back in the saddle
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| my city is still breathing back in the saddle |
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Thursday, January 29, 2004 Hello! so I'm in Brand, working at the hotel. I'm sure many of you are laughing at the thought of me working in a 5 star (maybe only 4 star) dining room, in German at that. Don't worry, I'm basically a glorified busperson. But the pay's good and I get free accomadation (incl. food and tv!) in a single room with my own bathroom and shower. better than hostel life! Everyone here's really nice, although in a few weeks I'm sure to go stir crazy as I work like 8-10 hours a day, 6 days a week, and this town is really nothing but hotels and swiss tourists. honest. I'm hopefully here until mid May (we'll see if I manage to tell someone to f-off or something before that!), and then I get to travel a bit before coming home. yay. will blog more later, must go home and have a little nap before the dinner service. GENTLE REMINDER: email me your address if you want a postcard. yes, grandma, this includes you. thank you. posted by kim | 5:14 a.m.| (0) comments Sunday, January 25, 2004 Hi all! sorry about the lack of posting, I've been in Innsbruck (which I quite like!) looking around for work and hanging out at what not. I've been staying at the Jugendherberge St. Nikolas (click on the little Santa Claus), which has this somewhat shitty lockout from 10 am-5 pm.. so I have to entertain myself most of the day. I arrived on Thursday night with this really nice american named Dylan that I met in Vienna. He was coming to snowboard and I figured it gave me someone to ride the train with. We got here late on Thursday night (around 10:30), after a train ride where we were entertained by an applied math PhD candidate and a geology professor. They both lived in Innsbruck (and the prof was all excited when I told him I was from Calgary - he started going off about the Frank Slide), and gave Dylan a few tips about where to snowboard. Thursday night I had a few beer in the hostel pub and went to bed. Friday I walked around town stopping by most hotels to see if they were hiring (a few were and told me to come back Monday to talk to the boss) and basically discovered Innsbruck. I also bought a new scarf as I left mine at the hostel in Vienna (sorry Kristin! imagine the irony, the scarf has proably found a new owner now!), it's very pretty, pink and maroon, and was a steal from H&M at only € 5.90. Anyhow, that night I hung out in this common area in the hostel with a whole bunch of Australians (and one Kiwi). We talked, America bashed, and what not (Dylan came and joined us later and everyone felt bad about the america bashing cuz he's just so nice - but you must understand there's this group of 40 americans at the hostel, 90% 19 year old boys, who are super annoying).. we got on the topic of sport and I went on and on about the virtues of curling and how it's the next big thing. no one believed me. There was also this somewhat crazy (I'm assuming) homeless man who snuck into the hostel to sleep the night (very insecure hostel). He came in around 10 and spent the first 2 hours in the bathroom. He asked Sharyn if she wanted to have a bath. He asked Dylan to wake him up in the morning, and when Dylan replied that he was waking up at 7:30 to snowboard he replied "no that's too early, could you make it 9?" In the morning when I left around 9:30 he'd made himself fully at home and was walking around in his boots and jacket (nothing else). It was all around quite humourous, if you looked past the scariness of it, as well as the feeling sorry for the guy kinda part. At least he's resourceful, I guess! Friday was good on the job front, with 3 new leads. I'll get to them in due time, but will tell about one that I'm not following up now: some serving job at the Alexis Bar. Am simply not following up because the other two are currently looking better (and involve less work from me to get them right now). Anyhow, back to main story, so it turned out one of the Australians, Brian, lived here and works at one of the resorts. He'd moved into the hostel because he's leaving in April and didn't want to renew the lease on his apartment, and the hostel was fairly cheap. He was complaining about the lack of English speakers at his work (he's the only one, so every time they need someone who speaks english they have to go back to the kitchen and find him), and said he'd see if he could help me out. Saturday I went to see the men's world cup luge races with an Australian couple, Sharyn and Brett, it was pretty cool. We were all making friends with the Canadian team for some reason.. luge is a pretty cool sport to watch, I was impressed. Maybe you should all go watch it in Calgary if you get the chance! we went back to the hostel and then went to the pub, the three of us as well as Brian and Dylan. This morning (Sunday) I went to an interview at Brian's work (click on Neubau Panoramarestaurant Hoadlhaus).. the manager basically told me that they don't have any openings right now but they'd really like to employ me, and that they have a fairly high turnover - meaning it's likely something will come up within a week if I'm still available. So I checked up on the third lead just now, it's related to the maybe job I alluded to earlier. I'm going to Brand (a town) tomorrow to go for a week trial at this job. I'd be an au pair girl for a few hours in the afternoon (just one 4-year old boy, and we all know that I can be good with kids, I just don't particularily like them in restaurants!) and work in the hotel in the mornings for the breakfast service. So we'll see how it goes, at least I'll have a job for a week, which is more than I have now. The pay's not super great (but not bad), although room and board are included so I'll have many fewer expenses. It snowed in Innsbruck today and is about -5 degrees. The austrailians are complaining about the cold but I'm loving it! Hope all's well! posted by kim | 5:20 a.m.| (0) comments Wednesday, January 21, 2004 Today is a good day.. I think I *might* have a job, there's some wrangling to be done (they want me to work until November, I can only stay until June, we'll see what happnes) I've found free internet at the virgin megastore (although it seems to be subsidised by my €3 no-refill cup of coffee, go check the exchange rate yourself - trust me it sucks!) There is an annoying girl in my hostel room who insisted on opening the blinds at teh ungodly hour of 7:30 this morning and then unpacking and repacking her stuff... and she wasn't even leaving today!! But I won't let it ruin my free-internet happiness... posted by kim | 4:13 a.m.| (0) comments Tuesday, January 20, 2004 so I've basically spent the past two days sending out emails to various hotels etc. in the austrian alps telling them they should give me a job. no luck yet, although a few nice people have at least emailed me to tell me they have no openings, which I find very considerate. it's raining in Vienna today, andI've spent much too much time on the internet - and I'm sure too much money as well (I'll get the bill in minutes). i broke down and got a cell phone yesterday, the pay as you go kind. I figured it was sketchy to not have a permanent address nor a telephone number when looking for a job so I should try to get at least one of the above. am staying at a nice hostel called wombats, it's mildly entertaining, although the promised pub is not open due to renovations. proably all for the best. anyhow, I should stop wasting money on the internet and go do something else with my day... love and kisses... btw. Diego: I saw Hundertwassserhaus (and KunsthausWien - also designed by Hundertwasser) while in Vienna a few years ago - I'll check it out again if I stay unemployed for long enough... posted by kim | 6:10 a.m.| (0) comments Sunday, January 18, 2004 went to the museum of modern art today. they had an exhibition on art film of the 60's and 70's.. moderately interesting - my favourite piece was from Mark Snow, 2 films projected onto either side of a screen, depicting the front and rear view of the same thing. interesting..... In the basement was a section called "Mothers of Invention" or something lame like that. I was really dissappointed that it had been shoved down in the basement, it had some really cool things from artists like Suzanne Lacy and Le Tigre, as well as some Austrian feminist artists. It was never clear if it was to be a feminist exhibition, nor was it really all that big. it basically seemed to cover the protest movement of second-wave feminism while throwing in random other things. by far the most interesting part of the museum (and I normally like modern art). also an interesting area on Wiener Actionismus (?? too lazy to search google) - try searching for artist Otto Muehl. anyhow, after that I went to the Leopold Museum, which I whipped through. I was too tired to bother myself with it for some reason. The Gustav Klimt stuff was interesting, although there wasn't much considering we are in Vienna.. I was quite impressed with Egon Schiele, though... go check him out if you don't know who he is.. posted by kim | 9:09 a.m.| (0) comments Saturday, January 17, 2004 allright, I've got 25 min to write this and am not used to the euro keyboard yet (especially the y-z switch) so please bear with me and my million typos. anyhow, I left Calgary ummm Thursday at 6. I arrived at the lovely airport at 3:55, after being tossed out in front by my wonderful father (at least he got out of the truck this time to help me with my stuff, thanks dad!!). I used the express checkin, because it's there, and by 4 o'clock was checked in. only 2 hours to kill. yay. finally, at 5:20 we started boarding the plane. two movies, various tv shows. I discovered the beauty of classical music (which I'd always enjoyed during heavy traffic) - it is also excellent for tuning out screaming children on airplanes. The movies were fairly shitty, there was seabiscuit, the good ol' toby miguire special, which I refused to watch, and instead listened to the wonderful inflight classical music station and finished my book, Marion Douglas' Magic Eight Ball. Not a bad book, but not the beast I've read either.. coming of age late discovery lesbian novel. anyhow, read that, gave it to the woman sitting beside me as she was going to bosnia for 6 months. food was good, I, as usual, prebooked a veggie meal and got this wonderful japanese-style tofu-noodle dish. they were a little cheap on the salad but the entree was really good. After the crappy horse movie they played a few tv shows and then a second movie, which I watched. if only I could remember what it was called, it was from like 1998 or so, with Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney.. just googled it, it was called out of sight. too lazy to link it cuz the right button doesn'*t work on this mouse. Mildly entertaining, although looking out the window at the rising sun was often distracting me away from it. There were huge clouds over Europe, so I had no idea where we were most of the time. Anyhow, slept about an hour on the plane. we were supossed to arrive early but didn't beasue of the fog and heavy winds in Frankfurt. we actually were about 30 min late, after circling frankfurt for like 45 min. fun. Anyhow, I got off my plane and hauled ass to where my frankfurt-vienna flight was to be, as it started boarding about 20 min after I arrived in frankfurt and was in another wing of the airport. so I get to my gate, A30 and find out the flight has been delayed 1.5 hours due to forgotten luggage or something lame like that. so I wait. and I'm tired and stinky feeling. I arrived in Vienna around 5 pm (local time), got lost finding my hostel (while carting around all my stuff), but not too lost, I found it by 5:30 or so. was asleep by 7 pm and woke up around 6 this morning. am sharing a room with a really nice woman from Brazil. am trying really hard not to shop until I have a home because I already have enough stuff to cart around. I'm running out of time here at the internet cafe so I'll stop now. I realised yesterday that I have no addresses with me and one of my favourite things to do while unemployed in strange cities is to write postcards. so if you email me your address I'll send you a postcard. in theory. posted by kim | 4:37 a.m.| (0) comments Friday, January 16, 2004 so I've made it to Vienna. I really don't like this computer so I'll post the story of the trip later... lets just say that there were a few delayed flights and a whole lotta me and my luggage walking around vienna lost but what can you do? I now have a place to stay and what not, and can't start looking for work until Monday... posted by kim | 9:50 a.m.| (0) comments Tuesday, January 13, 2004 I leave for Vienna in 2 days (it's certain now) I'd better get packing new question: should I change the comments or leave them? hmmmmm posted by kim | 1:58 p.m.| (0) comments Monday, January 12, 2004 I got the archives working yay yay yay yay yay posted by kim | 1:12 p.m.| (0) comments Wednesday, January 07, 2004 heard a brilliant line on the radio today, it was something along the lines of "britney spears is to rock what courtney love is to sober".. still laughing posted by kim | 7:49 p.m.| (0) comments I am now officially unemployed. yay?! posted by kim | 3:18 a.m.| (0) comments Monday, January 05, 2004 I have this thing against men who tuck in their shirts. Like we'll be at the bar, and one of my friends will give her number to some guy with his shirt tucked in. and I give her a hard time about it for weeks after, just because that's how I am. makes me wonder if when guys give me their number their friends do the same thing, are they like "you gave her your number?!? but she didn't even tuck in her shirt!!" posted by kim | 1:56 a.m.| (0) comments Friday, January 02, 2004 my days have become a mess of boxes and packing tape. happy new year posted by kim | 5:03 p.m.| (0) comments |
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