Wiener Linien

This Week-end I went to Budapest

2007-09-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

Bizitar o Veirão

de Buda nada vi

E de Peste também não.

O Veirão tebe a xilente ideia de
ir a um lago chamado Balaton

O nome não aliciava
Mas o Veirão dizia que seria um FESTOM!

Gajas Voas habia
E lá apanhámos um Bezanom!

Mas o melhor que consegui...

Foi um Cerdo de um Espanhol
a querer agarrar-me o Piton!

E depois lá Boltámos
à cidade que queria ter conhecido
no comboio arroxámos
do Feston bem merecido

Ainda me doi a cabeça.

Innsbruck

2007-08-27T13:43:00.000-07:00

The Danube River!

2007-08-17T10:49:00.001-07:00

Second biggest river in Europe
10 countries: Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine.
4 Capital cities: Vienna, Bratislava, Buda -(donau)- Pest and Belgrade.
O Danúbio em Vienna!

Be in the Museums Quartier Virtually!

2007-08-17T10:43:00.000-07:00

http://www.mqw.at/panorama/muqpano02fs.html

Museums Quartie Wien

2007-08-17T10:39:00.001-07:00

http://www.mqw.at/

2007-08-17T10:36:00.001-07:00

Museums Quartier

2007-08-17T10:33:00.001-07:00

Modern Kunst (Culture).
3 Museums
Many Expositions
Bars and Restaurants
Live DJ sets
Shops
Love and relax!

Hundertwasser Haus

2007-08-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

Routine

2007-08-13T03:49:00.000-07:00

And here I am.

Sitting in an office, 5th week in Wien, full of papers and numbers all around.

9 am, I arrive. "'Morgen!", Hello everyone. Sleepy and still with the brain without thinking other foreign languages, my dreams in portuguese still hang around and it is hard to communicate.
I arrive at my bureau the radio is already on with american and spanish music that I hear 5 to 6 times per day: "Silencio, mi cuerpo es el amor! bla bla bla; Umbrella, under my um-ba-re-lla!" UFFFFFFFFFF! Now I bring my own music and earphones, big ones, to clear any noise arriving to my ears from outside.

10.30am, Coffee and cigarette break.

12.00, Malzeit... in Austrian means something like: "let's eat!". Everyone repeats it to each other and we happily (...) go down to eat the healthy menu with 3 different choices.

1.00pm, work work work until 15, 16, 17 depending on how busy I am... last days have been pretty dizzy.

"Aufwiedersehen! Bis Morgen."

Than I go home, change clothes, either sleep or go for a walk in the city, where I decide to eat out or to bring something home to cook. Though I don't like to cook alone. It's boring and sad.

00.00 or 1.00am, I go to sleep till next day 8am wake up, dress up, take the tram 26 AND the bus 28a or 29a heading to Roche. Usually I walk, when my feet don't hurt (due to my classic shoes that I'm not used to).

Week-ends... randomly organised! That saves my stay here, otherwise I would get crazy.

ALMEIDA, Joao

2007-07-30T06:05:00.000-07:00

Eu Eu Eu in Österreich!

2007-07-30T05:58:00.000-07:00

E que SAUDADES de Lisboa!!!

2007-07-30T05:47:00.000-07:00

29.07.2007 Sunday

2007-07-30T05:38:00.001-07:00

Today I went to Kahlenberg, a mountain near Vienna.

From up I could see the whole city, the Donau River - the old and the new - the Schönbrun palace and the Belvedere palace.

Who brought me upthere was Philipp, he was in erasmus 2 years ago in Lisbon.

2007-07-30T04:17:00.000-07:00

Esta vou vou ter que contar e vai ser em portugues (estou num teclado sem pontucao portuguesa como podem ver... no trabalho há tempos que pouco se faz).
Um anúncio que vi ontem no cinema ao ar livre (Kino Unter Sternen/Cinema debaixo de estrelas), num lugar muito porreiro que ainda hei de descobrironde fica. Foi a Mafalda que me levou, com um amigo austríaco, um pequenote que fala semi-portugues pois está a aprender na universidade.
E passa-se da seguinte forma:
Comec'a com um tipo a danc'ar no meio de garotas muito bonitas (situac'ao à qual até tirei uma foto) numa discoteca.

Ele danc'a assim, como diriam as avós, todo modernac'o a sacudir o corpo. As miúdas ficam loucas e ele continua ali a abanar-se. Os amigos tristonhos e ciúmentos, com uma bebida na mao encostados ao bar, perguntam-se: "Mas onde é que ele aprendeu a danc'ar assim?". A imagem muda e aparece o mesmo tipo, num outro cenário, a fazer os mmesmos movimentos que fatia na discoteca, mas desta vez num eléctrico das linhas de Viena (Wiener Linien), agarrado às pegas superiores.
O anúncio publicita as linhas vienenses de transportes.

Wiener Linien,
Die Stadt gehört Dir
(A cidade pertence-lhe)

Genial. Genial porque é também uma autocrítica pois os transportes de Viena sao conhecidos pela dificuldade que uma pessoa tem em ficar estável e de pé dentro dos autocarros, eléctricos e U-Bahn (Metro).

Agora vou ter com a Mafalda, tive sorte de ela ainda estar em Viena depois do ano de erasmus.

19.07.2007
(escrito desde o tram 26 até Floridsdorf e daí até Stephansplatz - aliás deve-se ver pela bonita letra que ficou escrita no meu caderno)

The third man (Der dritte Mann)

2007-07-30T03:59:00.001-07:00

Vienna in Black and White

"Viennetas" - Vienners

2007-07-21T16:46:00.000-07:00

Café Central

2007-07-21T16:42:00.001-07:00

Aqui, como em Portugal, também há um café central. Este aqui em cima. A única diferença são os estilos de construção...

My first work day

2007-07-21T16:20:00.000-07:00

I woke up.
First day of work.
I woke up and the furry guy next to me was still sleeping. After my shower I was successful dressing a tie... Where was daddy?!
Vienna is heating and hitting the 40ºC the last days. I walked to the company and I arrived sweating, at 9am! It's impossibly hot.

I'm working on the same office with a Bosnian original intern. She is ok. Muslim and doesn't eat pig... big deal. Who cares? Her family came to Austria when she was 6yo due to the war on the country.

I worked until 5pm and rushed to the Supermarket. I had to but basic stuff like dishes, forks, knifes, towel, soap...
It's nice to see that, when wearing a suit, people treat you better. Not that I agree with that, but it's just the way it works. When you get off the Supermarket the people there have to check your backpack or bags to see if you are stealing something, while me, important business man hanging around the store with a busy look, nobody would doubt and they don't ask me to show anything... The capitalist system!

Then, under those 40ºc, I decide to go home walking, instead of taking tram 26. I didn't have water, house was still far and I looked like I was standing under pouring rain.

When I finally get home, I headed to the smelly, dirty, disgusting kitchen where a Pakistan woman (my residence is full of Pakistan people) was cooking. She is nice, studying also her PhD in physics, and we keep talking until her husband shows up, she gets quiet and nobody speaks until they finish eating and going to the room.

WienerLinien

2007-07-20T18:08:00.000-07:00

1st day in Vienna, 16/07/2007

2007-07-19T16:01:00.000-07:00

I woke up in Bern at 5.30 am. While the light of the sun was coming up, I fancily dressed up for my first work day at Roche Diagnostics in Vienna. I wore my dark blue suit, without tie, and headed to Bahnhoff Bern running, pulling my heavy green luggage. With my special precision that leaves not more and not less time to think, I hop on to the last train possible to arrive on time to my plane in Zürich.
I was feeling someone important, as if I really have something to say and to add to the world, shoulder to shoulder with all those business-suited Germans running around chasing planes, taking off on their flying laptops.
As a good student without money and wanting to carry everything from momma's house, I had extra weight. Though once more I was lucky, and I'm usually lucky in these kind of situations. At the Zurich Airport the Check-In woman was Portuguese, and as Portuguese help Portuguese abroad, she was kind enough to let me pass with SOME extra kilos.

Arrived at Wien Airport I sense of hearing my name over the speakers: "Mr. Almäääyyyda to the reception desk!" As I was not sure I just continued to wait for my luggage on the rolling path. As I leave the passengers area I right-away spot what was expected: a man holding a sign named Roche, and I head towards him. He asks me if I prefer to sit in the front or in the back of that Dark E-Class Mercedes, where do you think I seated?!
He was a nice guy, born in Switzerland due to the Jews persecution in Austria that came back to Austria in 1952 with his parents. On the way to my students house he tells me about Wien, Austria, Switzerland, 2nd World War, Traffic jams in Wien, his retirement and his dogs... A bit of everything in 20 minutes.

We get to our destination Donaufelderstrasse 54, XXI distrisct, a students' house that I still didn't understand the name, where I just had time to check-in and leave my luggage in the room that I'm going to share the next 2 weeks with a Pakistan student. I hope he is nice... 'Till now he's ok, the only problem is that while I'm writing this words he listens to this kind of Indian Music straight from Bollywood (though, you know, Pakistan hates India). From August on I'll stay in my own private room.

Mr. Fritz takes me to the headquarters of Roche Austria some 5 min by car from my house, 15 min walking. I get in in this big building in the periphery of Wien, present myself and the desk woman working there asks me to sit and wait for this certain Human Resources woman. A 45-50 year old woman secretary, german looks, ugly (as if I was really in a REX the police dog series) of the head of human of resources, Mr. Glocker. She takes me to him, still discovering if I would speak German or English, but I preferred to play it safely... English. We sign a contract, he gives me some information, an identification card and asks another woman that I still need to remember the name (same description as above) to take me to the 4th floor to the BigBoss.

Ok... now this Indian music is really pissing me off.

Mr. BigBoss is a nice guy. Solarium over-sun tuned, smiling all the time and very gentle with me. We talked in English about something that I didn't understand but that I always said yes with the head and smiling back. He has this strange office vocabulary that I hate.
Ok... Nevertheless we go eating at the company's mensa. I would love to say that I loved, but I didn't. It's a sad canteen... Everybody eats his plate - that it costs around 1,50€ "with water free of charge but if I want some soda I can just get it and pay more", explained me Mrs. I-don't-remember-the-name. They talk with this strange Austrian accent that leaves me no space to understand and I wait for someone to look at me and speak in English. Still I preferred if they didn't, in these kind of situations I prefer to be quiet.

I am working with another intern. A Bosnian origin girl living in Austria since she was 6 years old. I don't know how to spell her name and even if I knew I would have had forgotten by now. Ok, we spoke a bit after lunch... and today was a special day lunch told me Mrs. I-don't-remember-the-name-and-I-will-never-do, as it was very hot, the people there offered ice-creams to everyone working... and everyone was so happy. I just don't know what to think about it, but I know if I do, something bad comes up into my mind. Mrs. I-don't-remember-the-name tries, in 10 minutes, to explain me what was my way back home, certainly trying to lose as much of the time as she could and then tells me that she was going to show me where could I smoke. She calls other 2 please-don't-present-me secretaries/assistants (I don't know) and we all go to a box shaped structure, with a air-soaking technology to those who smoke... something awful that I have to take a picture to.
Then they give me a computer, a personal one, with my name on it also (waw!). An e-mail address, everything that I need. And then he tells me to go home. And I go.

In the afternoon I was hanging around at the city centre and when I get home around 19.00... I just fell asleep until 2 am. Now I'll sleep 5 more hours, next to this curry smelly guy.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
João Almeida
Berufspratikant
Roche Diagnostics GmbH

1st Post

2007-07-19T15:53:00.000-07:00

My two months experience in Vienna.
I'll try to be assiduous in trying to write the most frequent as possible.
I'm writing in English so that my international contacts network (eheh) would get also to it. Though, whenever I'm tired, or some expressions are just not what I mean in English, I'll do it in Portuguese or even German...
My first day in Wien was the 16th of July, coming from Switzerland, and my last will be mid of September.
Keep up to date with my new posts!