2008: Am Anfang

It’s been far too long since I posted an entry on this and it’s been on a list of things I need to do for almost two months. Well now that Christmas break is nearly over and I’m trying to check things off the list, there’s only a few things left: 1) write on the blog, 2) do homework. Here is the blog entry.

I’ll try to start somewhere near where I left off with the last entry. Life in Austria is good. I spearheaded a Thanksgiving dinner with a German friend for about 14 European friends. I took on the stuffing and turkey and was pleasantly surprised with how they turned out. It was pretty damn authentic and everyone was impressed with the holiday, I think. I mean, how could you not be? The biggest difference between this year’s celebration and the ones I've had at home with the family is that we had a lot more wine, then we pushed the kitchen table to the wall, the loud music came on (for a dance party, naturally), then some really, really, drunk guy who lived downstairs came up because he heard the music and wanted to party with us. He was really out of it and we eventually got him to leave the apartment (this was at my friend Ed’s), but then he was apparently mad and pissed on the front door. So- I can't really say that's ever happened with grandma and grandpa on the Jones farm. A Thanksgiving to remember!

For a while there was the possibility to go to New York this spring through my university UN class. The class is a prerequisite to be chosen for the Austrian delegation at an International Model UN conference. All the papers and presentations we'd done so far were being considered as factors to help them choose whom to take along. It was going to cost 700 Euros, plus spending money, but it would have been great. I've become good friends with several people in the class who I assumed would be chosen, I loved the idea of traveling in the U.S. with a group of foreigners, and when else would I be able to hang out in the UN General Assembly? Anyway, because I didn't have the money for such a trip, I wrote to the Fulbright commission here in Austria asking if they had any extra funds I could apply for to help offset some of the costs in case I were to be chosen. They said unfortunately no, but that I should consider applying for a Fulbright seminar sponsored by the Belgian Fulbright commission. It's a week-long seminar on the EU and NATO that goes to all their main sights in Luxembourg and Belgium. One requirement was that our research project had to be somehow related to the EU or NATO and mine is since it deals with immigration. So I applied and got it! There will be, I think, two current Fulbrighters chosen from each, or most, of the European countries. All of the expenses are covered, so with this news in mind, I told the professors of the UN class that I didn't want to be considered for the New York trip any more. It would have been awesome, but 1,000 Euros I don't have is easily beaten by zero Euros for somewhere I haven't been and equally interesting experiences. This big adventure is going to be in March.

Over time, I’ve found/been shown some of the cooler, more obscure places in Innsbruck that are more off the beaten path. Among them is a place called Treibhaus, which has different music acts each night of the week. I went to the coolest concert the other night. It was this guy named Shantel, the self-proclaimed "King of Balkan Beatz." He had a full Russian gypsy-style band, and I'm not sure if it was Russian or Hungarian that he was speaking, but it was, without question, the language of awesome. The crowd was eating up his every move. He went crowd surfing a couple times while still singing, and at one point started throwing plastic cups into the crowd, only to turn around, pick up his bottle of vodka and pour it into all the cups he could reach.

Because of the cost of a plane ticket back to the states (and the many different ways that same amount of money could be used in Europe), I didn’t go home for Christmas. Instead, a friend from Linfield, Tayler Brisbin, met me in Innsbruck and we went to Berlin for a few days. It was great. The week before Tayler came, most of my friends here had gone home for the break and I had nothing to do, so I did a lot of reading and coffee drinking. It was the first time I got a little homesick. If I had been in the states I would have been doing nothing, maybe even less than I was doing here, but at least there would have been family and friends around to be lazy with. And in doing nothing in the cold, windy, snowless Idaho desert, it would have felt like the Christmas I know. It did feel like Christmas here because of the snow, the Christmas markets, the glühwein and the huge trees around the old town- which are all cooler things than we have at home- but the things I'm actually used to at Christmastime weren't here.

But then Tayler got here and we got busy with traveling any inclinations of homesickness were washed and/or frozen away. On Christmas Eve day, we flew from Innsbruck to Berlin and after a bit of walking through the city, we drank some wine at an Italian restaurant, then decided between a pub crawl and going to a late-night church service at one of the big famous churches. We opted for the latter, but I think the fact that we were deciding between those two things is great. On Christmas day we took a city walking tour. I hadn't done one of those in years, but it was so good. We were fearful because our guide at first seemed like the waiter in Office Space (overly ambitious, overly friendly and sickeningly cheesy), but then he mellowed out a little and had a ton of good information for all the cool places we went. The company that offered the tour also led the pub crawl, so we decided to do that on Christmas night. We met a couple people from Spokane on the tour and they did the crawl too. It was such a good mess. The tour provided "unlimited vodka shots," which were served to us in alleys or on the streetcar between stops. We went to some obscure bars that we never would have found on our own, so that was good, and then the night ended at a club called the "Matrix." Our time in the city was otherwise filled up with exploring the unique neighborhoods and checking out as many museums as we could. We also saw The Magic Flute and were both thoroughly confused. What the hell is up with the queen of the night? And the king who is escorted by lions?

On New Years I went to my friend Lionel's house not too far from Munich. He goes to school here and his siblings go to Hamburg and Vienna, and they'd all invited friends, which turned in to almost 70 people at their house. And I think 50 or so stayed the night. It was a big house in the country and there was so much snow. It was great. Since people were from all over, everyone was supposed to wear something traditional from their home country/region. There were lots of dirndls and lederhosen and Lionel suggested that I wear cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, but unfortunately I did not bring either of those things with me to Austria. I wore jeans and my Linfield shirt.

Now I'm working on a bunch of small projects for school, work and other stuff today and this weekend. University and teaching starts again next week and I have a good amount of preparation to do for a presentation and two papers in my classes at the uni because the semester ends in a few weeks. The presentation and one of the papers is on the evolution of China's foreign policy as they've emerged as a major world power. I've gathered a lot of research material but have yet to read it.

And I started the short application to do this crazy thing for another year. It's really weird to think about because before coming, even though I knew it was a possibility to stay, I had no intentions to do it. I was going to do one year in Austria, a City Year (a division of Americorps), then start grad school. But being over here has changed my perception on that precise year-to-year map. Partly because I'm getting used to the Austrian/European culture where they study until like 25 or 26 then slowly figure out a career. No one can believe it when I say that I'm 22 and done with college. It's so different from at home where you finish school and are expected to immediately get a job and join the real world asap. Part of why they can bum around here is because their education is basically free, and I have not forgotten that that's not the case for me, but I've become a fan of waiting a little bit longer so I know exactly what I want to do. Maybe that's just the excuse I've made for myself to “explore” for one more year. I think, though, that if I do want to pursue foreign policy or international relations, then the more international experience I have, the better. Right? And the things I've loved most about being here (making friends with locals, bettering my German, studying at the university) are all things that could be made even better with a second year.

So here it is. Another bit of information from Innsbruck. I’d love to hear from anyone who’s reading this so please leave a comment. Or follow the links on the right to my photo Web site and let me know any thoughts you have on the pictures as well. I hope you’re all well and wish you the best in 2008!