Caught in the Rain

Here’s a bit of a shorter, earlier post today. This week hasn’t been super busy, but tomorrow I’m going on an all day trip with IKI to Krems and Dürnstein, and know I won’t have the time or energy to write up a full post. I don’t know whether I’ll make a post just about the Wachau trip or if I’ll wait and just include it in next week’s post.

Learning to Cook, Part II

Geschnetzeltes mit Spätzle!

Two weeks ago, I went to a cooking event with IKI where I learned how to make Wiener Schnitzel. This time, the cooking event we made Austrian dishes, like “Geschnetzeltes mit Spätzle” (a dish that had strips of chicken with mushrooms, peppers, and onions in a sauce, served with noodles) and Marillen cake, a cake with plums in it. Both were delicious.

Marillenkuchen!

This time, I was in the group that was focused on cutting all of the vegetables for the main dish and the salad, so I didn’t learn as much about how each dish was made. If there is another cooking event in September, I plan to try and work in the dessert group.

Also on the subject of cooking, I am greatly improving my ability to cook and feed myself beyond easy microwave meals. My grandma sent me a simple recipe, which I made Monday. It was mostly pasta and ground beef with some vegetables, but it tasted good and I made enough to last me the whole week.

The Quiet Year

Even while abroad, I can’t help but be a nerd. On Thursday, some friends and I played a game called The Quiet Year. I heard about it through a podcast I’ve been listening to called Friends at the Table (which I highly recommend). TQY is a world-building, map-making game where you draw cards that trigger events within a community during the course of a year. It took longer to play than expected, but we all had fun! Now I’m getting things ready for us to play the game Blades in the Dark in the world we made.

Caught in the Rain

Underneath a bridge over the canal

On Friday, the BCA group met to go to the Donaukanal. We went in the evening, and could already see storm clouds forming in the distance when we started our walk. As we walked along the canal, we saw a ton of intricate graffiti along both shores. There were some restaurants, as well as a small park and community garden. And although it was a little gloomy, the temperature was a lot better.

The contrast between the people playing in the park and the tower behind them was interesting. (Also, note the graffiti on the base of the tower to the right)

We then turned away from the canal and walked a few more minutes until we were at the Augarten. It was a park, with some rows of trees and a large field, and most notably: a giant, concrete tower. The assistant resident director for BCA, Benjamin, who leads the BCA trips in Vienna, told us that it was a Nazi anti-aircraft tower from WWII. The only reason it hasn’t been torn down is that it would be extremely expensive to do so.

And then it started to rain. Several of us pulled out our umbrellas, and we gathered underneath some of the trees, hoping to wait out the rain. But then it started to pour, and it didn’t stop.

At this point, Benjamin decided that it’d be better to just bite the bullet and run the few hundred feet to the cafe in the park. By the time we reached it, we were all completely soaked. At one point, I had stopped running to take off my sandals, which were too muddy to run in.

While running may not have been the wisest choice, it was certainly better than waiting the storm out — it continued to pour for another two hours. As we dried off in the restaurant, we ordered drinks and desserts (I had a chocolate mousse cake, which was delicious) and just had some good conversations. All in all, not a bad evening.