Long time!!

Hello everyone!  It's been quite a while since our last post!  Sorry, it's been rather uneventful around here, and other than a few little get-togethers it's been rather slow.

New Things... hmmm
Alex went home for a couple weeks.  She unfortunately had to go home to write an exam however she thinks she did pretty well on it.  The other reason she went home was to get her wisdom teeth out...  Not fun.  This happens tomorrow! So she'll be home for another week then back here to Vienna.  She had some slight problems with flights (they canceled her original flight) due to the snow in Detroit.  We rebooked the flight and she was actually home a bit earlier than expected. 

The show is going very well!! I'm getting much better and have started to learn the sequences for the stage.  Hopefully within a few weeks I'll be in the act!  I've learned lots of new skills as well, most involve transferring from one end of the board to the other end!  I am getting much more comfortable with the show and performing it and I'm starting to feel comfortable in the character too. 

Today and tomorrow are the "double-dark" a fancy way to say 2 days off instead of the normal one.  I went to the Museum of Natural History today!  It was very cool!  So much old historical stuff.  I really liked the displays of old tools made of rock, stone and bone.  Very neat to see all the modifications that had been made over thousands of years.  The museum was set up in a way that you could follow from the ice age all the way through to the current time.  There was a huge, I mean really HUGE, display of almost every known animal in the world.  They were of course all on display and stuffed but it was interesting to see.  They had them in taxonomic order which was great because all the related animals from every continent were beside each other.  (ex. All the cats were all together.)  There were displays of all the world's bears, apes, monkeys, equines, large land mammals, whales, etc. 

A while back there was a display in Toronto called Body Works; human bodies, skinned, and displayed in everyday situations.  It was highly controversial but it was also very educational.  Today I saw the animal version, Body Worlds of Animals.  They had animals that had skin removed to show their inner workings and they were so well preserved.  There was an elephant, giraffe, horse, ox, ostrich, camel, gorilla and human amongst some others.  They had put the human and gorilla beside each other in the exact same position too.  The elephant had been expanded so you could actually see inside and examine all the different parts of its body.  There was also "art" hanging on the walls and when I looked closer they were micro-slices of animals.  Picture a real cross-section of an animal, they created it using a very thin laser slicer that literally sliced a piece out of the animal and put it between two panes of glass. It was amazing and a little scary all at the same time.  This was definitely the most interesting part of my day.  It was very good too that the sign that said they had all died from non-human related deaths: some of old age, some of sickness, but none were killed or hunted.

Also very interesting was the number of kids in the building.  They were in this exhibit and were doing projects for school.  Even a class of kindergarten kids was walking through and they stopped in the middle to examine the elephant.  Pretty crazy field trip!  Dr. Gunther von Hagens is the inventor of Plastination (replacing bodily fluids with plastic) and his idea for this was that textbooks are not detailed enough to study and that looking inside an animal required the real animal to be present.

  Unfortunately I couldn't take pictures...  They didn't allow cameras inside.  I could have sneaked one in but it wasn't worth it.  I just went and enjoyed it.  I found some photos online and the website for the exhibit is here.  http://www.bodyworldsofanimals.com/en.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Expanded Elephant

  How's the snow at home!??  There's none here.  In fact it has been very nice here.  Every day has been sunny and about 0 degrees.  I went for a few walks in the morning to work (about 2 hours) and the entire way is through parks and on a no car Island.  It is very pretty and I've seen a bunch of new birds!  This is a photo of where I like to walk.  We live right behind the big pointy church on the left, the water is the Donau River and the channels on the island. I'm about 3 km from home looking back on what I just walked. 

Now, how about some living animals??!!  Here are just a few of the new birds I've added to my European list.

Great Crested Grebe

Great-Spotted Woodpecker

Tufted Duck

Great Cormorant

 
 

Little Grebe

European Robin

So, there you have it.  That's what has been happening.  Hopefully you've all been enjoying the blog and sorry for the long time off.  I'll try to get another post on here within the next few days.  Maybe a "Top Ten thing I've learned About Vienna" List...
Miss you all!!  Oh and just in case anyone was wondering... It has been since Christmas since I cut my hair... It is getting longer now, mom will be happy (she's always liked my hair longer) and apparently I still have to grow it.  The show has a certain look and I'm almost there... pictures to come soon too...
'Til next time...
Aa

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Hello everyone and Happy Valentine's Day from Vienna!


Alex and I were trying to figure out a way to celebrate Valentine's Day as it is our first one together.  I judged in Kingston last year and I was coaching the year before. Since we're in Vienna we thought it might be fun to go for a visit of the Schonbrunn Zoo, the OLDEST zoo in the world!  It dates back to 1752 and was set in the gardens of the Schonbrunn Palace, the former summer home of the Imperial family.  Originally the grounds were for hunting but then they put more exotic animals on it to be kept instead of hunted. 

The zoo had so many animals!!  There were a lot of animals that I had never seen even in a zoo.  This is one of the only places in the world that you can see Giant Pandas in captivity there are only 27 living in the world outside of China. (The Calgary, Toronto, and Granby Zoos will have shared custody of 2 Pandas starting this year, and this one has 3!!)  We got really close and even took some pictures of the baby sleeping on a tree branch.  Pretty cute.

Eating Bamboo

Alex with Pandas

Sitting like People

Baby Sleeping

 

 

Lunch time!

 These guys were so cute and we stayed watching them for quite a while, even though it was snowing! 

After our Pandas we walked all around the zoo, about 3 hours.  It was snowing today which is a huge change from the temperature (15C or 50F) last week!  We braved the 1/2 inch of snow and continued to enjoy our day.  Some of the other interesting exhibits were the polar region.  They had sea lions and penguins. As well, the aquarium/reptile house was very cool, with a 360 degree aqua tunnel where you could walk right through the tank.  We got to see a baby elephant and orangutan.  There was a huge rainforest house where there was a bat cave, with free flying bats (Alex would not go anywhere near it).  There were some pretty birds in the rain forest as well as some giant flying foxes (or just bigger bats to Alex). 

Koala

Rhino with his keeper

MONKEY!

Penguins

Aaron and a Sealion

 

 

In the Rainforest

Baby Elephant playing with his food!

Alex and her true love

Even though this zoo is in the middle of the city, it a very natural environment.  They even took the time to set up a walkway through the trees just to see the native birds of Vienna which was nice for
me.  Although it is winter most of the animals were very active and although some were in their winter houses, it was still great to see them.  I usually don't enjoy seeing animals stuck in captivity but these animals had awesome habitats and really good caretakers.  This was one of the nicest zoos we had ever been in for sure.   

In the spirit of Valentine's day we thought we'd show you some of the animals also celebrating today...  

Sea Lions snoozing...

Red Pandas Playing

Monkeys Grooming

Tapirs in Love

Elephants eating dinner

Giant Anteaters kissing

And then there were these two....

Training and work has been going really well.  I'm performing every show and recently had to change costumes and learn the other half of the Planche Act.  It's so much fun to learn new roles!  I've been working hard to learn all the skills I need and they are gradually coming.  I feel like my timing and my technique is improving daily.  Here's a picture of my new costume on the day Alex came to watch the show.  We are given two free tickets to the dress rehearsal for our family so Alex will at least be able to watch it in every city once.



Hopefully everyone had a great day!  We miss you all!
'Til next time,
Aa and Alex

The Stage!

Just a short one today! Very exciting news.  I jumped on stage today for the first time, NOT in the show yet, but at least it's a start.  It is very different as I'm used to training in the Artistic tent.  Tomorrow is the dress rehearsal for Vienna, so today was light check and training back on stage.  Normally we don't train out on stage but today was an exception!  The lighting goes from overhead normal lighting to stage lighting, which is crazy.  I actually prefer to jump on stage than in the artistic tent because on stage it seems much more focused.  I am consistently improving and making mistakes in the name of learning.  I'll be on stage for my first premiere on Thursday as well.  The show will be packed full and it should be a great night!!  Another change is that for the show I'll be in the poor costume and on the other side...  Not the Bourgeois (Rich) burgundy costume! Should be fun! 

Oh and something else we just learned...  If you travel to Europe with a Magic Bullet, you need to get a power adapter/converter, unless you want a hotel room filled with smoke.  Just saying...


Ok, I guess we can tell you all about our trip to the aquarium, House of the Sea, (www.haus-des-meeres.at/en).  It was in a 10 story building, where the bottom floor is a mix of animals, second and third are all snakes, 4th-6th is a huge Rainforest with free roaming monkeys and birds and 6th-8th is a huge tank with sharks, a green sea-turtle, and lots of cool fish, the 9th is a panoramic balcony overlooking the city.  This is all in the center of the city, and it looks like an apartment building.

Here are a few pictures that we took of the animals.  The monkeys, birds, and some tortoises weren't caged or anything, just free to roam the building!!!

Python

Green and Spiky

Monkey!

Hornbill

Yawning...

Cool Fish

TURTLE!

He looked Hungry...

Alex on the Rooftop.

Vienna- Week 1

Well everyone,
We've made it here, we're finally set up in our room at the Novotel Suites in Vienna or Wein, as it's spelled here.  So far, so good.  It's a very stylish and comfy room, large all open concept, with a bathroom (toilet closet) and a nicer bathroom with a shower, sink and tub.   In the main , we have a huge desk (fits all 3 computers) and a nice couch/reading nook in the window.  We have a flat-screen TV that swings out on a wall mount so we can watch from the living room or bed.  The bedroom is nice with bedside tables and lamps.  We have a very small kitchen area, just a mini fridge, sink, and a microwave but today I bought a hot plate and a frying pan, so... eggs in the morning!!

It's been a pretty slow week for us here so far.  Basically we have been on about 4 long walks (about 4 hours each) trying to figure out where we are and how big Vienna is!  It's actually a huge city!!  We've discovered that there are more parks in this city than people and nicest one is the longest bikepath I've ever seen.  The Donau River runs right through, the north part of the city, our backyard.  It has been split into two parallel rivers and on both banks as well as the long peninsula between them, there are bike paths, gardens, shrubs and woods. 

Here is a map of our area, the northern part.  We live at the X, the "A" is Stephensplatz which is the downtown area.  There is a subway here the U and it goes under the entire city.  We live above the U1 which goes from here to Stephensplatz and best of all Cirque gave me a free pass for the entire time we're here.  Alex bought a week pass for 11 Euros too.  So we can go anywhere in the city now.  The Cirque tent is somewhere near the bottom of this map in the center. 

So after walking, we've really seen a lot of different things but really haven't been anywhere major yet.  We've been passed all the major Museums (haven't gone in yet) and we've walked through some very pretty gardens.  This is the statue of Johann Strauss in Stadtpark (city park).  We found it by accident, just thought the park was really pretty. 

We've been having fun learning how to get around this place and, although frustrating sometimes, we've been trying not to get lost too much.  One day we actually had no idea where we were going and we were looking at the map, unable to see where we were.  I am usually really good with a map, but this was one of those moments.  Luckily we came out at this old abandoned railroad station and scrap yard and eventually found our way to the Donau.

 After we watched some swans swim by we found our way back home.  Our neighbourhood (neighborhood, for the Americans reading this too) is interesting.  It is definitely a lower classed area but it feels safe.  There is a huge church right on the corner of the subdivision, which is a great landmark.  You can almost see it from downtown.  Looks like a castle. 


Not too much has really happened here yet, just the everyday stuff, buying groceries is 10X harder on account of the primary language being German, not French or English.  It is a rather odd situation for me.  I realized I have never been anywhere in the world that I didn't understand at least a bit of the language.  Here, I am at the mercy of people who wish to speak English, if they don't I have no idea.  It is a rather different situation for me.  I'm not really scared of this fact, more challenged by the new language.  I really want to start to try to at least read and recognize common words.  


What I have learned so far is that beer and wine, really good beer and wine, is very cheap!  We had to stop and take pictures in the grocery store...  Yes, we're tourists...


This beer, for instance, an original Budweiser, was 67 cents!!!  And yes we bought some wine too.  It is much cheaper than water, a bottle of water the same size was 3 Euros.

Continuing on our church visits, we went into the Dominikan Church, Dominikanerkirche, and did some exploring!  It took quite a while to see everything, there were paintings on the ceiling, walls, pews, everything.  There was a huge organ at the back of the church too.  This church was built in the 1630's and from the front looked like a Roman style building with beautiful statues and carvings, much different than the Gothic style in Brussels. Along with the paintings inside there we statues, monuments, and lots of religious "junk" really.  It looked like an episode of Hoarders.  I'm sure everything was meaningful and important, it just seemed there was so much stuff.  It was really fun to look at though and see, from a historical perspective, not necessarily an interior design one however.  

Alex finished her first paper for her class...  The Mars Expeditions...  One less thing to worry about now.  We are planning on going to the Aquarium tomorrow and maybe another long walk somewhere. We're both battling headcolds but hopefully we start feeling better by tomorrow.  The weather has been really great here and hopefully this continues, tomorrow could be as warm as 10 degrees C out there!!  Let's hope!  OH! ...
my bird list is getting much better now too with the water so nearby, maybe soon I'll post more of my bird pictures.  There are some very cool ones here too!!



'Til next time!!
 Aa and Alex