Best Trip Ever--Day Three

Around Town
We have a lot of pictures from this trip of Jon (posing because I am making him be in ANOTHER picture) and self portrait shots. This is the downside of traveling with only two people. (Especially when one of those two is obsessed with taking pictures.)
In the morning we started at the law school to finish up some business I had there. Then we walked passed the main Vienna University building, the Votiv Kirche and Rathaus again and then through the Volksgarten (people's garden.)

Museums
We visited the Natural History Museum (the art history museum was closed that day, so we had to miss it.) It was interesting and we had a good time goofing around with all the "stuffed animals." We also saw a Picasso exhibit at the Albertina museum and had picnic in the Burggarten.

Butterfly Reserve
Next to the Burggarten is a butterfly reserve. It was small, but beautiful and the butterflies loved Jon. It is basically an atrium with walkways, a waterfall and plants. The butterflies are free and flying all over.

Reisenrad
That night we took a ride on Vienna's famous Reisenrad. It was one of the earliest Ferris wheels to be built (1897) for Emperor Franz Josef. The wheel is about 200 feet in diameter. It originally had 30 gondolas, but it was damaged by fire in WWII and only 15 were replaced. It is a slow ride, but a great way to get a view of the city...

Best Trip Ever--Day Two

Today we moved to the Pension Shermin, near Karlskirche. It was nice to be in an area of town that I was more familiar with.
Karlskirche--St. Charles Church
This was one of my favorite spots when I lived here. It was a nice quiet place to sit and study or read. The church always stays cool, so with little AC in the summers, it was a nice break from the heat. When Jon and I went in, I was disappointed at first because they were restoring the inside of the church. It made it hard to really see the architecture and decor. However, because of the restoration we were able to ride an elevator (and then climb some stairs) to the top of the dom. It was really cool and gave a great view of the city. it was fun to see the ceiling of the church up close. The church is decorated in Baroque style, so it is very elaborate and dramatic. Many of the architectural features that I had thought stood out from the ceiling, I realized were just painted on once we could get close to them. It was amazing. With the restoration, they had a small museum exhibit. I really liked this unique painting of Mary's mother teaching her to read. It was a subject matter I had never seen before.
Outside the church in the courtyard, the United Buddy Bears were on display. This is an exhibit sponsored by the United nations. There are 125 bears that have been painted to represent countries in the United Nations. They are touring the world and are a project to promote tolerance, peace and international understanding. Jon and I took pictures with the Guatemalan Bear and the Qatari Bear.

Kartnerstrasse and Stephensdom

This is the pedestrian area of Vienna and the church at the center of the city--St. Stephen's Cathedral. It is a great place to shop or just to sit and people watch. I introduced Jon to wurst stands for the first time. It was love at first sight. He had to get a hot dog or sausage everywhere we went. Kartnerstrasse is also full of Italian gelato carts. I think Vienna has more gelato per capita than anywhere outside Italy. I was happy because I was able to get Almuddler again. (Almduddler is my favorite soda. It is hard to find outside Austria and tastes kind of like apple beer or gingerale.)

Amerika Institut and Staatsoper

After lunch we walked around and found my old school--The Austro-American Institute of Education (Operngasse 4). It was really bizarre being there. I felt like I had been reincarnated and was visiting a past life. It was really fun to see it though and to show Jon where I use to get a pastry in the morning or a wurst for lunch in between classes. My old school is right across the street from the state opera house. The Staatsoper is one of my favorite buildings in Vienna. I love the architecture.

Musikverein

You can't go to Vienna without going to some sort of classical music performance. We decided to see a piano and violin performance at the Musikverien. The Musikverein first opened in 1870 and is one of the three best concert halls in the world. The building has amazing acoustics. It is also the home to the Vienna Philharmonic. The concert we saw was really good. The violinist was the best. He was really entertaining to watch. We decided he thought he was a rock star--he could head-bang with the best of them. His hair kept getting caught in the bow. Jon leaned over to me during the concert and said, "Do you think he knows he isn't Bon Jovi?" The Musickverein is just across the street from Karlskirche, so we tried to take a night shot of the church. Not bad for not having a tripod.

Best Trip Ever--Day One

We started our trip in Vienna. This first night we were able to stay at the conference hotel--The Hotel Regina. Our room had a great view of the Votiv Kirche.

Jon arrived in the morning and my conference was done by lunch. We went to dinner with the Viennese hosts of the conference. After dinner we walked around to enjoy the city at night--but it started to rain so we only got so far. This picture is of the Rathaus--the City Hall. They often have events in the courtyard in front. When I lived here we use to come to see concerts here in the summer. The week Jon and I were there, they had a small circus.

If I were to die and come back as a country…

…It would definitely be Austria. Hands down. No contest. Vienna, Salzburg, Halstatt, Melk, the Salzkammergut—I will take it all. This is still my absolute favorite place on earth. I haven’t been everywhere, but I can’t imagine loving anyplace any more. If I didn’t have family or friends back home, this is where you would find me living out my life. I think this trip was my favorite ever because I had my two loves—Austria and Jon. On every other trip I have taken, one or the other was missing. Even though I got sick, I still had the greatest time. I think Jon got pretty sick of me starting the first day because I kept saying over and over “I love this place. I love this place. I LOVE THIS PLACE!” I took 2000 pictures in 10 days! I don’t know what I did before I went digital. Jon said he thinks that Chinese tourists take half the pictures in the world and that I take the other half. :) He is probably right.

Since I am catching up on my blog after the fact, I am just going to post the places we went with a few pictures. We can tell stories some other time.

Again… Best trip ever.

International Colloquium—Vienna

On October 6-7 I helped organize an international colloquium in Vienna, Austria. This was one of a series of conferences I have helped plan this year, but this is the first that I actually went to. The topic of the colloquium was “Developments in Marriage and Marital Law in Central and Eastern Europe: Reports, Prospects and Analysis.” It was held at the Law School at the University of Vienna. The conference involved about 35 scholars from 13 different countries.

Jon flew in for the last day of the conference so that we could tour Austria after it ended. I was really happy to be back. I lived in Vienna for 4 months during college on a German study abroad program. It has been seven years since I was there and it feels like a completely different lifetime. I loved being back and being able to share it with Jon.

This is a view of Vienna from the top floor of the Law School--where the conference was held.

Charly's first swim

Today Jon took Charly in the pool for her first swim. She was a pretty good swimmer, but I don't think she liked being wet.

Looking tough AND symmetrical

There are some things in every culture that seem totally bizarre to those on the outside, but totally normal once you are familiar the history, the people and their lifestyle. However, there are some things that are just strange or silly no matter who you are. This is one of those things.

H2 and H3 Hummers are very popular here and are great for being a tough guy cruising around town or going driving across the sand dunes. Now, for a small fee, you can have the best of both worlds. There are auto shops that will spray mud on your car so that you look like you have been 4-wheeling on the weekend. The best part is it is applied totally symmetrically and cleanly over the wheel-well only. I can’t figure out who thinks this is a good idea or is fooling anyone.

Happy 27th!

For Jon's birthday we went to dinner with friends at our favorite Japanese restaurant. Jon loves it because it has a really good hibachi grill, but I am also luring him over to the dark-side of sushi addiction. Here are some pictures at our house afterwards. Can you tell Jon is excited to play games with me?! Charly loved it and only tried to eat a few of the presents. Jon was surprised and excited to have some presents sent from home. His big gift was his own buoyancy compensator for scuba diving.

Happy Birthday also to Kara Newman. Happy 28th!

A Mutt, through and through

On September 11 we got a puppy. We have been talking about getting a dog for a long time (Jon really wanted one), but the situation has never been right. I got an email at work from someone who had rescued a litter of puppies from a construction site next to her house. They were too cute not to bring one home. Our puppy’s name is Charly. Her mom is a Saluki mix—which is the most common kind of dog here. Purebred Saluki’s are like greyhounds, but most of the mixes are not that tall and skinny. We don’t know what Charly’s dad was, but the litter looks so different, we wonder if there were more than one father for the litter. Charly is definitely a mutt, but she is very cute.

This first set of pictures was taken by the lady who rescued the pups when they were about 5 weeks old.

Here are a few pictures I took of Charly once we got her home. In these pictures she is 7-8 weeks old.

Emily's first dive in the ocean

This weekend we went scuba diving on Saturday and Sunday. (The work week is usually Sunday through Thursday, but we had Sunday off because it is the National Holiday.) Jon has been diving with the club for a while, but I just finished my classes and pool sessions, so this was my first dive in the ocean. It was so much fun. I had a great time. I liked diving in the ocean MUCH better than the pool. It is a bit bizarre getting use to breathing underwater, but it is really cool too. We dove from the beach at a sight the club calls Old Club Reef. There is a manmade reef of old cars, busses, tires, and other random metal junk. El Nino wiped out most of the choral here, but it is starting to grow back. We saw angel fish and bat fish (see pictures) and a bunch of other fish I don’t know the names of. I held a sea urchin in my hand. I don’t particularly care for sea water in my eyes and mouth, but it wasn’t too bad overall. I am definately ready to do it again.

Qatar's Independence Day

Since September 3 is Qatar’s Independence day, I thought this would be a good time to share a little bit about the history and formation of Qatar as a country (Thank you to Wikipedia):

Qatar forms one of the newer emirates in the Arabian Peninsula. After domination by Persians for thousands of years and more recently by the Ottoman Turks, and finally by the British, Qatar became an independent state on September 3, 1971.

The British initially sought out Qatar and the Persian Gulf as an intermediary vantage point en route to their colonial interests in India, although the discovery of oil and other hydrocarbons in the early twentieth century would re-invigorate their interest. During the nineteenth century, the time of Britain’s formative ventures into the region, the Al Khalifa clan reigned over the Northern Qatari peninsula from the nearby island of Bahrain to the west. Although Qatar had the legal status of a dependency, resentment festered against the Bahraini Al Khalifas along the eastern seaboard of the Qatari peninsula. In 1867 the Al Khalifas launched a successful effort to quash the Qatari rebels sending a massive naval force to Wakrah. However, the Bahraini aggression was in violation on the 1820 Anglo-Bahraini Treaty. The diplomatic response of the British to this violation set into motion the political forces that would eventuate in the founding of the state of Qatar. In addition to censuring Bahrain for its breach of agreement, the British Protectorate asked to negotiate with a representative from Qatar. The request carried with it a tacit recognition of Qatar’s status as distinct from Bahrain. The Qataris chose as their negotiator the respected entrepreneur and long-time resident of Doha, Muhammed bin Thani. His clan, the Al Thanis, had taken relatively little part in Persian Gulf politics, but the diplomatic foray ensured their participation in the movement towards independence and their dominion as the future ruling family, a dynasty that continues to this day. The results of the negotiations left Qatar with a new-found sense of political selfhood, although it did not gain official standing as a British protectorate until 1916.

When Britain officially announced in 1968 that it would disengage politically, though not economically, from the Persian Gulf in three years' time, Qatar joined Bahrain and seven other Trucial States in a federation. Regional disputes however, quickly compelled Qatar to resign and declare independence from the coalition that would evolve into the seven-imarat United Arab Emirates. Thus 1971 marked the inauguration of Qatar as an independent sovereign state.

Since 1995, Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani has ruled Qatar: he seized control of the country from his father Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani while the latter vacationed in Switzerland. Under Emir Hamad, Qatar has experienced a notable amount of sociopolitical liberalization, including the enfranchisement of women, a new constitution, and the launch of Al Jazeera, the controversial Arabic language satellite television news channel. Qatar ranks as the 11th richest country in the world per capita.