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.

Oktoberfest checked off the bucket list

     This past weekend I attended the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest located in Munich, Germany. A short 5 hour train ride from the MilAk in Wiener Neustadt made this possible. We arrived in Munich at about 2:30 in the afternoon and met some fellow cadets studying abroad in Germany at the central train station. From here they took us to the place they were staying which was about an hour outside of the city. We dropped off our bags and headed down to the grounds where Oktoberfest is held. I walked out of the U-bahn and saw sheer madness. There were rollercoasters everywhere, stands selling all sorts of things, and huge beer tents. It was basically just an enormous fair. I had been to the grounds once before when i did a mini-exchange in Biberach, but there was nothing there, just an empty field as far as the eye could see. From mid-september to early october, these grounds are completely full.
     At this point we hadn't eaten lunch, so we decided to get something to eat before commencing in typical Oktoberfest rituals (drinking). I had a schnitzel sandwhich, which would turn out to be a terrible decision. It was cold and a little crunchy, but I was hungry so i finished it. Our grouped walked around for a long time looking for open seats at any of the tents. Apparently you have to arrive very early in the day to even think about getting inside a tent. After about 45 minutes of walking around and shoving children and elderly people out of the way (joking, but not completely), we finally found some outside seats at the Augustiner tent. For those not familiar with Augustiner beer, it is widely regarded as some of the best in the world. Those that don't agree with this: you're wrong.
     From here, we began to consume a good amount of beer. Not only was it very tasty, but the waitress kept them coming. At Oktoberfest, waitresses are recruited based on how much beer they can carry at one time. The only size available to order is the 1 liter Mass. She would come outside carrying ten of these at a time, which is quite a site to see. We were there for about two to three hours. I can't remember the precise time for some reason unbeknownst to me. During this time we each had about 3 beers, which equates to about 100 ounces of fluid, a hard amount of water to drink.Needless to say, there were a few bathroom breaks intersperced in this time period. When we got up to leave, the nasty schnitzel sandwhich decided to make a comeback. Food poisoning at Oktoberfest was not too fun. A few people had gone back home at this point, and it was starting to rain, so some of the guys wanted to go to a huka bar. While they were at some seats in the restaurant, I had a place reserved in the bathroom. After a while we decided to get back home, which came to my relief.
     This morning, having nothing in my stomach, I felt much better. Sorry to those reading about the bit of graphicness (is that a word? I don't think so...) here. We then made our way back to the central train station to get a ticket back to Wiener Neustadt. This coming week should be fun, minus the parading part... Either way, I'm another week down in Austria, and I'm now able to mark Oktoberfest off of the list of things to do before I die.

The past month I've been in Austria... a bit long so bear with me.

     So i decided to finally give in and start a blog on my adventures/travels/whathaveyou in Austria thus far. I've been here for almost exactly one month now. For those that don't know, West Point sends about four cadets a year to the Theresian Military Academy located in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. I was chosen for this in order to improve myself as a German major and to learn about the Austrian Army. My time abroad will last until about mid-december. I will take five classes that will count towards my credit hours at West Point. I'm not actually taking classes in the classroom yet, but I do have a "distance learning course" that requires me to write an essay each week in German. So far I've scraped by pounded out the essays with little to no bloodshed. As time goes by however, I find it easier and easier to write because my German skills are vastly improving.
     Myself and three other cadets arrived in Vienna in late August and stayed there for two weeks. During this time we stayed at the Stiftskaserne that houses the Landesverteidigungsakademie: Sprachschule des Bundesheers. Basically, it's just a school where Austrian officers go to learn. And stuff... Here we were instructed by Hauptmann (Captain) Schiffl. We learned about the Austrian army, their ranks, Austrian history, and other interesting things. The LVAk was a great chance to get accustomed to the Austrian culture and figure out what the hell they were saying. For those that don't know, Austrian german is very different than german spoken in the northen parts of Germany, or Hochdeutsch. The Austrians use a lot of slang and say things differently. Their accent also gives familiar sounding words no meaning to me whatsoever... Just an example: instead of using an "ah" sounds for a's, they often use an "oh" sound. It sounds small, but imagine talking to a friend with peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth, and that's about the equivalent...but i digress.
     During the second week in Vienna the group cadets went with Hpt. Schiffl into the Seetaleralpen in order to shoot some weapons with the Austrian Army. We shot the Sturmgewehr 77, the Pistole 80, and their version of the machine gun, sort of a mix between our 249 SAW and the 240. It was fun, but damn cold up in the mountains. Little would I know that the Seetaler would haunt me later. After this we went back to the LVAk and had a few more days of class. The following Friday we went to Wiener Neustadt with all of our stuff and found a room at the MilAk. We had the weekend free until Monday, so we went out exploring and found a good Kebab stand (one of the Turkish foods I love in Europe). On Friday and Saturday night we checked out the local bar scene in town. For a relatively small city, there were a good number of places. One of our favorites is Clumsy's, an irish/british bar (not really either) that serves good cheap beer. Cheap beer relative to all of the other cheap beer in Europe (beer costs less than coke).
     Monday was the beginning of the training. We loaded up all of the required gear and got on to vehicles similar to our HUMVEE. The first phase of the training was at the verdammte Seetaler, where God seems to say, "nah, they don't need the sun today." Needless to say, it was rather cold. The Austrians also thought it would be fun to make me the assistant machine gunner in our squad, which consists of carrying two extra barrels, two boxes of ammunition, maintainence gear, an extra bolt, cleaning supplies, and a hot mit for when the barrel gets hot and you have to change it. traipsing around in the woods with all of this while being "tactical", aka, with facepaint, was tons of fun... But on a serious note, I did learn quite a lot during the first phase of the training and got to meet a lot of very nice guys and made a lot of friends. Also on one of the last days we had some free time and there was really nice weather up in the mountains. While eating some wurst and sunflower seeds, we watched the helicopters train up around the peaks. I can't wait to be a pilot...
     The second week of training was held in Allentsteig, or Allentgrad as it is affectionately called by the Austrians. they said to prepare for cold, snowy conditions, and that Stalingrad..Allentsteig, rather, always had terrible weather. However, when we got there after the 8 hour drive the weather was not bad at all. It turns out that their academy has the same unofficial motto as ours: hurry up and wait. We would go somewhere and wait around for literally hours until told to do something else. The only real training during this last week was securing a fake town with no people in it. We also did a lot of pulling security, which entails lying in the prone position looking out for would-be attackers. Their army also does crowd and riot control, which is a royal pain in the ass. Fortunately, we only did training for this the week before, and no actual CRC in Allentsteig. I would say we did a good 5 hours of actual training there. I would always joke to our driver Lindy (last name Lindenburg), "Hey Lindy, what are we doing now?" to which he would reply, "Waiting again." To emphasize my point: On the last day of the training, some others from my platoon went out to secure a site. My squad stayed behind at the enemy base camp to make sure nothing happened. We stood/sat/napped for 7 hours until one clock in the afternoon. It was cold and wet in the morning, but it eventually warmed up to make for very good napping conditions. After this we drove out to the secured location and they called an end to the exercise. In the evening, we finally got to shower after 4 days of no shower and the platoon leader bought everyone beers. Not a bad time all-in-all. I got to learn a lot of German and met a lot of great people.
     As I write this I'm on the railjet train to Munich, where the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest is currently being held.We'll see how that ends up... The Austrian verison of graduation week starts this Monday, so yet another week with no classes. lucky me! Sorry to all my West Point friends that have had classes for over a month now. Goodbye for now, and I hope to make another post after this weekend of assured chaos.