Austria Totally Flips Its Shit

Again.
I got home from babysitting last night, soaking wet from the rainy bike ride home, and every single one of the town's 63 Catholic churches' bells were pealing to high heaven (originaly that pun was unintentional, but... ). So, at 6:30pm--my time--they announced the new pope, after only using two of their fifteen possible days. Don't you think they'd want to take full advantage of those fifteen days? I'm sure it wouldn't have been too bad for the economy of poor little Vatican City.
ugh... this is a little too cynical for 9am.

Okay.. so the bells go crazy, for the second time. When the pope died they went almost all day long (not kidding... it was nuts), this time they only went an hour. I guess they're waiting for him to prove himself.

Watching the new pope get named with a room full of Catholic mid-twenties Austrians was pretty interesting. I think they may have actually had bets running on it. Definitely none of them had put money on the German--practically heresy. When they named the German they flipped out, swearing and grumbling about the "verdammte Piefkas", which is about as rude as you can get within EU countries these days.

Let's just say that Austria and Germany have a huge rivalry of the sort that fuels the hearts of most Austrians, but that most Germans are completely unaware of. An example:

Austrian Newspaper Article: "Oh those smartass Germans, they think they're so great. Well, let's just compare the two, shall we? Oh look their unemployment rate is in the shitter; our's? Couldn't be better! Their economy is on a slow, but certain spiral downwards; our's? Couldn't be better! Crime?! Don't even start with us on crime! When was the last time somebody even tried to make eye contact with you on the street???!! Verdammte Piefkas!"
German Newspaper Article: "?"

Austrians: "God, those Germans think they're soooo great." (Insert completely undistinguishable accent, so that all vowels are flipped to sound like some other vowel randomly.)
Germans: "Can any of you understand what they're saying?"

So now, to make it worse... Germany's got the pope. A 78 year old hyper conservative who's been in charge of "interpreting" John Paul for the last twenty four years. Who's in for Vatican III?!!!

Kuerbis Kern For All!

So last night I cut my thumb open on a tuna fish can. Very smooth of me. Too bad it's Sunday, and all of the Apothekes in Graz are closed. Hence, this may be the last you hear of me, as I will no longer be able to type after my thumb falls off, gangrenous and sore.
So, new things I have tried since we last spoke:
Kuerbis Kern Eis: Translation-- Pumpkin Seed Ice Cream. Hmmm.. you may be thinking, that sounds like it could be interesting. Perhaps a hint of pumpkin pie goodness in every bite. Surely they wouldn't simply mash up pumpkin seeds and stick them in some sweet, green ice cream of undistinguishable flavor! And if you were thinking that--as I was thinking--you would be wrong. As I was wrong.
Don't get me wrong, along with freshly mashed organic apple juice, pumpkin seed oil is the queen bee of the Steiermark. Everybody talks about it, it's at every meal, and I must say, it is Dee-Lish! That being said, delicious pumpkin seeds does not an ice cream make. Or... whatever. It's not pistachio, that's all I'm saying.
Also: The big possibility for today? The Circus!
Also: Here are some more opportunities to see beautiful pictures of Graz, eat it up, because the chances of my pictures turning out this well are not great.

http://cms.graztourismus.at/cms/ziel/92072/EN/

Speaking of pictures: Who wants to see pictures of Jenna during her ellusive Easter Break? One week of it has been beautifully documented with funny, memorable comments by my roommate Christy on her photo site. Do you remember how to get there? Directions are listed in a previous entry, but here they are again, in an easier to use format: Go to
http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/AlbumList?u=4251724
If you go to this specific link you don't have to type in her pesky email address. What a fun, new development! Here you will see a list of album options. If you want to see pictures of Graz, look at Graz. If you want to see pictures of places I've never been, look at any of the other cities. If you want to see pictures of things I may have seen several years ago look at Berlin pictures. If you want to see pictures of me and Christy during easter break in Stuttgart, look at "Osterferien". I promise you won't be disappointed.

Also: So, apparantly visiting Jenna is the new fad! Check out my month:
April 21-29th, Brent comes to visit. I try desperately to impress him with how fun I am. I fail, but he loves me anyway.
May 12-23rd: Casey comes to visit (!!!). Exhausted by my previous attempts to create an incredibly exciting and unforgettable experience with Brent, I nap a lot between classes. Casey gets lost trying to find Hauptplatz due to my lack of directions, and ends up traveling the orient, while I fumble through my dictionary trying to find translations for linguistics terms that don't exist.
May 14-17th: Molly comes to visit from Trier! We go to Budapest for two days! Neither of us speak Hungarian, so we end up crossing the border, and outside of the EU. Oh my God! Outside of the EU! We must be in China! (hoooeee. a little political humor for you. nice, huh?)
What an exciting time!
Speaking of excitement, here's a fun little play on words for you: The word for Diarrhea in German is "Durchfall", literally, "to fall through": a nice little image for you on your way to work. The word for flunking, something I may be doing a lot of this semester? "Durchfallen". Very nice. I'm diarrhea. Super.
But not yet, buster. Not yet.

Come on, touch me, I dare you...

Alright, so I know I haven't kept up on this like I said I would.. I know. But I have a really good excuse for not writing about Easter Break: I had hives. And a cold. So I, Jenna, who you care about and would never want horrible, embarassing things to happen to, was that gross girl walking around all hivey and scratching herself inappropriately in public while snotting all over the place. mmmmm... very appetizing. Traumatic to say the least. And sure that was only about 4 days of the 10 since I've been back, but whatever... it's been rough. Quick wrap up of what's been going on before I jump into Easter Break shennanigans and fun:
What I am reading right now that isn't linguistics: "A Wild Sheep Chase" by Haruki Murakami, and New Yorkers all over the place--from this great Ami I met who will be in Japan for the next two and a half months, and gave me a huge backlog of New Yorkers, a pile of books to read, and two new English tutoring jobs. Woohoo!
Number of times I've fallen going up or down the glass enshrined spiral staircase I need to use daily to get to and from my room on the third floor, or "tower A", in Schubertheim? Officially 13; unofficially, too embarassing to count.
How much my blood pressure rises using, or at the thought of using, those stairs? A good 12 points.. or whatever it's called...
Proud new home of an ant colony: The showers on my floor. Very fun.
Rating on a scale of 1-10 of how beautiful Graz is this weekend? Umm... what's that number? oh yeah. 10
Do you want to see? Here are some livecam shots of Graz RIGHT NOW!!!!:
http://cms.graztourismus.at/cms/beitrag/10009552/92104/
Amount of Spaetzle and Nutella I've eaten, thank god not together, in the past week? Ugh.. don't remind me.
Number of days until Brent comes to visit? FIVE!
What we will be doing while he's here? Good question. But I do have four different pamphlets from the Graz tourism office.
Best gift ever from new Ami friend? Milka Hot Chocolate mix. That's where they melt a bar of Milka and add a couple of spoonfuls of milk. mmmmmmmmm