Do you speak english..? Which way do we go?

May 16, 2011 - cool and sunny

Today was the first day of our routine here in Austria. We started off late (still no alarm clock – we will be getting one today) and had to hurry to get to announcements on time. We made it fine, even stopping at Ankor for a chocolate croissant (not nearly as good as Kaitlynn’s) on the way. Our religion was full of lively conversation for the whole two and a half hours and when we finished we all had to head over to the police station to turn in our completed Meldezettle to become “residents” of Vienna.

When that was finished we had lunch at this cute pizzeria just down the road which had great prices and was made fresh although the man who took our order was not great with English and Anna and Amanda ended up getting banana peppers instead of pepperoni on their pizzas. We trekked back over to the institute to connect to the internet after a few long days of going without (no wireless in our apartment which would be why this blog has been lacking in posts). And then Anna and I (with accompaniment from Amanda) went grocery shopping for breakfast food and a couple other things. We finally ended our long search with an alarm clock and after much searching found a place worthy (meaning the price was right and had real food, an added bonus was that someone spoke English) of dinner. We ended up stopping at an adorable Italian restaurant that had candles on the tables and bless them even gave us tap water with our pasta. The pasta was delicious, made with homemade noodles and lots of cheese. We said our goodbyes and Anna and I headed back to our apartment. When we got back we tasted the white wine we had bought and decided to add lots of strawberry juice (the concoction was probably 10% wine with 90% juice) and diced up fresh strawberries from the store as well. We drank that while nibbling on some chocolate wafers that seem to occupy all of America’s cookie selves in the store. We have been doing homework and journaling ever since and have yet to write our postcards. Hopefully tomorrow we will begin our routine of going somewhere cool after class; tomorrow I believe the consensus is the University where apparently they have the coolest sweatshirts and grabbing lunch nearby. We are all sick of wandering around trying to find somewhere that fits our budget and actually consists of real food not just coffee, gelato or bread which seems to occupy each café.

May 15, 2011 – cold and rainy

Because Anna and I stayed up late talking and still did not have a working alarm clock, we missed the Vienna Choir Boys singing at Mass in the Hofburg Kapelle and the Catholic High Mass at the Augustinerkirche. However, as we found out later it appeared that it was for the best; both were long and not able to be understood. They only saw the Vienna Choir Boys for one song at the end and had to stand the whole service. We did make it to the Vienna Community Church which was conducted in English at a Protestant service. It was very nice and helped us not to be overwhelmed by all the German surrounding us; we both sighed in relief after sitting down and hearing English spoken.

After the service we turned around and a guy our age asked if we were from Hope. All newcomers were asked to provide name and where they were from but we had no idea it would be so obvious we were from Hope. Turns out that he had heard of our program since he was studying abroad for the semester from Calvin – small world huh? He has since friended us on facebook and suggested the three of us go out for lunch. All that happened relatively quickly because we needed to leave to catch the group before heading to the Vienna Woods (specically Rudolfshof) for lunch. This was the official opening dinner for our Vienna Summer School program. We had an odd looking salad (corn, potatoes, red peppers, lettuce and other things) for appetizer, half a chicken and potatoes for the main meal and chocolate Sacher torte for dessert.

After the lunch was finished and we had been dismissed we (Anna, Amanda, Jenny and I) took the bus farther up into district 19 for some spectacular views of the whole city. At the top we saw a couple restaurants at the top that overlooked a vineyard and the entire city. (I thought this would be a great thing to do when the rest of the family comes later on.) Unfortunatly because it had just finished raining there was a lot of fogginess covering the city with grey skys; still, the view was breath taking. On our way back down the hill we got on bus 38A, the same bus we had ridden up, and before we realized it we were being yelled at to get off the bus. To our dismay we were left standing at a stop we’d never seen before. As we looked around, taking in our surroundings we saw another beautiful view and went to examine closer. We found out that we had been dropped off in Kahlenberg, farther downhill but with better views of the city than we had previously encountered just minutes before.

After some more photos and our purses weighing just slightly more with a few postcards from the tourist trap next door, we ran back to bus 38A. What we hoped would take us downhill farther and back to our connecting stop with the subway only confused us more as we headed back to the very top. By this time we were slightly flustered and I ran up to ask the bus driver what bus we needed to be on to go all the way downhill. He said we were on the right one and lurched forward. As I was asking this Anna figured out that there were three 38A’s! This time we made it all the way down and connected up with the subway.

Anna and I had enough time to get home and do some reading before our 8 o’clock dinner with Judith. When she listed off our drink options (red wine, juice, water) I asked if we might try just a tad of the wine (so as to see if we might want to order that instead of our usual coke product at a restaurant) and then have juice with dinner. She ended up pouring us more than she poured herself and we did not receive juice until dessert! Haha. We had wine and pretzel sticks for the conversation starter, asparagus soup for an appetizer (an Austrian specialty – especially in May), the main course was wienschnizel (veen er schnit zel), another Austrian specialty, really just breaded chicken or pork, which was very good and for dessert was sugar coated cookie pretzels and chocolate and orange covered cookies. When we finally got back at almost 11pm we rushed through our religion reading and headed to bed.

May 14, 2011 – nice and sunny

Last night was our first night sleeping in the apartment and even though our bed looked lumpy I slept well. For breakfast I had one of the rolls covered it with strawberry jam and a glass of milk that we bought yesterday. We grabbed the subway and met at the institute for the walking tour which seemed long and annoying because we traveled as a large group and heard information that did not seem relevant. However, it was a good way to see major sights in district one quickly and to not get lost, wandering in circles. We were able to grab our own lunch after the tour; Amanda, Anna and I stopped at Le Bol, a French restaurant with wonderful English speaking waitresses. The food was very good, I had a croque monsuire! It was very interesting because the ham was located between the two bread slices but the cheese was on the top. It had taken us a while to find a place to stop so we had to hurry back to the institute to catch the group as they headed off to the Schonbrunn Palace.

The Place was gorgeous! Unfortunately because of that fact, it was very crowded. We were given phone-like objects that spoke to us in English about what each room was used for when the Palace was in operating conditions and also lots of the Austrian history of the rulers. When we entered the next room we would punch the corresponding room number into the phone and listen; it was like a one-on-one tour of the Palace except for the fact we had to shuffle past many actual guided tours in different languages throughout the explanations.

After the tour Anna and I went back to the apartment until we needed to leave for My Fair Lady. The Opera had wonderful acting and the actors/actresses had wonderful voices but the whole thing was conducted in German without any subtitles so half our group left early and the other half zoned out, thinking about different things.

After the Opera Anna, Amanda, Jenny and I attempted to find a place that we could get some sort of chocolate dessert and a drink. However, with of lack of knowledge, we were not able to find one and ended up heading back to our designated houses.