Residence Permit: Check

On Friday night I went with my FC Adrenalin teammates to watch the Austrian national team play against Azerbaijan which ended in a solid 3:0 victory for the Austrians. The seats weren't great, but then again, for 1 Euro they were fantastic. The stadium was about half full because the opponent wasn't too glamorous and there were noticeably more women and children than I'm used to seeing while attending FK Austria Wien matches. The crowd wasn't nearly as rowdy as at FK Austria matches either, coincidence? Maybe. One kind of funny thing about the stadium was in the men's bathroom where there were neither urinals nor troughs. Instead there were several small rooms that fit 10-12 guys standing shoulder to shoulder with a grate on the floor where the guys lined up and peed against the wall, where it went down through the grating and into a drain somewhere. It felt really strange because it resembled a locker room's public shower, where peeing against the wall would be highly inappropriate.

Then on Saturday I traveled to Neusiedl and we spent the rest of the weekend at Marlene's parents' house. It was Marlene's mom's birthday yesterday so we had a family meal to celebrate on Sunday. We also stayed overnight on Sunday because of my appointment Monday morning at the immigration office where I did officially receive my residence permit. It's the same size as an ID or credit card and I'm hoping it can be used as a photo ID in other ways around Austria. I get a bit wary needing to bring my passport to so many places because it's my only acceptable form of photo ID. On the back of the residence permit it also states "Freier Zugang zum Arbeitsmarkt," which means I'm also legally allowed to work.

To celebrate, we went to the restaurant Plachutta where we had received a gift certificate as a wedding gift. They serve pretty traditional Austrian food, I think the next time my family visits, we'll need to go there. Here are a couple pics of the food and me enjoying it.

Back to Back Blogs, Wow!

I had some trouble sleeping last night and happened to wake up at a quarter to 6 am and remembered the Twins-Yankees game and thought I'd check the score. (Un)Luckily the game wasn't over yet, so I watched from the bottom of the 8th inning to the end and fumed over the loss like all other Minnesotans. Tonight I'll try to watch the entire second game of the series since it starts at midnight my time and I don't have any class tomorrow morning. If we lose that one, the series goes back to New York and there's no point in watching because there's no way we can win.

Tomorrow night I'll join a number of my FC Adrenalin teammates and go to an Austria national team soccer game. It's somewhat important in that it's a qualifying match for the 2012 European Championships, which is the second most important soccer tournament, after the World Cup of course. The game is against Azerbaijan and I would be expecting Austria to win. Because our team falls under the umbrella organization of the Austrian Soccer Federation, there was some crazy deal on tickets and it's only 1 Euro per person. I hope we get similar deals next year when we get to play against some better teams like Germany and Turkey. Both of those matches will be very exciting as Germany has got to be our biggest rival and the largest immigrant group in Vienna are Turks. I've already suggested that my bro Turner come visit next June when we play Germany so we can go to the match together, I hope he accepts the offer!

Finally, I think my residence permit is all approved. I've got one last appointment at the immigration office in Neusiedl am See for Monday morning and I think they'll be giving it to me then. That should also entitle me to work legally. I've been applying online for a few jobs per day recently, hopefully one of them will work out.

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.

News in Brief: Sep 2

I don't think I mentioned it earlier, but all of my documents for getting a residence permit have officially been submitted to the immigration office in Neusiedl. We decided to register myself there instead of Wien because there are far less immigrants and the office is not nearly as busy as one in Wien might have been. Now we'll just be waiting for word back from them that I've been approved. It should take at least a couple weeks.

Last night we saw the movie Babies along with Marlene's sister. It was basically a really long compilation of babies doing cute things. I think you could get the same effect by searching for cute baby clips on youtube.

Marlene cheated on her diet on Sunday. She told me she ate a schnitzel on Sunday when she was with her family. Her friends had a bet going on how long she could last being a vegetarian which I wasn't involved in (I'd have quite an unfair advantage) but I'm not sure who won. I'll look into that and report back.

Yesterday I went to the Deutsch Akademie and took a German proficiency test in order to see which class I'd be placed in if I were to enroll there. I placed into C1 which is advanced (A is beginner, B is intermediate) which is good since that's what I had on my résumé. I was happy to see it hasn't regressed since I left college although I'm sure my grammar knowledge has declined, my speaking and understanding, especially the Austrian dialect, has much improved.

Lastly, I may have found a soccer team to play for. I found them by looking through the Wien city soccer league forums, they had posted that they're looking for players for the upcoming season. I emailed the address and not long later I had a reply inviting me to come to training. The team's called FC Adrenalin and there's a training tonight at 19:30. That meant that today I had to run out quickly to get outdoor soccer shoes. I bought last year's model of the Adidas adiCORE II firm ground shoes which were originally listed at €100, then marked down to €60, then down to €50. Then when I got to the register, they scanned it and only charged me €30, so I think I got a good deal. We'll see how they perform later this evening, if I play badly, I'm definitely blaming the shoes.