Österreichischer Frauenlauf (May 26, 2013)
This is a huge event in Austria -- with 30,000 Teilnehmerinnen -- designed to get women excited about fitness and to use women's social networks to motivate them to get active. In my case, it certainly worked. I was asked by two different friends to sign up for the race way back in January, which I did. This was a huge motivation to go running regularly through the last stages of winter and early spring, even when that required a hat, gloves, and warm jacket.
Since this would be my first 5K in over five years, my goal was just to complete it. Which I did, at a leisurely pace -- I felt like I could have run much longer, so enthusiastic were the crowds and so supportive the organisation of the race. With over 21,000 women running the 5K in over 15 starting blocks, it was hard to tell whether you were running faster or slower than anyone else. You were able to just focus on running a race you felt comfortable with, which is how it should be. And because everyone who took the step to do something for their own fitness is a winner(in), we all got medals at the finish line.
Spiel mit den Kulturen
In March, I joined an improv group called Spiel mit den Kulturen, which explores opportunities for creating a diverse community life through theater. We are 18 young people living in Vienna, come from eight different countries, speak 25 different languages, and are everything from college students to nursing aides to computer programmers. And we do improv together. It looks like this:
We had our first (and hopefully not last) two performances this past week. It's such an awesome feeling, to be on stage and say and do whatever comes into your head, knowing that your fellow performers will 100% support you in doing it. I always have trouble reintegrating myself into society after a performance -- I want to continue being so spontaneous and free in my real life as well.
Turkey Solidarity Flashmob (June 9, 2013)
It seems like the ongoing demonstrations in Turkey have been getting less coverage in the US than they have in Austria, probably because of the large Turkish population here, which makes the events seem closer. Almost everyone knows somehow living in Turkey right now, or who has relatives in Turkey, or who grew up in Turkey, and because they're really riled up, we are, too. (Of course, that's not true in every case: two of my Turkish friends got screamed at by their friends because they wanted to talk about shopping rather than the revolution.)
Vienna decided to hold a solidarity rally for Turkey last Sunday on Stephansplatz, our equivalent of Takrim Square, where the protests started. And because one of the activists' first demonstrations involved simply reading books in Gezi Park, we also sat down on Stephansplatz and started reading:
No comments:
Post a Comment