It's Pretty Outside

and I am too busy being warm for once in my life to blog.

How was that for the worst post ever? More to come soon, I promise.

Cookie Girl Storms Germany

Some of you may remember dear Tobi, our lieblings-exchange-student-ever-in-the-whole-world who stayed with us when he came to Tulsa for a couple of weeks in high school.  

Tobi always promised that I would have a place to stay if I ever found myself in Europe.  Well, ladies and gentlemen, it just so happens that, five years later, I have found myself in Europe!  So I sent Tobi an e-mail, booked myself a ticket to Stuttgart, packed up my trusty neon-orange duffel, and headed west for the weekend.  

Tobi was so kind as to pick me up at the train station, and we picked up right where we left out.  Not too much has changed in five years.

By "not too much," I mean that Tobi has not cut his hair since we saw him last.  

It's officially longer than mine by several inches.  

Why the long hair, you may ask?  Wellllll, there are lots of things that long hair is good for.  Braiding, for example, or combing.  OR HEADBANGING.  

True story: Tobi is in the most hardcore band in all of the provincial town of Böblingen, I am pretty sure.

Tobi's the guitarist on the left.  I'm the girl in front of the stage with the corset.  Hah!  Just kidding.  But I sure wish I was her.

Anyway, don't let this hardcore facade fool you.  Tobi is still as sweet and goofy as ever and was a great host.  We walked around Böblingen, hung out with the love-of-my-sixteen-year-old-life Andre, ate deeeelicious Schwäbian food and drank deeeeeelicious German beer, and took lots of juggling pictures.  We even got to visit his sister in Tübingen, the cutest little university town about 20 minutes from Böblingen.  Look how precious!

The rest of the weekend was spent eating his mom's delicious food, going to the Stuttgart zoo, visiting museums, listening to music, and speaking Germanglish.  

Tobi also got a new guitar while I was there, so of course we needed to break it in.  What better way than to teach Tobi "Cookie Girl?"  Well, one thing let to another, and before I knew what was happening, it was being translated into German.  And you can't just make something that beautiful without recording it... so I now present to you the international sensation "Keksmädl!"

Baaaahahhaha.  And then when we were done, we translated one of his hilarious German songs about a bearded lady into English.  We are really the poster children for inter-cultural exchange.  

It was obviously just a most wonderful weekend, and I was quite sad to leave.  However, Tobi's mom had just the thing to make my train ride home absolutely magical.  Did I mention she works in a chocolate factory?  Well, she does.  And not only does she work in a chocolate factory, but she was so kind as to send me home with some chocolate.  And not only did she send me home with some chocolate, she sent me home with a TOTE BAG full of chocolate.  I kid you not.  "Here's one of every flavor ever," she said sweetly as she handed over the most magical gift in the entire world.  

Cookie Girl and her roommates, of course, are pleased.  To put it mildly.  

Whitney And Her Mom Eat Vienna

 

My mom visited me last week!  It was just wonderful.  But she also brought bad weather with her.  THANKS A LOT MOM.  We had such a lovely time, though, truly.  She took lots of pictures (here!) and bought me lots of groceries.  She might be the best mom in the whole world.  I am sure she can tell you all about it, but we really did just have the loveliest time:

eating cookies 

drinking tea 

eating Wiener Schnitzel 

drinking wine 

eating apple strudel 

shopping at the Naschmarkt 

eating dried coconut

visiting castles 

eating pineapples

drinking Radlers 

eating Mario's pizza 

watching operas 

eating kebabs 

drinking Glüwein 

eating strawberries 

shopping at H & M

eating pretzel bread

cooking lots of yummy food

eating Käsekreiners...

Good thing I made her walk so much this week, or she might have had to get a sealtbelt extender on the plane home.  Mmmmm God bless Vienna.

A Battle of Wills

Scene: Vienna train station, afternoon.  It's snowing.  A young woman, WHITNEY, steps up to the ticket counter, eyes shining and crisp bills clenched tight in her hand.  A ruddy-faced Viennese railway worker, RICHARD, is on the other side of the counter sporting his official vest, tie, and train-shaped-tie-clip.  

WHITNEY (in painfully slow but clear German): I would like to please purchase a ticket to Stuttgart for tomorrow morning.

RICHARD (in normal-person-speed German): Blah blah blah, important details, et cetera.

WHITNEY: Ja, ja, okay.

RICHARD: [unintelligible, convoluted, and supersonic-speed German]

WHITNEY: Huh?

RICHARD: [same thing, only I'm pretty sure faster this time]

WHITNEY: Huh?

RICHARD: [same thing again.  Lightning speed!]

WHITNEY: Uhhmm.... ja?

RICHARD (smiling knowingly, leaning forward, and whispering in perfect English): You know, we could actually speak English if you like.

WHITNEY: [cries]

Curtain.

But seriously, this happens all the time.  The Wieners are truly kind and will listen to me butcher their language up to a certain point, but there inevitably comes a time when their desire to conduct business and/or life at a normal pace surmounts my desire to practice my German.  Sigh.  

Super-Freunde

Just in case anyone was wondering, I have the most fantastic friends in the whole wide world.  

Exhibit A: Every time I open my mailbox or my e-mail inbox, there is some wonderful note from some wonderful friend halfway across the ocean.  This is the Hall of Fame that is (illegally) taped on my wall so I can look at it every single day.

Exhibit B:  My beautiful friends wake up early in the morning on FRIDAYS and WEEKENDS even so that I can see their beautiful faces on Skype.  

Sometimes I get to talk to lots of people at once and even occasionally dogs like Lester...

and even though sometimes they don't seem too happy to see me...

and other times they just plain fall asleep...

...I am still infinitely grateful for their love and know they will just smile and laugh when they find out that their web-cam-captured faces are plastered across the World Wide Web.  

Exhibit C:  They will forgive me for the small number of blog posts lately.  I blame midterms and the visiting mom.  I promise wonderful, magical updates soon.  Love you all!  

Clarabelle Conquers

Hello hello! Princess Whitney has just returned from skiing in the Alps for the weekend, and it was certainly a magical experience. Being the clever clever girl that I am, I forgot to charge my camera battery before I went, so I just have a handful of pictures-- but luckily my skiing buddy took plenty so I promise to share them all (plus the stories that accompany them) as soon as I can steal them off of facebook.

In other related news, I am currently working on a midterm assignment for one of my literature classes. The prompt? "Man can be destroyed, but not defeated." Naturally, I immediately thought of my recent experiences on the ski slopes. And luckily for you, my blog-reading-public, I now present to you the story of Saturday morning, poem-style.

Clarabelle Conquers

An overbundled and discouraged giant
in swishing snowpants and stiff boots,
Clarabelle tried not to feel
completely
and
utterly
inadequate
as tiny Swiss babies in tiny skis
giggled joyously, waved at proud parents,
and zoomed past her down the ice-covered hill.

The looming leviathan of the bunny slope
whispered a silent prayer
to the patron saint of
not
embarrassing
yourself
again
in front of Hans the ski instructor
who has the patience of a saint, dimples,
polarized goggles, and an adorable Swiss accent.

Clarabelle held her breath, shut her eyes,
pointed her skis down the hill,
and thought positively:
I
can
do
it!
she repeated to herself
as she imagined skidding to a triumphant halt,
spraying powder into the air at the end of the slope.

Much too late, Clarabelle stopped imagining
the snow-covered Hans cheering proudly
and started to see instead
how
very
very
fast
she was flying down the slope,
too fast even to notice the wide eyes
and chubby Swiss-baby fingers pointing at her.

She released her poles and whimpered,
wildly flapped her arms,
and gutturally cried:
Wha
Yeargh
Blahack
Nao!
"Wedge! Wedge!" Hans cried in vain,
making wild giant triangles with his arms
and wishing he had qualified for this year's semi-finals.

Clarabelle, however, managed to create
no such triangles with her skis.
"Abort mission!" she cried:
Curling
into
a
ball,
she thunkity-thunked down the hill,
snow spraying all around her as she rolled,
and finally deposited herself neatly at Hans' feet.

Removing the snowy deposits from her nostrils
and wiping her mouth, she looked up
at Hans' dimples as he said:
Zat
vas
ferry
good!
Clarabelle beamed,
fetched her abandoned poles, and marched
in stiff boots and swishing snowpants back to the lift.

It's-a Me, Mario!

Once upon a time, 

Five girls moved into an apartment together in Vienna.  Although they were able to subside on Nutella and Nutella alone for a couple (okay, like ten) days, soon their bodies began to protest.  "Give us something that isn't made out of hazlenuts!" their stomachs screamed.  "Something!  Anything!"  

"But we're too tired to cook, and going out is so expensive," the girls countered.  

Luckily, Nina the R.A. stepped in with a brilliant suggestion.  "There's a pizza place just up the street, girls," she said.  "Mario is really nice and he will make friends with you... plus, it's cheap!"  

A stranger who would actually talk to us?  Cheap food?  Better yet, cheap PIZZA?!  We scrambled wildly to pull on our boots and coats, tore down the stairs, and made the approximate 30-second hike to our destination: Pizzeria Vesuvio da Mario.

As you may see from the outside, Mario's is decorated quite festively.  And if you think the outside is beautiful... well, you obviously haven't been inside.  

Mario is a rebel among Italian restaurant owners by straying far from the "rustic Tuscany" theme.  The empty wine bottles with candles in them, loaves of fake bread in wicker baskets, accordion music, and fake oil paintings are nowhere to be found at Mario's.  Rather, the decor is delightfully varied and full of surprises.  

Our usual spot-- in the corner right by the big pizza oven-- is one of those nice, cozy, sticky black vinyl booths pushed up against a tableclothed table.  Fancy!  Our table is always beautifully decorated with a Christmas-red taper candle, lit by Mario himself whenever he comes to take our order, and flanked on either side with ridiculous fake red and white poinsettias dusted with gold glitter.  

The walls are covered in beautiful artwork: scenery that was ripped from last month's calendar page, creepy posters of clowns, contact paper cut into the shape of Roman architecture... but the best part is the coastal-themed decorations that pop up among the rest of the madness.  There is a fishing net filled with fake seashells and starfish on the ceiling, and LOBSTERS LOBSTERS everywhere!  There are big red plastic 3-D lobsters stuck all over the wall.  No one is sure why, but we certainly do love them.  

As beautiful as the restaurant is, nothing compares to Mario himself.  

Mario has a great mustache, wears sweater vests every day, and tells everyone he's Italian.  We, on the other hand, are pretty positive that he's Turkish and his name is Ahmed or something.  But we let him pretend, and so he says things like "Prego!" and hums "'A Vucchella" while he throws pizza dough up in the air. 

He is one of the most hospitable people we've met here (he obviously cherishes our friendship, not the fact that we show up at his doorstep at least once, often twice, a week) and treats us well whenever we come in.  We always get kisses on both cheeks, free shots that taste like Robutussin, and a plea to "come back and make with your friends a big party" in the always-empty party room.

Mario even has an apartment above the restaurant that he rents out short-term for way cheaper than a hotel, so my mom is going to (bravely!) stay there when she comes in March.  I took a tour the other day, and it is exactly what I was expecting from a decorator like Mario.  Think posters of baby animals, Jesus, and sand-covered beach babes hanging above Asian-fusion inspired furniture and bedspreads straight off of the set of Full House.  

Mario also has a killer Web site with a picture gallery where you can see some of his photo ops with various guests.  All of this typing about Mario's has made me terribly hungry, so until next time-- I leave you with this link.  Ciao!