Term 1: A Retrospective

1/6.

Since my two years here are split up here into trimesters, I've labeled this post 1/6.

Exams are done, "skills seminars" are in full swing, and people are starting to leave for winter break. Honestly, this term as gone by so fast and now it's already almost Christmas! And my German is still terrible! AHHH!

Here's a little recap of the last few months, apologies to those of you who've been following, as some of this stuff will be a rehash of previous posts (but not all of it!).

September

Orientation and meeting a million and a half people...

Dinner out after our walking tour of Vienna

October

Belvedere Palace

Schönbrunn Palace

Gloriette at Schönbrunn

(These last two stand directly across from each other, hence the huge diff in lighting. These were taken on the same day within minutes of each other, but somehow, the top one has 0 clouds. To the photographers out there, is this some weird trick that the light plays?)

Lunch with Ambassador Wesner

November

French dinner made by amazing friends Amaia, Anne-Sophie, and Julie

 What we had at said dinner. Poulet à la diable et Ratatouille. Amazing.

Yes, I took a picture of food. It was THAT good

(And don't be a smart-ass and think "but how could you have known 

if you took the picture before tasting it?")

Fun times at the US vs. Austria friendly

Weihnachtsmärkte galore (this one is at the Rathaus)

We also had a huge Canamerican Thanksgiving dinner, but I have no decent pictures of the people or the food, so I'll just give a shout out to Rohde and Flokwong for cooking deliciousness!

December

This lovely month was taken up mostly by taking finals. 

And studying for finals, like I'm doing here...

Luckily, December will also consist of some fun things like traveling, more German learning, lots of sleeping and maybe some movie watching! 

Thanks to all the wonderful DAers who've made this a great 1st term, looking forward to many more, and have a terrific break! If you're among those who will be in or around Vienna over break, gimme a shout!

James Bond will return....

Interesting Encounters and Failed Outings

So I knew that by coming to Vienna, I would meet some interesting and eclectic people. Little did I know. Here is a short list of interesting encounters I've had since I've been here:

1) One of my classmates works as a line judge for Wimbledon. Yes, the tennis tournament. Yes, that's awesome.
2) Also, one of the people in our administration looks like Madam Hooch.
3) Finally, I met a girl in my Chinese course who comes from Luxembourg. She moved to Vienna because she's a PROFESSIONAL PING PONG PLAYER. ?!?!?!
4) Oh, and I'm friends with people from Colombia, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Spain, France, the UK, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Turkey, Canada, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Luxembourg, Argentina and Kazakhstan, among others. Yea, no big deal.

Here is a picture of us:

Failed Outing #1 (I number this as 1, not b/c this is a list of many, but b/c I know that this is just the first of what will undoubtedly be a list of many)

Since I don't have class on Monday until 4pm, I decided to out on this beautiful day(!) to run a couple of errands and buy some things I needed: some pens, a dictionary, and laundry detergent (so I don't keep stealing my friend's).

Success rate: 1 out of 3... kind of.

I got the pens, and got what I thought was laundry detergent, but couldn't find a dictionary that I liked. I got back to school and upon closer inspection saw in very small print "Do not pour directly on laundry" (btw, this whole bottle is in German, French and Italian only). Now being somewhat skeptical, I asked some of my German speaking friends if the liquid that I bought was, in fact, laundry detergent. After all, it said things like "Fresh Meadow," and "4x Longer Freshness," all over the bottle. Guess what? Even my native German speaking friends had trouble figuring out if this stupid thing was laundry detergent or just fabric softener. Of course, in the end, turns out I bought fabric softener. I guess I'm just supposed to know that "Lenor" only makes fabric softener? Now I have to go back and see if I can exchange it or get a refund or something. Yay.

In other news, I finally went to visit Schönbrunn palace the other day, so I'll post pics of that soon. Also, those of you who asked for postcards should be getting them within the next couple of weeks. I finally went out to buy some.

Tschüss!

So they tell me I came here to study...

A week in the life of...

So here's a little breakdown of what classes I'm taking (Yay so interesting, right?)

Core Courses:

Political Science: Scopes and Methods

Principles of Microeconomics
Evolution of the International System 1815-1945

Principles of International Law

Institutional Law of the European Union

In other words, PolySci, Econ, History and Law. Forget the fancy names.

Other Courses:

Current EU Issues: Institutions and the EU Decision Making Process

Middle East in World Politics

German A1+ (Second to lowest level)

Chinese A1 Phase 1 (Lowest level)

As you can see, my language levels are atrocious!

Busy busy! Most of these should actually be really interesting, but the amount of reading? Yikes! Plus things aren't organized here quite as well as I would like. Oh well.

And then, after that, we go to cafés, bars, or sightseeing. Studying? What's that? So here are some pictures of random friends. Hopefully, they will not hate me for exploiting their images for the sake of this blog. =D

On a random side note: You KNOW the bureaucracy's bad here when you have other EUROPEANS telling you it's bad even for them. Wow.

Also, hello to any cool Italians who are following these posts! =P

Bureaucracy... UGHHHHH!!

Are you KIDDING me?

Austrian bureaucracy seems to be even worse than French bureaucracy. I'll spare the gory details, but essentially, it comes down to the consulate in the US telling me one thing, the administration here telling me another, and me having to spend more money on things I've already paid for (among other things) in order to navigate their ridiculous requirements. Oh, and all of this took a 5 minute meeting which was preceded by a 2 and a half hour wait, PLUS a half hour FIRE DRILL??? Wow.

Oh and goody, looks like the idiots in Congress can't even work together to sustain a functioning government. Again. Yay.

Breathe.... On a lighter note...

If any of you would like to see pictures of particular things, or if you would like me to talk about anything in particular about my school, Vienna, etc., please feel free to comment! I'll try my best to accommodate everyone's requests! =)

Wishing you all a better day than mine!

How is it already the weekend?

Some observations...

1) So many people walking around wearing jackets. Is it really that cold? Doesn't it actually get really cold in the winter? Uh oh.

2) No one wears flipflops. Not guys, not girls. People prob wondering: "Who's that weird Asian guy and what are those things on his feet?" 

3) Pretty much everyone here waits for the walk signal at crosswalks. Even if they're the only person there and there is no car or bike in sight within 30-40 meters. Again, people were probably shaking their heads at me.

4) So the building next door is also a school, including a Kindergarten. That crop circle resembling thing is just their field for recess.

5) A lot of people still use Blackberrys (Blackberries?) here.

And now, a few pictures:

Belvedere Palace (from the back, I believe)

This was just a nice sunset...

Front of Belvedere Palace. This one was quite breathtaking

Memorial commemorating Russian liberation of Vienna, I think

The French Embassy, because, it's me

 

Café Central. Apparently it's really famous

Minion and Hello Kitty cake at Café Central

Exhausted! But can't sleep...

What time did I sleep last night? And other musings...

17 or so hours of traveling on Sun/Mon + a full day Monday + what I can only imagine to be jetlag = an exhausted-but-unable-to-fall-asleep Clyde. I think I went to bed at 11:30 last night only to toss and turn until about 1am, 2am? (yikes!). So I decided to skip breakfast this morning... oh well. The school has a continental style breakfast on weekdays for those who live at the DA, but it's only available from 7:45 - 8:30, I think. There's a bit of conflicting information... What happened to the days when I could roll out of bed at 11 and walk to the dining hall in shorts and flipflops to stuff myself with those delicious English muffin sandwiches from Lower??? Oh right, I graduated and got old. Now I'm supposed to wake up at a normal hour and dress nicely like an adult. Sigh.

This has nothing to do with sleeping or not sleeping, but it's definitely been a bit sobering to meet everyone here and to realize that I'm one of the oldest people here. Unless all the people I know just happen to be all the younger ones. At least people say I look young? Anyhow, there have definitely been times when I feel pangs of regret ("Why, oh why, didn't I do this earlier?"), but I'm reminded that it's a great privilege to be here and I'm thankful that I'm at least here now, rather than maybe 5 years from now when I'd be a REAL dinosaur.

I'm still practically living out of my suitcase, haven't really bothered with unpacking or any of that nonsense. Apparently, here at the school, wearing shorts is frowned upon and if I wear a T-shirt, it better be covered by, you know, a real shirt. Looks like I'm going to have to go shopping... again... (Wait, does that mean I can't wear my red BC hat??). $20 bucks says that at some point in the year, I get asked to change into more "appropriate" attire. Anyone? Bueller?

There's been a lot of administrative stuff to take care of, I'm still not done with most of it. Gotta set up a bank account, gotta get my residence permit, gotta get some other ID etc.  Also, trying to get a cell phone contract here seems to be a disaster if you're not from Europe. Anyone care to send me an unlocked phone? Maybe I'll just try to get a new SIM card. Haha. No, but seriously, anyone?

Lastly...

For you Highrockers out there, here is a special picture:

Yes, that is my name tag. 

Yes, that thing on the bottom is the top of my laptop. 

Yes, the laptop is on my desk. 

Yes, I am sitting down.

Why is it up there? Because they don't want us sticking things on the walls. 

Why is the damn thing so high? Umm, maybe I'm just a short Asian and this room was not designed for me.

Finally, here is my address:

Clyde Choi

c/o Diplomatische Akademie Wien

Favoritenstraße 15a

1040 Wien (Vienna), Österreich (Austria)

I suppose you could write it in English too, but that wouldn't be as fun, now would it? Although, I may have my doubts about the US Postal Service's linguistic abilities... Yea, write it in Englisch. Or English. Ou en Anglais, si vous préférez.

Please feel free to send me letters, pictures, food, any unlocked smartphones you may have that are gathering dust (still serious), or anything else you might feel compelled to send. Getting stuff would be quite exciting! Ok, this is wayyyyy too long and I prob have somewhere to be. Until next time, "Keep on travelling" (thanks Rick Steves).

Tschüs!

Here and settled!!-ing...

Thoughts on my way to LHR... then to VIE... and then to the DA.

1) When entering JFK by car, the airport has a bunch of posts (lampposts? I didn't pay close enough attention) bearing the flags of multiple nations. Sad that despite the fact that we all are a part of humankind, international conflicts ravage all areas of the globe. The freedom to travel to different parts of the world is a gift.

2) Stratus clouds look amazing from above, not so amazing from below. Should've taken a picture.

3) Flew through the night with the Big Dipper literally right outside my window. Ok, I guess "literally" must be taken figuratively. Anyway, constellations look much cooler at 30,000 ft.

4) I hope all my nicely ironed shirts aren't getting all squished and destroyed in my suitcases. Oh wait, they probably are...

5) Why is Heathrow so big? 20 minutes to walk to the gate from security??? Also, holy cow everything is so expensive here!!!

6) The subway system is so CLEAN, and FREQUENT! LOVE!

7) People at school are nice. And they speak so many languages. Jealous.

8) Living in a "dorm" feels like college again. An opportunity to do it better this time.

9) I've been up for almost 30 hours straight now. I'm tired.

And now for some truly terrible pictures (is it any wonder I never got into photography?):

 

Picture from my window before leaving JFK

 Picture from my window before leaving LHR (if you look really closely, it says "BA700 Vienna" on the bus, or maybe just "BA700")

Picture of the view I have right outside my window. I don't know what that is, but once I do, I'll let you know.

Ready, Set, Go?

All packed and (almost) ready to go. (Not pictured, a couple pairs of shoes, my suit, and some electronics I still have to put away) Not quite sure how I'm gonna fit it all. Uh oh.

The hills are alive... ok so I'm not going to Salzburg... just yet anyway.

I've never done this before (blogged) but I figure, I might as well try. At least it'll be some place where I can put any pictures I take?

My flight is scheduled for today, Sept 22 at 7:25pm (EST), leaving from JFK. I'll arrive in London on Monday Sept 23 at 7:40am (GMT), departing Heathrow at 9:55am and arriving in Vienna at 1:10pm (GMT +1).

The last time I went to Europe, there was a HUGE thunderstorm in NY, and my flight got delayed by 3-4 hours. Of course, I missed my connection in Madrid, and got to Paris several hours later than anticipated. But on the plus side, I got to fly into Paris during sunset which was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen (yes, cliché, I know and, yes Esther, ONE of the most beautiful).

Feeling excited about what the future holds and definitely thrilled to be going back to Europe! 

Thank you all for the many well wishes, gifts and prayers. Hopefully this will help us to keep in touch while I am away. Looking forward to hearing from many of you, and if you send me your address, perhaps I will send you a postcard!

--edit--

Forgot to add a picture of the red hat... It is coming with me, of course