eviva españa!

before the fall: german decorations on graben



slightly crazy spanish fan on graben



father and child, fanzone



eviva españa!


song of the day: eviva españa! by the spanish fans.

heat, humidity, thunderstorms

is what you get in vienna these days. spectacular rainfall and lightning, but it does not actually cool down. work is not much fun in stuffy rooms, commuting is not much fun on hot, stuffy trains.

but some things look nice in the summer:


light&shadow (hofburg)



street-light (minoritenplatz)


song of the day: hon förtjänar hela himlen by lisa ekdahl.

turkey vs germany

true turkish fan



germania


song of the day: lay all your love on me by abba.

friday night football

so. what does a girl do on a friday after work? she wanders into the city to see if she can get some nice shots of croatian and turkish fans before the football match. she sits by the fountain on graben, clicking away, dangling her legs, smiling, enjoying the sunshine.

young fan


camouflaged croatian fans?


one of the croatian fans sitting nearby starts talking to her. his friend joins them and the three of them share health food - chocolate and chips.

ivan & jure posing


the girl, not a football fan, is persuaded to accompany the two guys, ivan and jure, to the fanzone. she plans to stay a little while in order to get some good pictures. but - she finds it's actually quite fun, and therefore she stays the 90 minutes. only - it is 0:0 then, so she stays the extra 30 minutes as well. croatia score just about two minutes before the game ends, but the general happiness is cut short only a minute later: 1:1. so, the girl stays to support her newly-found friends to the end, which turns out to be rather sad and disappointing for the croatian fans as turkey makes it to the next round after the penalty shoot-out.

beauty or beast?


ivan almost can't bear to look


is there life in there?

the two guys insist on driving the girl home. she invites them to crash at her place. they have pizza and the girl turns down a rather spontaneous marriage proposal - twice. so ivan is all the more heartbroken. after getting very philosophical, the three people are tired, the guys are asleep within about 7 seconds, while the girl is kept awake by a gigantic turkish party near her house.

in the morning, the guys neatly fold the covers, give the girl a hug and a kiss on the cheek and are off on their way back to croatia.

life is fun. life is weird. going with the flow is really, really worth it sometimes.


prep work, translating and housework on saturday and sunday, also helping a friend with his website. a little sleep, a little time to read and play scrabble and chat with friends. and it's almost monday again.


more pictures of croatia vs turkey, vienna


song of the day: this is the life by amy macdonald.

just a few things ...

my dad is a darling. he surprised me with a nikon coolpix camera a couple of days ago when it arrived in the mail at 7.10 am! and just because we had talked about cameras a little while ago and i had told him i was considering getting me a small digital camera, because i don't always want to carry the big one around with me! :) i have not had time to play with the camera yet, but maybe on the weekend.



the reprinted copies of small confessions and pebbles of regret have finally arrived - it only took seven weeks for them to get from canada to austria ... *sigh* if you are interested in swapping or buying, let me know.

work's going well - it's just a bit much at the moment.



viennese cave painting :))



modern art

(click to enlarge)

simmering, vienna


song of the day: girls just wanna have fun by cyndi lauper.

it's a hard life for our policemen

trying to chat up the girls ...



... but the girls are not very interested

(click to enlarge)

euro 2008 - austria vs germany


song of the day: don't stand so close to me by the police.

egyptian football fan

(click to enlarge)

euro 2008 - austria vs germany


song of the day: walk like an egyptian by the bangles.

tattoo girl

so this is the work of art on day 16.
(i am talking about the tattoo. i am slightly older.)


(click to enlarge)

song of the day: la confession by lhasa.

website updated

i have finally updated the news, words, credits, links & me sections of my website - it had been a couple of months (or more). if you decide to visit and have a minute to spare, do leave your traces in the guestbook!


song of the day: la camisa negra by juanes.

the working life and the other life

my english III class ended on wednesday - my farewell presents from my lovely students were two books, one about alaska (i had mentioned it was my big dream to go there) and a survival handbook (to avoid meeting the same fate as chris mccandless of into the wild), chocolate for comfort and tissues to dry my tears. :)

i had a reunion with some students of the previous english group last weekend - unfortunately some could not make it, and some did not show up, which i found disapppointing. but it was lovely to see those who were there!

more work for me: monday i started working afternoons as well as mornings. what i am doing is new for me. i'm working with under 21's, helping them with job-hunting, preparing them for job interviews, personality development, etc. georg, who is responsible for the english trainings and this q4u project, said i was his first choice for the job, which is nice feedback. :) the good thing is that i will not have to worry about finding work the rest of the year, the down side is the commuting that takes up my one-hour lunch break. it's quite nice that one of my ex-colleagues, heinz, is now working at the same office again, and one of our old colleagues, franz, works downstairs for another company. :) so far, things are going okay, though a couple of the youngsters can be quite a pain in the butt at times. ;)

i also had to turn down two jobs on tuesday - one translation job, and one as a business english trainer. much better than last year when i was so worried about not finding enough work!

* * * * *
me and my tattoo are both fine - it is healing well, and i am very happy with it. i guess i am getting another one done on my birthday, although i actually feel like doing it sooner. but i will have to figure out what and where. maybe alice, the wonderland girl.

* * * * *
i met poet cecilia woloch on thursday, she was reading at shakespeare & co in vienna's first district with my friend hillary keel. i fell in love with cecilia's poetry straight away. check her out on the web!

and yesterday it was kafka time again - open mic sans mic, this time, due to a missing cable. and i swore right after my five minutes that i would not use the mic there ever again - i felt so, hm, i guess, liberated. i have come to really enjoy reading, but i never feel absolutely comfortable with the mic. and yesterday it was almost like trying it out at home! i read two of my alice poems (the first two when you follow the link) and got looooovely feedback from several people.

girl not quite able to pull off the missing-someone-look amidst all the laughter


all in all i thought the quality of the poetry and stories was particulary good last night. hillary keel - yesterday's MC - kicked the reading off, we heard work by jean almeida, sylvia petter, carlota rokita, evelyn holloway, nathan horowitz, der kosmonaut, horst prillinger as well as some first-timers and special guest cecilia woloch. she is quite a lovely person and her poetry really is beautiful. steve gander finished off a sometimes very raunchy evening with his classic song "copulate and populate". yay!

special guest cecilia woloch


kafka laughter: sylvia petter, cecilia woloch, bob hewis, hillary keel


steve gander in action


i went to salz&pfeffer with sandro miori to talk business (website) until about 02.45 and i did not actually get to bed until nearly 5!

bottle shapes

quote of the night: "try to unblur your face! you're moving in six different directions at the same time!" (nathan to me, trying to take a picture entitled "girl missing mexican")

* * * * *
today, the unthinkable happened: i bought a dress. my first in i-don't-know-how-long (except wedding dress and a ball gown). so, unless i take it back to the shop, some of you might actually get to see me in it.

ah yes, and the euro2008 has finally begun. let the next few weeks pass by quickly. please.


song of the day: cut here by the cure.