Does anybody still remember the Mystery Stole 3?

Pattern: Mystery Stole 3 (Swan Lake) by Melanie Gibbons
Yarn: Jaggerspun Zephyr wool-silk, 50% merino wool, 50% Chinese Tussah silk
Color: Pewter (a very nice light grey)
Price: I don't know anymore, I bought it at Sarah's Yarns a while ago
Amount: not sure, officially 1000 yards
Needles: also a good question, I'd assume 3.5 mm needles
Gauge: not necessary
Dimensions: ??
Modifications: none
Comments: I used black beads. I thought I was very clever, but later on I thought they resembled black sesame seeds. I have to find a way to store, because if you fold it, its own weight will cause creases, that's what I realized when I took it out from the box where I had stored it to take pictures.

They Mystery Stole 3 was a knitalong that started in June (oops, June 2007! :o I just looked it up in my project list on Ravelry. It says I started in August 2007 and finished it in December 2007). I blocked the stole using the lazy method (just pulling it apart without using needles) when it was finished, so I had to re-block it a couple of weeks ago, but hadn't managed to take pictures until today. Obviously I'm in dire need of a good photographer, but don't worry, I will try to compensate quality with quantity, which is always a good idea in my book. :D (The good thing is also I don't have to decide which is the best picture and which one I should use. I just take a couple that look ok.)





Melanie won't be doing another Mystery Stole knitalong this year. Her mom will be responsible for the design of the Mystery Stole 4.

This top my mom knit for me. The pattern is her own.



I still haven't been able to block Lily's Leaf Shawl. It's quite big and I don't have enough of the jigsaw pieces.

Suggestions for wedding stole?

One of my friends is getting married and I would like to send her a knitted gift. I suggested a wedding shawl, but she already has one, she doesn't have anything yet for the dress though that she is going to wear in the evening. I'm thinking about a stole.

That's the dress.



Since this is a simple dress with clear lines I think the stole should also not be too girly or frilly. As the dominant color in this dress is already red a white stole might match it nicely. She is from Tahiti and will get married in November, so I thought I could use mohair, as it's light and airy, yet warm. What do you think? And what pattern would you suggest? What do you think of the lead and follow lace scarf by Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer? And maybe instead of mohair I could use alpaca (I don't really like knitting with mohair and I'm not sure how well it would work with this pattern)? I have one skein in white from Alpaca with a twist.

I need...

... a new job.

(Warning: endless rant about stupid people following. No, it's not about cyclists, eBay sellers, sociologists, this is a new group of people - graphic designers.)

Starting here:

A new job where I do not have to work with people who reduce the dpi [not dpn as I had written previously. Obviously even unconsciously I'm thinking about knitting.] number of a screenshot thus decreasing the resolution and the size of the screenshot and then create a banner image adapted to the new dimensions of the screenshot!!! It will be too S - M - A - L - L!! And not only once, but like four times? Five times? Six times? And do it to the same screenshot of the same website, creating the same wrong-sized banner image over and over again? He just keeps sending me banner images that are simply tooooo small. Small, small, small! No matter what I tell him.

I don't understand how a graphic designer with more than 15 years of work experience could do this!

If he believes that graphics on a website have to be reduced to 72 dpi (I have no clue) he should reduce the original image and then create the banner image. Increasing the resolution will just give you a low-quality image. What's so difficult to understand about this??? He complains that I don't give him the exact measurements of the image while I tell him to make design changes to the layout as he wishes and that the technical implementation was my business and if I couldn't do it do I would forward it to the multimedia agency who created this \&%$/§& website. I'm going crazy with that kind of people. This is just an example, but it's irrational things like these that drive me nuts. Recently just mentioning the words "marketing" and "website" drives me up the wall.

Rant over!

Anyway, I've decided I want to do something with environment - phytoremediation (short version: the use of plants to remove toxic substances from contaminated soil/environment). As a student I did an internship at a lab where they did research in this field and I still think it's a pretty cool thing. If you have been wondering about my recent blogging frenzy, it's because I'm on annual leave. I'm taking two weeks off (this is my second week now) and not going anywhere so I can take care of this jobseeking thing. I've been procrastinating a lot, but I think having an idea of what you want to do is an important step forward. I'm feeling superanxious at the moment, even if you don't believe it. I have problems with applying for job, because I get hypernervous just reading the job description, so if you have any kind of helpful advice to give, go ahead. It will be very much appreciated. :)

... these puzzle mats (or whatever you call them in English):



I bought them at Obi, but they don't have them anymore. :( Has anybody the same puzzlemats from Obi and would like to get rid of them?

... patience. I gave in and ordered a spinning wheel (YAY, YAY, YAY!! :) ), a Kromski Minstrel, but the delivery time is 4 weeks! I could cancel the order and order it somewhere else, but that dealer had the best offer and I need to be considerate of my budget. *big, big sigh*

Last but not least, my recommendation for a really tasty cooking blog: www.deliciousdays.com I haven't tried any of the recipes yet, but the food always looks very yummy and if someone writes with that much passion about food, the recipes must be good.

Finished: Gretel beret

Pattern: "Gretel" beret by Ysolda Teague (I'm also wearing the Backyard Leaves Scarf by Annie Modesitt)
Yarn: Numero Uno Tweed by Lana Grossa
Color: Green
Price: ?
Amount: 1.5 balls?
Needles: ?
Gauge: a bit smaller, I think, but the beret is still big enough
Dimensions: Fits
Modifications: None

I'm pretty late with posting about that one, I think I finished it last year? But never say never! (Hmm, that green of the scarf looks a bit dull in the picture...). It's a ver nice pattern. I made another one with Rowan Felted Tweed in pink, but I haven't uploaded the pictures yet. The cables take a lot of time though, even when you don't use a cable needle.

Bloody flickr...

You have 171 photos stored on Flickr. Once you hit 200, you'll need to upgrade to a Flickr Pro account or you'll only be able to see your most recent 200 photos.

Nothing will be deleted, and if you upgrade, you'll have unlimited space for all your things. Perhaps you'd like to upgrade to Pro now? You'll even get 3 months free for purchasing before 30 September 2008!

Finished: clutch with red-white flowers

Pattern: Clutch from "The Happy Hooker" by Debbie Stoller, p. 137 by Ileana Rodriguez
Yarn: "Soft-Merino" by Wolle Rödel (for those who don't have any of their stores in town, here's the link their webshop), 100 % merino superwash, 100 m/50 g, 18 stitches x 22 rows = 10 cm in stockinette stitch, recommended needle size: 4 - 5 mm, wash at 30 °C
Color: blue, red, white (not in order: #308, #360, #331)
Price: 3 € and something per ball
Amount: one ball in red and white, two balls in blue (= one ball and a little bit of the other)
Hook: 4 mm (G-6)
Gauge: was a bit off, but since the pattern is very simple it's very easy to make modifications
Dimensions: 25 cm wide and 15 cm high
Lining: red cotton
Modifications: I made three small flowers instead of one big flower.





I like the clutch although I find it a bit floppy. Next time I would maybe use cotton to give it more rigidity and stability. The lining did help somewhat. At first I wanted the lining to go up to the upper edge of the bag instead of letting it end below the handle as it says in the instruction which might have added a bit more stability to the bag, but then it started to look more complicated than I had planned and I didn't really think the added bit of stability would not have justified spending more time fussing with the lining. In any case, I'm really pleased with how the clutch turned out. It took me a bit more than a week to finish it, so that's a quick project (hm, now I think I want to make one with cotton, in green with little daisies).

The yarn is very loosely spun and probably will pill a lot.

I like this book a lot. I had borrowed it from a friend and then eventually got my own copy. If you have no clue about crocheting this is the book I would recommend. Debbie Stoller starts from 0,00 and explains every "stupid" question you might have. I've never been as proficient with crocheting as I am with knitting and I've been never been really sure if what I did was a 100 % correct. Crochet is somewhat more forgiving of mistakes than knitting and you can crochet happily along without getting busted that soon (although I have heard of people who had been knitting through the backloop instead of the frontloop for years), but with this book you can end your miserable existence as impostor and become a real crochet queen. Apart from the excellent explanations there is also a very nice compilation of crochet designs (hats, a wrap, scarfs, belts, cardigans, bags, a blanket, toys, a pair of gloves, a pair of slippers, a shawl, tops, a skirt, a doormat, a necklace and a bracelet made from wire, etc.) from various designers.

How the orange dress looks in real life

After a lot of encouragement of my friends I took the orange dress out for some real-life testing. I went to a beergarden to knit with my Sunday knitting group. Pictures here and here.

Remember what I said about stupid pedestrians and drivers? Well, I forgot to include stupid cyclists!



I had to end my Sunday bicycle tour and go home and cool my foot. Obviously it wasn't that bad, otherwise I wouldn't have been so fascinated by it to take a picture of it. :D Gross, but fascinating, right? :D Leave me a comment and I will show you another picture of my toes turning red and purple (which is weird, because the lump is in the middle of the foot). Or not? :D

Turning off animated images with Firefox

Firefox for various reasons is my prefered browser. The developers were also nice enough to allow you control over the freaking animated graphics that you will find on many websites.

How to turn them off:
1. Type "about:config" into the address bar
2. Type "anim" into the filter field
3. Double-click on "img.animation_mode"
4. The default setting is "normal". You can use "none" or "once" to stop the animation completely or to prevent it from being repeated.

Rambling or projektleiterin's pearls of wisdom

*The girl in the movie "Happy-go-lucky" is extremely annoying. If you are a mature adult and know life in London you might enjoy the building up of tension that eventually leads to a happy catharsis and an understanding of the whole picture. - I don't. :D Maybe I would have liked it if I had had enough stamina to bear with her giggle fits at the most inopportune moments and the lack of a story line, but I didn't.

*Romance is a social construct like race. If they produce more movies where the woman is older than her male counterpart then I will change my mind.

*One day when they invent a pill against menopause the world will go down the gutter. When women become independent from their cruel biological clock and can be as carefree as men about reproducing, they will also choose to take a little bit more time to grow up. Women are just a bit more mature than men because they have to. Give them control over their reproduction and humankind will be screwed! Mark my words!

Please keep in my mind, years from this day on, that I was the first one to develop this theory. Future sociologists (my best buddies) will hail my foresight and ingenuity. :D

*Last week I went to a swing dancing class. It was fun, but half of the guys had cold and sweaty fish hands. And two smelled of alcohol. And onions. But no sweaty armpits. Justice where justice is due. :D Most were also very badly dressed. If you think that I am superficial I would recommend that you take a good hard look at yourself. When was the last time you felt attracted to someone? Was it purely because of his/her intellect? His/her inner values? I know people who insist that they be loved for who they are, that wearing make-up is deceit and nice clothes are something superficial. I think, if you want unconditional love you should get a dog or stay with your parents. We all want to be loved for who we really are, at the same time I don't believe that we fall for people for who they really are. It's a double standard. And I really believe we should like ourselves enough to want to give ourselves the best. And go to a yoga class and AA. :D

*I'd like to run all these people over who cross the street without looking at all if a car or bike is coming. I don't support cruelty against animals, so I don't do this, but really... I also would like to run the stupid drivers over who don't care if they kill me or not, but I'm afraid they're stronger and bigger than me. Instead I shake my fist to the heavens and curse the mother that bore them. :D

*Do flatmates know that running around in shorts and shirtless in the morning is pretty sexy? Thank God I do not really dig him that much, but he's eye candy in the morning. :D

*I think I'm digging a guy who hit on me, tried to convince me that he was trustworthy and did not tell me that he had a girlfriend. Doh... He apologized though. I now find myself secretly hoping that he breaks up with her. She's gone anyway and she will be away soon for another nine months...

I do not even think he is that cute... Curse my freaking irrationality... Thanks to my superficiality and the shallowness of my feelings though I probably will be over him in a couple of weeks.

(Thought I should also come up with a dirty confession, you might otherwise believe I'm a saint ;-) Did I mention he is very very likely 7 years younger than me? - No comment. :D )

*I read a blog today that I found pretty good: www.der-englisch-blog.de The English lessons are very short (thumbs up), but entertaining and interesting. Many things I already knew, but it was good to be reminded of some basics, while others were new to me.

It's raining and I'm blocking

It's raining, raining, raining... :( But thanks to that you can enjoy a new blog entry. Instead of going to my yoga class I'm sitting here and putting something together just for your entertainment. :D

Pattern: Rebecca no. 36, originally in yellow
Yarn: ggh yarn "Tara", 72 % cotton, 28 % polyamid, 100 m/ 50 g (that's the orignal yarn, I seldom use the original yarn, but I happened to see the dress in the yarn shop and the owner convinced me that it would look good on me, so my resistance melted like icecream in the sun.)
Price: not sure, less than 50 € but since I have two balls of the orange yarn left, I should look for the receipt so I can return it. In the magazine the retail price is stated as 44.55 € for the kit.
Amount: theoretically 400 g of the orange yarn and 50 g of the white yarn, but like I said, I have two balls left and my gauge is correct.
Needle size: 5 mm
Size: 34/36

Comment: I would recommend that you use 60 cm and 80 cm, instead of 60 cm and 100 cm long circular needles. And start with the short circular needle and not the long one.

There is one minor mistake in the instructions (sorry, I just checked them, but I can't find it now), but it's not that important. I think the stitch count somewhere was wrong.

The dress is tight, not like in one of the pictures in the magazine where it seems to have more ease around the waist (the one I'm thinking of is not on the website, only in the magazine). I had to include some short rows around the bust.

Not sure why I had gone for a knitted dress. Knit with 5 mm (!) needles. And as we all know the line between uniqute and plain weird is thin! I'm not afraid of wearing knitted stuff, but I do not want to look like an esoteric-Birkenstock-wearing-eco-sociologist (I'm pissed off with a certain sociologist, so I felt like including an over-simplifying insult against sociologists. :D Even in high school I was convinced that the majority of sociologists talk too much and are weird. I also bet they don't shower very often. Some people seem to confuse eco and natural with smelly). I also don't really like tie-dye. Now, go and hate me. :D

It looked nice in the window though and it seemed to be a quick knit (it definitely is). I wanted a very mindless project and this one suits the purpose. Good ol' stockinette in the round (not much of a fan of knitting in the round though, you never get to an end, it goes on and on and on...) That was also one reason why I bought the original yarn, I simply didn't want to go hunting for the right yarn and then recalculate everything, because my gauge would be off. I think, I have a reluctance to knitting sweaters, because when substituting yarn I never get the right gauge, which means I have to do many calculations to adapt the yarn to the pattern.

The yarn is ok. I usually prefer 100 % natural yarns, but cotton is a very heavy fiber, it probably wouldn't have been a good idea to use a 100 % cotton yarn for a dress. Recently I have developed a fondness for orange and this one is a quite nice shade. The original yellow is a bit bland in reality. The yarn is also available in a couple of other colors, but in my opinion they are all a bit too bland for a summer dress.



This is another Swallotail Shawl. Follow the link for more details about the pattern. This one is quite old, but I never posted a picture of it. Having been in use for a quite a while it had shrunk a bit and needed re-stretching, so I reblocked it yesterday. It's one of my favorite knitted items.

Yarn: Misti Alpaca lace
Color: natural white
Needle size: 3.5 mm



Still on the needles: Feather and Fan Shawl by Eugen Beugler from A Gathering of Lace. Same yarn as I had used here.




That one is actually finished and I was about to block it this morning, but I didn't have enough of the jigsaw pieces that I use instead of a blocking board. At the moment it's drying outside on our balcony.

Pattern: Lilly's Leaf Shawl

More details when it's blocked.



Instead of blocking Lilly's Leaf Shawl I'm now blocking the Mystery Stole. Yeah, I'm fast, faster than a ray of light. :D I did block it already, but since I did it the lazy way, I wasn't happy with the result, so I decided to do it again. But since I somehow got less and less convinced of its wearability I put it off until now.

I got tagged! And it's all about me, me, me! :D

Domestic Miss told me she reads my blog and tagged me for a questionnaire about me. Uiiiiih! I like it when things are turning around me. :D And someone said she reads my blog! Wooot! Did I mention, by the way, that Krawuggl also said something nice about me? Isn't that nice? :)

Rules:
The Rules: each player answers the questions. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 or 6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

Here's the questionnaire:

1. What I was doing 10 years ago:
I was in my second semester at university.

2. What 5 things are on on my to-do list for today (in no particular order):
*Going to the gym. Checked.
*Meeting my landlady. Checked.
*Finishing the orange dress (it took nearly three days to dry! But to be fair, my washing machine doesn't spin-dry well, when I took the dress out to block it it was still really wet.). Checked (now I just need someone to tell me how I look in it. Also the collar seems to require modifications.)
*Trying to compose a "Zwischenzeugnis" for myself.
*Looking for a new cycling buddy? (If you live close by and are interested, send me a message.)

3. Snacks I enjoy:
Macadamia nuts, that package with all different kind of seeds, fruits.

4. Things I would do if I was a billionaire:
*Invest my money in innovative green technology.
*Become a generous philanthropist and donate a lot of money to people who don't deserve it. – Oh - kaaaay, I'm just being sarcastic. I'd donate a lot of money to those who need it, but I'd try to keep them away from me. I'd be a very grumpy philanthropist.

By the way, where does my money come from? Am I making money with speculating with food prices on the market and by supporting companies that ruin the environment? I really should start a foundation and give money to NGOs that work hard to protect the environment or help poor people since I don't know what to do with the heaps of money I have greedily acquired at the cost of other people.

*Build big monuments to remind people of my generosity.
*Use the mighty power of money to bribe people and succeed in getting what I want where my temper tantrums didn't work out.

5. Place I have lived:
Vietnam
Germany
Egypt
Spain
USA

I'm going to tag Krawuggl, Alala, Kent, that girl n, Melusine and Angelita. I haven't commented for a very long time on blogs (and have also not been reading many... :o), but I sort of assume that since they have commented recently or in general seem to be patient with my sporadic answers and posting that they won't mind if I tag them.

Edit: Uh, there are rules. I've forgotten to post them.

The fear of looking like an orange sausage

Orange dress, originally uploaded by projektleiterin.

I'm blocking a dress. It's not finished yet, the collar is missing (it's a long white stripe, similar to the one that you see in the picture, that you sew to the rest of the dress. It's not finished yet.).

As far as now I can tell you that the dress fits very very tightly... A kind soul suggested that I wetblock it on my body. Ha, ha, good joke Mr. I-have-a-pimple-in-my-nose.

I also have two balls left?! My swatch was off by half a stitch, but when I knit the dress I used metal needles instead of the wood needles with which I knit the swatch and this dress is knit in the round (of course, I did not swatch in the round. Only people who do not believe that their magic knitting skills make everything end well do this but when you realize you have two balls left and whatever you are knitting fits very tightly left you do start wondering a bit about your gauge.

Tomorrow when it's dry we'll see!

First attempts at spinning

I bought the fibers at Wolle Rödel, but I don't think they had been really meant to be spun into yarn. Probably for more suitable for other handicrafts. The pink stuff was the second product that my talented spinning fingers gave live to. The talent is clearly clearly there. Me, not stupid, also had bought something called "Eiderwolle", a white something that smells like sheep and produced a pre-product for ropes. I concluded spinning was something for fine motor geniuses...

The fibers from Wolle Rödel were not ideal, but I was able to spin much finer singles. The green ball gave me hope that I might be able to spin something nice one day. Spinning is pretty hypnotic, by the way. Or meditative?



Rovings from TheFiberDenn at Etsy. I spun two small samples to see how it would work out. As you can see I have improved tremendously. :D After spinning with the sticky Wolle Rödel stuff, these rovings were supereasy to spin. Laceweight? - Easy as pie!



On the left hand side:
Fiber: Fine Shetland
Colorway: PeachesNCream

On the right hand side:
Fiber: Corriedale
Colorway: Coleus
Quite overtwisted... I will finish the sample I'm knitting at the moment and maybe it won't be that bad.

Spun with this spindle:


It looks a bit like a toy, but it spins well actually.

Finished: Shetland Triangle 2

Yes, I still knit, believe it or not. :D I also have a couple of knitting projects on the needles, but they go so slow... This shawl I finished a while ago, but I kind of forgot to post about it.

Pattern: Shetland Triangle by Evelyn A. Clark, from Wrap Style
Yarn: Misti Alpaca Lace, 100% baby alpaca; 437 yd [ 400 m]/50 g
Color: #3140 "Pretty in pink"
Price: $5.95, bought at theknitter.com
Amount: Less than one ball
Needles: 3.5 mm
Gauge: Do I look as if I even knew the word "gauge"? :D
Dimensions: I made the shawl for my mom, so I don't have it here to measure it. It's small enough to work as a little neck scarf.
Modifications: When I look at the pictures it seems I made 9 pattern repeats.

I've already used this pattern before and it's perfect for a quick knit, the pattern is very easy to memorize and it's a small project that you can carry everywhere. You might wonder why I knit the same patterns over and over again, it's because I know the patterns well enough by now and they can become mindless knitting projects, more or less. Some people knit socks and I knit shawls.

Misti Alpaca Lace is one of my favorite yarns. It's soft and drapes nicely, because it's alpaca, which is a quite heavy yarn. And it doesn't have this tendency to felt like the Jaggerspun Zephyr that I used a couple of times. Regarding color, the pink is a tad too pinkish for me, but my mom likes it.




I've embellished the shawl with some glass beads. They also add a bit of weight to the shawl, which helps to keep it draped nicely.

I'm a spammer... :(

Hey everybody, seems like some of my emails more often than not end in the spam folder. I just ran another couple of tests and was confirmed again that the combination of my email adress at Googlemail with the term "blogspot.com", which appears in my footer as part of my blog address, seems to trigger some spam filters. I has nothing to do the email provider, because I tried it with two yahoo email addresses; with one account the email ended in the spam folder and with other one it got delivered to the regular entry folder. I've also tried sending "blogspot.com" in the text body using a different email address and I do not have problems with this.

Whatever the problem is, I just wanted to say, please put me in your white list (or not, depending if you like receiving emails from me or not :D ) and if you are currently waiting for an answer from me and I haven't replied yet, you might want to check your spam folder. Apart from this I might need to add that I've been quite moody lately, for a couple of weeks now, and I'll be honest, sometimes answering personal emails feels like a burden for me. It really doesn't have anything to do with you and I guess, I should inform you about this in case you were wondering about my lack of response. Well, I'm like that sometimes... sorry... :/

Good night.

Vienna is calling!

Being forced to take the rest of my annual leave from last year before the end of March I asked my friend Hasan, who lives in Vienna, if I could visit him. He was busy, but said it was ok. So, off I was for Vienna on Easter! Yay! :)

Vienna:


















Karlskirche:
The Karlskirche is supposed to be the most beautiful baroque church in Vienna, but that is not the reason why I liked it so much and feel the need to tell you about it. No, the reason why it excites me is the panorama lift that takes you to vertiginous heights to give you a really great view of the fresco paintings on the ceiling (also over the city, but with all the security wire netting occluding and limiting the view it was not really worth it). Usually, a normal visitor will never have the opportunity to see these paintings at such a close distance, but here the scaffolds that had been used for previous restoration works had been preserved to take visitors upstairs (not sure how long they will stay though, seems like they have been around for a while though).




The lift takes you to a platform, from there you have to take stairs (they look the same as the stairs in the first picture ) to reach the top. Let me just tell you, if you're not a fan of heights and standing on a scaffold that surely was stable more or less, but well, not as stable as a nice stone staircase, you would also get the butterflies...


"Running and jumping is dangerous! Shouting is uncool!" Yeah, totally uncool. :D The sign also says that only a maximum of 10 persons is allowed. It also said something about "only under supervision," which everybody seemed to happily ignore. I'll be honest - I was scared shitless at this height. Crazy tourists who happily in their ignorance walked up and down the stairs to the top! Nobody here who cared about the maximum of 10 person! And where was this supervision guy?? In the end I decided to be a sheep and just go with the others, peer pressure you know, didn't want to stick out as the hysterical tourist, and I mean, who has ever heard of a scaffold breaking down under an overload of tourists in an Austrian church, right? Anyway, on my way to the top I was rewarded with a really nice view of the ceiling. If the pictures are blurry, it's because I didn't use a flasha and because my hands were shaking more than usual due whenever someone walked by and caused the scaffold to shake (I was DYING every time inside, I kid you not. :D). There were two information points where you could listen to your audio guide, but I simply didn't feel calm enough to take up any information. I only wanted to get to the top and then downstairs to solid ground as soon as possible. I listened to the information when I was downstairs and I regretted that I missed some interesting tidbits, but it was ok.




A short video that I made with my digital camera, the quality is therefore not that great.






She has this mischievious look on her face. I found the expressions on many faces to be quite interesting, you rarely get to see them with all the details.








Under the top. If I'm not mistaken painting the Holy Spirit in the middle of the ceiling is not uncommon in churches.

Ok, I'll say it (false modesty is so boring), I felt damn proud that I had continued to the top. :D


Kunsthistorisches Museum:

www.khm.at


Exhibition of works of Arcimboldo at the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

"The artist was born in Milan where he started his career by working on designs for windows for the city’s cathedral. He worked in his hometown, specialising mainly in religious paintings, before being called to Vienna in 1562 by Maximilian, the eldest son of the Emperor Ferdinand I. For the next twenty-five years he served as court painter to the Emperor Maximilian II and his son, the Emperor Rudolf II, both in Vienna and in Prague, before returning to Milan in 1587."

The exhibition was interesting. I still felt captivated by Arcimboldo's works and skills although the vegetable and fruit composite heads are so known. He painted the flowers, plants, animals that compose the heads with a scientific accuracy that is praiseworthy in itself, but to put them together in such imaginative ways to create faces is ingenious. Get an audio guide (which is not for free, but nevertheless makes the whole tour through the museum more interesting and enlightening).

The museum also exhibited some photos of Bernard Pras, who created his own version of composite heads. He uses 3-dimensional objects located in space to create faces, which can be comprehended best when captured in a 2-dimensional form such as a photo. Take a look at his website, www.pras-bernard.com, I assure you, it's worth it.


Donau City:
Home of apartments, offices, and various UNO institutions in the Vienna International Centre (UNO City). The United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV), one of the four main headquarters of the UN worldwide (the others can be found in New York (that I have already visited with my mom years ago, we took a guided tour there), Geneva and Nairobi), is also located in UNO City.






Passing the Mexikokirche on our way to Donau City.




Sightseeing in Vienna:
Vienna is surrounded by a main street called "der Ring", which is seamed by many of the interesting buildings and tourist attractions that you will find in Vienna such as the Karlskirche, the Museumsquartier with the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Naturhistorisches Museum, Leopoldmuseum, Burgtheater, City Hall, Staatsoper, etc.

I haven't been able to visit all of them from within. These are snapshots that I took from outside.

Burgtheater

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgtheater

Stephansdom

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephansdom

Gothic cathedral in the center of Vienna.

City Hall


Österreichische Staatsoper (Austrian State Opera)


At the Opernring in front of the Hotel Sacher. End of Kärnter Straße, close to the Naschmarkt.

Located in the center:
Hofburg


"Hofburg Imperial Palace is a palace in Vienna, Austria, which has housed some of the most powerful people in Austrian history, including the Habsburg dynasty, rulers of the Austro-Hungarian empire. It currently serves as the official residence of the President of Austria. It was the Habsburg's principal winter residence, while Schönbrunn Palace was their preferred summer residence."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofburg

A bit outside:
Schloss Schönbrunn




"Schönbrunn Palace (German: Schloss Schönbrunn [ʃøːnˈbʁʊn]) in Vienna is one of the most important cultural monuments in Austria and since the 1860s has also been one of the major tourist attractions in Vienna. The palace and gardens illustrate the tastes, interests and aspirations of successive Habsburg monarchs."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schloss_Sch%C3%B6nbrunn

I had a talk yesterday with a friend of mine who is French and she said Schloss Schönbrunn is so great inside. The French castle are all empty inside - many thanks to the French revolution - and she loved that here most was still intact. I also assume that many of the older buildings in Vienna are so well preserved as it didn't get bombed as much as German cities during WW2. If you visit Bamberg you can see how different German cities actually might look like.

Hundertwasserhaus

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundertwasserhaus

Accoding to my friend Hasan it's only tourists who visit this house, everybody else in Vienna thinks it's ugly.

Him: "Don't visit this."
Me: "But I want to! How can I not visit this when I am in Vienna and it's not even far from here?"
Him: "It's ugly. Don't visit it."
Me: "But, I want to."
Him: "It's ugly. Don't."

Of course, I went. :D

Gasometer

"A gasometer, or gas-holder, is a large container where natural gas or town gas is stored near atmospheric pressure at ambient temperatures.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasometer

The Gasometers in Vienna now house offices, shopping malls and apartments.

Me: "There's a shopping mall inside, right?"
Him: "Yes, but it's not worth it to visit inside, but you're not going to listen to me anyway..."

That's right, :D but I didn't have the time to see it from inside.



Hasan and I met a couple of years ago in Egypt, lost contact for a while and about two years (?) ago picked up contact again. In the meantime he had started a business with imported juices from Egypt - www.alijuus.com. I like the idea that he sells fresh juices that are made without any kind of additives or preservatives. Oh, and they taste really good, too! My roommates really loved it. He also recently started a business corporation with Sekem, an organisation founded by Dr. Ibrahim Abouleish that is based on the anthroposophic teachings of Rudolf Steiner (Waldorf schools, biodynamic agriculture, does that ring something to you?). I'm skeptical of the anthroposophical teachings (I remember a friend, who was an intern at a biodynamic farm, telling me about stirring fertilizer at moonlight clockwise, then anticlockwise, the clockwise again, something like that...), but I like the holistic approach to sustainable human development and farming.

I learned how to play poker (but not how to win...), I smoked (cigarettes and other stuff passively, ewww) more than ever before, I learned that guys supposedly don't like nice women, I found out that you can meet someone again after five years and it really just seems like no time has passed. And that someone can be quite grumpy but surprisingly still be your friend (he thinks knitting is extremely uncool, he hates being nice, he hates other car drivers, he hates posed photos, hence a fake one with us together, HA :D). He's a moody bitch, but I still like him. He's a doll. :D

Wiener Kaffeehaustradition:
Of course, I had to visit a couple of cafés and see what it's all about the Wiener Kaffeehaustradition.

Café Central: Very elegant with live piano music, but it was full and I didn't feel like waiting, so I moved on to the next café.

Café Hawelka: I ate their famous Buchteln, they are made of yeast dough, usually filled with plum butter, but mine came with poppy seed, which I'm not really that fond of, so dry and the seeds always get stuck between your teeth. The waiter was arrogant, but I was assured by various people that it's their job to be arrogant, that's also why they wear suits, so don't take offense. The café was full with people and the air was thick with smoke. Somehow I think Leonhard Cohen would have loved it here. I had not been aware that this café had such an interesting history of visitors (Friedensreich Hundertwasser, André Heller, Elias Canetti, Henry Miller, Arthur Miller und Andy Warhol, came for a visit whenever they were in Vienna), I just knew it was famous, but had no clue why. It also seems that the walls are decorated with many works of the visitors, which I also didn't notice or maybe they have changed the decoration. My tourist guide obviously failed me here, but you can find more information about the café on their website, albeit only in German www.hawelka.at

Café Prückel: A café with a long history at the "Ring".The waiters here were nicer. I had Apfelstrudel and Palatschinken (very thin pancakes). My friend Hasan said it was Jugendstil, but I thought it had a 60ies touch. I struck up a conversation with a guy, Patrick, from there and he told me that people do indeed spend lots and lots of time in cafés to drink their coffee and read the newspapers (they even had German ones here) or work (like him), which means if you are a single tourist in Vienna, go to a café and just bother an innocent Viennese guest with your questions, because they will have a lot of time for you and nothing better to do anyway. :D Ok, try to to find someone who is not working. :D www.prueckel.at


At the Café Prückel.

I had also already entered the Café Demel (they're the ones who had a quarrel with the Café Sacher about the correct preparation of the Sachertorte and the use of the term "Original". They lost and now are only allowed to sell "Sachertorte" like any other café, but not "Original Sachertorte".) to eat Sachertorte, but I had eaten so much before and didn't want to stuff myself with cake just for the sake of eating it, I also wanted to take pictures of the pastry cooks working behind the scenes and as the batteries of my cameras needed to be recharged I decided to go back later, but I didn't find the time to do so. Next time. :)

Couldn't find any restaurant/café that had Marillenknödel. :(

Conclusion:Vienna is worth a visit. The city is beautiful and there is a lot to see and to discover, I still haven't seen everything, not a single castle from inside. And the cafés are good places to meet people.

Tourist guide: "Wien" by Doris Mair (Merian). I recommend this book. It has a lot of information on everything - museums, castles, restaurants, bars, shops, cafés, public swimming pools, cinemas, theaters, etc. and lots and lots of background information.It also has a foldable map that shows all the interesting tourist spots and six tour cards with different themes (bar tour, coffeehouse tour, composer tour, etc.). I got told by a German couple that this one is better than the one from Baedeker, which they had, as it contains information about bars, public swimming pools, etc. (I actually wanted to go to a swimming pool, but I forgot my swimsuit. I got told that Vienna has some beautiful swimming pools.)

I got home with the "Mitfahrzentrale" - www.mfz.de It's a website that organizes car sharing between strangers. It's a pretty cost efficient and more ecological way of traveling as you share your car and the costs for gas with others, a win-win situation for everybody involved. I was able to get back from Vienna for 19 €! Awesome. Much cheaper than with the train (would have cost 72 € with an Austrian ticket and a bit less with a German ticket). I definitely need to try this out more often.

That was a really long post. I think I can take a break now until next year. :D