Viva España!

Congratulations to the new European Champion!

Seems like the best team has won!

You really deserve the title after 44 long years!

Best wishes for the future!

Thunder & Lightning

Wow!
Last night a heavy thunderstorm came over Wiener Neustadt. Lots of rain and for a short while even hail - thank goodness nothing serious happened!
After the first wave of heavy rain I started watching the lightnings all around. They are so beautiful - dangerous but beautiful. The way they enlight the clouds and everything else is just imcomparably impressing.
I even made a short video of some of these forceful beasts.
Hope you like it!



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MC listened to: AC-DC - Thunderstruck
via FoxyTunes

riders on the storm (2)

Yesterday when we left the Raimund Theater there was a really terrible weather in Vienna. Heavy raining, strong wind and fast sequenced flashes everywhere. We had just a few meters to the car but within less then a minute we were wet to the bones.
The way home was not as bad as first expected. Different than the last time we didn't feel like a submarine due to the amounts of water coming from the sky but it would have been helpful if the car was an amphibian vehicle. Nearly every street was covered with water - but not just wet, they were partly lake-like with depths of more then half of the wheels' height.
I am sure they had to close a lot of underpasses.
On the freeway the rain nearly stopped but it was still stormy and all around you could see the beautiful lightshows of the lightnings through the clouds.
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MC listened to: CCR - Who'll Stop The Rain
via FoxyTunes

still rockin'!

Thanks to Julia's parents we had the pleasure of seeing 'We Will Rock You' again yesterday. (The third time for me!)

Fantastic as always!

Again we saw a different cast as the last time. Galileo was played by Sasha Alexander Lien (like on the first time I saw it) and Scaramouche was played by Silke Braas instead of Jessica Kessler. She has a great soft voice and was a wonderful Scaramouche too, but to be honest I liked Jessica more because she plays Scaramouche more saucily and thereby the complete character is a bit funnier.

This time there were a lot of kids and teens. It was really nice too see that musicals like this one habe the ability to bring young people to the theater. So the wonderful music of Queen and Freddie Mercury's legacy won't be forgotten too soon. (Keep up the great work!)
In the row in front of us there were three young girls who really had a great time. They always screamed and clapped their hands full of joy - even the actors recognized them during the encore and smiled at them. It was a great picture to see everybody smiling with sparkling eyes!

The audience was really disappointing this time. Through the complete musical they were always very enthusiastic and always screamed and applauded joyfully but in the end they just stood up for one song and then sat down again very quickly and just clapped hands sitting. I really didn't understand that. I would have expected a more party-like behavior.
And the actors would have really deserved that!
They were awesome as always!
At least there were loud standing ovations after the finish.

I am really looking forward to the final performance of WWRY on 13. July. I guess then we will see the complete first cast.
And I hope that it will be a loud rocking party!

Websites: We Will Rock You (at), Raimund Theater
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MC listened to: Queen - Headlong
via FoxyTunes

Nim's Island

Seen on Monday.

A very good movie about the everyday fight for courage for everyone - young and young at heart.
Can't remember having seen Jodie Foster in a funny movie and she's is in that genre as great as always.
She plays the author Alexandra Rover who writes the adventures of 'Alex Rover' (Gerard Butler) - a male adventurer in the kind of Indiana Jones - who is Nim's greatest hero.
Nim (Abigail Breslin) and her father Jack (Gerard Butler) - a marine biologist - live on a secret Island. When Jack is missing on the open sea Nim gets an email from Alexandra about the volcano on the island with the sender name Alex Rover. Nim is totally beside herself with joy and climbs up the volcano to get the information Alex requested. As the volcano starts shaking she hurts her leg on the way down. Bad luck continues as she sees 'pirates' landing on the island.
Nim begs Alex - who is in real life just a coward - to come to the island and help her. Alex starts the odyssey of her lifetime.

The movie is fun and suspense from the start to the ending. Slapstick and sweet and funny animals keep you smiling all the time.

I really liked it!

Website: Nim's Island
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MC listened to: The Beatles - Here Comes The Sun
via FoxyTunes

Restaurant Marchfelderhof

On Saturday we visited a very fascinating restaurant in the northeast of Vienna - the Marchfelderhof.

It's very popular with the Austrian and international high society and it is pretty cool for us 'ordinary mortals' too. ;-)

Many celebrities love to give parties at the Marchfelderhof - Austrian and international celebs too - as you can see on all the pictures all over the walls.
Each table has its own name and theme. We sat at the 'Karajan table'. Some of the others are for example 'Falco's private room', the 'Van Damme corner' and the 'clockmaker's table'.



Everything is neatly decoratet and there is a lot to see. Even the ceiling is completely covered with different things matching the tables, like instruments and tools and so on. And they also have a beautiful winter garden.
Along the hall there are some showcases with a lot of souvenirs and other stuff.

It's a wonderful place to be!
The waiters are very kind and the meal was excellent!

Really worth a visit!

Website: Marchfelderhof
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MC listened to: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Get On Top
via FoxyTunes

Firefox 3

Firefox - the best browser - has reached the next level and is ready to become a member of Guinness World Records with more than 8 million downloads in the first 24 hours.

World Record attempt

Get foxy too and download it now! ;-)


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MC listened to: Jimi Hendrix - Foxy Lady
via FoxyTunes

Austria vs. Germany - 0:1

Ok, I don't like soccer anyway - not the game itself but all the hype about it - but I have to admit that I would have loved to see our team win against the German team. To be honest I don't know much about soccer but I can't believe that anybody really thought that this would happen. Of course there were a lot of wrong decisions by the referees in the previous games so it may be true that there had been a slight chance but I was sure that Germany would win.
Anyway it felt good that the German team was a bit worried about the game.

One thing really positive about our defeat is that this ridiculous euphoria hopefully will cool down at least bit.

And I too hope that we won't have to hear about that stupid game in Cordoba too much in the future. I mean talking about a single game for 30 years and always thinking that it will be repeated is just sad. We one once and always talk big about it and never think about all the games in the meanwhile??? Wtf?! Come on people - WAKE UP!!!
We are no Soccer-Nation!
But there are other things we are good at, like skiing.
And why do we always have to compete so deadly serious when it comes to sport? There are a lot more important things in the world than that!
As far as i know we are very good at medical matters for example.
We don't need sport to be proud of something. When you are not good at one thing just take a look around and you will find something else.
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MC listened to: Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger
via FoxyTunes

The Happening

Seen Yesterday.

All I knew about this movie - which was nearly non-advertised - was that some strange power forces people to act very strange and kill themselves.

It's not too bad but definitely not a must-see. I guess some will say the movie is fantastic others will say it's a piece of crap.
I would say partly both are right.

The idea of nature's payback - by emitting toxicities which attack human's neural system, turns off our instinct of self-preservation and forces us into suicide - is not bad.

But the way it is pictured is a bit ridiculous. Of course it's claer that the plants would need wind to bring the toxicities into action, but that the wind is always coming up on small locations just to get groups of people (decreasing in amount) seems a bit over-the-top.
Well, wind is one of nature's mightiest powers and so the thought fits in the plot but wind is not such a precise instrument as pictured here.

The part about plants becoming poisonous is in my opinion very plausible. We know that plants can do that without any advance warning - for example when the population of animals in an area hits a dangerous amount for the plants, some grases become poisonous to preserve themselves. And plants are able to communicate by emitting several messenger substances.

Overall I don't regret having seen the movie but I wouldn't have missed it if I hadn't.

Website: The Happening
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MC listened to: The Doors - People Are Strange
via FoxyTunes

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Seen on Friday.

Against all expectations I liked it very much.
I hadn't heard anything positive about this movie before and so I didn't hope for too much - but it turned out as a good sequel of the story.

Of course I have to admit that there are some not so cool parts. Especially the ending is in my opinion not fitting. The last showdown is pretty cool with the effect inside the temple and the creatures but I think the should have stopped it after the collapse of the pyramid.
The the end of the movie was out of the line of the previous parts and not typical.
I don't write to specifically because I don't want to spoil anybody to much, I think you will know what I mean when you see it.

Right at the start I was a bit disappointed too. I missed the fantastic original I.J.-lettering. The title was just written in the same letters as the cast. And there was also different music instead of the I.J.-Theme.

Overall I really liked the movie! I think there are more jokes and much more fun in than in the other parts. Maybe it's only because times have changed and my so did my sens of humor but I laughed a lot.
And the effects were excellent!

There is one thing left to say: Respect to Harrison Ford for doing most of the stunts by himself!

Website: Indiana Jones
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MC listened to: Johnny Cash - In Them Old Cottonfields Back Home
via FoxyTunes