Thursday, September 14, 2006

Europahaus

After the first week in the hotel, we moved into our permanent place of residence - Europahaus. It's a pretty new and clean little campus out in the very suburban 14th Bezirk of Vienna. It's made up of several different buildings, including a hotel, restaurant, and castle, all connected via underground pedway. If you're familiar with the bright and sterile Max Palevsky dorms on the University of Chicago campus by the library, that's what it kind of looks like.

We share the dorm (and kitchen) with a bunch of Austrian kids, none of whom I've met. When we got there, they were putting up love beads in our hallway, along with a sign proclaiming it a Desaster Area [sic]. These have since been taken down, probably by the maids.

Desaster Area
Desaster Area

We have some sort of maid service here, but their inconsistency confuses me. For example, when we first arrived, my bed was made, but no one else's was. When they cleaned the bathroom the first week, they didn't give us any toilet paper, but they gave some to everybody else. The next week, they gave us tons of toilet paper...but they stole our hand soap.

The Europahaus restaurant has a special student menu everyday for €4.20. However, they don't ever tell you what the dish is. It's usually a safe bet that it's some kind of fried thing.

Europahaus restaurant
Europahaus Restaurant

There are also music rooms, Tischtennis rooms, pool rooms, tv rooms, fitness rooms, and two saunas. There's what appears to be a wooden outdoor square-dance floor, too.

Europahaus is a prime spot for retreats, weddings, and whatnot, it appears. Every night, there are new groups of people doing trust falls, hugging each other, and setting tealights on the ground. Sometimes, there are small children violently being pushed about in bouncy castles. Then, someone accidentally releases a bunch of heart-shaped balloons into the air.

There's this ice cream parlour down the street that we always want to go to. The first few times we went there, however, the lights were on, the doors were open, but no one was there. We waited for a while, and no one emerged. Every time we would walk past it, it was the same. It's closed late at night, so there must be someone who goes in there. We tried again a few days ago, and the doors were closed this time. On our last attempt, the doors were closed, the blinds were closed, and the entrance blocked off.

P.S. - our Austrian pal Steffi e-mailed us back! She just moved in with her grandmother, and then she'll be travelling around to visit her sister's children, and then she says we're invited to hang out!


Die Wiener Kompilation

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