And now it's time for a quick update on "What's Ryan Been Reading??"

March GQ:

Fun statistic: For those of you who remember my GQ-reading-ritual, this month I tore out 78 two sided advertisements, or 156 total ads. That is from a 322 page magazine. 48% of my magazine is ADVERTISEMENTS. Ridiculous. But I love it anyway... it's still a great magazine AND I like the independence from consumerism I feel when I get a new edition and sit down to tear out all those pages.

Things you might like: If you want me to make copies of any of this, and send it to you, just let me know...

- Article on Hilary loosing Iowa

- Article on Mitt Romney's campaign... kind of irrelevant now, unless he ends up as VP on the ticket.

- FASCINATING article about nuclear power and Three Mile Island. Really, really interesting. See quotes below...

QUOTES:

"Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances." - Thomas Jefferson p. 188

On critics of her new rock collaboration, Actress Zooey Deschanel "I'm not sure who these 'some people' are, but they sound petty. I don't think I'm very interested in them." (I love that)

"...France, which remains one of the last European nations to embrace nuclear power and currently produces nearly 80 percent of it's total electricity that way. (Providing France, incidentally, with the cleanest air in Europe, the lowest electrical costs, and the greatest percentage of electrical independence, not to mention $4 billion a year in electrical exports.)" - Nuclear power article p. 311

Now from "The Audacity of Hope" - pages 63-69 Obama writes about how impossible it seems for politicians to authentically talk about, and function with, values in general.

"I often wonder what makes it so difficult for politicians to talk about values in ways that don't appear calculated or phony (p. 63)..." He points to Empathy as a major factor in whether or not someone possesses "...the quality of authenticity, of being who you say you are, of possessing a truthfulness that goes beyond words... [Empathy] is the heart of my moral code, and it is how I understand the Golden Rule - not simply a call to sympathy or charity, but as something more demanding, a call to stand in somebody else's shoes and see through their eyes." (p.66)

PLEASE READ THIS, I'm going to take the time to type it, soooo...

"It's not a question we ask ourselves enough, I think; as a country, we seem to be suffering from an empathy deficit. We wouldn't tolerate schools that don't teach, that are chronically underfunded and understaffed and under-inspired, if we thought that the children in them were like our children. It's hard to imagine the CEO of a company giving himself a multimillion dollar bonus while cutting health-care coverage for his workers if he thought they were in some sense his equals. And it's safe to assume that those in power would think longer and harder about launching a war if they envisioned their own sons and daughters in harms way.

I believe a stronger sense of empathy would tilt the balance of our current politics in favor of those people who are struggling in this society. After all, if they are like us, then their struggles are our own. If we fail to help, we diminish ourselves.

But that does not mean that those who are struggling - or those of us who claim to speak for those who are struggling - are thereby freed from trying to understand the perspectives of those who are better off. Black leaders need to appreciate the legitimate fears that may cause some whites to resist affirmative action. Union representatives can't afford not to understand the competitive pressures their employers may be under. I am obligated to try and see the world through George Bush's eyes, no matter how much I may disagree with him. That's what empathy does - it calls us all to task, the conservative and the liberal, the powerful and the powerless, the oppressed and the oppressor. We are all shaken out of our complacency. We are all forced beyond our limited vision."

SO, does he put this into practice?

Democratic Debate in Ohio

The debate opened with Brian Williams presenting both a clip of Hilary giving an angry press conference about a Health Care mailing Obama did, and a photograph that was leaked on the internet of Obama in native garb from a country he was visiting.  The blog site said that the photo came from Hilary’s camp.  It was a very strong opening opportunity for conflict/a fight between the candidates.  Hilary responded about the mailing and talked about health care, then Williams asked about the photo.

Brian Williams to Senator Clinton: “…Can you say, unequivocally, that it did not (come from your camp)?”

Sen. Clinton: “Well, so far as I know it did not.  And I certainly know nothing about it, and have made it clear that that’s not the kind of behavior that I condone or expect from the people who work in my campaign…”

Brian Williams: “Senator Obama, your response.”

Sen. Obama: “Well, first of all, I take Senator Clinton at her word.  That she knew nothing about the photos.  So I think that’s something we can set aside.  I do want to focus on the issue of health care, because Senator Clinton has suggested that the flier that we put out, that the mailing we put out, was inaccurate.  Now keep in mind that I’ve consistently said that I think Senator Clinton’s got a good health care plan.  I think I have a good healthcare plan.  I think mine is better.  But I’ve said that 95% of our healthcare plan is similar.  I have endured, over the course of this campaign, repeated negative mail from Senator Clinton, in Iowa, in Nevada, and other places, suggesting that I want to leave 15 million people out.  According to Senator Clinton, that is accurate.  I dispute it, and I think it is inaccurate.  On the other hand, I don’t fault Senator Clinton for wanting to point out what she thinks is an advantage to her plan.”

I don't know a ton about politics, but in the last 4 months I've amassed more interest in the changing political landscape than all of my lifetime's previous inklings of interest combined.

This week, after McCain's win in Wisconsin, he began his combat on Sen Obama by saying "I will work hard to make sure Americans aren't deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change."

While I've been open about my support for Sen. Obama, I HAVE found myself wondering about the positives and negatives of a general call for Change. On the one hand, Americans at large aren't inclined to listening to long, detailed, explicit diatribes on how to create change. We like sound bites, slogans, and quippy comebacks. So anyone playing in this ball field, is subject to some of those rules in order to get people on their team. A candidate sort of HAS to be general in order publicize. They all do it: Clinton is "Help make history" - a clear play on her draw as a feminist. McCain is boiled down to war-hero and experience. Huckabee is the pastor - a favorite for the Christian religious right.

But when you have to operate with generalities, you open yourself up to this type of criticism that McCain brings forth about Obama: that you're being too general. And if it were any other year, I probably would have heard that quote and found myself agreeing to some small degree; all I see on the news is clip after clip of Obama calling for change. And that's because, if you're an intern at a news office, and you're clipping portions of footage of a rally for the 5 o'clock news, you pick the byte that sums it up...

SO, Is the call for change "empty"? Is it, as that quote implies, just an idea that people are getting all worked up over, without any substance?

In order to answer that for myself, I've been reading the Audacity of Hope. And here are some things I've discovered (although I'm not finished with the book yet):

1.) This call for change is extremely well researched and thought-out. Obama begins the book with a historical look at where the country has gone politically in the last 50 years - especially after Reagan - and the way that this has resulted in polarized partisanship. He very clearly looks back at how our country has changed and uses that as a backdrop for the awareness of how change could happen.

2.) The call for change is a call for the country at large - not one targeted at the Republicans. He sees the errors in the political machine go big... that we're all involved in. "In distilled form, though, the explanations of both the right and the left have become mirror images of each other. They are stories of conspiracy, of America being hijacked by an evil cabal. Like all good conspiracy theories, both tales contain just enough truth to satisfy those predisposed to believe in them, without admitting any contradictions that might shake up those assumptions. Their purpose is not to persuade the other side but to keep their bases agitated and assured of the rightness of their respective causes - and lure just enough new adherents to beat the other side into submission."

3.) The call for change is general, because the change HAS TO BE GENERAL. Duh. That seems like such an obvious statement. We've boiled presidential candidates down to a list of policies - or worse - to a list of things we just do or don't like about them (I.e. "I won't vote for someone with the same name as Osama bin laden." yes, I've had someone say that to me). But a President of the world's greatest superpower has to be able to see a larger vision of what COULD BE. And that idea, of a country that is not so divided, would be a change that would dramatically affect every policy we have.

4.) Whether or not the call for Change is empty has been, and will be, proven by the way that Obama responds TO that criticism. HIS criticism of the Republican party is largely based in how it has made the chasm between left and right dramatically wider; because that is how it maintains power. Fundamentalism (not Christian, or even political... just "fundamentalism" in general) is ALWAYS more powerful if it can convince those under it's umbrella to fight harder, listen less, dig in their heels, and oppose at all costs. This is exactly what will happen after the primaries. And the temptation, if Obama is nominated, will be to play by those rules. "Ultimately, though, I believe any attempt by Democrats to pursue a more sharply partisan and ideological strategy misapprehends the moment we're in. I am convinced that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose." To do so would nullify the message. It would be like a pacifist and just-war theorist arguing their cases. If the pacifist grabs his opponent's lapels and starts shouting, in order to make his point, then he has actually proven himself wrong.

Anyway - this blog entry is subject to the worst danger of the blog-o-sphere: that I'm just another bumbling idiot who puts their opinion up on the net like it's a credible source for real information. But this is what I've been thinking about... so here you go. I'll end with a passage I really liked from the 1st chapter of Audacity:

"Maybe the critics are right. Maybe there's no escaping our great political divide, an endless clash of armies, and any attempts to alter the rules of engagement are futile... We paint our faces red or blue and cheer our side and boo their side, and if it takes a late hit or cheap shot to beat the other team, so be it, for winning is all that matters.

But I don't think so. They are out there, I think to myself, those ordinary citizens who have grown up in the midst of all the political and cultural battles, but who have found a way - in their own lives at least - to make peace with their neighbors, and themselves. I imagine the white Southerner who growing up heard his dad talk about niggers this and niggers that but who has struck up a friendship with the black guys at the office and is trying to teach his own son different, who thinks discrimination is wrong but doesn't see why the son of a black doctor should get admitted into law school ahead of his own son. Or the former Black Panther who decided to go into real estate, bought a few buildings in the neighborhood, and is just as tired of the drug dealers in front of those buildings as he is of the bankers who won't give him a loan to expand his business. There's the middle-aged feminist who still mourns her abortion, and the Christian woman who paid for her teenager's abortion, and the millions of waitresses and temp secretaries and nurse's assistants and Wal-Mart associates who hold their breath every single month in the hope that they'll have enough money to support the children that they did bring into the world.

I imagine they are waiting for a politics with the maturity to balance idealism and realism, to distinguish between what can and cannot be compromised, to admit the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point. They don't always understand the arguments between right and left, conservative and liberal, but they recognize the difference between dogma and common sense, responsibility and irresponsibility, between those things that last and those that are fleeting.

They are out there, waiting for Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them."

Fitness Bootcamp (4th week of 6): I never thought I'd like it - but it's one of the coolest things I've done. Sarah and I are up at 6am, to the park with our mats by 6:25 and workout until 7:30am. It's the hardest workout I've had since highschool, but we're all out there together (about a dozen of us), the instructors are awesome, and when you finish you feel so great! It's interesting the way that health perpetuates health. Getting up and working out - instead of making me feel like I can treat my body however I want - makes me want to take care of myself.

I sound like I'm 50. How weird.

And how not-surprising. It isn't the first time.

I think I've given up on finishing Europe. Right toward the end it got boring... that or I just don't like ending things. Probably both - more on my dislike for endings at another time.

Let's talk about my FAVORITE thing: Pete's coffee and a GQ magazine in Larchmont.

So over the last couple of months, I've discovered that I love walking down to Larchmont in the morning to get coffee and read. It has becoming a habit, with a number of quirky rituals, and I'd like to share some of them with you...

This is a phone photo of Larchmont. It is one of the very few non-LA, LA locations... It's a single street, about 2 blocks long, almost entirely pedestrian traffic, great restaurants, shops, a news stand, a stellar wine and cheese shop, and my favorite coffee/reading location.

When purchasing your morning coffee in Larchmont, one has numerous options: Starbucks, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Noah's bagels, Sam's bagles, Botega, and Pete's. Now I love bagles, but I can't eat them on an actor diet. And nothing against Starbucks, but I'm just enough of a trendy brooding artist type, to refuse to be a regular trendy brooding Starbucks customer. Botega's is owned by rude people. And Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf gets direct sunlight... So Pete's is the best choice.

It is on the east side of the street, so in the morning it's always shaded (important for a boy from Colorado who doesn't like too much heat). And there are tables outside - usually full by 9am, but if you get there before that, you shouldn't have a problem. (Or rather, I shouldn't have a problem. I don't want you to go there and take my table.)

I always order a small drip coffee. I'm getting to know the employees - and a person would be hard pressed to find a cooler, more friendly group of people behind any counter in LA. I try to order from Cela or Pete (yep) who are both musicians, and both super awesome. My coffee costs $1.65. I add a splash of non-fat milk, at the counter, and two splendas once I've been seated at a table.

I always listen to my ipod when I drink/read. I guess I'm not as much of a trend breaker as I thought. Right now I'm on a serious Imogen Heap kick. And I usually take two forms of reading material: one I should read, and one I want to. Usually it pairs off something like this: Brothers Karamazov and GQ, or VARIETY and Harry Potter, or LA Times and New Moon (by Stephenie Meyer... my current guilty pleasure, about vampires).

It's worth noting here, my GQ ritual. GQ is a great magazine. It's not perfect, but for my likes and personality, it's a pretty close fit. Culture, fashion, wine, politics, music, etc. Skewed a little more left than I usually go... but whatever. I live in LA. I ALWAYS read each GQ the same way. The first day I get the magazine, I sit down and tear out all the double paged ads. Today there were 19, (19 actual pages, so 38 numbered pages, out of 178 total in the magazine. I don't want to look at that crap) and 3 of those little cardstock inserts that fall out when you flip the pages. Also, I tear out the cologne ads and save them. They go in my sock drawer for obvious reasons. Today there were two... which is a significantly smaller number than normal. I guess after Christmas their sales must go down. This is ALL I do on the first day. I "clean" the magazine.

On the second day I set aside to read, I go through and read all of the short thematic pieces - Usually a page on wine, seasonal fashion, movies coming out, etc. I dog ear anything I want to remember or tear out. Then I spend each subsequent day, until I'm finished with the magazine, reading 1-2 editorials per sitting. These I also dog ear in case I want to reference Huckabee's interview with friends or a piece on Kanye or a story about a PTSD Vietnam Vet (below). Then I patiently wait for the next magazine to come.

One of the coolest things about this time, is that it makes me significantly more productive throughout the rest of the day. Any time I've lost by sitting and reading, I make up quickly because on these days I'm more excited and energized.

When I finish this edition of GQ, I'll post my favorite parts. And if anyone wants copies, I'll post em :)

Day 12

Friday, November 2nd, 2007

Ljubljana, Lake Bled, and Celje - Slovenia

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Got up on Friday morning and Brooke, Sarah and I headed north about 40 minutes to Lake Bled. It is a quaint little town that sits at the base of the Alps, with a lake, a castle on a cliff overlooking the lake, and a church out on an island - what more could you ask for? In the summer the lake is warm enough to swim in - but we just went for a long walk around.

Bled Castle on the cliff...

















Living in California for 2 years now, I've started to miss the seasons. So you can understand why I'd be excited about the fall leaves and colors :)

Old house, again the castle in the background...

That evening we drove back down to Ljubljana and picked up Jonny and continued on to another city about 1.5 hours away called Celje (sell-yay - Brooke, did I spell that correctly?). The missionaries in that area had started a Summer English Camp to teach Slovene teens English. They had a follow-up event that coincided with the Holiday; a Chestnut Picnic

Now, seeing as how Sarah and I had never eaten an actual chestnut, we were a bit unclear on what a picnic of said chestnuts entails. Basically, it is like a pizza party, with chips and drinks, but instead of pizza as the main entrée, you roast a crapload of chestnuts until their soft inside - kind of the consistency of a baked potato.

(Sarah with chestnuts)

They trained us well and we ate our fill.


















(Ryan with chestnuts)

Roasted chestnuts get charred black ash on the outside - this leads to blackened fingers - that leads to the chestnut picnic version of a food fight where you smear one another's faces with said ash.






(Brooke with chestnuts...)
We also played some English games/mixers. We had paper taped on our backs and as we'd walk around and have discussions (in English, thankfully) we would write encouraging adjectives about the person on their back. The kids pretty quickly learned that Sarah and I are actors in Hollywood... which factored into most of the conversations.








(Jonny... with chestnuts)

After about 30 minutes, we placed all the paper into a pile and read the list of adjectives aloud, then tried to guess who's paper it was. When mine came up it said "Barely famous" at the top and everyone looked straight at Sarah and I and started laughing! Jonny was leading the group and said, "Ok, so let's have a quick discussion about what the word 'barely' technically means."

I saved that paper. Regardless of whether or not I ever am famous, it will be a good reminder to stay grounded. After all... isn't everyone pretty much "barely famous"?

Will someone from OKC tell James Sturgis that I found his younger, slovene brother? I might have creeped this kid out because I kept taking photos of him and telling Sarah "He looks SO much like James."










Afterwards the 4 of us went to get Kebap - which is not a Turkish Pop Group as Sarah and I guessed, but rather a gyro type late-night chicken sandwich/pita thing. SUPER good. Especially when you've had nothing but chestnuts all night.


Also, Brooke's hubcaps got stolen. A bummer of an ending to an otherwise cool evening. But more on that tomorrow...

Thursday, November 1st, 2007 - Day 1 in Ljubljana, Slovenia

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Ok, time to get back into this. Today is going to be quick, some photos from our first day in Slo with Brooke.

Brooke lives with another Missionary named Hailey in an apartment inside Ljubljana (Loo - blee - ahna, the capital of Slovenia, the northern-most country of former Yugoslavia: here's a good map http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/images/europe/slovenia.jpg). Sarah stayed with the girls, and I stayed with Daniel Psaute who is the Coordinator of Nazarene missions in Slovenia, and Johnny - another missionary and Brooke's new fiance - across town.







Got up that morning and Brooke, Sarah, and I walked into the town square to head up to the castle. They were repaving the square; on the hill behind these workers you can see the castle up at the very top. The bridge just to the right of that white tent is the bridge you see in this photo below, which I took back in 2005.

From the castle we had a great view of Ljubljana and the surrounding countryside.

More of Ljubljana...

That afternoon/evening we went outside of the city to take some engagement photos of Johnny and Brooke. Beautiful, beautiful country. Also, because it was All Saints Day, every church was ringing the bells all day... and there were little churches EVERYWHERE. At first, cool. After 2,723 rings, shouting at each other above the noise... kind of annoying.

The culture in Slovenia (and most of Eastern Europe from what we saw) does not really celebrate Halloween much. But during All Saints, there are a number of really cool traditions we were able to see. One is eating copious amounts of roasted chestnuts... more on that later. Another is the lighting of these candles for deceased family members. Each candle is placed inside a red plastic vase and set around the chapel in a cemetery (like this photo) or at the actual grave (see below).

One problem with this tradition is that the candle eventually melts the plastic enough for it to touch the flame, then it catches on fire. They place lots of little water pots around so you can douse a vase if it catches on fire.... but the whole place smells like burning plastic.

I will probably get cancer from all those dioxins. But hey! That's what traveling is all about........ crazy Slovene dioxins.

More tomorrow!

Rainy day blogs, pensiveness, the "Then" and the Nazis

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This blogging thing is getting into my blood. It may finally be the way to get Ryan Dobson to write consistently. I wonder why that is? Maybe because I feel like it's journaling, but into a conversation. The assumption being that people are reading this... and you know what they say about assuming...

I love rain - and the typical absence of it in SoCal intensifies that feeling. I was walking back from coffee this morning, listening to Gold from the "Once" soundtrack (P.S. - a GREAT song to listen to if you're walking through the rain, holding a warm cup of coffee and wearing a corduroy sportcoat), wondering, "What is it that about rain that I like so much?"

I think it's like Creation being contemplative. It's nature way of walking into a little hole-in-the-wall gallery, sipping bordeaux from a nearly bowl-sized glass, and listening to neo-folk music on an acoustic guitar... Rain makes me feel like painting even though I'm not a painter. And all this is achieved by the environment's grey brooding...


That's the context in which Sarah and I drove up on Mauthausen Concentration Camp (Mot-house-en) on Sunday, October 28th, 2007. I'm going to tell that story now and I'm going to ask that you try to emulate my context as well as you can. It may not be raining where you are - but you can imitate what rain does: put on that song, turn off the TV, close the shades. Whatever. I suggest "Home" by Foo Fighters... but you do whatever you need to.

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So, Mauthausen. It was grey and cold and drizzly and exactly how it should be when you go somewhere like that. Mauthausen sits on a green, Austrian, rolling hillside. Because of the twisting two-lane road, you don't see it until you're there; it's grey stone walls looming at the crest of the knoll. The parking lot sits directly in front and was almost empty, as it was the lull in the tourist season. Next to the parking lot, the respectfully minimalistic ticket office was empty as well... we saw neither lines nor other visitors. After receiving our audio guides, we walked toward the main entrance to the camp.


When you visit a place like Mauthausen now, you anticipate a strange mix of imbued reverence and intrinsic touristy-ness; because it is simultaneously a memorial to the Holocaust and a visitor destination. But that day it was as little a sightseeing memorial as possible - it was a ghost town.

In January 1945, the camps, directed from the central office in Mauthausen, contained roughly 85,000 inmates. The death toll remains unknown, although most sources place it between 122,766 and 320,000 for the entire complex. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauthausen-Gusen_concentration_camp)

We walked through the main gate and the camp was truly empty, the way you feel it should be.

I'm not sure how to describe this... I wrote in my journal that day: "I am a person who will try, but will be fundamentally incapable of understanding the Holocaust." But it was like God was trying to help me conceptualize the gravitas of this place. It was cold - you could see your breath and we kept blowing on our hands to keep them warm.

Originally a prison... [Mauthausen was] converted into a Concentration Camp for the prisoners who were not to be rehabilitated: most died in the Camp. Until death, prisoners were used for backbreaking work in the Stone Quarries... (source: http://www.shoaheducation.com/camps/mauthausen.html)

Outside this barrack window, skeletal, forgotten, tortured people stood in the cold rain for hours on end - typically for no reason other than torture. At one point, not long ago, human beings died, outside this window, because of their race or sexuality or political affiliations.

Facing the barracks were the "medical" buildings, housing the gas chamber and crematoriums.

As we walked around the camp and listened to our audio guides, we heard accounts of women being brought into the camp and raped by the SS officers; about prisoners who were stripped, shaved, disinfected, and made to live outside in "quarantine" for weeks; about people lured outside their barracks on the pretence of having their photo taken, only to be lined up and shot.

It kind of seems like I'm being melodramatic now, but with just a little attempt at empathy, the entire experience is overwhelming. You can feel the weight of the place.

After the gas chambers, the audio guide ends by leading you out through the main gate onto the grassy hill outside. As you walk, it tells you about the camp's liberation:

The camps of Mauthausen-Gusen were the last to be liberated during the World War II. On May 5th, 1945, the camp at Mauthausen was approached by soldiers of the 41st Recon Squad of the US 11th Armored Division, 3rd US Army. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauthausen-Gusen_concentration_camp)

(photo from wikipedia - US tanks entering the camp on May 6th, 1945)

As we listened to the account of the camp's liberation, we walked through the gate pictured above and the most amazing thing happened; the clouds cleared and the sun came out. It was the first time we'd seen the sun since we'd arrived in Europe a week earlier. It was also the first time we'd really seen just how beautiful the surrounding Austrian countryside could be.

The photo above is taken just outside that gate, looking out over the stone quarry where prisoners-made-slaves died by the thousands.

Outside the camp, every nation represented by one of their imprisoned citizens has built a memorial to those who perished inside.

Again, I have to be careful to not over-state this... I'm hyper-sensative to the fact that I'm a well fed, very free, white American male... But walking out of that camp - the desolation and depravity and despair that it represents - and into the vibrantly colorful hillside, was a hallmark experience in my life.

It is remarkably easy for us to see these atrocities as "then", which would never happen in the "now." But those were all just normal people - the Nazis: fundamentalists who were willing to put the importance of an ideology above the value of another person... something we see often today. The Prisoners: Jews, Czechs, Homosexuals, Women and outspoken opponents of the Nazi regime who were victimized by a cycle of violence that cycloned out of control.

And you stand there, where those people stood, you realize how possible it is; how not-so-far-away we are from the "Then."

But then, there's also hope. There's also the sun breaking through the clouds. There's also the other side of the gate, looking out on green fields and farms and autumn colors.

They will beat their swords into plowshares

And their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation will not take up sword against nation,

nor will they train for war anymore.

Every man will sit under his own vine

and under his own fig tree,

and no one will make them afraid,

for the LORD Almighty has spoken. (Micah 4:3)

I promised some additional "artsy" photos from Vienna. I'm to tired to type much, so just enjoy these...

early morning from our room.

old time elevator

the market

the market

the market

the market

the market

our bathtub... just kidding. the market.

(but why do I think swimming in those would be fun?)

walking back up to our place.

the opera house

Sunday, October 28th - Wednesday, 31st: Vienna, Austria

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Sunday morning we left Hallstatt and drove to Mauthausen Concentration Camp. That experience is something I'm going to write about as it's own blog entry... And I'm not going to do that now. So I'll skip over it and blog it out of order - for those of you who are Type-A personalities, I'm sorry. Also, these are all fun photos... I'll post some artsy ones of Vienna in a day or so.

So after Mauthausen, we drove down the Autobaun into Vienna. At one point, when it wasn't raining, when Sarah was asleep, when it was downhill and the wind was at my back, I opened up our Volkswagon Golf and got it to 180km/hr. Now I can mark "pedal to the metal on the Autobaun" off my list of things to do before I die(even if it was in a Volkswagon Golf).

We arrived in Vienna that evening and it was raning...

We took the subway into the town square and headed to our housing - a sweet little Austrian lady who rented out rooms in her flat. While she was super, super nice... our room was a narrow, long closet. We had separate twin beds (see one in the bottom right corner of this photo) and the room was so narrow that we couldn't put the beds side by side. Also the place smelled like smoke and old coffee... or maybe if you smoked coffee flavored cigarettes... or like if you made coffee from old cigarette butts...

The next morning we started out doing a tour of the city center via tram. We got off at certain stops that looked interesting, like this park with statues of famous musicians.


There were a couple of little old ladies taking photos in front of this statue before us. When I stood in front of it and posed like Straus, they started laughing so hard we got kind of concerned about them. But then, that happens sometimes when I'm around: my comedy genius blows people's minds... especially old people.



That night we dressed up to go to the opera. The Vienna Opera House sells Standing Room Only tickets for only 3 euros! So we got to go see classical opera in Vienna - how cool!




Come to find out, the opera was really long, and in latin, and we were standing, and some of the people.... smelled.

So this is us, leaving the opera, 30 minutes after it started.




We found our way to an Italian restaurant named Danieli and had better Italian food than we've ever had in Italy.



I don't care what anyone says. It is entirely possible to maintain your coolness while wearing a money belt...as demonstrated in this photo.




On our way home that night, we walked by this high fashion store and found a mannequin that made us laugh. She's the High Society I-drank-too-much-on-my-way-to-the-opera-and-fell-down model. We named her Tami and we spent the rest of the evening coming up with things that drunk Tami would say like, "who put those stairs there?" and "don't judge me!"






The next morning we headed up bright and early - earlier than Tami would be getting up anyhow. This is the old-school elevator in our building.






We walked down to the farmers market and spent some time perusing. They have the most incredible selection of meats, cheeses, and produce I've ever seen.

We bought some of the freshly prepared food and made a picnic... hummus, cheese filled peppers and olives, and falafel.







Then we were on our way to Schonbrunn Palace - the seat of the Habsburg's empire



Staying hot while staying hydrated...












That afternoon, when we arrived back in the city center, we went to Demel - the Tiffany's of chocolate places in Vienna. Fortunately, I like my sacher torte dry, just like I like my humor.





So we found out that the Opera house was having a ballet (instead of an Opera) that night, and decided to go back for tickets again. This is us sitting in line waiting for tickets.

I have a low tolerance for lines.




This is us waiting for the show to start (the stage curtain is behind us). I took of photo of Sarah and then she took one of me and we photoshoped them together...

It was a beautiful show and we stayed for the whole thing! Then we went to bed.








The next day was our last morning in Vienna. We decided to do a little shopping, and we started at an antique book shop. In Europe, the word "Antiques" mean items much older than in the US. We found some awesome books, but none we could afford.







For lunch we treated ourselves to our favorite Austrian food: The street vendor weinerschnitzel. For those of you who like a great dog... this is the dog to end all dogs. They take a perfect bun and puncture it with a warming rod. While they grill your weiner, the bun warms from the inside out. Then they put your condiments inside, slip the meat into it, and grill the whole thing. Just trust me - it tastes really great.








Our friends Johnny and Brooke, who are missionaries in Slovenia, drove up to Vienna and picked us up to bring us down to their hometown: Ljubljana. On the way, we stopped in a small town known for their restaurants and family owned vineyards, and had a great, traditional Austrian meal.





Our last event in Austria - with Brooke and Johnny! We ate family-style, trying a variety of unknown dishes.