Laura in Vienna, Spring 2009

Munich!

2009-04-22T14:14:00.003+02:00

Wow, Munich! What a city – truly incredible! I had an amazing time and probably could have spent one more day there but I think I was cheap to spend another 20 Euro on a room, plus the money I'm sure I would have spent on more food and wasted at a bar or club or something. Wombat's was a great hostel, though, and I met some really cool people.

First day I went straight to Wombat's, a whole 2 blocks from the train station, settled in and dropped off my things. I headed out for a short afternoon adventure, just walking wherever looked interested. I came upon the famous Oktoberfest grounds where some kind of “mini” Oktoberfest was taking place. It was like a huge carnival with tons of big rides and food stands, along with the biggest rummage sale I've seen in my life. It was quite a happening place so I wandered around for some goodies at the rummage sale and grabbed a bite to eat. On my way back I stopped into a big church, St. Paul's, and climbed up the stairs to the very top tower with an incredible view of the city. The weather was absolutely brilliant – my luck came back after Mannheim and I think it's going to stay with my for the rest of my time in Europe! I stayed at the top of the tower and took it all in for a while. There was a great view of the mountains in the distance... of course it made me want to go skiing! After that, I headed back to the hostel and tried to catch up on some e-mails. Later that night, I hit up the “WomBAR” downstairs a couple beers. Didn't take long to meet some people and we decided to head over to the infamous “Hofbrauhaus” in the Munich city center. It's basically a huge beer-drinking hall with food. Good thing because we were all starving! The guys I was with were two Saskatchewan Canadians and three American military guys – super funny and all nice enough to pitch in together for my meal and a few drinks. We also sat with a guy from Munich and his friend from Prague who'd been living in Munich for some time. We were a jolly bunch, getting most of the tables around us involved in some chanting and cheering of various kinds. This place was like one giant party, medieval feast style. We moved on later to an Irish pub that was basically too packed to enjoy so we just returned to the hostel bar and talked to some people there. Pretty convenient when you're tired you can just walk up the stairs and you're basically in your room!

On Sunday I did more walking around to the city center and then found my way to the Deutsches Museum, a huge science and technology museum right next to the river. I spent a good 3 hours there and saw things from full-size fighter jets to ancient sailboats and even a lighting demonstration. Yes, they made lightning right in front of our eyes and it was so loud we had to cover our ears! Really cool, though, that museum was awesome. After the museum I took the S-Bahn (it's like a local train system, think of it as a cross between regular trains and the metro) to Dachau with the help of an old couple who recognized me staring cluelessly at the ticket machine. It was a lot more complicated then it needed to be, okay!! But the couple, despite our slight language barrier, helped me figure it out and I knew enough German to make sure I was getting exactly what I wanted! But really nice of them to stop and help me – don't get much of that in Europe.

Dachau was really cool. I almost didn't go but I'm glad I finally decided to. Although there weren't the same massive amount of killings there like Auschwitz or other concentration camps, it was still so moving and obviously a staple visit if making the journey to Europe at any point. The museum there had everything in English and was quite extensive. I learned quite a few things about Dachau that I hadn't known before. Not much else to say about it but... just go.

Sunday evening was interesting. I went down to the WomBAR again and had a nice big juicy cheeseburger. Met a few different people and we tried to find some bars or clubs full of people somewhere around town but didn't have much luck. We ended up at another hostel bar next door to Wombat's but it still wasn't too exciting. I ended up talking with some of the bartenders there and it turned out to be a long night! A small group of us were up until about 4am or 5am, just sitting around, talking about life. Those nights are usually the best ones because learning about new people, their background and life story is always so interesting. But I really couldn't stay up any longer so I finally went to bed! The next morning was a rough one since I had to be all packed up and out of my room by 10am. Of course that's just a “guideline” and I didn't quite make it but it wasn't a problem. I looked up the next direct train to Vienna and it wasn't until 1:30pm so I got my things together in the lobby and took a nice long nap on one of the hammocks. Woke up, went to the train station and boarded the ÖBB RailJet... one of ÖBB's newer trains – it rivaled those of the Deutsche Bahn! So when I said ÖBB had some catching up to do, I was just out of the loop because they are right up there with everyone else. Being on the ÖBB already made me feel at home, though. I'd be back in Vienna in about 4 hours.

Cadolzburg and the Engelhardt's

2009-04-22T14:13:00.003+02:00

So behind on the blog! I hate playing catch-up but I think it's a must! (Sorry, I'm a loser and didn't take any photos but maybe the Engelhardt's will send one of Frank and I about to go on a bike ride.)

After a wonderful week in Luzern, I headed to Nuremberg via my huge Deutsche Bahn disaster which you should have already read in great detail sometime last week. Luckily that's now a thing of the past and something I can try to laugh about, now... TRY! At the train station in Nuremberg, I heard some English and asked if I could borrow a cell phone to call Frank and let him know I arrived. A short 20-30 minutes, Frank was already there and helped me with my things to his car. I just sat and talked over a beer with the Americans who were stationed in one of the U.S.A.'s Germany military bases nearby while I waited for Frank. I went with Frank to a pretty cool little bar in the center of the city. We had a small dinner and walked around the city for a little bit, then headed to Cadolzburg where his parents live and where I would be staying for the next few days.

The house was amazing and I was SO excited to cuddle up in bed after such a long and horrible day on all the trains and at all the stations! The next day was perfect, and I think my time in Cadolzburg and sight-seeing around the area really made up for my train debacle the day before. Frank's parents were really great – so cheerful and so excited to have me. A giant feast of a breakfast awaited us outside on the newly-built garden deck. Almost the whole family joined us including Frank's parents, brother, his brother's girlfriend, Frank's sister and her boyfriend. The weather was amazing and I felt so comfortable with a family I'd only known for just a couple hours! After lunch, Frank took me on a little bike ride through the quaint town of Cadolzburg. The exercise was a godsend and I couldn't remember the last time I'd done anything that active! Just getting on a bike was awesome, too. After that, Frank organized a casual soccer game for us with a bunch of his friends. All the guys were super nice and even let me score a few goals! Haha, yeah just kidding, I went easy on them, though. ;) That evening we explored the nearby town of Fürth where Frank's girlfriend (Vera) lives. The town is pretty historically relevant, being one of Germany's largest Jewish populations. It was very nice and had an amazing city park right in the center of town. The U-Bahn there even went all the way to Nürnberg.

Frank took me to his college flat in the nearby town of Erlangen on Monday. Another quaint German town, but bustling with college students and lots of action. I was pleasantly surprised as we wandered the downtown streets of the little place.

On Tuesday, Vera's parents were nice enough to take us along to their mom's place in Engelstadt, south east of Nürnberg. We stopped at a few historical sites like some Roman baths and a big castle on the way, and of course the German countryside was gorgeous. Vera's grandmother was so sweet and we enjoyed cake and coffee with her for an hour or so outside her flat on the patio. After that, we ventured into town where Vera's father gave me a pretty detailed history of the town and its main features. We continued on to a small university town not far from Engelstadt. Vera's parents treated us to a fantastic dinner at a pretty authentic German restaurant. Frank and I finally got home late that night and hit the hay.

Another bike ride was in store for me Wednesday, but instead of town we ventured into the forest. It was really beautiful with so many trails I couldn't believe it! On our way back to the house, we stopped at Frank's Aunt and Uncle's farm at the edge of town. They were super nice and showed me around the place. It was really different from the way we do things back home but also pretty enlightening. I'm glad we have as much space as we do! After the bike ride we were pretty beat and did some more relaxing. After a quick run to the grocery store for some BBQ meats, we went to one of the guys' house we played soccer with for a real German-style BBQ – crazy people almost always grill pork! We had a great time, though, and I'm really glad it's how I was able to spend my last night in Cadolzburg.

Frank saw me off Thursday morning from Cadolzburg Hauptbahnhof – kind of a joke because there were two tracks and only one possible direction. Haha, it was cute, though. Didn't have too much trouble with my transfers although I was running through the station in Nürnberg in order to buy my ticket to Mannheim and catch the train on time. I was supposed to have 15 minutes but ended up with 10. I'm pretty sure the ticket lady didn't think I'd make the train but oh... oh yes I did, indeed!

Cadolzburg and the Engelhardt's was awesome. Those people are truly amazing and I really look forward to the next time I can visit them and their lovely home. Frank and his family's kindness are truly one-of-a-kind and something that is never forgotten! I hope Frank will visit the U.S.A. Sometime again soon so I can hopefully repay the favor. That whole area around Nürnberg is so gorgeous – I can't wait to return!

Luzern catch-up!

2009-04-22T14:04:00.003+02:00

Finally have a bit of time to catch up on the blog, today. My friend Clara, the Austrian girl I'm staying with, doesn't have wireless in the apartment. A little difficult to get online, although I can use her computer, but I don't like spending too much time on it.

I'd like to fill everyone in on my trip to Luzern since I know I never got a chance to write much about it - Definitely a highlight of my time in Europe. Photo is from the balcony in my room at Greti's house.

Christian Sr. and Sarah picked me up at the train station in Luzern just minutes after I arrived around 7:00am. I hadn't slept much all night on the train but I felt pretty good, all things considered. Night trains are an adventure in themselves I suppose, but I think everything worked out pretty well. I didn't pay extra for a real bed and I'm glad I didn't because I think I had more room in the regular seating area. Most of the trip I had the compartment to myself, laying down all six seats so it was like sleeping on a super-firm king-sized bed! There were a couple strange occurrences, though, like waking up to a family of four asking if the seats were available, sitting down and being loud and obnoxious, then leaving about 20 minutes later for no apparent reason. That irritated me just a bit, especially since I had finally ACTUALLY fallen asleep! The next time I woke up, there was a guy sitting in the compartment with me so I moved my feet out of the way a little bit but he left about 5 minutes after that... yeah, I know, a little sketch! It was just a tiny bit difficult to feel comfortable falling asleep because I always had the possibility of someone stealing my stuff in the back of my mind – even though my ski bag was probably out of the question since it was about 80 pounds, and all my big valuables (wallet, laptop, etc.) were in my backpack which I was using as some kind of pillow and would probably notice if someone was messing with it... but still, always bugging me that some creeper would come in and try to take something. I completed the journey without losing any goods so it was okay.

I recognized some things about Luzern but not much since my last first in 2004. I definitely remembered the Amgwerd house, though, and immediately felt at home, just as I suspected. It was so great to see Greti looking unchanged, just as happy and vibrant as I remembered her. First order of business was breakfast and a lot of catching up. Christian has mastered his coffee preparation and always had a cup of black ready for me each morning. I did enjoy the occasional cappuccino, though. I lasted a few hours but finally succumbed to my need for sleep around 10am or 11am. I woke up around 12:30pm and Christian Jr. made his first appearance of the morning by inviting me on a afternoon stroll through downtown Luzern with his girlfriend. Once again, I recognized a few things but most was just a blur from my old high school years. The weather was gorgeous and stayed that way the entire week I was there. So lucky!

Back in Vienna

2009-04-20T19:33:00.002+02:00

I just arrived in Vienna a couple hours ago and I made my way to my host-mom's flat. I anticipated her not being there because Mondays she usually works a bit later, so I settled down on a park bench next to the building to wait it out and decided I'd give some WI-FI a try. Right now I'm all connected up to my host-mom's wireless working on sleeping arrangements - I'll be staying with another friend for the next few days - perfect! More later!

Mannheim

2009-04-16T17:21:00.004+02:00

Made it to Philip's place in Mannheim after a few awesome days in Cadolzburg with Frank. My apologies for the delay in posting but as you can imagine, I've been pretty busy in just a few days' time.

I arrived in Mannheim yesterday afternoon and Philip met me at the train station. After we took my things to his apartment which happens to be about 2 blocks from the train station, we walked around town and saw the university and the town center. We got a few things for dinner and ate back at the apartment. Around 9pm we headed for a student pub called "Cafe Vienna" for a couple beers.

I just woke up and I'm sitting here writing this with CNN on in the background. We watched part of Obama's speech in Mexico City last night... ugh.

Today Philip is going to take me to Heidelberg, a little town not far from Mannheim and I guess a little more made up for tourists. Philip thinks Mannheim is one of the ugliest cities in Germany! I don't know about that but he doesn't seem to like the city here much - just the university here.

So my plans are to take off for Munich sometime tomorrow morning. It's only 3 hours or so from Mannheim so it won't be too bad. I'll spend a few days there (hopefully find a place to stay - travel season has started and some of the hostels are pretty full!) and then return to Vienna Tuesday or Wednesday night.

Philip showed me some pictures from the last time he was in the United States with us and it really made us BOTH miss it!

The Joys of Deutsche Bahn Travel

2009-04-12T17:52:00.003+02:00

(Written yesterday in the train.)

Today was officially, and easily, my worst day in Europe. I'm still extremely irritated, so naturally it's a great time to write my blog entry.

I booked an awesome train itinerary from Luzern to Nürnberg with just one change in Basel. I was to depart Luzern around noon and arrive in Nürnberg about 6pm. As you may have already guessed, this did not go according to plan.

In Basel, the transfer went smoothly and I had plenty of time to make my connection. But less than an hour into the journey from Basel to Nürnberg, “things” hit the fan. We were stopped in a tiny town, the name I can't recall now, just waiting and waiting, with of course no English coming across the loudspeakers. I kept busy watching some TV shows on my laptop but after some time I realized that a lot of people on the train were now outside laying in the sun or walking around with ice cream or something. When I asked, all I got from one of the train attendant was, “In a few moments we go to Offen-something and you get on another train.” Great.

So we finally arrived in Offen-whatever, Germany where we were packed onto a second train along with an already delayed group of passengers, who had apparently been waiting there for some time (I think over an hour!) because of fire on the tracks ahead. Keep in mind I'm carrying all of my luggage from 3 months in Vienna – really fun stuff.

This new train was headed for Hamburg and didn't stop in Nürnberg. It did, however, stop in Karlsruhe where I could change over to another train that would go directly to Nürnberg. About 30 minutes into the train ride the attendant came over the loudspeaker and said that everyone was required to exit at Karlsruhe because the train was too far delayed (something like 2.5 hours) and they were just straight-up taking it off the grid. So of course when we arrived in Karlsruhe it was an absolute sh!t-show, with basically two trains-worth of passengers piling off, trying to make the fastest connection to wherever they were going. I had NO idea what/where my connection was because the train attendant didn't always speak in English; and when he did, half the words were in German. I heard something about the TVG (TGV??) through Karlsruhe being delayed, too, and it would go though Stuttgart. Okay, that sounds good.

Our train finally stops in Karlsruhe and I'm one of the last to exit because I have two bags that I can only handle one-at-a-time, and the mob getting off the train will never let you back in until every last one of them is out. None of the platforms say Stuttgart or Nürnberg so I'm about to board this TVG (TGV??) but there's nothing on the sign so I don't want to just get on without knowing for sure where it's going. I walk up to one of the train attendants and say, “Excuse me,” in German and the dude completely ignores me, waves off the train (the official signal that his area is all clear for departure), steps onto the train and shuts the door. By this point, I was about ready to rage. If I'd had a gun I would have pointed in the air and started shooting, just because it probably would have felt really good. I suppose I could have pressed the button on the train and gotten on, but again, I wasn't sure if that was the right train or not!!

After that, I looked around for an arrival/departure board but the only thing is a giant, written out schedule which takes forever to interpret. You basically have to ready every single train/itinerary to search for whatever city you want until you find the right one or one going in the direction you want. I find a train direct to Nürnberg leaving in 30 minutes but it says, “Außer Sa.” Something Saturdays? Oh yeah: NOT SATURDAYS!! Wow...

Admitting defeat on the platform, I went to call Frank and family via T-Mobile pay-phone. I knew it would be expensive but I had to get in touch with him somehow to let them know I wouldn't be arriving at the time we had originally planned. I had a pouch full of change, anyway. So I put some coins in there and the max amount it let me insert was €1.40. I dial Frank's number and then I realize I have no idea/can't remember what city I'm in and I'm trying to explain to him, “Something that ends in 'ruhe'... ??” but we can't get it figured out. The money left on the pay-phone was constantly going down so I kept putting coins into the phone as fast as I could get them out of my pouch. So I asked some people next to me eating at McDonald's what city we're in and they just gave me a blank stare like I was crazy. Frank decides I should call back in 5 minutes so they can figure it out. I go to the Deutsche Bahn desk and tell them I need to get to Nürnberg and the lady tells me a train is going to Frankfurt and then from there I can change to a train (1.5 hours later) going through Nürnberg – arrival time 10:00pm. Wow, bingo, awesome.

I call Frank back and for whatever reason he can't understand or hear a thing I'm saying. So I try again and still the same thing, and again I'm continuously adding change to the pay-phone. Frank asked me if I had something to write with – Well yes if I had two more hands to get some paper and my pen out, sure. So I just hang up, completely, out of my mind pissed off just at everything. I got on the train to Frankfurt and send Frank a text via T-Mobile pay-phone, who knows if it went through, notifying him of my new arrival time. Then I realized that I could put everything I didn't need for the next two weeks into my giant ski bag and leave it in Frankfurt at the airport in some kind of storage. I spent some time with crap just spread all over the train platform, re-organizing and re-packing my bag. Now this thing is just ridiculously heavy but I drag it upstairs and use a free info-center phone to call information and ask about long-term storage. The lady was really nice and explained where to go so I rolled my bag over there, sweating, exhausted (it was heavy, man...) and finally found the storage place. €7 for every day. But like the desperate, mental idiot I was at the time, I said yes and calculated it later... yeah, €90 when I pick it up on the 23rd. Perfect.

On my way back to the train platform, I decided to stop in the Deutsche Bahn office and complain a little, maybe try to get some money or a free ticket or something. I figured I'd had a pretty good reason for being so pissed off. But, after explaining to the lady at the counter that I had spent the extra money for a direct train to Nürnberg because I had probably 100lbs. of luggage, and instead of being there in 6 hours with one transfer it took 11 hours and 4 transfers, she told me I could e-mail Deutsche Bahn and they could possibily refund me 20% of the original ticket price sometime within the next 6 months. My day was getting better by the minute.

I returned to my other bag down on platform 4 and of course get accused of trying to steal the thing by some rando on the other side of the tracks. I can't understand a word he's saying so I just give him a really irritated, annoyed look, which by chance happens to be the look that's already on my face. So he just forgot about it and walked away. Now I'm on the train to Nürnberg. It's about 8:30pm and I have another hour and a half before I get there and HOPEFULLY Frank or someone will be there with a cold, German beer and a ride to either a bar or a bed.

FML!!!!

UPDATE: I did, indeed, get a nice cold beer upon arrival in Nürnberg and chit-chatted with some American military guys in the train station while I waited for Frank. I'm in Cadolzburg with Frank and family now, feeling A LOT better!

(More on my week with Greti and family, later... I had a really great time!! Sorry, I just had to vent about this, first!)

Skifahren in der Schweiz

2009-04-07T19:00:00.009+02:00

Well you can't expect much from a place called "Titlis" but I still had a really great time. There were plenty lips in the piste to keep me entertained since the "park" was... let's just say less than ideal. If you're like me and bomb down runs doing ridiculous daffy-type maneuvers, you'd be okay here. The freestyle-G's finally made an appearance around noon... I guess anything earlier than that is not cool anymore!

But, as you can see, the weather was spectacular and for once during my time this winter I got lucky with the weather! Good thing I grabbed that sunscreen on my way out - by the end of the day I'd stripped down quite a few layers.

I wish I could tell you this was taken on April 1st, mostly for the sake of this guy's reputation but I think the damage has already been done. Good to see the little one isn't following in his footsteps! (Unfortunately for the Swiss, I had to restrain my gaper-photo-taking-spree throughout the day... Am I the only one who actually laughs out loud when I see something like this??)

Finally in Switzerland

2009-04-06T21:30:00.000+02:00

Wow, 10 hours in the train was not the best experience I've ever had but I did arrive in one piece so I suppose I can't complain! When I did get into Luzern, I was wide awake but that didn't last long. After some breakfast and a little settling-in, I passed out for a good 4-hour nap. Hopefully my sleeping schedule will be back to normal, now.

Yesterday, Christian and his girlfriend took me back to the city center for some lunch and a little bit of strolling. I remembered a few things from my visit in 2004 but there were still some sights I didn't recognize. The weather here is perfect - no more wintery cold but not too hot, yet.

Today, Greti, Sarah and I traveled to the famous Jungfrau peak near Interlaken, Switzerland. The mountain is known to many as the "Top of Europe" although there are definitely higher mountains in the Alps. Still, I think 11,000+ feet was still a record for me and being that high made me feel just a little... off. The weather was absolutely spectacular. Unfortunately, the one cloud in the sky was stubbornly stuck to the very top of the mountain, blocking the surrounding view. It was still a sight to see and I really appreciate Greti and Sarah spending their time to take me touring!

If this one photo doesn't completely describe Switzerland - I don't know what can.

Tomorrow I'm going skiing in Engelberg, Switzerland. There's a direct train from Luzern that takes exactly an hour. I'm looking forward to my last European ski trip but obviously sad that this may very well be my last time skiing this year! I'll have to make it count!

Christian is leaving with his girlfriend for Mexico tomorrow so I'll have to bid him farewell. It was really great seeing him, even though it was only a short period of time, but time spent with family is always worthwhile. I'm sure he's going to have a great time amongst all spring breakers in Mexico!!

I suppose that's all for now. Still no solidified plans after my visit here. I've been discussing some options with Christian, Sr. and Greti about where to go/what to do with my bags. We've been coming up with some possibilities but nothing for sure, yet. I'll definitely keep you posted. Hope everyone back home is having a great afternoon!

P.S. I can't understand ANYONE here AT ALL, besides Greti!!

Packed up and ready to go!

2009-04-04T20:10:00.005+02:00

After:

How????

It's official... I'll be leaving Vienna for good in less than 2 hours. Definitely have mixed feelings about it. It doesn't seem like I've been here for very long at all, and there's plenty more exploring to be done! But I'm also very excited to continue on my European adventures - and especially to see some family in Luzern! I know I'm going to have a great time no matter where I go or who I meet, but Vienna will always seem familiar to me in a special way. I hope to return, sooner than later, to meet up with Austrian friends and party like the local I once was. But until then, I'm looking forward to whatever comes my way next. See you in der Schweitz!

Last night in Vienna

2009-04-04T00:02:00.003+02:00

Well... it's finally here: My last night in Vienna. Yeah it's a Friday and I'm sitting here trying to decide whether or not to go out. Things got pretty rowdy last night and I'm still feeling it, plus I don't need to spend another €20 on clubs and drinks before I leave. It is... my last night though, so it's possible I will change my mind by the time I finish writing this...

Somehow my pile of crap got bigger in the last couple days. I'm supposed to be packing things away so how does that work?? I don't think I'm going to have any problems fitting everything, in fact I'm fairly certain I will have room to spare. Dragging everything to Westbahnhof (the train station) will be fun, though.

Yesterday our host mom took us out in the afternoon for a walk in the Wienerwald (Vienna woods) and see some pretty cool views of Vienna. I saw a fox scampering across one of the trails - it was pretty cool! After a bit of walking, we found a small Heuriger for wine and dinner. I had, of course, knödel and some pork.

After dinner, Paige and I came back to the flat to prepare for our night out. It was the last meeting of all the remaining AHA students. A couple have already gone home! We met at our beloved 1516 Brewery where I had my last glasses of their famous Stout. After that, some of us split off for Flex after more goodbyes. The group at Flex danced the night away in true Viennese fashion and didn't roll into bed until the birds were chirping. Needless to say, fun was had by all!

It's nearing 1AM here so I think I'll cozy up to my little laptop and watch this week's episode of Heroes before I fall asleep. I've got my work cut out for me tomorrow! Gute nacht.

Packing for Switzerland

2009-04-02T10:29:00.005+02:00

(Written Tuesday... next update coming soon.) The time has already come for me to pack up and leave this place for good... I can't believe how fast the semester went. I feel sorry for my friends back in Montana who are still struggling through theirs – actually I'm just happy I'm not right there with them!

I'm officially done with classes today and my music presentation went just fine. Tomorrow we have no classes and Thursday morning we're having our farewell get-together at the AHA office. Pretty crazy.

No plans until Saturday night when I'll board the night-train to Luzern, Switzerland (10 hours) to hang with some relatives for about a week. Trying to work out a couple days in Engelberg so my skis don't get lonely while I'm there. After that, northward to Frankfurt for a visit with a family friend, then to Munich for a few days and back to Frankfurt for my flight HOME (!!!!) on the 23rd.

Well, as you can see, I've got some tidying to do. Time for dinner (Making my own Käsekrainer / cheese-filled hot dog) and then preparing for some time out with the AHA crew! Tschüss!

An inside look at what I've been doing all day:

2009-03-29T23:14:00.010+02:00

Items of note:

1. Bottle of wine/glass in hand

2. WTA tennis tournament from Miami, Florida on EuroSport TV (Venus Williams holding it down for the good ol' USA.)

3. Cruising evogear.com for some sweet winter clearance deals - Help me out guys, Dalbello or Full Tilts??

Schönen Samstag (Beautiful Saturday)

2009-03-28T18:39:00.011+01:00

As soon as I stepped outside, I knew I was going to go back up to the flat and change my clothes - it was WAY too warm! What a relief, though - finally Spring is here and I don't have to drag myself and my 17 layers of clothing around the city anymore. Unfortunately, this is the first sign that the snow will be melting and ski resorts everywhere (mostly just in the U.S. because over here we have GLACIERS, baby!!) are seeing the light at the end of the marvelous tunnel we call Winter.

As promised, here are a couple pictures from Thursday night's festivities at Prater Dome:

As you can see, it feels a bit like Disneyland inside. We had lots of fun exploring, though, and when the place got full it was impossible not to have a good time.

From left to right: Ashley, Amy, Me and Jeff (Burger King birthday boy!)

Back to today's events - I finally made it to the famous "Schönbrunn Castle" on the outskirts of Vienna. It's much like a miniature Versailles from France but still pretty remarkable to see in person. The gardens went for acres and acres and it was easy to imagine all the royalty wandering about on horseback or on foot back in the day. I'm sure the place looks a lot more elegant in the Summer with some actual greenery but it was impressive, non-the-less. (Click image for full-size.)After wandering the Schönbrunn grounds for a couple hours, I made my way to the Naschmarkt, Vienna's most famous open-air market. It's the largest and most popular open-air market in Vienna and offers cheap goods like clothing, accessories, fresh fruits and veggies, tons of spices and all kinds of weird/creepy meats you can imagine. A great place to practice your bargaining skills. It was was truly bustling, thanks to the fantastic weather I would imagine, and reminded me of Pike's Place Market back in Seattle - except 10x bigger and way more busy! A cool place to do some serious people-watching, too, I'm sure I'll be back again before I leave Vienna.

Another weekend in Vienna

2009-03-27T23:11:00.004+01:00

I've decided to give Twitter a try and added a "Twitter Feed" to the top of my page. Twitter is an online service that allows you to periodically update others on your status (i.e. what you're doing at the moment, where you are, etc.) in just a sentence or two. Many people update from where ever they are using their cell phones. I can't make any promises as to how often I'll be updating mine because it's as new to me as it is to you, but we'll see how it goes.

Things are pretty mellow around here. Half of the A-team (fellow American students) have been gone for a week and the weather isn't exactly motivating me to do much, either. Last night was Jeff's birthday so we took him to a place called the Prater Dome. Thursday night there is Lady's Night so our cover charge was only €3 and we got €10 of free drinks - pretty sweet deal, best "lady's night" special I've ever encountered.

This Prater Dome place reminded me of Disneyland. As usual, I didn't take my camera (I'm always nervous about bringing my camera out with me so I usually leave it behind at home, safe and sound.) but the club was huge and all done up medieval-style. There were four different dance floors with different themes. Some of the other girls took pictures so I'll try to remember to throw them up here sometime. Anyhow, we had a good time and met some cool people.

No big plans for the weekend... I keep waiting for the weather to improve but I think it's about time I give up on that pipe-dream. The Dollar continues to fall against the Euro. I thought it was on the up but it took a turn for the worst just recently. Currently: $1 = €0.75

I'll be making some changes to my post-AHA itinerary due to some minor planning hiccups. I've been pondering some possible solutions the last few days but nothing brilliant has come to me... yet.

The summer job/career quest continues and with classes easing up here, I can dedicate more of my time and attention into a full-on search party. Luckily, the University of Montana has some pretty good resources for job and internship searches.

It's about 11:30pm here and I'm just not in the mood for another outing so I think I'm going to stay in tonight and watch this week's episode of LOST. Tschüss!

2009-03-25T09:15:00.019+01:00

Well, yesterday I finally sat down and thought out my plans for post-AHA. When I penciled the things I really WANTED to do, I realized I didn't have much time to do anything too extravagant - and I definitely don't have the money! My last day of class is Thursday, the 2nd of April so here's what I've come up with:

- April 4th, Saturday night: Train to Luzern, Switzerland | 10hrs, arrive Sunday 7:30am
Duration of stay in Luzern: approximately 5 days

- April 10th, Friday: LAST SKI TRIP to St. Anton, Austria (3.5 hours from Luzern). Approximately 3 days.

- April 13th, Monday: Return to Luzern, gather belongings and head to Frankfurt, Germany. Stay with Engelhardt's for a couple days, visit Philip in Mannheim (south of Frankfurt). Leave bags in Frankfurt and travel to Munich for a few days, possibly Nürnberg on the way.

- April 22nd, Wednesday: Return to Engelhardt's in Frankfurt, depart for USA Thursday morning.

There it is! Any suggestions are more than welcome. I wanted to go south and experience some European beachfront but several factors changed my plans = Money, time, Italian. There are still plenty of cool beaches around North and South American that still need checking out, anyway... :) I also decided that staying in Austria/Switzerland/Germany would help to further improve my German skills so that's one more reason I opted out traveling south.

And now... more pictures from my weekend in Laax with the boys!

Some kick-ass mountains during the drive between Max's aunt's place and the ski resort.

We were just three of many spectators. Pretty scenic location for this event, it was awesome.

We made a few stops for picture-time. Sascha in the foreground and Max in the background taking some sweet shots of a big valley.

Some discussion on the way back to Munich about the best possible routes... Max on the left in the driver's seat, Sascha on the right.

From Laura in Vienna, Spring 2009

ÖBB, you have some catching up to do. My DB (Deutsche Bahn) train back to Vienna on Sunday night... and my lovely Armada bag that everyone is jealous of. (Yes, this is 2nd class!!) :)

Great weekend, great friends!

Laax ski trip a success!

2009-03-22T22:25:00.005+01:00

We couldn't get a hold of any internet, unfortunately, so I'm sorry I wasn't able to update the blog! The weekend was pretty busy, anyway, so I don't think I would have been able to write much. Right now, we're in the car on our way back to Munich. Last night we visited Lindau, a famous, old city on an island in the middle of Bodensee. The town center and pedestrian zone was really cool, and kind of resembled parts of Italy. We had a nice little walk, saw the harbor and then returned to the flat for some late dinner.

Back to the beginning, now! I arrived in Munich by train around 11pm. Max an his friend, Sascha, met me at the train station and we started our 2.5 hour drive to Bodensee. We arrived at the flat, made our beds and crashed. The next morning was an early one. Semi-final rounds for the ski competition started at 9am so we needed to be out the door sometime around 7:30am. Obviously that didn't happen but we were still able to make it to Laax before 10am. Finally, I was in Laax, Switzerland – and for the European Freeski Open!! I've never seen so many twin-tip skis in my life, it was awesome.

Our first lift up passed over the half-pipe and it finally hit me that we were actually here. Competition was well underway and some crazy tricks were being thrown below us. Freeski athletes can do some pretty amazing things. We decided to ski one run before we went to watch because we were all pretty anxious to ski. Then we settled down in a nice spot along slopestyle course. The sun was shining, the wind was only breezy, the conditions couldn't have been better. Lucky for us, the weather stayed just about perfect all weekend! Unlucky for me, that means I got a bit of a sunburn! Nothing serious, though, just a little color...

So we watched some competition, skied some runs, watched more competition, slid some baby boxes and rails thanks to our new inspiration, watched more of the competition, skied more runs... it was a great Friday! Sunday was similar, but instead of slopestyle, it was halfpipe time! We ditched our skis at the top of the hill and found a perfect spot along the pipe, right at the second hit sweet spot! I took a bunch of pictures, even though only a few really good ones turned out. My little camera was giving its all but had nothing on the thousand-dollar cameras all the professional photographers were using. Still, I was proud of some of the shots I got. :)

More skiing, more watching, more trying little tricks and crashing – but it was a great weekend! Right now, we're taking the back roads route to Munich, through the Alps! It will take a little longer but the views are started to get good. I better get off my computer so I can watch!

Another boring week of school ahead of me... at least it will be easy. Sad that half of the students are gone! I will definitely miss having some of them around – others, not so much, ha! Okay, wir fahren jetzt! Tschüss!

Big trip this weekend

2009-03-19T14:26:00.002+01:00

Well today is the beginning of my highly-anticipated ski trip in Laax, Switzerland! This week has been super busy so it will be nice to finally relax and start the end of "real" school time off with an awesome weekend. I had three papers due this week, two written exams and an oral exam in German class. I think that was more work than the rest of the semester, combined!! All of us were in the same boat so there was a lot of student bonding. :)

So tonight I will board the train at about 6:30pm and be in Munich around 10:30pm where Max is going to pick me up with his friend, Sascha, and we'll be off to Laax! Max has some family with a flat on lake Bodensee, about an hour or so from the ski resort. We should have internet access, but I'm not sure. The plan is to ski Friday and Saturday, and also try to watch some of the skiing competition. The competition is a huge freeskiing (ski tricks, jumping, etc.) in Europe. All the professionals and big names in freeskiing will be there so we are really excited to actually BE there and see everything. This is like the X-Games of Europe - big things!! My friends are going to be pretty jealous! I've been looking forward to this weekend since before I even left for Europe.

Anyway, I need to get going so I'll try to update you throughout the weekend. Talk to you later!

Back at HQ

2009-03-15T20:07:00.005+01:00

I'm waiting for my pasta to cook but I thought I'd make a little update letting everyone know I've returned from Budapest, safe and sound!

Last night ended up pretty mellow and I stayed in, talking to a guy from the University of Arizona who had been doing some kind of student teaching in Freiburg, Germany since last June. He just started a long break and was headed south via Novi Sad, Belgrade, Macedonia and more! Needless to say, I was pretty jealous because it was very similar to my initial itinerary plan post-AHA classes. So we had a lot to talk about and it kept me busy most of the evening.

Today I did more walking around but I wasn't as lucky with the weather. It wasn't too cold but still a little wet and rainy. Today is the Hungarian Revolution Day, similar to our own Independence Day, and families were out and about in full force, sporting Hungarian red, white and green colored ribbons, flags and clothes! There was some kind of scavenger hunt for kids and other patriotic activities. In other parts of town, the riot police were suited up and ready to go because demonstrations were planned in Heroes Square, from both sides of the argument about taxes being used by the "gypsy" people. Apparently, a large portion of Hungarians are very upset with the way their tax money is being handled (given away to Gypsies for them to live off of) and another portion of Hungarians are okay with it. I was tempted to go check it out but witnessed some other areas of riot police gathering and decided it would probably be a lot of standing/waiting around and nothing actually happening. So, off to the train station instead.

I occasionally take short videos with my digital camera and I thought about posting them on the blog but since some readers don't have access to high-speed internet, I didn't want to load it up with a bunch of videos. I decided to upload them onto YouTube so if you want, you can check them out there. They aren't anything fancy and they're all less than a few minutes so don't feel like you're missing out on anything special because I honestly think they're kind of boring but more of a little memoir for me. The link is: http://www.youtube.com/user/kittyslider

This week is going to be pretty hectic because, like I said before, it's basically finals week for everyone since the winter quarter students are leaving. The semester students still have two more weeks of classes but it should be pretty relaxed stuff. SO, this week I have three papers due and I have to give a five-minute presentation about myself and my family in German. So, I'd better get busy!

2009-03-14T16:56:00.005+01:00

Lots to see today! It's easy to see that Budapest was once a thriving Eastern European power city but now, it's STILL picking up the pieces from WWI and WWII. One of my first stops was called the "House of Terror" which reminded me a lot of the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C. It was, of course, a little depressing but I'm glad I went there first because I learned A LOT about Hungarian history that I never knew, especially about events leading up to WWI and all the way to the end of WWII. Obviously I knew that Hungary was effected by the Holocaust but there was so much more than what we scratch over in school. Really interesting stuff and the museum was very well done. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures! I did sneak a quick video of one room, mostly because the music was so creepy and dreary.

After the museum, I continued down the main drag, taking in the sun and warm weather and enjoying the views of a new, unique city. There was a large park at the end with tons of people out and about. There was a zoo, a small theme park and lots of vendors selling postcards and cheap sunglasses. I wandered into a HUGE shopping mall that looked less than 5 years old and it was PACKED with shoppers. There are some areas of Budapest really hurting and impoverished, but I think there is also a fairly prominent middle class because so many people were out and about and parts of the city seem really nice. The House of Terror museum really gave me a new perspective of Hungary, though, and sometimes history makes me SO frustrated the way things pan out!! Such a shame.

Anyhow, I'm still resting my feet from all the walking today but I'm going to make some dinner ("add water" soup package again - easy and cheap!) and then I'll probably try to round up some fellow travelers for a night out on the town. The hostel was full last night and there are still quite a few here tonight so I don't think that will be too difficult. Don't worry, I won't be wandering around alone at night in THIS city!!

I think it's supposed to rain here tomorrow which will be rough because the weather was so gorgeous today - the sun was out and it felt like 60s or 70s. Some ÖBB trains leave non-stop for Vienna tomorrow on the odd hours so I think I'll try to get the 3pm or the 5pm and be back around dinnertime, maybe earlier.

Please note the link for more Bratislava/Budapest pictures on the right! Enjoy!

Greetings from Budapest

2009-03-14T09:29:00.003+01:00

I'm in Budapest at a hostel called "Thumbs Up." It's a pretty nice establishment run by a young couple. It's about 9:30 and I just had breakfast (Included with my bed which was €15 for two nights!!) so now I'm going to give you a quick update while I kind of wake up and prepare myself for the day ahead!

The weather in Bratislava yesterday was crazy! It was cold and blustery at time but at other times it was sunny and calm, almost warm! We had a good time following our professor around while he explained this and that to us. We went to the top of a giant tower for a good overlook and we all felt like we were going to get blown off! Don't worry, there was plenty of protection, though.

The city definitely had some super communistic aspects but all in all, there were a lot of pretty areas. The people seemed super nice and of course lots of them know English. It was a little smaller than I expected but the main shopping area was bustling so I think Slovakia is making a comeback and definitely doing pretty well for themselves, now.

The train from Bratislava to Budapest took about 2.5 hours. It was Deutsch Bahn, from Berlin to Bucharest, Bulgaria and not as nice as I thought it would be... maybe they use their older trains on some of the Eastern European routes?

The main Bratislava train station was a little sketch and I heard myself thinking in the back of my mind (as I often do!!) "Omg WHAT are you doooooing, Laura?!?!" But I just say shut up and continue on my way. The trains just looked really crappy, the station was busy but grimy. When I arrived in Budapest, though, I was pleasantly surprised. The train station was pretty big and my first impression of the city was good. It seemed clean and the public transit look okay - except for the Metro train which looked like it was made from leftover scraps of a 50s diner... IN the 50s, so yeah it was pretty old! I'll have to take a picture!

Not to much on the itinerary today but there's a place called the Hall of Statues which is like an outdoor museum of all these communist statues collected over the years. It's supposed to be pretty cool. After that, there are some big hot springs in the middle of the city so I think I'll go check that out. And I'll see where I'm at afterward but once again, I'm looking forward to just wandering the city and exploring the sights on my own time.

I'll try to get an update in tonight! :)

Lippizzaners!

2009-03-12T08:07:00.012+01:00

Yesterday morning we had some free time so I decided to finally attend one of the famous Hofburg Palace Spanish Riding School Lipizzaner morning exercise sessions. I'd been wanting to go for some time but with my morning classes, it was almost impossible. This week, we had some schedule changes so our Wednesday morning was free. It is kind of advertised as a "practice" session but really it's more just exercising for the horses because they are cramped up in stalls most of the day. (Their stables are right in the middle of the city so they don't have any pasture!) They didn't do many cool tricks, either, just some little basic ones, but I was still able to observe some minor training and correctional techniques and watching all the cute riding school boys was definitely worth it. ;) I'm still not, however, convinced the Lippizzaner horses are that attractive. They are stalky with big, sagging bellies and unusually thick necks (even the geldings!) Fun to watch but I just don't think they are as "beautiful" everyone makes them out to be. There seems to be something off about their conformation. Still cool, though, and I'm sure the horses I saw were part of the bloodlines that have been in the Habsburg Dynasty for hundreds of years.
Tomorrow we're going to Bratislava for a class field trip. It's only about an hour away from Vienna and there are direct trains all the time going back and forth. I'm not 100% sure what our itinerary is but I'm guessing we'll be walking around and observing different areas of the city and how they differ from one another and/or how they differ or are similar to Vienna. I think we should be done around 6pm and my plan is to continue on to Budapest, which will be another couple hours further on the train. I've booked a hostel in the center of the city so I'll probably stay there Friday night and Saturday night. I should have plenty of time to explore the city and hopefully I'll be able to get back to Vienna in the late afternoon.

The winter quarter students are leaving next week so we have a few papers due and some final exams coming up. (That all sounds really ominous but really, it's not...) After the winter students leave - there are 7 so almost half of us will be gone! - it's going to be pretty relaxed. We'll only have two more weeks - it's going by so fast!! Hopefully the weather will cooperate and allow for some final exploration of Vienna before everyone takes off for good. I know several students will be staying around and/or traveling throughout Europe a few weeks afterward. I'd say the average is about 3 weeks, like me.

Still working out my own post-program plans...

Another skiing adventure, come and gone.

2009-03-08T23:30:00.002+01:00

It's about 5:30pm and I'm on the train again, heading back to Vienna. Unfortunately this weekend I didn't have a good, steady supply of internet so the blog was neglected. This was probably one of the more eventful ski trips I've been on and to add to the disappointment of no blogging updates – my digital camera ran out of battery juice shortly after our arrival. I'll be able to steal some pictures from my two cohorts but it just isn't the same. Oh well.

It's just starting to get dark now but I have a pretty awesome view of the giant Alps we're leaving behind on the train. We've been on since 4:15pm or so and won't get into Vienna until just after 9:30pm so we're in for a long haul. With our music and laptops and my Michael Savage podcast, we should have plenty to keep us busy.

Anyhow, more details about Zell am See!

So I gave Jeff a skiing offer he couldn't refuse at the beginning of the week, and after several reminders he finally caved and gave me a concisive “Yes.” On Thursday during class, Andrew told me he had caught wind of our weekend skiing plans and asked if he could tag along. I said of course, and at 5:30pm we were on our way.

Our train arrived Thursday night around 11:00pm and we made our way to the hostel which couldn't have been more than half a kilometer from the train station. The reception desk at the hostel only stays open until 10:00pm so someone hid a key for us in an envelope outside of the building. It took us a good 10 or 15 minutes to discern the broken English directions about where to find the key, but we finally did and got our stuff inside. We had already decided drinks were in order along with some grub after the long trip. We found an interesting but lively bar near the center of town where we were able to quench our thirst and fill our bellies at a good price.

Friday morning got off to a late as Jeff had to get his ski rental all set up for the weekend. Andrew decided to sit the day out and recover from the events of last night. He was in no shape to attempt skiing for the first time. The weather on the mountain was pretty crappy but the snow was great and the lift lines were sparse. Jeff and I lasted until about lunchtime but Thursday night caught up to us, too, and we slowly made our way down to the bottom. For dinner, the hostel receptionist recommended a great restaurant with tons of choices. It was the first time in a while we had all been so full – and the food was great! That night we decided to take it easy so we stayed in our room and watched movies.

On Saturday, it was Andrew's turn to get some rental skis set up. He also didn't have any ski pants but he was able to find some nice, fairly cheap ones at the rental shop. The hostel was also full Saturday night so we were moved next door to the Pension Hoffner. We were given a discounted price and the place was pretty neat. A hearty breakfast was also included. After we got everything moved next door and got Andrew's skis figured out, we decided to head to the Kitzsteinhorn via ski bus shuttle, Zell am See's highest skiing area and part of a glacier. It sounded pretty intimidating but most of the runs on the map were only moderate to difficult and even some easy runs. The weather, though, was horrible – windy, snowing and cold! NOT great conditions for our first-time-skiing-friend, Andrew. Not only that, but the sudden altitude change Andrew's body wasn't used to gave him altitude sickness and his Saturday was cut short as he found his way back to the bus stop. Jeff and I continued skiing for the rest of the day, and although the conditions weren't great, skiing was still awesome! We spent most of our Saturday evening at a restaurant near the hotel and only went to a small bar near the train station for a couple drinks.

I woke up this morning to a “warmish” breeze coming from the window. When I looked up, all I could see was blue. This was going to be an awesome day.

I didn't bother waiting for the guys and hopped out of bed to get some breakfast. After that, I gathered up all my things so they'd be ready to go that afternoon. After I was all paid up at the office, I got on the ski bus to Kitzsteinhorn again where I was sure to witness some awe-inspiring views. Awe-inspiring was an understatement and even the gondola ride up got me excited. The sun was shining and I could see huge, jagged Alpine peaks for hundreds of miles. The glacier was wide open with only the T-bar lifts to ski around. It was the typical European ski resort and I was loving it!

The three of us met up for lunch on the hill and laid out our plan of attack for getting to the train station on time. It all worked out and here we are on the “Alpenkonvention” train, direct to Vienna. I still haven't gotten to the bottom of what that's all about, but I remember there being one from Kitzbühel, too. It must have something to do with making stops at all the skiing hotspots and still going directly to Vienna (no transfers in Innsbruck, Salzburg, Wörgl or anywhere else). I believe only on Sundays, too.

Anywho, I've got a small German verb conjugation worksheet to fill out for homework due tomorrow so I'll be blogging more the rest of the week. Tschüss!

Sun in Vienna?!

2009-03-04T18:23:00.006+01:00

Yes, today the sun came out for a fleeting moment! It was ALMOST warm today, too... signs that the end of a cold and dreary Viennese winter is near.

It's hard to believe we only have four weeks of school left after this one. I'll be in Europe for another three afterward but still - it's gone by so quickly! Unbelievable when I compare the semesters that often drag on back in Montana.

So I've made a most glorious discovery: The Pepsi Tallboy (or .5L) - IN A CAN!!

I've been grinding away at job applications and cover letters and all kinds of things. Hopefully I'll have some options by the time I get home. Right now, the things I'm applying for are all over the place but I'll get more specific when I start narrowing things down.

From Laura in Vienna, Spring 2009

Today we visited one of Vienna's many museums, the "Wien Museum." It is Vienna's flagship museum and includes a little bit of everything. We only toured a small section of Viennese history even though there is a HUGE museum completely separate of this one that is dedicated completely to European history. I'll definitely have to try to check it out before I leave here.

Zell am See is official and I'll be heading there on the train tomorrow afternoon. Jeff will be accompanying me as he's been wanting to go skiing since he arrived in Europe but has been pretty busy with other things. We booked a hostel right next to a gondola for Thursday and Friday night and because the hostel is full Saturday night, we'll be staying with his neighbor next door for a fair price. I had to plead him for something on Saturday night so he's doing us a big favor but I really appreciate it!

Postcards from Kitzbühel are in the mail today... I wrote them when I was there but never got around to sending them. Yesterday I went to a small "Tabak" store near our home-stay where they sell cigarettes, magazines, pre-paid phone minutes, postcards, stamps and other little things (Tabak stores are always tiny little whole-in-the-wall-type places) to get stamps. The last time I was there was at the beginning of my stay here to get minutes put on my phone and I didn't know a lick of German. The 30-second task took about 10 minutes as I pointed to my phone and tried to display 20 fingers on my hands, only to receive a confused, blank stare in return. Yesterday I went inside and asked for €20 in pre-paid phone minutes and 10 stamps to the U.S.A.... all in German! By golly, I think I might be learning something!

Anyway, time for HEROES!! Tschüss!

2009-03-02T22:20:00.002+01:00

The weekend went by FAR too quickly and we're all back in Vienna now with Monday out of the way already. Trieste was simply gorgeous and my low expectations for the city were far surpassed. I could definitely have spent a lot more time there enjoying the sun, the easy-going people and the fantastic ocean views.

It seemed like there were people roaming the streets of Trieste all day and all night. Tourist season isn't here yet so nearly all of the people were locals out having a good time and enjoying their weekends. Unfortunately this meant almost NOTHING was open for business on Sunday so a couple of my friends wandered the town for a place to eat before we boarded our train home. We finally found a place, well off the beaten path, but it was cheap and lived up to the deliciousness of Italian food.

The train ride home seemed endless but I passed my time snacking and watching the latest episodes of American Idol and LOST - a couple of my favorite TV shows from back home. We got into Vienna around 23:45 but Frauke had scheduled our Monday activities for a little later start time so getting up this morning wasn't too bad.

Tomorrow morning we'll be visiting the Schuberthaus with our music class and in the afternoon, the psychology class will be visiting the infamous "Mad Tower" where the city used to keep mentally ill patients until 1866. Should be a pretty interesting day.

Plans are in the works for this weekend - ski trip! Right now it's looking like Zell am See, a large resort south of Salzburg. Once again, ÖBB has some really good package deals and I found a great hostel practically next door to one of the lifts so things are falling into place. I might even recruit some of my fellow American students to join me.

Changes to my calendar at the bottom of this page are ongoing so be sure to check it out. Lots of moving around has been done, recently!

Trieste, Italy

2009-02-28T15:11:00.003+01:00

Trieste, Italy is absolutely beautiful! This picture is JUST for you, Mom!! I'm out on a kind of pier that is all stone, looking back into the main city square with some of my classmates. We arrived by train on Thursday afternoon and I think most of us were overjoyed when we transferred to our other train in Udine and had the windows open with warm wind and sun rays shining in on us. Trieste has been no different and walking around the city and along the water without being freezing is so revitalizing. I've been in an unusually giddy and excited mood since Friday, I think because of all the sun and the warm weather. I can't wait for it to warm up a bit in Vienna. I think it will make it even more enjoyable.

On Thursday, we dropped off most of our things off at the hotel and met at a large coffee house near the old port. We had some itinerary business to discuss and also some "Triesten" history lessons. Trieste was once one of the Austro-Hungarian empire's four major cities along with Prague, Vienna and Budapest. It belonged to the empire for around 600 years before the Italians took it back. After WWI, it became part of Austria but after WWII it returned to its Italian roots once again. Because of this, Trieste not only has very Austrian architecture and is somewhat of a melting pot for the Italians, Austrians, Germans, Slavs and other Balkan nations. Pretty interesting stuff, really. We had Thursday night to ourselves so we split up into smaller groups to find some food and found a delicious pork place where we were served a large dish with many different cuts of pork and different ways of preparation. Yummy!

Friday was busy but really interesting! We met in the hotel lobby at 9am after our free continental breakfast and hiked to the military fortress at the top of large hill in the center of the city. It was really neat and had all kinds of weapons and armor from the middle ages. In the afternoon we too a bus to Miramare, the small private castle of one of the famous Habsburgs, Ferdinand Maximilian. The palace was situated at a point right on the ocean with ocean views in every room and a large park with lots of cool walkways and fountains. After exploring the palace and its grounds, we hiked to another small village near Trieste and found a great local place for dinner. More pork but all so delicious!

Friday night was spent mostly in our rooms talking and sharing stories and pictures with each other from home, Vienna and our other travels. This morning we met around 9am again and had a guided tour through Trieste by a very cheery lady. It was neat seeing most of the city and she was able to answer any questions about where to do this and how to do that, etc. etc. This afternoon was all to ourselves so we branched off into smaller groups for lunch, had more gelato and now we're catching up on some much needed rest from being on the go for the last 72 hours. We're done for today and will meet again tomorrow morning for a final excursion and then our train ride home tomorrow afternoon.

I've created another album of Trieste pictures so be sure to click on the link to the right of the page to see more from this bellissimo villaggio!

Ball Season!

2009-02-25T13:11:00.011+01:00

We finally made it to a ball, the final ball of the season! Elmayer Kränzchen Ball was at the Wiener Hofburg Palace (Yeah, the big famous one in the center of the city!) last night from 6pm to midnight. Apparently most Viennese balls end around 3am or 4am, but because yesterday was Fat Tuesday, they started lent today at Midnight and have to get serious, or something.

I borrowed a dress from one of Jake's host-sisters. She had several to choose from but I really liked the one I picked because it was very simple and she actually made it herself! I felt a little under-dressed, actually, because most people were wearing prom dress-type dresses but I didn't really care. I did have to buy some shoes to match the dress... which I felt pretty guilty about but I actually really like them and they were a good price. Anyway, more group pictures to come!

There were four dancing halls - the main hall, a waltz-only hall, a contemporary music hall (i.e. hits from the 80s and 90s, haha) and a club in the basement. It was pretty neat to be able to take your pick and/or find the dance floor you liked the best. There were also numerous bars and several places to get food. Everything was REALLY expensive and you didn't get very much but I went ahead and bought one small glass of wine for €5.50 which, I suppose is pretty standard in the U.S.A. but in Vienna, that is very expensive!! I held out on food until the end of the night when I went to my favorite street-food stand at Karlsplatz where they have the BEST Käsekrainer (cheese-filled sausage inside a big roll with ketchup)!! Only €2.50 and it fills me right up.

Tomorrow is the beginning of our big Italian trip! So of course I just got back from stock-piling on snacks and goodies for the train. It will be just under 8 hours with one change in Udine, right after crossing the border into Italy. I'll definitely be bringing my laptop with the latest episodes of HOUSE and HEROES! We received a rough itinerary of the weekend from Frauke but it basically has us doing some site-seeing and meeting at coffee houses. We have an afternoon to ourselves and I think a few other "free-times." I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing how much Italian I've forgotten since my short trip to Como in 2004. Haha, maybe I still know enough to impress some of my classmates! :p

I'll try to bring you regular updates throughout the weekend. Gute Morgen everyone! :)

2009-02-22T11:41:00.003+01:00

Well I've been slacking on the blog this week, sorry! I haven't really been doing anything too noteworthy compared to some of my other activities. On Thursday we went to Beethoven's house, one of the many, but it was where he spent the longest time in Vienna. Pretty cool and yet another reminder of how OLD this place is! On Friday, one of our fellow American students, Jake, cooked a giant pot of taco soup at a friend's house where we did some socializing with each other and a few Austrians. Delicious!

A lot of AHA students went away this weekend. Some were in Switzerland, some were in Budapest and I believe one went to Cologne. I must admit I'm a little jealous and I would OBVIOUSLY rather be off skiing somewhere this weekend but I've enjoyed some downtime and a healthy amount relaxation at home base.

It's been snowing pretty regularly the past few days but not very heavily. It doesn't seem to build up here like it does back home but maybe that's just because I'm not used to the city.

On Thursday morning, our entire group leaves for Trieste, Italy! Trieste was once part of the Austrian Empire and served as the only sea port. Now it's a part of Italy and is closely bordered by Slovenia and Austria. I'm not sure what our itinerary is yet but I know we're leaving by train bright and early Thursday and returning Sunday night pretty late. I think Frauke is going to give us more details about the weekend plans sometime this week... I will keep you posted!

I visited Jake's homestay today and it's basically a castle. Yeah, seriously... I'll have to take a picture tomorrow. He just got a new cell phone deal and it's way cheaper than what we have right now. He also bought his phone for about $20 in Switzerland a few months ago and it's WAY nicer than the ones we have now! So I'm thinking about buying a phone here and getting a cheaper pay-as-you-go plan. I think it will be cheaper in the long run, plus I'm going to need a cell phone after the program ends.

Anyway, back to the old grime! I have a little homework to do - just some German worksheets and a little dialogue. Then I'm going to watch some TV and go to bed! Gute Nacht! :)

Another visit to the symphony

2009-02-18T22:56:00.008+01:00

Frauke scored some discounted front-row seats to a show at the Vienna Concert House tonight. She purchased them with AHA money so it was all free for us (except for the coat check, which you are REQUIRED to do!!) The performance was all strings with the following program:

Joseph Haydn: Symphonie G-Dur Hob. I/88,
Konzert für Violoncello und Orchester C-Dur Hob. VIIb/1
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Symphonie Nr. 3 a-moll op. 56

I really liked the first one, Haydn's "The Letter V," and I'm actually listening to it again right now! I loved the all-strings sound and I'll probably have to seek out another string concert, soon!

For our final project in music class we have to do a composer/concert report combination and I was thinking about doing it on Camille Saint-Saens. We are required to go to a live performance of the composer's work so I'm not sure how I'm going to figure that one out but I'll ask our professor.

My German is coming along nicely, I think. In Kitzbühel, I met some Swiss people and one of them hardly spoke English so we were forced to try to communicate auf Deutsch! In class this week I could already tell I had moved ahead of everyone else just a tad - it's pretty exciting! :)

I finally spent the rest of the money in my Scottrade account and I'm pretty confident it's a good stock. I already had just 3 shares but it is the only stock in my portfolio that ISN'T crashing to the ground like everything else... so I decided to spend my leftovers on more shares. Let's not get into detail about how my other stocks are doing...

Well it's been snowing here the past couple of days, windy and really cold! I'm debating another day-trip to Semmering on Friday to ski. Sometimes I think it's such a hassle but I know as soon as I get up there I will realize how it's SO worth it. We'll see what happens, I think it will be a game-time decision.

I've been trying to keep up with the rest of the world on CNN, one of the four English TV channels we get here. Obama... you are crazy.

When you're tired, you fall more.

2009-02-15T23:31:00.007+01:00

The sun was shining almost all day today so leaving early was VERY difficult! The views were incredible and I wanted to take a picture everywhere I turned but I knew the camera could never do it justice so I gave up after a while. The nice weather also brought the masses up to the mountain so it was a bit more crowded then yesterday and Friday but if you get far enough away from the main runs, you can avoid them pretty easily.

I'm in the train on my way back to Vienna! There's only internet for First Class so I'm just typing this out now and I'll post it online when I get back to my homestay. Anyway, I decided to stay a little longer and catch the 4:30pm with one transfer in Wörgl. It wasn't too bad and I got the chance to eat a little something before the 4 hour train ride ahead of me. BUT I was still really sad to leave Kitzbühel since it seemed like I only barely scratched th surface of the little town and its giant mountain! There were a couple areas I didn't get to the entire weekend. Oh well, guess that means I'll have to come back someday... Hehe. The hostel was great, too, I have no complaints. The price was right and they had everything I needed - and especially catered to skiers and snowboarders. I even got a ride to the train station!

I've been reading that skiing in Europe is usually pretty comparable, price-wise, to ski trips in the United States. I'll have to look into that sometime and see what it all works out to. I know lift tickets here are WAY cheaper, especially considering how much more there is to ski. So think about it, guys... Christmas in Kitzbühel? I hear it's beautiful! :p

Frischem Pulver täglich (Fresh powder daily)

2009-02-14T17:42:00.005+01:00

No sun today, unfortunately, but at least there was tons of new snow and I imagine there will be lots tomorrow, too! I did a lot more exploring today and got a better idea about how big this place really is... pretty incredible. It was about two hours before closing and I realized I probably needed to start heading back - unthinkable back home!! Some of the ÖBB ski/train packages only offered 6-day passes and now I know why. There's no way I'll have skied every run at Kitzbühel before the end of the day tomorrow! Which reminds me - I have more decisions to make...

Tomorrow a direct train to Vienna leaves here at 3:15pm. I could quit early and get that train, but then I'd miss out on probably 2 or 3 hours of skiing. The next train leaves at 4:30pm but has one change in Wörgl - kind of a hassle with the skis but I did it on the way here so I can do it again. The connections will wait for late trains, too, so if the train you are on is late, the other train you're supposed to catch next will wait for the late passengers. Anyway, it would be nice to have a non-stop train passage but not a huge deal. I guess I'll see how I'm doing tomorrow. Who knows, maybe I'll be completely dead! I wanted to night-ski tonight but I just looked at the schedule and there's only nigh skiing on Friday! So I missed it yesterday, oops!

So tonight is my last night and I'll be headed back to Vienna soon. Three days here was not enough! I'll be planning my next ski adventure very soon... :)

No cool pictures from the mountain today but I've been collecting some funny English translations throughout my travels. They had a couple funny ones here - this what I've got so far:

Prague, Czech Republic - "DON'T ACROSS"

Kitzbühel, Austria - "LIFT UP THE BAR AFTER THE PROVIDED SIGNBOARD"

Kitzbühel, Austria - "Open safety bar straight before exit!"

Skifahren in Kitzbühel - Tag 1

2009-02-13T18:29:00.012+01:00

Well, I didn't think I was going to have any pictures to share with you today because the weather was pretty crappy this morning. But I held out until the afternoon and it cleared up just enough to see some amazing panoramic views. It's pretty awesome here!!

I was a little irritated at first because the place seemed really "choppy." Like I got on the first gondola to get up to the main part of the resort, then I got onto another lift, then I could go back down or keep going up, and then I could get on this other one or this other one... but a lot of the runs weren't that long and there are TONS of cat-tracks! (I guess it makes sense that Austrians are more accepting of all that ski-cross crap!) But after lunch I found the money spot over on the back side. Suuuuper long runs and the weather was just starting to clear up back there so I was excited. I spent the rest of the afternoon back there and overall, I still haven't seen the entire resort. There's probably about half left that I still haven't seen!

Here's a pretty neat view of the city from my journey down to the very bottom:

Getting down before closing was a little stressful! Here, you can't just think about going down to get to the bottom. You can be 3 or 4 lifts away from where you need to be to get down to the right town! There are even a lot of runs that don't have a lift at the bottom - just a little town or village. Some lifts don't have any vertical, they just transfer you from one peak to another. So once again, just like Stuhleck, I was struggling to interpret signs and figure out how to get down to the right spot! Fortunately this time I didn't make any wrong turns.

I had to take a picture of this. You know you're skiing in Austria when...

I met a guy in Vienna Wednesday night who's last name is Reiter - Hah, I don't know if we're related. :p

Plans tonight? No idea. The hostel is pretty quiet right now, I'm not sure where everyone is, maybe out to dinner or something. I went to the grocery store and bought a mini-frozen pizza for myself and some soup packets for the next couple of nights. Gotta learn to conserve the cash!

I suppose that's all the big news for now. More later! :)

Made it!

2009-02-12T23:25:00.002+01:00

I'm in Kitzbühel and found the hostel alright. It's pretty tiny and run by a couple who live upstairs but they seem great and breakfast is free! The other kids here are nice, too. I'm kind of regretting coming here on the train at night because I probably missed out on some awesome views... hopefully I'll get to see a little bit on my way home, Sunday. Anyway, lifts open at 8:30 tomorrow morning so I need to be up bright and early. I'll post pictures tomorrow night! :)

Kitzbühel ski trip now official!

2009-02-10T18:39:00.010+01:00

Thank God I have three days to shred this! Today I purchased my second European ski package with ÖBB to Kitzbühel Ski Area in the Tirol region of Austria. Kitzbühel is just East of Innsbruck and takes about 5 hours by train from Vienna. I will be staying at the SnowBunny's Backpackers Hostel, only a short walk from the train station and ski lifts! My train departs Thursday after class and I'll stay Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. The package includes round-trip railfare and a 3-day ski pass to the resort.

In other news, plans to visit Philip sometime around April are in the works. Hopefully we'll be able to meet up at some point. I'm still planning to spend some time in Luzern with Greti & family around that time, as well. My other post-program travel plans are beginning to dwindle as I have realized I'd rather spend more time with family than try to "travel the world" in a matter of weeks. I'm now thinking to fly to Istanbul, take a bus to Izmir, hang out on some Turkish/Greek island on my way to Athens via ferry, then possibly fly back to Vienna from there. I'm open to any comments or suggestions!

So be jealous: Here's some chocolate Irmtraut gave us... some of them have Schnapps on the inside!! Anyway, tomorrow is Wednesday - my short day. I have class at 9am but I'll be out of there by noon and an entire afternoon of FREEDOM! We got some information from Frauke about public pools so maybe I'll track one down and do some lap swimming. Once again, I'm going to look ridiculous in my bikini because I didn't bring my Speedo... oh well, who cares?! I'll also need to start getting my things together for the ski trip because I'll have to leave IMMEDIATELY after class on Thursday. One other nice thing about the trains, though, is that you don't have to worry about getting there hours and hours ahead of time. They leave at whatever time is posted and all that matters is that you are inside before then! I'll have to admit, I'm still getting used to this as I've been horrendously early for most of my trips thus far. (I just spelled 'horrendously' right on the first try, wow.) :p

Not much other news. Hope everyone is getting their post cards! More on the way! :)

Group Photo!

2009-02-09T00:21:00.002+01:00

(click to enlarge)

Last day in Salzburg & an afternoon in Linz

2009-02-08T11:47:00.006+01:00

From Laura in Vienna, Spring 2009

Well my evening in Salzburg turned out more eventful than I thought. The hostel was hosting a Toga party! Free sheets were available at the front desk and everyone was taking part in the fun, including myself! Yep, I wore a Toga.

Saturday morning I headed out to Leopoldskron and found the Von Trapp house but couldn't really get close! Kind of a bummer but the place is private property and only allows private tours. But I got to see it a little bit so it was cool.

After that, train time. I got to the station about 6 minutes before the next train left for Linz. When I got to Linz, there was some kind of festival going on - there were tons of people out walking around and lining the streets in preparation for what seemed to be a parade. So I walked up and down the main street, battling my way through the crowds, but it was worth it! Linz is a really nice little city with tons of shopping and a really cool open square. I didn't have time to see the Mauthausen concentration camp memorial because the bus schedule was a little weird and I wouldn't be able to come back until 8pm. Maybe some other time, Linz is only a couple hours away. I also went into the Neuer Dom, Austria's largest church. Pretty spectacular but not as "decked out" as some of the other churches I've been in throughout Europe. (St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague definitely takes the cake!)

After a few hours of exploring, I headed back to the train station to catch the next train back to Vienna. I got there with about 5 minutes to spare and even managed to grab some snacks from the grocery store on-site before the train departed.

Last night I met up with Aaron and Mark for a weekend debriefing of all our adventures. Today it's wet and rainy so I don't know if I'll find the motivation to go anywhere. It's been warming up lately but still overcast most days. Hopefully the weather will improve!

(More photos from Salzburg and Linz have been posted on the sidebar!)

From Salzburg

2009-02-07T18:37:00.014+01:00

(I wrote this in the hostel yesterday but couldn't get the internet to work. I'm home now but I'll go ahead and post what I wrote and update you on the last day of my trip, later.)

I'm in Salzburg! What a beautiful town, even in the dreary European winter! Thursday morning I left Vienna at 9:40am and arrived in Innsbruck about 4 1/2 hours later. I only spent a few hours checking the place out but I'm glad I dropped in. It is a lot bigger than I originally thought and bustling with 20- and 30-somethings, entire streets dedicated solely to late-night dance clubs, REAL bike lanes and pedestrians walking the streets wearing snowboard boots and/or with snowboards, skis and ski boots in tow! (There wasn't any snow on the ground, either!) It wasn't even just one area of the town that skis and snowboards were being carried around - it was everywhere!! I couldn't STAND being there any longer the ability to show off my gear, too, so that's probably why I made an early departure. My overall opinion of the place was great, though, and while I was walking around I thought about what apartment building might be good to live in... ;)

I left Innsbruck on the 17:30 train and hit Salzburg right at 19:30. I had looked up some hostels online before I started my trip and picked out the YOHO as a good potential spot. Following some directions I'd written down, I found it pretty easily from the train station and it only took me about 10 minutes to walk there. My 8-bed dorm room was €17 per night and includes free nightly screenings of The Sound of Music. Dinner on-sight was €6 and all-you-can-eat breakfast for €3 in the morning. I could eat wiener schnitzel forever - love the stuff!! Tonight I'm going to try the Potato Gröstl, some kind of potato thing.

After breakfast this morning I climbed Kapuzinerberg, a big hill that
rises directly above the city. It was a pretty good hike and had me
huffing and puffing towards the end, despite me THINKING I was in good
shape. The views were spectacular, though, and totally worth it. Here
is a view of the Hohensalzburg Castle ("Festung") from my hike - and
yup, I went up there, too!

Here it is looking back at the hill I was on earlier.

When I got back into the old town area, there was a little pretzel stand with some huge pretzels and I decided that sounded perfect for a quick lunch. Low and behold, the pretzel stand was owned by the Reiter family who have been making pretzels for generations! Obviously it's unlikely they are the same family as mine, but it's still neat to see Reiters everywhere. I don't think I've ever met another Reiter in the U.S.A. who wasn't in my family.

After that, I hopped onto bus 25 which took me to the Hellbrunn Castle - the location of The Sound of Music's famous gazebo! Definitely checked that out and the park I was in was absolutely gorgeous. The whole place is open and free of charge so I was able to walk around and enjoy the little walkways, ponds and greenery.

Tomorrow morning my plan is to get up, have some breakfast and check out, then head to the Leopoldskron Castle just south of town. Leopoldskron was the Von Trapp mansion in The Sound of Music. I'll be taking pictures! After that I'm going to get back on the train and head to Linz to check out the situation here. It looked pretty neat just going by on the train and I've never been there so heck, why not?! Hopefully I'll be able to track down the Mauthausen concentration camp memorial, too.

After several hours in Linz I'll probably get on the train again and return to Vienna - hopefully before dinnertime. (The train system is SO great here - I know I keep saying that but for example: I purchased a round-trip ticket from Vienna to Innsbruck when I got to the train
station yesterday morning and I can take up to two months to complete it! So I can get on, get off, get on, get off, etc., etc., as long as I'm along the route. Pretty awesome!) Anyway, so getting back to Vienna tomorrow afternoon will work out nicely because spending the ENTIRE weekend on the go can be exhausting.

I guess that's all the news so far, I'll be sure to update again when I get home tomorrow. Tschüss!

Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)

2009-02-03T22:00:00.008+01:00

One of Mozart's most famous operas, "The Magic Flute," was pretty amazing to see in Vienna. We were at the Volksoper and had some awesome seats. The entire thing was in German so of course I had some trouble fully understanding what was going on, bBut I looked up the synopsis online ahead of time, like my mom suggested, and it was a little easier to follow along. The singing was incredible and the costumes were really cool! Although it was a little long and sitting through another opera will be a stretch, I'll probably find myself at another one sometime soon. "Ein Sommernachtstraum" or "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is also playing here and that would be pretty cool to see. Also "Die Fledermaus" is a famous Johann Strauss Operetta now showing and "Die lustigen Nibelungen" is supposed to be interesting, too. They get kind of expensive so we'll see how my budget is doing later in the semester.

Anyhow, Will and I had a great time despite some ticketing discrepancies. (Apparently he bought tickets at a different venue then where he thought we were going? Either way, we made it there and enjoyed it thoroughly!) Afterward we met up with the rest of our AHA gang at 1516 Brewery (we're basically regulars now, the Irish bartender upstairs loves us!) for some Saturday night fun. I'm sitting next to Amy, from Michigan, enjoying my favorite brew from 1516, the Stout. This beer has hops from Oregon! (As long as I know, "Ein dunkles Bier, bitte!" meaning, "A dark beer, please!" I will be fine here in Austria!)

I've decided that if I'm feeling up to it this weekend, I'll be headed to Innsbruck for a few days. I'd like to spend a day in Salzburg on the way back and possibly an afternoon in Linz to check out the situation there. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be skiing since I'll be walking around a lot. This is a tough decision for me because after last Friday at Semmering... I'm dying!! I have nothing going on next weekend so maybe I'll zip down there again for a 100% skiing-only trip. I don't think St. Moritz is going to happen because there is no place to stay that is relatively inexpensive! St. Moritz is such a ritzy place - maybe I'll save that trip for when I'm a millionaire. :p

Getting a little irritated...

2009-02-02T13:02:00.005+01:00

So I've been able to deal for the first month or so but now it's REALLY starting to get on my nerves! EVERYBODY here smokes and every restaurant, bar and public place is full of smoke! My clothes always smell like smoke and now my room is even starting to smell like smoke... it's SO gross!! Now I have to do my laundry twice as often just to get the smoke smell out of everything. I still smell it in my hair after I wash it sometimes, too. I guess the anti-smoking wave has yet to hit Vienna. I'm not sure about the rest of the country. I might have to escape to Germany where smoking isn't as prevalent!

Anyway, just had to get that out. I'm sitting in the school "study lounge" area where there is free internet. The internet at our house will be fixed tomorrow... somehow the router was reset so all the settings went back to default. There's a few of us here just reading, doing homework, talking and surfing the web.

I only have one class today: German. We had a little quiz last week on everything we've learning so far. Greetings, numbers, how to say/ask where you are from, where you live, what languages you speak and how old you are. Pretty basic stuff so I think I'm getting it down. I'm starting to pick up a lot of other German, too, like where we are going and what we're doing. The vocab isn't there yet but in due time! The street names don't seem so foreign to me anymore and I think my pronunciation and German reading is improving a lot. I feel a lot more comfortable romping around town now, too, because I'm becoming a lot more familiar with everything.

That's all the news for now. Still undecided about what to do this weekend... Irmtraut suggested Innsbruck so maybe I'll spend a couple days there, then a couple in Salzburg? We'll see. Talk to you later!

Feel the burn!

2009-01-31T13:34:00.018+01:00

Sorry for the delay - We've been having some internet problems this weekend and our host mom is gone until Sunday so I'm at a coffee shop called "Mokador" that's a short walk from the flat. ANYWAY, now onto what you've all been waiting for: SKIING!

From Laura in Vienna, Spring 2009

Here's a picture of the lodge up at the top of the mountain. This isn't the very top but just about. There's a big cafeteria inside and everything looked pretty new (More on my lunch, later...). As you can see, it was pretty busy. I'm not sure if it's always busy or just because it was a Friday but it was bearable - certainly not what we're used to back at home. I guess I took it for granted, before!

My ticket was from Südbahnhof to Semmering and back with one transfer towards the end. The transfer was simple enough - from platform 1a to 1b (just had to walk up to the train in front of the train I was in.) After we got out of the city a bit, almost all the people in the train were skiers with their skis/snowboards and all their ski gear on so I knew I was headed in the right general direction. Some people even had their ski boots on from the begining of the train ride! I might not use my bag if I go here again because most people just carried their skis around with them everywhere. We got to the "Semmering" train station and much to my dismay, NOBODY got off!! I just froze, not sure what to do... so the train took off again and I was telling myself, "Damnit that was definitely my stop! Now I'm going to have to get off at the next one and wait for a train back the other direction." But I decided to wait it out and see where all these other people were going. Two stops later there was another Semmering - Spital am Semmering - and everyone got off so I followed suit. There was a van waiting for us at the train station to take us about 2km down to the base of the lift.

I put my gear on, found a place for my ski bag and got a keycard at the ticket counter. This is one aspect of skiing here that needs to be implemented back home! Instead of individuals standing in the lift lines scanning lift tickets, there's an automatic scanner that allows you to pass through when your keycard is successfully scanned. You can put it in your pocket and it is still able to read it so you just walk through and the little gate opens for you automatically. DUH!

The lifts were all 4-person or more and really fast! A couple of them had sheilds you could put down if the weather was crappy or something. Lucky for me there was just a little fog in some areas and mostly sunny all day!

For lunch I ate up top and had Wiener Schnitzel with french fries. It's not burgers and fries here, it's Wiener Schnitzel and fries! AND the beer is cheaper than soda or water so of course I washed down my meal with a refreshing Ottakringer, one of Vienna's biggest and well-known breweries. I brought my own water bottle so don't worry, I was plenty hydrated.

After lunch I had a few more hours before the lifts closed at 16:00. I tried to make the most of them but my legs were mad at me for not skiing in three weeks and I was struggling! When I tried to navigate my way back down, I somehow found myself to a different parking lot... so up again a went to try again! Found it the second time and we had to take a lift off the mountain, a lot like Silver Mountain's gondola, back to the parking lot where my shuttle would take me to the train station.

I got there a little early so the van driver suggested I take the next train to Mürzzuschlag, one stop further, to catch a direct route to Vienna. It worked out perfectly but when the ticket man came to check my tickets he said I needed to buy a ticket from Semmering to Mürzzuschlag - it was €1.80 and I kind of laughed.

I got home safe and sound around dinner time. I cooked up a little "instant" pasta. Just pour it into some boiling water for about 5 minutes and there's dinner!

Last night I navigated the night bus system all around town. It's a pretty good feeling knowing you can get just about anywhere in Vienna at any time of the day or night. Love it! I met up with Max (the German skier I met at Flex a while back) to hang out and say goodbye. The quarter is over for University of Vienna students so their break starts this weekend. I believe they have a week of holiday. But Max was only here for one quarter so he's going back to Munich to work! Anyway, we're going to try to make plans to meet up in Laax, Switzerland at the European Open in March.

Aaron is in Paris this weekend visiting a friend and watching more European soccer. We don't really have cell phone contact because it's expensive outside of Austria so I hope he's doing okay!

I posted more pictures of skiing in the Vienna Photos album so you can check those out. Hopefully we'll have internet by Sunday night or Monday at least!

Thanks for the e-mails! :)

Skiing at last!

2009-01-29T11:04:00.008+01:00

On Friday at 7:00 I will be headed, by train, to Semmering, Austria for a skiing day-trip at Stuhleck! My ticket was a special combination with round-trip transportation (including train transport from Südbahnhof to Semmering and a bus from the train station directly to the lift) AND a full day life ticket - all for just €50! The ski resort is not one of the huge, famous resorts of Austria but it's a popular spot for the Viennese locals and only about an hour away by train. Still trying to figure out what to do with my skis or where to put them on the train. But I will DEFINITELY be taking pictures on the mountain!

I'm still in the process of planning my other skiing adventures and the hardest part will be deciding which resorts to go to because there are SO MANY good ones! Lodging is my biggest road-block because staying on the mountain is, obviously, SUPER expensive and not all the small ski-towns have hostels or cheaper places to stay. Laax is basically confirmed because I have a couple different options there but St. Moritz has turned into a problem because I can't find available lodging for the entire weekend. I don't really want to show up and realize there's nothing under €400 a night. I'm thinking St. Anton for the first weekend in February but again, I need to find some cheap lodging before I can commit! Kitzbühel, Hintertux and Hallstatt are also in the running for some weekend skiing. I will keep you updated...

Andy Roddick is making a comeback against Roger Federer in the Australian Open semi-finals this morning. I set my alarm for 9:30 so I could watch it live on EuroSport. I'm not too fond of the announcers and it's making me miss the McEnroe brothers!

I woke up to snow today but there's not a lot on the ground, less than an inch. It hasn't been lasting too long, maybe a day or two, because the weather has warmed to the 35s and 40s this past week. My boots are perfect, though, and I have no complaints. Super comfy and super warm!

We have a little German quiz this afternoon - introductions, numbers and "I am," "he is," "we are," "they are," etc. Shouldn't be too difficult. After that, our music class is going to the Mozart museum for a little tour. Then it's weekend time! Probably going to take it easy and hang out around here. I still have a lot of exploring in Vienna to do. :)

I suppose that's all the news. GO ANDY!!

Finally - the Prague adventure revealed!

2009-01-27T17:44:00.003+01:00

Guten Tag! I finally have some time to sit and write - I've been pretty busy lately. I hope you enjoyed looking at some of the pictures, in the mean time. So here goes...

We arrived in Prague around 10:30am - four girls and two boys. When we got off the train, three of the girls decided to split off and do their own thing. Myself, Aaron and the other guy, Will, already had reservations at Sir Toby's but the other girls didn't so they were going to try to find a different one to stay at for some reason. I have no idea why but whatever. So the three of us went to the hostel to get rid of our things and lock them up there. The front desk guy was super nice and had maps and information all ready for us about where to go and what to see, along with what trams went where, etc. The hostel was very cozy, as you might have noticed from the pictures, with clean bathrooms and a nice, big kitchen. We spent the afternoon walking around Prague. Aaron had done some reading to figure out what the best things to see were and also had some background information for us about a lot of the attractions. Almost the entire city had cobblestone streets so it really had an OLD city feel. Our first stop was a huge museum with just about everything you could imagine. We spent a few hours there and still didn't really see all of it! After the museum we checked out some cool towers and the main city square, Old Town Square. It was starting to get dark so we decided to head back to the hostel and pick up some dinner on the way. We cooked spaghetti in the hostel kitchen that night. After careful consideration in the grocery store, we chose some spaghetti sauce made by Heinz. When we opened up the can to put on our spaghetti noodles, it was a can of pre-made spaghetti!! We took the noodles out and poored what little sauce was left onto our noodles. It tasted like spaghettios... but it was food! There was quite a crowd in the kitchen with us, eating and cooking, so it was easy to start conversation with some new people. We met a Canadian from Calgary, an Argentine from Buenos Aires, an Australian girl from the Sydney area and an old Swedish guy who was really nice and full of information about all his traveling.

While we were talking in the kitchen, we watched in disbelief as a bunch of AHA students walked by the window. There were about 5 of them who were supposed to go to Brno, southern Czech Republic, just for the day or one night, I can't remember. So they showed up in the kitchen with an interesting story:

Apparently they had a train transfer they didn't know about and two or three hours into the trip someone started to realize that they should have been in Brno by now. They found a train attendent who laughed and told them, "Warsaw is nice, too! We are almost to Poland!" So the group decided to get off and either go back or take a train West to Prague and meet up with us. They opted for the latter and there they were!

We relocated to the bar downstairs in the hostel and stayed there just talking and laughing for the rest of the night. It was a great night for all of us!

Our rooms were the cheapest available at the hostel, a 10 bed dorm room. They were pretty basic but the linens were clean and comfy and there were plenty of showers and sinks for everyone in the evening and in the morning. There was also plenty of locker space - I'm SO glad Megan told me to get a lock! (Just so happened there is a lock/key store between my homestay here and the U-Bahn station I go to everyday!) Anyway, I was really impressed with the hostel, especially since our rooms were only 250 Koruny a night which is less than $12 or €9!

Saturday morning we did more walking and touring of sites. Basically all day, every day we were walking around the city exploring. We climbed just about every tower and entered just about every church we encountered. Europe has some mind-blowing churches, let me tell you...

Saturday night I made kielbasa for the three of us and again we hung out in the kitchen talking with other guests until 9 or 10pm when we migrated down to the bar for more conversation.

On Sunday we had to be out of our rooms by 11am so we packed everything up and locked up so we could walk around in the city again. We headed to an old Jewish cemetery with a small Holocaust museum attatched. It didn't have the same effect as Washington, D.C.'s but it was pretty good. We randomly ran into a friend from the hostel in Old Town Square and went to lunch at a traditional Czech cuisine restaurant - it was tasty! After lunch we headed back to the hostel to check e-mail and gather our things for the train ride home. Departure was at 17:30 and we got in right at 22:00 (10pm).

So that was our trip in a nutshell! We ran into the girls a couple other times but they were more interested in boys than anything else so we didn't hang out with them much. Some people were dissapointed that we didn't go out and get crazy since it was PRAGUE but I'm really glad we just stayed low-key. I can go out and party anywhere so my #1 priority was seeing the city and getting a feel for the Czech Republic. I'm happy we didn't have to worry about where the "best" place to party was and we had tons of fun in the hostel, anyway.

Prague, Czech Republic

2009-01-24T20:12:00.004+01:00

I'm in Prague! We've been pretty busy but this place is amazing! The hostel is great and we've spent two days walking around with still plenty to see. I'll post all my pictures when I get back to Wien. We're leaving tomorrow at 17:30 so I should be home around 22:00 or 22:30. Expect some postcards!

Exciting day!

2009-01-22T19:33:00.008+01:00

Today we visited a good friend of our music teacher who is an antique piano restorer! We got to look at all these old pianos (like from the 1800s!!) and hear how different they all sounded. It's pretty amazing how much variation there used to be - now a days, he explained to us, pianos are all built pretty much the same and have little character.

I can't remember what is name was but he was in the process of building a piano, a version more similar to a harpsichord, that would be played in the main music hall of The Musikverein! Pretty cool stuff. Today was my favorite "school trip" so far. I kept thinking, "Oooh, Mom would be so jealous!" Aaron even said today that maybe she should have just come along because I've been saying that a lot! By the way, that is Aaron in the upper right.

We also has a school trip to a Jewish Temple that was the only one left standing in Vienna after WWII. The temple had been "camouflaged" in a way because the city of Vienna allowed them to construct it as long as it didn't look like a Jewish Temple. So instead of a massive stand-alone building, the temple was actually inside a normal Viennese-style building. This is the main reason the temple was spared in the war because not many people knew it was there.

A few thoughts on being an American in Austria: In the beginning I just wanted to blend in and "be a local" and I would get frustrated because most of the time it was still obvious to many people that I wasn't from around here. Guys selling stuff in the U-Bahn stations would say, "Hello, it is nice to meet you!" and, "Hi, how are you?!" without any of us even uttering a word! Now that I've had some time to think about it, I think it's pretty neat that the American style and culture is so apparent overseas. I like that our bright ski jackets and backpacks have become a symbol of the American youth and I'm proud to walk the streets flaunting my unique, American style.

I'm also still on the hunt for dill weed and an Asian grocery store...

Prague tomorrow morning, I'd better start packing! I'll send some postcards!

United Nations Vienna, the highlight of my trip! ...Just kidding!!

2009-01-21T18:53:00.011+01:00

From Laura in Vienna, Spring 2009

Well I had one class today and then we had a class trip to the United Nations building here in Vienna. It was cool to see one of the headquarter buildings but we didn't get to spend much time roaming around and our two lecturers were 1) Boring and 2) Full of s***. Haha but of course it was an experience and I'm glad we had the opportunity to go.

Anyway, another quiet night for me. Class tomorrow at 9am! Tchüss!

An Evening with Mozart & Beethoven

2009-01-19T19:10:00.007+01:00

(I just added a couple pictures to this post.)

Aaron and I spent our Sunday evening at The Musikverein in the city center. (A small change of plans from the hockey game!) The following was our concert program:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:

From Laura in Vienna, Spring 2009

Ouverture zur Oper „Lucio Silla“, KV 135
Alma grande e nobil core. Arie für Sopran und
Orchester, KV 578
Giunse al fin il momento. Arie der Susanna aus
der Oper „Die Hochzeit des Figaro“, KV 492
„Temerai…come scoglio“ aus der Oper
„Così fan tutte“, KV 588
Parto, parto, ma tu, ben mio. Arie des Sesto aus
der Oper „La clemenza di Tito“, KV 621
Ludwig van Beethoven:
Symphonie Nr. 7 A-Dur, op. 92

Maybe Mom can interpret that!! There were a couple that I really liked and the singer was incredible! I think Aaron was even able to enjoy it. The cost was €5 for standing room only but we were able to sit on the floor about half the time so it wasn't bad.

For the music class we have to do a short report on a concert or Opera of your choice and also a report on a composer. I was assigned Beethoven so I have to write a paper about him! There are quite a few concerts/operas/musicals to choose from but one of my friends wanted to see The Magic Flute so I might go to that. I think I've heard of it but I don't know anything about it. Anyone want to fill me in?? :)

I went to the grocery store for the FIRST time today! That is probably a bad thing but they are so tiny here and it isn't any fun when you have no idea what anything is. But I managed and I should have plenty of food here for a while. I got sandwich items so I can pack a lunch, too.

Aaron and I booked our train tickets to Prague. We'll be leaving Friday morning at 6AM!! Aaron has soccer practice until 19:30 Thursday night so we decided just to leave early in the morning and try to sleep on the train - that way we won't have to pay for another night at the hostel. (Sir Toby's) We should get to Prague around 10:30AM. We reserved the cheapest rooms and our round-trip train ticket was only €80 total so I think we're traveling fairly cheap.

I keep forgetting to fill you in on Aaron's soccer situation since you might be wondering why he has actual PRACTICE! He is a goalkeeper on his college soccer team in Ohio and wanted to participate in a study abroad program to pursue a position with a semi-professional or professional soccer team here in Europe. He contacted some teams in Vienna and arranged for a try-out and got on one of the semi-pro teams here! So now he has practice 6 days a week with the exception of some pre-excused weekends for our program trips. But we're all really excited for him and will hopefully be able to watch him play in some games, soon!

Anyway, so we're trying to get some other people to come to Prague with us but we didn't want to wait around with the tickets so we just booked everything for ourselves. It sounds like a couple more students will join.

I'm looking forward to a quiet night tonight! Tomorrow I have Music, German and Psychology. I feel like I'm never going to learn German because it's so overwhelming but I think I'm starting to pick up on some things. Hopefully the huge learning curve will start to kick in! I have plenty of time!

Samstag Nacht

2009-01-18T11:36:00.004+01:00

Well Mom will be happy to hear that my Saturday night was not as eventful as Friday. I went to Aaron and Mark's homestay for spaghetti and we just hung out and talked about life and travel plans. After a few hours we decided to go walk around the neighborhood and do more exploring. When I was too tired to stay up and longer I decided to head home, but had to use the night bus! So we figured out I needed bus 67 and I could catch it about 5 blocks away. Didn't have any trouble finding it and when I got on I sat next to a couple of guys and told them it was my first time on the night bus and I wanted to get off at Südtiroler Platz. They told me it was one stop before there's and they would tell me when. So we had a short little conversation about where I was from and what I was doing here and then it was time for me to get off. It stopped pretty close to my homestay and I didn't have any trouble finding my way back from there. So proud!

Vienna Capitols hockey game tonight - I have to try not to spend all my money on hockey! But these games are only €11 for standing room so I should be okay.

First BIG night out!

2009-01-17T15:43:00.004+01:00

Well I don't have any good pictures for this post but the story is pretty interesting! Most of the group met up at a brewpub called 1516 for drinks around 21:30 or 22:00. Because there wasn't enough room for all of us to sit together at one table, (there were about 14 of us) we split into two groups. I went upstairs with Aaron, Mark and Paige and the four of us had shared five pitchers by the end of our night there! Although Aaron told us he wasn't going to drink much because of a soccer game he had the next morning, for whatever reason something clicked and he decided he was going to chug the rest of the beer he was drinking, buy and consume three shots of Jäger, tell us all, "Goodnight, see you tomorrow!" and finally chug a second beer. We then busted out Aaron's camcorder and documented the after effects so hopefully we'll get that uploaded soon.

I heard some native English speakers behind me at some point during the night and asked them where they were from. One was from New York and one was from Ohio but the entire group was a part of the IES Study Abroad program, one that I looked into. I decided not to do it because it was a lot more expensive than the others but after talking with them a bit about it, I'm REALLY glad I didn't do it. Their group is over 100 kids! Our group has 17!

A few hours later we decided to migrate to a club called Flex - said to be one of the more popular clubs in Wien. We had to catch the U-Bahn before the last run of the night at 23:30! Aaron and Mark decided to call it a night and headed home but I went the other direction to Flex. I came out of the U-Bahn station and started walking the wrong direction. (I was given some horrible directions!) But someone came up to me while I was trying to text for better directions and said something in German. "Sprechen Sie Englisch?" I said. He responded in English and asked what I was doing standing all alone and I said, "Flex?" He pointed me in the right direction and Flex was only a few blocks down the river. "Danke Schön!"

The club was dark and smokey but FINALLY we were in a place with a lot of young people. I grabbed a bottled beer and started chit-chatting with some locals. Most of the young people spoke decent English but I did encounter some that were not very good at all! After some talking our group of Americans (now down to about 5) decided to hit the dance floor. It was pretty chaotic! I met a guy from Germany who took me up to the stage to dance! We were up in front of everyone, just dancing and having a good time. He was a skier and was pretty impressed that I skied, too! After a while the other kids in our group started to leave, one by one. Then the bouncers started kicking people out for the night. I went with my new friends to the U-Bahn station where I thought we were going to wait for the Nächt Bus (Night Bus - Some of the tram lines turn into bus routes that go all night long. I'm still trying to master this schedule, though)... Turns out it was about 4:30AM and we were waiting for the U-Bahn to open up again at its regular 5AM start time! Apparently that's how everyone does it around these parts. So I ended up getting home about 5:30 this morning. Hopefully that won't become a regular occurrence.

Tonight we're going to try to find some different bars and do more exploring. There is another club called B72 that we're going to try. All the young people come out of the woodwork on Friday and Saturday night so it was nice to see more kids our age on the U-Bahn and walking around the city. Wish us luck! :)

More Photos

2009-01-16T20:12:00.003+01:00

Here is a link to my Facebook photo album for Vienna that will be updated regularly. I can't really post all of my pictures on this blog so this is one way you can see all the pictures I take. You can view the album without being a member of Facebook by clicking below:

Some Pictures from in and around Vienna

The Klosterneuburg Monestary

2009-01-16T17:45:00.016+01:00

Today we traveled to The Klosterneuburg Monastery just north of Wien. It didn't seem to take long to get there but I had to take the U-Bahn all the way to the end of one line, then we met with Frauke and got on a bus that took us even further north, all the way to Klosterneugurg. The monastery was INCREDIBLE and I actually managed to take some pictures!

The existence of the monastery was first documented in 1108. Our guided tour included places inside that the average tourist could not gain access. It was pretty amazing looking at a wall said to be over 1000 years old. We saw original paintings of the first-ever depiction of the city of Vienna, eye-glasses and metal. (Artists before that time didn't know how to paint a picture of metal using shading/light, etc.)

Here's a shot of our group in one of the smaller chambers of the monastery. This was definitely one of those places you have to see in person to get the whole feel. The sheer size and attention to decorative detail was astonishing. Needless to say, everyone in our group was blown away!

The area near the monastery is wine country, so of course there was an old winery on-site. We gazed upon the country's largest wine barrel - 56,000 liters!!

From Laura in Vienna, Spring 2009

After we toured the monastery we went to a Heuriger for food. Heurigers are essentially wineries that offer food and spirits. There are many throughout the small towns around Wien because of all the vineyards. Wien is fairly well-known for their wine and now I know why! The wine here is superb!

I haven't been keeping up with my daily postings but I will keep trying! Thanks for reading.

Boring Days

2009-01-13T17:19:00.002+01:00

I didn't write yesterday because not much really happened... and today was pretty bland, as well. It's hard for me to say that without feeling a little guilty because I'm in VIENNA, AUSTRIA right now!! And while not many "notable events" took place the last couple of days, the daily travels to and from class are always enjoyable as there is still so much to see. There are quite a few different options as far as transportation to the school is concerned and we have yet to discover them all. For instance bus, tram (street car) and/or Ü-Bahn (underground train).

But you might be somewhat interested in the days happenings so I will try to write about them in a nutshell. Paige and I slept in until about 10:30 since we didn't have class until 13:30. Once we got there we went to a youth center near the main area of town where young people are offered all kinds of free information about where things are and what to do in Vienna. We also learned it was a good place to buy cheap concert tickets. From there, Paige and I went to a small restaurant for a soup dinner and after that we split off to do other things. I went to the store to purchase a few things like shampoo, conditioner, soap and a washcloth. (Apparently most people around these parts do not use a washcloth!) I came home and relaxed for the rest of the night.

This morning, Paige and I had class at 9:00 - Music in Vienna. This class seems like it will be mostly about music history and theory but our instructor, Solvik, did play (literally, like on the piano next door to our classroom!) some peices for us in attempt to demostrate the differences in musical eras. For example music from the Classical era compared to music from the Romantisicm era. Some students in the class have NO musical background so it should be interesting! For lunch I went with Jeff and Aaron to the Universität Wien cafeteria for a filling, yet inexpensive lunch among many Austrian students. After lunch we had round two of Beginning German class where we learned basic introductions, how to say where you are from and where you live and what languages you can speak. There are about six student in the class and Frauke, our instructor, is very fun! The next class was Psychology in Vienna and although rather dull today due to the need for a background and history lesson before getting into the real material, I have a feeling it will be very interesting. I think we will be doing a lot of class discussion from now on. Our instructor has a thick accent but it is fun to listen to her.

Tonight I am going over to Aaron and Mark's homestay where Mark is going to cook us an authentic Russian soup for dinner. He was having trouble finding chicken broth but I think one of the instructors was able to point him in the right direction. (Cubes, right!?)

Tomorrow I have European Cities from 9:00 to 11:00 and then I'm done! Not sure what I'm going to do with my free time, yet. Hopefully take some pictures for everyone!!

I have changed my Facebook to Deutsch so everything is in German, now. Full immersion! :)

Hockey Night in.... Austria!?

2009-01-12T00:05:00.009+01:00

Of course I looked up the local hockey team here in Vienna and found it home to the Capitals, a member of the ERSTE (means 'first' - thanks Mom!) Bank league.

From Laura in Vienna, Spring 2009

As it turns out, Doug Lynch - former Spokane Chief and British Columbia native - now plays for this team! I vaguely recall hearing something about him playing in Austria when I was in high school but hadn't really thought about it until I looked up the player roster and saw his name. Pretty random! So a couple AHA friends and I headed to the rink tonight for some good ol' Austrian hockey. The "Caps" beat Slovakian team Jesenice 4-3 in overtime. Maybe next week we will go and stay afterward to try to talk to Doug!

In other news, one of the AHA students here is first cousins with Sasha Cohen.

This morning, Paige and I woke up to the sound of children playing and laughing. I stepped outside the room to find this:

Just like home back in the old days! Irmtraut had her 3 grandchildren over for their Sunday visit. They live in a different area of Vienna.

I'm sure you're interested in our night last night. It was kind of a bust... a lot of the students decided they were too tired to go do anything! So Paige and I ended up walking around our neighborhood in attempt to A) Get to know the place, and B) Possbilly/Hopefully find a place to hang out. The closest we came was a gay bar with "MEN ONLY" written in English on the door. Oh well!

First day of classes tomorrow. Paige and I are not in the Human Rights course that meets at 9:00 tomorrow morning so we don't have to arrive at the school until 13:30. That will be nice!

More pictures!

2009-01-10T15:19:00.003+01:00

Our host mom, Irmtraut, has a piano!! Big thanks to the homestay coordinator for placing us according to our hobbies and interests. There is also a small community ice rink outside in the park next to us!

Here is the group, minus a couple students in the corner that I couldn't fit in the picture. We are eating at a restaurant called the Rosenburg Market. It is a popular restaurant chain, buffet-style, in Austria. Many of the students are from the Portland area but there are also students from California, Nevada and Ohio.

Today we did a lot of walking around in the main city center. We saw the stables where the famous Lipizzaners are kept (right in the middle of the city!) and a lot of giant churches, court yards and old emperor quarters. I didn't take any pictures even though I told myself I had to... but I plan on going back on my own or with one or two others to get a closer look at everything. I will take pictures then, I promise!

Tonight will be our first night out because we have tomorrow off! A friend I met in Vernon, BC came to Austria a couple years ago and has some contacts here. He gave me his friend's contact information and we chatted online a bit last night about where some good places to go are... Hehe, should be interesting.

I forgot to tell you a pretty funny story from our first day here. One of the girls in our group, Maria, had to visit the hospital the day she got here because her hand fell asleep on the airplane and never woke up! She was freaking out a little bit but the doctor apparently wasn't too surprised and explained that it happens all the time. He gave her a splint and said she'll need to wear it for 2-4 WEEKS! The feeling in her hand still hasn't started to come back, yet... how crazy!

I will be sure to fill you in tomorrow on tonight's adventures. Good morning to everyone back home! :)

Home Sweet Home

2009-01-09T18:38:00.010+01:00

My new roommate, Paige, and I are finally unpacking in our new home away from home on Hauslabgasse. It is much larger than I thought it would be and our host mom is extremely nice. She knows English fairly well but I requested she speak lots of German so I can learn faster!

Today the students gathered in our classroom for the first day of orientation. We learned a bit of basic Vienna history and also a few culture and customs differences we might encounter here. We went to the Universität Wien student cafeteria for lunch which was surprisingly cheap and very good. After a few more hours of orientation in the classroom, we headed back to the hotel to finally meet our host families. We had some issues with my ski bag - had to order a cab because my host mom didn't have a big enough car! Whoops!

Tomorrow we have more orientation and a city tour. It's only been one day but I feel like I already know my way around pretty well. Public transit is easy to negotiate and our program fee includes free city transit everywhere in Vienna. I'm looking forward to some days off for exploring.

Here's a picture of my corner of the bedroom. I share it with Paige but it is probably 3 or 4 times larger than my room at home!

From Laura in Vienna, Spring 2009

Willkommen in Österreich!

2009-01-08T15:54:00.002+01:00

Pros: No extra charge for luggage - even oversize!
Cons: Austrians get airsick far too easily.

I have finally arrived in Vienna where the other students and I have settled in at a small hotel (Pension Kaffeemühle) near the Westbahnhof as per program instructions. We are meeting for dinner tonight with our program director, Frauke Binder. Tomorrow we will receive our schedules, cell phones and meet with our host families who will then take us to our new home away from home.

More later.