Donauinselfest 2011

Literally the Danube Island Festival, it is Vienna’s annual summer (music) festival. I’ve never been to this event before so I decided to just take a peek last Saturday. It wasn’t that heaving (at least not as I expected it to be) probably because it was still too early and the weather wasn’t that good.

There were a lot of activities for families and for kids like wall climbing and beach volleyball, among other things. Definitely loads of food stalls AND beer stalls couldn’t be missed. Some of the popular foods in Austrian fairs and festivals are Wurst (here, Grillwurst or sausage BBQ) and Langos, a deep fried flat bread made of a dough with flour, yeast, salt, and water (more like a massive flat doughnut).

Feeling pathetic being by myself, I treated myself to a pint of Ottakringer and spent the rest of the time watching a game at ÖBB’s (Austria’s national train company) booth. I would have joined the game because the price is a summer train ticket throughout Austria all summer long!! But before you can actually play the game, you have to play the air guitar first for a good 30 seconds or so. For me to do that, I’d need to take 3 pints, I guess. :) So anyway, the game’s quite straightforward. You just need to NOT answer any question with a “yes” or a “no” within 1 minute of the host’s questioning. Maybe it’s harder than it sounds because not many people won the game.

I enjoyed it, but it could have been better if I weren’t on my own. LOL, lesson learned re festivals.

Singing big

I haven’t been to the choir since Manami left and that was 3 weeks ago. I’m kind of missing it. Since joining the choir November of last year, we’ve been attending practices almost every week and sang at their Christmas concert two weeks after joining the choir. The choir is called the Jubilee Gospel Choir, which is organized by a Christian church but is basically a community choir in Bradford. This is a picture of us singing at last year’s Christmas concert. It was a black/red-themed concert, so we had to wear something black with a splash of red.

Here’s Maria, our lovely choir coach and conductor from Liverpool. :)

And this is me, passionately singing a song. :)

Imagine how we had to learn and memorize the lyrics of more than 10 songs in two weeks, considering that the choir was the least of my priorities back then since it was just a form of relaxation for us to channel academic stress into something productive. Obviously, we weren’t able to learn all the songs so we just hummed, smiled, and pretended we were singing in some parts. :) That’s one good thing about singing in a choir, moreso in a laid-back one like our choir. Mostly it’s just about having fun singing in a group. At 9-ish in the evening, we always walk home with big smiles on our faces after the practice.

Travel Light

This is the third time I’m flying home since I came to Britain. If not for my cheapskate-ness, I would have travelled more comfortably every time. Hell I always had to take the coach (7-hour long drive!) to London Gatwick airport. Considering that it only takes me, what, 2 hours from London to Vienna. I just never get to find flights at a reasonable price from Leeds-Bradford airport to Vienna. And whenever I do, it’d be a 14-hour long flight with 2 stopovers. Sick!

Watching “Up in the Air” a few days ago did me good. George Clooney’s character in the movie referred to Asians as light and efficient packers (though this might not be true for most Pinoys). Ergo, I’m out to prove him damn right. It wasn’t easy. I woke up 5-ish this morning to pack up all the things that I thought I could fit into my backpack. Make no mistake, they didn’t fit alright. It was the “survival of the fittest” as I start to take the only pair of jeans I wanted to bring, my shoulder pouch, my flip-flops, and my humongous wallet out of the bag. Ok so who survived? Basically my laptop, chargers, lunch box (with grapes!!), lecture notes, and a few items of clothing did survive. Then off I went to the coach station.

Today’s itinerary:

7:10 – 12:25 (Bradford to London Victoria, coach)

13:00 – 14:25 (London Victoria to London Gatwick, coach)

16:55 (London Gatwick to Vienna, plane)

I’m always right on schedule, but there were 2 things I failed to anticipate this time: the heavy downpour that started an hour before we even reach Victoria and the traffic jam (it’s either due to the rain or it’s just normal London city traffic). We were 30 minutes off schedule and I almost missed my coach to the airport. I got on the coach barely 2 minutes before 13:00. Not bad. The best thing was that I didn’t need to check-in any luggage and I’ve already printed out my boarding pass in advance. And the coolest thing in airports now is that you just need to scan the barcode of the boarding pass to get in to the departure area. No more queue hassles.

My ideal “travel light” would be me travelling with just my phone and Visa card. :p

Taste of Cambridge

June 1-2, 2011

Definitely a long day’s walk. I wonder why we didn’t bother to rent bikes in this city of bikes.

Cambridge, being a student city, has that youthful and peaceful atmosphere. But it took me overnight to appreciate Cambridge. It was a warm, sunny Thursday, enough reason for the city centre to be quite packed. First attraction of the day was a group of African street performers — a taste of Africa in England.

Here’s Manami buying the CD. :) Their live performance made us buy their album for 10 quid (the cheapskate that I am, I normally wouldn’t spend my 10 quid for a thing like that). They’re street performers, but apparently they have an album! They just looked sooooo genuinely happy with all the singing, dancing, and instrument playing. Even if I didn’t understand what their songs were all about, watching them made me wanna do something meaningful in my life, like make a difference, contribute to world peace or just be a better person.

Ruta then showed us the pub where, according to some legend, Watson and Crick discovered (or announced their discovery of) the form of the DNA. This is the The Eagle pub. Ah, the British drinking disease — definitely contagious!

As pseudo-students of Peace Studies doing the peace sign at the Fort St. George pub near Midsummer Common park, having drinks with Ruta’s friends.

The streets in the city centre are typical narrow, pedestrians/cyclists-only zone European streets. They look like the streets in York. Cambridge is a small city, but it has quite a number of large green areas/parks. From our hostel to the pub, we passed by 4 relatively massive parks. And under the sole dried out tree at a park called Jesus Green we had our picnic lunch. Cambridge is also basically all about churches and colleges of the University of Cambridge. The upper right photo is the Great Court of Trinity College, considered the most aristocratic of all the Cambridge colleges. The lower right photo shows the back view of St. John’s College, where some of the Harry Potter scenes were filmed. I don’t really watch HP, but oh well. The building’s all engulfed in greens. The colleges were closed for visitors on this day because of exams.

To call it a day (and the whole trip to Cambridge as well) barely 2 hours before my train trip back to Braddie, we went punting on the River Cam (Thus, the name CAMbridge). Here you can see our gorgeous punter, Sam. :p This reminded me of the gondola rides in Venice. It was just a 45-hour ride to see some of the colleges. We saw some random students having drinks and fun after exams. :) I can imagine how AWESOME and uber COOL it is to be studying at Cambridge Uni! How I wish I were a smart ass and/or filthy rich!

Here’s Manami on the punt with King’s College on the background, Noris and Ruta (the happy couple) on the punt, me with the always-smiling Manami by the River Cam, me with goofing-around Ruta by the River Cam, and Ruta with King’s College on the background.

The most convenient thing ever on this trip was using my phone’s crappy camera. I didn’t bother bringing my humongous dslr. It’s all about the fun, anyway.

After this trip, I would absolutely have to work my ass off both at uni and at work! But Manami chose to spend her last days in England with me and Ruta, so it’s all worth it. “So cuuuute” (Manami Goto, 2011). I will definitely miss my travel buddy, Manami!

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