First (Third?) Impressions

Like every child of the 1990s, I love Harry Potter. But several things about the books have always bothered me: (1) If Europe's Christians decided to make witches and wizards their bitter enemies for several hundred years, why does the (witchcraft and) wizarding world still celebrate Christmas? (2) Are Muggle-born children really ready to give up their entire culture at age 11 and never look back? (3) Dumbledore's explanation aside, isn't it immoral to not share the "technological" advances of wizards with the rest of the world? It's this last one that irks me the most, though. Not because 100 million people died from the Spanish flu, which a quick spell could have healed, but because every time I travel, I think to myself, "Damn, I really wish I could apparate."

There are many paths to development. Some of them are for bikes.

One of my goals for this summer is to finally get around to visiting some of the museums that I didn't during my last trip to Vienna. At the time, I told myself this was because I had decided to concentrate on meeting Austrians more than "seeing" Austria. But, if I'm being honest with myself, I spent more time on Facebook than was probably necessary. On many occasions, I wasn't doing anything but was simply too lazy to get bundled up and leave my dorm to go do something. Today, though, was sunny and not overly warm, so I had no excuses. I decided to visit the Museum für Völkerkunde (anthropology). And I would bike there.

auf der Wiesn

When I was still deciding whether or not to study abroad this semester, one of my friends told me, "The highs are going to be high, and the lows are going to be low." And during a day trip to Munich with the Goethe-Institut, I experienced it all: confusion, jubilation, frustration, contentment. It was a culture-shock roller coaster, and I was happy to be on it.

(I was also happy to be on this roller coaster, at Oktoberfest.)