First some work, then the month of parties

I've been putting off writing this blog as I was waiting to get photos from people, but who knows when that will happen, so might as well start now before I forget everything.

Wiener Neustadt Civitas Nova
As most of you already know I work in the city of Wiener Neustadt in the light industry park known as Civitas Nova. Last December I began bringing my camera in the hope of getting some cool winter photos. The one below shows a platform of the Wiener Neustadt train station where we switch trains every morning to board the smaller regional train that takes us the 3 minutes to Civitas Nova. The train to the left is a double-decker "Weasel" train that I love but normally never get to take. The train to the right is an old model regional train; the new ones are more streamlined and flashy than the space shuttle.
ÖBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen) is the Austrian equivalent of Via Canada. Above the locomotive you can see a part of the pole connecting the train to the electrical wires over the tracks. These wires crisscross all of Europe. Trans-continental travel with zero emissions, gotta love it.
From the ghetto Civitas Nova platform we walk through a field to work. The field used was once covered with factories that produced engines, parts, and whole fighter planes during WWII. At one point Wiener Neustadt had the original Daimler factory and was the largest producer of fighter planes in Austria. All of these factories were either bombed, burnt, or abandoned after the war and subsequently torn down. The only sign which remains is the solid reinforced concrete bomb shelter sticking out of the ground. The tunnel leading to the underground shelter is now filled in with gravel, making me wonder what's still down there. Was it hurriedly filled in to hide secrets or left open for decades, looted, and only filled in when it became a drug den for teenagers?
Directly across from the bomb shelter is our building. There you can see Cora and Stefan walking ahead through the "snow". That is the most snow I've seen yet, and you can still see the dirt through it. Also, ever since I've returned I haven't seen a single flake of snow. The average daily temperatures are around 10 degrees!
From our building (but not my office) you can see the Schneeberg (Snow Mountain); it is the most easterly Alp with a summit above 2000m. I took the photo below from the train platform while waiting for the train home last week after work.
BOKU Ball
The few weeks between new Years and Shrove Tuesday (Carnival) are the ball season here in Austria, with apparently over 300 different balls in Vienna alone. On Thursday January 17th Cora and I went to the BOKU Ball. BOKU (Universität für Bodenkultur, The University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences) hosts a ball every year in a wing of the Hofburg palace. The unique twist of this ball is that many people come dressed in traditional clothing, as you can see by FJ's lederhosen and Cora's borrowed dirndl.
Before going to the party we went to an IAESTE Vienna member's apartment to meet up with his friends, and then we all went together. At the party I managed to cut myself while trying to open a beer bottle with a rolled up paper bag (it did work at first, but the more we used it the more ripped and damp the bag got, until it failed catastrophically, resulting in me bleeding all over). Thankfully I got it cleaned up before it stained my shirt, but I looked very classy arriving at the palace with a big red sore on the side of my hand...

The main dance floor was in one of the large ballrooms with soaring ceilings covered in gold leaf, murals, marble, and crystal. There was an orchestra playing waltzes, polkas, tangos, and other traditional songs. I didn't stay here long because it was very crowded and I didn't know any of the dances.
In some of the other rooms there were bands playing other types of music. This room was retro music. I think they need a few more chandeliers.
We ended up spending most of our time in the discothèque in the basement (which is where they play modern dance music, not Disco). Also, as it was a Thursday, we left fairly early (~1:30am) so that we could actually get to work the next morning. It was fun for my first ball, but little did I know it was only a warm-up for the Bonbon Ball on the following Friday.

Aleksandra's Party
The day after the ball one of my coworkers who lives in Wiener Neustadt had a housewarming party which she had been promising since she moved in November. It was a lot of fun, and it really showed us what we're missing out on by living in Vienna, space! Her apartment, which she shares with her Austrian boyfriend, is huge, and her rent is only a few Euros more than what I pay for my jail cell of a room. We were having so much fun that we lost track of time, only realising at 11:10 that the last train back to Vienna was leaving in 20min. We said our goodbyes, grabbed our coats and ran through the narrow medieval streets of Wiener Neustadt to the train station, just catching the train on time. The 7 of us crammed into a 6 person compartment and had a great ride back to Vienna.

Opera Ball
The 31st of January was the Vienna Opera Ball, the highlight of the annual social calendar in Vienna. I obviously didn't go, because it is outrageously expensive, but I thought I'd mention it. They build a set on stage that perfectly mirrors the auditorium, where the floor has been raised to be flush with the stage. This year one of the celebrities there was Teri Hatcher from Desperate Housewives. She was interviewed for Austrian television, and you can watch it on youtube here. There is also another video which shows more of the ball here. This is worth watching just to see how terrified the debutantes and their dates look, but the ballet tribute to Euro Cup 2008 is also pretty cool. Maybe someday when I have a few thousand Euros burning a hole in my pocket I'll come back for the Opera Ball.

Bonbon Ball
On Friday the 1st of February, the day after the Opera Ball, Cora and I went to the Bonbon ball with two friends Caren and Robert. Cora and I took the subway (feeling slightly out of place) and met them at their apartment where we had some wine and then took a cab to the Konzerthaus where the ball was being held.

The Bonbon ball is run by the chocolate and candy companies in Vienna. So, when we arrived we were given cloth bags to fill with candy throughout the night. All through the hallways there were people handing out samples of chocolate, jelly beans, and other things. Off to a good start!
When we first walked into the main ballroom we caught the end of the debutante entrance, which you can see a bit of below. All the girls in white dresses are the debutantes. I got a video of them all waltzing together, but I'm having trouble with youtube, so you might have to see it later.
The bundles of balloons and Jelly Belly mascots hanging from the ceiling all had vouchers attached to them for large bags of assorted candy, cookies, and chocolate. Every 30 minutes one bundle would drop. We would plan to be there every time, showing up 5 minutes before and waltzing into the centre. Maybe it was the fact that neither Cora or I know how to waltz, or maybe it was because everyone was trying to get to the center to be right under the balloons, but waltzing felt more like bumper cars than some classy dance. I think we were just so bad that we couldn't keep up with the flow. When the balloons finally fell everyone would rush to grab the vouchers, which normally fell off as the balloons fell from the ceiling.
Smart people, like Robert, went for the vouchers; we went for the empty balloons.One important part of the ball is the Miss Bonbon competition. The winner of the competition is placed on this bright pink scale and given her weight in candy. This year she was given Manner cookies, which are very light wafer cookies. I wasn't there when the winner was weighed, but even a toothpick of a girl would need a whole lot of wafer cookies to balance out. Cora and Caren were saying that the only reason they give them their weight in candy is to ensure that they never win again.
Down in the discothèque they were playing a lot of modern or fun retro music, so that's where we spent most of our time.
At one point Cora and Caren, still distraught over not catching a single balloon or inflatable Jelly Belly saw a few added to a light stand as decoration, stole them, and proceeded to corrupt them.
One of the guests of honour at the ball was one of the Kings of Ghana. He opened the Miss Bonbon competition, and signed autographs for 30min during the ball. I figured if I had a chance to meet a King and get his autograph, why not? One funny thing is that he knew very little German, so when I talked to him in English we actually had a little conversation. I told him I was from Canada and had a friend from Ghana, and he asked me what I was doing living in Vienna. One more random thing to add to my list of life experiences.
On the way out of the ball we passed the 'throne' where the king had been a few hours before. So, we took the opportunity to make some classy photos.

Showing the leopard some love.

Faschings Feier
Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday, the last day of Carnival before Faschings (Lent) begins. Apparently it is a big thing in Austria, with people dressing up in costumes (even more so than Halloween) and parties (Faschings Feier). At lunch there was a party paid for by ECHEM. It was a normal work party with trays of cold cuts, cheese, vegetables, and juice. This party was missing the cases of sparkling wine which normally accompany parties like this, but instead they had boxes and boxes of Krapfen, the Austrian word for the doughnuts called "Berliners" in German German (Ich bin ein Berliner). They replace the stacks of pancakes synonymous with Shrove Tuesday in North America.

After work a group of us went to another Faschingsfeier hosted by a coworker in Wiener Neustadt named Beate. The cool thing was that Beate and her husband run a 3 screen movie theatre, and that's where she had the party. Since it is closed on Tuesdays we had the whole place to ourselves. We ate, drank, and played Foosball which I only then realized is an English bastardization of the German word for soccer, Fußball. It was lots of fun.


I really need to get back into the swing of writing posts at least once a week, because these monster posts take forever to write. Nothing much planned between now and the 22nd when Ali arrives and we leave for Venice, Italy. Well, except for my birthday, but as it's a Sunday I think we'll just go out for Chinese or Japanese food and finish off the day at an Irish pub. On the subject of my birthday, I received a package from my friend Megan on Monday. There were a few Queen's newspapers which have been fun to read, a gift (which I still haven't opened - now that's self control), and a classic-Megan birthday DVD. The DVD shows a bunch of my friends from Kingston, and even a few from Brockville wishing me a happy birthday. There are also some funny special features. It made my day.