Such Great Heights.

Tuesday:

Sarah, Cari, and I started our Tuesday morning off early by getting to school around 715ish to practice some singing before classes began. I already feel like my vocal are improving, which is definitely something I need (TRUST me). Classes seemed longgggggggg today. We stopped at the Billa to get some groceries for lunch before heading back to the hotel. I studied outside for a bit. Then, Charli, Jordan, and I talked to Herr Stephan for a while. He is the manager of the Hotel we are living at, and he gave us some great suggestions of the good restaurants to try out around Vienna. Afterwards, Ricki and I ran at the Belvedere then went straight to the newly built martial arts studio next to our hotel to meet up with the rest of the girls for pilates class. The owners of the studio are graciously letting us take over the downstairs aerobic room twice a week (for an hour) so that we can have a large enough space to all do pilates together! We got back to the hotel around 6ish and proceeded to work on fall break…aka searching through hostels, train timetables, etc. After an hour or so of strategic planning (trust me, we’re not near done yet...our professors and former students of this program did not inform us of how much time and planning goes into preparing for fall break), we took Herr Stephan’s advice to heart and 12 of us girls set out for one of the Italian restaurants he recommended, called Vapiano. SO good. Probably my favorite restaurant here. They have an overwhelming amount of options for pastas/pizzas. Vapiano is very modern and it reminded me of Shogun because they prepare the food in front of you. The food was very well priced as well. Sarah and I split a wheat pasta dish and a barbeque chicken pizza for 7 euro each. We got back to the hotel around 9ish. The rest of the night was spent studying. Ridiculous, right?

Wednesday:

Sarah and I went to school early again today to have our daily singing session. We sang a few Hillsongs and worked on enunciation. I love starting my day off singing, because if nothing else, it’s a good way to wake up! After German, our Humanities class went back to the Kunsthistoriches museum to explore the Renaissance exhibit. I had the privilege of seeing some original works by Raphael and Durer. Professor Mandy Horton always assigns us a worksheet of questions that we have to fill out on our own before leaving the museum for the day.  We stayed there til around 1230, then came back for lunch.  Then, off to Professor Horton’s art class that she had invited me to for today because they were studying photography. We talked about strong pictorial compositions for awhile by observing works from several well-known photographers. Then, she invited us to show any pictures we had taken personally. She was very encouraging to me and wants me to work on capturing more images of people. I tend to stick to architecture and landscapes because that’s what I find most appealing, but I want to improve on the portrait aspect of photography. Afterwards, Erin and I made our way over to the Mariahilfer Strasse district, a large shopping district located 10+ minutes away. We stopped at a hole-in-the-wall type café for delicious hot peppermint tea and hot chocolate. She and I stayed and talked for over an hour before heading back to the hotel. Then, I went with Kat, Cari, and Meghan to Café Frauenhuber to continue studying for our first Christianity in Visual Arts test. We met a young guy named Martin at the café. He’s a local and we talked a lot about the differences in his culture and what we’re used to in America. ‘Twas fun.

It’s now 1pm on Thursday. We just finished our first CIVA test. I don’t feel all that great about it. 5-essay test. I’m usually too hard on myself after I finish a test, but I know Professor Rocky Horton is not a lenient grader, and I just don’t want my gpa to suffer because of his class. CIVA is supposed to be our Bible class while we are in Europe. To me, it’s more of an art history class with Christian connotations. We’ve yet to open our Bibles for that class. Oh well. I pray God gives me strength and continued encouragement.