First of all, let me begin by saying this will not be the most well-written of blogs and will naturally be ambiguous at times, but I will try to highlight the events of most days so that you can get a small glimpse into my current European life! ... WE ARE HERE! Sorry I am just now blogging, but Vienna has been slightly overwhelming to say the least! 17 hours of traveling+38 hours without sleep=27 extremely jet-lagged students. We arrived in our new home (Vienna, Austria) at 1030am on Thursday. Our first stop was to Stephansplatz, home of the Stephansdom, Vienna's cathedral and one of the tallest churches in the world. Pictures can not do justice. Then, lunch at Rosenbergs, a buffet style restaurant with a variety of pastas, schnitzel, fruit, and pastries. Good quality food, although slightly pricey. After lunch, we walked to our future school, located directly across from the Opera house. Then we made our way to our new home, the Hotel Beim Theresianum, located in downtown Vienna. My room is on the 7th floor (top of the hotel). The hotel has one elevator, which doesn't seem bad except for the fact that no more than two people can fit into it without sweating profusely and feeling extremely claustrophobic. Therefore, walking the 7 flights of stairs has already become second nature to me. Three twin size beds occupy the majority of the room, and the bathroom is surprisingly spacious. The concept of air-conditioning is unheard of in Europe; good thing temperatures are so mild here :) Once we got settled into our new "home," all we wanted to do was sleep, but instead we went to dinner at a quaint Cafe Wortner where I ordered beef goulash and potatoes. The restaurant was completely empty when we arrived, so having 3o Americans in one room was slightly frustrating/annoying for our waiter. After dinner, we walked to Tichey Eis, home of the wonderful Austrian gelato. I got coffee, chocolate, and vanilla gelato in a waffle cone for 1.60 euro. What a deal! Let's just say, I'm not exagerrating when I say it was the best ice cream I've ever. We took the U-bahn back to our hotel and crashed around 930pm. What a great, but exhausting first day of traveling, walking, and new experiences!
Today, we woke up around 8am to our first breakfast in our new home. The Hotel provides a wonderful array of fruit, breads, cereal, meats and cheeses for our breakfast. Then off to class at our new school for more orientation and lectures about etiquette and important German phrases. Next, we had our first experience at the famous Niche market, full of fresh fruits and vegetables. This place reminded me of the Italian market in Philadelphia, PA that my family has frequented for years! I had some delicious German and Polish pickles (don't laugh), a peach, and a large round loaf of ciabatta bread, all for 3 euro! I met a man from Israel who asked if we could get married and live together in America...awkward. The rest of the day was spent at the Schonbrunn palace, surrounded by beautifully-tended gardens and home to the world's first zoo. Then, one of our professors split all the students up into five groups for dinner, which I loved because we were put together with people that we didn't know well. My group ate at an Italian restaurant where we all got pizza. DELICIOUS. Our waiter was very courteous and helped us with our German. After dinner, Kat, Brett, and I went on our own adventure throughout the city, in which we would ride the U-Bahn for a few stops, get off and explore, and repeat. It was a great experience, since this was the first time we have been independent from the group as a whole. Sorry this is long and scatter-brained. It's currently 1am and I just wanted to give a not-so-brief description of the past few days. I could talk for hours already of my experiences over the past 48 hours, but I hope this helps!! I will try to blog every few days, so hopefully they will be more detailed, yet not as long.
Gute Nacht from Vienna, Austria!
PS- that picture at the top of this post is the view from our hotel room :)
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