It's not a cry you can hear at night, it's not somebody who's seen the light...

Been reading old entries from 2003, and in the midst of being annoyed at how completely dippidydoodah I was, I found this lovely entry which is talking about wanting to move to Vienna.

I had a job offer in Vienna in 2003 and I turned it down to go to Australia. I don't regret that at all, but reading that entry made me smile. I was still living in the US at the time when I wrote it, but I've been back to visit Vienna since. It's still my favourite city in the whole world. And reading that entry...that is still the way I feel about it. So many things about me have changed. I have changed. But my silly, dreamy feelings about my favourite place in the world are exactly the same. Which is really nice, actually!

(Also the LFoD watched Ed Wood. I love Ed Wood. And Johnny Depp. And Plan Nine from Outer Space. It made me happy!)

EDIT: HAHAHHAHAHA oh god. 21 year old, fangirl me. How many exclamation points do I NEED?!

I was feeling down today (LONG story) so I decided to do something constructive to take the feeling away (social work training, oy) so I wanted to make a post of all the photos of people and places and things that mean something to me. And when I started to plan it, I realised just how long it would be if I put everyone into it. And that made me feel so amazing, you have no idea...

I did it anyway deciding I would only use photos I have taken myself (or by my family since I wasn't at the reunion to take those and I didn't take the ones of me as a kid, but you get the point!) to cut down on spamming random Hugh Jackman pictures ;). Not everyone that should be here is including my friends in Australia. Woot, Peter, Laura and Ness, I have no (not blurry) photos of you!! And there are other friends who aren't on here, but be that as it may, here it is. Some of my happy things.

( To me you are perfect )

I love my friends. And risotto. And moscato, which has made me quite a little tipsy wheee sparkling wine. And now Ali and Alina are watching Coraline and the Neil Gaimaness is making me smile. And I am going to Leah come to Vienna with me some day despite what she says. Just as an aside.

Coraline's hair is blue and that's awesome.

My cat is silly.

Oh maaaaan my head is floaty :D Which clearly means I should write a bunch of scenes...

I am late to the game with this meme because I didn't look at it closely enough to understand and Ren just had to explain it to me because I am a dork... So choose a fandom for the first part and a character I play (let's stick with FG for now unless you happen to be Clare!) for the second one and I will answer the below questions.

( my fandoms )

A) My OTP
B) The runner up
C) The anti-ship
D) My unpopular fannish opinion on said character
E) One person he/she never fell in love with, and why

AND:

Pick a character of mine and I'll answer:

01. What would your character die for?
02. What would they refuse to do under any circumstances?
03. What do they dream about?
04. What single object would they be most hard pressed to part with? Why?
05. What is their fondest memory?
06. What is their worst memory?
07. What or who was were their most significant influence?
08. What would be their biggest nightmare?
09. What makes them laugh?
10. Who is the most important person in their life?
11. Is your character a virgin? If not, who was their first?
12. Ask whatever question you want!

MY MOTHER GAVE ME AN HERBAL SUPPLEMENT AND NOW I CANNOT CALM DOWN! EVERYTHING IS !!!!!!!!!!! BUT IN A GOOD WAY!

AND I GOT A SHIRT! HELL YEAH!

EnergyEnergyEnergyEnergyEnergyEnergyEnergyEnergyEnergyEnergyEnergy

And I can't stop fidgeting. Oh, mercy me.

Be glad this is the internet and you are not here right now ;)

Aaahhhhh I'm officially a student at University of Canterbury now, but they have to argue about whether or not I'm a domestic student or an international student first. Since I won't be there on a student visa, I can assure them I'll be a domestic student, BUT if they want to make doubly sure, that's A-OK with me! I just hope they get back to me by tomorrow so I can send my loan application off then.

PHEW!

I hate the 'arranging things' stage. It is my LEAST favourite stage. :| NOW I have to see if I can fit in taking the citizenship test in January. I'll have to fly back to attend the ceremony sometime during the year, but I doubt the Lewi will be complaining about seeing me. Just somehow I doubt it ;)

SOMEONE DO THIS CRAP FOR ME! I WANT TO BE FIFTEEN AGAIN!

*breathes*

OH MY GOD MY FEET ARE DYING!

I got to Schoenbrunn at around 11, only to discover that apparently THE POPULATION OF A SMALL COUNTRY decided to go to the palace today. Stupid people. Don't they know it's MY freakin' palace. So rude, wanting to partake of the history pfft. Anyway, the line actually moved relatively quickly for reaching across the palace grounds. And I had company anyway. Two Scottish men I met by accidentally punching one of them in the dingaling while walking with authority and swinging my arms. I was horrified, but he laughed, because apparently a girly punch to the mandingo does not worry a big, burly Scottish man. They told me things to see in Edinburgh and made me laugh until the line reached the thingy and we could buy tickets. They were going on a different tour, however. Alas. I so think they were lumberjacks. They were HUGE and I am tall. They called me 'wee lass' and said things like 'oh aye' ahahah LOVE!

When I had my ticket, it was then I found out you have to wait a half an hour before you can go in. That was so not the case last time! And this is someone who HATES having time to waste. I am supremely bad at it. I have to have something to do or I go mental. So I bought a souvenir book and read YAY.

The inside of Schoenbrunn is incredible, though I could take no photos to prove this. I can show you the book if I know you in person ;) It takes and hour to wander through with one of those audio guides, and I got to hear allllll about my beloved Sisi. That's Empress Elisabeth. Though Schoenbrunn was done up by Maria Theresia, so the tour seemed to center on her, as she deserves. That's Marie Antionette's mummy, by the by! She was born at Schoenbrunn!

Lara, stop it!

Then I went to the Hofburg which houses the library which is just amazing. And from there on to the Sisi museum and the Imperial Apartments. THAT tour was all about Sisi and her husband (COUSIN) Franz Jozef (who declared WW1 when his nephew Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo). By the time I got halfway through, I was done due to severe footache. I did finish the tour and then I came back here to sit. I'll find a nice place for dinner, and then walk around a bit more to say goodbye.

Tomorrow is Edinburgh and it's a darn good thing I can spend the day sitting around because I have a walking tour at 9 pm, and I want my feets rested. The hotel I'm staying at charges for internet, so I won't post anything until I'm in London, unless I post something tonight! But I'll be taking photos aplenty.

:X!

Oh man, how does one say goodbye to a place like this? I just love it here so much. And I can't wait to show it to my Lewi :D It's so strange leaving after so short a time because I lived here for three months and even after 8 years, being back is so natural. Like I never left. I guess that is how one would say goodbye. 'Until next time.' How German! ;)

My socks are patterned like cows.

New photos start here!

I couldn't write yesterday because I baked my brains. BUT I went to Melk and it was awesome. So incredibly Awesome. Even if Peter cowered behind my brain the entire time. On the train there I saw this thing and though 'oh there's a kangaroo!' and then I realised that's ridiculous before realising it was, in fact, a haystack... But you know...a marsupial-like one...

I wandered in the Melk woods (yes, I was OUTSIDE) and then I visited the town before heading back, writing Peter-story in my head the entire way. I started a backstory scene, but as I baked my brain, I only got through two paragraphs. How did I bake my brain?

I went to Schoenbrunn on a whim (I am going inside tomorrow) because the train happened to stop at Huetteldorf station which I happen to known is also an U-Bahn station because I had to depart for class there every day for three months in 2001. So I got off the train there instead of where I got on, and took the U-Bahn to the palace. I used to park myself there several times a week to read, so it was purely for nostalgia value. HOWEVER since it was hot out (it was only 26, but I'm a wuss) and I decided to climb the gloriette and I had only slept for like 3 hours the night before AND I couldn't breathe (stupid asthma) once I got to the top I decided I cared for nothing. Absolutely nothing. So I came back to the hotel and slept. For TWELVE HOURS. It was awesome. Ah, vacation.

Today I went inside Stephansdom because I LOVE IT and it is the most impressive place ever. It's just SO BIG. I think you could fit my entire high school in there with room to spare. You can't get a proper photo because it's just too tall and too huge.

This sexy guy dressed at Mozart offered me his umbrella and I thought 'oh, he's a ticket-seller but he's being sweet' Then he was like 'pretty girls like you shouldn't be in the rain' and I giggled and thought 'Ah, he's not going to try to sell me any-' "Would you like to buy a ticket for a concert! It's not raining in the imperial palace!" Stupid ticket seller. What about our covetous glance-love!? *sigh* And by the time I decided maybe that would be cool, I couldn't find any of the Mozart impersonators to buy a ticket from. Oh well. I'm going to the Hofburg tomorrow at any rate :D

Stephansdom is amazing and I went in the Catacombs like last time. The bones are gross, as are the pots containing the guts of the emperors. Though I did make a funny when the guy asked if anyone knew what they were and I said, "They're for the insides of the people who keep taking pictures". Seriously, you're in a CRYPT and the tour guide said no photos 12 times. Have some respect.

I went up in the north tower and holy shizzle, it's terrifying! The elevator opens up onto this see-through grid and you have to walk up see-through stairs to get to the top. SO SCARY!!! And then you're just on this cement thing which was meant to continue to be build on, and there's a halfhearted fence around it. *shudders* But the view was awesome.

Then I went to Belvedere, which is a castle but also an art gallery. No photos were allowed, but I saw Gustav Klimt's The Kiss. Incredible. And a painting of Der Erlkoenig as well as several of Caspar David Friedrich's paintings. I love him and he loves boats.

Tonight I think I will head to the prater if the rain keeps away! No photos though, as it's a carnival-place. Or perhaps a cafe! Tomorrow is my Habsburg day (*SQUEALS*) and I PROMISE I will try not to make tomorrow's entry a history lesson... But omgHabsburgsomgomg.

New Vienna photos start HERE and Melk photos are here

Arghblah!

The trains cursed me this morning. A pox on them.

So anyway, I'm at HOME and I booked a ghost tour in Dublin too YAY and now I'm looking up stuff to do in Vienna that I haven't already done. I've done a lot and been to most of the obvious and even some of the not so obvious places there already in 2001. I found a history/torture museum which I am TOTALLY going to because they do medieval re-enactments and I hope I just don't look creepy rocking up to this torture museum by myself. I'll be the creepy lady in the corner... Yep, that's totally me. And it's near the aquarium which, by some strange circumstance, I missed last time. So I'll hit both of those one of the days :D Probably the day after Melk. Then I'll go to Heitzing and have Heisse Schokolade at Schoen Brunn and visit the tiergarten because I'm a sucker for a zoo. And the Vienna zoo is frikkin' gorgeous. I want to go to the district I stayed in there too, out past Hutteldorf. We'll see! The only other thing out that way though is the place where I'm terrified a wild boar will eat me. SRSLY. I can't ever remember how to spell it but it's like Lainzer Tiergarten and Hermesvilla is in there. Kaiser Franz-Jozef bought that for Kaiserin Sisi to be like "Stay in the frickin' country!" and she was like "Hell no!" even though he had A Midsummer Night's Dream painted on the bedroom ceiling.

It would make ME stay! Look http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermesvilla (Except...wild boar.)

Aaaaanyway, I know weird stuff and I'm going to go now :)

I ♥ Wien

You know what I love? Looking 'Wiener Neustadt' up on Wikipedia so I could see where it was, and reading the following:

The city was founded by the Babenberger Duke Leopold V in 1194, who financed the construction of the city with the ransom paid for the English king Richard the Lionheart, who had previously been held as a hostage in Austria at Dürnstein.

And knowing exactly what it is talking about. Every bit of it. My University degree is about as useful as toilet paper (which..technically, is pretty useful but only for one purpose...) but damn do I know random crap, thanks to the history component of having a Bachelor of Arts-German Language and Literature major. Like who Leopold V was. And, for that matter, who the Babenbergs were. And the Hapsburgs. Who I know were not mentioned, but they made an empire through marriage instead of killing (though they did that too). Marie Antionette was a Hapsburg! Her mother, Maria Theresia was Empress of Austria for 40 years (exactly) and she had 49729475312 babies most of whom died as kids though the ones that didn't married all over. AND the child Mozart performed for her and she adored him.

And don't get me started on Empress Elisabeth because I can go on all day. The paper I wrote on her got me my very own 98% in a unit, as the paper was the only thing graded in that unit. She's fascinating.

And, back on Richard the Lionheart, the castle in Dürnstein is along the Danube and we stopped there on our way back to Vienna from Melk. And our teacher told us the (fake) tale of the minstrel who came to sing under Richard's window, and that's how they discovered where he was. Ah, legends. So I found it on the web here.

History is my crack for SRS. But I cannot for the life of me remember the word for 'minstrel' in German, but I remember I liked the word! MY LANGUAGE SKILLS HAVE FAILED ME!

Edit: BWUAAHHAHAA - Minnesänger I so just used freetranslation.com. Fail. :D