If You're Not First, You're Last

Mondays are hard.  Three classes are just so difficult to sit through, especially when there are so many better things I could be doing.  (What am I going to do when I go back to BYU when I don't have anything fun to do AND I have to sit through class... It's gonna be rough!)

Last Monday, after our classes, we went down to the Danube and floated along the river in paddle boats.  Maddie, Annisija, Shelly and I shared a boat, and it was great to just relax and hang out.  Of course, we relaxed for about a half hour, and then Professor Minert organized a race and got to his boat the fastest would get the prize... the rest of his bag of gummy bears!  All of us girls are competitive, and we took turns peddling until our thighs and glutes were on fire!  Guess who won? That's right, we did.  And guess how many gummy bears were left?  About two for each of us... But we were victorious, and that's really all that matters right?  Like Shelly said, "If I don't win, I quit."  Couldn't have said it better myself.

Maddie and I have been running in Vienna a few times a week.  We ran the Ringstrasse last week, which is just under 4 miles.  It's great!  We even bought matching running outfits, and they are fantastic.  It hasn't been warm enough to wear them yet, but trust me, when we do I'll post pictures.

Story time.  Last Thursday, Kendal and I thought we had dinner with our host mom, so we raced home to make sure we were there on time.  Originally we had planned for Friday, but then Frau Schauer told us that she was going to an Opera on Friday and told us to be home on Thursday night.  Apparently there was a misunderstanding because when we got home Frau Schauer was asleep!  And we ended up missing dinner on Friday because we were with our group all day.  It was crazy, but we finally worked out what had happened and have decided to have dinner every Tuesday so there's no problems in the future!  We had our first Tuesday dinner last week and it was nice to get to know our host mom and her daughter-in-law better.

On Friday we went to the Melk Monastery.  My favorite room was the library.  It was huuuuge, and there were thousands of books.  Even though the books were not the usual types of books I read, it was still amazing to be in such a beautiful library!

Melk Monastery

View from Melk Monastery

The chapel

The library!

We left from Melk and went on a 20 mile bike ride along the Danube.  The weather was perfect, the views were phenomenal, and the exercise felt amazing.  We were all tired by the end, but we had no idea where to put our bikes and our professor was about an hour behind us.  We rode along the same stretch of land probably 10 times, while we tried to figure out where to put our bikes.  It wouldn't have been so bad, but every time we had to get back onto our bikes our sore bums were not happy.  But it was great bonding time, and it was fun hanging out with everyone in the group!

After the bike ride, a few of us went to Pratter, which is the amusement park in Vienna.  We rode the spinning swings, that took us way above the city, and it was awesome to see Vienna at night, with all the lights of the city glittering below, at such a great vantage point.  Kiersten and I also went on the human sling shot.  I had done one before in Denver, but this was the first time for Kiersten.  It made the whole experience so much more fun! Haha

These are the swings.  This isn't when I went, we went
when it was dark, but it was still awesome!

Hallstatt is hands down the most beautiful place I have ever been in my life.  Even though it was cold and raining our whole trip this past weekend, it was amazing.  We got to tour the salt mine.  Shelly and I walked up to the mine, while the everyone else rode the tram.  Apparently, though, the last tour started about 10 minutes before we reached the mine, but when we got there one of the tour guides took us to catch up with the rest of the group, so that was nice.  We had paid for it already and didn't want to waste our 16 Euros.  The mine was worth it, though.  The tour was great, and we got to race down slides in ridiculous suits which makes everything better!  I can't even describe how amazing the rest of Hallstatt was, and not even my pictures can do it justice, but that's the best I've got!

 We went to our church ward for the first time on Sunday.... and we were 50 minutes late.  Pretty much everything that could go wrong did, and we finally made it to church after missing the bus, getting off at wrong stops, and walking around in the freezing cold rain.  Willie Hirschmann is in our ward, which is great!  He is the grandson of Johann Huber (the man who pioneered the church in Austria) and he is one of the cutest old men I have ever met.  And for 81 years old, he is super mobile!  We actually met him before we went to church.  As a group we went to his apartment and he told us about his family and his experiences during WWII.  When he was 8 years old he watched the tanks roll down the streets when the Germans came into Austria.  Listening to Willie Hirschman's stories made the events of WWII more real to me, and I was glad he was willing to share some of his past with us.

In the cellar at Willie Hirschmann's

On Friday we head to Germany for a 10 day trip, including stops in Dresden, Berlin, Prague, and Freiberg.  I am excited.