Mmmm, Schokoladenkuchen ("chocolate cake")

On Wednesday, the UN staged a mock terrorism drill at 9:00 in the morning. It involved pushing 5,000 UN employees out of the giant VIC complex into a park two blocks away. The weather in Vienna has been unbelievably fantastic since I got here, save for the 45 minutes we were forced to stand in that damn park.

Because of that tortuous experience, I've had a wicked cold for the past couple of days. I haven't done much other than work and struggle to buy food at the grocery store (always an experience!). In terms of work, I just finished up preparing documents for my supervisor's trip to Pakistan. However, if you've been reading the news over the past 24 hours, things seem to only be getting more chaotic there. Yesterday, the Taliban ordered people to leave Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Multan, and Islamabad, where the UN mission is going to take place. While it's difficult to determine if the Taliban's threats are credible, attacks have skyrocketed over the past few months so it does seem that the group has the manpower and resources to carry out large-scale attacks in the country. For a solid read on extremism in Pakistan, read this.

In lighter work news, my co-worker Emre (a.k.a. the Turkish ambassador to the 12th floor) is leaving the UN to return to Turkey this weekend. Emre is an expert on all things related to basketball and American Dad, so he will be greatly missed. To the right is a picture of the going-away cake my co-worker Leslie made for Emre. The picture below is of Emre holding his delicious cake, with my co-worker Luis in the background.

Outside of work, I am still trying to figure out how to unlock the shopping carts at the grocery store. Here in Austria, you have to leave a deposit for a damn shopping cart and only then does the cart unlock. For the life of me, I can't figure out how to unlock the carts. Yesterday, I stood there jamming a 1 euro coin into the cart for a good 15 minutes before I got so many strange looks that I abandonded the operation. Instead, I decided it would be better if I just ran to the dollar store next door, purchased a large piece of tupperware, and then used that as my make-shift shopping cart. I was definitely the freak of the supermarket, but at least I got my groceries. Evidence below.