Yoohoo? Where is Moo? (Pfarma, Austria)

This is a fickle bovine. Some days I see him in the front yard, like this, but some days I don't see her at all. Wonder where she goes.

Isn't it: "see badly?"

From Minefields to Wheat Fields

Sometimes I walk Remi on a path just outside of Kittsee, on the Austria/Slovakia border. A few of these signs are posted, which in Slovak read: "WARNING state border." I'm assuming they're left over from the Soviets, since they warn rather than welcome. I'm told the fields here were riddled with mines about 30 years ago, but now hold apricot orchards; and farmers tend crops of corn and wheat.

My journalism students at Webster University have to keep blogs as part of the class, so I guess it's only fair that I start keeping up mine again, too.

This class is made up of a small but scrappy group of journalists who will be starting and running Vienna Voice--what I believe to be Vienna's first English-language online journal--news and features for the ex-pat community.

Stories are busily being reported now--a feature on a new type of co-op work space, one on a controversial new gambling law, a quirky piece on the village of Tamsweg, and one on "Balkanstrasse;' another is about Lower Austria's expansive Roman exhibit, and finally, a look at what it takes to make it as a musician in Vienna.

Vienna Voice will also offer video, photo essays, audio clips, twitter feeds, free trips to Mars....

We'll be up and running shortly and I can't wait to post a link.

A few of those blogs, however, can be found now:
Abylay Akbayev, Gretchen Gatzke, Josipa Palac, Melinda Perez and Mina Nacheva

Storks and Spinsters in Smalltown, Austria

Five things I learned yesterday about Rust:

1) Of the 250 storks that summer there each year, a lazy group of four or five hang back each winter, knowing they'll be fed and cared for by the doting locals.

2) Fistfuls of Austrian gulden and cases of wine offered to a greedy emperor bought the town its autonomy within the Austro-Hungarian empire back in the day.

3) The townsfolk used to hide away all the spinsters and alcoholics, housing them in an alleyway off the main square.

4) There is always at least one misfit in every guided group,

and

5) The storks are so cute they should get their feather-faced cheeks pinched: