More scenes from Wien!

Guten Tag! This has been a wonderful week! There have been ups and there have been downs, but those only last a short while, until I see another beautiful part of Vienna! The not so fun times were tuesday and wednesday morning... We thought we had figured out the transportation system, but we were a little bit late for class on tuesday because there was some traffic while on the bus. I felt terrible because punctuality is key here, the Viennese are not patient people, and we were going out with Professor Kroll. So on Wednesday we thought we should leave even earlier and guess what- still late! Uh it was so frusterating to know that 45 minutes before the event even started we would be late. There was just so much traffic, that must have been why our bus was 15 minutes late and then it took us 30 minutes to go the distance we can usually go in 12. Lame. But it was all fixed because Brother Minert told us to take the S-bahn, the fast train in to class instead. So I talked to Esther, our house Frau and she helped me figure out the schedule. On thursday we got from the S-bahn to the U4 in 7 minutes! Good bye bus! and goodbye stress! It was wonderful! We wont take the s-bahn every time, just in the mornings when traffic is sure to be bad. Ok well here are a whole bunch of picture from a very enjoyable week!

Monday:

My first day of school. This is the entry way to our school, the institut.

school

After class we went across the way to get some school supplies. Who knew Austrian's had pillow pets too?! except this is way ugly! ha
After the shopping we, Amanda, Anisija, Kiersten and I decided to go find ourselves so tradition Vienna cafe food for dinner. We hoped on the streetcar, chose the number 3 and got off after that many stops and wah-la, new area with a perfect cafe. Our waiter was sweet, thankfully spoke english and helped us have a great time. Here is my food- Homemade dumplings and salad. it tasted like a breakfast food, eggs, onion and dough. Yummy though!
The front area in front of the cafe was all full, cause everyone loves to eat outside in vienna when the weather is nice. So the waiter took us to the back, and we had our own little private dinner!
Desert! Chocolate Pancakes. SOOOOOOOO unbelievably good!

Tuesday:

Wien museum with Professor Kroll, my art history teacher. We learned alot about how vienna came to be, all the wars, the shaping/changing of the city. I don't think I have ever looked at so many maps-of the same city. :) Its all good to know though!

Kiersten and I went grocery shopping for the first time on our way home...
Mayonnaise? Or is that a toothpaste tube? ...
We made it home! love taking all our food on the bus
Then we decided to take a little walk behind our house. It is beautiful out here.

I love all the ivy

So all the cars here are way small, and way nice. Like BMW, VW, Mercedes, porsche. What is this one though?


I love this. Vienna is peaceful. No place to use your horn


My first home cooked meal in Vienna! ... It may or may not look exactly like what I ate every day at college...

Wednesday:

First we went to the City Hall and got registered. I am now an official Resident to Vienna. COOL HUH!?! The amanda and I went and wandered around until class. Look what we randomly bumped into- A House where Shubert lived while composing one of his symphonys.

On wednesday we have class with Herr Dr Professor Minert (long I know, but thats how the austrians do things, titles are important). So we had church history first, which I already love and then our Experiencing Vienna class. First thing to experience? PRATER PARK! Once the hunting grounds of the Habsburg family it was given to the people as a place they could have fun. What better thing to do than install a theme park! Ok so its mini, but it has the worlds oldest ferris wheel!

This is our whole group, plus 4 random people standing to the left of me on the left edge of the picture. they randomly got in...

View from the top of the Ferris wheel




There was some cool displays in the bottom of the ferris wheel, kind of like the stages of vienna. This one was pretty much what I had been looking at all the day before with Professor Kroll- Turks invading Vienna ha.
These are swings. You get on at the bottom and then swing around and up up up. I am going back to do this on Tuesday!!

Some fun while waiting for the subway... we are heading to the center (church building) for dinner!
ping pong post dinner

Thursday:

Class and then we walked to Karlsplatz to have lunch. We people watched and just took in the area. That is what I am always doing, taking it all in. There is a video of this at the end

The it was back to history class- a walk around the city. It was a very interesting walk, but I was trying to take notes so I did not take may pictures. It was all very close to the school though so I am going to walk it again and get all the good picture. This was just too awesome, as in shocking to not take a picture then. This is JudenGasse. Jew street. This is where the first Jewish ghetto was set up in Vienna. There is a synagogue just down the road that was destroyed once, so now-to this day- there are police stationed at each end of the street. I saw them and couldn't believe that would still be necessary. But there they stood.

Saint of the church that is below. Saint of the salt- one of the most important things shipped to vienna. Salt preserved food.
This Memorial stands on the spot that there was once a Hotel that was taken over by the Nazi's. It is a memorial to the Jews and Homosexuals ( the red triangle).
St. Ruprecht church. Said to be one of the oldest churches in Vienna
sweet building :)
Ice cream at our teachers favorite shop- the one my house Frau took me too on saturday. Shokolade und Erdbeer, chocolate and strawberry, so good!
Then I went to the Volksoper. The peoples opera. We bought standing room tickets at the wayyyy top for 2 euro. It never sells out though so we sat in the seats at the top. This was part of the downs of my week though. In the very first act there were things that I thought inapropriate and vulger. we turned away. We were all shocked. Especially the two Music major girls who were with us. Of all the show of Rigaletto the have ever seen nothing like that happend. We decided to stay and if it seemed to be heading that direction again we would be out of there. But the rest was fine. I mean beautiful German opera singing and amazing instrumentals. After those few shocking moments I really enjoyed the opera. This is europe though, so i guess that is to be expected.

Friday:

Today was wonderful!!!!!! We planned an excursion with all the girls who didn't go out of town. (I can't believe 1/2 our group left! We have barely been in Vienna a week and there is so much to see here! I don't want to leave yet! We went to Schonbrunn Palace, the summer residence of the Habsburg family.

We just walked around the gardens because we will be going inside later with bro minert. The gardens are beautiful and huge! These pictures i am sure will not do it justice.


we had to do a little statue imitation..


The palace
When we got into the gardens there were these signs with pictures saying say of the grass. So I said to everyone in my group 'Wir sollen den Rasen nicht betreten' part of a poem we are learning for german class. And it totally applied! It was sick! I saw this sign later and it said pretty much the same thing so I was just so pround and had to take a picture!


All the trees are amazingly pruned and straight and beautiful






Is that building part of the palace? Or wait... cant you see the ripples? Its a banner actually! Whenever they are doing work on something here, anywhere in vienna, they cover it up with a banner that actually looks like the building. I think that is sweet! It is like this on part of the Stephamsdom right now too.
A few of the girls came back to our house to hang out and then go to the mall by our house. the mall was kinda weird though, not like ours really. Vienna is different in that it has stores for everything. Everything in separate stores. shoes store, underwear store, school supply store, food store, ect.

This is my house!

Bus stop video.

karlsplatz? i think i clicked on that one...

I hope you enjoyed! Tschuss!