Just Another Day in Paradise

Wow! These last few days have been absolutely exhausting and totally incredible! There's been so much going on that I won't share everything, though I would love to! This will just be a quick(ish) overview of what we've been doing.

After meeting up with my group in the Minneapolis Airport, we all flew together to Amsterdam, where we nearly missed our connecting flight to Vienna because our layover was so short! Luckily we didn’t, and we arrived in Vienna safely at about 1 o’clock last Friday. We were all extremely excited, so lack of sleep wasn’t affecting our energy yet! We walked around Vienna, just doing some quick sightseeing, but nothing too in depth. I think we all realized just how tired we were when we went to dinner and started falling asleep over our food! We spent Friday night in the Pension Baroness hotel.

Kendal, my roommate, and I met our host mom on Saturday. She is just the sweetest lady. She has been hosting study abroad students for over 30 years, so she’s a pro! Her name is Frau Schauer, and she speaks mostly German, and a little English. It’s a little hard to communicate, but we’re getting better every day, and it’s fun to practice our German in real conversations! Frau Schauer lives in the cutest home. There’s really no way for me to describe it other than that -- just cute. I’ll post pictures of the house, backyard, and our room! The first night we stayed with Frau Schauer, she and her daughter-in-law took us to a cute little restaurant called Bunt. We ate our dinner in this small courtyard, in the perfect Vienna evening weather, it was fabulous! The inside of the restaurant had three different themed rooms -- red, green, and pink. I will have to go back at some point because I didn’t have my camera with me at the time, and I'd really like to take some pictures there.

On Sunday, we took the S-bahn and the U-bahn (streetcar and subway) to church at the outreach center in Vienna. The public transportation system here is so simple to use, which is definitely nice since we already use it a ton. After church, we went on a scavenger hunt to this really great park. Again, I didn’t have my camera with me at the time, so I’ll be going back to snap some photos! Oh, and on the way back from the park, we saw a fight on the U-bahn. From what our German friend heard, one of the guys had touched the other guy’s girlfriend inappropriately. It looked like one of the guys was trying to gouge the other’s eye out, it was crazy. Their girlfriends pulled them apart though, so the fight didn’t last too long. This isn’t typical in Vienna, though, it really is a very safe city! We ate dinner at our Professor’s apartment on Sunday night, and it was great to kick back and relax after going non stop the last few days.

We had our first day of classes on Monday, and our professors mostly explained what we’ll be doing this semester. I’m super excited. A bunch of us from the program went to dinner at the outreach center on Monday night (it's very inexpensive, only 1,50 Euros) The food here is phenomenal! I’m going to be so spoiled when I come back to the states!

Yesterday, for our Art History class, we went to the Wien Museum Karlsplatz. I love museums, and this one was so great. We got to see different models and maps of Vienna as it grew throughout history, as well as old artifacts, and paintings of those people that are very important to Austrian history. My favorite part of the museum was when our professor talked about St. Stephen’s Cathedral (so far, my most favorite building in the city, it is beautiful). Our professor made a reference to how church buildings can often be described as “out of this world” and how he really loves this English phrase. It’s a perfect explanation of church buildings because these buildings are the temporal representation of and dedication to heaven. We went into St. Stephen’s Cathedral the first day we were in Vienna, and though there were a lot of people there taking pictures and walking around, there was still a peaceful and comforting feel to the place. I will definitely be going back again! Right outside the museum there is a park, with benches and trees and a little pond. There was a man playing the accordion, and I think that was the first time I really realized that I am actually in Europe! It was great.

Also, I had gelatto for the first time EVER yesterday, and it was delicious! I’m going to have to be careful here, because I’m pretty sure I could spend all my money on gelatto! My friend Shelly and I also shared a fruit-tart that was completely fabulous. I love the food here!

Today was pretty eventful. Our group got registered with the city, so we are no longer ‘tourists’ but actual residents of the city. (Which is funny, because today I felt more like a tourist than I have before because I actually had time to walk around and take pictures!) Shelly and I also got lost for the first time today. I’m really surprised it didn’t happen sooner... (Even though the transportation is really easy to understand). And we weren’t really lost, we knew exactly where we were, we just couldn’t find our way back to where we needed to be! All in all, it was a pretty great adventure, and we made it to our destination safely, albeit very late. We have a class called Experiencing Vienna (sweet, right?) with our Professor, and today he took us to the Vienna Ferris Wheel, which when it was built, was the tallest in the world. It was great to see the beautiful city of Vienna from such a great height!

So, there's my last few days in a nutshell. I'm going to try and keep up with my blog a little more regularly, but we don't have internet at our house, so that may prove a little difficult. We'll see how it goes.