ballet in Vienna

I just watched the ballet school matinee at Vienna stat oper and it was great. If you ever come to Vienna during the opera be sure to check this out, the tickets are well worth 5-9 euros. There were plenty of seats left, but to avoid fighting with the staff on availability, it is better to get them online in advance. Personally, I was lucky to get a free ticket from a kind indian lady who had a spare one as her friend did not show up.

headache

I am unable to access my regular mail account. I created an email account in gmail. My username is janhel78. If you want to email me use this address IN ADDITION to the normal address.

Vienna sightseeing

Yesterday we had a guided tour of Vienna arranged by the IIASA. We mainly toured around the Stephansdom and the area of the old Roman "Vienna". There were plenty of interesting places, although we did not have time to go inside to any of the places. The iPhoto facebook photo exporter is not working and resizing and attaching pictures here is quite time consuming. Nevertheless...

I've now been here for a week and it has been a busy week. Fortunately, Saturday was quite relaxed and today I finally slept a bit longer. The fellow YSSP people are nice, but it seems most of the time is spent in working and I have been too tired to be really active in finding any social activities after the long days. Today I guess there would be a change to joint the german and polish for yet another football match, but I would be more interested in doing sports than just watching it. Last week I missed the opportunity to play football and tennis. The football I just forgot as it was not well advertised and the tennis was canceled due bad weather. I also have not had enough energy to find a nice bike from here. There are shops shelling bikes close by, but the brands they have are unknown to me and it seems the first bike I had closer look at had cheap components. well maybe next week I get a chance to do some sports.

Interdisciplinary and policy relevant

the key words of YSSP. I do not know how many times that combination has been repeated during these few days.

day 2 at IIASA

I woke up at six and could not sleep. I guess its stress. Well today's program consisted of tick shot (tick is probably the most dangerous thing in Austria, at least the amount fuss was considerable), melzen form and desposit for the flat, passport picture, plenty of computer problems because of wireless lan and finally hour long talk with my supervisor Tatiana Ermolieva. I ran out of cash because of the deposit and heard from the IIASA people that establishing a real account in Austria might be slightly difficult for somebody not receiving salary for an austrian account, like me. The other more likely account type is supposedly without way to retrieve cash from an ATM. Austria is yet to experience the revolution of plastic money and credit cards are rejected more often than accepted.  Taking care of practical matters such as banking is made even more difficult by IIASA, which expects people to work long hours. Add to that an hour of commuting after work and you do not make it even to the grocery shops which close around seven.  the shop DM which I ended up in did not have any products that need cool storage or that would spoil such as milk and bread. Eventually staff escorted me to the counter as the shop was closing... so I am having austrian brains for dinner (look at the picture)

First day at IIASA

I am too tired to write now all that much. The YSSP people were much nicer than I expected. I do not know if it is because of all the hype or because there is just something special about the atmosphere, but definitely I have a good feeling of the summer to come. OK it was also bit mixed as part the message from the organizers emphasizes the social significance and part claims that you have a great challenge in succeeding with your research project. Well I have an early morning tomorrow so better get some sleep.

Vienna

I moved to Vienna yesterday.  I have not seen much of the city yet. I  just took the metro to the Simmeln area, where the student flat is located, unpacked and walked around for a while.  The day was hot and the bars and street stalls full of people.  I will be staying here for three months while studying at the International Institute of Applied System Analysis (IIASA), so I have plenty of time to see the sights.  After living in my own flat for few years, moving back to student commune feels strange and brings back memories from my undergraduate years at University of York.  There is plenty of research for me to do during the summer months, so I am not planning to spend too much time on blogging, but nevertheless I will try write few lines regularly.