No! Bueno!

Now, normally you don't see 'Bueno' after 'No!' without some sort of explanation, so I'll go ahead and tell you the story of Bueno, a friend that Sydney and I made here in Europe, and how they died today. Yes.....died.

First of all, it's important to know that Bueno is the name of a very tasty candy bar over here that Sydney and I have indulged with many times. Today, Sydney decided to purchase one after lunch (which, in case you care, was a Durum today, which is sort of Austrian Burrito with meat, lettuce, tomatoes, sauce [of some kind] and hot pepper). So we walk out of the station where we got lunch and walk across the street to continue on our way to our next stop for the day. Upon reaching the other side, Sydney freezes and shouts, "Oh no! I dropped Bueno!"

I spin, and sure enough, Bueno is lying in the middle of a three lane street, and cars are roaring towards it. Now, Bueno was positioned right smack in the middle of the lanes, so when I told Sydney there was no way he would make it, she told me he would.

So we watched. About 8 cars sped by without incident, and for a second it looked like Bueno would be okay.

And then, it happened.

Now you have to understand, I was laughing this whole time. The fact that Sydney was talking about this candy bar like it was a person and was watching its fight for survival with such rapture was pretty hilarious. So you have to understand, when a car finally flattened it, it was pretty funny. Even more so because it made a startlingly loud POP when it got hit. I honestly thought for a second that a car's tire had exploded, or something. So I was laughing pretty hard by the time the traffic stopped and I waltzed into the street to grab the pancaked remains of Sydney's candy bar.

Needless to say, she didn't eat it.

Beyond that though, things are going pretty well. I was up late last night talking to Rebecca on Skype, and so getting up this morning kind of sucked. But breakfast was good, as it has been most days, and class was pretty short. Today was the first time I managed to stay awake through an entire Art Lecture! (There are two reasons why I always fall asleep. 1) I find the material kind of dry. 2) Lewcock turns the lights off so we can see his slides (literally slides) and so the room is just begging me to fall asleep.) Today we went to the Belvedere Museum, which had some really impressive landscape paintings, and then we went to Lunch and had the whole Bueno fiasco, and then walked around Vienna a bit. It wasnt a bad day, although it started to rain at the end.

Sydney and I also had two big debates today. The first was over the validity of cutting off a foot for something you really wanted. You see, Zach once told Sydney that he would cut off a foot for World Cup tickets, but she doesn't actually believe he would, whereas I told her that, yes, if there's something a guy really wants, a foot could be viewed as expendable, at least in the heat of the moment. There was another argument, but right now Sydney is too enthralled by her conversation with Zach to tell me what it was about. You don't really need to know what it was about though, because I won, of course.

Tonight we're going to see 'Owen Wingrave,' an Opera by Benjamin Britten about pacifism. We're leaving at 19:00 to head for the theater. Hopefully the rain will stop by then. Tomorrow is going to be a work day though. It's actually a free day, but after I sleep until noon or so, I have to write a concert report about Owen Wingrave and a 3,000 (!) word paper on the differences between the painters Caravaggio and Raphael. Bleh. And that's just the midterm.

I'll end with an inside joke for my college friends. On occasion, Sydney and I will find a pidgeon that has sort of inflated himself to make him look really big and intimidating, and will chase other pidgeons around to try and scare them off. Everytime we see one of them, we call it Joe. JOE.

lol, Tschus.