i enjoyed some more vienna-time on january 16th, when i got a chance to meet laurie blum, an artist/paintress from south carolina, during her layover in austria’s capital.
i always think it’s odd to meet somebody in person for the very first time, and yet feel like i’ve found a long-lost friend…

finally executed my plan to visit the museum of art history (kunsthistorisches museum, khm). i had wanted to go there because i don’t know much about art.
even while i was looking at art, i couldn’t stop “thinking biologically” – i kept finding references to rare animals like the narwhal (keyword: unicorn) in joachim von sandrart’s painting “large fish market”, or the extinct dodo in roelant savery’s “landscape with birds”.
i think my new domain name is fitting me well.

one of these days i’m going to try and stay in vienna for more than 12 consecutive hours…

[view photos: a short trip to vienna]

went out to enjoy a korean dinner¹ at nara² with some of those i had known for some time, before i actually met them: barbara, armin, dave and sebastian.

it’s refreshing to just order some things³ and see what they taste like⁴.
 

[view photos: korean dinner]

—
¹ dinner means jeong siksa in korean, …at least that’s what it said on the web.
² apparently the only korean restaurant in innsbruck.
³ well, not completely. i made sure there were no gastropods involved. :-)
⁴ ok, i think that’s plenty of footnotes now…

just a few days later, i went tobogganing* with a few members of the cantus borg ensemble.
* love that word!

fabian: i don’t like that soup’s texture. it feels like i’m eating soap foam.
me: i don’t think i’ve eaten soap foam often enough to make such a statement.

[view photos: daytime tobogganing]

some photos of the more recent past:

i went nighttime tobogganing with stefan, lisa, herbert, phillip and bruderherz anton.

me: oh, look, it must be full moon!
stefan: well, why do you think we’re doing this exactly tonight?

i didn’t bring ski goggles, so it snowed into my eyes on the way down.
other than that, it was fun!

[view photos: nighttime tobogganing]

while on taveuni last year, i noticed little yellow things on a beach. everytime i tried to get closer, they would just disappear in the sand.
it took some time sitting really really still, but eventually even the close slowly ones came out again and continued with their odd behaviour: they waved with one claw, and they all did it synchronously.

i later found out that these crabs are called fiddler crabs (uca spp., in german: winkerkrabben, “waving crabs”).
the males in the uca-genus have asymmetrical claws – one is tiny, the other one incredibly oversize (up to half of their body mass!). they wave with the big one to get females interested (i’m think i’m gonna try that too :-)).
according to michael rosenberg of www.fiddlercrab.info, the crab is almost certainly a lemon-yellow clawed fiddler crab (uca perplexa).

[view photos: lots of crabs]

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my commute to university is about 45 minutes in one direction.
that means i have 90 minutes of potentially unused/lost time per day, which i’m currently spending organizing and processing photos…

i joined lorri, born and murray that day, and we went north to naqara/somosomo because we wanted to do a hike up to lake tagimaucia – taveuni’s biggest freshwater lake (sometimes spelled tagimoucea or tagimoucia).
we had lost track of weekdays, and just across the street from our motel, there seemed to be a festival going on – loud music for several hours, lots of fijians around, children running around on the street, …
it was sunday, and the festival was “just” regular service. there’s only one church (building) in town, so every confession celebrates mass at another time, resulting in a whole day of church service.

i couldn’t resist taking some digital souvenirs: [more...]

as of today, i no longer have three simultaneous classes with compulsory attendance every friday. yay me!
it’s a shame the semester will be over in a week…