What is your favourite spot at the Academy?

The terrace / garden in summer! It’s amazing to have such an oasis right behind the busy Favoritenstraße.

If you could change one thing about the DA, what would you choose?

Working on the terrace / garden instead of the office in summer. Having a chocolate fountain plus fresh strawberries to dip into at the DA (not at my office, though, that would be too hazardous) or a Nougsus Paternoster (like the one at Zotter’s). Wait – those were two things. Well, then a chocolate fountain on the DA terrace would be alright.

What was the best meal you ever had at the DA’s dining room?

Sushi and Maki that were left over from a ClubDA event. And what some people hate (maybe that’s why we only had it once): cream spinach and fried egg. Otherwise, desserts like banana cake (Bananenschnitte). May I change my answer number 2 (“If you could change one thing ...”)? The option of a dessert as the main course would be nice.

What was the funniest Facebook message the DA’s account has ever received?

You mean except the messages like “How can I study?” or “tofel” - what? – “sorry it was just a reminder to myself”. I guess the funniest message was not via Facebook, but one that I received by email. If I need something to make me laugh, I think of it – it’s in German, though. The question was: “Befindet sich im Raum ein Beamter, den wir nutzen können?”. So someone wanted to know if there was a civil servant in the room they might use. Maybe it helps to know that the German word for projector is “Beamer”, so it only needed a small typo or auto-correction to astonish me greatly.

What was the funniest fauxpas that ever happened during an event at the Academy?

Beware of talking about embarrassing things next door to the Festsaal when inserting new batteries in a microphone that is switched on. Same applies for telling embarrassing stories close to the camera during breaks when we do a live stream. I also was told that many years ago, when there was still a limited amount of radio frequencies, suddenly a programme from our neighbours, the Austrian radio station Ö1, was to be heard during an event in the Festsaal. The frequencies of our microphones were too close to theirs ...

What was the best type of chocolate you ever received during your DA times?

This must come as a big surprise to everyone who knows me, but actually the best sweets I had during my DA times were not chocolates, but baklava during our Kurdistan study trip. But boxes of chocolates that lecturers, colleagues etc. brought from Brussels weren’t bad either. ;) During one of our annual work outings we went to Zotter chocolate manufacture – I was very proud of myself to leave there without being sick. Our DA chocolate is of very good quality, but unfortunately, I’m not that much into dark chocolates – I still hold the theory that my colleagues ordered that kind because of that (safety reasons).