Three cheers for public broadcasting

I was wearing my CBC shirt on the way home from work today, when an ex-Montrealer and retired VP of Kraft approached me and struck up a conversation. Turns out he's been living in Vienna for 11 years. I never thought I'd discuss the Hockey Night in Canada theme song on my way between the Wien Mitte CAT platform and the U4 underground line, but there you go. CBC merch: more subtle than maple leaves, more late-July-appropriate than a red and white toque.

In other news, I am still alive and still in Vienna. My phone works, my visa has been approved, I have a PIN from the bank, my finger is still broken, and I survived a weekend of Gaelic football and drinking with the Irish (lessons learned: "savage craic" is a good thing; drinking Guinness and then failing to sleep before playing three games of football is not).

Hopefully I will add some substantive information before a hiking trip this weekend, but if not, I hope you're all enjoying the sunshine.

"I can't watch any more of these German sitcoms."

An MS Paint production, in 4 parts.

Act I - Temptation


Act II - Fun while it lasted


Act III - Pigheadedness


Later:


Act IV - Comeuppance

Austria gets knocked down, but it gets up again and makes you sign a form

Trial the first: Be in Austria Legally

• IAESTE member gives me the address of the building where, he assures me, I can apply for my visa
• I show up at said building to find it locked. After several minutes of dictionary-flipping, I confirm that the sign on the door states that the office has moved across town.
• I show up at the new building, to find that the office closes at 12pm. It was then 12:20.
• I return to the new building the next morning, promptly at 8:00.
• After sitting in a dank waiting room for an hour and a half, my name is called to a room, the number of which I am not fast enough to translate from the loudspeaker. I am yelled at by an Austrian lady in the incorrect room, who eventually points me down the hall.
• After several minutes of sighing and paper shuffling, the even grumpier lady in the correct room speaks only enough English to grunt, "YOU ARE WRONG!", and point to an address written on a scrap of paper. She hands me my forms, and I leave.
• I consult with a different IAESTE member, since the one who originally gave me the (outdated and incorrect, anyway) address has since moved to Germany.
• After two or three days, I am informed that I should go to the address that Angry Grunting Lady wrote down.
• I arrive at this third location to find it friendly, well-lit, and staffed by smiling people who will condescend to answer my halting Engleutsch phrases politely.
• I have submitted my visa application!
• BUT
• I also must go to "register with the police".
• "Well, not quite the police...like the city police...they must know where you live."
• After speaking with some of the other interns, we discover that IAESTE has given us the wrong location again. Fortunately, native Austrians and long-term exchange students on our floor point us in the right direction.
• The next day, I am registered. Surely my status is unimpeachable now. But how will I be paid, unless I...

Trial the second: Obtain a bank account

• IAESTE member assures me that bank accounts are easy to obtain, and that he will fill out the paperwork for me
• Oh, but I have to bring a photocopy of my passport
• It's easy - we can do it at the IAESTE office. Drop by anytime!
• I drop by. The door is locked.
• I email the same person, telling him that I don't have a phone yet, and asking when someone will be in the office.
• "Oh, just come anytime. If the door is locked, call me."
• Several days later, I manage to arrive while someone is there. Photocopying ensues! I sign things! Everything is great!
• Two days later: "Your account is ready. You just need to go to the bank and sign the form. Be there at 12:00 tomorrow (Monday)."
• "Um, can I go in the morning? I have to work, and it takes about 40 minutes to get there from downtown."
  
• "I think that should be fine. Oh, and I guess I should tell you where the bank is?"
• I arrive at the specified address, not knowing the name of the bank, and find three banks side-by-side, all in the same buiding with the same address.
• "Guten Morgen! Ich bin Trainee mit IAESTE. Ich heisse Kari Zacharias..." [please be it, please be it, please be it]
• YES!
• 5 forms and 8 signatures later (not even joking), I have a bank account. But no bank card!
• "We will mail it to you. Then you come back to the bank to get your PIN."
• That is silly, but I don't care, because I have leapt over the two major hurdles, forded the two biggest streams. I have conquered Austria! I could kick Napoleon's ass right now. Surely now it will be simple to...

Trial the Third: Get my godforsaken phone working

• NO.
• I borrowed a phone from IAESTE somewhere in the middle of all the showing up at the office as much as possible. However, it needs a SIM card.
• Incidentally, cell phones are called "handys" here, which means that there is at least one phone store called "Handyland". I did not visit that one.
• At a store with a less creepy name, the nice man informs me that my phone is locked. I will need to get that dealt with - just not at this store.
• IAESTE advises me to find a small phone store. "They'll do it for 5 Euros."
• All the small phone stores are closed ALL THE TIME. Also, I work all day long.
• I am prevented for a week from finding a store during the hour or so window that exists between my arriving home from work and everything closing.
• Today: I found one! It is open!
• My phone apparently was jostled on in my bag, and now needs to be charged before unlocking.
• No matter! I got home early today - the store is open for at least another hour and a half.
• I return, half an hour before closing time, with a 3/4 charged phone.
• "Oh, I meant that you should leave it here and I can do it tomorrow. I don't have time tonight."
• "I'm sorry, I can't make it tomorrow. Do you know anywhere else near here I might be able to go?"
• "No."
• ANGRY CANADIAN TURNS IMPOLITE - MURDEROUS RAMPAGE ENSUES! NO MOBILE PHONE DEALER IS SAFE!

Next time, I'm moving to somewhere with no phones. And no forms. Maybe not even any paper.

A word about work, and then a tangent

I'm working with an Austrian company called FACC, which used to stand for Fischer Advanced Composite Components and now stands for [something with an F] Advanced Composite Components, since the founding family was bought out a few months ago. They've got a couple of contracts on the go right now at the Vienna office, including the design of flap track fairings for the A380 as well as something else for Airbus, but the main focus is on the translating sleeve for the thrust reverser of the B787. This is the group I'm working with. In brief, I'm doing FEM modeling and stress analysis on various parts of the sleeve (mostly composites), using a software package called Patran/Nastran. Any Aeros reading this can probably stop here, but for the benefit of everyone else, a rudimentary breakdown follows.

The thrust reverser is part of the engine nacelle, shown below (nacelle in red, thrust reverser in
green). When the airplane is taking off or cruising, thrust needs to be generated 'backwards', in order to propel the plane forwards (physics!); however, upon landing, it's useful to generate thrust in the opposite direction, to slow the plane down. To do this, the thrust reverser separates slightly from the rest of the nacelle, and uses the resulting gap to push air up and towards the front of the plane. The translating sleeve consists of the outer shell of the thrust reverser, an inner "acoustic skin", which is specially treated to reduce noise, and a series of small blocker doors.

Boeing subcontracted the design and construction of the nacelles to Goodrich, which in turn subcontracted the translating sleeves to FACC. Most of the design and analysis is happening out of the Vienna office, and all of the production is in Ried, a smaller city in Austria between Salzburg and Linz. The frantic rescheduling and inevitable delays common to all large aerospace projects eventually resulted in Goodrich sending a small team of Americans to Vienna to "supervise" the design process. This has resulted in some mostly good-natured tension.

So, what do I actually do? I spent most of my first week playing around with the software and trying to convince my supervisors that I really was going to be useful, despite my lack of practial experience with modeling (if you thought explaining EngSci to people was fun without a language barrier...). On Thursday and Friday, though, I managed to do some actual, if extremely simple, work, creating a mesh for the blocker door hinges and running a normal mode analysis.

The work is certainly more interesting than anything I did at Honeywell, and has the added bonus of being based on things that I actually learned at school. Also, I have a nice desk rather than a cramped, shared, overheated conference room, and the office is on the top floor of a gorgeous glass building, directly overlooking the main runway of the Vienna airport.

My direct supervisor, the composites lead for the stress analysis group, is named Ernst. His direct supervisor, the lead of the entire stress analysis group, is also named Ernst. I believe there is at least one other guy named Ernst, whom I haven't met.

There are around 45 people in the Vienna office and, aside from the receptionist, Sandra, I'm the only woman. Fortunately there are three women's washrooms, so I've figured we can each take one and use the third to store our hair products. I'm also the youngest and the only Canadian (though there are several Americans and Brits) so it's fair to say I stick out a bit. This is neither unexpected nor totally disheartening, but it can be a little strange.

The Vienna office employs people from a variety of different countries, including Austria, Germany, Spain, England, Switzerland, France, the U.S., and now Canada. Vienna's diversity in general is a far cry from Toronto's or Vancouver's, but I continue to be astounded by the sheer number of countries represented by my fellow IAESTE trainees. Yesterday, at dinner during the IAESTE Vienna Weekend, I shared a dinner table with people from Austria, Ireland, Norway, England, Australia, Jordan, and Israel.

In addition to those countries, between IAESTE and the hostel where I'm staying, I've met people from Pakistan, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Mexico, Portugal, Tunisia, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Egypt, Turkey, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Russia, Palestine, Italy, France, Lithuania, and Wisconsin. I also met two 0T8 + PEY mechanical engineers from U of T, who remain the only Canadians I've seen. Finally, the prize for the coolest background thus far goes to my new friend Olga, who was born in Jordan to a Russian mother with family from Moldova and a Jordanian father who works in Greece. She speaks English, Arabic, Russian, Greek, French, some Italian and a little Moldovan. Needless to say, I feel like a moron most of the time. I'm grateful at least that I can entertain people with "Canada is kind of wacky" stories ("you call them loonies?").

Speaking of which, I will leave you with a Foreign Currency Fun Fact as a parting note - I recently found out that in Israel, a two-shekel coin is called a 'shnekel', since shnek is similar to the Hebew word for two. Puns and money FTW!

P.S.

Happy Canada Day, everyone! I miss you.

With no further ado

For my first three days in Vienna, nothing was very palpable. I went down to the Fan Zone on Friday to find it quiet and mostly empty, populated by some over-eager Aussies playing soccer on a small rectangle of netted-in turf, and a tired DJ playing 90's music for people who were neither listening nor interested. Evaldas showed up on Saturday, to stay with the same IAESTE board member I was lodging with, and we walked through the Inner Stadt a bit, managing inadvertently to skirt the crowded areas.

Then: Sunday. Walking through the centre of town, we were immediately overcome by the stench of beer, sweat, and untapped adrenaline (not unlike an engineering party, in that respect). Packs of Germans and Spaniards roamed the streets, drinking, yelling, singing, and breaking into spontaneous soccer matches outside the 14th century cathedral in the middle of Vienna. Tickets were eagerly flogged for hundreds of Euro, while hopeful and underprepared fans roamed the streets with cardboard signs, searching for something cheaper.

Evaldas left, mid-afternoon, for his job in St. Polten, and I made plans with some other trainees to meet up later and brave the Fan Zone at night. However, when 'later' arrived, our intended meeting-place was hopelessly overcome with revellers, and my ongoing cell phone-less existence (unintended now, mind you) meant that I would be alone for the rest of the evening.

Only slightly daunted, I continued around a corner, following the crush of people into the fenced and gated Fan Zone. Keep in mind, when looking at the above pictures, that this was maybe 1/8 of the available area, and that the first two photos were taken about an hour before the game actually started. I sandwiched myself between a group of Germans and a group of Spaniards, strategically placing myself in front of the Germans (who were tall), and behind the Spanish (who were short, and looked like they had the potential to get handsy). Truth be told, most of the Spain fans there were actually Austrian, and were acting the way most Canadians do when the U.S. is playing someone who actually has a chance to beat them, at a sport Canada sucks at. However, the ones near me were speaking Spanish and singing football songs, so I'm satisfied that they were legit.

The crowd noise built to a dull roar as the players' names were announced - bye the bye, hearing a thousand Germans yelling "SCHWEINSTEIGER!" and singing "Lu Lu Lu - LUCAS PODOLSKI!" in drunken unison was one of the highlights of my trip so far - and never really subsided. Both teams had their chances in the first half, though Spain probably had the better of the play, and Casillas was good when he had to be (particularly on Germany's corners). The crowd positively exploded after Spain's goal, and after Spain really came alive in the second half, everyone in the predominantly Austrian crowd was singing "Eviva Espana".

The final whistle was a stranger-hugging, grown-men-crying experience the like of which I have never witnessed. After being whisked off my feet by Spanish fans, high-fiving elated Austrian ladies, and jumping up and down for a solid minute, I realized that a) I had been standing all afternoon, b) I hadn't really eaten anything since breakfast, and c) I really didn't want to end up like the guy who was carried past me on a stretcher in the 88th minute, so I high-tailed it out of the fan zone to the nearest seat, on the steps on the Hofburg Theatre.

Seeing me sitting alone, willing my head to stop spinning, an Austrian fan wearing only red and yellow underwear came over to me.

"You are supporting Germany?", he asked (in German).

"Nein," I responded, "just resting".

"Oh," he said, "super!". He danced away.

Awake and blogging

Phew. Now that I've moved into Albert Schweitzer Haus, I should have consistent internet access. This is good, because I have a lot of catching up to do, with subjects ranging from the hellish (Austrian visa applications and IAESTE incompetance) to the satisfactory (my new residence) to the pretty sweet (my job) to the OMG MY HEAD EXPLODED (the Euro final). It will be best to devote one entry to each of these, I think, so I'll do as much as I can tonight, and in the meantime we'll all have to hope that nothing interesting happens to me for a couple of days.

Firstly, some observations about Austria, and Vienna in particular:

- contrary to what I read before arriving, people do jaywalk here; it's just that they do it with extreme hesitation, bordering on furtiveness. On my first day in Vienna, I witnessed a woman look both ways about four times, then dart into the middle of the road with her groceries, eyes half shut and fearing death all the way across a totally abandoned one way street. Young people, albeit, are a little more courageous than this lady, who was at least 65. I no longer fear arrest, and I've learned to deal with the funny looks.

- speaking of traffic...can you tell what this sign means? You probably can, but if not, consider that 'ein' means 'one', and 'autobahn' means 'highway', and the sign is patterned very closely after its North American counterpart. If you guessed that it means 'one way', you're not only correct, but you've managed to outdo the combined brainpower of I and Edalvas, my new Lithuanian mechanical engineering buddy (he of the borrowed laptop), since we could not figure this out over the course of an entire afternoon. Europe is making me dumb.



- fortunately, the traffic here isn't that important for me, because the public transportation system is amazing. There are five subway lines, curiously labelled U1-U6, with no U5 - I don't know why this is, yet - as well as multitudinous bus and tram lines and two separate, transfer-free trains to and from the airport. Every stop - subways, buses, you name it - has brightly lit signs announcing when the next ride is coming, and I've so far never known them to be incorrect. My hostel is closest to the U2 line (Achtung, baby!), which doesn't connect directly to the airport train I take to work, yet I can still do the 25km airport train, two subway connections, and short walk in about half an hour.

- finally, I don't have an Austrian bank account, but when I get one I hope it's at this place. And now, on with the show...