Twenty-Ten. I will never get tired of saying it!

Well by rights I ought to be talking about Christmas and Scotland. However, I am going to use the name of this blog as a pretext and mostly ignore them, because I am nothing if not lazy. Christmas was great, I got to see the family and the much vaunted SNOW OF DOOM, and I even got some presents (Farscape! Gloves! I am a simple child). Plus, English Christmas dinner! And at no point did I have to jump into a pool of ice (I'm looking at you, Finland). Scotland for new years was predictably great, how could you go wrong with the combination of snow, mountains, great friends, ShitDave (TM), and pantomime antics? I played a zombie esque possessed scout who was controlled by the evil Baron of Buckinghamshire by means of the stolen shorts of Baden Powell. My pal and consummate panto writer James (have I linked to him before? His blog is brilliant! http://postcardjim.wordpress.com/) did a great job with the script, ably helped by Matt Goodwin of http://www.facebook.com/pages/You-Are-Invited/194764005947 fame. My plane was cancelled three times in total (once on the way home, twice on the way back), but this IS the worst snow in 50 years, so i can't be super annoyed. Plus I got to see my friends in an excellent production of the Quest for Beauty.

All this did mean that I only reached Vienna ahead of Ed and Ash due to the fact tht their flight had also been cancelled. We had very little time together, but we did the obligatory wander around town in the most horrible weather possible, plus visited Cafe Alt Wien (a must!) and had some delicious Austrian food. Austrian food is really growing on me, it is such a great mix of all the places conquered by the Empire of the years. On that occasion I had an amazing creamy cheese sauce, chicken, veg and noodle mixture all served in a skillet thing. mmmm. Afterwards we went and got standing tickets for the Ballet, der Nussknacker/ The Nutcracker. THREE EUROS YOU GUYS! I really need to go and see more things at the Opera. Ash was there as he is in his last year at the Royal Ballet School and is doing auditions. His Audition was on the Sunday, so this was an excellent chance to check out the company. However, Ash was not particularly impressed and I see where he was coming from, there was a lack of actual ballet dancing going on, plus it was an odd modern production with a barbie and a toy robot. Still, this being Vienna, the music was top notch. So weird to realise that I have heard every bit of the score before in the background of things but never noticed till now!

Sunday Ed and I didn't do much, I persuaded him to go with me to the Albertina and I freaked out over the awesome Impressionist exhibition (see post on the Night of the Museums), then we wandered around looking at things in the windows of the antique district and waited for Ash in a proper Austrian Cafe. A very nice day indeed. And Ash got a job! He was one of only 5 selected from 60 male dancers, so bloody well done. He was selected by the new director, who is somewhat of a famous dancer and is apparently poised to turn the company into something very impressive, so I shall look out for that, whether Ash decides to go there or not. Team Taylor then went with me to the Siebenstern Braeu once again. I had the old Viennese potato goulasch, and it was PRETTY GREAT. Ash's meal came in an entire frying pan on a fetching stand. Ahhh Austria.

Apart from that all is pretty OK, back at University and all that. I had my first lecture in English for like 9 months the other day, it was weird how much easier it was to pay attention, I hadn't realised quite how much of an extra strain on your brain it is listening in German. I could also write notes way faster.

Exams are coming up soon. I think. Austria has a WEIRD exam system, or at least my (very small, if no smaller than UCL) department does. There are three possible exam dates, and you can pick which one to attend (one soonish, one in the middle of next semester, one near the end). But the weirdest part is that the lecturers and the students discusss together when the first exam should be held! I feel strange about this, becuase it means all the exam dates are up in the air till about 2 weeks before the first exam appointment, and I feel a lot better with a fixed point to aim towards! Today was a good day in Uni though, I spoke lots of German and managed to look knowledgeable a lot, which was very nice. People were surprised I was staying for 2 semesters, it is odd but every other European country has exchanges lasting only one semester. i don't know the real reason, though I have a hunch that it is because mainland Europeans spend extended periods in other countries so much more often that it isn't novel and they have had enough after about 4 months. At least, when I asked a flatmate if he was sad to leave so son, he said (in german, so i paraphrase) nope, it's enough for me. The more I am here, the more little but seemingl;y logically unexplainable differences I see. Like, why is it that in all of Euro using Europe you can pay for a 4 euro purchase with a 100 euro note and it is totally normal? I've done it before, people do it all the time, but I think about the annoyance I would cause with a 50 pound note in Britain and I just can't see why there should even be a difference. Are we British just more fond of complaining? I mean, 108 Euros in 100 pounds now. Ho hum....

Ciao, der Tom (lots of germans say Ciao, Tschuess is a little rarer than I expected from german class!)