bike riding etiquette and other firsts

yesterday I was almost killed. and the shrill clinging of bells would have been the last sound I had heard. 

the sun was shining on a beautiful 80. day and the ever so light layer of perspiration that coated my skin was a welcome sign that indeed summer has arrived. that....and  1,000,000 bicyclists in the city. It is not just for the hipster, Viennese "should-be-living-in-Williamsburg" types. Even the 70-something grandpas are into it with vintage bikes that they don't even realize are vintage and "in" because they have, in fact, become vintage WITH the bikes. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that the Viennese are so eco-friendly (don't get me started again on the trash) and health-conscious (there is no such thing as non-organic food)...but I'd like to add that who wouldn't want to bike around Vienna when the sun is shining down on the countless beautiful buildings, monuments, fountains, parks and gardens. Who wants to be stuck underground in an u-bahn?? Not the Viennese...so they bike. Not me....so I walk. and therein lies the issue. 

I was on the phone. walking home from adoration after stopping by to say hi to a friend of ours (Wei Wei) at her newly opened fashion and design atelier. Monika had called me after getting off of work to see if I had done yoga this morning or if I wanted to go on a bike ride with her to Prater. Ironically, because I was so focused on whether or not I wanted to shirk my responsibilities in answering e-mails, writing letters, calling the Magistrat (no I still don't have a residence permit...), and so forth, in order to help a friend celebrate the beauty of the afternoon with a bike ride to the park, I didn't realize that what I thought was the pedestrian sidewalk was actually the bike path and I was the lost little creature in the middle of a stampede. Austrian's aren't just leisurely bikers...they like to get places and get there fast...and one courteous cling of a bell is all you get before swoosh you're toast on the front wheel guard. Needless to say, the clinging of the bells of three bikers was enough to make me jump into the grassy median and practically hug a tree. Looking both ways, crossing quickly over the bike path and onto the correct pedestrian path, I realized I was still on the phone with Monika. I kindly declined her invitation...this was not my first run in with bikers in Vienna that day and I had had my fill. With fear, I walked the rest of the way home, always looking left and right at least twice, and then about three times on the ground to see whether the blue icon showed me I was in the right place (pedestrian pathway)...or would soon be in trouble (biker path). 

well, I decided that if I can't survive against them, I might as well join them. 

today was another utterly gorgeous day in Vienna. At 7:30, Monika came over to pray morning prayer with me (Alina is in Italy taking some exams, and Fr. Jacques is visiting some Heart's Homes he is the Visitor for) and then headed off to work on her bike. 

Then I decided that today I would become Vienna's 1,000,001 bicyclist. After a meeting with Celal about the gas in our apartment, I prepared myself for my first European bike ride, which would involved reason #497 "Why I love Vienna"--FREE BIKES. 

Its called City Bike and its wonderful. You sign up for the cost of 1 euro and then you have a username and password which you can use at the terminals located in all the major places throughout Vienna. For one hour, you don't have to pay anything. When you return the bike within that first hour, your account resets, and after 15 minutes you can rent another bike and a new hour starts. It is what Vienna has established to provide an alternate means of public transportation! Brilliant! (Or course, they're banking on people using them longer than an hour....but being the missionary that I am...one free hour is just fine) And the cherry on top of this wonderful CityBike cake....the closest terminal in our district is right outside our building in Karmeliterplatz. Could it be more convenient! 

So today, braving the fear I have of not knowing how to get around a city on a bike (do I have to ride in the street or the sidewalk where there are not bike paths? what are the hand signals, again? etc.) I successfully biked to adoration, mass, and then almost the entire way around the Ringstrasse because I wanted to get my hour of exercise in for the day. I came close to running a man over. I came close to being run over. I broke many rules (which knowing Austria are probably laws that will get you a ticket or fine), got confused and had to walk the bike just to be safe...but loved every minute. I've converted. I am now a biker. Now I just have to remember to use that bell. 

Tomorrow night is a weekly meeting with students and priest in the KHG from Communion and Liberation (a Catholic community, the founder of which, Luigi Guissani, was a good friend of Fr. Thierry's) in which they read a text or portion of a text/book during the week and then discuss what they have read and personal application of the text to their lives. Its called a Community School or Gemeinschaft Schule. Having become very good friends with many of the students and members of the community in the KHG, we participate as much as we can....which means reading. Today on my way home from my bike ride I stopped in Volksgarten to lay in the grass and read the chapter for tomorrow night. It couldn't have been more beautiful. I have never seen so many roses in my entire life. Being the little girl at heart that I am...I just had to stop and stick my nose in each bush as I walked to a bench. Just as I remember from the rose gardens my dad used to grow--the yellow ones always smell the best, but the white ones are my favorite. Taken in by the beauty of the park and stumped by the complexity of this week's reading--I spent about 45 minutes on the park bench. Today, I got my first sunburn of the summer :)

This is going to be an interactive blog post. Ready?

Who in China is reading my blog???

Blogger has this really nifty thing that tracks from which countries your readers are reading from. I looked at it today. Normally its something like the following: USA, Austria, Brazil (thanks E!), France. 

Today I was not expecting these results:

USA 74 hits

Austria 4 hits

Hungary 3 hits

China 2 hits

Luxembourg 2 hits 

Germany 1 hit

I don't think I know anyone who lives in Hungary, China, or Luxembourg. 

But they know me. (Hi!) 

On Friday after spending the whole morning and midday helping Monika and three other teachers take their fifteen students (all suffering from mental handicaps) on a fieldtrip to the Musical Instrument Exhibit at the Technical Museum in Vienna (quite an eye-opening and fun experience), I met Hana to go walking around Vienna and catch up on her life. Mid-conversation walking down the sidewalk in Naschmarkt I stopped and surpisingly exclaimed, "WAS!??". Parked on the curb to my right was a van with a familiar name written on the side....it was in fact my middle name. HILLENBRAND INDUSTRIES IS IN AUSTRIA TOO!!! I couldn't believe it. Naive little Hillenbrand girl that I am, I had no idea the family company was international. Whoops. But it made for an exciting discovery. Poor Hana. I couldn't stop staring at the van, exasperated as I tried to figure out how on earth I had just run into my middle name (the "Hill" of Hill-Rom) in the middle of Naschmarkt, Vienna, Austria. 

And the last of all...

this evening I had a visit from a technician working for Celal's firm. He came to check the emissions on our water heater and make sure everything was safe and in order. Turns out...it isn't. We have been having problems lately in that we can run the hot water to do dishes or take a shower but after about 8 minutes, the gas turns off and you can't get it to re-lite. That usually means you are stuck with shampoo in your hair and ice cold water (the water in Vienna comes from the mountains). We thought it was an easily fixable dust problem where the gas ignites. We thought wrong. The vent for the gas emissions has somehow been hindered from working and the fact that the gas shuts off after 8 minutes or so is a security measure. If it didn't, taking a 20 minute shower could have been really dangerous to our lives because of the gas that would build up in the bathroom. So the result...he shut off our gas (if he didn't shut it off after knowing there was a problem and something happened...he could be put in jail...thats how he explained the issue being as dangerous as it is). So until they figure out how to fix the problem, no hot water. But hey, it summer, its warm and sunny...who needs hot water!? 

The best part was how kind the man was. Ibrahim was his name. Noticing that I couldn't catch all that he was trying to explain to me, he made an effort to speak extra slow and explain things in elementary ways I could understand with my limited vocabulary (what can I say, I don't talk about gas systems and water heaters everyday). And then, after instructing me to call a certain company tomorrow to tell them about the problem and arrange a meeting, he proceeded to write down a script for the phone call so that I would know exactly what to say to explain the situation.