A short forecast onto the next days and weeks …

On Friday, the keeper of the inn where CS Vienna has its weekly meeting, has his birthday. We’re all invited to come and party with him – it’s going to be great!

Next week, I’m turning 25 (old? young? decide for yourself). My birthday is on Saturday, and the plans for the whole weekend are the following:
Friday, 15th – party. Don’t know yet where, or what, but we’ll see.
Saturday, 16th – it’s a macabre thing, but hey. Otto Habsburg’s burial is taking place Saturday afternoon, so I’ll be there. How often do you have the possibility of watching a Habsburg funeral nowadays?
Sunday, 17th – a brunch at Georg’s place, as his flat mate is not here at the moment. His flat is not bigger, but nicer than mine 😉

One week later, as of 22nd, I’ll have about one week off. This means:
Friday, 22nd in the evening, or Saturday 23rd sometime – leaving for Upper Austria, paying a visit to Georg’s family.
One, two, maybe three days later – leaving for Tyrol, to go to my place.
Thusday, 28th to Sunday, 31st – Couchsurfing at my place. There’s a huge medieval festival taking place at my hometown, and I made a plan for some friends to come by. We’ll be attending the festival, going to the Neuschwanstein Castles, maybe go for a hike, and of course have BBQs and some beers.

I’ll be back in Vienna on August 2nd, have to work again on 3rd.

Sounds like a plan.

At Vienna Calling 2009, I met Kwentin. At Vienna Calling 2010, he introduced me to Werner. One day, at a dinner most likely, Werner introduced me and Georg to Susi. And Susi introduced us to Frida and, later, to Björk. They are her cats.

Susi often has to go abroad for her job, as she’s working with IKEA. During those days, she of course needs somebody to take care of the girls. That’s where Georg and I come in. Once, when Werner didn’t have time to look after the cats, Susi needed an alternative, and I just LOVE cats, so I offered to do the job. Werner obviously left a good reference, and there was no further discussion. After a short training on the job, Georg and I became regulars at Susi’s place.

And I still love it. From time to time, we take care of two lovely cats and we’re even allowed to stay at Susi’s place, which is a really nice flat with a good kitchen and a biiiig TV (we usually don’t have a TV). Apart from living in a luxury (and not-shared) flat, there’s of course the funny things you experience when having cats. Cats playing, for example. Or cats fighting. Or cats staring at something, like the street, or water in a bowl, or the TV, or yourself.

Did I mention I love cats?

Oh, and THIS just nails it.

Some days ago, there was a post on the CS Vienna Group by a friend of mine. It said “Spontanous Picknick tonight at Burggarten?” and had everything in it: fun people, food, drinks, and a nice place to sit and relax. The time was set for 8 pm, so it would not be that hot anymore, and some people immediately said they would join.

When George and I were leaving, the initiator of the picknick wrote another message: She’d come a bit later, 8.30 pm plusminus 10 minutes. That was okay with us, we had had dinner already, and only came for the drinks and the people. So we went there, and met some of the others, and had a nice chat, and had some ice cream, and apricots, and beers. The time went by, and suddenly it was after 9 pm already. Maria was still not there. But of course she did make it there – just in time, as we were starting to pack our stuff! We decided to go to another spot, with more light, and a better view, picked some people up on the way and then had a great picknick. Maria had caught a cooking fever – she had done a lense salad, tsatsiki, bread, another sauce, and she brought water melon. To our amazement, plates, forks and spoons were also provided. It was great!

Last Wednesday, I had an unanswered call from a swiss number on my phone. Usually I’d just wait for the person to call again, but I was in a good mood, so I called back.

A girl answered the phone, saying she and her boyfriend had to go to Vienna, bringing goods to the University. The goods had to be brought there by him, by car, on dry ice. It sounded strange in the beginning.

But it turned out, that the girl, Nina, is the room mate of a good CS friend of mine. Her boyfriend had to bring some samples from Bern to Vienna for his dissertation, and Nina wanted to come with him as they both had never been to Vienna before. And so far they had not found a host, though posting onto the Last Minute Couch Search Group.

After checking Nina’s profile, of course, I agreed on hosting them. And it was a good decision 🙂 We did not spend too much time together, as I was working, and Donauinselfest was going on, and Nina and Claude had plans of their own considering sightseeing. But still, it was a nice weekend with friends. Just the way I like!

Trisha, who spent 2 years in Vienna, became a good friend just before she was leaving for the U.S. again. At some point at the beginning of this year, she contacted me, asking if I could help one of her students planning his trip through Germany and Austria. She’s a German Teacher, by the way, and now working in Costa Rica.

So, some days later I received a message from Eric, and we wrote maybe 7 messages discussing his options and what cities would suit him best according to what he’d like to do. In the end, I offered to host him for the 3 days he would spent in Vienna.

He arrived Monday night, pretty late, as he used a rideshare offer. Georg had to study for University, and I was busy with work, so we did not have much time to spend with him. We gave him a map and our phone numbers so he could get around and contact us if he needed to.

We also went to the Pubquiz at Cafe Benno, though he kept saying his German was not good enough for it. Also, we went for Schnitzel (you kinda have to do that), and the last evening, when I was on my way to Tyrol, Georg took him to the weekly meeting. Eric had a flight leaving pretty early, so he spent the last night at the airport. Everything went well, he got up early enough and went back to the U.S.

It was great having him here – just as if an old friend came to visit 🙂

For the last day, Sunday, there was no BBQ planned. A group of around 20 CouchSurfers met at Rosa Lila Villa to have brunch, and there was a meeting at MuseumsQuartier set for the early afternoon. It should be a lazy Sunday, as in the years before.

Kira and Carlos had to leave around noon already, Mitie was moving to another host, and Shawn would leave Monday morning. Except for Shawn, everybody was packing and gathering stuff, and Georg and I just did not want to get up too early, so we all skipped the brunch. In addition, the brunch buffet at Rosa Lila Villa is amazing, and therefor I prefer not to go there when I’m hung over or don’t feel like eating much.

After arriving at MuseumsQuartier, we prepared some “Free Hugs”-signs and then left, a little late, for the Inner City. One hour and something of hugging strangers was enough for me this time, so I picked up some food for Georg, who had stayed with the Non-Huggers, and returned to MQ. Nothing of great importance happened there later, only some funny group pictures and nice conversations. Before going to the final party at Fledermaus, some people gathered to have dinner at Café Kauz, which is not too far from MQ. It was a good finish to Vienna Calling 2011 🙂

Saturday. We spent most of the time at the Base, enjoying the sunshine and having a good time with old and new friends. There was a badminton tournament going on, and various workshops (as the days before), and some people were just lying around sleeping.

In the evening, the Main Party of Vienna Calling took place at “Das Werk”. The organisers had agreed to use this location again, as people liked it very much there. CouchSurfing had again the possibility to sell selfmade cocktails (hmmm, yummy!!) and there was a raffle of flight vouchers at 11 pm.

Georg had to do some shifts at the entrance, selling tickets and later on controlling people at the entrance. I volunteered to help a little, as somehow I was not in party mood – contrary to the other 300 attendees.

Sunday early morning. Georg, Mitie, Kira and I left the party at around 3 am. Carlos arrived, after attending an afterparty at some CSers place, around 7 am. Shawn in the meantime managed to fall asleep at another afterparty and only woke up around noon. As Carlos and Kira wanted to leave in the early afternoon, he had to get back quiet in a hurry as he still had some stuff of Carlos’ with him.

Friday. This was MY big day. Once again, I would guide a group of CouchSurfers over the central cemetery of Vienna (Zentralfriedhof). Last year’s tour had about 30 people attending, which was so far the biggest group I had to handle.

Carlos and Shawn left shortly after Georg who again had to be at the Base pretty early. Mitie and I took our time for breakfast, I even managed to go through some of my recent documents. The tour was planned to start at 1.15 pm at the cemetery, so we only had to leave around 12.30 pm.

When we arrived at the meeting point, there were already 15 people waiting. As last year, around 50 had registered for the meeting, so I was expecting to have a group of 30 again. How wrong I was. Not everybody who had signed up was there, of course. But for everybody who didn’t show up, somebody had decided last-minute to come. Mitie counted 52 in the beginning, and later on, 4 more girls found us at the Church.

The tour was good, people were attentive and asked nice questions, and I had some nice talks along the way. Afterwards, we stopped by a supermarket to get some stuff for the BBQ, and headed on to Donauinsel. Unfortunately, it started raining pretty heavily as we crossed the river. Most of the people who had come with me left again immediately. Some others waited with me at the subway station, hoping the rain would cease. But it didn’t. “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad equipment” I thought, took the lemonade I had brought from the supermarket, and left. It was raining really heavy now, but I had promised and wanted to go to the BBQ all day already.

At the BBQ, people were gathered under 3 big tarps. The organizers had of course checked for all eventualities and were prepared.

When the rain finally stopped, the fire was lit again (it had been taken care of during the rain, so there was not much to do) and the BBQ went on. Soon also the people who had fled before the rain came to the Base.

For Friday night, the program said “Free Night out” – hosts and surfers had the possibility to enjoy Viennese Nightlife on their own. Thanks to Caspar, I had made a reservation at Shebeen for this night – they were showing the EURO Qualification Game Austria – Germany. The reservation was for 16 people, and I had announced on the Vienna Calling Group that the table was full – but of course more people showed up and I nearly did not get a spot there. But everything – except for the game – went well, and I enjoyed the evening very much.