Some weeks ago, the first cat-café outside of Japan has been opened in Vienna: Café Neko has great iced coffee, nice snacks – and is a home to 5 lovely cats.
The fact that this business idea is so special even led to a short visit of the BBC which in turn led to this little video:
And in the last 3 seconds, it not only features Luca, a cute Maincoon cat, but also me.
I’m famous!
Today is the big day!
After two evenings of exciting preliminaries, the EVSC finals will happen tonight at prime time.
To make sure you have fun, follow these instructions:
Enjoy!
The couches in our flat are filled!
Only about 10 days ago, I received a couch request from Manuel, a couchsurfer from Augsburg whom Georg and I met at Salzburg’s “Sounds of Salzburg” last year. He and his girlfriend Iris asked if they could stay at our place during Vienna Calling – and of course they can!
So, we’ll have Verena from Berlin and Manuel and Iris from Augsburg staying here in less than 4 weeks – yay!
So a few days ago the annual, obligatory “Update your status!”-message popped up in my mail inbox. It is good to have these messages, both for organizers and attendees.
Why?
Attendees will be reminded that the event is drawing closer. They might not yet – about one month before the event – have a couch, which is not that big a problem. They might not yet have booked or organized their transport, which might be a little problem. And they might just have forgotten about the event taking place, which would be really embarassing if they had already arranged for one or both of the things mentioned above 🙂 If you’re not a local, it is also very important to keep your “Can host [] people”-information up to date.
Organizers on the other hand will become a better overview of the number of people who will be attending, of the number of people who will be in need of couches and so on. Two weeks prior to the event, locals will be asked to open their couches. The intensity of the message ( = number of exclamation marks used 😉 ) will of course depend on the number of people who have stated “Need a couch!” in their meeting status.
Less than thirty days to go, people, so update your status and prepare for a great weekend!
If you love to try out new stuff, check out Corn n’Pops at Gumpendorfer Strasse in Vienna’s 6th district!
Not only is there a big variation of cereal ingredients to mix your own muesli (during the whole day!!), there are also several pre-mixed specialties you can try.
If you’re not that much into muesli, try the waffles, cakes, cookies or – if you’re not sweet tooth like me – go for the bagels. Or the pasta (weeks’ special only). Or the couscous, the soup of the day, the salad (also weeks’ special only)…
The staff are lovely, speak english and can give you great tips about the area.
Enjoy!
On every 3rd Friday of the month, some hundred people on their bicycles get together at Schwarzenbergplatz in Vienna’s city centre to claim the streets – it’s Vienna’s critical mass!
The starting point always is the same, the destination is announced on the day, and the route – well, you find out about that on the way 🙂
This month’s critical mass was my first, and it was awesome: more than 1,000 people gathered at Schwarzenbergplatz. Although the forecast had warned about the possibility of a small spring thunderstorm, the mood was great. Following announcement on the website, a lot of people had dressed up as vegetables or brought some along.
When the first raindrops fell after 30 minutes, only some people quit the ride. Most still stayed even when the thunder and lightning started. Heavy rainfall and wind in the end made about 70 % of the participants turn around and go home, but according to the website, about 300 people finished the tour. Georg and me rode on until we arrived at Donauinsel, a ride of about 15 km, and therefore enough for one day, at least for me. We left the group there and rode to the next subway station to get back to my place.
Further information on critical masses all over Austria, pictures and press texts can be found on the website.
Tatort (= “Scene of Crime”) is a crime series made in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Every Sunday, an episode shot in one of the countries is aired. The countries each get their turn, of course. In each of the countries, there are several teams of investigators, and every team also gets their turn.
Public viewing is one reason why Tatort has risen in popularity again: in every bigger city, there are at least one or two locations where one can watch and investigate with friends.
51 days to go until the 4 days of lovely madness take over the city.
51 days to go until COUCHSURFING VIENNA CALLING 2012!!
Further information is available on the Couchsurfing Main Event Page and the sub-pages, and it will be added on the classical web-site as well.
In case you want to take part:
In any way, just be so kind and let the organizers know how many people will attend, as sometimes locations or material have to be organized. In my case, I will probably close the event when there are too many registrations, as I don’t want too many people to come.
Vienna already is a pretty bike-friendly city. And still, politicians are working on improving the network of bike lanes covering the most important routes.
I definitely recommend everybody to try and discover at least some parts of Vienna by bike. The first district is not a good idea, as most of it is paved with cobble stones, but all the surrounding districts are great to bike through. Also, visiting Prater park is way easier by bike than on foot. The same applies to Donaukanal and Donauinsel, and everything in those areas, like Friedhof der Namenlosen (no english wiki page?!). I still can’t believe how fast one can go somewhere compared to public transport and of course walking. It’s all about the first step!
If you’re not from Vienna, check out Citybike Vienna, a nearly free way of renting bikes in the central areas of Vienna.
I’ve even gone so far as not to renew my annual ticket with the public transport 🙂
After coming back from the US, I decided to finally take steps against my being lazy and out of shape: I bought a bike. And as I like to give names to everything, I asked Anna to find a name for it. She took only one look and said “Let’s call it Maja.”
So, Maja, this is everybody. Everybody, this is Maja:
