Big Brother is watching you

I've come across an interesting article about about monitoring. It is just incredible how governments have been observing us and violating our privacy.

You should absolutely read this article if you're interested in this topic (and in my opinion everyone has to has an interest in these incredible activities that have been recording every single part of our life for quite a while now)!

It is shocking to which extent the book "1984" by George Orwell predicted today's life. I've read some extracts from the book and unfortunately he was absolutely right with his assumptions about life in the 21st century.  I am certainly going to read this book as soon as I've finished my exams. 

This article is about the GCHQ, the British version of the NSA. They assure giving pertinent information to the British government and the author of the article explains how they manage to spy on everyone using modern means of communication.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/legal-loopholes-gchq-spy-world

Arab Idol: Palestine is celebrating!

Tonight the Palestinian Mohammed Assaf won the popular Arabian TV Show Arab Idol. Millions of people watched the final and it was a great success. I was very psyched about this final because I've been watching Arab Idol very enthusiastically, mostly because I don't need to concentrate to understand  as they sing all the time. Nevertheless I feel good about myself afterwards because I did something for my Arabic skills :P

However, I am glad that this young man has won the show. Let me explain: of course, he is a great singer but there is another reason that is more important. Palestine has been a war zone for a long time now, and nothing good ever happens there. Whenever you see or read something about Palestine it is horrendous - another bomb attack, dying kids, peace negotiations that haven't worked out. The list is endless.

This time, you hear some good news about Palestine. Mohammed Assaf brought people together through his singing; every single person in Palestine was watching the final show, crossing their fingers and hoping that their star would win the show. And he did.

Everybody is proud of him and the Palestinians could finally celebrate a peaceful victory. Mohammed Assaf dedicates his music to his nation who has been suffering from war, occupation and conflicts with Israel but with each other as well for many years now. He manages to bring the world together by performing and that's an incredibly important achievement for the Middle East.

Here's a link to an English song he performed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgbAWnA4mw

And another link to a youtube video about him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR5XlPVqlOM

Where do you get the best ice cream in Graz?

As it is getting hotter and hotter my best friends and I have started a little project: we meet up every two or three days and go ice-cream-tasting. Up to now, we've been to three ice cream parlors where we tested the ice cream. We have 5 criteria to rate ice cream parlors:

1. the most important thing is, of course, how tasty the ice cream is!
2. the variety of ice cream. the bigger, the better :P
3. the ambience - can you sit down or do you have to leave immediately?
4. the staff. we've noticed that this is the biggest challenge for most ice cream parlors.
5. and last but not least: the size of the scoops

You might have noticed that prices aren't taken into consideration. We decided not to consider prices as they are quite similar everywhere and, in the end, if the ice cream tastes good the price doesn't matter.

So far we've been to Temmel (Jakominiplatz), Sax (Zinzendorfgasse)  and Gelateria by Luis (Südtirolerplatz) and we have a clear winner! Sax has many different (and also uncommon) types of ice cream, it tastes delicious and it is comfortable. Despite the unbearable heat the waitresses are always kind and smiling.

Temmel is not as good as it was some years ago. The don't have any special types of ice cream; it's always the same. The scoops are big but the flavor leaves a lot to be desired.

Whereas Luis has an impressive assortment of ice cream and the Gelateria provides a seating area, the staff was so incompetent and unfriendly that we couldn't enjoy our visit there. If you just want to taste some particular types of ice cream like carrot or fig you should certainly go there.

We will certainly keep on trying different gelaterias and I will complete this post as soon as I have some new information :)


I almost forgot to tell you my new favorite type of ice cream: poppy seed!! It sounds weird but it's just incredibly tasty! =)

Planning a trip to Australia =)

As some of you already know, I'm going to Australia in September and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm going there with a friend and we are going to visit a friend I got to know when I was living in France and my best friend who is spending 7 months there.

Unfortunately we can only stay for three weeks so we have a huge problem: there are so many things we absolutely want to do and see and there is just not enough time.

I always knew that Australia is huge but I only realized how vast it is when we started planning our trip. There's a nice park next to Melbourne (or at least it seems to be next to Melbourne) but when we looked up how long it would take us to get there it turned out that it was 500km away!!!

The distances are enormous. So it will really really difficult to make the right decision - we certainly don't want to miss a thing from our "must-do-list" but I'm afraid we won't be able to manage to see all the great things.

Here's our current planning:

Melbourne - Yarra Valley - Ocean Road (we've got one week to do all that)

Afterwards we're flying to Brisbane, where we're planning to rent a car and drive to the Great Barrier Reef. There are several magnificent beaches we would love to see but we'll have to drive for about 20 hours just to get to Cairns (where the Great Barrier Reef is). And we only have about 8 days!!

After that we're going to take another plane and fly to Sydney, where we'll spend several days. And that's it!! It's just way too short..

If there's anyone who has already been to Australia I would be glad to hear your experiences and maybe some travel tips and recommendations ;)

I'll keep you up-to-date!!

How to cope with stress

Fellow students!

As most of you already know I am in my second year of TKK and English is my third language. So, as you can all imagine, my life is horrendously stressful at the moment. Doing SUK1 (at the English department) and SUK2 at the same time doesn't really make it easier ;)

June is the most exhausting month - I have at least three exams per week + several essays and presentations to prepare. So I came up with several techniques in order to not get a mental breakdown at the end of this semester! I strictly follow those rules even though it sometimes is tenting to do something else and just enjoy life like most of the others do.

I know that most of you are also stressed out at the moment, so I decided to share my relaxing methods with you - I hope it'll help you!

Firstly, you need to get 7 hours of sleep per night. If I sleep less I feel tired all the next day and I can't concentrate as good as on other days. Of course this depends on your habits, but sleeping less than 7 hours is not healthy according to doctors. You should also try to go to sleep and to get up at the same time. Regular sleeping habits make getting up much easier in the morning - after doing this for some time you will even wake up at 6.30 on weekends.

Secondly, when under stress everybody needs relaxing so she/he can get new energy. There are several possibilities if you want to calm down - you can just listen to some music or watch TV, lie down on a bed for several minutes and close your eyes (if you take a nap it should never exceed 20 minutes or you will feel outspent all day) or, my favorite relaxing method, just go for a long walk in the woods or near a lake. As I live next to the university I usually take a walk in Leechwald which is very tranquil and beautiful.

Taking a bath before sleeping also helps you to calm down and reenergize. Of course you shouldn't do that every day as it consumes an enormous amount of water. If you have somebody who is willing to massage you, you should by all means seize the opportunity.

And last but not least, food has an important impact on your health when you're stressed. Try to avoid caffeine and nicotine as your body is already stressed enough (even though it might seem tempting for some of you). Drinking lots of water is indispensable if you have to be concentrated for a long time. Concerning your choice of food, you should eat many vegetables and fruits as they contain lots of vitamins. Under stress one should in general keep a healthy diet as, or it least I heard so, the right food can relieve you from stress.

Well, these are the points concerning your studying environment which are rather exterior influences on your behavior under stress. You shouldn't forget that the most important processes take place in your head: if you don't have a positive attitude towards studying and passing your exams, it is highly probable that you will eventually fail them.

Try to organize yourself (ok, I have to admit to not being a well organized person. I can't work with studying plans because I always do things in another way but hey, for me it works out). Writing to-do-lists always helps and fixing certain goals for a day also seems to be reasonable.

The bottom line is that everybody has to find his own methods to deal with stress in these periods of time in order to achieve all goals set. I've tried to give you some advice and tell you about techniques that work for me - maybe this can inspire you ;) good luck and keep your chins up ;)

Magic Sunday

 On Sunday morning a friend of mine called me and asked if I wanted to go to a magic show with her as someone couldn’t come along and they had already bought the tickets. At first I was sceptic because I am not really into magic (or at least I thought so). I never watched any magic shows on TV when I was a child and the one time I got a magician’s equipment for my birthday it just landed in my cupboard and I never played with it.

Nevertheless I agreed to go there because, to be honest, I didn’t have anything better to do on a Sunday evening. And I’m glad I did!

The show startet at 7 p.m. and lasted until 10.30. The entrance fee was very reasonable and the show was just amazing. There were 5 quite young (20-30 years old) magicians who did magic tricks – but it was a comedy show at the same time. Of course it is clear that there was nothing magic about their tricks but they were just so astonishingly good! I was watching closely and concentrated on finding out how they manage to do this stuff but I just couldn’t. At the end of the show they explained one trick but even there they introduced a new trick and the audience didn’t get how they did it.

Magic Sunday takes place every first Sunday of a month in the theater “Lechthaler-Belic”. Unfortunately this was the last show before summer; they will be back in fall. The five magicians have all been rewarded with several prices. One of them (Paul Sommersguter) even came out second at the European Magician Competition!

Here’s a clip to show you his fascinating work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWIx1C9otSw
(I'm sorry, I had to insert the link because blogger can't find the video on youtube.)

I really recommend going there to everyone. Everybody in the audience was captivated by the show and in my opinion it could have lasted even longer than three hours ;)

www.magicsunday.at

Why I love musicals

There’s a passion I haven’t told you about yet: I am absolutely addicted to musicals! The first musical I saw was Gigi. I was about 13 years old back then and I was absolutely amazed by this experience. The singing and dancing are just so wonderful to see.

So I started to take every opportunity to see a musical. Even though I generally prefer original versions I had to watch most of them in German as they are always sung in German in Austria because it is easier to understand for the audience. Nevertheless I’ve also seen some musicals in English while I was in London or in the U.S. Although it was sometimes hard to get all the lyrics (especially when several people sing at once) it is much better than the German version. I have seen quite a lot up to now and I am going to tell you about several musicals in other posts.

I still haven’t told you why I love musicals so much. They sometimes can be cheesy and the stories aren’t always well thought out but I still love them. There are also musicals, which tell real stories in a very touching way. In my opinion those musicals are the best. I’ve recently seen Elisabeth in Vienna and it was just a wonderful and very touching way to present the life of the empress.

It is not only the music that fascinates me - it is the whole experience. It can be elegant, fun, creative or sometimes not creative at all. There are some musicals that don’t even have a plot but are still worth seeing like Starlight Express. The combination of dancing, singing and telling a (most of the time) interesting story just amazes me and I love listening to the catchy songs that are always stuck in my head for quite a while. 

Another fact I love about musicals is that they always leave you with an optimistic feeling as there's (according to what I've seen up to now) always a happy ending. Even if the ending isn't that happy as in Les Miserables it still doesn't depress you like it often does in normal theatre plays.

I think that some of certainly share my passion and I hope those of you who aren't into musicals (or believe that they aren't) will at least try to see one - I'm sure it will please you! 

Berlin Calling!

I was looking for a holiday destination for this year’s Easter break and I decided to take a trip to Germany’s amazing capital. It is a convenient destination as planes leave from Graz and I have a friend there, so I didn’t have to look for a hostel.

The flight went well and I arrived there Sunday evening. We spent a nice evening in a Lebanese restaurant and planned our week. I’ve already been to Berlin 6 years ago but that was only a 3-day-trip and as it was long time ago we decided to visit the most famous tourist attractions again. It took us one day to see the main sights like the Berlin Wall, Brandenburger Tor, Alexanderplatz, the Museum Island or the Siegessäule. 

Victory Column

Brandenburg Gate

Reichstag

Visiting a city with someone who lives there is completely different – eventually we didn’t to that much sightseeing but I got a closer look at places that real inhabitants of the city enjoy.  She took me to nice bars, we went to see a concert of a local musician and she showed me some magnificent parks.  

At the Rittersport shop

We also visited some museums – my favorite one is the Pergamonmuseum. It is divided into three sections: the antiquity collection, the Middle East museum and the museum of Islamic arts. The most impressive piece of art is the reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate, which was a gate to the inner city of Babylon. I also enjoyed the museum for Islamic art very much – probably because I’ve already heard much about Islamic art in Arabic classes but I’ve never had the chance to see some of it up to now. 

Ishtar Gate

Another must-see for Berlin visitors is Sanssouci – a palace located in Potsdam, half an hour from Berlin.  It reminds me a little bit of Versailles as it is built in a very similar style. The park is also beautiful. One can spend a lot of time wandering around there. Unfortunately it was freezing outside when we were there so we could not enjoy it that much. 

Since we were already in Potsdam I insisted on visiting the Babelsberg Film Studio. Many famous films are shot there – German films as well as international productions. It was an amazing experience where we got loads of information about the making of films. What’s even cooler is the fact that we could see the set of GZSZ, a German soap opera. I stopped watching it 10 years ago but it is still funny to see all these places which we know from TV in reality.

Walking in a winter wonderland =)

As one week is I also wanted to see something else than Berlin, so my friend proposed a trip to her hometown, which is situated in Saxony-Anhalt.  We spent two days there – it was quite a change because Thale – her hometown – is a small village that differs very much from the cosmopolitan city Berlin. It is situated in the Harz district, which is one of the most mountainous areas of Germany. Besides it is famous for its legends and sagas that are mostly about witches. 

Werningerode

Quedlinburg

The last night there we went out. Berlin has so many possibilities if you want to go out! It was really hard to reach a decision but eventually we agreed on going to Fritz Club near the East Side Gallery. There were various floors with different kinds of music and we spent a nice evening there. People there are different from Austrians. In my opinion they enjoy dancing much more and they seem more relaxed than the majority of dancing Austrians. 

It was an amazing week but unfortanely time flies when we have fun! I'm already looking forward to my next journey! :)

The most photographed part of the Berlin Wall