Living the life

     Two Fridays ago, the group along with Major Lampersberger and a „willing“ recruit went to Melk, and the surrounding area of Wachau. Wachau is regarded as one of the prettiest areas in Austria. The Donau River runs through Melk to Kremz. The area in between is the Wachau region. We started off by visiting the giant Stift Melk. A stift is basically the German word for a church where there is also businesses, and sometimes a school. It was built during the baroque time period and has some very neat architecture. The library inside is extremely old and has a lot of historical books. The Roman Catholic Church also inside the stift was unbelievable. Before we went inside, the guide said it is probably the prettiest church ever built. Needless to say, it lived up to its expectations.

     After this we went to the local military post that hosts the 3^rd Engineer battalion. We got a short intro as to what they do there, and then we took the motor boats out on the river. They did all sorts of formations, and towards the end I got to drive and attempt to stay in the similar formations. After this we ate lunch and then went to a very old castle, which was very cool. The guy who built it was a robber that stole from people in the surrounding region to fund the castle. He had a balcony high up where he kept his prisoners called the rose garden. The prisoners could either starve to death, or jump to their death. There weren’t big leaves down beneath, so you couldn’t do any crazy avatar stuff or anything like that. After this we went out to eat at a place called a Heuriger. They basically make their own wine and are only opened when they have wine left. We learned all of the steps to wine making. They aren’t allowed to sell most other types of alcohol, and for the most part can only sell food that they make. For example, our meal consisted of a few bottles of wine, a platter of fresh cold cuts, cheese, and fresh baked bread. After much merry-making we headed back to Neustadt.

     The following week was pretty standard: riding, dancing, and a few classes mixed in. I had more riding lessons than actual class lessons. On Friday we had another excursion, this time to another monastery type place.  This place was more for commercial wine, and there was lots of it. We got a grand tour of the winery below the stift. Additionally, we saw an eagle show at a nearby castle, which was very cool. They trained the birds so they would fly directly over your head. There were golden eagles and also a bald eagle. In German, the bald eagle’s name is Weißkopfseeadler, which translates to white head sea eagle. I came within about two inches of it as it was flying over.

     During the weekend I went to Innsbruck in western Austria. We basically went around and saw all of the cultural stuff there was to see. We also took a tram up one of the higher mountains around Innsbruck, which was about 2400 meters. We had to walk up the last 100 meters in order to get to the very top. There was a good bit of snow and ice at the top, where it was also -10 degrees Celsius. One of the cadets from the MilAk showed us around because he’s from Innsbruck, so we didn’t have a chance to get lost. We also ate a lot of the local food, which was incredible. Innsbruck is quite famous for their pork products, and rightfully so. I could barely move after the lunch we had it was so good.

     Monday we had another dance course, where we learned more dances that I’ll never use in my life. One of them was a crazy foot crossing waltz type thing. If anyone out there reading has ever done this dance at any time, please feel free to tell me I’m wrong. It’s a good experience though in the long run, further “culturing” myself. Today (Tuesday the 26^th) was a national holiday similar to our fourth of july. That basically means that people have an excuse to go out the night before and party, and then use today as a recovery day. Austrians always find something to celebrate. Our Commandant from West Point is coming tomorrow, along with several other officers. We have to show them around and basically give a tour. Luckily the general doesn’t speak German, so I can give my presentation in English. This weekend after another excursion with the major, myself and the other west point guys are trying to go to Budapest. We’ll see how that goes.

Hazing and hell raising

     Yesterday was the most school packed day I have had here thus far. I had my four hour german class in the morning, and then two history classes back to back after lunch. The history classes basically just double-tapped the time between the first and second world war. Class let out at around five or so. All week I had heard about the first class initiation into the "MAK casino." This is basically a place where the cadets can go and drink after school or at night. They said be prepared to drink a lot. I decided getting food before would be a good idea, as not to drink on an empty stomach. Dan, Christian and I went to Torino's, our favorite pizza place a little ways from the MilAk. I got a ham and mushroom pizza that was extremely tasty.
     When we got back it was about five till seven, when the festivities would begin. I rushed to get changed back into uniform and went downstairs into the entrance hall where the entire first class was. The class speaker from the fourth year group (seniors) was giving an introduction to what was about to happen. The rules he gave were simple: 1. everyone must leave by 12. 2. You have to be able to leave on your own free will, and on your own two legs. 3. Should your buddy be struggling to get back, you may assist him. Then everyone went down the hall to the MAK casino, which was lined with seniors in ponchos and gas masks. At the entrance of the casino, two guards were standing by the door, dressed in overcoats and gasmasks holding scythes. In order to get into the casino they had to pass a series of tests. The hardest one involved standing on an ammo box and unsheathing a saber. Then the person had to balance a shot on the hilt, and proceed to take the shot. Once they earned the key into the casino, everyone was "baptised" by having their head dunked in a big bowl of water. I participated in this part because we hadn't been formally welcomed to the MAK casino like all the other seniors.
     The casino consists of one main bar, with several smaller rooms. It can hold about 150 people, which is about how many were down there. Upon entering, everyone had a shot and a beer at the ready. The class was christened by drinking a glass of beer and then throwing it in the corner and breaking the glass. This is done on important occasions. It signifies that no one else will drink from the glass from that event. After all this the hazing stopped and everyone just hung out and drank together. They had another ceremony where a member from each class took the saber off the wall and used it to open a bottle of champagne.This is done by unrapping the top part and then basically pushing the saber into the cork. The first two classes that went took about four or five tries to do it. The first years did it in two, which was the best so far. After a few hours of general debauchery, Colonel Fleishman, the batallion commander showed up in his formal uniform. I thought it was to bust up the party, but instead he had a drink with everyone. He then did the bottle opening thing with the saber. I didn't know we had a professional in our midst because he did it in one try. Before he went they said I was next and I had to do better than the colonel. After he went I thought I was going to embarass myself because one cadet from west point a few years ago had to go to the hospital and get stitches from cutting his hand with the bottle. I prepared myself (and the bottle) and gave it a try. To my surprise, the cork popped on the first try, and there was much rejoicing. They told me to keep the cork and busted top as a memento. After a couple more hours of hydration, I decided it was time to head off to bed. This turned out to be a great decision because a group of guys ended up going into the city a little while later and didn't stumble back until 5 a.m. Don't think that these guys are unprofessional or unfit though. I've never seen a group of people that know so much about the military, or are in such good shape. This Friday the west point cadets are going to Melk with one of the majors here to further "culture" ourselves. No other plans for the weekend yet though.

Bratislava and ballroom dancing

     On Saturday a few friends and I ventured to Bratislava, Slovakia. "What might draw you to such a city?" Well, initially it was to take in the culture of eastern europe, and go sightseeing. Then I heard about the cheap food and drinks, and a myriad of attractive women. I supposed these three things couldn't hurt my becoming more cultured. We took a late morning train and got into the city around 2. We had a hostel in mind that we were trying to get to, but had not yet made a reservation. We weren't exactly sure how to get downtown to where the hostel was, so we first tried looking for our bus stop...to no avail. Then we tried the tried and true method of walking in whatever direction seemed most populated. After about 45 minutes we found ourselves back at the train station. After then looking at a map, we saw that our bus stop was on the other side of the train station. About five stops into the city, we arrived where we needed to be and found the hostel. The cheap place we were trying to stay (12 euros a night) was completely booked, so we made our way to another hostel. The next one we arrived at was a little more centrally located, and ran us about 20 euros each.
     We dropped our stuff off and went into the older part of the city where there was more to see. There was a very cool castle and many old tower building things... Then the night rolled around. We had dinner at a KGB themed restaurant, where the waitress didn't speak a lick of English or German. We basically pointed and grunted at what we wanted. The meal was very good and very cheap, costing only about 6 euros total for pork rib with potatoes and a beer (dark- Regular beer in Slovakia is crap compared to Austrian beer). We asked her how to say several phrases, such as "thank you" and "hello", which we promptly forgot... After dinner we made our way around a few bars, where drinks were quite cheap. However, our night came to an abrupt end when discovered everywhere except the trashy places close around midnight. This put a damper on things, but just walked for a while anyway. The next morning we took the train back to Wiener Neustadt.
     On Monday my school day consisted of horse riding at 8 a.m., followed by nothing...In the evening we had our first dance course with the first years. It is tradition that every class takes a dance course in Vienna or simply in Wiener Neustadt. I was with the group of about 30 that went to Vienna, along with the other cadets from West Point. We went inside and all of the men lined up on one side of the room, and all the girls on the other. I say girls because the average age on the "other" side of the room was about 15. There were, however, some older "ladies." quite a few, you could say, would not make it on the cover of Maxim. I got lucky though and danced with a girl my age, who was quite cute. It turns out she is from france also studying in Austria. As a group, we slowly learned the Foxtrot and then the Waltz. I'm not sure what dances are scheduled for next week, but expect a post. Also, today during my riding class we galloped on the horses for the first time. We're still going around in circles, but it's quite an experience.

Ride like the wind Bullseye!

     This week was very busy academically. And by that, I mean that I had four actual classes. On Monday I had the German class again, which wasn't so bad this time. In the afternoon we had sport class, aka: mandatory fun/run time. Tuesday I didn't have anything until 1 in the afternoon. From there the first years had a tour of the "Burg." It was very cool to here and see all of the history behind the MilAk. The church here is pretty neat as well. In the middle there's a big see-through container with a bunch of skulls from important people. They may not be what the guy said because I just made that up, but there really are skulls. Talk about skeletons in your closet (zing zing). After the tour we had a military history class. The teacher basically blazed through the entirety of World War I in an hour and a half. I didn't understand much because he was talking a hundred miles an hour.
     Wednesday was a legitimately busy day. We had the German class in the morning for four hours, then lunch, and then another military history class. This time it was everything leading up to the war, and then again on the war itself, and a little after the war. Right after this we had more mandatory fun time. The middle school kids that go to the military school next to the MilAk joined us. We started off as a group jogging around the sport complex, which is surprisingly big. Then we stopped and did some core exercises. It was funny in a sick kind of way watching the high school kids struggle with variations of push-ups and bridge exercises. I just chilled and did my thing until it was over. After this we broke up into two groups: those that wanted (needed) to run, and those that wanted to play soccer. Having ran the day before, I decided to play soccer. There were about 4 people from the academy, and the rest were from the middle school. The only thing that I really have going for me in soccer is that I can run a lot. Basically all of these kids were better than me, but I could outrun them after a while, so that led to me being decent. I also played goalie for a little bit and had some sweet saves.
     Yesterday was my first day horseback riding. We learned how to groom the horse before and after you ride it, put the saddle on, and all that good stuff. After that we went into the riding hall and learned how to make them speed up, slow down, gallop, and stop with just commands. Then we got on the horse with just saddles, no stirrups. This was just to get confident and improve balance. We rode around in circles, with the horse on a lead. We did different exercises to work on balance. Riding was a lot of fun, and I look forward to getting better as the semester goes on. Supposedly we're going to be able to ride two to three times per week. The instructor was also telling us that these kinds of private lessons with world class horses would usually cost 50 Euros per hour, and we can pretty much ride whenever we want. I think we got a nice deal. We'll see how it goes.

Burgherr

This past week I was put into the rising senior class at the MilAk after the two week training with the first years. I also started a German class that I take twice a week for four hours per session. On Tuesday the other cadets and I gave a presentation about west point to our class. The catch was that it was in German. It was about 30 minutes long and we did a pretty good job. Everyone was a little tired because right before we went up a general had spoken for about an hour. Needless to say, people were not sitting on the edges of their seats.

            On Wednesday we had another German class in the morning. This one was a little harder. It consisted of reading newspaper articles and summarizing them. We also had to match up animals with the sounds they make and where you can find them. Seems easy right? It took me 30 minutes to complete with the help of a dictionary, and Dan sitting next to me. In the afternoon we had a sport festival. It was basically all of the classes against each other. The three other cadets and I ran a relay track event. Seth had the 400 meters, Christian the 300, I had the 200, and Dan the 100. It’s not that we ran slowly, but the people we ran against were incredibly fast. We came in last in our heat by about 5 seconds. However, I think we did better than the other team from our year that was in a different heat. The first years won by a lot, but the “Lehmann” group took second. Apparently our year had taken first every year before, but second was okay today. Naturally, like the end of any Austrian social event, there was lots of beer afterwards. Many a drink was drunk, and many a song was sung.

The next day I met the horse riding instructor for the academy because that’s the sport I’ll be doing here. Something interesting about Austria is that all of the horse trainers are trained to teach at the academy. The instructor, Major Pulsinger is a world champion in military horseback riding. He along with another NCO train all of the horses for the academy and Bundesheer before anyone else is allowed to ride them. This is to ensure that it is a good horse that won’t go crazy when someone else tries to ride it.

            On Friday we had a parade for the graduating class. Fortunately, the west point cadets did not have to participate in this one. We simply stood on the balcony and watched. At the end there was a very cool fire work show. Talking to some of the guys in my year, I learned that the next day (the parade I would be marching in) that the parade would last about three times as long, and would be much more boring. Joy. Because it was the sensible thing to do, we went out drinking with the Austrians. They said that if you weren’t asleep standing up during the parade then you were doing it wrong. I came back home at a decent hour…which got me about three and half hours of sleep. The next day we formed up at 8 to practice for the parade the same day. We wore our full dress uniform, which is infinitely times more uncomfortable than the Austrian parade uniform. During the actual parade, we stood at attention for two hours while a general, the Bundesminister, and the Bundespräsident spoke. The general spoke for about 40 minutes, and pretended he was done 7 times before actually stopping. The president only went for about 30 minutes, but spoke in a monotone voice while mumbling. I would have paid him to stop talking. After they finished we marched out and reformed on the street alongside the academy. There was a parade with a bunch of military vehicles along with several helicopters and two Euro-fighters. We then marched along the street, which was very crowded. We went past the minister and president and all of the graduating cadets. They were yelling “Burgherren” as we marched by, signifying that we were now the oldest class at the academy. Naturally, that night there was a celebration, which everyone partook in. It was also Seth’s 21^st birthday, so it was kind of a double celebration.