Auf Wiedersehn, Wien!

Humongous sprinkler along the Danube where we went canoing...

Soccer bun!

What? No kangaroos in Austria - then why am I eating one for dinner?!?!

Ingrid, our house frau! She insisited we take this picture looking "just as we are." Rachel's even wearing our favorite XL white t-shirt... oh, memories....

Hallo!

Today has been a good last day in Vienna. My Art and Architecture final went pretty well, and I got a decent grade on those journals I had written - so that aspect of my trip finished well. At noon, we took a second session group picture outside the opera house, then went to our goodbye dinner, where I had an amazing lunch of a fresh green salad, mushroom soup, and this really good spinach/potato pasta. It was fun, I sad good-bye to some friends who were leaving this afternoon to travel to different parts of Europe, and Doc even got choked up when saying good bye to us all... After lunch, Rachel, Paige, and I changed into swimsuits and went down to the Danube for some afternoon canoing! That was an interesting experience. First of all, the canoe rental place was on a small hill above the Danube, so we had to figure out how to carry it down the hill and load up in it all by ourselves. Granted, this was after a junior high boy nearly destroyed Paige's and my cameras after turning that massive sprinkler at us. We weren't too happy - Rachel was about ready to take them out. Anyways, once we were in the canoe, we had to make sure we stayed enough in the center to avoid getting tipped by groups of guys sort of swimming/sort of chasing our canoe. We survived that. Then, we tried to outrun two guys in a paddle boat who decided to come out and meet us, but to no avail. It was really awkward, one of them had a cigarette, and when they finally reached us, they just looked at us - weird. We decided to use their boat as a push off and paddled (?) away. After we got the canoe back up the hill and left the Danube, we heading to CrossTails, an Australian pub by the institute. It was a cool atmosphere, and it was nice to have English be the "assumed" language spoken (I know I'm spoiled, but it was a nice change). It was there that I tried the weirdest food I've had in my life - kangaroo! It didn't taste like chicken, it was more of a lighter beef taste with a little bit more spice - not quite like anything I've tasted before - it was an experience to say the least. After dinner we grabbed our last gelato :( Rachel and I headed back to pack and ended up watching the Germany-Turkey game, which was boring for the most part, but the last fifteen minutes were really exciting! We weren't able to see all of it, because the power kept cutting out, but it was a thriller nonetheless. Now I have to hurry up and get some sleep because I head home tomorrow!

Random things I've experienced:

• Vera Bradley shoulder bags can withstand extremely high weights - I had so much stuff in there today!
• Gelato servers do a better job at flirting than random guys on paddle boats.
• Even dogs get into the Eurocup spirit - I've seen two golden retrievers with a country's flag painted on to their forehead.
• Adam and Eve like to hang out at the Danube...
• Pickpocketers are alive and well in Vienna, but you simply have to yell and growl at them and they leave your friends alone (this was not a personal experience, but I saw it happen).
• Clothing is very optional in Europe, especially on a really hot summer day.
• Australian pubs serve ice in their drinks!!! (you have no idea how exciting this is, that means the drink are actually nice and cold - so good and refreshing).

Well, I'm not done yet! Even though I come home tomorrow, I'll still do some wrap up things from my trip, so stay tuned!

Tsus,
Andi

Studying Hard

Okay, so today's post is going to be a little bit different than usual. I didn't do anything today. We had a sort of review session for class, I grabbed Billa, came back home and studied, Ingrid treated Rachel, Paige, and I to a fine dinner of wienerschnitzel, potato salad, and a dessert called "hot love" (vanilla ice cream with hot raspberries and sauce). I took a quick nap and have been studying/parousing the internet since :) So, as you can tell, my day has looked like this:


So I thought I'd give you a quick tour of my frequent stops here in Vienna - a tour of my home here as well as the places I encounter on a regular basis - enjoy!

Bathroom with one of the smallest showers I have ever seen...

The kitchen...

View looking from the dining room, through the living room, with that back room being mine and Rachel's room

the extremely weird looking key I have to use to get into our apartment...

reverse view of two pics before - looking out of our room into the living room and far dining room

View from my classroom window one way...

...and the other way.

My classroom, I usually sit in that chair right next to the projector

View from my bedroom window

From the living room, looking though the sitting room with Kristin's room (Ingrid's daughter) in the back. Kristin is 30+ and doesn't live with us

The marketplace right outside my U stop that I have to walk though everyday

The fountain in the middle of the market. I've seen it used for everything, including drinking water, place to wash your face and hands, place to wash your vegetables, place to brush your teeth, and beyond...

Our apartment complex on Landestrasse Hauptstrasse!

our apartment windows...

My favorite floral shop on the corner during our morning walk

That's all for now, tomorrow is going to be a busy day!

Liebe,
Andi

Running around town...

Life size cleats outside the MuseumQuartier - they move the two team's cleats who are facing off next to the center with a life size soccer ball

Elizabeth and I had a lot of fun trying on all the hats while shopping...

No playing soccer in the streets!

None of the windows the same size? what a weird apartment complex!

Grusse aus Wien!
(Greetings from Vienna!)

Today's weather has been all over the place. This morning it was nice and cool and breezy, then while my class was waiting for our prof outside the Leopold museum (she's normally 10-15 late everyday... I know, what fun!) it started to rain. When she finally came we spent our morning looking at various painting from Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, and when we walked out of the museum it was already starting to heat up. Sarah Fetter and I picked up Billa then headed over to the University bookstore to get some sweatshirts (as gifts, not to wear right now!) By the time we left the university, it was really humid and hot! We headed back to the institute where I met up with Elizabeth, and, after deciding she wasn't going to get to use any of the three working computers anytime soon, headed off with me to Stephansplatz to do some shopping. The first store we went into had a basement FILLED with all sorts of hats - various sizes, shapes, fabrics, colors - we were having a lot of fun playing with those. After a while it was just getting too warm so we grabbed some gelato, talked with a woman from California while in line, and went our separate ways. I was then able to take a nice nap, then once the weather was more bearable, Rachel and I went to see the Hundertwasserhaus this evening. Hundertwasser is an artist who likes to play with color, and his apartment complex has several different shapes and strange columns, no two windows are the same size or in the same place, the floors are purposely uneven, the roof has a forest of trees growing on it and there are trees growing out of the apartment windows - you get the idea, it's crazy! He said he wouldn't take any money for designing it because it was worth it just so something ugly didn't go up in its place - what a guy. Now I'm slowly starting to organize my stuff and figure out how I'm going to pack it all up in just a few days!

Random things I've experienced:

• Large purple boxes can be used either for piling up and building a wall, or for sitting on.
• Not having your house frau around means running out of clean clothes and having to do your own dishes.
• It takes a very special face to pull of a patent red hat, and I don't have that face.
• Grandmas who don't like embroidered dishcloths, cuckoo clocks, or journaling are really hard to shop for in Vienna.
• Just because something says it tastes like an apple/cranberry sparkling water, doesn't mean it will, and you get stuck drinking a large bottle of grossness.
• On the other hand, Rauch ice tea is some of the best bottled tea I've ever had.
• More men wearing too short cut-off shorts... must mean it's summertime in Europe!
• The door in St. Stephans once used as the entrance for the royals is now used as the entrance to the gift shop...

I'm nearly falling asleep at the computer right now - I'm not looking forward to having jet lag again in a few days... oh well, better have fun in Vienna while it lasts!

Until next time,
Andi

My Weekend Workout Routine

On the way up the Rax Alps for the weekend...

Throwing snowballs in June

We reached the highest point - 1783 meters!

Liam! My 7 year old tour guide for the weekend - he suggested that this was the best spot to take a picture :)

Simply hiking down just seemed too boring...

Hello down there!

This weekend was a nice change of pace from the busyness of the city. We woke up really early so that we could take the bus about 1.5 hours outside Vienna to go hiking up the Rax Alps and stay the night in a lodge. The first part of the hike was the worst - it was about 1/2 hour of straight, steep uphill through muddy dirt, and I was getting annoyed that that was how it was going to be for 5 hours. Fortunately, though, after about an hour of that (the group I ended up hiking with, we took our time) we reached the first stop, and after that the hike was a nice combo of forest and rocky cliffs and meadows and beautiful scenery. Like I said, we took our time and took a lot of pictures along the way. Our second stop (about an hour and a half later) was a restaurant where I got this soup made up of thin pancakes sliced into strips in a beef broth - it sounds disgusting at first, but it's actually really good! Our group got more and more adventurous as the day went on, so we took the cliff route instead of the meadow path, and it was beautiful. Liam, the 7 year old son of one of the speakers for the Senior Seminar class this weekend, caught up with us and was leading the pack, since he's already done this trip "a hundred times." I started talking to him, and from that point on he was telling me stories and asking me questions and just wouldn't stop talking the rest of the hike - he was fun to hang out with :) Our group got to the lodge around 5, we cleaned up and had dinner at 7, then it was time for the euchre tournament! haha - it was fun, even if I did get out in the first round. I ended up watching the Holland-Russia game that Holland ended up losing in double overtime :( We went to bed, then woke up early this morning so that we could beat the hikers coming through to the lodge's breakfast, where they served some of the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted! We started heading back down around 11, and were booking it through the mountain. It had been beautiful all weekend, a little on the warm side (I definitely have burnt shoulders right now), but when we sat down for lunch, we noticed a dark cloud in the distance. We started to hear thunder rumble, but decided to pack up and keep going to the next stop. It was interesting trying to carefully climb down slippery rocks when you see lightning flashing out of the corner of your eye. My group felt a few drops of rain while we were walking through a wooded area, but then reached the stop. No later than when we sat down underneath the roof outside, it started POURING. Slowly more groups were coming in, completely soaked. The rain lasted for about a 1/2 hour, then we went down the ridiculously steep part for the last leg of our trip. Everyone boarded the bus, we turned the AC on to counteract the smell of 50+ sweaty and wet hikers, and headed back to Vienna. Overall, it was a great weekend!

Some random things I've experienced:

• 5 euro EuroCup backpacks from Billa work perfectly for weekend hiking trips!
• When you wear an orange Hope t-shirt on the night Holland is playing, all of the waiters who don't speak English get really excited and try to show you that they are rooting for Holland too.
• Knowing that if Russia and Turkey turn out to be in the EuroCup finals, most Europeans will be really ticked, a lot of them don't think they should even be allowed in the tournament.
• Walking the escalators at the U stops secretly trains you for the hiking weekend.
• When there is only one shower per floor at the lodge, you come up with other creative ways to clean up.
• Deer in the Alps are not white tailed, but black tailed.
• Snow fights are a lot of fun on 90 degree days, especially against 7 year olds.
• When they don't serve you dessert somewhere when you've become accustomed to it, you react by buying out their entire collection of magnum ice cream bars.
• The strangest goal of my life - I can't even explain it on here, you'll either have to ask me in person so I can act it out or youtube it.

I'm off to bed because I'm exhausted from this weekend but I have to take in as much as possible during my last few days here!

Liebe,
Andi

We're up and running!

Paige and Rachel eating the ORIGINAL sacher torte - world famous!

Ladies and Gentlemen - 2840 carats of pure emerald - largest in the world!

Crown from the 1000s

Almdudler - the ginger ale of Austria!

Yummy crepes and salad for lunch!

Shonbrunn Palace - summer home of the Habsburgs

The gardens of Shonbrunn

AHH!! so sorry for being just about the worst blogger ever this week - between homework and not feeling so great, it has sort of been a boring week. Nevertheless:

Wednesday my class went to the Imperial treasury - that was a lot of fun. We got to see all of the jewels of the Habsburgs that they weren't able to grab before they were exiled. We saw crowns and necklaces and ornate baptismal robes and coronation regalia and even some strange reliquaries that supposedly hold pieces such as part of the veil that Jesus used to wipe his face and another that held the nail used on Jesus' right hand. Not so sure about all of that, but it was interesting to see all the same. Paige, Rachel, and I stopped by this crepe place for lunch - I had my second salad since being here, and it tasting amazing, and the crepes were really good as well. That afternoon, the second session people took a trip out to Shonbrunn palace and took a tour of the first floor and a quick look at the gardens - it was gorgeous outside and the tour was really neat as well.

On Thursday we went to Upper Belvedere, another royal summer home turned museum. It was here that we saw this weird collection of head busts by a guy named Mezzersmidt. After he was fired from his job teaching at the art school here in Vienna, he became mentally ill, and spent most of the rest of his life secluded, purposely putting himself in different forms of pain and then sculpting what his face looked like during that pain. No one was supposed to see these heads, and right before he died he threw a bunch of them in the river, but there is still a pretty substantial amount of them left. It was kind of strange, but really interesting. I also finally got to see the Kiss by Gustav Klimt! There's about a million souvenirs with this work on it (the Viennese are VERY proud of Klimt, and this is his most popular work), so I was glad to get to see it in real life. That afternoon Rachel and I went with Ingrid to a Life tree garden then up on a hill overlooking the city - it was a really pretty view and it was fun to spend some time with our house frau. Once we got home, I had to work on all my journals, so I was in for the rest of the night.

Today was a pretty busy day as well. For class, we went to St. Charles Church, where I was able to go to the very top of the dome thanks to them restoring the church right now and having a scaffolding up for visitors to use. After class I grabbed Billa really quickly then went to the Albertina museum with Paige, Rachel, and Arin. It was interesting - I got to see some cool Monets and Picassos, but I wasn't able to find all the Klimt stuff that was supposed to be there - oh well. After that we three girls wanted to check out the Prater - a huge park in the city. Once we got there, we realized that there was no park to the Prater, it was like a weird amusement park area where there were street vendors and super-expensive rides, it was a little sketchy, so we headed back to the institute. From there, I went with a group of students to Cafe Sperl, one of the oldest and most famous coffeehouses in Europe, where we got to learn a little of the history of the coffeehouse as well as taste test some of their coffee and desserts :) Now I am just catching up on some rest and getting ready for our hiking trip in the Alps tomorrow!

Random things I've experienced:

• Seeing a 70-something year old man in cut off Daisy Dukes - absolutely disgusting.
• Running and blocking the U doors from closing with my body so that Rachel, Paige, and I wouldn't have to wait for the next one.
• Coffeehouses make suitable stables for Russian horses during wars.
• Realizing I would never want to paint the inside of a dome, and wondering how none of the artists died back in the day.
• Having a street vendor offer me a 15 euro purse for 10 and then telling me he loved me - creepy! I didn't stick around to buy the purse...
• Ham and corn pizza is actually really good, but strawberry and yogurt gelato is not!
• Cops are more than willing to wait for you to cross the street just so they can peel out afterwards to try to impress you.

Again, sorry for being so bad with this blog this week - I'll make sure to finish strong though, I have less than a week left! This is both good and sad news...

Until next time!
Andi