divine irony strikes again.

while sitting during noon mass today, Ash Wednesday, a strange thing occurred. i turned to Tim and tapped him on the shoulder.

"dude. what is that strange glow emanating from the window?"

as quickly as the church had lit up, so did our minds. the sun! it's the sun! that long forgotten ball of heat that our ancestors worshipped in hopes of greater fertility! or something like that.

ok, all kidding aside, i was really, really pumped to see the sun come out today. it had literally been around 11-12 days since the last sighting of light. and it figures that it chooses Ash Wednesday, one of only TWO required fasting days in the Church calendar, to poke it's head out.

furthermore, it fit in rather will with Father Ron's homily today. about how 'Lent' comes from the Old English word meaning "springtime". and how Lent is a gift to us from God, etc.

Divine allegory is found in abundance today. praise God.

a-m-d-g a-m-d-g!

Last night was the "Tandem Tango" dance party here at the Kartause.

I had the privilege of going with my friend erin wilson (stella mariae), and we went as AMDG and Stella Mariae. I borrowed erin fitzpatrick's plaid skirt to be my kilt, used one of Tim's plaid scarfs as my sash, made an AMDG tshirt, and found a wooden spoon to complete my get-up. It was glorious. At one point during the evening, Elliot lifted me up in the air and everyone started chanting A-M-D-G A-M-D-G! I never thought i would know what that felt like. now i do.

Elliot went with Kristen Dupre as "Eggs and Bacon" -- be sure to creep around on facebook this coming week to see pics of elliot's costume. it was perfect. Tim and Erin Fitz went as a Jaeger bomb -- tim had a huge cardboard cut-out of a Jaegermeister bottle and Fitzy had one of a Red Bull can.

The first place prize, however, went to Alex Freas and his partner, Meghan. They went as Tom Hanks and Wilson from Cast Away. Alex, who looks uncannily like Tom Hanks, had a torn up t-shirt, black face paint smeared across his face (like burn marks), and a fed-ex bag in his hand. Meghan had a shirt stuffed with pillows and the face of Wilson drawn on it, as well as that plant thingy on top of her head. It was a well-deserved victory.

Now, all of the students here are hit with hte realization that midterms are but days away, and most of us have ignored studying so we could instead create our outfits for last night. Sigh.

the sweet, sweet silence

"in the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness."

-- Mahatma Gandhi

following last week's Prague trip, we decided to stay back this weekend and abstain from traveling. today, tim went skiing and elliot went to Melk (nearby town), so i woke up to find about 10 other students in the Kartause.

i've had a ton of work to do for PBS II, so i've been just working all day. i went to lunch and prayed somewhere in the middle of it all.

it seems to be a tired and redundant topic, but it is so so true that silence can work wonders in a man's heart. one day spent walking around the campus here, soaking in my surroundings, studying the gospels, praying -- all in a state of seemingly glorified silence -- has taught me more about myself than the past 3 weeks have.

you can only grow by learning. and you can only learn by listening. and you can only listen when your mouth is shut.

embrace that.

It's all about the benjamins. Prague '09. Part 2 of 3.

"Prague, prague prague prague prague, prague praggy praggy prauge"

-- Tim Glemkowski, to the tune of Salt n' Peppa's "push it"

If i were to tell you that i would make you a full pork roast dinner, complete with 2 different kinds of dumplings etc., for just over 5 dollars, you would most likely:

a) laugh
b) ask me to repeat myself, assuming i had misspoke
c) refuse the offer, assuming it was too good to be true.

Now, if i were to then say that you could get a pint of beer as well for just around $1.15, and that your friend who accidentally ordered water would then end up paying more than you for it (Christian Bobak), you would start looking for video cameras. 'this is a joke, right?'

If you haven't caught on already, this is precisely the deal we received in this tiny restaurant right by our hostel, and it was just what we needed to get over our cranky selves. We spent most of the meal laughing over how good it tasted and how little we paid for it.

It got even better when we went to a tiny little bakery/convenience store and realized that everything was gloriously cheap. Bread? like 15 cents. red bull? dollar. 6-packs of beer? dollar plus.

We eventually met back up with dominica and tomas, and they took us around the city. we spent most of the night wandering around going, "we're in PRAGUE dude haha what the hellll". looking back, it was kind of pathetic. The only landmark worth mentioning by name is St. Charles Bridge, which is absolutely gorgeous. this doesn't mean, though, that nothing else is worth mentioning. the entire "old town" part of the city is a captivating sight, completely inexpressible through such a measly medium like a blog. I hate to say this, and in fact my hands are trembling as i begin to type this, but...i finally found a city i enjoyed more than Boston. maybe. Maybe!

I've been saving the best for last: throughout the night we discovered the beauty of THE. THE. THE. best beer in the world (and i pray i spell this correctly): Velkopopovicky Kolser Dark. We proceeded to discover that, in fact, Czech beer dominates everything, and that we've been lied to our entire lives about German and Austrian beer reigning supreme.

(ok ok so one last story worth re-telling: Elliot's mom and dad had been to Prague 3 years previous, and his dad has reminded him repeatedly since about Velkopopovicky and this random jazz club behind some church. Finding the beer was easy -- it's all over the city. Far more exciting was when we accidentally stumbled upon the jazz club. Elliot didn't even know the name, but as soon as he saw the outside he (claims to have) "sensed it". sure enough, we went inside and it matched the description his dad gave perfectly.)

sunny and 75.

a great weekend ahead.

leaving at 3:45 am (yes, a-period-m-period) with Elliot, Tim, Erin Fitzpatrick, Christian Boback, and a European student, Dominica, for Vienna, where we're hopping on a bus to Prague (Czech Republic) for the weekend.  

i'll be back Sunday night...where i may or may not be able to watch the superbowl because ResLife here doesn't want to show us the game until TUESDAY. TUESDAY. 

TUESDAYYYYYY.

do they realize that my homepage is espn.com?  or that half of my fbook friends' status will read either "OMFG THE CARDINALZZZZ RLY?!?!?" or "i hate the steeelerrsssssss"?  

regardless, i'll see you monday. peace.

Ramblings.

Done with my neo-romantic wanderings, here's a few aimless thoughts:


elliot's laptop was bugging out on him since he got here, but we realized that it was the converter he was using for his wall adapter. thanks to some household brother of old, we found a converter in the LOJ box and got his comp working again. so hopefully we'll get pictures up of Salzburg/Munich soon.

Why in the world did Francis Hall move the gazebo (6hoursintothefuture.wordpress.com)? Watching the video brought a flood of emotion. Are they trying to cut down on the noise? That's worse than the time we tried "optional" household commitments to cut down on whining.

So get this. The owner of every student's favorite nightspot in Gaming, 'Urs', only opens his pub during our school semesters. He takes every weekend and summer off because people like me and Mike Monette stay til close. Often.

Useful hint for future travellers: Guiness in Vienna > Guiness in Salzburg.

Another useful hint: don't try dumping sunflower seeds down the sink because your room has no trash barrel and the toilet wouldn't flush them. bad things happen. ...yea.

finally got to see the infamous "devil's footprint" in the church where Benedict was ordained as Cardinal this past weekend. It's whack. I think i may have even seen a Nike swoosh somewhere in it.

The previous joke is copyright tim glemkowski, all rights reserved.

Despite the fact we're all underage Americans that are of age here in Austria, i'm pretty sure Gordo's room back on campus has more alcohol than any room here.

Comparing the beautiful churches of Europe to the CTK back on campus is like comparing a Lebron James highlight reel to an old ABA game. One leaves you breathless, the other simply reminds you of an era where short-shorts, mustaches, and AIDS reigned supreme.

If this were a Troubadour article, someone would write in a letter to the editor calling for me ex-communication one paragraph ago.

Dedham people: i've looked high and low, and i'm yet to find a back lot in Austria. Long live the back lot.

Best city i've seen in the last month? Boston.

Over and out.

DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK!!!

Done with class and heading into my first weekend of the semester.

Last night featured what had to have been the most thrilling, exciting, exhilarating, monumental moment of the semester thus far.

and it all revolved around Connor's mini basketball hoop.

Connor has this little plastic hoop hanging off his closet door, the kind every boy owned at some point or other in his childhood. Me and Tim spend about an hour each day shooting on it.
So last night we decided to attempt banking the ball off of the opposite wall and into the hoop. However the angle was so ridiculous that the ball had to be thrown literally perfectly to get into the net.

After roughly 45 minutes of Elliot, Sam, Tim, Patt Gott, and myself continuously failing to succeed, i found myself just repeatedly chucking the ball off of the wall with just Elliot and Sam watching. On what proved to be my final attempt, Sam turned off the lights as i released the ball. My initial thought was "what the HELL, Sam" (by this point, getting the ball in the hoop was less of a game and more of an obsession). Then he turned the lights backs on.

and the ball went in.

and i looked at elliot in shock.

Sam screamed.

and by screamed i mean squealed like a 13 year old scene girl at a Fall Out Boy show.

and i just collapsed on the ground while our yelps echoed throughout the creaky old megaphone that is the Kartause.


Ladies and Gentleman, your 2009 Austria class!