740 is definitely a time...

September 15, 2011

Today was incredible.

First of all, the weather was perfect. A complete change from yesterday. (I actually added a blanket to my bed when I went to sleep...) but we woke up this morning with no hot water. Which was okay, it just meant super short showers!
Anyway, I wanted to sit down and really try to talk to Frau Schauer because we didn't have class until noon, but she was running around and making phone calls so we left because we didn't want her to feel obligated to us while she was trying to fix her house.
So, Bre and I went to the plaza at Karlskirche, listened to an old man playing the accordion and walked around a bit before class. I can imagine going home and saying, "Before class on most days, we had about an hour or so, so we would go look at St. Stevens cathedral, or we went to Schönbrunn Palace..." What a luxury!
For history class (Geschichte) today, we went on another tour of the city. We learned about some of the history of Vienna as we saw old Roman ruins, the riding school, a few places dedicated to emperors, and a church built in 740 (which sounds more like a time than a year)!
After class, we stopped at our teachers favorite ice cream shop, and left to our own devices.
Josh, Chris, Steven, Shelly and I went to the oldest part of Vienna: GriechenStraße and JudenStraße. GriechenStraße is absolutely gorgeous! It's definitely what you think of when you think of old European streets.



GriechenStraße is in the very center of the picture. Basically the crack in between the buildings.






Me. I'm actually IN Vienna! I'm just usually behind the camera :)






The other side of GriechenStraße.

The building with all of the gold on the window frames is actually a church, and my favorite I've seen so far. It's absolutely phenomenal. (I would put up pictures, but I'm not sure you're allowed to take them inside. I don't mind having to go back to check!) You walk into a foyer area that is completely dark except for the pictures that are illuminated on the wall by really dim lights. It kind of reminds me of a creepy vampire movie. Like Van Helsing or something... Anyway, you follow the corridor to the back and look through a window into an enormous cathedral that is probably the most ornate piece of art I have ever seen in my life. All of the figurines, knobs, decorations and Knicks knacks are gold plated and the organ in the middle is covered with gold plated sculptures and carvings. The pews are gold and red with carvings on the backs and sides. (I am having a hard time explaining this church!! It's absolutely phenomenal...)
Another church that was really cool is the oldest church in Vienna. Ruprechtskirche was built in 740 and STILL standing. Still beautiful, too!






Ruperts church. Oldest church in Vienna. After that, I need a translation, too...


This is St. Rupert. I'm not quite sure of his story, because when I asked who Rupert was, I was told "a saint". Very helpful, thanks.



Obviously, I couldn't figure it out from the 20 foot carving...



This is one of my favorites. you can see all the vines up the wall.

It turns out that this church still holds mass and performs concerts every week. So, the church built in 740 is still standing and still in use. I feel like anything in the U.S. Over 200 years old is immediately roped off with a giant sign that tells you to stay away because it's antique, and about a dozen security guards making sure you do. This church, you can go right up and touch it. I definitely touched the 8th century today.
The rest of the day was spent wandering around the city and riding the Prater Turm! It turned out to be absolutely stunning at night because you can see all of the lights on St. Stevens spire and the surrounding churches. I'm so glad I waited!
Those of us that are staying in Vienna this weekend have some fun things planned for tomorrow and Saturday!

Location:Vienna, Austria

Picture day!

I completely forgot to put up pictures of the hotel we stayed in the first night, so here they are! The Pension Baronesse!



Glass chandelier hanging from a pink ceiling (It reminds me of Legally Blonde. Or a barbie dream house in the 17th century)


Room floor to ceiling. Classy. Except for our luggage on the floor... Not so classy.


Closeup of the carpet. And Becca. My favorite. :)






These are the neatest elevators! They are about 3 feet wide and maybe 5 feet long, and they have a bench. It seems like these types of elevators are very common in Vienna. I guess if it's not broken, you don't have to fix it! America would do well to embrace that philosophy.

I took pictures of my home for the next three months! I love it, so I hope you will! :)



Bre's room + Bre.



My room. Its about as wide as my bed is long :)



Kind of hard to see because the sun was shining in on the camera while it was trying to do it's thing... But this is a little living space for us. We have a couch, bookshelf, desk and radio! Frau Schauer takes good care of us :)



This is our cute little bathroom, the toilet actually is not in this room. There is a separate closet for the toilet down a few stairs. (remind me to take a picture of the turquoise spiral staircase. It's pretty rad)



And Voila! Frau Schauer's adorable little house :) I wanted a photo full- on, but the tree was in the way.



112 Spiesingerstrasse! My favorite home in Vienna.



The beautiful street we live on. You don't see trees in the city, so it's nice to go home to some foliage and a little reminder of home!


Today was supposed to be a picture day in the city.. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of battery before I could photograph everything I wanted. It's good I have three months here!! :)


This is a typical Viennese Straße (Street). This particular one is between the major shopping center and our school.



This is the riding school. You can probably see that it is adorned with sculptures and cast iron statues (That is pretty normal for most of the buildings). They are pretty big on horseback riding here, and they have a ton of horse drawn carriages. I think a few of us are planning on going in on a carriage ride sometime in the future :)

(this is when my camera died and I went home to charge it.) I definitely suffered from rapid weather change today. This morning at 8, it was 72 degrees outside, decided to climb a little higher to about... 90, then it rained and dropped to 60ish. Maybe a little lower. I'm hoping it will stay nice and cool so I don't run out of clothes as fast!

Our Professor that came on the trip (Professor Minert) took us to a ferris wheel for our "Experiencing Vienna" course. This ferris wheel was the tallest one in the world when it was built, so it was a pretty big deal! you can overlook all of Vienna at the top, so we thought it was a pretty big deal, too.









(this is a momentous picture. This is the first time I have actual proof of me being in Vienna! Just thought I would throw that out there)












This is Stefansdom. A few of us are going up on Saturday to overlook Vienna from inside :) (sorry it's blurry. I will get a better picture later. The glass on the ferris wheel car wouldn't let me use the flash...)









These are all looking over Vienna from the top of the ferris wheel.









These are looking at the fun little amusement park the ferris wheel was in.






This is a ride (it's dark, I'm sorry!) that you can also overlook the city. I didn't go on it today because I want to ride it tomorrow night because I hear the city lights are gorgeous! :)

Location:Vienna, Austria

Exciting newses!!

Exciting news #1
I ordered ice cream today without using any English. I'm sure my German was hardly passable, but it seems like the nice ice cream man understood me perfectly.

Exciting news #2
Today was the first day I had Eis (gelato) since being in Europe. Wow, I definitely held out... And boy was it good. They seem to only have gelato here, which is perfectly fine with me :)

Exciting news #3
For class today, we went to the Wien Museum and looked at 15th century sculptures, painting and weapons. The best part is that our Kunstgeschichte (Art history) and our Österreichisch Geschichte (Austrian history) classes both do field trips once a week, so it's like I only had German class today.
Wow, this is going to be hard going back to the university...

Exciting news #4
MOM IS COMING TO VISIT ME IN NOVEMBER!!!!!! She called today, and we are planning on a trip to Venice, Pisa, Florence and maybe Prague. :)

Exciting news #5
Bre and I are going around to take lots of pictures tomorrow because class doesn't start until two, so there will be more of Vienna on here soon!!

Tschüss!

Location:Vienna, Austria

Church

September 11, 2011
Because today is such a historically significant day, I feel like I should have celebrated it somehow...
It's actually pretty hard to remember that I'm in Austria. In a lot of ways, it's similar to the U.S. The cars aren't that different, although you do see about three times more smart cars and fiats, they drive on the right side of the road (my mother just informed me that the only people who drive on the left side are English, or once ruled by England... Am I the only one who thought it was all of Europe?? Shoes what I know...) however, a main difference is that Europeans don't believe in showering every day like Americans do. Oh well, ways of life!
Church.
Everything is in German, so it's safe to say that I caught maybe one in twenty words..
After church was lunch, and guess what we had?? WEINER SCHNITZEL! It was good :) just like the one the night before.
Anyway, we went to the YsA ward located in Vienna, but I guess it was a big day because it was the opening social or something, and since there were lds youth there from Graz, Salzburg and other places everyone was scoping the field... Trying to find that "other half", you know? Well, since our group was from America, we weren't in the pool. We definitely weren't options, so we weren't spoken to much...
However, after the lunch and everything, we went on a scavenger hunt around the city, and we got to meet some really fun people! There were four girls from ByU in my group, then we had a boy from Taiwan, Kai, that was just visiting, and we had Rachel (pronounced Ra-hell) and Baldur (a couple. Very funny), Stefan, and David. They were super patient with our extremely broken German and our terrible pronunciation, but all of them knew English, so a few minutes after we had gotten past "(in German, of course) hi, my name is Kendal, I have two brothers and a dog. My dad is an engineer and I don't speak much German" we basically dropped it while conversing. I learned a few more words that I don't know if I will use frequently (for instance, they taught us how to say the word for a squirrels tail... I can't spell it, or really remember it for that matter...) but it was a blast to run around the city that they know basically everything about.
Tomorrow is the first day of school!
Wow. School in Austria...

Location:Vienna, Austria

Wiener Schnitzel!

September 9, 2011
We landed in Amsterdam at about 10.30 to catch an 11.40 flight. Well, it's a little different going through business on an international flight. It takes at least twenty minutes to get off the plane, then we had to go through customs - which took about thirty minutes because the ladies at customs security decided to check every. single. thing. in four or five of the bags in our group. Anyway, by that time, we were hearing a lady kindly informing the entire airport, "BYU students: you are delaying the flight to Vienna at gate G20. I'f you are not here in four minutes, we are leaving without you." we sprinted. The Amsterdam airport is a monster. It's probably at least a mile long. Not kidding. Okay, maybe a little exaggeration but that's definitely what it felt like...
it was a tad embarrassing when we boarded the plane all sweaty and out of breath from running and everyone was staring a us...
Vienna is GORGEOUS! I think I was a little tired to appreciate the full beauty because I had approximately six hours of sleep in thirty six hours... I'm pretty sure I fell asleep at least three or four times standing up... Either way, awake or asleep, the city is stunning.
I can only imagine what the passers by thought of this group of Americans that looked like the walking dead...
After our tour, we went to an Italian pizza/pasta restaurant. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. That is all.
Kidding! It was so amazing. You know what they say, the closer to the country it originated, the better the food gets, and boy are they RIGHT! Whoever "they" are. I ate half of a pizza by myself. It's a good thing we walked back to the hotel.
FINALLY we got to go to sleep.

September 10, 2011
I know I posted pictures, but I need to describe how the Pension Baronesse looks like because the pictures don't do near enough as words, and words definitely don't do near enough as the experience, but I will try my best to be super descriptive. Te room we stayed in was very Victorian styled with a glass chandelier hanging from a rose pink ceiling with translucent pink and cream drapes that hung from the ceiling to the floor. The window frames were all wooden and painted an off white color, and hinged open to a little alleyway lined with cobblestones. The carpet and the wallpaper behind the bed was a darker rose color with a maroonish floral pattern. I have never stayed in any place so...... European! Haha
Frühstück (breakfast) was delicious. We had a sweet Austrian lady named Sabina, who brought us dark hot chocolate and guided us to an array of breads, meets, cheeses, pastries and yogurt. If heaven has food, I'm pretty sure this will be it! I'll probably eat my words later when I find something I like better, but so far this was the best. I was a little disappointed that I got really full, really fast and was forced to stop eating...
Directly after breakfast, we went to the Amerika-Institut and had orientation. First thing I've learned about austrians: they LOVE to talk. They would seriously talk to you from the time the sun came up to the sun coming up the next morning. For the most part, they are extremely kind and it is definitely helping me with my conversation skills (along with hand gestures). My Hausfrau said that I will be fluent by the third week... Haha at least she has hope for me and my terrible pronunciation!
Speaking of Hausfraus! We met yesterday!! Breanne Fanning and I are rooming together, so we were a little disappointed that Frau Schauer couldn't pick us up, so we were left on our own to find her house, which was definitely an adventure- neither of us using the city transports on our own before. Anyway, we found our hotel, got our luggage and hailed a taxi. I don't want to brag.... Okay maybe I do. Bre and I have the best housing arrangement by far! Frau Schauer is ADORABLE! Mom, she reminds me of Maggie a little bit, but with less English. She is elderly, but extremely sweet and wants to talk all the time :) she speaks pretty fluent sentences, but has a hard time understanding us when we talk to her. This will get better because Bre and I are very motivated to learn German.
I will post pictures of the house as soon as I can because it is definitely one of a kind and our living arrangements are pretty radical... You'll see.
We went to dinner at a very cute cafe called Bunt. You walk down an alleyway that opens into a bigger alleyway with tables, chairs, wicker gazebos, and flowers everywhere! The best way to describe it is The Secret Garden meets a Pink Hat Society tea party. It was absolutely adorable. I ATE WIENER SCHNITZEL!!! And it was good... I have more for lunch on Monday...
And this was the car we rode in! Haha radical, huh???



Church is tomorrow! It will be interesting... I wonder if I will understand some of it!

Location:Vienna, Austria and Amsterdam

Day 1 1/2: Photos :)

The pictures don't do the landscape justice. Heck, the window of the plane doesn't even do it justice... You will just have to experience it for yourself. In the meantime, here are some pictures of what we saw today (a quick tour of downtown - not even a hundredth of what we will see. These photos are from us just passing by).



Flying in over Wien. Cloudy, but still beautiful.



Closer up of a town (not downtown.. I will find out later what this one is) and the landscape.









These are photos of our rooms for the night at the Pension Baronesse in Vienna. All of them look basically the same- very Victorian and just plain lovely! The last picture is of the street we're on.












Some of the sites around Wien. I honestly don't remember the names of anything we saw today (knowledge will come later... 6 hours of sleep in two days doesn't help much with cognitive abilities...), but I do know that the 3rd picture is the Parliament building.



The street performers paint themselves and only move if you put money into their cup. It's really fun to watch :)






Elysse with a street performer.

We ate at a really great pizza/pasta restaurant owned and run by Italians, so it was inexplicably good. I still have a few pieces left for a snack tomorrow :) I'm surprised I haven't run off to the Gelato shop yet, but you can be assured that it will be quite soon... ;)

Tomorrow, we visit the Austro Amerika Institut and meet our host families!

Tonight, we sleep.

Guten Abend!

Location:Vienna, Austria

Day 1: Destination: Austria

Why did I leave my camera??
Even traveling day poses fun adventures :)

Day one on the journey seemed promising enough. Who doesn't like to wake up at 4:00 a.m. to drive to the airport? Not that it mattered much, because I didn't sleep anyway. It's like the concept of Christmas for young kids waking every few hours to see if Santa has come yet (maybe you, too :) I admit, I don't sleep much on Christmas Eve). The same thing happens with an eagerly anticipated trip to Austria.

My dad and I arrived at the airport close to six this morning to meet up with the BYU group so we could all get on our 8:35 flight to Minneapolis, Minnesota. For all of you that travel first class, let me tell you how envious and peeved I am at the special privileges of the elite travelers. After multiple failed tries at the Self Check-In, I finally gave up on my own reliance and walked over to the regular check-in line. There were two checker-inners (for lack of a better word) manning one kiosk, and about three people ahead of me in line. Thirty minutes tops, right? Wrong. Ten minutes. Plus the extra hour the two at the kiosk spent checking in the 25 first class passengers that appeared out of thin air... Coach riders are people too!!

We landed in Minneapolis around noon their time, and since we have a seven hour layover, a few of us decided to go to the Mall of America to kill some time. I remember going to the Mall when I was little, but the only memory I have was of a Snoopy ride in the middle of the Mall. Ten years changes a lot of things... Obviously. I will say that you could probably get anything you ever wanted in that mall. There is a store for everything - from computers to cocktail dresses to a mini Legoland. I even relived my childhood by going into the American Girl doll store. With all of the fun stores, I was a little disappointed that I left my camera in my backpack while we explored. I know it's nothing compared to what Europe will be, but it was a fun way to start off the adventure!

In just a few short hours, I will be in Vienna, Austria.
The fun begins :)

Location:Minneapolis, Salt Lake, airplanes...