#Merry Kryptis!

[manasurge]

I can't wait until we can finally go to the Nayos map and ppl start making Kryptis OCs :3c hehehe

[laraimaustria]

Why Don’t You Know This Already?: The continued adventures of European customer service

Well unfortunately it looks like our bus ticket to Paris problem is in fact not solved yet. We went to the bus station and after searching in vain for the Eurolines office we decided to just ask the person in the international bus terminal ticketing office where we should go/what we should do. For some reason this man thought we wanted to go to Prague, was confused when we didn’t, and seemed to have no idea what we were talking about when we asked about being able to change the name on the bus ticket. All he did was give us the Eurolines phone number. However, the last time we called they told us we had to go down the office, so we’ve descended back into the first level of hell, this time in a weird kind of  “Go ask your Mom, go ask your Dad” loop. At this point I am seriously considering just cancelling both tickets and starting from scratch. I will try calling one more time on Monday.  In other, less frustrating news, I saw my first opera on Thursday! It wasn’t at the big state opera, their season hasn’t started yet, this was a showing of Carmen in the krypt of Peterskirche, one of the old churches near St. Stephen’s cathedral. Courtney and I have both never been to an opera, and we got great student discounts for these tickets (only 15 Euro instead of 39!) so we decided to go for it. The krypt was not as krypty as I thought it would be, meaning that there weren’t literally skeletons embedded into the walls, this was more kind of like a really old basement. But it was still cool to be in the church and we actually got to meet the director who turned out to be from Montana and was very excited to meet two American ladies. Luckily for us, since we both forgot to read the plot synopsis of Carmen, he gave us a run-down of the show so that we wouldn’t be totally lost. We might even get to do some community service for the opera company, which would be extremely cool! The opera itself was extremely good. Maybe if you’ve been to a lot of high-end operas it would be on par with a community theater production, but I haven’t been to a lot of high-end operas, so I thought it was great. The amount of physical power it takes to be able to sing like that must be astounding, and they all make it look so effortless. Even though it was in french the plot really wasn’t that complicated and we were able to follow along pretty well. Am I cultured now?

Since this is was supposedly the last nice week before fall weather starts, we decided to see a bunch of parks that will be gross and not fun once it gets cold. On Friday we went to Prater, which is probably the Viennese equivalent of Central Park. There’s a small amusement park with rides and a ferris wheel, but tickets are kind of pricey so we didn’t go in. Instead we just walked along the footpath and soon realized just how massive Prater is. We walked for about an hour and I’m pretty sure we barely made a dent. The best part of the day was we stopped to rest on a little playground merry go round and a little girl offered in German to spin the merry-go-round for us. Her adorable “Bittteschon!” when she was finished is probably the most heartwarming thing I’ve ever seen. It started to rain just as we made it back to the underground station, but unfortunately for me I didn’t have a raincoat and still had to walk a few blocks to get back to my house and was drenched. There was also thunder that was so strong it shook our apartment building, it literally felt like a small earthquake. For dinner we went out to Vapiano, a famous italian chain restaurant where they make the pasta right in front of you when you order, so everything is hot and fresh and extremely delicious. 

Originally we had planned to go to the Kino am Dach, or rooftop movie screening that they have on top of one of the libraries during the summer. They were going to show Casablanca (In English!) and we thought it would be fun to go, but the screening was cancelled due to the rain. So instead we stayed in and watched Casablanca on Netflix which was still fun. Afterwards we went out to an Australian pub, which was also really fun, and interesting because the owner seemed to be neither Australian nor Austrian, and spoke to everyone in plain English (nice for us, but it seemed to confuse two Austrian ladies at the table next to us). I tried a peach wine spritzer which was very good, and a Jameson and ginger mixed drink which was also very good. In Vienna it doesn’t feel creepy or dangerous to walk around later in the night because so many bars and even regular cafes are still open, and it’s very common for people to stay out until 4 or 5 am here. The streets are well lit and there hasn’t been a time yet when I’ve been walking alone and felt like I could get jumped at any minute, which I have  experienced in pretty much every American town, even at Linfield. Isn’t being a lady great?  Saturday the rain held off so we went to Stadpark, which was also very pretty and filled with lots of nice statues of artists and musicians, including the famous gold statue of Johann Strauss. (Honestly he looked a lot like Mark Twain). Then, because this is Europe, we stopped in a coffee house and I had some delicious hot chocolate and we shared a really rich Mozart cake, which is the cake version of Mozart Kugeln, a very popular chocolate here that’s like a little truffle with a pistachio filling in the center. I’m going to have to bring some back. We then went back to Courtney’s and made dinner together, which felt very grown-up and was a big success, except for the fact that we boiled enough spaghetti to feed a horse. (Just as a side note, I ate pasta for dinner every night this week, just in case you had any doubts that I was a real college student.) I’d call my second full week in Vienna a success, and if I could just get this stupid bus ticket problem figured out everything would be great. Our regular class schedule starts next week, which means more homework, so I’m glad I got to go all these places now before I have less free time. Every day I’m here in Vienna I find new things to love.

[manasurge]

When I was playing earlier I saw someone in map chat say: "Merry Kryptis" and I'm never going to forget that for the rest of my life.