EtherVienna’s community webmagazine for English speakers!

This month: Summer Special European Resistance Archive Picnic Secrets Nova Rock Festival Your Views Expats Tell Their Stories Vienna Calling Book Reviews Band Of The Month and plenty more...

FREE

July & August 07

Summer is here at last!

Here at Ether we are going to be ta-king a well-deserved break to enjoy the good weather and all that Vienna has to offer. I hope you enjoy this July/August issue and find the features and listings inspiring. We will be back in September with the usual stuff and a special announce-ment! Best wishes,

Katie Binns Editor

Welcome

The Ether Team

Editor: Katie Binns

Arts Editor: Anja McCloskey

Web Editor: Andy Harris

Contributors: AMA, Sharron Au-brey, Sandra Boran, Alex Fanta, Jerusha Frost, Ted Geary, John Hodgson, I-LIB, Barbara Mollay, Richard Rees Jones, Eva Rein-bacher, Lynn Sikora, Rian van Spaandonk, Thomas Wicky

Contact:

Marktgasse 8/50, 1090 Wien,

Email info@ethermagazine.atwww.ethermagazine.at

Ether Content - 3

This Month...Picnic Special! - page 11

Info and Services

see page 30

Ether Welcome - 2

Greetings from the Editor 2

Content 3

Viennese View 4

Expat of the month 5

Vienna in Pictures 6

European Resistance Archive 8

Basket Cases Ahoi 11

Dirty Dancing 14

Vienna Calling 16

Your Vienna 27

ImPuls Tanz 30

The Test: How Austrian are you? 32

Student Pages 34

Around Town 36

Next Month 37

Enjoy our Summer Special!

When sum-mer heat reaches the city it´s time to consi-der leaving. Luckily, with Ryanair and the likes, it´s easier to get to the seaside places than it used to be.

In the long-passed days

of the early 20th century people did just the same. Instead of the Canaries and Greece, the places to be were Ischl and Baden. The tradition of ‘Sommerfrische’ started about 150 years ago, when the Viennese bourgeoisie flocked to the coun-tryside in an attempt to emulate the no-bility. Kaiser Franz Josef and his Bad Ischl in the Salzkammergut region to the West

were particularly hip among rich mer-chants, lawyers and the growing urban elite. People back then never actually reached the ´real´ countryside, instead they brought urban cafés, the opera and metropolitan style to the deprived Sou-thern and Western provinces. Only in the days of mass tourism in the latter years of the 20th century did the tradition slowly die out, leaving the ‘Kurorte’, the famous spas, to rich foreign holidaymakers. Former chanceller Bruno Kreisky had the same sentiment in mind when he claimed that he went to Mallorca because ‘Carinthia is too expensive’. These days summer va-cation in the country is coming back. But with the majority of Viennese being immi-grants, or people actually originating from the provinces, the seasonal exodus to all the rural areas in Styria, Tyrol or Vorarlberg has more the sentimental character of a homecoming for those who grew up there. Yet they bring a bit of Vienna to Kapfenberg, Kufstein or Klagenfurt just like times gone by...

On the National Holiday in Vienna, you get a military show-down at Heldenplatz, a field day in Wienerwald and free entry to museums. Read the following about my secret investigations into Independence Day festivities on the other side of the Pond. I only say: IFOCE!!

Imagine being in the USA on the 4th of July. What would you do? Basically, you’d have a day off. You’d go for a picnic. You’d BYOB. Maybe you’d be wearing a stars-and-stripes-bikini or similar subversive clothing. After finishing YOB, you’d see the fireworks. I’d qualify this way of celebrating as rather unoriginal unless – and here co-mes the exciting part – you were present at the IFOCE: the International Federation of Competitive Eating. And unless there was ‘Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest’. Believe it or not, there are some people in this world who compete in the task of ea-ting a maximum number of hot dogs within 12 minutes. On Independence Day in New

York you can watch m o n s t e r s like Patrick “Deep Dish” B e r t o l e t t i , Joey “Jaws” C h e s t n u t , Takeru “Tsu-nami” Ko-bayashi the current world c h a m p i o n and Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas (yes, there are female food annihilators as well) stuffing themselves with up to 53 hot dogs in less than a quarter of an hour! This madness started in 1916, when four immigrants had a hotdog eating contest to settle an argument about who was the most patriotic. As there’s an alarming hype around patriotism in Vienna let us just watch out for the first Bratwürschtl ea-ting contest in the Prater!

Eva Reinbacher The Viennese View

Issue of the moment Alex Fanta

Ether Views and Opinions - 4

Every month we’ll be featuring an expat from a different part of the English-speaking world to tell us why they are in Vienna. This month we have Sharron AubreyI know it’s an Aussie cliché, but I was born and bred in Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia and led a different life to the one I have now. While ho-lidaying in Queensland in ´99 I fatefully met my future husband who was travelling around Aus-tralia. About a year later, I left Sydney on a high after the 2000 Olympics to follow my heart. At the time Austria had made international news regarding the coalition between the then Peoples Party and The Freedom Party. The con-troversial news that sanctions against Austria were being imposed by the EU was broadcast around the world. Many of my family and friends were slightly concerned that I was moving to a country where `those people ̀ live with `those attitudes .̀ These ideas are foreign for most of us Aussies who come from a place where nearly everybody originated from another country.

However, apart from the shock to the system that came with my first winter, the obvious langu-age barriers (Ich bin eine schlechte Auslanderin) and being exposed to the very special Viennese cautiousness and their interesting charm, I found Austria to be and still do a pretty fantastic place to live.Austria’s social system is second to none, educa-tion is practically free, they support the arts and culture, the landscape and its natural beauty is amazing, architecture beautiful, great lifes-tyle and standard of living, food and wine-YES please!! And it’s close to Italy - what more could a girl want!Very early on I was pleasantly surprised to find out that these Austrians spoke English bloody well, so I adopted my new role as the walking English lesson. Thus my new career as an English trainer began. I found work all over the place from language schools, high schools, universities to training in companies. I trained as a CELTA teacher and began a Masters in Education. In the last few years I have tried to tone down my teaching in order make way for my real pas-sions: acting, producing and theatre. Some of my personal highlights have included studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, London - a hop, skip and a jump away in Aussie terms - performing with The Vienna Theatre Project in the Vagina Monologues and successfully per-forming an Australian play last autumn with my co-founded theatre group, The English Players. After many readings this year we have finally found fruitful and exciting material that we hope brings an interesting 2007/8 season. Theatre keeps opening doors for me to interesting and inspiring people and keeps me looking forward to the future. People often ask me will my husband and I ever move back to Oz or don’t you miss Australia and so on. Apart from the beach, the beach and the beach that beckons me back every 12 to 18 months or so and that the fact that winter is a bit too looong at times I gratefully and thankfully respond that Austria is a very hard place to give up living in and that I am happy and lucky to call it my home.

Would you like to feature in Expat of the Month and tell your story? Contact us at ether@ethermagazine.at

Goodbye Sydney, Hello Vienna!

Ether Expats - 5

Ether Vienna in Pictures - 7

A photo a day in the life of an expatriate in Vienna

Self Service Flowers

‘Blumen selbst schneiden’ means ‘Cut Your Own Flowers’. Sunflowers and gla-diolas are available in full bloom to cut yourself. The box tied to the sign serves as the cash register. Flowers cost EUR 0,70. The honour system is in full effect. Knives and hacking tools are made available to patrons free of charge. This takes the “Honey I’m home!” (bouquet of flowers in hand), to a whole new level... because you actually searched, found, and cut them yourself. That’s a very cool thing... Ladies from around the world should be jealous ;)

Austrian Trio

Mother, father and daughter lined up on the tarmac. Your favourite local carrier, Austrian Airlines Group, is a triumvi-rate consisting of three brands ( Austrian Airlines, Austrian Arrows, and Lauda Air) all rolled under the Austrian flag. Austrian Airlines is the main red & white brand that is slowly being taken over in mind share (and routes) by upstart Lau-da Air. Lauda Air was established in 1979 by ex-Formula One motor racing champion Niki Lauda. Lauda was founded in 1985, originally operating charter flights. In 2005, the flight operation of Lauda merged with Austrian Airlines.

Photos by Thomas WickyCopyright 2004 - 2006More at www.ZoomVienna.com

The European Resistance Archive Ether Features - 9Ether Features - 8

Eva Reinbacher looks back on her work for the EU-wide project aimed at keeping history alive.sAustria is a strange country. In tourist terms we’re still living in Mozart or Habsburg times, in political terms we prefer to look forward into the future. The establishment of the “Future Mi-nistry” around the same time as the 60th anni-versary of the end of World War II and the 50th anniversary of the Republic speaks volumes.Frankly, the “Year of Remembrance 2005” was a disaster. The government didn’t fail to cele-brate themselves as national heroes, but they failed to deal with the greatest misunderstan-dings in Austrian contemporary history and cur-rent political practice. Such as the still popular concept of Austria as “Hitler’s first victim”. Such as the criminalisation of resistance fighters as

“traitors of the fatherland”. Such as the open affinity of some high political functionaries to SS-squads. Such as the long history of suppres-sion of the Slovenian minority in Carinthia. For-tunately there are non-governmental initiatives that show what remembrance work can and should be like.The online platform European Resistance Ar-chive, opened only recently, is an example of best practice – one of which I am proud to say I contributed to.In its own words ERA is ‘a space in which indivi-dual stories of people having resisted against the terror, humiliation and despair fascism brought over Europe are kept alive and visible for everybody.’ Stories have been collected in the form of video interviews that can be streamed and downloaded by everyone at www.resistance-archive.org. Furthermore, the platform offers other features, such as transcrip-tions and translations of the interviews, scientific

historical texts, interactive maps, a glossary, photos and other personal do-cuments of the witnesses and. finally, a contact form, where activists can participate in extending the archive. ERA is a project funded by the European Commis-sion and emerged from the cooperation of diffe-rent partner organisations engaged with historical research, remembrance work and youth issues. For now, partners based in six EU countries, namely Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Slovenia, are involved. An important aspect of the project is that the main work has been done by young people, following the objective that in talking to the witnesses, they can develop an understan-ding of a common European history and in par-ticular of the historical importance of resistance against fascism and nazism.Manuel Mendez, a member of the French ERA section, believes the ERA is of hugh importance: “If we don’t deal with our history we will be for-ced to repeat it one day.” And in dealing with our history, nothing can replace the opportu-nity of listening to the testimonies of witnesses. The witnesses of World War II will all disappear in the next few years. The ERA platform is a means of collecting testimonies while it is not too late, of keeping the stories alive for the next genera-tions and of presenting the archive to the inter-national public.Case-study Austria: ‘The Making of ERA’For more than half a year, around 10 people (some of whom are members of the Green Al-ternative Youth (GAJ)) have been working on the Austrian section of ERA. Having decided to focus on the resistance activities of the Slove-nian minority in Carinthia – by the way the best organized resistance movement in Austria, but still hushed up or even criminalized – we had to travel a lot in space and time. September 2006. First official meeting with all project partners in Reggio Emilia (Italy).October 2006. Acquisition of volunteer partici-pants in Austria.

November 2006. Preparation seminar in Styria. Working on the historical background with Va-lentin Sima, University professor for contempora-ry history. Choice of the three interview partners: Romana Verdel (partisan child), Ana Zablatnik (unarmed resistance) and Lipej Kolenik (armed resistance), all members of the Slovenian mino-rity in Carinthia. December 2006. Individual research on the three eyewitnesses’ stories. First meetings with the eyewitnesses in Carinthia to get to know each other. January 2007. Three days of video interviews in Carinthia with a professional Italian film team. Hours of setting up, recording, chatting and ea-ting with the eyewitnesses and their families.January – April 2007. Selection of video mate-rial and final cut of the interviews, transcription and translation, production of historical texts, biographies, maps and supplements for the website.April 2007. Memorial trip to Krakow and Auschwitz (Poland). Meeting with the international ERA participants. Visit to the memorial sites with eye-witness Henryk Mandelbaum.May 2007. Official presentation of the project in Berlin with all participants.The chronological overview may read as a clear, straightforward project description, easy to fol-low and easy to integrate into one’s ‘normal life’. What neither the overview nor this short report are able to capture is what happens behind all this - and what it really means to engage with

Ether Features - 10

eye witnesses. It was a basic requirement that all of us participants (none of whom studies or had studied history) had to read historical books and do a lot of research on WWII, on the history of Carinthia and on the eye witnesses’ biogra-phies before doing the interviews. I found that it is not possible to just read a few books, then trot along to the home of an 80-year-old resistance fighter in Carinthia, do the interview and take the next train back to Vien-na. You cannot just take a train to Auschwitz-Birkenau, walk around the extermination camp for a few days, travel back home and get back to daily life. On the contrary! We all learned a lot about the resistance struggle and about the hushed up parts of our country’s history. But more than that, we had to open up oursel-ves and engage with some amazing people. Through their stories we engaged with history. But it was not always easy - especially in Au-schwitz. It is not easy to sit and listen to an eye-witness telling how he was forced to burn the bodies of Jewish prisoners murdered in the gas chambers. It is understandable that rather than listening to the reports and looking at the histo-rical sites one might feel like running away from the horrible truth. But in long conversations with fellow participants, we agreed somehow that it is our duty to look at and to listen to that horrible truth. Indeed, it is the least that we can do.

Against the background of my own experien-ces, I can only agree with the international par-ticipants’ conclusion. After the final meeting in Berlin, the general feeling was ‘we’re comple-tely exhausted, but proud’, ‘we’ve learned so much!’ and ‘this is only the beginning!’. The key organisers are already working on the follow-up project. For now, the platform awaits its users. As Sophia Schmitz, member of the German ERA section concluded: ‘Now it is up to you to explore, spread and extend the platform! All contributions are welcome!’

Basket Cases Ahoi!

W.H. Auden once wrote that “Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.” Pretty hyperbolic and inflexible, oder? Of course soggy sandwiches and muddy blankets are not pleasant, but who-ever said dancing in the rain wasn’t? Especially if you packed plenty of Grüner Veltliner and Po-tato Salad. Jerusha Frosta

Picnics, what we know to be informal gatherings for an outdoor meal, origina-ted, as fancy, schmancy indoor French potlucks. Potlucks, for the control-freak, are just as risky as a picnic. Trusting the cooking abilities of others can be quite hazardous. But this risk, the surprise, is what makes a potluck so exciting. Why not extend this to how we plan our pic-nics? Do not look up the weather fore-cast for this weekend – plan a picnic, pack your lunch and go! If it rains, embrace it. How often do you get to dance around in an outdoor sho-wer or smooch your sweetheart while the heavens pour out their blessings on you? It is also a good chance that you could get the Burggarten to yourself. So, invite ‘Death’ to your picnic and just remember not to wear white or jeans – trust me, there is little more uncomfor-

Ether Features - 11

www.resistance-archive.orgSteffen Kreuselerc/o Metrogap, Lausitzer Str. 1010999 Berlin - Germany+49 (0) 30 70071871era@resistance-archive.org

Grünalternative Jugend (GAJ)Lindengasse 401070 Wien - Austria+ 43 (0) 1 52125 242 or 243info@gajwien.atwww.gajwien.at

Ether Features - 13

table than the sopping, heavy, chafing mess they become. There are some fabulous products that have been made to make your picnic more enjoyable and less messy – rain and all. WMF, in addition to producing fabulous cooking and baking products, also has a great assortment of covered cheese trays and a handy travel silver-ware set - the ‘NOMAD’. For carrying your lunch, those masters of design, the Swedes, have out done us all again with Sagaform’s insulated picnic back-packs. Yatego.com offers a great selec-tion, in all price ranges, of blankets with a waterproof bottom (Search: Wasser-fest Picnic Decke), as well as charming picnic baskets and the more practical picnic backpacks. If you would rather not invest in picnic gear, you can keep your food fresh a variety of other ways. Unless you are li-ving in a nice, big house auf dem Land, it is likely that your freezer was made for

Lilliputians. However, if you can make room, freeze a water bottle before lea-ving; it will keep things cold and melt for later drinking. Try to avoid packing soft fruits, meats or dairy items. Cheese how-ever is fine. Hard vegetables and dips, such as carrots, celery and hummus hold up well. Do not carry your items in a paper bag, just in case it rains.What to do? Bring a ball or a Frisbee. If you have a large group, why not try to organize a game of kickball? There is less equipment involved than baseball and unlike soccer, or Fussball, it is wel-coming of all athletic abilities. Picnicing one on one with your boy or girl? Bring a book and read to each other. This is especially delightful if you are both non-native speakers of each others’ language. So, grab your basket, ball and book, head for the vineyards, the mountains, parks or even a rooftop. And if you are adventurous, secretly wish for rain.

Austrian Potato Salad4 servings

For the Austrian Potato Salad it’s best to use new or fingerling potatoes. New potatoes are any kind of potato that has been har-vested in the spring or early summer and are easy to recognize by their almost paper thin skins, which are quite easy to peel off. These potatoes have not yet converted all their su-gars into starch, giving them a higher mois-ture content and making them less likely to fall apart. This is ideal for the Austrian potato salad, which requires slicing the potatoes rather than dicing them.

450g of waxy yellow potatoes (new or finger-ling),1/4 cup of plain or red cider vinegar, 1/8 cup of Sunflower or Rapseedoel, 1/3 cup of minced onion (preferably white, but red will do – or if you prefer 2 minced shallots), Salt and Pepper to taste, 3 Tablesppons chop-ped fresh Parsley, **Optional** 1 minced garlic clove (only because I love it in every-thing – though purists would never dare)

Wash and boil the potatoes until fork tender. Though hot, try to peel immediately. Let cool before slicing into small rounds. Lightly season with salt and pepper Combine remaining in-gredients in a small bowl and gently mix into potatoes. Garnish with parsley sprigs. Cover and let sit at least an hour before serving.Rarely are there leftovers of this salad, be-cause as I have experienced, Austrians would rather, despite their otherwise con-servative nature, throw away any uneaten salad than risk eating it the next day - who knows what might happen to it in the refrige-rator! However, should you be lucky enough to not have eaten it all, I believe it is, like pas-ta sauce, better the next day. Overnight, the flavors of the parsley and onion (and garlic, if you wish) have had a chance to permeate the dressing, which in turn has a chance to seep into the potatoes. Delicious!

Patty’s American Potato Salad4 servings

For the Patty’s Potato Salad any potato will do. I still prefer the texture of the new po-tatoes, though big white ones make a truly American looking salad.

500 kg of potatoes, any kind, 1/4 cup chop-ped onion, 1/4 cup chopped celery (use some leaves, too), Dill or sour pickles, as many as you like, but they can’t be sweet or Cornichons, 1/4 cup of mayonnaise, squirt of mustard or pinch of dry mustard, dash of dill pickle juice, 3 Tablespoons chopped fresh dill, 2 hard boiled eggs, cut in quarters.

If using large white potatoes, you may wash, peel, and dice them before boiling. How-ever, if you choose to do this, make sure they are uniformly diced. If using new or fingerling potatoes, prepare as for an Austrian Potato Salad, peeling while still hot. When pota-toes are cool, lightly season with salt and pepper. Gently mix in onions, celery, pickles and dill. In a separate bowl, mix together mayonnaise, squirt of mustard, pickle juice, then mix into potatoes. Gar-nish with chopped eggs and dill sprigs. Cover and refrigerate before eating.

This salad is best the day of, but is still good as leftovers.

Spiked Raspberry-Mint Lemonade

This twist on the Mojito is perfect for any occasion. It can also be made without the raspberry vodka, in which case it would really be a Minted Johanissbe-eren Lemonade.

Per serving2 oz Raspberry infused Vodka (a shot glass size), 4-8 fresh Mint leaves, 1-2 Ta-blespoons of sugar, Juice from 1/4 of a lemon, Johannisbeeren syrup (or Cran-berry juice, if you can find it), Lemona-de

Mash the mint with the sugar and lemon juice. Top with about 2/3 cup of lemo-nade/water. Add a splash of Johannis-beeren syrup or cranberry juice. This is only for color, so do not add too much. If you are taking this on a picnic, freeze this in a leftover water bottle, or any tra-vel bottle, but leave room for the vodka! Before leaving add vodka, by the time you arrive at your site, it should be all mixed in.

Ether Features - 12

Ether Features - 14 Ether Features - 15

... gets a whole new meaning when you decide to visit one of the festivals this summer. They usually last for three days because any additional hour would evoke the danger of an epidemic. However, a festival also contains a few hazards for the human body when it lasts so long. Sandra Boran reports from the Nova Rock Festival.The first thing you get when you are not careful is sunburn. Usually, the car and the tent are about a twenty minute walk apart from each other. There is no shade whatsoever, so it is essential to bring sun-block. Also remember to bring some cold beer on the first day, so the walk and the putting up of the tent are easier to do. But do not drink too much because another very

dangerous ‘disease’ you could suffer from is un-consciousness. It is especially common amongst the younger generation and it spreads very quickly. Unconsciousness is rather contagious and sometimes you can literally watch people fall down. The only way not to get infected is to stay out of the sun and drink as little beer as possible before the sun goes down.There are Red Cross wagons but the chances that anyone will take you there are slim. The most unusual case of the disease has been observed at the Nova Rock last month when a guy fell comatose and still continued to walk around. He shrank like a flower that needs wa-ter but still managed to save the beer he was holding. I observed three girls passing by him, one of whom wanted to help him. The second declared he couldn’t be helped there while the third one decided she wanted to help him too because maybe he had cute friends... The second retorted: ‘Always remember one thing, ugly guys never have cute friends.’ What a piece of advice!There are many strange people at festivals. When you are a woman, you should never

walk anywhere alone if you want to avoid ha-ving beer all over you, invitations for the night, comments about your boobs and other body parts and attacks with water pistols filled with everything but water. If you walk past a tent at night and someone asks you if you want to spend the night with him, always say no. As far as my experience goes, there is not a single thing you do not regret the next morning.If you are a guy, you have to do everything to get attention and people have the most crea-tive ideas the more drunk they are. Mini skirts with no underpants, giant ugly red hats, megapho-nes, shopping carts, make-up and many other things. If you are a guy and decide to take a micrphone, please think of more than one good joke you can tell the whole night. And, by the way, ‘this is Wolfgang Priklopil speaking, Nata-scha, please come back in the basement’ is not funny, not even the first time. Nonetheless, the second and third day are much more hazardous than the first one. It starts when you get up around eight in the morning. The only way to sleep longer is to bring earplugs and if the festival is well organized, they even give them away for free at some stands. It is important to wear shoes everywhere always because you could hurt your feet on empty beer cans. It is unbelievable how many cans lie around on the first morning and difficult to imagine the people who have drunk all of them.On the first morning, all you can think of is a sho-wer and a nice bed to sleep a bit longer. The lat-ter is not possible but there are, believe it or not, showers. For men it is easy, they just go there and have a shower. If you are a woman, this beco-mes a lot more complicated. If you want to take your shower in the morning, there will be a very long line of girls who had the same idea. Again, you take risks of getting sunburnt and/or dizzy due to the heat. Therefore, it is not recommen-dable to shower between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. The best time to do that is in the afternoon. There are no queues and you feel great (and clean!) before the first significant band starts to play. Men do not seem to take showers at all during festivals which is why there are no queues. The downside is that you have a collective smelli-ness, no matter where you go. Some people say that this is because of the beer cans and all the other rubbish but this is not true. In the morning, when all the dirty people are still asleep, the air smells nice and clean. In the evening, however, the smell becomes worse and worse. For some

reason, it gets smellier the closer you come to the stage. So, if you want to enjoy a concert in the wave breaker, you should not be clean at all or else you will not be able to stand the smell of others.The next topic is best introduced by the sentence DIXIE – WENNS UM DIE WURST GEHT. Dixie is a brand for mobile toilets and, well, the rest is self-explana-tory. If you really decide to use one of the Dixie toilets, never go alone. There are always people waiting to knock an occupied toilet over, only to laugh their heads off. The water-flushed toilets near the showers are much better. There are cleaning ladies at every hour of the day and you can just wait until they are done and go in right after.This brings me to the last point. The reason why people actually go to festivals: The bands. Con-certs at festivals are so much better than single ones. There is a huge crowd, it is open air and everyone dances all night long. It does not mat-ter, where you are, you always here and see the bands playing, so there is no need to stand in line for hours or fight to get in the first row. The atmos-phere is amazing, everyone seems to be happy and to have fun. It is the only reason why people go there. The music just makes any suffering worth it and after three days you will look back on a dirty but great holiday!Dirty Dancing ...Music Festivals 2007Nuke 13th -14th July Sankt Pölten www.nuke.at The line-up this year includes The Prodigy, Beastie Boys, Amy Winehouse and Wir Sind HeldenFrequency 15th - 17th Aug Salzburgring www.frequency.at Performances by Kaiser Chiefs, Manic Street Preachers, Falloutboy and Nine Inch Nails to be enjoyedFestivalgelände Wiesen Burgenland 2nd - 5th Aug www.wiesen.at Huge Austrian electronic music festivalKlangBogen 1 Jul - 31 Aug The annual Vienna KlangBogen celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. For opera lovers. Takes place at the wonderful Theater an der Wien in the heart of the city. Seefestspiele Mörbisch Neusiedlersee 12th July - 26th Aug www.seefestspiele-moerbisch.at Modestly describes itself as the Mecca for opera lovers.

Vienna Calling...Ether brings you the July & August City Guide...

Africa Days 27th July - 5th AugustAfrica days Vienna 2007! For ten days Africa’s spirit and joy of life will be celebrated. The heart of the event is the big bazaar with art and craft from Africa, drum and dance workshops and a colourful children’s programme with story tellers and a creative and play corner. Hot rhythms await Africa lovers at the open air concerts with traditional and modern African music. And food and drink is also available – there are bars with African meals, cocktails and drinks. Monday to Friday 2 pm til midnight. Saturday and Sunday 11 am til midnight. Entry: 5 € paya-ble at the entrance. Children under 12 go free. The day ticket gives you access to the festival area, includes the Africa Day music program-me and participation in many activities.

Danube IslandFloridsdorfer Brückewww.afrika-tage.at/seiten/w_programm.htm

The Britsh Bookshop Harry Potter launch partya20th July, 10 p.m.Join the British Bookshop from 10pm on Friday 20th July for the countdown to the launch of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.To pass the time there’ll be magicians, a Harry Potter quiz, a general knowledge trivia quiz, refreshments and lots more. There’ll be 2 pairs of free tickets to the new Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie for the winners of each of the competitions! (Presented by the Burgkino Vienna). And the book officially goes on sale at 1.01am! You can buy your copy at the special launch party price of € 19,90! (Re-commended price € 28,90). Go to the website to download your invitation.

Weihburggasse 24A-1010 Wienwww.britishbookshop.at

Vienna Calling...Ether brings you the July & August City Guide...

Restaurants of the month...HAWIDERE“Hawidere” is a typical Austrian expres-sion, in fact a short version of “habe die ehre” and is used as a salutation. HAWI-DERE is a traditional wirtshaus + bar, run by some folks from deep Burgenland. Located at Ullmannstraße 31, 1150 Vien-na (pass all the porn and tatoo shops in Sechshauserstraße and turn left). The website doesn’t do it justice, it ac-tually is a really cool place. And they also seem to be one of the few bars/restaurants who are relaxed about the closing of the outdoor aera at 11 p.m. They ususally let you stay and just ask you to be quiet.www.hawidere.at

KENTA Turkish restaurant at Brunnenmarkt. Huge and quiet gastgarten with trees and fountain. Sit outside until 11 p.m. Food is served from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m.

www.kent-restaurant.at

Am Nordpol 3A very cool restaurant, comfortable with good traditional bohemian food and Gastgarten. Right next to Augarten. Czech beer, a lot of schnaps and vodka.

w w w . t o p t i p p l o k a l e . a t / 0 5 l o k a l .php?id=W171853

Africa Days © maxVita 2006

Kent Restaurant

Hawidere Restaurant

Vienna Calling...Ether brings you the July & August City Guide...

Open Air CinemaKino unter SternenUntil 12th AugustWhere: inside the augarten parkWhat: classics: e.g. “Casablanca”, “The Third Man”, “Le Mepris”, “La Dolce Vita”, Fassbinder filmsLast year’s hits: “Dans Paris”, “Volver”, “The Science of Sleep”Premieres: “Prater” (Ulrike Ottinger, AUT) and others from Finland, Morocco and JapanTribute: jerry lewis

www.kinountersternen.at

Silent Film FestivalStumm & Laut 200716th - 18th AugustWhere: Erholungspark am LaaerbergWhat: FIlms by Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang and Buster Keaton

Last year’s website:

www.stbalbach.at/veranstaltungen/stummundlaut.html

This month we’re going to...Desert Dreaming, Australian Aboriginees’ Art

“DESERT DREAMING - Australian Aboriginees’ Art” is an exhibi-tion of contemporary art of the Australian aboriginees from the collection of Donald Kahn. 40 works of extraordinary visu-al power by 34 artists, who live in the desert region of central Australia, are on display.

Albertina Museumuntil 26th August

www.albertina.at

Vienna Calling...Ether brings you the July & August City Guide...

Editor’s choice...Swimming pool at DöblingThere are three open-air swimming pools and a smaller hydrotherapy pool with play areas for children, outside restaurant and ice-cream stand. Enjoy the fantastic view of the UNO city as well as a panaramic view of Vienna’s sky-line.

6, GewaygasseTel. 01 318 01 40

Vienna Calling...Ether brings you the July & August City Guide...

Fancy going further afield?

Viva Musica Festival, Bratislava 26th July - 3rd August

This is the second year of the festi-val of contemporary classical music in Slovakia’s capital. Situated near other classical music heavyweights - Vienna, Budapest and Prague - the city has a monumental task as organizers hope to elevate Bratislava to the level of other famous European capitals and to high-light the Slovakian capital as a dynamic culture and fashion destination. Whether the festival will achieve its goals remains to be seen but the festival was heral-ded a success last year with its 10 days of events, 40 hours of music, a special

children’s opera, masterclasses and an open air amphitheatre. Bratislava’s past has been characterized by the strong in-fluence of various nations, including Slo-vaks, Germans, Hungarians and Jews - all of which have been incorporated in the festival’s spirit. A festival worth checking out and supporting.

The Karlovy Vary Inter-national Film Festival in Prague29th June - 7th July This is one of the oldest film festivals in the world (began in 1946). For more than 40 years the festival was organized under the pressure of the political situation in socialist Czechoslovakia. After the social changes in 1989 the festival struggled for several years with lack of interest from the state as well as the public. However, in 1994 the organization of the festival was taken up by a new team, led by the well-known Czech actor Jiří Bartoška who decided to transform the stagnant show into a film forum of international impor-tance. Within a few years, the team ma-naged to return the festival to the presti-ge and interest of both professional and lay public. More than 200 new films from all over the world are shown. www.kviff.com

Ride with the Critical MassEvery 3rd Friday of the monthHappy collective bike ride through the city, dropping flyers and demonstrating somehow for more respect and space for bicycles. After roughly two or three hours, finish at some bar like FLUC or lefty open

spaces like TÜWI, in the summer sometimes collective swimming in the danube.

Meeting point: 4.30 p.m. Marghareten-platzKick off: 5 p.m.www.criticalmass.at

I-LIBGraffiti artist/ Illustrator

I am I-LIB (I Lurk In Bushes) i am a graffiti artist/illustrator who loves to paint large scale organic intricate patterns and characters in black, white and gold on old decaying surfaces like mouldy walls, found paper and fabric and hand engrave patterns into old wood and rusted metal. I work from memory so every pattern i produce is different and a one-off design. I am about to be on a new site cal-led www.stelladore.com alongside Eine, D*face, Kid Acne and Paul Alexander Thornton plus some other great artists, where limited edition prints and originals of my work will be available from the be-ginning of August. And when i am not painting you can usually find me drunk in a bush somewhere with a can ofhairspray doing my massive hair.www.myspace.com/i_lib www.stelladore.com

Vienna Calling...Ether brings you the July & August City Guide...

Hungarian Spas Known as the land of spas, Hungary’s famed thermal and mineral waters offer unparalleled therapeutic benefits.

Salzburg Festival 27th July - 31st August ‘Routine, run of the mill performances have no place here,’ said Austrian dra-matist Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and for more than 80 years Salzburg has done its best to obey. Last year inevitably brought a deluge of Mozart... This year’s highlights include the world premiere

of Jan Fabre’s boundary-crossing Re-quiem for a Metamorphosis, the Berlin Philharmonic’s performance of Mahler’s Symphony No.9 and a double perfor-mance by Placido Domingo.

www.salzburgfestival.at Tel. 0622 8045 500

Innsbruck Festwochen

3rd July - 26th AugustRene Jacobs’ early music festival inclu-des ‘Socratic’ Telemann and Handel’s Acis and Galatea. www.altemusik.at Tel. 0512 561561

The live music scene in Vienna, like that of any

major city, tends to quieten down during the summer months, as the city empties and the outdoor festival circuit takes over. Thankfully, however, there are still a few interesting events taking place in July and August. First up, and buried deep among the shockingly conservative line-up of the Vienna Jazz Festival, is a concert by the veteran American free jazz musician ARCHIE SHEPP. Shepp has a long and distinguished history as a saxophonist; he played in Cecil Taylor’s band in the late 50s, before joining John Coltrane’s group in time to appear on Coltrane’s seminal 1965 album Ascension. Stepping into the limelight under his own name in the late 60s, Shepp’s music began to embrace a passionate Afrocentricity on sides such as Fire Music and The Magic of Ju-Ju. At the same time, like many black American musicians of the period, he felt the pull of Europe, where free jazz was – and remains – far more appreciated than at home. He recorded no fewer than five albums for the important French label BYG Actuel, and has in fact made France his adopted home. Shepp’s frenetic avant-garde sax

lines, coupled with the rhythms and ideo-logies of Africa, make his music an exci-ting proposition. Demonstrating a conti-nued willingness to experiment, he will be accompanied in this performance by two rappers and electronic beats.The other big summer highlight is the visit of veteran New York avant-garde song-smiths SONIC YOUTH, playing an open air concert in the relatively intimate sur-roundings of the courtyard at the Arena. Sonic Youth have seemingly been around forever, constantly varying and refining their avant-edged brand of alternative rock. Emerging in the early 80s from the New York post-punk and No Wave scene, the band has never entirely abandoned their roots in experiment and confronta-tion. The signature Sonic Youth sound is a maelstrom of squally, guitar-driven noise, tempered with a clever, hookwise pop sensibility. Having enjoyed a degree of commercial success since the release of their 1988 album Daydream Nation, they are now in the rare position of being ma-jor label artists who have retained wide critical respect and the freedom to expe-riment more or less as they please. Day-dream Nation itself has now almost achie-ved ‘classic album’ status, with the result that the band has recently taken to play-ing it in its entirety at concerts. This de-velopment may surprise those who never expected Sonic Youth to yield to the cur-rent fad for complete album performan-

ces; but, given their rich history of making boundary-breaking rock music, you can hardly blame them for exercising their rights to a little nostalgia. Besi-des, it’s a dead cert that they will continue to confound their audience’s expectations for a good while yet.

Archie Shepp plays at the Rat-haus Arkadenhof, as part of the Vienna Jazz Festival, on 6 July. Tickets: 408 60 30. Sonic Youth play at the Arena, Baumgasse 80, on 26 August. Tickets: 798 85 95.

Music BoxBy Richard Rees Jones

Ether Music Box - 35

Sonic Youth

The band consists of five members and was founded towards the end of the 1990s in Güssing (a small town in the southern part of the most eastern province of Aus-tria). After winning the local band contest ‘America is waiting’ in 2000 they became increasingly popular all over Austria. Due to their reputation, they were then hired to do a couple of support shows for a consi-derable number of well known internatio-nal acts such as The Queens of the Stone Age; Bryan Adams, Three Doors Down.Zeronic is a band definitely worth spending some time and even money on to see live on stage if they come to a venue near you. Firstly the amazing voice of the singer (Mik) sounding, on the one hand, strong and fragile, on the other. This band always seems to manage to creating a relaxed atmosphere infusing humour with serious music-making. During their concerts there is always a lot of audience interaction and they also tend to squeeze in some anec-dotes from behind the scenes in between their songs. This is, of course, not everyone’s

cup of tea; Ilove it personqlly. Lately, their shows are said to have become a bit ex-aggerated in terms of lighting and props – but remember the leitmotif for this month: glam and glitter.To stay with those two words - glam and glitter - is not only appropriate when des-cribing their shows but their music as well. Listening to their music may bring one word to mind: ‘British’. I mean ‘British’ in the sense of Pulp or Placebo. Some people may even argue that Zeronic is actually ‘Britrock’ made in Austria…The band has already released two full length albums titled ‘High Life’ and ‘Feel the Nothing’. Their latest single ‘Images of Girls’ came out in November 2005 (quite a while ago) followed by a couple of shows in Great Britain and Austria (last year’s No-varock festival among others). Unfortuna-tely one has not heard much of them since, but rumour has it that they are currently working on new material. www.zeronic.netwww.myspace.com/zeronic

Glam and glitter - Perfect words to describe ZeronicIntroduced by Barbara Mollay

Band of the MonthEther Band of the Month - 24

‘For the past five minutes I’ve been parked outside my cousin Vinnie’s bail bonds office in my crapol-la car, debating whether to continue on with my day, or to return to my apartment and crawl back into bed. My name is Stephanie Plum, and Sensible Stephanie wan-

ted to go back to bed. Loco Stephanie was thinking she should get on with it.’ Stephanie’s life hasn’t been the same since she got fired from her nice safe job 12 books ago. To make some good quick money to keep her and hamster in food, she took a job as a bounty hunter and things just haven’t been easy ever since! Not only does Stephanie’s car usually end up getting blown up every book but she also has some relationship issues. Will she ever decide if she wants sexy hard cop Morelli or

the mysterious dark Ranger?With Lula the gun happy ex-hooker at her side and a crazy grandmother who keeps managing to find guns in her handbag. Life is never dull for Stephanie. In this newest adven-ture the New Jersey gal is reunited with her two timing ex-husband lawyer, Dickie, only to have him go missing. Missing isn’t too bad but the blood and bullet holes left behind make Stephanie look like a suspect until she finds out what Dickie has been up too in his spare time.This series never gets boring and this 13th edi-tion to the club of ‘Plum’ will have fans beg-ging for number 14 and newer readers going back to the beginning, ‘One for the Money’, to see where it all began. Evanovich has kept Stephanie going and until she gets bored or the readers get fed up there is no reason for her to stop.

www.evanovich.com

Our favourite books this month...Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich

Reviews by AMA

Ether Books of the Month - 26

No Humans Involved by Kelley ArmstrongJamie Vegas knows quite a bit about showbiz. She is one of the most well known celebrity mediums on Television. So when things start to go wrong while participating in Death of Innocence, a TV special that hopes to raise the ghost of Marilyn Monroe, she is glad she has her new hunky werewolf boyfriend at her side. The 44-year-old nec-romancer who can reanimate the dead, faces her biggest career challenge yet—freeing the trapped ghosts of six murdered children. She will need a lot of help from her ‘Otherworld’ friends and ends up cal-ling on her personal angel, Eve, and Hope, the well-meaning chaos demon.This is Armstrong’s 7th book in the ‘Women of the Otherworld’ series and it has been getting better and better with every book. It all started with ‘Bitten’ were we found out about werewolves and then the cat was out of the bag and witches, warlocks,

vampires and eve-rything else that goes bump in the night came out to play. Although best read as a series each book can be read on its own and this new-est book is the first time ‘Jamie’ has had a book all to herself. With the release of ‘No Hu-mans Involved’, Armstrong became a New York Times Best-selling author and she is already releasing another new book ‘Exit Strategy’, her first non-paranormal mystery.

www.kelleyarmstrong.com

Ether Features - 27

See it through their eyes...

Erkan Celebi

Tuerkenschanzpark! My favourite park! I love the place...

Joseph McNamara

Is it too predictable to say the Museums Quarter? I meet friends there. I love being sur-rounded by such a high density of culture and art... I can work with my laptop there too, have a drink, relax in the sunshine on those big seat things... what do they call them?

Maria Klein

The Badeschiff on the danube channel... I work near there. There’s an open air swim-ming pool on the ship and I am looking forward to coo-ling down there after work with friends and cocktails!

As the evenings have got lighter we ask people on the street: What is your favourite place to hang out in during the sum-mer in Vienna?

Ether Features - 28

Eva Obenaus

I have recently discove-red Yppenplatz... Plenty of

bars, great atmosphere, Tur-kish eateries nearby... I will definately spend alot of my free time there this summer.

Ether Features - 29

Gerhard Wieser The bars on the danube is-land are still largely undis-covered... it is nowhere near as busy as it could be at the weekend, I don’t understand. I will do different sports there during the day - rollerblading, biking, running, I want to try kite-surfing too - and pro-bably make it my mission to check out all the bars by the end of the summer!

Ether Features - 30

ImPulsTanzVienna International Dance Festival 2007

“Thousands of professional dancers, choreographers and teachers from all over the world meet and work together for five weeks in one city.” This is how ImPulsTanz describes itself. The Vienna International Dance Festival takes place from 12th July until 12th August. Rian van Spaandonk talks to Karl Re-gensburger, founding director of Europe’s biggest contemporary dance festival.

ImPulsTanz started life in 1984 as the “Internationale Tanzwochen Wien” (International Dance Weeks Vienna). The initiative came from arts manager Karl Regensburger and choreographer Ismael Ivo. The festival consisted of twenty workshops with six teachers. “We wanted to give contemporary dance in Austria a voice,” explains Regensburger. “It was the beginning of a new dance culture. The workshop festival became increasingly successful, so in 1988 we were able to add a performance element.” And with that the Vienna International Dance Festival was born. It featured works by Wim Vandekeybus, Marie Chouinard and Mark Tomp-kins, all names that are still closely connected with ImPulsTanz. In 2007, it is Europe’s biggest contem-porary dance festival.ImPulsTanz in numbers: 85 performances, 31 com-panies, 195 workshops and research projects, 88 instructors.

Ether Features - 31

Contemporary dance is not everyone’s cup of tea. However, during the five weeks of the festi-val, ImPulsTanz manages to attract the Viennese, tourists as well as dancers and choreographers from as far away as South Korea and Australia. “The festival offers a wide range of workshops for absolute beginners,” says Regensburger. “People who would love to dance, but haven’t dared to so far. Also, our festival programme of-fers a wide variety of performances. Contem-porary dance is closely related to the visual and multimedia arts, as well as theatre, so we have a chance to attract people with this mixture of dance and other arts.”Vienna may be best known for its opera, but its position in contemporary dance is also unique. Regensburger: “ImPulsTanz has become a mel-ting pot for the international dance scene. As a workshop festival it is unique in its scope. I gathers the currently internationally celebrated com-pagnies together, focusing on the exchange of ideas and knowledge, unrestricted by national borders. It is a constant search for the latest trends and tendencies in contemporary dance.”Highlights this year include several premieres. Regensburger is excited: “Canadian Édouard Lock and his compagnie La La La Human Steps, known for their exceptionally pacy and virtuoso choreographies, will present ‘Amjad’, which is based on the classical ballets ‘Swan Lake’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’. Another premier is ‘Survive Cycle’ by RoseAnne Spradlin, winner of the New Yorker Bessie prize. Her dance is technically ad-vanced, cool and touching at the same time.” Other highlights are pieces by Vincent Dunoyer, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and Meg Stuarts. Of course, the Austrian dance scene will be re-presented as well.

For those who are curious about the theory be-hind contemporary dance, ImPulsTanz offers talks hosted by UK choreographer Jonathan Burrows. Burrows is present at the Festival as a performer as well as mentor of the danceWEB scholarship programme. He will discuss the past, present and future of contemporary dance with renowned artists of the Festival in an intimate set-ting. The talks are open to everyone and abso-lutely free.ImPulsTanz takes contemporary dance directly into the city. Performances take place in various locations, like the Burgtheater and Semperde-pot. “The choice of the different theatres allows us to choose the right stage for the right piece,” Regensburger explains. “On the other hand, the tension that arises from the contrast between contemporary pieces and historic sites is some-thing that makes the festival thrilling. It is a delight for audiences, who enjoy performances in diffe-rent theatres as well as for the compagnies, who can use all the possibilities offered by the diffe-rent stages. It’s fun to be all over the city.” ImPuls-Tanz even provides transport for people who need to travel to and from the various locations: audiences can rent ImPulsTanz bicycles from the Arsenal, the main base for the workshops, for 5 Euros a day.

ImPulsTanz Locations: Burgtheater, Volksthea-ter, Schauspielhaus, Semperdepot, Kasino am Schwarzenbergerplatz, Arsenal art-for-art werk-stätten.

ImPulsTanz - Vienna International Dance Festival12th July until 12th August 2007See www.impulstanz.com for the workshop and performance programme.

Whether you choose to spend your days lounging around one of the open-air pools, sunba-thing on the danube island, pic-nicking in one of the city’s parks or having a cool beer on a ter-rasse somewhere maybe you will have time to do this short quiz by John Hodgson. We’ve all been living in Vienna for a while now and with immigration and integration always a hot topic of discussion, the English-speaking community should also also ask themselves how well they have integrated into Austrian society... How Austrian are you? 1. What’s you idea of a nice breakfast?

a) Some coffee, black bread and jam.

b) Sausages, bacon (hmm, bacon), black pudding, fried bread, baked beans, black pudding, bacon, eggs, ba-con….

c) A cow, covered in syrup.

2. You’re are standing in a queue at the super-market, when you see a gap enter in front of you, what do you do?

a) Push quickly in front of everyone else, and de-mand that the person whose place you stole go to the back of the queue.b) Wait quietly in line until your turn comes, in

case anyone thinks you’re pushing in, thus mar-king you as a social pariah.c) Tread on another persons foot accidently, and get sued for 10 million dollars by a high-class up town lawyer for emotional damage.

3. What’s your idea of a funny movie?

a) Something really depressing and black, pro-bably involving suicide, death and madness, where everyone hates each other and the world is an evil place.b) Some slight romantic comedy, probably in-volving Hugh Grant bumbling around a picture postcard Cotswold village where its snows at Christmas and everyone has 4 by 4s.c) A thinly disguised morality play, where a slight quip by the leading character results in the au-dience falling about in gales of laughter.

4. What does your favourite sport involve?

a) Putting on some day-glo red outfit, putting two sticks on your feet and going hurtling down a mountain at 100mph.

b) Standing in the pouring rain, watching 22 men cha-sing a ball around a wet field, whilst the manager has a heart attack on the touch line.

c) A sport that only your country plays, but for which the championships are called the world series, and which you insist on calling ‘football’, despite using a funny shaped ball to the rest of the world.

5. What’s your idea of a fun night out?

a) A few glasses of wine in a café, maybe with a coffee too.b) Get so drunk you can’t stand up, s t u m b l e a r o u n d the pub threatening people, vomit

outside the pub, then eat a rancid kebab. And then repeat for the whole weekend.c) Drink some awful beer, hmmm

6. A Middle-Eastern country starts throwing its weight around, what do you do?

a) Stay well out of it - the last time you had a war it didn’t go to well (even though it wasn’t you anyway).b) Wait to see what ‘Big Brother’ does, then jump in unequivocally on his side, despite the huge unpopularity of the war.c) Invade the country with ‘overwhelming for-ce’, blow up a few buildings, round up the bad guys, administer justice, then ride off into the sun-set hombre.

Results1-4 PointsYou haven’t calculated it correctly have you? Go on, go back and do it again….

4-8 PointsWell done! You’re Austrian. You stay neutral in wars, have a well developed social state and have contributed Mozart (or was that Germa-ny?) and the Schnitzel to the world. Give yourself a pat on the back.

9-13 PointsYou’re English, so almost European, but not quite. Try driving on the wrong side of the road, or treat skiing as a real sport, you may feel more Austrian then.

14-18 PointsOh dear, you’re American. You are a very long way from being Austrian.It will take something really extreme, like putting on a pair of Lederhosen, yodeling in the Tirol, eating some Emmantaler and spinning around on a mountain meadow.

How Austrian are you?Ether Features - 32 Ether Features - 33

Scores

A= 1 point.B= 2 pointsC= 3 points.

Picture ”Cafe” by Rita Juliana

For my final article for Ether before I leave Vienna, I’d like to reflect on my time here in the city and con-sider what life here has meant to me and what effect it has had on me. Ted GearyLooking back at three years in Vienna, I can definitely say that the city has had a profound effect on me and I have to wonder about what connection I will have to it in the future and whether I will ever return. As it is with any place any-one has called home, Vienna has meant too much to me to just move on without stopping to reflect on the city’s impor-tance to me.First of all, it’s interesting for me to think that I had no clear association with Aus-tria or strong desire to come here before I arrived. I was a German major and had to choose between studying abroad in

Munich, Berlin, Graz or Vienna. At the time I figured I knew less about Austria than Germany and so therefore I could get more out of an experience in Aus-tria. Since I was already at school in the countryside, being in a big city sounded more appealing. In that sense it was al-most coincidental that I ended up here. But once I started working on my Ger-man, learning about Austrian history and enjoying all that the city has to offer as I tried to immerse myself in Viennese cul-ture, I was hooked. Now it seems as if I was meant to come here.My three years here studying, resear-ching and teaching have changed me more than any other combination of years in my life. First of all, gaining the experience of living abroad is an inva-luable one. Being here has really broa-dened my world and forced me to look at world affairs differently and become more of a global citizen. Before I came, I wasn’t ignorant but my world was cer-tainly smaller than it should have been. There is something about looking at the world from other peoples’ perspectives which can really enlarge your percep-

Looking back on a fantastic and inspiring time in Vienna...

Ether Student Pages - 34

I’ve always felt that part of my purpose in life is to raise Ameri-cans’ awareness of a modest little country called Austria.

It goes far beyond “there are no kan-garoos in Austria.

Austria is not Germany. Austrian is not a language—well not officially.” Then there’s the whole “Sound of Music” theory to debunk. Ever since Herr Katzenmayer, my 7th grade German teacher, drew a tadpole shaped country on the blackboard, I’ve been hooked. I can’t really explain it, but I suppose I don’t have to. I know plenty of people who have fallen in love with Austria, but no one who has been drawn back as often as myself.

On a high school band and orchestra tour, I fell in love with Vienna—Schil-lings, Mozartkugeln, and Spar. As a Chicago area native, Vienna was the city that made me love cities. And now, six years later, Vienna is my (tem-porary) home. I studied in Innsbruck for one year and often miss the Alps, but I know Vienna was where I was supposed to end up.There aren’t sufficient words to describe how excited I am to spend the sum-mer months at home after almost nine months of missing my bed, my dogs, and a good steak. But I think part of the reason I’m so happy to go home is that I know I get to come back to Vienna in time for the Sturm season. I’ll admit that the Vienna I’ve experienced isn’t the same Vienna that originally drew me in, but that just makes me like it even more.

Lynn Sikora goes back to school...

Ether Student Pages - 35

tion of the world. But this can happen to anyone who spends time abroad. What was specific about Vienna? Well, in many ways Vienna is a model city. Not many cities can boast such a high standard of living, low crime rate as well as such a central location in Eu-rope. Also, the city has such a residential atmosphere that it never feels overwhel-ming or too fast-paced. It is amazing that it is able to maintain such a relaxed mood as a big city, but the great thing about this is that it allows you to stop and enjoy all it has to offer quite easily. These are some of the reasons why it was so easy for me to settle in here. In my opinion there are lots of things that other cities could learn from Vienna. The international flavour of Vienna is something else that was so appealing to me. I have met people from so many different countries here, many of whom were just here temporarily like me. These encounters and friendships are ones that I probably never would have had if I had never decided to come abroad. Mee-ting other foreigners and using German as a common language was always an exciting experience for me and some-thing I will miss.

Vienna also taught me to really love city life. Having lived here, it’s hard for me to imagine not living anywhere other than a big city. It’s tough to beat living in a city with all of the cultural opportunities being so accessible and not being reli-ant on a car the entire time. I’ve had so many great experiences here in Austria that they are hard to count. Highlights for me include picking grapes at a Lower Austrian vineyard, the Wachauer half marathon, ‘Eisbär’ runs at the Prater, the Rathausplatz in the summer, the Donau-inselfest, hiking in Salzburg, the opening ceremony of the Life Ball, the TU Ball and many nights out in the city. It’s these me-mories of things that were only possible here that I will value the most.As for whether I will return, there have been times when I’ve thought I would like to settle down here and stay. The city will always be the site of some of my most cherished memories and where I probably changed the most. I would like to think that I could return someday to work, but that will remain to be seen. An eventual return visit will surely be in or-der, and I will really be looking forward to seeing how the city that has meant so much to me will have changed.

If you want to send in suggestions to the Ether team email katiebinns@ethermagazine.at.If you have any pictures that you would like to be printed for our ”where are we” competi-tion email ether@ethermagazine.at.

Around Town...Ether Fun Pages - 36

Quotes of the month...Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.Sam Keen Summer afternoon - summer after-noon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.Henry James Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it. Russel Baker

Photo competitionLast month’s photo was the top of the AKH - Vienna’s monster hospital which is incidentally the biggest hospital in Eu-rope. Where are we this month? Can you guess?

Where are we?

Tip of the MonthA recently launched geo-political ema-gazine worth checking out.

www.diplogo.at

Goodbye Ted!Many thanks to Ted for his contribution to Ether over the last 10 months and lots of luck for his return to the US.

Hello Rian!Vienna welcomes Rian as she makes the move from London, leaving the BBC, the Big Smoke, the high rents and settles into Austria.

Enjoy the summer!Here at Ether we are taking a well deserved break. We hope you enjoy your summer break and we will be back in September with the next issue and a little surprise announce-ment...

Plus the usual... Tom Wicky’s photoblog, The Viennese View, expat of the month, book reviews, Richard Rees Jones’ gig recommendations, band of the month, Vienna Calling... Surely you don’t need reminding?

Until next time...

Would you like to write for Ether? We are always happy to hear from aspiring journalists as well as il-lustrators and artists who want to showcase their work. Contact us at ether@ethermagazine.at

Ether Next Month- 37

Thomas Wickywww.zoomvienna.com

Virtual Vienna Netwww.virtualvienna.net

Vienna Expatswww.vienna-expats.net

Metroblogging Viennavienna.metblogs.com

City of Vienna official webpagewww.wieninternational.at/en

The Anglican Church in Austriawww.christchurchvienna.org

English speaking Christian Church www.viennacommunitychurch.com

Wiener Zeitung - English Pageswww.wienerzeitung.at

Vienna City Administration Offi-cial Websitewww.wien.gv.at/english

Vienna Public Transport Time Infor-mation Service for individual travelefa.vor.at/wvb/index_de.htm

American Women’s Association of Viennawww.awavienna.com

Austrian Timeswww.austriantimes.at

Vienna Reviewwww.viennareview.net

Information and Services

EtherVienna’s community webmagazine for English speakers!

www.ethermagazine.atwww.myspace.com/ethermagazine