I was supposed to fly back to Austria last Friday. However, neither my family nor I were quite ready for me to leave, so we changed my ticket to allow us five extra days together. Little did I know that God had big plans for these extra days. Part of my time at home has been about visiting friends and family, but part of it has been work, because I have to raise $2,000 in monthly support. Yesterday I was about halfway to that goal. However, this morning at church, Pastor Olson wanted me to share a specific story that I had told him about one of my students. Considering that I wasn’t even supposed to be in the country, it was amazing that not only was I there, but I had a story to share that fit in perfectly with the sermon he was preaching. After I shared, Pastor Olson called on the congregation to think about supporting me. I had to send my dad home to get pledge cards because so many people decided to join my support team. God is amazing! I thought I was just spending a few extra days with my family, but He had much bigger plans. Plans to keep his promise that if I’m obedient to His calling, He will provide and provide abundantly.
Prater Film Festival
For the last few years, there is a Film Festival in the Prater during July. Older films are featured here and many of them are black and white. This year’s theme is science fiction and they’re showing everything from The Forbidden Planet to Star Wars on the big screen.
I caught two films while I was here: the first was Alphaville which was French with German subtitles. I had a little trouble following this one even though I got the basic gist of it. The fact that the main character was an American portraying many of the accustomed stereotypes was quite amusing.
Tonight I saw Westworld, which was written and directed by Michael Crichton. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Westworld is part of an amusement park where people can pay top dollar to spend a few weeks in the Old West. It is populated by highly sophisticated and life-like robots that have all the functions of a normal human beings. Patrons can even go so far as to shoot and “kill” these robots in realistic gunfights without fear of harm. Everything is going fine until the robots start acting strangely…cue sinister music.
Both nights were perfect for outdoor movie watching under the Riesenrad.
Why I Love Vienna
Maybe it’s just the sunshine talking after enduring the summer weather in Plymouth(temps in the 60’s with plenty of rain), but yesterday I felt a little pang of sadness for that day when I might leave Vienna.
Since the weather was so nice, I decided to take a walk along the canal and then through the city to the Rathaus where there is a summer film festival. It was the middle of the afternoon, so I was just planning on checking out the scene, snagging a few schedules for future reference and maybe grabbing a bite to eat. Just as I was about to leave a group of musicians assembled on the stage and began to play some toe-tapping jazz/blues/ragtime numbers. It was a wonderful way to spend my afternoon, taking in some live music with a cool beverage and the sun overhead.
I’ve included three short video clips of the music below. Unfortunately my 5 year old point-and-shoot camera doesn’t take stellar video and it forces my clips to be 30 seconds or less. So the video’s not so great, but the audio comes through nice and clear.
Back to Austria Where My $ Goes Farther
So I’ve now finished year 2 of my 3 year Master’s program, and am enjoying a couple of days to myself in Vienna before I head back to the US. I enjoyed my time in Plymouth hanging out with friends from last year and learning a few things in my classes. Though the weather was mostly cold and rainy, there were a few pokes of sunshine and even some really nice days the last week when I was holed up in my room trying to finish all my work. I’m already looking forward to next year.
One thing that I noticed upon exploring the summer scene in Vienna is that things are a lot cheaper here. I normally wouldn’t have noticed, but living in England for a month I got used to thinking about prices being double in dollars. For instance, if I bought a value meal at McDonald’s for 4.5 Pounds, I was really spending $9 on a meal. In Austria, if I spend 4.5 Euro on a McDonald’s meal, it only costs me $6.25. What a savings!
So I’m looking forward to being back in the US for a few weeks where I don’t instinctively do math in my head to think about how much I’m really spending on something….or cringe when I figure it out.
Free Stuff
In the past year I’ve received a few strange things in the mail from TelekomAustria, my phone company. All of these things are a bright yellowish green. Kind of the color of lime Jello or Mountain Dew. The first thing was a free pair of houseshoes (the slippers Austrians wear around the house.) Then it was a welcome mat that was really only big enough to wipe off one shoe at a time. Today, however, I got the best one yet – a bright yellow/green pizza cutter – free – right in the mail. Who says Austrians don’t know anything about customer service?
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