Donauinselfest 2009

Donauinsel is a 20km long island and Vienna's largest recreational area. There are many bars, restaurants and clubs - and many Austrians stripped to their underwear, lying on the grass. Masses of people use this place for biking, running or roller skating or simply just hanging out with friends and relaxing. Like picnics, picnics on Donauinsel are awesome :)) From June 26 to 28, there will the Donauinselfest (Danube Island Festival if you want :)), which is an annual open air music festival. And I am definitely not missing it! :) Last year me and some of my friends went to see Basshunter and Sunrise Avenue, and let me tell you - it was unbelievably awesome. That sets my expectations really high, but that's OK - I'm sure this year's Donauinselfest will be equally awesome. Here is my rough schedule - the bare neccessities of life if you want :P

FRIDAY

22:10
DAUGHTRY

23:00
RAZORLIGHT

Hitradio Ö3 – Insel (12) [HITRADIO Ö3-BÜHNE]

SATURDAY

21:40
SNOW PATROL

23:00
SCOOTER

That should be about it... The beginning of my summer holidays will be totally filled with music. Apart from Donauinselfest, me and my best friend will be seeing Arctic Monkeys and The Kooks! But about that later... <3

Festival der Nationen (Festival of Nations), 14.6.2009

Finally, I have time to get back to my blog. Please do forgive me the awful layout, that my blog currently has - it just would not show up the way it should... I will do something about it asap :)My exams are officially over now and I'm just finding out what grades I got. For the most part, I am quite happy with the outcome, considering I have not done much during the whole year and basically learnt all the work load in approximately 12 hours per subject :)) I am super-uber-happy about getting my French Matura, as a) it was not as difficult as I expected and b) I got 6+ out of 7. Nerdy.And since next year, in the IB Diploma, every student has to participate in an activity called CAS (Creativity Action Service), being the little geek I am, I have already started working on my project. It is a charity with the aim of empowering women in Morocco - I will definitelly write a more detailed post about this some other time.

This article is about an event me and my friend David have been to on Sunday - and we had to go there because of the Morocco project, that's the reason I mentioned it in the first place :) At first I was slightly irritated, because I had to arrive there at 1 pm (I woke up at 12 and Donaupark, where the festival took place is quite far from where I live). The sun was shining really bright and the weather was extremely hot - as a result, my arms are sunburnt now, that's what you get for being related to Snow White :) However, I was glad I got there. Not only do I rarely leave the house on Sundays, I also usually spend most time indoors, so it was a nice way of getting a vitamin D first aid.

The point of this event was to get as many nations as possible together and celebrate their cultural differences - exploring other nations' specialities. There were stalls everywhere, each representing a specific country. The line-up was remarkably diverse, many countries participated - for example Tibet, Bangladesh, Venezuela, Colombia, India, Turkey, Romania and last but not least the Czech Republic, my awesome homeland :) On stage, there were various performances, usually national folk dances and such. You can find the program here (in German only) Some shows turned out to be rather entertaining, but those are the cultural differences I suppose ;)) One of my personal favourites was Brazilian capoeira :)

When me and David got tired of all the rush and noise, we decided to get further away from the centre. The Donaupark is lovely, some parts are well maintained and picture perfect and some have this "wild beauty", ponds and roses everywhere. We found this spot we thought of as "cool, chilled and oh-so-distant-from-society" ... and some minutes later, while we were listening to Juicy Pen (I do apologize for having such a twisted teenage mind :)) ... a man came up to us.

Now, I was quite disappointed, because I realized, that - as Tom Jones sings - you can run, but you can't hide. But here comes the good part - the man introduced himself as Robert Osmark, and he happened to be a photograph and wanted to take a picture of me and David, for a special project called "Augenblick" :) At first we thought it was going to be child porn, so we were disappointed to find out, that we did not have to undress ... just kidding :)

Photos: Robert Osmark

Girl Hot vs. Guy Hot

I've just recently read an article from the May 2008 issue of TeenVogue - "Rules of Attraction". It talks about the different criteria guys and girls use to judge female beauty. Honestly, I was very disappointed by the article's quality - not only there is no real conclusion, it is basically just a page of quotes from teenage girls and a plastic surgeon. Hello! plastic surgeons are mainly paid to bring women closer to the current "ideal" - how is it relevant to question them about such topics? Since Eva Chen has not answered the query, I decided to attempt to do so myself.

On Friday, me and my (male) friends had a "hot discussion about hot celebrities". And for some strange reason, we just could not agree. So soon I stopped my "Come on guys, Natalie Portman is much prettier than Eva Mendes." and "Dude, the only thing she has ever achieved is dancing on the stage half naked." Now, as a future student of economics, I decided to put together a compilation of some of those "Top 100 Hot Women" lists, that the internet is so full of.

I started of by Maxim, 2009. In descending order: Olivia Wilde, Megan Fox, Bar Refaeli, Malin Akerman and Mila Kunis. Because I don't know half the women in the top 5 (well, that would make it 2.5.. :)), I decided to also use the 2008 chart for my study. The winner was Marisa Miller, closely followed by Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Biel, Eva Longoria Parker and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Another server, askmen.com had a very similar list - Eva Mendes being the no.1, beating Megan Fox, Marisa Miller, Keeley Hazell and Anne Hathaway.

The-top-tens.com also published a top-10 hot women, the winner being Amy Lee, the lead singer of Evanescence. Sarah Brightman ended up second and the next in line were Gillian Anderson, Jessica Alba and Angelina Jolie.

On topsexywomen.com, the "hottest women 2007" (that was the most recent list) are Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Jessica Alba, Aishwarya Rai and Angelina Jolie.

And on chickipedia.com, we get similar results - Jessica Alba, Scarlett Johansson, Angelina Jolie, Marisa Miller and ... Heather Brook, the infamous "queen of deepthroat"...

Hmmm, now - I wonder... how many women were involved in the preparation of these beauty charts? Maxim - probably none. askmen.com - eeh, what do you think? :) Topsexywomen.com - judging by the layout, it's a purely heterosexual male oriented website. Chickipedia.com ... "the wiki of hot women" ... same thing. The only compilation, which has been created by both women and men is the one on the-top-tens.com. And the winner? Amy Lee, certainly not a Sport Illustrated model or a queen of BJs (I mean, you never know, but she does not present herself like that :)) - the runner-up being Sarah Brightman, who is pretty, but not the biggest sexbomb out there - and she's far from being 20. On all of these - where are the ultimate girl-hot celebrities such as Agyness Deyn or Natalie Portman or Keira Knigtley? What does Marisa Miller have, that Natalie Portman does not? A thick portfolio full of bikini shoots? A contract with Victoria's Secret? Where are Sienna Miller, Kate Moss, or the ultimate girl-pretty Liv Tyler? Too thin, too fat, no boobs?

According to TeenVogue, medical research has shown, that while women process images of people with both hemispheres of the human brain, men only use the right side, which controls fantasy and imagination. So while girls think "oh, he's so smart AND sexy", apparently guys only consider the latter. Sure, some do. But not all of them - and I am pretty sure, that there is a rather high percentage of women, who only look at the outer appearance of a person, too. However, it is usually a member of the fairer sex, who is judged for what they look like naked. Yes, women like muscular models from Calvin Klein ads, but it is enough to see them on a poster or on TV. They do not expect their potential partner to have a six-pack like Vin Diesel. On the other hand - do guys expect a girlfriend who has the body of Megan Fox, or at least quite similar to hers? Probably not really, but a fat boy is much more likely to find an attractive partner than a fat girl.

But you know what? All this mostly applies to immature teenagers/young adults - so here is my conclusion (and it is nothing new): men adore beautiful women (and this works both ways), even if they don't have anything smart to say. But if they eventually decide to have a serious relationship, they choose a strong independent woman, whose IQ is preferably higher than the amount of money she daily spends on "looking guy-hot".

Photos: barbie.com, fashionindie.com