Category Archives: Enjoying Vienna

An eye for details

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In the last weeks, I spent a lot of time working for FemCamp Wien, and also for the CS Student’s Union, so in order to still have some free time, there was not a lot of time left for Role Model posts…

But in my free time, I did notice some very nice details when out and about. Enjoy!

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rare butterfly at Schönbrunn Park: a golden sequin butterfly!
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spot the sloth-game at Schönbrunn Zoo. I got it!
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a cheetah in the cheetah building at Schönbrunn Zoo.
sign on the toilet door at Deewand (pakistani restaurant)
sign on the toilet door at Deewand (pakistani restaurant)
Duct tape holds the world together (Nixhöhle in Niederösterreich)
Duct tape holds the world together (Nixhöhle in Niederösterreich)

Climbing, Geocaching, Biking

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As you may have noticed, there haven’t been any Role Model Sunday articles on the last 3 Sundays. This is mostly due to my doing other stuff on those Sundays – climbing at Peilstein, Geocaching at Löwygrube, and Biking around Vienna with my parents, to be exact 🙂

I’m trying to catch up on those missing articles and get back to posting soon. My next role model will be Emmy Noether, an important mathematician – stay tuned!

Viennese Kitsch: Döbling, Grinzing

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A couple of weeks ago, I paid a visit to Cobenzl, a small mountain in the northwest of Vienna. If you ever go there, you’ll be passing through Döbling and Grinzing, two former suburbs of Vienna which are now part of the city. In part they still look very much like the winegrowing villages they used to be, and I thougth I’d share some pictures with you 🙂

Geocaching Frenzy

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Last week, I realized that my current number of found Geocaches was nearing 290, so I decided that it could not be that this year would end without my at least finding another 10 Geocaches and thus hitting 300 found and logged Geocaches.

For this purpose, I started a thread on the Vienna Group in bewelcome, asking for people to join me. Lo and Behold, some people actually replied to it (either in the thread or via direct message), and asking some more friends in person, I ended up with a group of 4 other women who would join me on a Saturday in the late morning to go and hunt some Geocaches in the outskirts of Vienna, and at least 2 who would join me on Sunday, too.

The hike on Saturday in the Nussdorf area was about 5 km long, and we found all the Geocaches along the route, scoring a total of 16 found Geocaches in one day. That means that I not only achieved my goal of reaching 300 before New Year’s, but I even managed to surpass my to-date best Geocaching day 🙂

On Sunday, only 2 of the group were left: me and Anna whom I met at the WienTut. We met up at Schwarzenbergpark and logged one earthcache and 6 traditionals. Of the 6 traditionals, 4 had a Terrain rating of 2 or higher – because they were hidden in trees and I had to climb up to get them. It was great fun 🙂

So my current score is 320 found Geocaches – and I’m already looking for people who will join me on some short trips to cities in the area surrounding my home town around Christmas 🙂

Vienna 101, continued

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Showing the city I love to people who are new to it or want to discover new places – I LOVE it 🙂

As everybody at the first meeting liked the idea, we visited Zentralfriedhof on our second trip. I changed my usual tour a little, so we would see different parts of the cemetery, including the old Jewish cemetery where I don’t go that often. We also checked off some Geocaches that had been placed at the cemetery after my last visit.

Our third visit to Places You’d Usually Don’t See Or Visit In Vienna was to Lainzer Tiergarten. Unfortunately, most of the park is closed in Winter, due to all the game living there and their need of having a quiet time during the cold season. So instead of having a rather long hike starting in the North of the park, and having a great view over the city, we spent most of the Tutorium on the tramway and waiting for it – but the small part of the park that was open was definitely worth it! That part is called Hermesvillapark, and that Villa is a lovely piece of bavarian Kitsch in the middle of a lovely area –  built by Emperor Franz Joseph for his beloved Sisi.

We tried solving a multi stage geocache, but didn’t succeed. Obviously 3 informatics students can’t count letters as good as a 7 year old girl (we met a geocaching family along the way, and they had a different outcome, and logged the cache … ). Later on, we DID log a traditional geocache, so bringing the GPS device wasn’t totally futile 🙂

Last but not least, trip number 4 took us to Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (HGM, Museum of Military History). Every year, usually on the first weekend of advent, there’s a medieval market happening outside the museum, and the entrance to the museum is free of charge. This time, only 2 of our usual participants came, and even Boki didn’t have time to come. I decided to also invite some other friends and acquaintances, but still we only were 4 people 🙂  We learned some things about Austria’s wars from 17th to 19th century, about fencing in the 14th century, fashion in the 13th century, and about the area where HGM is located (called “Arsenal”). Of course we also tasted a couple of punch variations and logged a geocache. I sure am happy that people don’t mind, or even enjoy, my hijacking the Tutorium for finding geocaches 🙂

Helping first-year students

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After meeting lots of great people who dedicate part of their time to assisting students in studying – as in, suggesting interesting courses, helping with legal problems, and so on – I decided to finally join them this year.

In order to organise a “Tutorial for First-Year students” (EsTut in short), I was invited to a workshop where we would talk about our ideas, our fears, our aims for those EsTuts, and try to organise at least the first session. Also, we talked about and planned how to advertise our EsTuts.

And what should I say … that weekend was amazing.

I spent 4 days with people I knew a little from University, and some whom I had liked from the start, some who had been a bit weird in the beginning, but all pretty nice people. I got to know them better, and I liked what I saw. Our coaches didn’t put a lot of pressure on us, but still there was a lot of output. Both our coaches said they had rarely seen a group of people so confident and considerate. Everybody got to share their opinions on all kinds of topics, everybody got to share their knowledge, so everybody learned something new during that weekend. At the same time, no drama happened. No arguments or fights broke out. We had (sometimes passionate) discussions, but that was that.

I felt all fluffy inside after that weekend, and I still feel great now when I think about this weekend.

And, the best thing is: in a couple of weeks, I will help students from all over Austria, probably even from other countries, to get to know Vienna, the city I love.

Finally: Tatort Public Viewing

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I finally managed to go and watch an episode of “Tatort” at Top Kino [older blog entry here].

The episode titled “Ausgelöscht” (“extinguished”) was quite okay, with some pretty funny scenes and the somewhat obvious intruding bad guy disguised as helping agent from another country. Well.

But: it was really cool watching the episode on the big screen, with some dozen other people. The reactions to the different emotional scenes were of course way stronger than when you’re only watching the film at home with a couple of friends.

I guess this is going to be a weekly thing now 🙂

Two nutshells

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I like recaps. They give me the possibility to think over stuff I’ve done. Also, I’m not one for blogging all the time, as you might have seen. It’s more like sitting down once a month (or every 6 weeks), thinking about what I’ve accomplished or what has happened since the last time I wrote – and then write about it.

So here is my 2012 in a nutshell.

I finished my first semester as a student at University. Not very successful, but also not without success.

We had an awesome winter with lots of snow, and I went skiing both with my parents and Georg, and there was terrific traffic chaos everywhere (I remember pictures of roads in Tirol and Vorarlberg, covered in 1-4 meters of snow!).

I spent 3 weeks in the US and Canada, making new friends and relishing every minute of it.

When I came back, I bought a bike, Maya, and set on discovering Vienna by bike. And: a cat café had just opened in Vienna, and the BBC featured me in a fluff-piece about it 🙂

I decided to go for a 10-day hike in my holidays.

I finished my 2nd semester as a student – again, not as successful as I could have, but good enough.

There was, of course, Vienna Calling 2012.

I did a lot of hikes in preparation for The Big Hike, and worked at Vienna Zoo during summer break. Also, in August I moved in a shared flat with Stefan, and had a lot of doubts about me being at University.

Then, autumn already. I was incredibly motivated, and did a lot of work for University. Georg moved in with us (yes!), and then … somehow … already it was Christmas.

There was big get-together with old school mates (from more than 10 years back), meeting and visiting relatives and friends, and after one week, I was happy to return back to Vienna.

So this was 2012 in a big nutshell (coconut like).

2012 in a smaller nutshell: it brought lots of new friends, finally seeing old friends again, discovering Vienna anew time and time again, seeing new things in Austria and also visiting new places all over the world. And of course, lots and lots of new things learned.

Let’s hope, 2013 will be like this – or even better.

Monday is cooking day!

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Every Monday, about 1 pm, there’s a knock on our door, and when we open it, a nice delivery guy hands us a box full of fresh, ecologically grown, regional, seasonal vegetables. Isn’t this awesome?

It’s called “Adamah Biokistl”, and the one we’re having every week costs about 15 Euros each time. There’s always great stuff in it, like yummy carrots, beetroots, pumpkins and so on. And: there is always a little newsletter in it, and on its back, there are a couple of recipes. At least one of them always matches what we get. It’s great!

So this week, we got a nice hokkaido pumpkin, and with some corn, leek, carrots and parsnips, we managed to make a yummy lasagna 🙂  and a bit later, to make sure we don’t have to throw away all of those nice pears we keep receiving in the box, I made some apple-pear-purree.

Finally, there is a reason to look forward to Mondays!

Meeting my childhood star

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Tuesday, August 14th: this was by far the coolest day working at the Zoo so far!

Why?

Easy. I could watch the film crew shooting a new episode of TOM TURBO, a series I loved to watch when I was a child. I remember going home with my best friend, Isabel, after school to watch the latest episode, spellbound by the newest adventures by children our age and a high-tech talking bike that can do awesome tricks.

Somehow I seemed to be the only one of my colleagues to be this intrigued by our “VIB” – but I did see some people who had asked if they could have a picture taken of themselves and the bike who were totally freaked out to have that possibility. They were my age 🙂

As TOM TURBO’s garage is located at the Zoo (after the main entrance, turn right, pass the Terrarium/Aquarium house, it’s on the right side), there’s also a life size TOM TURBO to be found there all year round. No wonder I already have a picture of me with him, right? I even used it as my profile picture on CS for some time 😉