Nein, das ist keine Werbung für die kommenden Wahlen, sondern eine kleine Leseempfehlung von mir. Weil Städte nicht nur aus Häusern und Straßen sondern auch aus Grünraum dazwischen bestehen: http://derstandard.at/?id=1577836817718
Author Archive
Grün muss man lernen
Mittwoch, September 24th, 2008Last week in Burgas
Dienstag, September 23rd, 2008Again a week has passed … time’s running. For sure it was a busy week again. I wanted to write on my blog earlier this time, but I didn’t manage.
Reasons for not writing? First I wanted to write on Sunday, at least we had a visit of two museums on Friday (Nature Historic and Archaeology museums), which were actually not very exciting. Maybe it was due to the fact that we had been invited to three wodkas per person from the owner of the restaurant where we had lunch … you can’t say no, can you?
And on Saturday we had a trip to Несебър (Nessebar), the second must-see beside Sozopol. Nessebar is even more important than Sozopol, at least it is UNESCO World Heritage. Sadly I was disappointed about our trip again. Our teacher (it was our second teacher, I thought it might be different) was not prepared at all again, we had to find the interesting spots ourselves. Which is actually not really easy if you have a group of thirteen (including teacher and our buddy Gena) and everybody wants to go in another direction. This time I was not in mood of investigating the city on my own, the parts that I’ve seen were not as nice as in Sozopol and it’s much more flooded by tourism (it’s close to the Sunny Beach, a huge hotel resort with over 800 hotels – only the thought of it makes me shiver). Most interesting were the ruins of old churches.
 A former church, used as Art Gallery |
 Taking pictures was forbidden (for sure because of displayed art), so I can only show you this blurred picture of the inside. Beautiful. |
 Another of the old churches in Nessebar |
 A road with souvenir shops |
 Causeway seperating old and new town, ruins of the town gate. |
 View on Sunny Beach |
What really kept me from writing to my blog on Sunday was the Saturday evening, which turned out to be longer than expected … so we spent the Sunday hanging out at a flat of two of our group with listening to music, watching movies, cooking and eating together. We decided that we are some kind of family now, at least we spent most of the month together as we know next to nobody in this town beside ourselves. Which might be pretty normal for a vacation, but here we are a handful of people of different cultures, meeting here not (only) for fun, but for learning and studying. For sure it’s not only sunshine and roses, we all have our different habits and there are good and bad days … Soon we will all get separated when our class is over. We are all looking forward for the second weekend in November, because Adrian from Poland already invited us for his Birthday to Veliko Tarnovo.
Monday afternoon was the next day where I planned to write to my blog, but we decided to do the trip that we were planning for Sunday … to Ropotamo, a nature reserve some 50km south of Burgas. We really enjoyed our trip to nature, even though we didn’t really saw the nature reserve, as we didn’t want to do one of these boat trips. We were just walking in some direction (I was quite glad, that I had my GPS with me) and finally and more or less accidentally reached Беглик таш (Beglik Tash), a rock formation similar to those found in „Waldviertel“ in northern Austria, which was used as sanctuary in former times. We should already have seen it as part of our trip to Sozopol, but it was canceled because „it’s not really interesting“. Unfortunately, we came back much to late for our bus, so we had to take a taxi and a bus back to Burgas (which were for a reasonable price) as only the girls managed to hitch a ride. We really enjoyed that day in nature, savouring fresh air and the silence.
 Here we tried a short cut … most of the time we followed a track |
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 Doing rest on Beglik Tash |
Today I finally had the time to check my bike … doesn’t look good, but I have an address for a bicycle service nearby from the parking lot attendant where I will go tomorrow after class.
Next weekend I will travel to Sofia, then the real life will start :) Have a good time, and I’m looking forward to any comments!
Wahltotal
Samstag, September 20th, 2008Noch eine Woche bis zur Wahl in Österreich – und diesmal verlagert sich der Wahlkampf immer mehr ins Internet, wenn auch die Versuche der Parteien noch recht patschert wirken. Ich hab eine ganz spannende Homepage gefunden, auf der UserInnen per Video eine Frage an die Partei(en) ihrer Wahl stellen können und dort auch per Videos Antworten bekommen. Vielleicht hilft das den Unentschlossenen unter euch:
-> http://www.wahltotal.at
E-Book Reader
Freitag, September 19th, 2008
I’d like one of those! Somebody wants to buy me one, when it’s available? And I want Linux on it or at least a possibility to write own applications for it.
Sumpf Österreich
Donnerstag, September 18th, 2008Überwachungsstaat Österreich
Wie blauäugig sind unsere PolitikerInnen eigentlich wirklich? Unserer Innenministerin wurden drei Fragen gestellt. Hört euch ihre Antworten an. Das ist wirklich bedenklich: http://www.ueberwachungsstaat.at/index.php?id=58224
Liberales Forum
Wie bekannt wurde, dass das Liberale Forum wieder kandidieren wird, hab ich mich ja wirklich gefreut, dass die Möglichkeit besteht, dass eine weitere interessante Stimme ins Parlament kommt. Schade, dass das passiert ist: http://www.lif-transparent.org/
Purpose in Live
Donnerstag, September 18th, 2008
Beach, Sea Garden, University, Kebap and more …
Mittwoch, September 17th, 2008You are for sure waiting for an update from me, aren’t you? Thanks for all the positive feedback, I’m trying to keep up the work. This week we had classes on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon instead early in the morning, so we could get some more sleep. Theoretically, because the evenings got only longer ;) At least I got enough sleep, so I managed to see some interesting places.
Monday and Tuesday I spent mainly with learning, but as I don’t like to learn at home I went to the beach and to parks. I already wrote about the beach, which presented itself pretty deserted as we finally have autumn. As you can see the waves were pretty strong, I even got wet shoes while taking pictures.
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Next to the beach is the Sea Garden (I was already mentioning it), which is one of Burgas‘ most important trademarks. In this spacious park you find a theatre, lot’s of pubs, several night clubs (especially in Summer) and so on. And for sure lawn, trees, exotic flowers, ways, statues, benches, … For sure it could be in better shape, especially the ways are decayed. The parks foundations were laid by a Bulgarian park planner named „Georgi Duhtev“ in 1910 (For more information read this article on InYourPocket.com). The Sea Garden reminds me a bit on the Town Park (Stadtpark) in Graz, as also the sizes of the cities are similar. You also have the view on and the sound of the Black Sea. The downside of being so close to the sea is that’s it’s quite windy.
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 Monument for Alexander Pushkin |
 View on the Black Sea |
I finally managed to take some pictures of our university, which is an new, architectural interesting building near the city centre. It’s a private university with expensive study fees (150 per semester if I remember correctly), and I have the same feeling that I get when I come across the Business University in Vienna. I just don’t fit between all these fancy dressed people. I got the same feeling when we went to one of these nightclubs in the Sea Garden (The Elite Club – the name says everything). Everybody fancy dressed, everybody looking serious and looking you over and it was really expensive (for Bulgarian standards). We had our fun anyway, but I don’t want to go there again.
 From the outside |
 Central hall |
 The teachers wing |
 Some of my colleagues during пучивка [potschivka] (break) |
 Reflection of the surrounding buildings at the balcony |
 I don’t know what this wing is for |
The owner of Austrian Kebap
Today I finally managed to have ‚Austrian Kebap‘ for lunch. I had a little chat (half Bulgarian, half German) with the owner of the kebap-stand, who worked in our beloved 15th district (Рудолфзхеим-Фюнфхаус [Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus] oh yeah!) in Vienna. He worked pretty close to my home, at the mosque in Pelzgasse (On my way home from university I am always passing this place) for five years and three months. Monday to Friday he was cooking for the children and on Weekends selling Kebap. The kebap here was not especially good, so it’s not worth the long way, but I enjoyed it anyway. But I can’t get used to the habit of putting French Fries in Kebap (so it was no traditional Austrian Kebap).
On the way there I had a breakdown with my bicycle, the back wheel suddenly blocked when I was going like 30 km/h. Thank God (Goddess? Allah? Aargon? Ed? Myself? put suiting entity of worship here) I managed to stop the bike without having an accident. I wanted to repair the bike tomorrow, but one of the spanish people offered to do it – he claims to be mechanic. We will see :)
Bulgarian „Bravo“
Peter asked me in the comments at which level I aim to learn Bulgarian. I think the answer is: We will see. So my Bulgarian is really progressing, it’s already enough for little conservations. Like „Hi, I’m from Austria and I study Bulgarian at Burgas Free University. I would like to have a Hamburger with Chesse. Where is this pub? How much is the Kamenitza? Hello. Thank you. Bye-bye.“ and I sometimes can understand what the other person is replying. I bought a Bulgarian „Bravo“ during first week and at that time it took me an hour to read a sentence. Now I can read the text and get a general idea what the article is about. I still miss lot’s and lot’s of words and they get into my mind very slowly, but I can see a progress. I’m planning to do another language course in Sofia, but not as intensive as now. I’m curious myself at which level it is possible for me to get into a new language. And I have more fun doing it as I expected.
So much for tonight. Tomorrow we will have class in the afternoon again, so I have to think what to do with the free time in the morning (repair the bicycle probably). For the next days I’m planning to narrate you about the magic of an internet technology called RSS which helps you keeping updated with all these blogs and news sites you usually visit. Hope to read from you in the comments :)
Minority Government!
Montag, September 15th, 2008As you might know (most of my readers will know) there are parliamentary election at the end of this month in Austria. I think the current election race is one of the most thrilling of the last years, due to the fact that the outcome is more or less unknown. Even the Liberales Forum (liberal) is running again, who had little successes during the 1990s. Assumedly the will manage to enter the parliament again (you need at least 4% of the total votes).
One of my favourite politicians currently is Christoph Chorherr from the Grüne (green), not due to the fact that he has views similar to mine, but mainly because he has a very active blog. This makes politics somehow palpable, I would wish that most politicians would have a blog, where you can read their personal statements and meanings. Now during election race he started to do „Videoblogging“. GIve it a try and check it out.
His last Videoblog is about the stagnation of the parliament in Austria. He would propose to have an other form of Government, e.g. a Minority Government, because he wishes more lively discussions and not only implementations of the coalition pact.
That’s exactly what I would have wished after last parliamentary elections in Austria two years ago. The SPÖ (social-democratics) should have tried a Minority Government, so the Government may have also only lasted for a short time, but they would have at least made their politics and not the politics of the ÖVP (christian-socialist). It took more than three months to build the coalition and it was a deadlock from the beginning.
Let’s hope that these elections will bring a better result, although I think we would need some other kind of parliamentary discussions for this (as Christoph Chorherr also says).
Bye, bye Summer!
Sonntag, September 14th, 2008So, the weekend is nearly over. What have I done since last post? On Friday there was the Bulgarian Picture Gallery on our schedule, which is located in a former synagogue. That must have been an impressive building before the three floors have been drawn in (reminds me on the Gozzoburg in Krems which I visited in April). The Jewish community still uses the building for singing due to the great acoustics. As I said it’s a Picture Gallery, the two lower floors display contemporary art, the top floor old religious icons.
Sozopol lies to the south-east of Burgas at the Black Sea coast
On Saturday we had to get up early again, as we met at 8:15 at the bus station for our trip to созопол (Sozopol). Our trip consisted of three parts: Expensive coffee, a tourist shop labelled „Art Gallery“ and a museum. I would have awaited a tour through the city and the visit of some historical buildings e.g. churches.
The Museum displayed several excavations, which ranged back up to the 7th century BC, when the first town (Apollonia Pontika) in that region had been founded by greek settlers. The city developed to an important trade centre in the following centuries, especially for wheat. One of the excavations on the display are the remains of a granary. The rest are remains of the fortification walls and an old well.
After that I explored the city myself and made lots of pictures and collected geo data for the OpenStreetMap. The city is famous for it’s buildings from the 19th century in the style of the „Bulgarian National Revival“. The newer buildings usually try to imitate the old style.
After that I joined a CouchSurfing-Meeting for lunch and the beach afterwards. I had lots of fun and some interesting talks there, hopefully I will meet some them in Sofia again.
Presumably that was the last chance to enjoy the Summer and the Beach, in the night to Sunday the temperature dropped by 10 or 15 degrees and it was really cold and rainy today. According to the weather forecast it will not become better this week :(
Sunday was a lazy day, I just went out for lunch and to buy my first Bulgarian book: „Хари Потър и философският камък“ (Who is the first to guess the English title of the book?) … I think I need to learn and practice a lot to read more than one sentence per hour. By the way: Thanks Pro for the dictionary, I don’t know what I would do without it.
Have a good week! What are you doing with the End of the Summer-Season?
 The Bulgarian Picture Gallery |
 Icons on the top floor and you can see some of my colleagues |
 The church Santa Maria in Бургас (Burgas) |
 View into the granary in the Museum |
 The renovated fortification walls. There are also my colleagues :) |
 Sozopol from the beach. It already got cloudy. |
 Old houses in Sozopol |
 Some more houses in Sozopol |
 Small boats in the port |
Compare Google Maps and OpenStreetMap
Freitag, September 12th, 2008I’ve already told you about the OpenStreetMap Project before. To understand why OpenStreetMap is better or will be better as Google Maps soon, one Frank Sauter wrote a tool to compare these mapping services: http://sautter.com/map/. Both services will be displayed as transparent layers and you can change the transparency with a slider. Here is an example:
I’ve also been mapping in Бургас (Burgas), most ways in the parks and of the district Лазур (Lazur) are my work (but not yet finished):
Also in Burgas the Google Map is way from perfect, even though it is more complete. It looks as if a large part of the town is flooded and the Lake Atanosvko is missing.
If you are not satisfied with the OpenStreetMap in your neighbourhood, than become active yourself … The community will be thankful. (I got a message this week from an OpenStreet-Mapper from Bulgaria who thanked me for mapping in Burgas).