Sunday to Tuesday: Planning for the future

I said the website crashed on me earlier, so this is my attempt to retype everything that I have written:

Sunday Wolf Prix hired the photographer Erwin Wurm to take the first ever Coop Himmelb(l)au team picture! All the emails we received about the weekend really stressed the dress code (titled “the Architect”) which meant that everyone had to wear black shoes, black pants (long pants, mind you), white shirt, and black blazer. It was humid and warm at 9am when I left the apartment wearing the required clothes, so by the time I got to the shuttle buses at the offices, I was as sweaty as everyone else. About 120 people showed up, and then the shuttles departed to… the middle of nowhere. They had to hire shuttles because no public transport makes it all the way out to the this random rusty dockland/loading area place that we were driven to.

Here we are everyone! Where????

And then Prix drives in. The guy on the right in the brown shirt is Erwin Wurm – apparently they’re old friends, which is why he did the photoshoot.

Ladies.

So we take three different shots: The first we are all standing in rows, like an army and the executive board of Himmelblau is looking down on us from a loading dock. The second shot, everyone piles onto this truck used for dragging three cars at three different levels across the country – we are a commodity. The final shot by Wurm made me laugh. We all had to sit on the ground in our nice clothes, with our legs straight out in front of us, and looking straight ahead. This was the only one that I got pictures of:

Again, we're in rows - this is just a picture of everyone getting ready.

It was getting really hot at that point so sitting upright with legs straight and hands and arms at your side was like doing pilates in a sauna.

Afterwards, everyone piled into the buses again and drove to a place that had prepared lunch for us, compliments of CHBL.

The rest of Sunday was pretty lazy, so I was able to get up for work on Monday pretty refreshed. Tuesday I spent in Hornstein with Omama, because it would be the last time to do so. We woke up at 5am Wednesday morning to wish the pilgrams (Hornsteiners that walk from Wednesday to Sunday to Mariazelle) good luck and say our last goodbyes. Got back to Vienna and went to work.

Tomorrow, Tyler, Maria, and I are going to Prague for the weekend…

Dear Family, thanks for calling me at 7am this morning. I love you.

EL

First week in July: Hot and Busy

This week has been a lot of work trying to meet a deadline for this Monday which was pushed to Friday in order to allow the festivities of the weekend to be fully enjoyed.  Every summer CHBL throws a Sommerfetzt near the Alte Donau, which was what happened this Friday. I was kind of experiencing a burnout by Friday (because in addition to all the work, I went out a couple times with friends of friends from work – I finally experienced Flex, and came home later than was very wise) so my plan was just go to and work my shift (interns were required to be door men and make sure that everyone got a cd and raffle number) and then come back and sleep and be ready for Hornstein on Saturday.

First a little about how CHBL operates during a party:

1. Make trendy fliers, a cd of himmelblau hits from 05-09,  and raffell prizes (feat. were some CHBL bikini’s, rings from BMW Welt sketch, and other random stuff the industrial design department came up with).

2. Rent a summer camp looking building near on the banks of a river with an open bar.

3. Get DJs and play some remixed oldies rock songs that Wolf Prix can dance to (which he did. Which I have video footage of)

4. Keep if professional until about midnight when each team has a “meeting” – by which I mean shots.

5. Finally the DJ plays some sweet jams – so you dance with everyone from interns to team leaders.

** Optional: Swimming and playing volleyball (clothes are also optional).

Saturday I went to Neufeld in the morning with Stef and a friend of his from Golan – they both had diving licenses and wanted to test the waters. Neufeld sea used to be a coal mine or something along those lines and filled with water so the water is really deep (approx. 50m) and clear. And cold. So I sun bathed and waited for them. I went swimming and turned a little blue, so I didn’t go back in – but I guess it’s supposed to be warmer once the day wears on.

A view of the sea... and Stef's army bag.

Excuse me, I have places to go on my Slide-Boat, outta the way swimmers, this is a moving party.

I went to lunch with Omama, Kuma, and Onkle Paul afterwards and spent a little time visiting Peter Eberhardt before returning to Hornstein for a nap and a little walk afterwards.

What a great picture.

Hornstein... also the location of the first "Annoying Americans looking at your ..." Thank you Rosemary!

Love the Esterhazi colors!

At the end of the walk I ended up at the cemetery above Hornstein to visit some other relatives.

The night ended with a heurigen in Hornstein and then a night drive back to Vienna. I will be back on Tuesday though, to give Omama a proper goodbye.

I’ll update later because this stupid website crashed on me and deleted everything I just wrote. I’m going to get icecream with Andi. We just finished cleaning the apartment and after sweatin’ it up, we need something cool. I’ll be heading to a mass at Stephansdom tonight – hopefully I wasn’t wrong about the time!

Love to my family and friends,

Oh, and I hope everyone had a happy fourth of July!

EL

Humidity in the morning

is one of the worst experiences I’ve had here. Recently it has been cold and rainy and I don’t know which I prefer. Sweaty hotness that results in a fuzzy stupor all day or walking into work with wet feet.

So I am waiting here at CHBL for another task… although I don’t think that my time with Illustrator has come to a close, rather more like a momentary pause. I handed over the drawings this morning to the super friendly graphics department and I’m waiting to hear back from them. I totally forgot that June had only 30 days (Mom, why didn’t you ever teach me the knuckle trick?? Now I look like a fool!) and so the internal competition between interns ends tomorrow at noon. Guess who decided to party and not work on a design? Yeah, but I guess it was worth it because MJ was played, danced to, toasted to, blahblahblah.

Did I mention that I LOVE meeting knew people??

This is a stream of conscious post, I guess.

Speaking of which – THANK YOU SO MUCH ROSEMARY FOR THE LETTERS!!! I LOVE READING THEM! It’s like your here with me and talking. Stream of consciousness from you in letters makes me lol all over the place. I read them while watching Grey’s Anatomy with Andrea, so the letters combined with the show (which I have never seen until I got here- don’t worry friends, I won’t get addicted, but ITS SO HARD NOT TO!) was too much stimuli to handle, which resulted in outbursts to Andi like OMG she’s a lesbian!? and HOLY CRAP this letter is 8 pages long!

Man, today I can barely keep my eyes open…

Check out this jellyfish picture:

It is a springboard for the idea for the interior of the theater. This morning before lunch I had relatively little to do, kind of inbetween tasks (like now) so I went downstairs to the basement, which smells like catacombs and sweaty interns, to check out the material room and get some ideas. Then I asked Eva (in interiors) about if we need to know materiality and she was like no, it will be plaster. Okay

Well, I have a task. Interior elevations in CAD, here I come.

Yesterday I walked back home instead of taking the UBahn…

… because I literally sat at my desk at CHBL for approximately 9 hours with a 0.5 hour break for lunch and conversation with Filip (another intern from Belgium). The work is putting tha autoCAD plans into Adobe Illustrator and working with the line weights, hatching, and everything else so that it is fitting for the graphics department. Seeing the autoCAD plans are good, but it is easier to read the drawings (+5, -3 floorplans, 4 sections, 3 site plans) if they’re in B&W and sans room stamps, dimensions, etc. This is my task for the past two weeks-ish. I think yesterday was especially taxing because my wrist started to hurt and my eyes were shot, thus the glasses today. They make me look old…er and more severe. Which makes me self-conscious.

This past weekend I came into work for a few hours just so that I didn’t have to stay long nights this week, and I’m glad I did, because now I’m a little bit ahead of where I thought I would be. WOO! But at the same time, I missed going to Graz with Omama. Saturday night I went to the annual Donauinselfest with some co-workers. A little about the Donauinsel: it sits in the Donau (kind of like Ile de la Cite) but it is super long and super skinny. There were 18 different stages set up… and the most famous band there was Snow Patrol. Which was the only band I knew, so that’s the one we tried to see at about 11pm on Satuday night with literally (check it out on the news, google it, whatever) a million other people. Million. GAH. Don’t get me wrong, I dig fests and crowds and the like, but we were packed in and couldn’t even see the stage where we were at. So we decided to leave, which was also a crowded situation. Good new though: I went to bed a little earlier than normal and the sleep really did me well! I was able to get up Sunday, talk to Josh a little bit (despite many Skype -related issues), tried to call the family (again a no-go because I guess my Skype really sucks), cleaned the apt a little and took the train to Neusiedl am See for Andrea’s (Roswitha’s sister) birthday. It was amazing food: kind of a pancake roll thing with mixed greens (what am I, a menu?) to start out (like an appetizer), next roast pork and rice with a delicious sauce, then a rasperry dessert with creme. And Chocolate birthday cake and coffee. I really loved this experience. Not only was Andi, Ulli, Ita, and Margit there, but the Strands family and Andrea’s family. It made me miss our family birthday’s at 915 Church. We played board games and watched half an old movie snuggling with Ulli (Okay only a few people will get this but: chee!) before Andi and I returned to Vienna.

Later that night (Sunday) I met up with a friend to try to find his favorite Croatian beer. I guess there are only two bars in Vienna that sell it legally, and both were in Ottakring (one of the farthest reaches of the Ubahn) so we get there and it tastes like Stella! I love it! Haha. We then took the train back into the first district to see all the beautiful buildings at night and I couldn’t agree more with this quote from (okay, don’t go crazy) Hitler:

“From morning until late at night, I ran from one object of interest to another, but it was always the buildings that held my primary interest. For hours I could stand in front of the Opera, for hours I could gaze at the Parliament, the whole Ringstrasse seemed to me like an enchantment out of The Thousand and One Nights.”

(Mein Kampf, A. Hitler)

I’ve also taken to reading the book about Vienna that I bought here, so I look like an uber-tourist on the Ubahn on the way to work. Whatev, I like it.

During the beginning of last week, I met up with more people from the GB here. I really felt like I was in the right place at the right time. Definitely an answer to what I’ve been waiting for. More on that later… I’m meeting up with them again tomorrow.

Jeez, I gotta get back to Illustrator. I’m totally going to finish these plans today… Muahaha. Oh and for all you archstudents reading this blog, Wolf Prix is having an internal intern competition for one of his projects: the House of Music. The goal is to design a 3-D surface to cover the interior walls of the concert hall to act as a sound diffuser. I’ll post my entries up here when I’m done. Check it!

Peace,

Liz

r o b o t party

Friday: Robot Party – Simon’s birthday. Okay, I’m going to be honest, I didn’t initially want to go because I was having one of those days where I missed everyone. So when I got home (at around 7:30pm) I called Catherine, Rosemary, and left a message with Dad before I called Sarah. It was really great to feel like someone else knew how I was feeling… so after awhile, I got ready and try to find a “costume”. Initially I was just going to wear two computer cords twisted around my body but then realized it was raining super hard outside and opted to not wear them. I got to the UBahn stop and completely forgot where Simon lived so I proceeded to get lost and when I finally arrived, I had missed the birthday song. It was still super fun… great costumes! I pretty much loved the Bender costume… which eventually won the prize. The prize being a lazer cut trophy of a robot. Go architecture and all the fun it affords with its sweet equipment.

Some pics are on the facebook.

Stayed out too too late.

Saturday I went to Hornstein in the evening in order to go to a mass for Sisi that Sunday. The priest actually gave a homily this time. I met Peter and Maria – which made me so happy!! We had a delicious lunch and I spent the evening with everyone in the living room before heading back to Vienna (originally Stef and I were going to go to Laxemburg and then back to Vienna earlier, but he had an emergency his friend needed help with).

Monday and Today the weather is just cold and rainy. I slept extra late to late to make sure I had the energy incase I needed to stay late today.

Thankful for: an early morning conversation with Josh yesterday – although Skype is really awful sometimes, the salad that Andrea made for dinner last night and watching Grey’s Anatomy for the first time, realizing why people get sucked in (I was so close to crying!), the french cd I just downloaded, coffee this morning, and my family across the world.

Peace&Love,

EL

Detailing… on buildings and in CAD

Hellooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I’m straight up going to sit down and blog super fast because I’m going for a run after this. Man, I really need to run again.

Sunday last week: Spectacular lunch with Margit and Oma – completely organic and delicious. Honestly the best pumpkin soup I’ve ever had and everything was grown in the garden. Fans, a picture:

It was super beautiful that day, I wish I took more pictures.

So from there we went to a, I forget what they’re called, but basically some Austrian people have a smaller house or cottage and a plot of land that they can go to and just chill and garden or something. Again we had some coffee and cake until I heard Stef come up with his motorcycle. Haha, it was pretty hilarious. I came out and he was waiting on his hog leaning back with the spawling countryside behind him. I felt like I was in a cheesey movie, but it was super fun! He explained that I needed to wear this belt thing around my waist because the wind would make my back cold and my organs would be affected… I’m doing such a horrible job explaining it, but I put it on, and climbed up behind him and off we went on a GORGEOUS sunny day. We went to get icecream in the next village, Neufeld (which turned y teeth absolutely blue) and then rode around to the different villages. Super fun, although I (of course) got sunburnt. Then came back to Vienna.

Monday: Work in the morning… lunch at a park and then more work… yep nothing much to report from that day

Tuesday: After work I went to check out the Secession building and kind of realized that it was in a state of disregard… graffiti, homeless children and people, although a cool hippy cafe on the same block produced a great coffee. Check it:

Katy would love the owl detailing

Saw this too

Which one is it? Haha, if I was near this area of town, I thought I would check these out too... Although it was kind of raining so I was the only person there.

Wednesday: Worked a little late pretty much cadding all day. Blech, my eyes hurt afterwards and I’m going to get severe wrist problems some day… But after work I went to dinner with Felix and talked about his work in the Social Sector of Vienna… crazy stuff. And really depressing, but I wouldn’t find a better person for the job – he is always so upbeat and tells great stories.

Thursday: Work work and then met Roswitha and Hans in the Sand in the City for dinner and after went to a concert next door… interesting. It was an American woman, Susan Graham I think? I can’t really remember but she only sang french opera love songs with a piano… I liked the concert hall and the first couple songs she sang, but as the concert continued the songs got more and more modern and weird. To make matters worse she came back out after the last song and applause literally four more times. At this point people were like dude I’m out. As were we. We got a couple spritzers in the SinT again and I spoke to Inge, a colleague from Hans. Really interesting.

Oh and here’s a picture:

Snazzed up. What.

Enough already lady, jeez.

I will post a separate blog about Friday… it deserves it.  Now to get running!

One Beautiful 88th Weekend

Saturday morning, after struggling to be alive, I got up and did laundry (dude I gotta blog about this, its important!) and then, before meeting Omama for a birthday dinner (yeah I know, it seems like shes been celebrating for a week straight, but if I was turning 88, hell I would too), I took a trip to see the Belvedere in the sun. Originally built for Prince Eugene (a FRENCH military genius that fought for Austria – think about that!), it has changed hands a million times, but is still the resting place and original location of a lot of Gustav Klimt’s work, most importantly (or should I say most well known) the Kiss. But I didn’t actually go and see it because there weren’t any other exhibitions on in the galleries so I’ll go back in July. Anywho, it was amazingly warm (finally!) and I got some sweet pics.

Typical Belvedere shot. But it is kind of known for its many Sphinx.

The upper and lower palaces don’t seem so ornate from the get go, but once you get closer, the interiors are super sculpted.

And this little guy, I couldn’t resist him. Yeah I’m talking about sculpture. I need friends.

Hello Ladies.

So after checking that out and doing a little shopping, I packed my stuff and took the tram to the Sudtiroler platz (Rosemary, remember the Wurststand there? Yeah, I totally at a Wurst there.) to board a bus to Hornstein.

And Voila! Had dinner with Omama and visited some of her good friends with her:

What up, g?

That evening I went to a Mexicanafest with Stef, Dani, and Inge in the nearby dorf of Oslip. I was totally prepared for some salsa, bachata, merengue, etc. But no, it turns out the only mexican thing was a giant bottle of corona, and the surplus of tequila. And surplus of Austrian teenage punks. Haha, it was a good time though, I really enjoyed the company.

Viva Mexico??

Amigos

Dani and Inge

Okay, I seriously have to get to work…. BYE!

Work hard, play hard

Update: I know its Thursday morning, so I’m nearly a week late with updating. I will try to have separate posts in order to update everything accurately.

Friday I went to dinner with the team from CHBL to for a going away party for a lot people. Marcelo (Brazil) was the HoM project manager and will be taking a position with Herzog and DeMueron on a project of their in Brazil, so he’s happy  and Stephanie (Canada) was the other HoM intern besides Tyler, who has the model building market covered. So I’m took up her responsibilities and this is the four (yeah? Wow) day I’ve been there. But I stray from the point: picture this. Everyone on HoM team, sitting in a heuriger in the Prater, drinking beers and spritzers, eating those huge meat dishes (Stimmerl?? I think), and just laughing and talking together. Picture it, even though I’m including a picture right below this.

Keigo demolishing the last of the meat on the bone from the giant meat stack dish.

Good going away party

Prost!

The rest of the team watching the riders willing to go to one of the last rides open that night.

Side note: The Prater is an area of Vienna that just houses a carnival type of scene all year long. It’s just like a city theme park. Hahaha, it was really fun.  Included rides like this:

Marcelo rocked this mother like three times or something ridiculous.

Anywho, after that night, we didn’t get to the metro before it closed, resulting in taking a taxi home. It was okay – although the following morning I felt so awful! I think it had something to do with the drinking and chain smoking… Hahaha

I’ll start with Saturday and Sunday in a different post, I have to get into work now! I’m just finishing my coffee  and cheerios, kreeping on Catherine’s blog and listening to Lauryn Hill. what what.

LOVE family! and Friends!

EL

Fronliechnam (Tijelova) and Omama’s Birthday

After leaving work early on Wednesday and told not to come in on Friday, I found myself in the situation of a four-day weekend! Thursday is the feast of Corpus Christi here and is a public holiday. So I left work and went back to the apartment to pack and go to Hornstein. I decided to stop by the Gemeinshaft und Befreiung meeting in the University part of Vienna next to the Rathaus. I don’t know what my deal was, but I had a splitting headache, which I normally never have, and so it was really hard to concentrate. But here are a couple cool points: 1. they started off the meeting in song, one Italian and one Spanish. 2. It was a lot like the conference in Peoria, everyone is sitting facing two priests in the front and sharing their experiences. 3. It ended in prayer and Veni Sante Spiritu, Veni Per Mariam. But other then that, I didn’t really understnad too much of what was going on.

Bus to Hornstein.

Mass on Thursday morning and the Church was so beautiful!

Tied to the trees

And the trees line the interior of the Church (St. Anna)

After mass in the two languages (German and Croatian) everyone processed outside around the village following a band, the priest and monstrance, and flowergirls, to four different altars where a gospel and petitions were read. We were walking on fragrant grasses and flowers.  It was such a clear day that morning…

Beginning of the procession towards the first altar

This is what we were walking on...

The head of the procession

Altar number three

Afterwards I joined Stef for a morning Spritzer at the Firestation where the town brass band was playing. I then went from there to Jaetz where Inge and Herbert were celebrating their birthdays (and Omama’s too!). It was such a wonderful meal!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Omama!

Happy Birthday!

CHBL = Coop Himmelb(L)au

Just wanted to clarify. That is where I work. Which is what I did today and yesterday. I’ve been helping a lot with office management stuff – like the floorplan where everyone sits, what their email is, what project they’re on, etc. It’s weird because I can walk around the office and I image saying “Hello Angus” to a guy I’ve never met before who wouldn’t say hi back because he’s always listening to music. Haha, I’m a secret creep. Or people will talk to me and think I’m very thoughtful to have remembered their name after only hearing it…. wait, she’s actually never heard my name before… how does she know?!

The new thing I’m working on is a translation (kind of) of the Welcome booklet (more like novel, its over 50 pages long!) from German to English and adding all the pages like “What to do in Vienna” and “Telephone numbers to know” and “How to figure out your registration and tax information”. On Monday I will be starting with HOM team. So I’ll update about that later.

Last night after work, I met Andrea and Sonya for a drink and dinner at Sand in the City outside of the Stadtpark Ubahn stop. Basically they fill the outdoor icerink with sand and border it with little bars and eateries, leaving the middle for sitting, playing volleyball, and dancing. It was nice, although kind of a “Men are Pigs” conversation was prevalent from some stories that Sonya and Andrea were talking about. After getting some thai food, a friend from work from California met us there and we were able to geek out together about Architecture until about 10pm when Andrea and I took the Ubahn home.

Tonight after work, we all went out to this place called Running Sushi (I don’t always go out, so this is rather an uncommon occurance). Basically, there is a long rotating conveyor belt that has small pieces of sushi or plates of something that goes past your table, and you pay an overall fee and can eat as much as you want. It was freakin’ sweet, but I ate about 14 plates all within 20 minutes and had to take a break. Through the course of the dinner, I continued to nibble here and there but started to feel really nauseous. I left dinner early to take the Ubahn a couple stops home, but after I started to walk I felt a little better so I just walked the twenty minutes back to the apartment in the dusk. I really liked it although when I got back I really got sick. Should I really blog about this? Haha, whatever. Basically, I was too excited about Running Sushi and should have paced myself. I’ve never gotten sick from Sushi. I really liked it, just should have slowed down.

What else? Oh, I will be going to CL in Vienna tomorrow!! It’s a 7:30pm at the Edith Stein House behind the University complex and the discussion with be about “Hope” according the email I received from Thomas. I’m pumped! I also have to take a bus back to Hornstein later that night, because it’s Omama’s 88th birthday (I hope I’m right about that!) on Thursday and a public holiday for Austrians!

I hope everyone is doing well – good night!

Liz