More photos from Vienna

For the capital of a western-European country, Vienna is quite far to the east. Budapst is only 230 km further east. So although it's a German-speaking country, the city has vaguely Slavic feel.

View from the Prater. The structure seems to be engineered along the lines of a 19th-century bridge (but round).

Hills to the north of Vienna. Building on right looks to be a monastery/church.

 

The Turks besieged Vienna in 1683. Although the siege was eventually lifted, the Turks forgot to go home and still live in the neighbourhood we stayed in.

View from our window. Young Turks hanging around on the street corner.

Our apartment for a week: Webergasse 23

View over the canal

Getting on the Air Austria to go back

Nubbelverbrennung

On Monday evening (September 19), we had just returned from Vienna when we heard a marching band off in the distance. This was kind of strange because it was about 9PM and dark outside: what kind of parade could this be?

I ran down the street (who doesn't love a parade?), following the drums and glockenspiels. I caught up with the procession in front of the old Rüngsdorf church (built in 1131). There were less than 100 people, some carrying torches (real fire, none of this flashlight business) walking down to the Dreesen Hotel. There, next to the Rhine, I witnessed the strangest event I have seen in a long time. (The photos don't show much detail: it was pretty dark after all.)

Procession in front of old Rungsdorf church

Everyone was gathered in a circle, and a man was dancing about in the middle of the circle holding an effigy high. There was some singing as the man danced, and this seemed to be some ritual. Then he laid the effigy down in the middle of the circle.

Flags

Three teenagers entered the circle carrying flags. These were square in shape with a green border. In the centre of the flag was a black cross, with two black arrows crossing through the cross diagonally such that the whole motif resembled an asterisk with eight arms. There was some band music while the kids twirled the flags around. What with the fire and the vaguely militaristic flags, this was a pretty gloomy ceremony. Not that it felt like a funeral, but it was definitely much spookier than the goofy Karneval parades we saw back in February.

Then a priest in a black robe read a story. I understood even less than I usually do, and even he couldn't make out some of the words, so I think this was spoken not in German but in the Kölsch dialect of this region. 

Chopping the head off of the effigy. Red sandy "blood" spills onto the ground.

After the speech, a big guy carrying an axe walked to the centre of the circle and with a full swing chopped off the head of the effigy (wierd enough yet?). The headless body was carried down to the riverside and set alight.

Burning the Nubble by the Rhine

The whole thing was visually quite amazing, as the lights on the ships going up and down the Rhine mixed with the torches and the burning body. I approached two different young people to ask them "WTF"? Amazingly, neither of them spoke English. This would indicate a particularly backwards cultural environment, as all students must study English in school and (for crying out loud) it's the language of all the movies, videos, rap music, and video games these kids soak in daily.

This strange ceremony is called Nubbelverbrennung in Köln (meaning "burning of the Nubble") and Zachaies here in Rüngsdorf. It has been going on since at least the 18th century and is loosely connected to the Karneval (I told you in a previous post that the folks here prepare for Karneval all year long). The effigy does not represent a particular historical person (a la Guy Fawkes), but is supposed to embody the sins of the past year. By killing the effigy the sins are burnt away and yadda, yadda, yadda.

None of my (urbane, Berlin-raised) colleages had ever heard of this, and I they sort of dismissed it as just one of those silly proto-religious things that the barbarians here do in their free time. They tell me that this sort of superstitious hocus-pocus does not happen in Berlin.

Views of Vienna

Here are some pics of this past weekend in Vienna. Saturday was Arianne's first birthday, so we went to an amusement park and did the only ride that is appropriate for that age. The Prater is the oldest ferris-wheel in the world. It's actually a dozen small train wagons that you ride inside. Later, Christine drove a go-kart, and then we both rode the "Sombrero" (separately), which pulled some real G-forces.

Riding the Prater

Of course the public-transit system here is fantastic. The old streetcars are still around with wooden seats.

Riding the #5 tram together.

On Sunday, the 18th I took the D tram north to the suburb of Nussdorf (Nut-town). I walked up the hill through vinyards where this year's crop of grapes was being harvested. It was a hot day and the view was spectacular.

Eichelhofweg

Peasants

The pointy tower at the left (the Donauturm) is the highest in Vienna. I went up it on Thursday.

The Danube

Off to Vienna

We are off to Vienna for 9 days!

I am going the European Summer School for Scientometrics for most of next week (September 12th to 16th). I am not simply attending the conference: Along with my friend William I will be teaching a workshop on the h-index all day Wednesday! Paradoxically, the h-index is both a widely-known yet rarely used measure of scientific productivity.

Small earthquake yesterday evening

I felt the house shake a bit yesterday evening. I knew right away that it was an earthquake as our street is pretty quiet (no big trucks passing). It only lasted a few seconds. Here's the news report.

Seal hunting in Turku

Some photos from Turku. There were "art seals" scattered around the city. I caught 6.

Another wierd thing about Turku was that in the neighbourhood near the university, some of the cobblestone streets were made up of round rocks from the river. I don't have a photo of that, but you can imagine that this created a very bumpy and uneven surface.

ISSOME 2011 presentation

The presentation that I gave in Finland is available online and can be viewed below:

Author disambiguation for enhanced science 2.0 services

View more presentations from jdemaine

Bonn Gamecocks 44, Dortmund Giants 20!

We just watched a football game. The Bonn Gamecocks play in a municipal stadium just a few kilometers from where we live. We loaded up Arianne in the Burly trailer and rode there in no time. It was neat to watch real football again, and I really liked the low-key community atmosphere.

There were maybe 150 people in the stands, a small kitchen serving bratwurst and pommes (frites; i.e. french fries).  Interstingly, the beer was served in the bottle. Unlike in North America where laws would require plastic cups (if a community sports club could even get a liquor license). Whereas here you are trusted not to smash the bottle, and to return the empty.

This sort of semi-pro football is apparently quite widespread in Germany. There's a whole league and Berlin has at least 4 teams. While not at the level of the CFL or anything, it was still a great time. Arianne clapped when the crowd did, so she's a big fan.

Finnish bicycles

In the winter Finland is as bitterly cold and dark as Ottawa. That does not stop the Finns from having a thriving bicycle culture. There is no need for BIXI bicycle-sharing programs because lots of people have bikes. There is no need for bicycle lanes because drivers are not aggressive greed-heads. Cycling is just a normal part of everyone's transportation options.

I noticed a particular brand of bicycle was very common. The Finnish bicycle company Tunturi has been around for 90 years. Their city bikes have a caliper front brake and an internal-hub rear brake. It is odd to see bicycles with only one brake lever. The emblems are quite nice.

That must be a rare one: Tunturi made in Turku

In addition, there was a particular style of bike I had never seen before. With 24-inch wheels and a unisex frame with oversized down-tube, the "JOPO" bicycle struck me as an ideal runabout. These single-speeds were fairly common and were ridden by adults, not children. I wonder what the reasoning is. Pehaps the smaller wheels give some advantage in terms of ride or quickness off the line. I sure thought they looked cool.

One of the original stamped-frame JOPOs

Actually, the JOPO website explains the origin of these typically Finnish bikes:

jopo story begins from the 1960’s when Eero Helkama had a dream. He wanted to create a bicycle that all people could use, no matter what age, size, sex or financial status. Almost 50 years later the same dream is a crucial part of Finnish cycling culture. Three generations of jopo bicycles live in perfect harmony, and do not care about fashion trends.

An old (JOPO-style) Tunturi PONI

After seeing the widespread popularity of bicycles in hilly Turku, I know there is really no excuse for Canada to not have a vibrant 3-season bicycle culture. The Finns put up with long, dark winters and icy winds coming off the Baltic Sea. But when the snow melts they don't make up excuses to not ride.