my first 6 days in Vienna

Ok, I’ve been alternating between the excuses of being busy and not having good internet access as reasons not to post. I don’t have internet at the moment, but I’ve got a decent desk at which to sit, and my host is busy helping the downstairs neighbour girl learn to play the recorder, so I’ll type up some of my Vienna adventures thus far, and post them tomorrow when I’m back at the conference venue.

I arrived in Vienna on Friday and was met in town by racire1. We went back to her place for a lovely lunch, where we were joined by some of her friends. The four of us hopped into a car and drove to a fabric store in a small town to the north east of Vienna. This is a store which offers some pretty good deals. I found some nice black linen, some light weight white linen, and some decent blue linen, each of which was labelled with an asking price of €5/meter, and I tossed them into the shopping cart we were filling of things we might purchase. Then we returned to the wool isle, and I found a lovely brown/black soft wool that has a wavy weave, also marked at €5/meter. The girls explained to me once we were ready to go that it was worth waiting a bit longer for the owner to come to the measuring table, as he generally is willing to offer discounts if we take all of a bolt, or at least six meters of something. The black was labelled as having 4.6 meters left on the bolt, and the white 5.7 m, so I decided to just take all of each of those. I opted for six meters of the blue, and after hearing how much of a discount he gave for each of those, asked for 8 meters of the wool. The grand total came to an average of $3.69/meter for the lot of it! I strongly recommend shopping with racire1.

Friday evening we did a sewing night, and I tried to teach them the Finish stitch in nålbinding. To accomplish this, I first had to teach myself how to do it with the right hand, since I’d learned it left-handed. It was harder than I thought to figure it out, and while I can now do it with either hand, I like it better left handed.

Saturday and Sunday she took me to museums and coffee houses (it is Vienna after all, sitting in coffee shops is very important here). It being the first Sunday of the month, a number of the museums were free admissions. She’s uploaded lots of photos from our weekend adventures on her blog and livejournal, if anyone is interested.

Sunday evening I moved to the home of one of her friends for the week. I’ve been enjoying evenings spent with the family. Her children speak German (of course), and French because they go to French school, but they’ve picked up some English since I arrived with "Kareina, look" having been particularly well learned. I’ve gotten all of my new fabric washed, mostly dried on the line, and ironed the rest of the way dry, and I’ve started a new underdress out of the white linen.

During the days I’ve been attending the conference of the European Geosciences Union, enjoying listening to interesting talks, reading interesting posters, and making use of the free internet (while there is working internet at the house in which I’m staying, the password they think is correct doesn’t work on my computer—when we type it in it insists that it is required to be exactly 26 characters (it is!), and won’t do anything). Alas, it is rare that I’ve managed to find an electrical outlet near a table and chair, so I’ve been reduced to reading mail/LJ/blogs/etc. while holding the computer in my lap, which is fine for reading, but not so comfortable for typing.

I’ve been biking to the conference each day—my route takes me from the apartment along a lovely green belt to the Danube, and then down the bike path there to the site. It takes me just under a half an hour to get there and just over half an hour to return. Between that and all of the walking during our museum adventures, my exercise log for this month is looking pretty good.

my first 6 days in Vienna

Ok, I’ve been alternating between the excuses of being busy and not having good internet access as reasons not to post. I don’t have internet at the moment, but I’ve got a decent desk at which to sit, and my host is busy helping the downstairs neighbour girl learn to play the recorder, so I’ll type up some of my Vienna adventures thus far, and post them tomorrow when I’m back at the conference venue.

I arrived in Vienna on Friday and was met in town by racire1. We went back to her place for a lovely lunch, where we were joined by some of her friends. The four of us hopped into a car and drove to a fabric store in a small town to the north east of Vienna. This is a store which offers some pretty good deals. I found some nice black linen, some light weight white linen, and some decent blue linen, each of which was labelled with an asking price of €5/meter, and I tossed them into the shopping cart we were filling of things we might purchase. Then we returned to the wool isle, and I found a lovely brown/black soft wool that has a wavy weave, also marked at €5/meter. The girls explained to me once we were ready to go that it was worth waiting a bit longer for the owner to come to the measuring table, as he generally is willing to offer discounts if we take all of a bolt, or at least six meters of something. The black was labelled as having 4.6 meters left on the bolt, and the white 5.7 m, so I decided to just take all of each of those. I opted for six meters of the blue, and after hearing how much of a discount he gave for each of those, asked for 8 meters of the wool. The grand total came to an average of $3.69/meter for the lot of it! I strongly recommend shopping with racire1.

Friday evening we did a sewing night, and I tried to teach them the Finish stitch in nålbinding. To accomplish this, I first had to teach myself how to do it with the right hand, since I’d learned it left-handed. It was harder than I thought to figure it out, and while I can now do it with either hand, I like it better left handed.

Saturday and Sunday she took me to museums and coffee houses (it is Vienna after all, sitting in coffee shops is very important here). It being the first Sunday of the month, a number of the museums were free admissions. She’s uploaded lots of photos from our weekend adventures on her blog and livejournal, if anyone is interested.

Sunday evening I moved to the home of one of her friends for the week. I’ve been enjoying evenings spent with the family. Her children speak German (of course), and French because they go to French school, but they’ve picked up some English since I arrived with "Kareina, look" having been particularly well learned. I’ve gotten all of my new fabric washed, mostly dried on the line, and ironed the rest of the way dry, and I’ve started a new underdress out of the white linen.

During the days I’ve been attending the conference of the European Geosciences Union, enjoying listening to interesting talks, reading interesting posters, and making use of the free internet (while there is working internet at the house in which I’m staying, the password they think is correct doesn’t work on my computer—when we type it in it insists that it is required to be exactly 26 characters (it is!), and won’t do anything). Alas, it is rare that I’ve managed to find an electrical outlet near a table and chair, so I’ve been reduced to reading mail/LJ/blogs/etc. while holding the computer in my lap, which is fine for reading, but not so comfortable for typing.

I’ve been biking to the conference each day—my route takes me from the apartment along a lovely green belt to the Danube, and then down the bike path there to the site. It takes me just under a half an hour to get there and just over half an hour to return. Between that and all of the walking during our museum adventures, my exercise log for this month is looking pretty good.

Not a good day for keys

When I got home from the conference yesterday I carefully set the keys on the corner of the coffee table, right next to my pile of stuff. This morning there weren’t any early morning talks on my personal program, so I slept in, and wasn’t ready to head out the door till after my host took her children to school. Got everything together and reached for the keys, but they weren’t on that corner. No worries, the table got moved from next to my stuff to in front of the computer desk, must the be other corner. Nope. Checked all four corners. Nope. Rummaged around the stuff on the table, still no keys.

Thinking that I’d misremembered what I did with them I checked all the pockets of my backpack and the other bag I’ve been bringing to the conference. No keys there either (unless you count my keys from Milan, which won’t help here). Carefully removed everything from the coffee table, stacking each item neatly. No keys. Thinking that perhaps they fell off into my pile of stuff I carefully emptied my suitcase, and re-packed it. No keys there, either.

Thinking that perhaps one of the kids might have moved them I checked a variety of other places—not on the desk, not in anyplace obvious in the kids room (which had just been tidied up last night), not in the kitchen, not hanging on the hook of spare keys. I even checked the box of sewing supplies, since some things had been out on the other table yesterday, but got put away. Nothing. There is another house key hanging with the spares, but this ring contains the only copy of the basement key (where the bike I’ve been using is kept) and the key to the bike lock.

So I waited. And looked some more. And waited. Eventually my host came home, and she looked in all of the places I looked. Eventually, she found the keys in a box by the door. So, at long last, I hopped onto the bike and went on my way. The morning rain had long since stopped, and it was a lovely ride through the green belt to the river and along the river to the conference venue. When I arrived I went to lock up the bike. Put the key into the lock and it didn’t turn, thinking it was in upside down, I tried it the other way, and this time it broke in half, with the key still inside the lock!

Since I couldn’t lock up the bike I hopped back on it, thinking to ride past the conference venue in search of a new lock. While I’d walked from the U-bahn, this was the first time I’d taken the bike that direction. Not wanting to take the stairs, I detoured over to the handicapped ramp and went down that, and turned left towards the continued ramp, only to discover, at the very last second, that the part of the ramp towards which I was rolling is actually shallow stairs. Not wishing to descend stairs while on a bike, I pulled on the brakes and attempted to dismount.

In the process of trying to stop I managed to overbalance, and fall forward, over the bike. I did get my hands up on time to break my fall (I am grateful that arms come with elbows and shoulders, which one can bend as one lands to absorb much of the impact), but didn’t come to a complete stop until I’d landed on one knee, with the other shin landing upon some portion of the bike, and my upper body continued so forward enough to actually land on my face. Fortunately, by that point most of the velocity had been removed, so while there was a tiny hint of swelling in the upper lip, which was between the pavement and my teeth, I didn’t actually do any damage there. I think the shin is bruised, though, as one would expect from landing on a random bike part with it.

I got myself picked up, determined that any damage was superficial, and continued on my quest. Found an English-speaking local at the U-bhan, who told me that if I took the train two stops I’d find a shopping center, and that yes, I can take the bike on the train. Once at the shopping center it took three tries to find someone who could tell me that I’d find a store selling bike locks upstairs on the right. When the employee at the entrance saw me with the bike she said something in German, and when I replied in English letting her know that I’d broken my key and needed a new lock, she told me where to find them, and let me bring in the bike, too.

Mission accomplished I finally returned to the conference venue stopping to purchase a croissant at the bakery at the train station, where they sell for €0.95, rather than the €2.50 they charge in the conference building. Now that I type this, I suddenly realize just why I had a problem with the bike lock. I’m pretty certain that the key I broke is not for the lock at all, but for the padlock on the basement storage unit. Oops. I wonder if that means the original lock will still work, if we can get the broken key out (heck, it may well be out by now—the vibrations of riding the bike could well have shaken it free without my noticing. I’ll have to look).

Not a good day for keys

When I got home from the conference yesterday I carefully set the keys on the corner of the coffee table, right next to my pile of stuff. This morning there weren’t any early morning talks on my personal program, so I slept in, and wasn’t ready to head out the door till after my host took her children to school. Got everything together and reached for the keys, but they weren’t on that corner. No worries, the table got moved from next to my stuff to in front of the computer desk, must the be other corner. Nope. Checked all four corners. Nope. Rummaged around the stuff on the table, still no keys.

Thinking that I’d misremembered what I did with them I checked all the pockets of my backpack and the other bag I’ve been bringing to the conference. No keys there either (unless you count my keys from Milan, which won’t help here). Carefully removed everything from the coffee table, stacking each item neatly. No keys. Thinking that perhaps they fell off into my pile of stuff I carefully emptied my suitcase, and re-packed it. No keys there, either.

Thinking that perhaps one of the kids might have moved them I checked a variety of other places—not on the desk, not in anyplace obvious in the kids room (which had just been tidied up last night), not in the kitchen, not hanging on the hook of spare keys. I even checked the box of sewing supplies, since some things had been out on the other table yesterday, but got put away. Nothing. There is another house key hanging with the spares, but this ring contains the only copy of the basement key (where the bike I’ve been using is kept) and the key to the bike lock.

So I waited. And looked some more. And waited. Eventually my host came home, and she looked in all of the places I looked. Eventually, she found the keys in a box by the door. So, at long last, I hopped onto the bike and went on my way. The morning rain had long since stopped, and it was a lovely ride through the green belt to the river and along the river to the conference venue. When I arrived I went to lock up the bike. Put the key into the lock and it didn’t turn, thinking it was in upside down, I tried it the other way, and this time it broke in half, with the key still inside the lock!

Since I couldn’t lock up the bike I hopped back on it, thinking to ride past the conference venue in search of a new lock. While I’d walked from the U-bahn, this was the first time I’d taken the bike that direction. Not wanting to take the stairs, I detoured over to the handicapped ramp and went down that, and turned left towards the continued ramp, only to discover, at the very last second, that the part of the ramp towards which I was rolling is actually shallow stairs. Not wishing to descend stairs while on a bike, I pulled on the brakes and attempted to dismount.

In the process of trying to stop I managed to overbalance, and fall forward, over the bike. I did get my hands up on time to break my fall (I am grateful that arms come with elbows and shoulders, which one can bend as one lands to absorb much of the impact), but didn’t come to a complete stop until I’d landed on one knee, with the other shin landing upon some portion of the bike, and my upper body continued so forward enough to actually land on my face. Fortunately, by that point most of the velocity had been removed, so while there was a tiny hint of swelling in the upper lip, which was between the pavement and my teeth, I didn’t actually do any damage there. I think the shin is bruised, though, as one would expect from landing on a random bike part with it.

I got myself picked up, determined that any damage was superficial, and continued on my quest. Found an English-speaking local at the U-bhan, who told me that if I took the train two stops I’d find a shopping center, and that yes, I can take the bike on the train. Once at the shopping center it took three tries to find someone who could tell me that I’d find a store selling bike locks upstairs on the right. When the employee at the entrance saw me with the bike she said something in German, and when I replied in English letting her know that I’d broken my key and needed a new lock, she told me where to find them, and let me bring in the bike, too.

Mission accomplished I finally returned to the conference venue stopping to purchase a croissant at the bakery at the train station, where they sell for €0.95, rather than the €2.50 they charge in the conference building. Now that I type this, I suddenly realize just why I had a problem with the bike lock. I’m pretty certain that the key I broke is not for the lock at all, but for the padlock on the basement storage unit. Oops. I wonder if that means the original lock will still work, if we can get the broken key out (heck, it may well be out by now—the vibrations of riding the bike could well have shaken it free without my noticing. I’ll have to look).