other reason) have gotten along quite well. We say hi/bye pretty much everyone time we come in or leave, we are splitting costs on a few household items and are figuring out the internet (I have none, now you know why I can't post from home). Overall, things have gotten much better.

The place itself is in a nice neighborhood, but the apartment itself is garbage. the owners put in new furniture and hardwood floors, so it looks rather new. But it's a half-basement (only about a quarter of the room is under ground, the rest is above with windows and all that jazz), and they didn't paint the apartment. Everywhere you look there is filled in plaster spots, different colours here and there, or no colours at all. Since it is the basement of the building, it also has a rather unfresh scent/air to it. But, for my room I solve this issue by just leaving the window open all the time. Although its slightly garbage, there is no deposit and the cost is lower than if I had been elsewhere (specially if I had to furnish the other place). So, I'm able to use some of that extra money to buy a few desperately needed things for the apartment (iron, a pot, some bowls). So it's not all bad.

Dreadful work, dun-dun-duuuuuuun

I lied in the title, work is not dreadful. In fact, it often provides me with tons of joy knowing I have a break from my apartment. Last two weeks have been quite uneventful, a few meetings here and there but for the most part I spent them reading and researching prior commitments that Canada had signed onto in the organization and preparing speaking points for Canada when our Review Conference comes up (This may sound like gibberish to most of you and I apologize for that).

However, this week is the leadup to the review conference. There are a large amount of meetings every day, "experts" here and there (I hate that word - experts), this meeting, that meeting, etc. Everyone is trying to get organized for the conference next week, and the finance commitee (which I'm involved with) is trying to get as much done before budget work in November. It is very hectic. I figrued I wouldn't be able to write another post until October 26th, once the Review Conference itself was over. But thankfully my morning meeting was canceled last minute and I have the time to write.

The Review Conference begins on the 18th and goes until the 26th (we do have the weekend off, however). My specific dimension only has meetings on the 18-20, 25-26. So, Eliza and I decided to take a nice long holiday for that break in the Review Conference.

Amsterdam!

That's right! Another trip! This time we will be going to the Netherlands. I was recently looking at hostels, and found one 35km from Amsterdam, right on a beach. Apparently its a very nice town and a great hostel (got great reviews). They charge 3Euro to be picked up at the airport and brought over, which is awesome, and they have shuttles into the city center. So can't complain much about that. We will see though, maybe one located in the city center would be better. Since I am overly busy though I unfortunately cannot make any plans regarding the city - therefore my trusted love, Eliza will be managing out itinerary. So I at least I know I am in good hands. 😊

So, the tickets were bought - fairly cheap I think. We leave the morning of the 21st (2hr flight) and will be there all day Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but our plane back is Sunday morning... so we lose that day unfortunately. Should be good anyhow!

Paris and the rest

Eliza and I also bought tickets to Paris for the first weekend of November. Unfortunately, it may have been a scam. They were fairly cheap tickets, and we both got different emails. Mine said it was confirmed and hers said they needed her passport information. Sketchy. We looked up reviews about the site, and I believe 99%!o(MISSING)f the reviews on all sorts of sites were all negative. Many called it a scam, said they stole their money, etc etc. Unfortunately, the information had already been given. But no one said they did anything with their credit card information. Just that they charged the card for the tickets, and then canceled the tickets and didn't refund the money. Other reviewers said they had no problems at all, and got on the plane with the tickets and it was cheap!

Since Eliza didn't get a real 'confirmation' email, she has stopped the charge from going through and will (hopefully) be buying a ticket soon for that weekend from another supplier. So, the trip is still planned, but is going through many many MANY difficulties. Once there, who knows what the plan is, but I am hoping that wineries in the surrounding area will still be open for tours, as I would like to see at least one.

Besides Amsterdam and Paris, we are discussing the next trip. There will be three more. One is to Prague (which is just a stone's throw from Vienna) for a weekend to see my friend Kristyna. One is to Ireland - but that is in December when Eliza has to go home from the U.K. airport. The other one will be around my birthday.

I figured that since it'll be cold at the end of November, and once we finish here in Vienna I will be in Canada for the winter months, it would be nice to take a vacation to somewhere warm to get one last 'indian summer'. I discussed it with Eliza, and though it is not for sure, it seems like we will be going to Southern Italy, maybe even Sicily. It depends on prices and what not, but some nice food, some beaches and just relaxing in the Medittereanian heat would be amazing. Anywho that would either be my birthday weekend (26-28) or the weekend before. I'm really excited for this one.

Thanksgiving with an Ambassador

I got invited to attend the Thanksgiving dinner at the Ambassador's house this past weekend. There were a few of us invited, and we were very excited. I informed them that I would not be present unless I would be able to spend the evening with Eliza as well, and they said she was more than welcome. So, on Sunday, we went to his nice big expensive-looking house and took a tour. The house was build in the 1920s by an Architect/designer/artist who knew what he was doing. It was just a beautiful house with a nice big elegant but efficient kitchen, a large living room, study, music room. There was a green house which was attach to the music room and lead you into the dinning room. The backyard was full of flowers and trees and a pond (which they have a private gardener). Absolutely divine.

After our tour and a glass of wine, the family (Ambassador, wife, two children) and the guests (three interns, Eliza, two other work colleagues) all went for a walk in the park nearby. This was apparently the main area where the Austrians had stopped the Turks from invading in 1683.

The Battle of Vienna took place on the 11 and 12 of September 1683 after Vienna had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months. It was a battle of The Holy League versus the Ottoman Empire and fiefdoms of the Ottoman Empire near the Kahlenberg mountain in Vienna. The battle marked the beginning of the political hegemony of the Habsburg dynasty in Central Europe.
- Wikipedia

The area is now a huge park, with almost everything a park might have. They have their sports area with tennis courts and basketball courts, they have a large pond/lake where herrings and ducks hang out and benches to sit around it. There is a little waterfall, a place to rollerblade, an observatory, and restaurants. It is truly an amazing park - one to see more than once (and I will!).

Once back 'home', we spoke about Austrian politics for a little bit (it was the day of the Vienna elections), and then moved to the dinning room for dinner.

Pumpkin soup with cracked pumpkin seeds was the first course. No - not served or cooked by servants, but rather the Lady of the house and young daughter. The soup was delicious, unfortunately a tad cold as we had to wait for 10 people to have their soups laddled. But still delicious.
Turkey, cranberry sauce, grilled sweet potatoes, vegetables, breads, wine, gravy, scalloped potatoes...aaaaaaaand STUFFING! Unfortunately, not enough stuffing was made, and I got it last with my plate already full. So I only got about 2 tablespoons of stuffing. It was not like we have back home though, so It was alright. Everything else was very delicious. I especially enjoyed drinking out of very nice glasses which had an engraving of the Canadian maple leaf (apparently designed for all Ambassadorial housing only).
Dessert was pumpkin pie and pumpkin cheesecake. I now have so much more appreciation for my mothers and Eliza's pumpkin pie. The pumpkin pie there was good, but compared to mom/Eliza... it was a shot in the dark.

We ended the evening by looking at the art around the house, most of it was very nice. Eliza and I looked through a book on Algonquin park - which made us want to go back and visit. The cat at the house was also very entertaining, haha. Not much to be said about that.

Oh, to answer my mother's question. No. They did not say Grace.

All in all, the evening was a very enjoyable experience. The family was super nice, and I got to speak to some of my colleagues whom I have never had a conversation with. It was really nice to be in a house like that too. So thank you Ambassador if you are reading this (extremely doubtful, haha).

Wrap up

So, now that I'm about finished here, you shouldn't expect an update until after Amsterdam, maybe on the 27th or sometime soon after then. This Sunday I hope to get to a sports bar (Billy Bones) and watch some American football - I hope they play a Baltimore game.

On the same note, go BU Gaitors!! I've been staying up-to-date on the progress of my University football team. 5th in the country now! We are on a 5 game winning streak, but our biggest hurdle is about to come this weekend when we play Laval (best team in Canada for a while now). All good luck goes out to the BU players and I hope we can extend our streak to 6 games. A recent update that we beat our rivals, U of Sherbrooke, by a score of 40-10 is amazing! So go BU!!

And finally, if you would like to hear updates on how everything is going in Vienna, I need to know you are reading. Be sure to send in some messages, comments or whatever so I know you are reading and I will continue to post regularly.

Talk to the computer soon!

-Robert Courteau

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