Category: Vienna

Summer time in Vienna

And there I was coming back from a run around the ring with two friends when we noticed this in the middle of the artificial little lake at Karlsplatz:

Yes, there was a piano there!! And it’s just sitting there for whoever wants to risk crossing the lake and playing a few notes. Actually, there was someone playing both times I passed through (in this picture you can see the shy pianist leaving on the right). This morning there were kids swimming there and a japanese guy trying out some tunes. Really really nice… Who are the people that come up with these ideas and actually execute them?? Whoever you are, thank you for making our lives happier 🙂

Now the swimming pool!
Two years ago I was running around Grinzing, in the north of Vienna, and after going up a very very long hill (which I did not manage to run all the way) I found this nice public swimming pool hidden in the woods. Since I was running and it was a sunny day and it was not expensive to get in, I decided to have a look, even though I did not have any swimming suit with me. As I entered this place I could not believe my eyes… This was public, really? Super super cool swimming pools, with a nice view of Vienna and lots of green area around. I just wanted to jump in with clothes and all. But I didn’t.
Two years later I finally managed to take Joao there. This time I took the swimming suit, towels, snacks… the whole day-at-the-club-kit. Even though we got there at 2 in the afternoon, we could enjoy a lot. By the way, the pools are made of some kind of metal, not tiles. It sounds weird, but it feels very good! They have a sport swimming pool of 25m, a relaxing swimming pool (picture below) with the Jacuzzi jets to massage our backs, a kids swimming pool with a cool slide in the shape of an elephant and a lot of other things.

Vienna is so much nicer in the summer… but I am afraid I find that just because there are 3 months of winter to remind us every year 🙂

Ladybug and stuff

This weekend a visitor came to my plant. I call her Jo Ann. She left yesterday sometime at night… I think she’s cute, isn’t she? Just like those ladybugs we see in cartoons.

Other than that… We are all melting in Vienna. It’s been a few weeks now that we have temperatures over 30, and this week has been over 35. And it’s summer vacation. And I am working. Damn.
But work later. Nice things first.
Last weekend I went swimming, just because being at home or anywhere else was unbearable. And where did I go? To the Danube! Yep, I swam in the famous river of the song. It was nice. We got there at 10 in the morning, which I thought was late and it would be crowded because we are in Austria, and you know how these Austrians are all organized with their schedules and such. And we all know that it is better to get the early sun of the morning, although we are always too lazy to wake up at 8 on weekends. Anyway, it was not crowded, we got a nice place under a tree, played games and swam with the fish and swans. Yes, there were swans there, lots of them!! And they were really close to us, like 2 meters. The fish I don’t like to mention, since they would be a reason for me not to go in, but the heat beat the fish, and I swam anyway. It was a nice Saturday 🙂

Still not about work.
A few weeks ago a saw a movie in youtube, actually, more like a documentary, about animals. It shocked me, really. If you like your meat, don’t watch it. Since then I have been trying to avoid eating meat whenever possible, and you know what? Not so hard as you’d expect! Of course you need to be careful and get those proteins somewhere else, like in eggs (but not too much! I’ve heard they have lots of cholesterol…). In any case, I recommend the movie. If you don’t want to become vegetarian, that’s ok, you can cut meat a few days a week, it’s not so bad and it might be actually healthier. We do eat a lot of meat…

Time for the afternoon snack now. No time to write about work, for your sake (and mine)  ðŸ™‚

Perspective

This is an old post in fact… it’s been one year or more that I’ve written this in my notebook, and in the middle of an organization of notes, I decided to write it here and have an extra page to go to the recycling bin.

This week I went with João to a (very fancy) hairdresser so he could have his hair cut. Everything was very modern and new, and the hairdresser himself had a very stylish braided beard and a tail on the back of the head. He spoke little English, and since we speak little German, the conversation was basically noun-driven. Initially he thought we were from Portugal, as we told him we spoke Portuguese. But as soon as he found that we were actually Brazilians, he was more enthusiastic about it. And then came all the comments about the summer, football, etc. Suddenly he made a very interesting remark: he noted how nice it was that in Brazil kids go out to play football on the streets and how bad it was that in Austria kids come home from school and are just on the internet the whole day.

It is interesting because in these moments we realize how Brazil is perceived. We did not bother to explain him, but we Brazilians know it’s not like this. If you live in a relatively big city, say, more than 0.5 million inhabitants, you know the only kids playing football on the streets are the really poor ones, that live in a favela or something close to it. The kids from middle class families or above are too afraid (or have parents that are afraid) of going out to play on the streets. They are playing with their neighbors in the buildings’ playgrounds, or maybe going to football (or karate, or tennis, or English) classes in private schools (by car, of course) or, most likely, inside their own apartments playing video games and chatting to their friends on the internet. Children (or people in general) are not really engaged into outdoor activities, mostly for security reasons.

It’s funny how we observe exactly the opposite in Vienna. It’s summer now, so we see people riding bikes, running, having picnics in parks or by the river, strolling around the parks… Also, we see *a lot*, really, almost every day, groups of kids with teachers walking around to visit places or go to parks. And they even use the public transportation! It looks very nice!!

So how can the hairdresser make a comment like that? Maybe it’s because he has never lived in Brazil, maybe we haven’t been here enough… but quality of life in Vienna is amazing in any case. 

Return

The airport is quiet, people are talking on the streets and I don’t understand, there’s a guy (or girl) on the subway with really red hair, it’s snowing.

Yes, I’m definitely back in Vienna.

Wine tasting

This weekend I went to a wine tasting event near Vienna, in Pillichsdorf. It’s a nice place. A little village of farmers that grow grapes and make their own wines. Once a year, they make this tasting thing so people can go there and taste their wines and hopefully take a box home. Well, I went there just for the tasting, so by paying 9 euros you get a glass (that I could take home =) and you can go to the booths of every wine cellar and taste their wines. I found out that Austria has very nice white wines, but are not experts in red ones. I really have to start learning how to distinguish the different types…

Here’s a picture of one of the houses:

And here’s a picture from the fields, looking at the houses:

News of Thursday

– They painted brand new cycling paths on one avenue I pass by. Hopefully the next paths will go all the way up to my house!
– I had lunch in a completely vegetarian restaurant today. Vegetarian food can be good!!
– Bought some clothes for me and my boyfriend to run during winter.
– Got pulled over by an officer for driving on the opposite direction of the road. He made me walk two blocks taking the bike by hand…

Reading day

Reading and more reading, it’s never enough!!

By the way, on my way back home I saw one of these street thermometers, and at 9 pm it was displaying 32 degrees. I am not complaining. I actually prefer 32 degrees than any negative temperature, but I never thought it would get to that here!