This is Sparta... oops, I mean Athens

At the bottom of the Acropolis

Getting down on some Greek grub

Piraues - the Port in Athens

The Parthenon

My neato chess set

After a two hour flight on Aegean airlines Michelle and I landed in Athens, Greece. It was about 11:30 at night and we were exhausted since we had spent the entire day on an excursion to the Burg Kreuzenstein and Stift Klosterneuburg. Upon arriving we realized the Greek writing was impossible for us to read and after a while we found a help desk who told us how to get to our hotel. It turned out to be a good thing that we asked her, because we caught one of the last trains from the airport, and it would have been probably over 100 Euros for a taxi ride. We got to the hotel and found out that the reservation I thought I had made had not gone through. Luckily, they had rooms and crashed almost immediately after stepping in the room.

The next day we headed out to see the Acropolis and adventure. It was absolutely amazing. We went into the museum and hat a great time just seeing the art and the history. Michelle had taken an art history class on Greece and is a Ceramics major, so she was very knowledgeable on the subject of Greek art. After the museum we got some coffee and then lunch. We decided to see the Acropolis the next day because it was cloudy and a little bit chilly. On our way back, we stopped in a tourist shop and the guy charmed us into spending some money. One of the things we purchased was a really cool chess set with Spartans as pawns and Zeus and Hera as the king and queen. We decided to test it out and found a coffee shop near our hotel to play at.
Later that night we saw the Plaka, which is a giant shopping area. It was packed with both people and shops and it was a lot of fun looking through the shop windows at shoes and clothes that we were not even close being able to afford.

The next day we headed out to the Acropolis at about 8 in the morning. On our way we passed a basketball court where we saw about 20 homeless people sleeping on cardboard. It did not look like a slumber party that I wanted to attend. This kind of leads me into the negative aspects of the Athens trip. I think that the sea is beautiful, the food was delicious, and the Acropolis is seriously one of the coolest things I have ever seen, but on the whole I did not like Athens very much. It was filthy, with dirt and trash absolutely covering the roads and sidewalks, often producing an… off-putting smell. Additionally, there were homeless people and stray dogs everywhere. Even at the Parthenon there were stray dogs walking around, begging the tourists for food. The worst part was that I never really felt safe while walking any roads not around a giant tourist attraction. Perhaps this was caused by the fact that I was travelling with only one other person, which was a girl, or by the fact that several people warned me that Athens was dangerous, but it was probably because the city was super crowded and it was such a poor city. The people seemed very nice for the most part, but there were still times while walking that I thought to myself “I wish I had a knife.” At one point we met a redheaded American girl who was studying in Athens. She said that she really liked it there, but she also said that she gets grabbed on the streets by men often. At hearing this, Michelle and I both gave each other a look of concern and the girl followed up that statement by saying “Yeah, the worst is when it’s the cops, because you can’t threaten to call the police on them. You just have to play along and try and get away.” Later Michelle and I talked to each other about how utterly unpleasant that sounded, but I digress…

We arrived at the Acropolis and it was very sunny out. We paid 12 Euros a piece and walked to the top. Along the way we passed two amphitheaters and a bunch of ruins. Eventually we made it to the top and saw the Parthenon. I think that the Parthenon was absolutely remarkable. I will certainly never forget the view; you can see the Aegean Sea and all of Athens from the Acropolis. After taking numerous pictures we headed to the port to see the Aegean Sea and relax before heading back to the Airport.

I think advice I would give to travelers looking to go to Athens, is take either a cruise there, or a guided trip. We really enjoyed all of the touristy things, and the people taking guided tours looked like they were having a wonderful time. Perhaps that way you can avoid the not so great things in Athens and focus on the amazing things.

Birds, Castles, and Wine - Oh my!

Burg Kreuzenstein

Checking out the birds

A Bald Eagle descending on its prey

Inside the castle

Stift Klosterneuburg

To all my readers, I am once again sorry for the long break in between posts. Two weeks ago, we went on an excursion to the Burg Kreuzentstein and Stift Klosterneuburg. These are both just outside Vienna, in Niederösterreich. When we arrived at the Burg Kreuzentstein the first thing we saw was a bird show. We were able to walk around and see the birds beforehand, from owls to ravens to bald eagles to condors, it was very cool. Then the show began, they had trained the birds to fly back and forth between the handlers and they flew so close that you could reach out and touch them. Sometimes the birds flew over your head and were so close that you could feel the rush of the wind from their wings. It lasted about 30 minutes and they showed all of the different birds. One of the coolest parts was when they had the eagle dive towards a pool of water and snatch food out.
After the bird show, we headed into the Burg Kreuzenstein. A “Burg” is a castle that is used for living, but can easily be defended. Kreuzenstein was built in the 19th century as a show castle. No one has ever actually lived there, but it is now a museum where visitors can see what it was like to live in a castle. It was huge. We entered through the big stereotypical castle doors over a small moat bridge. Inside we saw a large courtyard with a well and a beautiful clock tower. Unfortunately, this was the last place we were able to take pictures. Once inside the castle we traveled to the kitchen and saw the giant rotisseries and cooking utensils that they used to use. The tour guide said that in castles, the kitchens were always worked by men because the work was so difficult and heavy. We then saw the chapel (every castle must have a chapel) and the living quarters. It was a little chilly out and I realized that life inside a castle must be very cold during the winter. The beds were also interesting, because they were very short. The guide said it wasn’t because the people were smaller, instead it was because they slept sitting up, which caused a lot of heart problems in the long run. Overall, the castle was extremely cool.
We then traveled to Stift Klosterneuburg (I believe I explained what a Stift was in an earlier post). Stift Klosterneuburg was not quite as gaudy as Stift Melk, but it was still interesting. Major Lampersberger decided we should go on the wine tour (they have several different types of tours). Unfortunately, the wine tour was a little boring, especially because the tour was more about the commercial process of making wine, instead of being about the wine itself. After the tour, we were able to sample some of the wines, which was nice.
I think the nicest part of the excursion was that my fiancée was able to come. After a 44-hour trip from Fairbanks, Alaska to the other side of the world, she was tired when the excursion was done, but she still enjoyed it. On the way back to Wiener Neustadt, Michelle (my fiancée) and I were dropped off at the airport so that we could catch a flight to Athens.

The Wachau

Matt and I on the Danube

My dream library (it sort of brings back memories of the board game Clue)

The front of the church (yeah that's gold)

Me at the Aggstein Ruins

A real life wine cellar!

So this should of been posted like a week ago, but instead I let the suspense build up. On Friday (not last Friday, the one before) we traveled to the Wachau, which is the most beautiful section of the Danube River (die Donau auf Deutsch). The Wachau is about an hour away from Wiener Neustadt and lies between the towns of Melk and Krems.
We first drove to Melk to see the base there and learn about the Pionier Bataillon 3 (we call them Engineers in our army). We got a tour of the base, which was quite small, but included a memorial built for the Concentration Camp there. We also got a presentation on the battalion and drank some coffee. The battalion’s main job is helping in catastrophes, so the location is prime since the Danube floods frequently and usually floods really bad every ten years or so.
From the base we drove to the Danube and got on some engineer boats. Some of the soldiers were practicing driving boats, so they let us hop on and gave us a quick tour of the Wachau. It was a little chilly and very foggy, but it was great. We saw a pretty large castle compound and a monastery during the tour. On the way back, they let me drive the boat. While I didn’t crash or flip the boat or anything, I did realize that I am an army guy and not a navy guy.
After the boat tour we headed to Stift Melk. A giant, part-monastery, part-school building that was extremely cool. Built in the baroque style in the 1500’s (I think) the Stift is now basically a museum. We received a tour and I spent the majority of the time mouthing “wow!” or just nodding my head in interest. The coolest part for me was in between the huge library, filled with books from the 15th and 16th century as well as modern books, and the giant church. It was basically the library of my dreams and the Catholic Church was just ridiculously ornate, with gold everywhere and detailed paintings on every wall.
From the Stift we headed to Burgruine Aggstein, the ruins of a castle originally built in the 12th century. The castle was incredible; it sat on the top of a small mountain overlooking the Danube. Castle history says that in the 1400’s a robber baron named Jörg Scheck. He used a giant chain stretched across the river to stop all boats going upriver and taking a toll (and a lot more). He built a castle balcony on a cliff that he used as a dungeon, prisoners couldn’t get back inside, so they could either starve to death or jump to their death. He called it his “Rosengärtlein” because for some reason, it reminded him of a rose garden.
After Aggstein, we headed to a little restaurant to have dinner. The Wachau is well known for its wine and we saw vineyards everywhere. The restaurant is run by a vineyard and a small farm. They only serve their own produce, so they are basically open until they run out of supplies and then they close until next year. We tried a couple types of wine their and also drank Sturm, which is extremely sweet wine that still has live yeast in it. We call it “gefährlich”, which means “dangerous”, because it is sweet like juice, but alcoholic like wine. Since there is still live yeast in it, it sort of swims around in your stomach. It has a very small shelf life, and can only be found for about two months of the year. We also got a tour of the vineyard and saw how the wine was made. It was a very enjoyable day.

More Riding, More Schooling, and More Running

Doing balance training on Rigoletto

Walking Rigoletto into the Reithalle

Welcome!

Today was the last day of my second week of school. I rode three out of four days, and my legs (and other parts) are pretty sore. The first two times I rode a white steed named Rigoletto and today I rode a dark brown horse named Belinda. Rigoletto was definitely more enjoyable to ride, mostly because the last thing Belinda wanted was for me and Christian to ride her. When Belinda was galloping, the last thing I wanted to do was let go of the saddle and do balance exercises. Regardless, we are improving. I’m already noticing improved posture and am having an easier time balancing on the horse. We are also getting quicker and quicker at cleaning and saddling the horses.
School was… school. I can hardly understand my Austrian History teacher, and while I can understand my other teachers pretty well, it is hard to keep from drifting off to daydream land. I think the most interesting part of this school week was seeing the senior class haze the freshman class. It was pretty much like Reorgy Week at West Point, except that it was fun for the freshmen and replace push-ups with drinking. The reason behind the “haze-fest” was the seniors had to show the freshmen how they are supposed to act in the MAK Casino (the bar downstairs). It was a fun time filled with Austrian soldier song after Austrian soldier song.
Something strange has happened to me since I have been here: I’ve actually enjoyed running. Normally I run about once every week at West Point, but here I run much more frequently. In the past two weeks I have run 8 times, 4 in the last 4 days alone. I don’t know what it is, but I think it has been the great weather. It is warm here, and not hot or humid. Additionally, there are really great running trails and it is extremely flat. Everybody runs here, when out on the trail you might see a 14 year-old boy or a 65 year-old woman. I’m very happy to be finally enjoying running, because I need to get better at it, especially with Ranger School looming ahead.

Bratislava (don't worry there was no actually lava)

Me helping this guy creep on some unsuspecting chump.

Who knew the Red Army had a choir?

Seth "accidentally" walking into my picture of some cool building.

An old statue in the middle of a park.

An Irish kebab stand.

This past weekend, Seth, Matt, and I traveled across the border into Slovakia. After a short train ride (about an hour and a half from Wiener Neustadt) we arrived in Bratislava (formerly Pressberg). Once we arrived, we set out looking for the #93 bus. There were several bus stops in the vicinity of the train station, but it appeared that the #93 bus was only a myth. Thus, we did what any lost person would do, we pointed in the direction that looked to be the most populated and started walking. Thirty or forty minutes later, we returned to the train station and found a bus map. It turned out that the bus we were looking for leaves from the backside of the train station, not the front (or the populated area).
We took the bus five stops to the inner city and promptly realized that I had missed a portion of the directions when I took a picture of them with my iPhone. We had a street name, but no number. I did remember for sure that it was a pink building. After a while we found the street and eventually we found the hostel, which was not at all pink. Upon entering the hostel, we were immediately told that they were full and given directions to another hostel. We arrived at the other hostel a few minutes later, and while it was a little pricey (about 20 Euros a person); it was really nice and had a much better location than the original hostel. After getting settled, we headed out to get some grub. We wanted to try Slovakian foods, so we went into a shady looking pub/restaurant, finding out after we were inside that it was a KGB restaurant. Since our waitress spoke no German and only caveman-English, we ordered awkwardly through a system of pointing gestures, grunts, and questioning looks. Whatever we did, we did right, because the food was absolutely delicious. Additionally, it was really cheap, about 6 Euros for a great portion of food and a beer.
After eating, we walked around the city a bit and sight-saw. Bratislava is a really cool town. While the streets aren't as clean as they are in Vienna, there are many parks and the people seemed nice.
We looked around for a cool place to have a beer and happened upon a bar simply called "Slovak Pub". It was interesting because we were expecting to hear a bunch of people speaking Slovakian and were preparing our cavemen gestures when we noticed that everyone was speaking English... very loudly. After ordering a virtually undrinkable beer (seriously, it tasted like it had been brewed with a bunch of pennies in the barrel) and a glass of wine, we bounced. We walked around a bit more a came upon a cocktail bar called "Drink". They had fantastic cocktails, cheap and delicious. We got a couple of drinks and a round of cool-looking B52's made with Absinth, which is green. We then found a McDonald's, which is kind of classier restaurant there and you don't feel guilty or ashamed when eating there. We destroyed a couple burgers and some fries and then were heading back to drink when we met a couple locals. They took us to a disco, but it was probably the worst club I have ever been to. There were approximately 8 people there and my ears are still ringing. We looked for another place, but found out that everywhere in Bratislava is closed by 1 am on a Saturday night.
We left the next morning and learned a valuable lesson on the way back: just because a train says it's going somewhere (for example, "Wiener Neustadt Hauptbahnhof") it may not be going there directly. We noticed this an hour into what is normally a 30 minute trip from Vienna to Wiener Neustadt. We arrived another hour or so later. On the bright side, we did get to see the Burgenland! -Note- Those aware of Austrian geography may realize here that Wiener Neustadt is in Niederösttereich and is southwest of Vienna, the Burgenland is east/southeast of Vienna.
All in all, it was a great time and was really interesting to see such a stark difference in culture such a small distance away.

Riding, Bowling, and a little bit of Schooling

As I write this, I am at the end of my first week of actual school. Scholastically, I had my 4-hour German class twice, once on Monday and once on Wednesday. This class is really great, our teacher gives us a pretty even mix of grammar, reading, speaking, and listening. One part of this class that has really helped my comprehension to improve is reading Austrian newspaper articles and then writing short summaries about them in German. I also had History of the Austrian Army, regular Austrian History, a 3.5 hour class on manners and social situations, a tour of the Military Academy, and Riding Class. For the most part in these classes, I tried to keep up for as long as I could before zoning out. History of the Austrian Army was really interesting because the teacher, a colonel, had many visual aids that helped me to understand. The other classes were a little tougher, I may have started drawing a little bit in the regular history class and the class on manners was torture due to not sleeping much the night before.
The Austrians also have Körperausbildung (PT, or KA in Austria) twice a week. KA was really great because we usually warm up by playing basketball, soccer, or doing a short body weight workout, and then we generally run a 5K or so. The running trails are quite nice around the MilAk and I ran 3 or 4 times last week, which is not normal for me.
My favorite class this week was riding. We started out by brushing and saddling the horse, basically just getting used to being around a giant animal. After familiarizing ourselves with the riding equipment we brought the horses into the giant riding hall. Chris and I rode a horse named Diana, and Seth and Matt rode a horse named Tenderness. Before riding, we warmed the horses up by holding on to a rope that was connected to the bridle and having them run around us. I volunteered to ride first, while Christian held the rope. We are learning Classical Riding, so we did not use stirrups or hold on to reins, we just were working on balance. Once on the horse, we performed several different exercises, such as moving our arms in a circle, rolling our ankles, or twisting our body. These exercises all focused on improving balance. After a while, Chris and I switched and he got a chance to ride. Both of us have pretty long legs, which made a couple of the exercises a little difficult. Overall, I think we did very well for our first time. After riding, we took the horses back, took of their saddles, brushed them, and stabled them. It is now a day later and I'm still a little sore from the saddle, I think I understand where the term "tenderloins" comes from.
Last night we went bowling with about twenty Austrians from our Jahrgang. It was a blast. We split up into four teams and then the teams played each other. I bowled probably the best game of my life, before the last game the lowest amount of pins I had knocked down in a frame was 8, with mostly spares and strikes. Towards the end, my accuracy was thrown off a little by the Oktoberfest-sized beers. It was a special night at the bowling alley, and interspersed with the normal pins were orange and yellow pins. If an orange or yellow pin was the front-most pin and you got a strike, you received either a free drink or a free game; if you failed to get the strike you still received a lollipop. The best I did with a yellow in the front was a spare, but Matt got a strike with one. After a while, the bowling alley decided that our outstanding group of guys needed sombreros, which they passed out to us.
The sombreros helped us to look classy when we headed to Rox, a rock n’ roll bar. It was pretty empty, but I enjoy talking with the Austrians and in a relaxed setting such as Rox, I don’t worry too much about making mistakes. I find that in these settings my conversational German skills increase dramatically. It was a really fun (and long) night. Tomorrow we are heading to Bratislava (formerly Preßburg) right across the border in Slovakia, which promises to be a great adventure.

Busy as a bee

The past couple days have sure been hectic. This was the graduation week for the fourth Jahrgang (or senior class) and Friday and Saturday were the big culminating events. On Friday we woke up and went to morning formation, then met up with Major Lampersberger to see the diploma ceremony at a theatre in Wiener Neustadt. After the diploma ceremony, we hustled back to watch the ring ceremony. Their ring ceremony is quite different from ours. First of all, they all get the same ring, a silver signet ring with the TherMilAk crest as the signet. The top man in the class, however, gets a gold ring. The rings are passed out in a small ballroom by the Landverteitigungs and Sport Minister (basically their Secretary of Defense, except that he is also the Secretary of Sports). Then we had some time off during the day before we went to a classical concert given by the Military Band and grabbing some dinner. After dinner we went to the balcony of the Academz and watched one of the two Ausmussterungs (graduation at the MilAk) parades. It was two hours long, which is extremely long for a military parade with people standing at the position of attention or parade rest (which for them is basically still attention). The senior class performed a joke, somewhat similar to the 100th night show, except that it was not funny at all. All of the guys in my Jahrgang said it was the worst that they had seen. After the joke, there was a great fireworks show. It was great for me because I was just chilling out on a balcony, but I'm sure it wasn't as fun for the people standing in formation. After the parade, the other cadets and I met up with the Defense Attache in Austria, Colonel Soto. We talked for a few minutes and then left to go out with the Austrians, which was great. They took us way down in the basement, which was more of a bunker than a basement, to a room that they had turned into a bar. They said that they had already been caught down there and that they were very much not allowed to be there, which we saw later when a couple of high ranking NCO's came and sternly kicked the 25 of us out.

The majority of yesterday for me was spent in Full Dress, which is not a comfortable uniform. We woke up and had a long drilling practice for the second parade, then we scarfed down some lunch. After lunch, we had the actual parade. It was cool because I got to participate in their graduation ceremony, but it was probably one of the most miserable experiences of my life. I stood basically at the position of attention for two hours while listening to two Austrian generals, the Landsverteitigungs and Sport Minister, and the President of Austria give speeches that were too long. After that we got to march down the main street in Wiener Neustadt, which was fairly awkward since the four of us stood out like a sore thumb in our Full Dress and parading hat. Once we were back from the parade, we had to clean our room really fast so that others could move in and we could move to another room further down the hallway. It's a day after moving in and so far zero of my three roommates have checked in. Another interesting thing about my room is that one of my roommates is a civilian, not really a normal thing for a military academy.

I guess I'll see how the room situation transpires, but tomorrow should be interesting since it will be my first day of school. Hmm, starting school in October... I could get used to that.