This blog has been moved. I started a new year and wanted a new blog. It can be found here.

I just made my trip back to America for the summer and I got to thinking about how people wait since I found myself standing in quite a few different lines.

Austrians and Germans: Sorry guys, but you don’t wait in lines. You mob and it’s survival of the fittest for who is going to get to go first. I have been shoved to the side more than once by massive groups of Austrians or Germans jostling for position. I’m also trained to wait in a line so even though I know you are all going to cut me and mob me I still stand there waiting anyways and tend to go last.

English: I usually love the English or those from the UK. They are perfect line standers. Everything is orderly and I don’t have to fear that I am going to get trampled.

Americans: We wait in lines too it’s true and most of us are good at waiting patiently in nice orderly lines, but we also have a problem that permeates a lot of our culture and that is we think we are more important than others. So, while we will wait in lines we also have the largest number of people (assholes) who think it’s okay to cut everyone and jump to the front because “their” problem is most important.

I know it doesn’t hold true for everyone, but the it’s the general rule and it’s a bit funny to take the time to watch and notice.

I recently wrote a pretty harsh criticism of a class that I recently took at the University and I have to say that it might be the thing that I am most proud of in my Austrian University career so far. Maybe even in my whole University career ever. It is just a feedback to a portfolio that I had to write about my time doing observations in an Austrian school and about the way the class and the observations went for me. What makes me proud about this particular piece is that I stood up and made myself heard for a change. I am not the kind of person that generally tells a teacher how I feel about something, but this time I did and I didn’t just do it in some kind of anonymous feedback…I e-mailed it to them with my name attached to it. Sometimes I feel like I have lost a lot of independence living here and that I am slowly gaining it back with little steps, but one thing I have noticed that has changed that I hadn’t noticed before is that I am really starting to tell people what I think. I don’t know if it’s because I think the way they do things here is stupid or if it’s the people that I hang around with now or if it’s that having already completed a degree I don’t take myself so seriously anymore, but whatever it is I have less qualms about telling people what I think these days and I have to say I kind of like that feeling. I also got my first real 1 or A because I took the time to say something so I am feeling pretty positive about that as well.

Think they’ll make me run faster and jump higher?

Maybe not, but I have taken these shoes out four times so far and I love them. I read somewhere once that the brand Brooks was the best shoe for allowing your foot to move most naturally while still being in a shoe. I’d have to say I would agree so far. I had been having sore knees from my other shoes and that is not the case with these shoes. It could also be partially because my other shoes are much more worn out, but regardless, I am a fan and would recommend these shoes to anyone. Try to resist shoes that just look cool like Nike Shox. That was a trap I always fell into, but I am glad I have stopped and gotten something better for my feet.

Every time an Austrian eats a burger with a fork and a knife a baby angel dies. 

Okay okay. I exaggerate. Austrians, I love you. (Believe me I would have been long gone by now if I didn’t.) I love all of your quirks and I am okay with things like you calling a projector a beamer or ending your English e-mails to me in greetz, but there is one thing you do that I can’t get over and that is eating a big juicy messy hamburger with a fork and a knife. It pains me. I cringe. I stare as if you are some kind of freak show. I’m sorry! I just can’t help it! 

This isn’t a crime that usually takes place at McDonalds. It isn’t a real restaurant. Let’s be honest. They aren’t really hamburgers and they don’t even tempt you by serving them with a knife and fork, but when you go to a restaurant…there happens to be one here called Racer’s or the TGI Friday’s in Vienna for example, you suddenly find that there is a fork and knife on the table and you MUST compulsively use them. I don’t know why, but let me tell you don’t be tempted by the fork and the knife. LOOK AWAY! They are simply there because they are always there. Maybe you are going to have a salad or an appetizer. No one knows. But you might notice, that in most cases your burger is served with one big knife. You are allowed to make one cut with this knife, typically to cut the burger in half. Then the knife becomes obsolete (unless you want to use it to fend off potential french fry stealers). I know the burger is messy, but that’s the way it is. That’s part of that whole freaky American experience because if you are in a burger restaurant you probably want some of that American experience otherwise you would have just gone for a Schnitzel. So please please please! Pick up that burger by both hands and eat it the American way and save those poor baby angels!