Bored.

I'm so bored in Vienna. LOL JK. Opposite.  I have never been so busy, or had so much fun, than in the last three days.

On Thursday night I went to the Hofburg Palace for the Technical University Ball.  To say the least, it was a ball.  I got ready at my friends' apartment (they only live 1 Ubahn stop from the Hofburg), and we celebrated our first ball with drinks and LOTS of pictures!

My hair for the ball.

We made our way over to the ball around 8:30 and looked crazy in the process.  Wearing floor-length gowns and tuxes with leather jackets, fleeces, and peacoats over them looks absolutely ridiculous.  We walked a few blocks and were at the Hofburg!  We were all screaming and squealing the entire time... it was so exciting.

Waiting at the U4 Kettenbruckengasse Stop with Ben, Allison, and Bailey!

We checked our coats and made our way to the grand ballroom for the Opening Ceremony.  A lot of IES kids were planning on skipping this traditional ceremony, but my friends and I felt it crucial to our ball experience and gave ourselves plenty of time to get rid of our coats, explore a little, take some of pictures, and find a spot to watch the opening ceremony.  We found a great spot right behind some reserved tables and had a perfect view of the ceremony.

The Opening Ceremony of the ball is when a group of young men (dressed in tuxedoes) and women (dressed in white gowns) perform a series of dances for the crowd and the honorary guests.  Some of the guests included headmasters from tons of European universities and other distinguished Viennese men and women.  The honored guests filed into the room and sat in chairs, and then the dancing began.  The orchestra played "The Barber of Seville," and then the dancers danced an originally choreographed dance, which included a waltz and polonaise.  The ceremony ends when the Master of Ceremoies (I think he was the Head of TU) yells "Alles Walzer!" (Everyone waltz!) It was beautiful and I am so happy we arrived early enough to see it!

The Hofburg is an absolutely outstanding building.  To give you an idea of how big this place is, I read in a Frommer's book the morning after the ball, "Don't be put off by the daunting tally of 18 wings, 19 courtyards, and 2,600 rooms."  We were allowed in maaaybe 15 rooms, and the place still went on and on. It was incredible.

The grand ballroom where the Opening Ceremony was became the Waltz room for the duration of the ball.  A nearby room was the Swing Room; when we walked in the band was playing "Route 66"! There was a Folk-Dancing Room, a Jazz Room, and a Salsa Room.  There were also a lot of rooms that had chairs and tables, and some rooms that had bars and room to socialize.  All of the rooms were amazingly gorgeous and ornamented with unbelievable gold, marble, etc.  I danced in all of the rooms (even the waltz one!) and had such an amazing time and a night I will definitely never forget.

I'm not sure that my words are enough to describe the amazing-ness of this palace or ball, so I will post a billion photos on this post.

The Grand Ballroom

The Grand Ballroom before the Opening Ceremony

The Opening Ceremony begins!

It was so beautifully synchronized

The distinguished guests

The conductor of the orchestra

The Swing Room (reminded me of the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles)

The Waltz Room... I sat on the stage to take this photo!

The Salsa Room

The Folk Room

One of the main hallways in the Hofburg

Me and my friend Bailey in an entrance to the Hofburg... which doubled as a coat check.

Sitting on the stage in the Waltz Room, with the orchestra behind me...
My Bose headphones had nothing on that.

Living the high life in Wien!

I need to get a thesaurus.  All I say in these posts are "incredible" and "amazing." I guess that's a good thing though!

Some photos of the past couple of days...

I needed a break from studying for my next German exam so I decided to post some recent photos of what I've been doing in Vienna.  Tomorrow night is the ball!! I will be sure to post on Friday or Saturday with plenty of pictures from the TU Ball at the Hofburg Palace!!

The inside of Stephansdom

The Naschmarkt is a 2-3 block long open air market with unbelievable food.  I got a kebap there the other day that was amaaaazing!

This one's for you Dad.

This friendly face lives right down the block from my apartment... thumbs up for Liechtensteinstraße!

The HofburgTheater.  This is right across the street from the Rathaus,
 and another one of the many sights I see on my way to and from school!

The roof of Stephansdom... so cool!

Some German classmates in front of Karlskirche (Karl's Church)

Exciting News of the Day!

A couple of exciting things happened today!  I woke up and there was about 1 inch of snow on the ground.  The city looked beautiful (and felt mushy) in the snow.  Also, I got an A on my first German exam of the semester! Sehr gut! And finally, I just used a German dictionary to translate parts of my homework, and I found MY LAST NAME!!!! I got way too happy about that.

Grüß Gott!

I´m back! I promised I would catch up on my trip by the end of the weekend and I will try my best to do so... I have so much to talk about so I will start at the beginning!



The front of my apartment!

We moved in to our apartment at night on Sunday.  Our landlady Natalia was there to greet us; she is really nice and was enthusiastic about us living in her apartment.  She showed us all the important things in our apartment: our laundry machine (washer only, and in Celsius), our tiny kitchen, bedrooms etc.  Our apartment is really nice.  We have a kitchen, toilet room, bathroom, living area/dining room, and 2 bedrooms.  The toilet room is exactly what it sounds like, a toilet... in a room.  It´s apparently a really customary thing for Austrians to have a toilet room and a bathroom (sink, shower, etc.).  Definitely a change I have had to get used to.  My roommates and I agreed on the living situation before we arrived at the apartment based on sleep-type.  Since Gabby and Kristen are both light sleepers, they got the far room and Ellison and I got the walk-through bedroom (you have to walk through our room to get to their´s).  I won a coin toss and was rewarded with the only Queen size bed in the apartment.  After Natalia left our RA Freitis came over.  Our RA isn´t like regular college RAs.  She lives in the district over from us (18), and will check up on us once a week to make sure we´re all doing okay.  Freitis has a couple of IES students living with her, so we will eventually all have dinners together.  She´s really nice and has lived in the city for 4 years, and we will probably go out with her and her friends as she´s a student at Universität Wien.

Monday morning I had to register as a Viennese resident with the police, so we had to get up extra early to get over to the police station.  Freitis came over and gave us a little walking tour of our area.  We saw our Straßenbahn stop, Augasse, the Billa grocery store closed to our house, and the nearest bank (right next door!!).  The Straßenbahn is the street-car/tram system in Vienna that run all over the city. I´m on the D line (easy to remember since that´s Fordham´s Subway line).  After registering, we bought our week-long U-bahn/public transportation passes for 14 euro... not bad since its unlimited use of transportation in the entire city!!



The Oper at night

We then went to our school, which is in the First District and right near my S-bahn stop.  I get off at the KartnerRing - Oper stop... right in front of the Vienna Opera House.  Not too shabby!  It´s about a 5 minute walk to school from the stop.  There is A LOT to look at and I definitely thoroughly enjoy the walk to school every day. 
The first week of school was filled with lots of meetings and LOTS of German.  I am in the afternoon Elementary German I session that runs from 12:30 to 3:30.  The first three weeks of the program is called German Intensive, where we are basically slammed with as much German as physically possible.  I am very impressed with how far my class has come in a week.  There are 15 of us, and all of us can introduce ourselves, ask tons of questions, make a sentence, and order food in German.  My teacher´s name is Frau Summesberger, and she is very patient with us (which is definitely appreciated) and makes learning a new language a lot of fun.  Wir lieben Frau S!

The Oper during the day!

My first week has also been filled with lots of U-bahns, Straßebahns, and walking.  IES encouraged getting lost to get acquainted with Vienna.  I have taken this philosophy to heart, and have gotten lost at least once each day (whether I meant to or not...).  I know the city a lot better than most of my other friends, who live really close to the school, and am very confident with my knowledge of Vienna. I have seen so much of Vienna because of my 25 minute commute every day (which passes the Universität, HofsburgOper, Rathaus, Parliament, MuseumsQuartier, and Hofburg Palace), and through getting lost everyday. 

My friend Erik told me that everytime the letters `K.U.K.´
are on a sign it means the place once hired by the Habsburg Dynasty.

Today I met up with two of my friends at Stephansdom, a huge Catholic cathedral about 5 minutes from my school.  We wandered around the area, and saw a window display of chocolate that was unbelievable.  We went inside, and got lunch (my first Wienerschnitzel in Wien!) and dessert (apfelstrudel).  It may have been the most delicious meal I´ve ever had.  The place was called Demel, and reminded me a lot of a cafe I went to with my Dad and Michele in Paris (Cafe Angelina) - amazing hot chocolate and incredible food.  Demel opened in 1786, and supplied chocolate to Hofburg Palace, which takes about 2 seconds to walk to.  If you´re ever in Vienna definitely go to this place.  After filling ourselves with deliciousness, we walked over to the Hofburg, which was magnificent.  It kept going and going, I could not believe people actually lived in there.  I don´t know if people are usually allowed to tour the Hofburg, but I will be going inside it on Thursday for my ball! That should be amazing.  We walked through the gardens of the Hofburg and ended up in front of the Rathaus (City Hall).  I pass by this building everyday on the way to school and it still takes my breath away.  It is hands down the most incredible building I have ever seen.  The city set up a huge skating rink in front of the Rathaus, which runs through the gardens and in the main plaza.  It will be open until March 6, so I have plenty of time to figure out when/if  I can muster up the courage to go skating!

In front of the Hofburg!

One of the things I find most incredible about this city is that it is a city: tons of cars, subways, street cars, a few skyscrapers, and lots of modern looking buildings.  But right next to all of these cars, etc. are enormous palaces, buildings that have been around for hundreds of years.  You can walk through the gardens at the Hofburg and make one turn and you´re on the main straße of Vienna.  It´s weird and awesome at the same time. 




Rathaus



St. Stephen´s Cathedral

Grüß Gott (pronounced Grooss Got) is a common greeting heard all around Vienna.  People say it pretty much everywhere; walking into a store, sitting next to someone on a straßenbahn, being addressed by a waiter.  I feel it is a very appropriate title for my first real post about Vienna.  The city has been so welcoming, and I can´t imagine not being here.  I feel so lucky and happy. All. The. Time.  It´s pretty incredible.




Some friends in front of Stephansdom.  This photo was taken using a self-timed camera leaning on Kent´s shoe!

 

The roof of the Parliament building - the sky always looks like a painting in this city.



A statue from the Hofburg garden with part of the MuseumsQuartier in the background



End of Orientation in Deutschlandsberg!

I thought I´d be much better with posting regularly on this blog... I promise I´ll catch you all up by the end of the weekend!!

The hike up to the castle... Unbelievable.



Last Friday night after I posted we had a meeting about the upcoming TU Ball! We learned how to waltz... this did not go exactly as the coordinators had planned.  Nearly everyone was stepping on toes, and all the girls were trying their best not to lead, but it was a lot of fun.  I was partners with my friend Nick and by the end of the 20 minutes we were fairly decent.  I can´t wait for the ball.  It´s on Thursday.  We´re all just hoping none of the students at TU (Technical Universität) know how to waltz too well...

Saturday was our final day in Deutschlandsberg, and I decided to go on the castle tour with some IES people. The castle is called BurgCastle, which actually directly translates to Castle Castle.  The walk up had to have been a 90 degree incline.  We had to walk up these tiny wooden stairs and rock paths; I felt like I was in an Indiana Jones movie.  The castle was really old, and the tour was interesting but way too long.  I was more interested in the castle itself than the displays.  All was forgiven when we got to the top of the castle; there was a gorgeous view of Deutschlandsberg and the area around it.

The view from the top of BurgCastle

Radball!

Also on Saturday, our hostel was hosting a Radball tournament.  Since none of us had ever heard of radball, we obviously checked it out.  In simplest terms, radball, or wheel ball, is a soccer played on bicycles.  The sport used to be really popular in Germany and Austria, but we were told it´s not as popular because of financial cutbacks.  It was such a cool thing to see.  The matches we saw were all played by pretty young kids, 10-14 years old at most, and they were all so talented (as far as I could tell).

The night we went to bars in Deutschlandsberg, and had an awesome time.  I met a ton of people from all over the country, and have made a ton of new friends.

First view of Vienna...
 technically, this is by the airport
so it´s about 20 minutes from the city.

Sunday we (finally) left for Wien! The 4-hour long bus ride was excruciating; everyone wanted to be in Vienna so badly.  Driving through Vienna on the highway in the dark, we couldn´t see many sights, but I could tell it was a beautiful city.  We got off the bus and had to grab cabs to take to our apartments.  My roommate Ellison and I took a cab to Liechtensteinstraße 105/19, our apartment in the 9th district of Vienna.  Our cab driver was awesome, he gave us tips on how to get around the city quickly and helped us bring our luggage to our building. 

The rest of our first day in Wien was spent meeting our landlady, Natalia, and our RA, Freitis, and unpacking and getting to know each other.  It was an overwhelming day, but we were finally in Vienna!!

I´ll post more tommorrow!!

PHEW! In Wien and Loving it!

I promise I´ll write an extra long post soon to make up for the lack of posts from the last few days! I´ve been having major computer problems and actually had to buy a new computer... it´s in German... talk about an experience you´d never get anywhere else but abroad.  All the keys are different pretty much.  The Y is where the Z normally is, and where the comma should be there is this: ä; where the / should be an ö... needless to say it´s very hard to get used to.  So please excuse any typos and eagerly await mz next post!  With plenty of photos of course...

Gute nacht!

Deutschlandsberg and Orientation!

Sorry for the quick post yesterday; I have been so busy with orienting myself with Austria that I haven't had much time for anything else!  Like I said yesterday, my plane landed early and I met a ton of people in the airport and on the bus to orientation in Deutschlandsberg, a really small, quaint town in the Styria region of Austria.

Upon our arrival we had about an hour to do whatever we wanted, so I jumped into the shower because I was such a greaseball at that point.  We're staying in a youth hostel on a mountain in Deutschlandsberg, and my room has a gorgeous view (seen below).  My roommates at the hostel will be my roommates at the apartment in Vienna, and they are all really nice.  There have been no problems getting along and we all can't wait to share an apartment.

 

We've basically been in meetings the entire time we've been here, learning about how to "squeeze the juice" during our time abroad.  The director of our program specified that our classes will use a "culture as classroom" ideal, which means we will be spending most of our classes going to museums, opera houses, and other cultural places around Vienna.

In the morning we were separated based on our German skills and knowledge.  The beginner German speakers (myself included) had to go to a Survival German meeting.  We learned very very very VERY basic German.  I can now speak maybe 10 words.  Here's the sentence I spoke to the instructor: "Mein name ist Kathleen.  Ich studiere in New York.  Ich komme aus Amerika.  Ich bin zwanzig."  That's about the extent of my German and I'm not very sure that means anything... it should mean something along the lines of: My name is Kathleen. I study in New York.  I come from America.  I am 20.  Obviously I have mastered the language already.

The Rathaus of Deutschlandsberg

Yesterday we got some free time to wander around Deutschlandsberg, and I went with a few friends down the mountain to look at the town.  The town is really adorable, and is apparently famous for its white wine. We put money on our new Austrian phones and walked around for about two hours.  The buildings are all really old and beautiful, and my favorite was the city hall (or Rathaus).

Last night we had an "Austrian Surprise" waiting for us in the lobby/common area of the hostel.  Helmut, the housing coordinator/resident party-starter of IES told us that we were about to see "how crazy Austrians can party."  A group of Austrian folk dancers all wearing lederhosen came out and performed and taught us a few dances.  It was SO much fun and we all had a blast learning the dances.

Just in case you were wondering, the beer in Austria is absolutely incredible! Here is a photo of my first legal beer in Austria!

Deutschlandsberg is beautiful, but I can't wait to get to Vienna.  We haven't even gotten to see it yet!! We're leaving Styria tomorrow at noon and will be in Vienna at around 4:00.  I'll post about Vienna later!! Until then, Auf Wiedersehen!

Here are a couple more photos of Deutschlandsberg.