a bit more on christmas

This past weekend I day tripped to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. It was quite charming in the evening, especially because of the Christmas markets. I also saw the market at the Rathaus (the local government building) in Vienna. This market is huge and incredibly decorated.

The Rathaus decorated for Advent with the market in the foreground.

Cedric in front of the president's house in Bratislava.

Cedric with some Slovakian money. This currency will be exchanged with the Euro on the first of January.

The little bit of snow we had last week in Salzburg.

Snow on the Festung.

And the latest column: Noisy (former) Yugoslavians and odd expressions

Advent-time in Austria

So I thought I'd make an update since I can't sleep thanks to the super-loud Serbian dance party happening two floors below me. Since Venice, I've been to Berlin, had Thanksgiving, bought the Cardiac Move single and went to a soccer game. Fortunately, Cedric survived a near-death experience at Thanksgiving.

Here are some photos:


Salzburg Red Bulls soccer game


At Media Markt buying the Cardiac Move single


Kathi was still hungry after our gigantic Thanksgiving dinner, so she contemplated eating Cedric.


With some pumpkin pie


At Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin


At the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe


On top of the Reichstag


And here are some links to my latest columns:

Column 11: Venice: Glass, museums and not as costly as you'd think
Column 12: Burgers, fries and World War II history in Berlin
Column 13: Remembering the past, living in the present

more oktober columns and pictures and some from november, too!

Since my last update, Cedric and I made a second trip to Vienna for a Cardiac move concert, visited his gnome relatives in Mirabell Gardens and went to Venice, Italy, where Cedric had a small stay in prison. Check out the photos and read the columns to hear about all of those adventures and more!


In Piazzo San Marco

At one of Venice's many canals

The second night's sunset


In prison in the doge's palace in Venice


The sunset from Murano our first night in Venice


The Cardiac Move kitchen


Gnome buddies!





Column six: Oktoberfest: the first of many adventures

Column seven: Cupcakes, Oktoberfest and other Austrian fun

Column eight: Slow down you crazy child, Vienna is waiting

Column nine: Getting the sniffles in Austria

Column 10: Train rides, rock shows and elections abroad

photos!

So here are some pictures of my recent adventures with Cedric. I'm not sure why they are in reverse order, but nevertheless, here they are.


At Schloss Schoenbrunn in Wien, our final destination on our trip.


At Schloss Belvedere, where the Klimt paintings are.


At the restaurant Centimeter, where we ordered a sword full of meat. Fantastic.


At Neuschwanstein on a beautiful, fall day.

At the Alpensee near the grounds of Neuschwanstein.


On the highest point of the Untersberg.

After getting off the gondola, way above the clouds.
On the Monchsberg, in front of the Dom.

columns and pictures

Finally, I'm getting some pictures and columns up on the blog. The Internet wasn't working the greatest last night, but it's better today!

This first picture is of Cedric on the train when we finally got seats. We are on our way to Salzburg for the first time.

Here we are at Oktoberfest in the Hacker-Festzelt tent.


This is at our second journey to Oktoberfest on Sunday, 28. September. Behind Cedric are the masses of people.


On Monday Cedric and I went for a walk down Hellbrunn Allee and found Frohnburg, the palace that was used for the front of the von Trapp house in "The Sound of Music."


Here is Cedric at Mirabell, with the Festung and gardens behind him. This was after our first big bike ride.


We continued our journey across the river and stopped for another photo.



And here are some column links:

Column three: Packing the essentials; books and snowpants

Column four: Final auf wiedersehens have been said, Austria here I come

Column five: Six days to Europe and a computer meltdown

the columns continue for austria

After a couple weeks off, school began again, which meant it was time for me to starting writing about Austria. The first few columns are about my preparations for studying abroad. My column on Sept. 26 will be the first one live from Austria. As for Cedric's well-being, he is anxiously waiting for me to leave, so his life's purpose can continue to be fulfilled. His bags are packed, his shoes are tied and he's ready to have his passport stamped.

Column one: Prepping for a semester (well, year) abroad

Column two: Overcoming Euro culture shock

the rest of the new york city columns (10 and 11)

Column 10: Ways to see NYC on a budget

Column 11: Leaving the hustle and bustle


At IKEA in Red Hook, Brooklyn, at the new park at the Navy piers


At Trinity Church in the Financial District



On Liberty Island with the Financial District in the background


Visiting the Statue of Liberty


At the Top of the Rock looking south

column nine

Here's column nine: The amazing adventures of the side show.

And some pictures:

Going to see Wicked:
Dancing on the Big keyboard at F.A.O. Schwartz:


Hanging out in Bryant Park before the summer classic movie starts:


At Coney Island:

a never-ending amount of free activities

Free activities could really keep someone busy all of the time. I get an email every day that contains a listing of all things free. It's intense. Over the last two weeks, I've attended a fair share of free activities, but considering the number that is on each daily list, I really haven't been to a lot.

Last Monday my roommate and I went to Bryant Park for an old movie. HBO shows old movies and everyone brings picnics and eats on the grass. We saw "The Man Who Came to Dinner." It was pretty funny and hanging out in the park was lots of fun. On Thursday afternoon I went back to this park for the Broadway in the Park series. For five Thursdays, four or five Broadway musicals head to the park for an hour-long performance. Each show gets two or three songs. I saw Chicago, [title of show] and an upcoming musical about Russia. This week is In the Heights among others. I'll be heading over during my lunch break. It's about a 13 minute walk from work if I cut through Grand Central Terminal and walk really fast. I did get there today for the show, and I saw the tail end of Avenue Q, all of Mamma Mia!, which was superb, Phantom of the Opera (and the Phantom asked us to sing along with him for Music of the Night), Pure Country, and In the Heights. The Heights cast was missing some of their leads, so the understudy sang one of the parts, and this mean that none of the songs that the creator and lead character sings could be sung. Poor Usnavi.

This past Tuesday I went to Central Park after work for the final Concert in the Park. The NY Philharmonic was fabulous. The people sitting around us were quite hilarious at times. Just picture a lady wearing a fanny pack swaying to Tchaikovsky, some super-possessive, Italian-speaking blanket hoarders (they wouldn't let anyone step on their blanket, yelled at them if they did, and tried to block all pathways surrounding their blanket), and a group of 20-something-year-old guys galloping to William Tell Overture.

This weekend will bring more free things, with a trip to Coney Island for some beach-going and some music and a trip to MoMA. It's going to be a marathon weekend, I'm assuming. We'll see how it goes.

columns seven and eight

I apologize for being so tardy with my postings. I'm going to get these up and then write a post about all of the free things I've done in the last two weeks.

So check out column seven titled Brooklyn offers new expectations.

And here's column eight: Coming to the final stretch.

other pictures and some musical videos

I thought it would be nice to post a couple of Cedric-free photos so some of the other sights I've seen could appear in my blog. Here are my top five:

The sunset on my first night in New York. The sun was glorious.

The Brooklyn Bridge at night from Empire-Fulton State Park with the Manhattan skyline.

The photo here isn't fantastic, mostly thanks to the crappy lighting, but the view was stunning. You are walking in the middle of the Financial District, and then all of a sudden, after passing the NYSE, you hit Wall Street. This is the view to the west. It's Trinity Church (the church in National Treasure where the stash of treasure is found underground). It's a good visual of the old and new structures that stand next to one another all across town.

This was on Sunday afternoon during the sunniest rain shower I've ever been in. I like that you can see the shine from the sun and the glare off the wet path. This is the Literary Walk in Central Park and is a frequent location for movies. The only one I'm coming up with right now, though, is Maid in Manhattan. Jennifer Lopez and Ralph Fiennes go for a walk here when she's wearing the borrowed suit.

My favorite view in New York City. This is from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade (as was the first), but on this night, there wasn't a visible sun and the sky was grey until after the sun set. All of a sudden, I looked up and realized the clouds behind the Financial District skyscrapers were turning cotton-candy pink. This is the sunset from Sunday night that was described in this week's column. My Austrian visitors and I had already stopped to take pictures of the view, but this was too good to pass up.

Harlem Renaissance Orchestra videos:

more pictures of cedric

Now Cedric is visiting Central Park. He enjoyed relaxing in the sun in the Great Lawn after a long day of walking. We'd walked from 125th down to 112th, with detours to the Hudson River and Grant's tomb, a church, Columbia and Pink Berry (a frozen yogurt chain that is like Coldstone and Marbleslab; you select fruits, cereals or candies to be added to your yogurt), and I finally decided it was time to get on a bus and head town to the 79th Street entrance to Central Park. The center of Central Park provides a really great view of the skyscrapers that line 42nd Street between Grand Central Terminal (the station is the post office) and Times Square. 

The next day brought another trip to Central Park; this time beginning with a walk around the Jackie Onassis Kennedy Reservoir.  The skyline I mentioned earlier can be seen from here, too.

This week also included a new purchase from the Apple Store. The one on Fifth Avenue never closes. And it was designed to be a knock-off of the pyramid entrance to the Louvre. Instead of a pyramid, there's a glass square with an apple suspended inside, with an imitation circular glass stairway with a circular glass elevator in the center of the stairs, also like the Louvre. This also means that the entire store is underground.