Yesterday I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (insert sigh here) I won’t give anything away, but I will say that I’m grateful to J.K. Rowling for giving us closure on all of the story lines. The story feels complete and that is fantastic.
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.
My Class Podcast
For those of you interested in what kinds of things you might produce in the 2nd year of a Master’s program in educational technology, here’s a little sampling of a podcast I made….about podcasting.
Enjoy!
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