So tommorrow, Friday, I will fly back home around 18:00H and that will be the end for my time here in Vienna. In the last four months I had a great time, met great people, learned a lot and really got to know Vienna in a good way. Wish I could stay longer but will definetely come back again.

I made some really good friends from the other Erasmusstudents and had a great time with Davy and the guys from Lomography. So to celebrate our time here in Vienna and get together one last time (well actually more then one) we scheduled our weekends with nothing but great time.

This is what it looked like.

Thursday
Schoolwork.
Met with Christina (Germany) to eat at Sara’s (Italy) place.
Had some drinks and food at the place with the Erasmus-students where they sell the best goulash in Vienna. We met up with Davy and went to a huge houseparty where they build a bar in the living room. Heard about MJ. Heard shitty music. Had some bad beers and then the party ended being great. Stayed long and walked a long way to the nightbusses.

Friday
Some schoolwork with a bit of a hangover. Met at Wir with Davy who picked up Michiel and Stijn who came to visit a weekend. From Wir went to the goodbye party/wurstelgrillfest/bbq from my teacher Edgar Lissel who stops working at the Angewandte around autumn, had fun with the people from school and the bbq. Left the party early, without eating really much, to meet with the Erasmus-students for Lia’s (Sweden/Switzerland) birthday party and unfortunately to say goodbye to my Italian friend Sara. From there I went with Vera (Germany, and studys in NL) to Donau where we met again with Davy his colleague Tawan, another colleague, Natalia and again Michiel and Davy.
Didn’t stay long cause there was somebody having a hard time with the big austrian beers. Went with Tawan and Vera to Schikaneder where we got kicked out because they were closing. Walked 2 min home from there.

Saturday
Again some schoolwork.
Then met with Davy, Michiel en Stijn at Museumsquartier. Went from MQ to some bowling-place to throw some balls for 2 hours. Got owned by Davy. Went to some cheap Turkish restaurant. Went home to take a shower change clothes and meet again with the Erasmus-students at the Donau for the Donau-insel-fest. Where we drank the ottakringers whe brought and saw Snowpatrol. We’ll at least I saw it, being tall in a crowd is pretty good. From there we splitted up and I went with Jens (Denmark) and Aga (Poland/London) to Aga’s class exhibition/party. No party. Took some people had a stop to eat the best ever french fries in Vienna and then to a empty bar/restaurant where we met again with Lia, Michalena (Germany) and Christina . Went with all of us to Flex to meet again with Davy, Michiel, Stijn and Natalia. Didn’t went in to Flex but just sat outside and had a great time. Had a great idea together with Stijn to jump in the Donau, didn’t do it. When it started to get light again left and took the nightbus together with Jens and Aga where me and Jens gave a loud duet to Aga.

On sunday went to Davy’s (who left on monday) place to bring some of my books to give them to Michiel to take with him to the Netherlands. Then went to say goodbye to my good Danish friend Jens who left at sunday (he went to Roskilde afterwards) and Aga who left at monday. Will definetely visit them in London where they will both be studying next year.

And again schoolwork.

This last week was all about getting my forms arranged, signed and of course some great Knödl at Lia’s place. Yesterday a goodbye drink/hug from the bartender and friend Hans from Voodoobar, he felt bad about me and Davy leaving.  Today scanned a lot of pictures, still have a huge amount which isn’t scanned. (Nice analog) Went to the opening of the second part of the Wasser-exhibition and started to clean an pack when I got home.

Right now I had a little break

Vienna!

I will explain and add more pictures about this project later. I made this work for my class “Project” where we developed our own projects, the theme was inspiration.

For the project I’m working on right now I’ve been looking for a piece of nature to use in my pictures. It’s quite hard to really get outside the city and after getting some tips in my class I went to Leopoldsberg yesterday. I didn’t found what I was looking for but I got to see the most amazing view I’ve had from Vienna. It made me rethink the four good months I’ve spent here which are almost over, since I’m flying back on the 3th of July.

At the other side of the hill there was even more Vienna.

Yesterday was the opening from the “a piece of water” exhibition in Kunstlerhaus. I did manage to get my piece ready in time. The opening was a big succes with a lot of people and a good atmosphere, maybe because of the free drinks and real Austrian sausages.
My Erasmus-friends showed up and tried their best to embarras me by giving my work a big applaus. But by doing that they managed to get even more people interested in my work. So thanks.

Last week I’ve finished my work for the “A piece of water” exhibition. Since I’ve only finished it last Thursday around 17:00H, and Friday the 1st of May being a holiday over here, they told me at the printshop to come back at 09:00H this morning. Now they will look if they have any time over to print it before tomorrow in the evening. All the work has to be ready this Wednesday to bring it to the museum.

detail

Made with a Hasselblad 6×6 mediumformat camera with 80mm Carl Zeiss Planar lens, to be printed as a C-print 90×90 cm.

I haven’t even finished my work for the “water”-exposition and I already have to put a lot of my time in forming my next project. Fortunetely that project hasn’t got a strict deadline and is more about how you form the project. Here are some testshots made yesterday, one polaroid, one normal and one pinhole.

I was walking through the streets of Vienna together with my girlfriend, she’s been here for two weeks now to visit me, and she pointed out this car. Of course I had to take a picture of it. The car is from a tattooshop near my place.

From next Wednesday on I have to spot these things myself again. Wednesday my girlfriend is leaving to Bratislava Airport and flying to Rome where she starts her Backpack-tour through South-East Europe.
For the people who know her and are interested in what she’s going to do, here is her waarbenjij.nu. Of course in Dutch.

A while ago I went to Bratislava with Davy and some of the Erasmus-students. Bratislava is only about 80 kilometers from Vienna and beautiful. Everything is a little bit smaller then in Vienna and really relaxing. The people were nice and friendly and 0,5L beer costs only 1,10 Euro.

A nice way to spend your Saturday and dealing with your hangover from the night before.

In Bratislava we visited this little surfshop, yes a surfshop in Slovakia, and I saw this nice Insight T-shirt. With my length it didn’t surprise me it was too short. My last post reminded me off this shirt, also a decorated skull, and I had a hard time finding it on the internet. With help from my girlfriend I found it on Blue Tomato.

Tomorrow it’s Saturday again and that reminds me of last Saturday. Here in Vienna they have the “Nachsmarkt”, the city’s main fruit and vegetable market with a lot of stalls and snack joints, serving everything from falafel to sushi. Every Saturday the Nachsmarkt is completed with a big proffesional flea market where they sell high quallity antique to worthless junk.

So last Saturday I came across this nice skull. Since it costed 200 Euro I decided not to buy it and just take some pictures of it.

A snapshot I took in the Tropenhaus from Haus des Meeres, which I visited with Iris and Tom on Monday. These monkeys where totally fascinated by every visitor in there.
 

Vienna is great right now, the sun is shining and temperatures have been above 20 degrees Celsius the last days. Everybody in Vienna is spending most of their time outside. So did I on Saturday, together with Iris, Davy and his brother Tom. By accident we found the Argus Bike Festival at the Wiener Rathausplatz, a huge event all about bike’s.
 

The biggest attraction at the Festival was the International Dirt-Contest, Vienna Air King, with 50 of the best Dirt-Riders there to compete for 7.500 Euro. Great show and great tricks. So I decided to go again on Sunday for the finals and this time I brought my camera with me to practice on some action-photography.
 

About three weeks ago I arrived in Vienna, Austria.
Where I will be this semester to study mainly photography as an Erasmus-student at the Angewandte, the University of Applied Arts. Because school in Austria starts much slower then I’m used to and because of some misunderstandings due to the languaga things have been a little easy going for me until now.

On monday from 10:00 untill 12:00 I have “Vom Wesen des Lichts”, a theoretical course about light which already is at it’s end. Tuesday the whole day, and with the whole class, I have “Zentrales künstlerisches Fach”, talking about each others work and projects that are coming up. Wednesday I have “Projektarbeiten”, where we talk about philosophy and inspiration and were we try to form our own projects. On thursday I have the same subject as I have on monday. And last but not least I am following “Zeichnen als Methode zur Ideenentwicklung für die künstlerische Fotografie” on friday, which I will most probably quit because I’m already drawing a lot and there are more interesting courses available.

At the Angewandte and especially as an Erasmus-student you can pretty much choose your own courses. So in a month or so my schedule will probably look pretty different.

Even though things are starting of slow, I haven’t been bored at all. Vienna is great, cold, but still great. Thanks to Davy and the other Erasmus-students I’ve had a great time so far, especially on my birthday a couple of weeks ago.

Davy is one of my good friends from back home in the Netherlands, he’s having his internship at lomography also in Vienna. Besides doing his internship he’s been showing me Vienna a lot, a lot inside and at night where the beer is at. He annoys the crap out of me with taking a lot of pictures, with flash, with camera’s from lomography. But I must say the pictures are great. You can view his blog and his pictures over here http://daveldude.wordpress.com/