Wiener Zeitung

You are back and the sun is out!

And I had thought, this was due to the fact that I ate all at lunch :wink:

[And I had thought, this was due to the fact that I ate all at lunch]



Nice to hear that again, nobody understands this here, though.

When angels travel, the sun is laughing.

Yes, I'm going to France for a couple of days.

Oh, lucky you- I am going to work for the next couple of months.
But I shouldn't complain, have had a great holiday.

Glücklich wie Gott in Frankreich...

Boxing in Vienna
We are having a Wiener Schnitzel for lunch at the Institute today. I bloody deserve it. I can barely move, my lower back, shoulders, and quads are shattered. They were wrung out dry. I decided to pick up where I left off at Kostas's Garage of Pain in Jamaica Plains, where I was introduced to the world of boxing briefly. It took me awhile to find a boxing club in Vienna that wouldn't sound too intimidating and hardcore. Finally I settled on Schwarzweiss Wien Boxing Club. After all, their website says 'boxing for fitness' among other things, and there is a female boxer, with a straight, unshattered, nose depicted on the front page. I biked over yesterday, had my workout clothes with me 'just in case'. I should only watch the first time anyway. I bike through 9th, 1st, 5th and 6th bezirkt (district or whatnot) and find a rather large building. It takes about just as long as it used to from Somerville to JP. Ah, wish there was a Kostas in Vienna, with a little garage turned into a boxing studio, with picnics after training, guitar and good friends. No such thing. When I enter, I am soon seized by the trainer. He says we start in five minutes and to go change fast. Gulp. Me, too? Yes. I look around. The dark hall is dominated by a real boxing ring, with two guys going at it ferrociously. Groans, moans, and yelps dominate the silence. There are about twenty other men scattered about, some eyeing me, I suppose, amusedly. No other woman anywhere. ****, ****, ****! What did I get myself into! Well, I ain't backing out now. Nobody can say I didn't give it my best at least. I change quick and come back with all my supplies - wraps, mouth guard, jumping rope. Trainer is pleased. He disperses us through the hall and starts barking numerous instructions. In German. Bloody hell. At the end he turns to me and says: "Jump". Ok. Jumping rope. Five rounds, three minutes each, with a minute of break inbetween. Why did I not also bring water 'just in case'? I will surely die today. I am thinking of Kostas'es garage. I could just run upstairs to get water in his kitchen, pet Mina the white cat and chat to his wife about the Sweetheart -their bed and breakfast in Western Mass. which they are trying to resurrect and start up. Whistle. Now we have to do footwork. We didn't really do that with Kostas. Damn. Long directions in German follow. I am told: "forward!". OK, forward I go. And then backward and to the side. Then the same with punches. Muscles starting to get tired. I realize I have no idea how long the training will be. Hour? Two hours? Oh great. Now we're running sideways in a circle. When the sadist whistles, we have to jump forward, punch, and run immediately in the opposite direction. Good god. Now the other arm. Then both arms. It's taking at least half an hour and all of my energy. When I think I am about to plop on the ground unconscious, it's over. Since I didn't bring any water I drag myself into the showers and find a hose there. Pretty nasty, but do I care? If I could survive tap water in Morocco, Turkey, and India, not to mention gypsy settlements in Eastern Slovakia, I can drink from a mildewy hose in Vienna. I go back to ask about next trainings, cost, and such. Turns out there's a bonus session for those who want - 10 stations where one lifts weights, wriggles with medicine ball, or jumps about for thirty seconds. Then on to the next station. Can I decline and say "no, that would certainly be the death of me"? No, I cannot. So I play along. Station 3 is pushups on a medicine ball. I cannot do pushups! Turns out that I can, when the brutish trainer Schwarz hovers right over me. By station 5 I feel positively light-headed and by station 8 I can see stars in front of my eyes. After that I give up. I would really faint. Or throw up. That would not be a good start.
Trainer praises me for 'being strong as a horse' (just what every girl dreams to hear) and tells me we need to work on the technique if I want to go into the ring - as in, compete in real boxing matches. Wot? Me? I look doubtful but he hardly notices me. Come three times a week for a beginning, then we'll up it to every day... Harrumph. Hopefully I will earn a ton of money in boxing matches and be able to pay someone to finish the darned dissertation that I came to write in Vienna. Now if you excuse me I gotta go lie down. Cannot sit straight. Or type.



On Friday I went again. We had Frau Klaudia training us instead. One would thing a woman would be less of a brute. Not a German woman though. Frau Klaudia has no mercy. She has her own pyramid scheme. It's a torture device where one starts with one jump, one pushup, one ab crunch, then moves on to two jumps, two pushups, two crunches,....all the way up to ten. Then back. Frau Klaudia finished me off so good I was barely able to mount my bicycle to get myself to the safety of my home. I missed the train to Bratislava. I couldn't move. Got home well after midnight, tired, hungry, and oh yes, ultimately happy from all those unleashed endorphins floating around at the speed of light.

Poor dagmaraka!
This needs hot showers, magnesium intake and a good massage.
My daughter did boxing at the UTA for a semester- she loved it- once her muscles didn't scream anymore.

Riveting stuff, Dasha. I got tired just reading it. When is your first bout?

Bout? As in training? Tomorrow, ouch. But a friend is coming to Vienna, so I'll go drinking to forget about the pain right afterwards.

Bout as in fight.

It sounds saddistic and masochistic, just the kind of thing for you!

Hot damn!

I aint never gonna go boxing, not even in a next life.

(So Dag's into S/M then? ; )

no, nimh. Just into M. And that only in the gym or a boxing studio. Or via biking or jogging. I don't cause pain to others, physical or otherwise.

My first bout? Hard to tell. Herr Schwarz, alias Johann, seemed to think I could do it by the time I leave. So, maybe January? We'll see. If I survive the trainings that long...

We all cause pain to others some time or other...

but dont let me get too philosophical here. <sighs>

As for the boxing, rather you than me! But perhaps "strong like a horse, smart like a fox" would be a good new sig? ;-)

i'm still enjoying strawberries and champagne in my sig. it's a progress, you know. 'strong as a horse, smart like a fox' expresses some sort of activism and fondness for hard work. i'm not there yet. but i did move a bit from the previous sig: "i like work, it fascinates me. i can sit and look at it for hours..." to my joyride through life sig. So maybe in a few months I'll be ripe for the horse/fox coalition.

"strong like a horse, smart like a fox, lazy like a leopard"?

ehhmm ... in dutch, leopard is "luipaard", or "lazy horse". might not quite work in english i guess.

but otherwise, perfect sig right?

Great reading, as it happens I am going to Amsterdam then Vienna in November.

This has been an excellent virtual tour, can't wait to be there.

ey, holler, i'll be here.

My last adventure: a seedy local bar, around the corner from where I live: Fredi's Feuerhalle on Margaretenstrasse in 5th bezirkt. I met us with a friend from Bratislava who happened to come into town for a conference and decided to go for a dinner and drinks. So we hit the Centimeter 5. - apparently there is a bunch of them. The great thing about it is that they calculate the price of sandwhiches according to their length. In centimeters of course. You can eat one meter spaghetti and a two meter sausage, which we of course had to go for. They close at midnights, so we were strolling towards our respective abodes, when we happened upon Fredi's. What caught my eye was a wobbly leopard skin clad woman with a glass of rosé in her hand and a chatty waitress. A young guy plopped over the bar, sort of half asleep, half bored witless. We decide to come in for a 'Kapurkova' - one last drink. An old Czech tradition. Or a lie posing around for a tradition to provide an excuse for more drinking. We come in to see a typical Central European seedy bar environment: dim lighting, fake marble tables, plastic flowers here and there. One particularly nice addition was a tall table to stand around - as if it was taken from a bad train station food joint from times long gone and forgotten. Other decoration was also memorable - porn posters on the left (some hardcore, not much left to imagination really), right wall dedicated to soccer clubs posters and trophees. for an unexplicable reason also a poster of young George W. smoking a joint in between all of that. Neither I nor my friend speak any German, but the leopard woman was obviously relating story about a friend or family member: lots of wild gesticulation and grimaces suggesting no approval of absentee's behavior. They were in no hurry to close. After the half asleep youngster who turned out to be a Slovak Hungarian (Slovak citizen of Hungarian ethnic origin) crawled away, it was just as and the leopard with the waitress. leopard didn't pay. i wonder how they survive. Might stop by there tonight as well. It's the best bar ever.

That bar sounds exceptional, dag. You lead an interesting life.

That's what it's all about.

you'd like it. they have, for example a fuzzy plush turtle on a shelf inbetween all the porn posters. and similar nice contrasts.