Recent Happenings!

View of Vienna

Don-Paul and I at Beethoven's grave!

The Philharmonic at the Vienna Konzerthaus...sooooo amazing!



Hello all!

I have had a great past few weeks in Vienna! My boyfriend, Don-Paul, came to visit fall break at Susquehanna, and we had a great time here in Vienna. We toured around and did the touristy things, such as seeing the Palaces, climbing the South Tower to St. Stephen's Cathedral, going to see where Beethoven and other composers are laid to rest, saw and Opera (The Marriage of Figaro) and saw the Philharmonic!!! It was all a great time, and the Phil was ASTOUNDING.

I just finished with mid-terms yesterday (had 5 exams...ugh), and now I have a four day weekend with today and tomorrow off! I'm staying in Vienna, and doing somethings I've been meaning to do that haven't had the time to do with my normal class schedule, such as seeing the Catacombs and going to a few Museums. I may be going to a different part of Austria this weekend to hike the alps(!!!) with some other friends who are staying in town this weekend, but we'll see!

My German is improving at a rapid pace. As I walk around the city, I can understand a lot more when I see signs and etc, and eavesdropping on people's conversations while riding public transportation has become a little easier. I'm still not perfect at speaking it--I'm a lot better at reading and writing--but it's coming along. It's a breath of fresh air when I hear English--especially American English--on the streets. A few weeks ago I was leaving school and going back to my apartment, and I was on a street car, and two British people were sitting behind me and it was completely weird to listen to their conversation and actually be able to completely understand what they were saying. I feel like when I get back to America, I won't know what to do with myself!!! I feel like I'll go into a store, and start talking and asking questions in German. I won't know what to do with myself when someone can actually understand what I'm staying.

This past Monday was an Austrian National Holiday called Neutrality Day. It is the anniversary of the day after Soviet Troops left Austria during the occupation for 10 years after WWII. Let me tell you, Austrians are CRAZY. Obviously, all the stores were closed, but people were ALL OVER THE FIRST DISTRICT. It was LITERALLY chaos. At the Hofburg, the Imperial Palace in the first district, there were tents and stands EVERYWHERE, not to mention tanks that children could climb on, military people everywhere shoving papers in people's faces trying to get them to sign up for the army (I had to explain that I'm American), and literally the biggest zipline I have ever seen---probably at least 300m long, that went from the Burg Theater to the Palace....see map below, the red line is roughly where the zipline was:

Me, being a little scared of heights, decided not to go on the roller coaster. Another thing I found interesting--that would never happen in America--is that they had "open Parliament day," where any person could just go into Parliament, with a guide, and walk around and see inside. Each tour group was at least 100 people. I don't think America would ever open up the Capital for massive amounts of people to go in at a time to explore. I wanted to go inside, but the wait was about 2 hours, and I had to take a mid-term :(

Also, recently I have booked a flight to go to Bucharest, Romania with a friend for Thanksgiving weekend. I'm really looking forward to that! I also plan to go to Slovenia for 5 days in December after my program ends and before I go home--on December 23--and may be taking one other trip before then. I was just looking for tickets, and I found to Stockholm, Sweden for 8 Euros round trip! I love cheap European flights. My parents come in two weeks (!!!), so I'm looking forward to that. They'll be in Vienna for about 2 days, then we're taking a weekend trip to smaller towns just North of Vienna, called Krems and Melk, for a weekend for some wine tasting :D Also, I have a friend at Susquehanna who is a full time international student from Bratislava. Currently, he is studying abroad in Tanzania, but gets back the beginning of December, and my friend Katie (who also goes to Susquehanna with me) and I to visit him the first weekend in December. Bratislava is only an hour away from Vienna, so it works out perfectly!

Until next time!

Enjoy the pictures!

PICTURES

Wine Festival in Southern Austria!

Friends and me at the festival

Vineyards in Austria

Chocolate festival in Graz!

Autumn in Graz

:)

Sunrise over Imperial Vienna

Oktoberfest Celebration in Salzburg

Sound of Music 'Do-Re-Mi' Gardens?

Reinacting 'The Sound of Music'

REALLY re-inacting 'The Sound of Music'

part of Nonnenburg Abbey from 'The Sound of Music'....that gate was the one filmed many times in the movie! (when the children came to get Maria back, where the Nazis came in at the end of the movie to search for the Von Trapps, Maria went through it in the beginning of 'I Have Confidence')

Me and Salzburg!

Salzburg Castle

Mozarts Birthhouse in Salzburg!

Statue of Stalin right outside of Budapest...when communism was falling, people tore down his statue, and only left his boots.

Budapest

Budapest

Two friends and view of the Budapest Parliament (one of two Neo-Gothic Parliaments in Europe...the other one is the British Parliament!)

uhhh....so Lord of the Rings was filmed in Budapest?

Werid Budapest statue

Milennium statue in Budapest

Basically....we ate meat for 10 days.

In the Salt Mine at Krakow...a CHAPEL ENTIRELY MADE OUT OF SALT

since the whole mine was entirely made out of salt, we were allowed to lick the walls :)

Auschwitz II

Gates of Aushwitz I...translation: 'Work Brings Freedom'

Cool mind-bender in Krakow

Streets of Krakow

Me and Prague!

Old Town Square in Prague

Soccer game in Prague!

St. Charles' Bridge in Prague

John Lennon Wall in Prague

Prague Cathedral inside the Castle.

Been way too long!

Hello! And sorry, sorry, SORRY! i have been seriously terrible at updating this thing. I've been out and about in Europe, and been forgetting to write more entries!

From Septepmeber 11-20 i went to Prague, Krakow, and Budapest, which was a very fun, but long trip....Although by the end, I was ready to return to Vienna.

PRAGUE was a very cool and very old city...many of the buildings just looked like castles. I took a stroll over St. Charles' Bridge, saw my first (and only) European soccer game so far (PRAGUE WON!), and went on an evening river boat ride with my program.

KRAKOW was very different from Prague, in that it was still somewhat run down from Communism. It was very interesting to see first hand, though. We also took a trip to Auschwitz about 45 minutes awaywhich was very powerful and moving. The next day, we took a more lighthearted trip to a famous Salt Mine which sounds really lame but in reality was VERY cool....we went 300 meters below the ground, through 6 levels...and they had statues and exhibits entirely made out of salt...even a HUGE church underground that holds services every Sunday---all made out of Salt!

BUDAPEST was VERY cool. The architecture was similiar to Vienna, but nonetheless a cool city. Budapest was orginially two cities--Buda and Pest, but in the 1800s they merged into one, thus forming Budapest. I saw many Roman Ruins, along with the Buda Castle with a great overlook to the city. Also, I went to one of the famous Turkish Baths which was INCREDIBLE. They were SOOOOO relaxing, which was what I needed towards the end of the trip after being shuffled through many tours and long bus rides.

On September 26, I went to SALZBURG which was great. My friends and I went up to the huuuuge castle on top of the big hill---the castle started construction around 1070 I think! We saw the torchure chamber, which was kinda scary. We also literally took a wrong turn and ended up walking through a famous graveyard, where Mozart's sister and Haydn's brother are buried. Of course, I also saw the WEDDING CHURCH, the ABBEY, and the DO-RE-MI gardens from The Sound of Music and reinacted the movie accordingly. Also, since I went to Salzburg a weekend of the famous Oktoberfest, there was a mini-Oktoberfest there in Salzburg (the main one is in Munich, Germany). My friends and I ate dinner and celebrated with the rest of the Austrians, and watched everyone walk around in their Lederhosen.

Last weekend, I went to the provice of STYRIA in Southern Austria, a very pretty region known for it's wine. I stayed overnight in the city of Graz, the capital of Styria. Graz is a BEAUTIFUL, very Austria town, and also all the people are young as there is a big University there. We had a tour of Graz, and bummed around the city. The next day, we went to a huge wine festival outside of Graz. There were stands everywhere of people selling wine, along with a huge parade, and again everyone was walking around in their Lederhosen. It was a great time--and I was also interviewed on an Austrian news channel for being American and going to the festival! The lady gave me the URL to the website, but I have yet to find the clip on it.

Other than that, I have been enjoying Vienna, attending classes, finding different markets to go to throughout the city, going to cafes, and just enjoying myself. I'm starting to really get to know the city and memorize the metro map, which is really nice. Sorry for the lack of entries, I will try to be more on top of it! And I will be adding pictures soon :)