Christmas Season Begins

Thanksgiving's over and we've had snow so Christmas season has officially begun. This past weekend was actually pretty busy. I saw two movies that I'd recommend to everyone out there: The Social Network and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, on Saturday night my soccer team had a fundraiser where we sold Punsch, and Sunday was the Vienna soccer derby between FK Austria Wien and Rapid Wien but my team lost 0:1 in a snowy match.

On Monday I had an interview with the personnel company Elan IT, which specializes in finding jobs for IT companies. This seems to be the way most companies fill positions in Austria, where a company wants a new employee and instead of advertising the position themselves, they contract a personnel company, who advertises the position and interviews prospective employees. This is good in one sense in that I conducted the interview on Monday with Elan IT, and they'll submit applications for me to several positions they think I'm qualified for. I would still have to do an interview with the actual company that would hire me though, which coincidentally I'm doing tomorrow morning with the company I mentioned in my last post from Wolfsgraben, Austria.

Most fun though is the ton of snow we've received in the past few days. Here are a couple pictures, first of the inner garden of our building, and second of the street out front.



Finally, I saw another awesome concert last night from another of the artists in my Current Music list, this time it was M.I.A. who did a show at Gasometer. It's a much, much bigger venue than where Marlene and I saw The Futureheads, but still not a stadium or anything. It's bigger than First Ave in Minneapolis, I'd estimate there were almost 2000 people there? It's difficult to say. I went with Marlene's sister Vroni, since it was a school night, and we couldn't get too close to the stage but it was still quite a spectacle with 3 giant TV screens showing strange animation loops, a blinding light show (especially the extensive use of synchronized strobe lights), and the randomness of M.I.A. who at one point bodysurfed in the audience, got down and ran through the crowd to perform in the back of the room, and also brought 50+ audience members on stage to dance with her for one song.

Saturday Night Blog

Hey all, it's Saturday night here and I just got back from an FK Austria Wien match where we won 4:1 against LASK Linz. It was a super fun time because we scored early and often and were up 3:0 at halftime. After that we let off the gas and Linz scored early on the second half before we scored the the fourth in about the 87th minute to put an end to the comeback.

Marlene went to Neusiedl am See tonight for an Oktoberfest revival party and I've still to hear how that went. I obviously stayed in Vienna first for the FK Austria Wien match tonight, and because FC Adrenalin has two matches tomorrow. The first team plays at 3 pm and the reserves play right afterwards at 5 pm. I'm on the first team roster and I'll hopefully play with the reserves too as long as I don't play too much with first team. If I start for the first team (which is unlikely), then I'll be super happy and won't play for the reserves. So far I haven't started for the first team, I've been playing as a sub for them and as a key player for the reserves. Last week I played the whole second half for the first team and then later in the day played 80 minutes for the reserves. Normally I wouldn't play for both teams in one day but if both teams have games on the same day and I'm only a sub for the first team, then I'll happily play for the reserves as well. Playing for the reserves is super fun because obviously the opponents aren't nearly as good so I can relax and just try to pick out dangerous passes. In my 3 games, I've played as center mid twice and both times and I've had assists, hopefully that trend will continue...

Apart from soccer, Marlene went to a cool park today I took a few pictures of her/us while we were at Wienerberg, which obviously sounds funny in English but was a fun time. It's one of the biggest green areas in all of Vienna. Here are some pictures of our day there.

Mostly Football News

The only non-soccer update I have is that on Thursday night I had to go to Neusiedl to meet with a police officer for the next step in attaining my residence permit. They didn't give us too much information beforehand, it turned it was supposed to be a surprise as it was an in-depth interview to make sure Marlene and I didn't get married just so I could emigrate to Austria. There were a lot of difficult questions and it was made harder because Marlene wasn't allowed to be there. All in all, it last about an hour and was pretty intense. Now that it's over though, it makes for a funny story and it's also a good sign that the immigration office is making progress on my residence permit.

Now, on to soccer stuff. On Friday I went and watched FC Adrenalin's first team in their first match of the season. They came from behind to win 2:1, thanks to two red cards on the opposing team. The level of play wasn't as high as I was expecting based on how serious the practices are and how organized the teams are. The location of the game was pretty amazing, right on the very end of a peninsula in the Danube. Then on Sunday the reserve team had a match which I played in. We lost 2:4 but I thought I played pretty well. After the game the guy in charge gave me my necessary paperwork to to officially join the club and said when it was filled out I can play with the first team. It was a bit expensive but I'd like to do it. The guys all seem pretty nice so it'd be a good way to make friends.

At the exact same time as our reserve team game on Sunday was the Vienna Derby. My team FK Austria was taking on our cross-city rivals Rapid. The game was in Rapid's stadium but we emerged victorious. I was very surprised because we haven't won in like six games and I was expecting to get thrashed. The reports I've read about it said Rapid dominated, but we capitalized on a defensive mistake to score midway into the second half.

Waterford Crystal Story

Before the Waterford crystal story, I'll talk about a couple other things. First, on Tuesday I became an official season ticket holder for Austria Wien. There's my season ticket on the right, and a ticket to today's match which is for the Europa League competition.
We need to win by 2 or more goals to advance to the group stage. If that happens we could be drawn into a group with a big team like Man City, Liverpool, or Juventus. We'd play each team in our group twice, both home and away, and I've promised myself that I'll go to one of the away matches. If we don't win by 2 goals today (or tie, or lose) then we're out of the competition and my dreams are shattered.

Marlene is still a vegetarian, she'll be celebrating her 2 week anniversary tomorrow. Her weakest points have been the few times she's seen me eating meatballs which happened on two trips to Ikea and once during a lunch at her parents' house.

During the second trip to Ikea mentioned above, I designed a new desk for myself. They have several options there for table tops and table legs which can mixed and matched. I chose a solid wood top, it's much heavier than their normal wood-looking material, and it has one square end and one rounded end. For the legs there is one circular, metal leg for the rounded side, and a shelf for the squared end which will eventually hold a desktop PC.
Just imagine me sitting on that chair and typing on the laptop at this very moment!

Lastly, we finally received the Waterford crystal stemware that my grandma ordered for us as a wedding gift more than two months ago. My grandma's original hope was that they arrive prior to the wedding and we perform the toast at our reception with them, but unfortunately we hadn't received them in time. The sad part was that we could have if not for a few mistakes and miscommunications. The first error was that Waterford uses UPS for delivery to Austria. They are terrible here. They don't have keys to get into the apartment buildings like the normal Austrian post office, so they can't leave a shipping notice in our mailbox for us. The next error was that Waterford never provided a tracking number after their email informing us that the order was shipped. I asked them for the tracking number last week and when they sent it to us 2 days ago, we were able to figure out what happened and get the package yesterday. After submitting the tracking number to UPS's website, we found the package was marked as delivered on July 16 and had been signed for by PLANK. I ran downstairs to look at the building's doorbells but saw no PLANK listed, though about half of the bells didn't have names, including ours which wouldn't have helped the situation. So we called UPS and they told us it was signed for by the person in room 7 of our building. We went downstairs and left them a note because no one answered the door. A few hours later they called up to us and we got the package! On the delivery address it had room 8 instead of 18 which is ours, so that explained why we hadn't heard anything from our neighbor. Nevertheless, it turned out mostly okay since we did eventually receive it. We got the Dolmen champagne flutes and I did take a few pictures of the unboxing but I need one more pic of Marlene and I toasting before I upload them. Maybe we'll put our wedding attire back on for the picture so that in 50 years we can pretend they did arrive in time...

News in Brief August 20

Even though I thought mosquitoes only laid eggs in lakes, there were a ton in Madeira. They were especially mean to be doing all their attacking at night when I was helpless to resist. All my mosquito bites are just about healed.

Marlene decided to a vegetarian. She has lasted one week so far.

Yesterday we moved most of Marlene's possessions from Neusiedl to our apartment in Vienna and there's almost enough space for everything.

Austria Wien lost the away leg of the Europa League matchup with Aris Thessaloniki 0:1. The only goal of the match was scored in stoppage time by former MLS star Carlos Ruiz. They play the second leg of the series on Thursday in Vienna and I expect to be there. I'll also be buying my season tickets soon.

After arriving here one of the first things you notice as an American is the different models of cars they have in Europe, but one stood out from the rest and I finally got a picture of myself next to it... wearing my Twins hat of course.

Fiat Punto: The ultimate car for defensive drivers.

First Post, First Week in Vienna

Hello loyal readers, who at the moment are non-existent. I've been living in Wien for exactly one week now. My flight was easy, just a four hour layover in Toronto which I spent reading 'How Soccer Explains the World'. I couldn't put it down but it didn't really explain the world, rather I thought it demonstrated how everything that happens in life relates to soccer clubs and their players/fans.

So far in my first week I've started the process of becoming a legal resident. I think I'll actually be legal once the wedding is over but there's still other registering and work permit stuff to be done. Right now I'm waiting on my criminal record check to come back from the USA. When it arrives I'll include it with some other documents to apply for a residence permit. I think I'll document everything I have to do so that other Americans can use it as a resource, I wish I'd had a step-by-step process that would guide me through it...

Apart from the boring legal things, I had a welcoming party for myself in Marlene's hometown, Neusiedl am See, and attended a graduation party in Vienna for one of Marlene's best friends, Martina. Both of them were a lot of fun and affected by sudden downpours. Luckily our grilling was finished before the rain started both times.

Since Martina's party we've been laying low as Marlene has been feeling unwell and had a fever. Today she felt better so we finished building an Ikea wardrobe which is fantastic because that allowed me to finally unpack my suitcases and put my clothes somewhere. I'd also like to give credit to Marlene's youngest sister Vroni who helped me build the largest part of the wardrobe yesterday. Marlene took some pictures during the building process, I'll post them when I have a chance.

Finally, several months before leaving the USA I made an important decision. There are two major soccer teams from Vienna and I had to choose one of them to support. I'd like to outline the reasons, in no particular order, why I chose FK Austria Wien instead of Rapid Wien now:
- FK Austria has a better youth team, including better young Austrians. They're not as dependent on foreigners.
- FK Austria's stadium is closer to my apartment. I'm living in the same place Marlene has lived for nearly a year so I figured this out in advance.
- FK Austria's main color is purple while Rapid's is green which reminded me of my American football team the Minnesota Vikings (purple) and their biggest rivals the Green Bay Packers (green).
- When I studied abroad in Vienna in Spring 2006 I attended a derby match between FK Austria and Rapid, which FAK (not a typo) won 3:0. On a later visit I attended another derby match which Rapid won 1:4 but I sat in the FAK section because Marlene had a friend who got us tickets and we had a memorable time.
- Rapid seems to be the more fashionable club, supported by the majority of Viennese and especially young guys who are the stereotypical Europeans that Americans think look so silly. Faux-hawks or mullets, tight jeans, keffiyehs around their necks, etc. I attended an FAK match on Sunday and all their fans looked like normal people - jeans and a sweatshirt.
- Saw a football rivalries show about FAK/Rapid and it told how the conflict was re-ignited recently when Joey Didulica fouled Axel Lawarée. I'm not going to argue it wasn't a terrible foul. He deserved the red and eight game ban he received but Lawarée brought a lawsuit against him which is totally unnecessary.
- The greatest Austrian player ever, Matthias Sindelar, played his entire career for FAK before his unfortunate death/suicide/assassination.

I actually think I had a few more reasons but I'm sure that's enough to convince you ;-) Until next time!