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!!