So near, yet so far

To think that Chris Tiu is merely about 8 hours (by car) away from where I am now is almost unbelievable. He's currently on training in Serbia with the Philippine National Basketball Team. Now I'm thinking of flying (or even driving) to Serbia. Haha, wishful thinking. On second thought, back in Manila, he's just a walk away (U.P. to Ateneo) and yet I've only seen him once. But I was just really amazed that he's really in Serbia!!

Breaking barriers

Something that's so unlike me happened today. Well, not exactly. Problem is, it's hard for me to say "no" to someone. When I'm in a situation where I need to decide immediately, I just can't say no! I hate it. I'm really skeptic about new acquaintances, but unexpectedly, everything went smoothly. I went to a new friend's place, ate some snacks and had a good chat.


I'm still working on breaking language barriers. Wish me luck!

Am I in my grade school years?!

Really feels like in grade school, yes, my German class, especially today. I can't take it that I had to write on our textbook, "Ang pointless ng tinuturo, pang-kinder". Who wants to be complimented when you're actually being praised for answering a question like Euro 4.69 + 0.(something)? Oh c'mon, give the kids a break. I just have to endure it til the end. Nevertheless, learning German is still interesting. It's what I'm there for anyway. So why bother with the grade school stuff. Treat it as part of the fun!

My bro's high on FrancisM

May I just say that. It has been a week already since FrancisM died. Before he died, me and my brother were already following his blog, seeing his pictures while he was still doing his chemotherapy sessions. We were even planning of collaborating with his "3 stars and a sun" business. In fact, my brother sent him a message (weeks before he died) via his multiply account, but we never got a reply. Turned out, he was really having a tough time already.


And so when he died, we were somehow affected, especially when you hear it all over the news on TFC. My brother was really into it that his overnight playlist consists of FrancisM songs that he's been playing out loud all throughout the night. C'mon. Thank God I still manage to sleep well.

Deutschkurs

For a month now, I have been studying German at Interface in Schaumburgergasse. I'm glad to have met new people of different nationalities. Our teacher, Margarita, is from BULGARIA. The rest of the class include Antigona of KOSOVO, Jalena, Maria, Vladan and Anita of SERBIA, Kiranjit of INDA, Nick of AFGHANISTAN, Emere, Abdulasis, and Elias of TURKEY, Ashkan of IRAN, and John of PINAS. I'm somehow getting used to the language that I can actually communicate with them a bit. It's quite a relief though that I have a Pinoy classmate and there's Nick who speaks English.

And for two weeks now, I have been going to another German class at AMS in Myrthengasse. This class is likewise a "United Nations" group, but a smaller one. We're seven in class and we have two teachers in this class: Mag. Munteanu and Herr Nikola. Four of my classmates are from TURKEY -- Özlem Chatoglu, Havva Aydin, Rahime Avci, and Hanifi Gökçen -- and one is from MACEDONIA, Arben Jasari. The other one skips class a lot and so I didn't had the chance to remember his name and where he's from. Rahime and I are the oldest in the group. Yesterday we had our second exam and I got a 30/30. I also got a 30 in our first exam. The youngsters were amazed.Haha. Although I think that the exams were relatively easy, I'll admit that I'm not as good as the rest, except for Rahime, in speaking German. Way to go for me.

So there, Deutshckurs is the only thing that's keeping me busy. I'm still waiting for some things, hopefully more interesting things, to come along the way.

Snow, snow, (delete: go away), come again another day

We're off to Tante Silvia Mondel, my parents' employer. My new pair of boots...ready to run! Didn't really expect that it'd snow today. You can really see the "drops" of snow smack into our car's glass windows. When a drop reaches a surface, it looks like a pinch of crashed ice. And when these drops accumulate, now that's snow time! Too bad, I left my cam at home. Technically, this is not my first time to experience snowfall. The first one, we had to go up to the mountains during spring time.

Tante Silvia gave me a necklace she got from Peru. It's made of seeds -- all "natur". I've got something for keeps. :)


Hope to see the snow again in the next few days!


.Raph.

Continuing my first week in Vienna

23-Jan, Friday
Oh, after all, the reason for my wardrobe shopping yesterday was today's walk to Vienna University of Technology (Technische University, TU: read as "te-u"). Pseudo-scientist that I am, I insisted on going to the university on my own to experiment on my yet another adventure. Subtly worried, my brother suggested that I should just take the U-bahn (in Philippine context: MRT). Still, I didn't waver. So I went straight ahead, just as he instructed me. He told me it's on the right side of the road and when I see cars coming from different directions (maybe an intersection) I must be in close proximity already. Upon seeing vehicles from different directions, I looked around but didn't see any sign of TU. And so I turned right, the nearest direction I could see. Alas! Across the street, I saw it! Only to find out that the Institute of Chemistry is in another building. I got to ask the desk officer and he wrote me the address. Guess what? I was fortunate enough to interpret his directions accurately. He can hardly speak English, that's why. In about 4 minutes I'm walking through the door of the building I'm looking for. Hooray! And then I asked for that particular department I'm looking for. Again, damn language barriers! But I got the message, nonetheless. The desk officer answered me in 6 words -- "stairs", "left", "automatic door", "4th floor". Yes, sir, thanks a lot. To be fair, it was clear enough. All I had to do was to follow the exact words he mentioned and voila! I'm on the right track. Who would have thought that I'd meet yet another obstacle? The door won't open. It says "ziehen", which I know means "pull". But the strength of my arms doesn't work at all so I figured I must be doing the wrong thing. So there I was looking around somewhere for some clues. I found one. I found a switch, but I can't understand the words written on top. I had to ask my brother for it. He told me to press the switch and open the door simultaneously, which, by the way, I can't do at all. Maybe because my arms are quite short. Have I mentioned that there are 3 swithces in there? Left with no choice, I pressed all the switches! Yes! Someone opened the door for me!! Well, thank you, Ma'am. What's the catch? Here's the catch, the person I'm looking for is on a business trip and the lady told me to just come back next week. Great. What can I say? 'Twas another adventure for me. Then, I walked home.

24-Jan, Saturday
Woke up early. Dad tagged me along in his sofa shopping. We went to three big stores to look for one that fits in our place because almost everything seems to be too big. When at last we found one, it had to be picked up in the afternoon. Evening came and the sofa arrived. By any chance, did we ever remember to measure the dimensions of our cute little door? Because how else is that sofa gonna enter our place if not thorugh the main door? Nobody cared to think of that beforehand. We're all left dumbfounded. To return or not to return, that is the question. But one of us (can't remember who) suggested that we open the sofa and see if we can unscrew some parts of it to make it pass through the door. After about an hour of trying to unscrew things, everyone seemed hopeless. But after I left the "crime" scene, minutes later, they found a way to unscrew it. Yey! The rest is history. The sofa was put in its rightful place...


...but the bedroom looked awful.


Seems like this would be a never-ending makeover for our home. Enjoy!


.Raph.