Bode Miller, did you steal my coat?

A few weekends ago I was in Switzerland visiting my friends there (the same ones I stayed with when I flew over in September) and had the best time. They're like a second family. I can lounge around, sleep in, read- all the things I would do if I were at home for a weekend. I've been friends with their kids too for several years, but I'm getting to know them even better now that we're hanging out more frequently and it's like we've been hanging out on a regular basis for years.

Besides having a wonderful time with them, they are generously letting me borrow a bike for the year so I brought it back to Innsbruck on the train with me. I've been all over town on that thing in the last few weeks. Walking isn't bad, but this is so much faster and I feel/look so damn cool/sexy. The one thing: no one here wears helmets and the streets (especially where I am, close to the university) are filled with bikes driving right in with the cars. Most busy streets have bike lanes, but still- it's intense. I am certain I broke several laws the trip I made from the train station back to my dorm that first day. I’ve since gotten better at knowing what’s going on. People keep insisting, "The drivers here are so good about watching out for bikers," but there are other hazards (i.e. street car tracks that are the perfect width to trip a bike tire) that I am learning to outsmart. We'll see how this adventure goes!

Halloween is unfortunately just beginning to pick up speed here so I did my part to help it along. The day before, I taught my students a lesson about modal verbs using the Halloween party theme. They had to ask me, their “dad,” questions like "Can you pick me up after midnight?" or "May I drink beer at the party?" or "Must I do the dishes before I get my costume ready?" I felt good about it. On hallowed eve itself I ended up going as Harry Potter, which is a repeat of what I did two years ago, but it required little effort and was one of the few ideas I had that would carry over to something these Austrians would understand/appreciate.

There's this club here called the Hofgarten that I've been to several times and have slowly decided that I don't really like it. It's kind of expensive, the music isn't so great, and it's full of lots of people who have been described to me as “the university students who think they are hot shit.” I've had fun there, but that's just because I've gone with fun people. (I guess that's the case with any bar/club...) Anyway, the other night I was standing in the line to get in (another reason I don't love it). talking to my friend Esko from Finland and we both were wondering, "Why are we waiting in line to get in somewhere we don't want to go?" We resolved that this would be the last time, for at least a while, that we went there. Just after that conversation, Esko checked his coat and I opted to hold on to mine and just hang it up inside. I did just that. Someone told me later that Bode Miller was there that night, so I was spent parts of the night searching for a loud, drunk American celebrity and the hours went by pretty quickly. When it came time to go, however, I went to get my coat and it was gone. I looked all over, asked the bar people, but to no avail. My coat had walked off, with my fleece, my scarf, my gloves and my new detachable bike headlight in the pockets. That put a damper on the evening and also confirmed that I don't want to go back there. People have told me since that that place is known for stuff getting stolen. Good times, good times. I checked back the next morning and again that night, but when they didn't have it, I went to buy a new one because this place is freezing.

I recently went back to Vienna for a Fulbright dinner. We got to eat at the US ambassador's house and it was pretty cool. We had to go through the whole nine yards of security to get in, then a formal receiving line where we introduced ourselves to her (even though we'd met her a few months ago), and then we mingled with the Austrians who were there (the Fulbright sends Austrians to America too, which I didn't know when I applied- so those who were in the US last year were at this too). Like an undercover photographer, I took pictures of her grand piano because it is covered with, like, 30 pictures of her and her family with Bush, Cheney and Condoleezza. In one they are wearing lederhosen and dirndls, and Bush is playing with her little son in another. As the night went on and I was feeling the effects of the endless glasses of wine I'd been accepting from the ambitious servers, I was less candid with my photography and was using the camera’s flash like nobody's business. I stayed with one of my Linfield friends who's on the study abroad program there, and had a good weekend stopping by some of my favorite places from my semester there.

I had a group presentation Friday in my UN in a New Security Environment class. I had a really nice, friendly group and we'd been working on it pretty intensely every night this week. I had a good time getting to know the other two people, but was really excited to get this thing done. Our presentation bombed. In hindsight, I guess I didn't have the highest expectations for it, but was never concerned enough to take initiative and try to make it stellar. The class is co-taught by two professors who are working on becoming full faculty members and they did us in. They stopped me mid-way through my part to give a lecture on supplementary material I'd left out, I continued, then they asked the girl who did her part after mine, while she was speaking, "What exactly are you talking about?" And during the question session when they asked us a question we didn't know (and had no real reason to), but someone in the class did, one professor said, "It doesn't seem like you did any of the reading or prepared at all. Your classmates know more than you do. This was just awful."

I have a new appreciation for my non-asshole professors at Linfield. It was really unprecedented for me in terms of being made in to a fool in front of a class. So afterward, my group and I went and got coffee (I got mine with rum, thank you), let out all our steam, and then I decided I'd feel better about it if I went and talked with the professors. So I went- my groupmates didn't want to talk with them just yet- and the nicer of the two was there. We talked the whole thing through, and I approached it as wanting to know what exactly we had done that made it so "awful." He explained the major weaknesses of our presentation, which I can agree with, and he admitted that the things they'd (rudely) pointed out in class weren't even things they cared about. The meeting went really well, he was surprisingly complimentary me coming to talk to him, and I think I made my point that nothing productive had come out of the way they'd gone at us in class. We ended up visiting a little bit and after that, I left, and headed home in a good mood. It helps that my grades this year don't matter, so I don't have to take it to heart too much. It was a new experience.

My other class, the one in German, is coming along. I say “coming along” because I like it, but I’m not always sure what’s going on. I write down words I don’t understand during the lecture and discussion, and my friend who sits next to me translates them. I then nod in understanding and then resume staring at the professor like a stalker as I try so hard to comprehend the content of what’s he’s saying. I met with my Fulbright research adviser recently too and he’s great. He said he’d be willing to help me with anything I could think of, and that is going to be such a good resource. The faculty in the political science department seems to be great. Up until the presentation fiasco I gave it score of 100. Even now, I’d still give it a 90.

The snow really started coming down this weekend. I was out until about 5 (not abnormal here) and when I left the last club, the streets were covered in snow. It was the first time it had stuck down here in town (the mountains are usually covered in it), so I ignored the fact that my feet got drenched through my shoes and enjoyed it. I got to meet a famous American skier, Tanner Hall, who I wouldn't have known if one of my friends hadn't pointed him out. I looked him up on Youtube when I got home and realized just how cool he is. However, "cool" wouldn't be the first word I'd use to describe him that night, as he was definitely out of it and sort of an idiot. I asked him what state he was from, he said Utah, I said I'm from Idaho, I asked where in Utah and then when he told me, I asked which high school he'd gone to since I know people there. He said, " I don't go to high school," and I said, "I know, but what high school DID you go to?" and he replied, "I don't go to high school." It was great.

So now another day begins in Innsbruck and it's already lunchtime. I want to get some reading done today and I find this new-fangled Internet thing to be too much of a distraction in my room.