New Year.

 31 January 2012

            My New Year’s Eve was spent back home in Michigan in a little city called Kalamazoo.  In a previous lifetime, I dwelled amongst Kalamazoo’s tree-lined streets, old beautiful homes and surprisingly liberal attitude for about 5 years.  It is the place where I finished my undergraduate degree, still have many great friends, and danced my ass off to some of the best DJs between Detroit and Chicago almost every night.  Ouzos was the place we most regularly went to get lifted on the dance floor.  On New Year’s Eve, Ouzos brought it back like it was 2006 and I had the pleasure to head to the spot with some of the most beautiful women Kzoo has ever held.  Walking up the often travelled sidewalk, I immediately knew how on-point the evening would be when Chris, my favorite door guy, was working his usual spot (letting me breeze past the line and in the door for free – just like old times).  This was the first time in years that Ouzos removed its restaurant interiors to become the dance floor we all used to cherish every Saturday night.    

            With an outsider’s first impression of Ouzos, they may conclude it is a simple, small lounge with a fancy, decorative bar and a gorgeous copper ceiling.  To an insider, walking through that huge wooden windowed door is like walking through the gateway to paradise.  The people you love will be there.  The house music quickly beats back worries and sends them straight back out the door.  The dancers’ rhythm shares a groove of connection and happiness.  It is my heaven.

            On New Year’s Eve, I danced amongst my people for hours (even Tyrone showed up!) until 4am hit, the dance floor emptied and my aching knees told me it was time to chill.  And this I did, sitting back with J Lunatic and Sierra while Felix dropped some Bob Marley in the mix.  It was a perfect end to a perfect night while also being a perfect beginning to a new year.    

            I once heard that whatever a person is doing when the New Year strikes will be how their next year will be spent.  If I want to see the truth in this, my 2012 will be spent amongst good friends in heavenly situations working it on the dance floor of life.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The end of the night - thanks for getting this picture Sean!

Prison.

 13 January 2012

                Here I am in the first few days of 2012 and finally it is time to share my thoughts on being hospitalized in November.  I have nothing bad to say about the medical care available here except for those details that went against the depths of my very American nature.  For example, the doctors pissed me off in their method of treatment because it did not involve me in my treatment plan at all.  This left me subject to sudden random transport to various parts of the hospital for CT scans, eye exams, EEGs and other tests that were never mentioned to me before the moment of being scooped up to head out the door.  Another example is the duration of the hospital stay in a shared room with 5 other non-English speaking patients (duration being the primary reason I refer to it as prison).  I was in the hospital for 2 weeks.  In an American hospital, I would at most have been kept one to two days for observation and scheduled for outpatient follow-up tests.  My Austrian friends and colleagues did not understand why I was so distraught with the doctor’s refusal to allow me to go home.  They explained it is the norm in Austria to remain in the hospital until you are completely better. 

I am sure you can picture it: me with limited German language skills, unable to communicate well with the 5 other patients I shared a room with nor the nurses and doctors.  Being woken up, fed and put to bed on a regimented schedule that was reminiscent of a horror movie psych ward.  Feeling terrified not knowing what was going to happen to me as I drifted through a surreal state of “medical care.”  I felt imprisoned there as if I was at the mercy of a parole board that held the power to decide if I was ok for release back into society.

Finally, after too many of my daily requests to be released being denied, I asked a colleague to speak with the doctor.  She is a native German speaker and within 5 minutes had the doctor frustrated and agreeing I would be released the next morning.  He was frustrated because, as I was told is common with many Austrian doctors, he did not like having his intentions questioned (this helped me understand his frustration when I attempted questioning my treatment after getting advice from my doctor back in the US).  The doctor-patient relationship here is very different than in America…so much so that I was still scared I would awake the next morning to news that I could not go home.

Upon my release from the hospital, I was starving for fun and freedom.  This lined up nicely as the end of graduate school, my birthday and a visit from my good friend Adam were approaching!  My birthday party had most of my favorite Austrian friends (plus Adam!) in attendance and was an incredibly good time!  In the following days, Adam and I went to the Opera to see Madama Butterfly, toured the Christmas markets of Vienna, and enjoyed a lovely day trip to Bratislava. 

Before, during and after Adam’s visit my quest to satisfy my raging appetite for fun was interrupted with thoughts about what led to my hospitalization and my time within its walls.  What I took from the experience (other than new nightmares) is that I must take care of myself.  I need to slow down, pay better attention to what I put into my body and do whatever is necessary to calm my mind.  Overall, my focus is on healing…I must fully grasp what it means to go beyond just getting by because there is no freedom when I am just getting by.  I can no longer accept a prison of my own making.  

The room where I spent 2 weeks of November - two more beds to my left and right as I took the picture.

Happy times! Front row for Madama Butterfly

The Belvedere Christmas Market in Vienna

Adam and I in the old city of Bratislava

Hausaufgaben...is homework.

 01 December 2011

One word has worked itself into every aspect of the last few months of my life in Vienna: Homework.  My last semester of graduate school is almost complete and I am really looking forward to having my life back!!  Three years ago, I decided to embark on this journey through advanced education not understanding where it would lead me (or how insane it would be coupled with full-time employment!).  It has helped me understand this crazy world of clinical research to a point I did not even know was possible.  Now, with the finish line arms length away, it is overwhelming to feel the joy coated with disbelief that it will soon be over.    

The concluding moments of this past summer were marked by days of warm, beautiful weather and with me sitting outside at Café Kandinsky.  Reading, writing, pondering and being served delicious coffee and tasty creations in a great environment made my inner-student shine.  The café’s owner is a nice man who was the first Vienna-born person able to judge my accent as not only North American but from Northern Michigan. 

My late summer development of severe Achilles tendonitis and bursitis in both heals offered plenty of time to focus on homework.  It was difficult to walk, much less practice yoga…and my basketball playing and zumba shaking was completely halted.  In the days I desired to walk through Volksgarten or spend time exploring the Vienna Zoo or Schönbrunn and the surrounding grounds, I was instead sitting and healing.  And, of course, diligently churning out homework. 

Once it turned cold and sitting outside at nearby Café Kandinsky nearly threatened frostbite, I found another great location to research my final school assignments: my couch.  The wall of windows in my living room is amazing and the couch is nestled directly in the midst of it!  I have decided, one day when I build a beautiful house overlooking the sea, windows like I have now will be a mandatory component of the architecture.

On one nice Sunday afternoon, I actually took a break from homework and met up with some recently introduced folks at the Vienna Oktoberfest in the Prater.  It was big tents, lederhosen and dirndls as far as the eye could see.  Amongst the traditional Austrian heritage, the huge beers and good company were a very welcome break from all that damn homework.  And now, I leave you with some pictures as I contemplate returning to finish the last of the homework…

My spot at Cafe Kandinsky

Cafe Kandinsky is located down a beautiful walkway

Cafe Kandinsky - the view from my table...

My windows :-)

A tent in the Prater for Vienna's Oktoberfest

Girls in Dirndls holding a xylophone...only in Austria.

Full.

06 September 2011

Such a full summer it has been!  Full of travel, visitors, and fun shaken up with some intense conflicting thoughts and feelings… 

In July, I had a wind and rain filled trip to London for a weekend to see my friend from Madrid as well as my friend who lives in London.  The weekend was half tourist, half party-your-ass-off and completely no sleep!  It was a fantastically good time!  When I got back from London, I met my friend Jenn that next morning at the Vienna International Airport.  Having her come to visit me was special in many ways including because it was her first trip outside of the US and because it was very good for me to have a visitor who is as spontaneous and crazy as I am.  During her time here, we took the train to Prague for a long weekend.  Prague is an amazingly beautiful city with great options for tourists, delicious beer and the chance for entertainingly interesting learning experiences (e.g. you only talk to Nigerians if you want to buy drugs – ah! Who knew???).

A few days after Jenn left to head back to the US, I also left for the US.  Almost 3 weeks in my home country for which I was very excited!!  I continued to be very excited until a few days after I arrived back in the frustration of Washington DC.  Then I was suddenly excited to get back to Austria!  Do not get me wrong, it was really good to see my friends and reconnect on things that make cultural sense to me, but there is something about Vienna, Austria that suits me in a way Washington DC never did.  I am comfortable in Vienna - very safe, not frustrated and just comfortable. 

Upon my return to Austria in Mid-August, I found myself stuck in a tug-of-war internally.  I was almost afraid of how I felt mainly because I felt so displaced.  Here I was arriving back in a country that is not my home and yet no longer feeling like my home country is well suited to me.  I felt like I belonged everywhere and nowhere and it was an overwhelmingly lonely feeling.  Now that I have had a couple of weeks back here in good old Austria, these feelings have sorted themselves out.  There is no more tug-of-war and I am content again with being an American living in Europe.

In front of Prague Castle

In a London pub...

One of my favorite parts of being in the US was waking up at my best friend's house in Tennessee :-)

Realizing Vienna

 26 June 2011

The weather in Vienna has been a bit Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde lately.  Today concludes a fabulous four day weekend with each day spotted by rain storms and sudden drops in temperature.  Between the rain drops, however, I found enough sunshine for several activities.  I took my first motorcycle ride in about 7 years.  The ride was a little over an hour and the destination was one of the biggest lakes in Austria: Neusiedlersee.  Coming from Michigan, the lake spanning from Austria into Hungary was not so impressive in size but amazing in itself.  I also fit in a lovely bicycle ride, drinks with a few great ladies, a trip to the donauinselfest, discovery of the Millenium Center (a shopping center near the Danube), two great yoga classes, cooking delicious fresh asparagus and several lovely walks. 

Also accomplished was starting and finishing a new book from Yann Martel called “Beatrice and Virgil.”  The book sticks with me the most of all my weekend activities.  Especially the end that offered questions such as “You are about to die.  Next to you is a stranger.  He turns to you.  He says something in a language you don’t understand.  What do you do?” and, “A doctor is speaking to you: ‘This pill will erase your memory.  You will forget all your suffering and all your loss.  But you will also forget your entire past.’ Do you swallow the pill?”  These questions posed at the end of this strange story left me shocked, terrified and very thoughtful.  I decided my answer to both questions would be to simply smile truthfully and accept my fate.  In reality though, I found I had a bit of emotional complaining to do sparked by a realization.

Realizations often arrive in the most surprisingly casual way.  As I walked up the stairs to my apartment yesterday, I realized I am the only woman tenant in this upscale building of “business apartments.”  All business men reside here who have no spouses, no significant others and then there is me.  The person who is mirrored back at me by the place I live is a successful woman in a man’s world.  This is overwhelming.  I do not want to live like a man.  I am a woman who wants all those things a woman wants including a partner in life, a child, a big fluffy doggy and a home to fill with love.  Where I am right now does not define me, it is simply an interesting stop on my path filled with inevitable and blessed happiness.  Even when life is difficult, it is light.  We must always embrace this light.

The bar where we sat and had a drink on Lake Neusiedlersee



The view while sitting at the Sun Set Bar



The Donauinselfest of this past weekend - I did not bring my camera so here is a link:
http://www.2011.donauinselfest.at/

Time Travel.

04 June 2011

The last few weeks have been marked by important internal transition for me.  With my internal travels through a lifetime of thoughts, my physical body has also traveled.  Recent time spent on airplanes and long walks in new places has provided time I needed to process and become my new perspective.  Displaying a quality that may never change about me, I will tell you about the places and all the new faces but I will leave you to guess where my mind and soul has wandered through.

Berlin, Germany welcomed me on 22 May, 2011.  It is a city like no other.  Soon after my arrival, I set out to wander the streets of Mitte.  I walked slowly noticing how it is such a hodpodge of beautifully designed historic buildings, modern buildings and many 1970’s-esque industrial style structures.  Berlin is a city that does not appear to believe in matching its shoes to its belt.  The mixture, however, makes it what it is: a city with a shaded paste of murder and a complete lack of consciousness, bombed and attempted to be torn to bits, divided, reunited and rebuilt.  The rebuilding seems to continue as everywhere I turned there was construction. 

In between the construction, there was great beauty.  Museum Island, the river Spree, statues, Brandenberg Gate and the Reichstag building were all photo worthy.  I walked and walked until I saw it and it became all about one building.  The magnificent Berlinerdom absorbed my attention.  I feel in love with the building…we dated for a while, had great times and now I will always remember it fondly.  Berlin was good to me.

When speaking of beauty, nobody can overlook Paris.  I landed in France on 27 May, 2011 and though the drive from the airport was long and full of traffic, it was exciting to see everything.  I have finally been to Paris!!  The goals of my trip were to get my picture in front of the Eiffel Tower and see Erica and her family (including her brand new nephew!).  These were accomplished as well as a walk through the park, a meal at a café and a dinner of delicious Thai food. 

Despite all of the beautiful buildings lining every street in Paris and the enormous size of the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower stands out in my memory the most.  Immediately upon exiting the Metro, the Tower first showed itself to me amidst a beautiful blue sky backdrop.  Poking through the trees and above the buildings, it said, “hello.”  As we walked closer, my excitement to stand under it grew and my want to go up inside it skyrocketed.  Then we got there, and I loved standing under it and looking up in amazement.  We got in line so we could go up the elevator into the Tower and suddenly, I did not want to go.  It was going to take forever and there were so many other things I wanted to do.  I quickly and firmly decided it was not the time to go up and get to know the Tower better.  It was, instead, the time for further exploration elsewhere.

After some time in Paris, I joined Erica and some friends and family at a country house in Vouzon.  We rented a car and drove the 2.5 hours south not knowing exactly what we would see or how it would be.  It was, delightfully, perfect.  Quiet, beautiful and relaxing.  Upon my return from France, an unusual period of 6 weeks with no travel commenced.  My thoughts are in a good place and my continued growth shall flourish as I relax in Vienna for a moment.

As I am in Vienna now for several weeks, with much time for reflection, I think of where I am and who I am.  It is overwhelming sometimes to think of how this lady who I became grew from so many different pots and flower beds.  So many places and situations tended in multiple spectrum ways.  Sometimes watered and fed, sometimes left for dead.  From each replanting, though, I have prevailed.

I captured it well in a poem drafted hundreds of days ago…

Reincarnation

Reincarnation?

No need to brush me off this earth

For a rebirth to occur

New forms I take

Appearance

Social status

Occupation

But the friends stay the same

In my 30 years I feel

I have lived 10,000 lifetimes

Walking varied paths

Through different worlds

Each one leading to

A peak of chaos resulting

 In change

Change in direction

Change in dimension

Change in me

Each rebirth carries

Knowledge and experience from

Each past life

There is a method to this.

Me and the Berlinerdom:-)

The Berlinerdom!

The Eiffel Tower

"T" is for Travel.

 21 May, 2011

Travel has been my only constant lately (yes, I know, not so unusual for me).  It has been great to see so much of Europe in the past few months!  So now for the most recent adventures....My last three weeks have been kept busy with two flights to Belgium (with one extended detour through the Amsterdam airport), a train trip west and one train trip south.  I have now visited Gent, Antwerp, a couple of spots in Tirol and Graz.  My first trip to Belgium was to Gent.  I loved it there and walked around for over an hour after I arrived.  I got some fantastic pictures as both my exhausted feet and the weather cooperated.  On my way home, I picked up some Belgian Truffles to share with my colleagues and everyone seemed to enjoy them at the office the next day!

My next trip was west by train from Wien Westbanhof to Kufstein.  It was about 4.5 hours on the train and the time passed quickly as I was very excited to get there.  My trip was prompted by an invite to a barbecue from a great guy who I met at a happy hour in Vienna.  It was so beautiful there…I truly did not want to leave to come back for work on Monday.

Then it was back to Belgium to visit a site in Antwerp.  I had an extended layover in Amsterdam and got to see what the airport had to offer.  It turns out it had a great bottle opener keychain to offer me which I took home with me (both because I needed a keychain bottle opener…and because I found it hilarious to have a souvenir from my “visit” to Amsterdam).  Promptly upon my return, I headed to a party thrown by two of my colleagues - I was tired after the travel home, but the party was worth it!

The last trip was to Graz.  It was another train trip, but this time through a different beautiful area in Austria: Styria.  The ride was gorgeous and even though my time in Graz was short, I got to take in the sights at the university campus.  The campus was full of lush trees and great old buildings.  I would have been happy to take a break from travel after returning from Graz…but that break will be delayed.  I leave for Berlin in the morning.

Today, however, Vienna left me much time for contemplation.  The plan was always to be in and out of here – a quick 6 months.  Now I am already looking at an additional 8 months and trying to figure out what another 8 months in limbo means.  Every place so far in my life has been only a stop along the river with no permanent camp in sight...I might have come to the point where I am done drifting.  Maybe I am tired of finding great friends only to separate from them?  Years ago, change was what I needed; now I feel like it is all I know.  When really, all I know is something has got to be enough.  I learned when I was only a child that chasing a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow only makes the end of the rainbow seem to move farther and farther away…trying to reach that ambiguous treasure gets old after a while. 

For the last several years, it has been unpack to repack, end to renew.  How about a real goal marked by motivation to make my dreams come true?  It is time for a real destination without ambiguity and a place to call home, at least for this portion of the journey.  It is my new change.  I want to change so I can be the same and actually sit still for a minute.  No more looking over the next hill (or plane ticket, or move, or train, or…).  I am going to sit still for a while…ya know, after this next trip. J



Part of the City Center in Gent



Tirol - Amazing views everywhere!



A statue in Antwerp