Day 69

This morning I woke up at 9:00 again and decided that it was time for a shower so I took my things to the shower building and almost froze. Yes I was in Italy, but for some reason it was about 50 degrees. Needless to say, the time between the end of my shower and getting dressed were extremely short. The check out time was 10:00 so I packed up my things and stripped the sheets off of my bed. Janaya had woken up and was also going to shower. She asked me to take her phone to the picnic area to charge. So I did. She came to the picnic area about 30 minutes later. My internet time had expired so she used hers. Anneke was on the morning train scheduled to get into Venice around 2:00, but apparently the Italian train workers were on strike so she had to board a bus at the border that would be taking her to Venice. While Janaya was figuring out plans for the day I worked on updating my journal with bullet points. Eric and Rebecca came to our table and chatted for a bit. Then we all took the 11:20 bus into the city. Janaya was set on finding a church for Palm Sunday service so we found a church at around 12:15 and went inside and sat in the back of the congregation. We couldn’t understand a thing, but it still was pretty nifty. The service lasted until about 1:00. We left and then decided that we’d try to find a bakery that we had visited yesterday. I had ordered a slice of spinach torte there and had had Janaya try some. We were both hooked, but didn’t remember the name of the bakery. Luckily Janaya had remembered the name of the neighboring church so we looked at our map and navigated our way to the bakery. We found it after about 20 minutes and I bought a €3 slice of the spinach torte. We went over to a open square and sat down to snack on the torte and to figure out where we going to go next. We decided to go see the third bridge that crosses the Grand Canal. We had already seen and walked over the first two yesterday and the day before so seeing the last one kind of made the trip to Venice complete. When we got to the bridge we spent some time looking over the canal, watching the boats going under us. Two of my favorite things about the city is that the „city bus“ is a boat with docks all throughout the city and that there are these beautiful wooden boats everywhere in the city. It’s all just so cool! We eventually made our way to the water’s edge and found a spot in the sun. Despite the cold temps in the morning, the weather was very warm and perfect for getting some vitamin D. Janaya worked on writing some postcards and I unashamedly took off my shirt and soaked up the sun. It was so great; this was what I had had in my mind when I had thought about vacationing in Italy! There was even a couple a ways down that had begun playing some songs with some sort of a guitar thing and a recorder-ish instrument. The best part was that I recognized one of the songs, „Down by the Sally Gardens“. I had sung the song in Glee Club and so I started quietly singing along. Once Janaya was done with her postcards we packed up and walked towards the end of the peninsula and then turned the corner and made of way back up the other side. On our way we witnessed a seagull attacking some sort of fish in the water, but then as we got closer we saw that it was a squid. Just then it squirted ink at the seagull, but missed. We watched the battle. It only took about four minutes and a lot of shaking on the seagull’s part to get the squid onto the sidewalk. Janaya and I made our way to the bus station thinking that Anneke would surely be in Venice by that time. Janaya checked Facebook and found out that Anneke had already been there for an hour and was already making her way to the campsite. Janaya and I talked and decided that she should head to the campsite to help Anneke get settled. We had been planning on a nice dinner all together, but it was okay that the plans had changed. I gave her a hug and wished her a happy Easter vacation then I headed to a nice restaurant for an authentic Italian meal. I ordered spaghetti with white clams and a cafe espresso. It was fantastic! After dinner I found free wifi and checked in on Facebook. I headed over to the train station and boarded my train. Luckily it wasn’t cancelled!
I found my reserved seat and started to work on my journals. Two girls came into my compartment and we all started talking. They were both heading to Vienna. One was from Russia and was currently studying in Finland, but was doing a semester in Vienna and the other was from Brazil and traveling Europe. I worked on my journal and caught myself up completely!!! About an hour into the ride a very loud group of young Italian teenage boys infiltrated the train. I think that they were a part of a traveling soccer team. They took the empty seats in our compartment and were crazy loud. However, I didn’t have a problem with it because I had my movies to occupy me. I first watched Gladiator, then switched to the last 40 minutes of The Adventures of TinTin, and then finished it up with The Perks of Being A Wallflower. By this time it was about 5:00 in the morning and we were stopped at the main train station in Salzburg. Once we started moving again, I fell asleep.

Day 68

On Saturday I woke up around 9:00. I left the tent and went to the picnic area to charge my computer and phone. Janaya came about 10 minutes later. I bought a chocolate croissant for breakfast and then also bought 24 hours worth of internet access from the campground. Jen and Virginia joined us at our table and then Janaya and I began to plan out our day. We ended up leaving the campground at 11:00. We had looked up cheap, good eats in Venice so we made our way to a pizza place on the East side of the city. We ordered a margarita pizza and then took it to a canal and ate. Once we were done eating we decided that we were going to try and see different parts of Venice than we had seen the day before so we made our way to the Eastern edge of the city and walked along the stone „boardwalk“ and enjoyed the great view of the surrounding islands. We eventually made our way to a Coop store where we bought a bag of apples, some discount bread, cheese, a bottle of wine, and a bottle of Bellini. We left the store and decided that we were going to venture to the Southwestern side of the city to San Marco. On our way we stopped at a bridge and shared some of the Bellini and each had an apple. Bellini is a sort of peach cocktail that resembles champaign. It was delicious and tasted like it should have been for kids instead of adults! I ate some bread and cheese and then we headed off towards San Marco. Once we got there we saw why it was so popular. It was this huge square filled with tourists all surrounded by these huge buildings with amazing architecture. We walked to the water and then took the „boardwalk“ to the park about a mile away. There we found an empty section of grass and each ate another apple. I put on my music and napped and Janaya read. It felt so relaxing to not be walking that it felt like it was actually an hour nap instead of only 20 minutes. We walked further and found another park. We stopped and sat on a bench, because Janaya wanted to see the sun set over Venice. I was cold and tired, but I told myself „Why not?“. We sat there and I played sun songs on my phone to try and inspire the sun to come out from behind the clouds. It started to sprinkle a little so ten I switched the music to rain songs. Sadly, when the sun did set it was behind a lot of clouds so we started walking back to San Marco. However, this wasn’t bad because the city at night was absolutely beautiful! Janaya’s phone, which we had been using as our GPS was dying so we just followed the signs pointing us the Realto bridge. We eventually got there and took a few pictures. We decided to once again divert from the route that we had taken the day before and tried following signs to get back to the bus station. Once again, to rewards ourselves, we bought gelato. This time I got malaga, which was some sort of raisin flavor, and tiramisu, which was fantastic! We eventually found the bus station and managed to catch one of the last busses to the campground. When we got back we found Rebecca and Eric sitting at one of the picnic tables eating pizza. Janaya and I joined them and opened our bottle of wine. I ordered a mushroom pizza with olives and it was SO good! Once the wine and pizza were gone we all said goodnight and went to our tents. Janaya and I had talked about watching a movie so we started watching, but I fell asleep within ten minutes. A long day finished with wine has a way of doing that to you.

Day 67

My alarm went off at 4:30, but I got up easily. I quietly assembled my things and then left the room. As I waited in the lobby for Janaya, I ate two yogurts for breakfast. I had one left so I gave that one to Janaya. Once we were ready we left for the Westbahnhof. There we hopped on the U6 and took it to the Vienna Meidling train station. We waited there for about an hour and then boarded our 6:30 train heading to Venice. The train cars were divided up into cabins like you would see on the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter books. Janaya and I got a car together and then two Italian men also joined us and then promptly fell asleep. I fell asleep for a while until Janaya woke me up. We were traveling through beautiful mountains. There was a misting lake to our right and snow-peaked mountains all around us. We went across a bridge and made our way through what I am guessing were either the Austrian or Italians alps. It was breath taking! We eventually started riding through fields again and I fell asleep. I had the weirdest dream that Kelsey’s dad was driving me through Italy somewhere and was taking a wished route. In the dream we were going through curves that were not physically possible to navigate and going up almost 80 degree mountain grades. It must have been the train twisting and turning because at one point I decided to just close my eyes and trust that it’d all be okay. I’m an awful backseat driver who likes to stomp on the imaginary brake in the passengers seat so this was a big step for me. When I woke up I was a little confused, but everything made sense again pretty quickly. I had packed two granola bars so Janaya and I each had one. That was around 10:00. Our train got into Venice at around 2:00. Right when we walked out of the station we saw the Grand Canal straight in front of us. Since we were in Venice we decided to just start walking. I bought a slice of pizza and Janaya bought a mozzarella ball. She had packed some bread so we found a canal edge and had a light lunch. We wandered around for about 2 hours which felt like forever since we were carrying all of our things. I felt especially bad for Janaya, because she was carrying all of the things she needed for her entire Easter break and I was only carrying things for the weekend. Eventually we made our way back to the Grand Canal and got gelato as a reward and then we made our way to the bus station. In order to get to the campground where we were staying we had to go two stops on the number 5 bus. Luckily we met two girls who were also going to the same place. Their names were Virginia and Jen. Virginia was from Vermont and Jen was from Ottawa. They had been traveling since January and were now in Venice. They had started in China and were eventually going to end up in Morocco. Janaya and I chatted with them on the bus. We all got off one stop early so we then walked about a quarter of a mile to Camping Realto. Since Janaya and Anneke had booked a tent together and Anneke wasn’t there I asked Janaya if it would be okay if I took Anneke’s spot so as to safe Anneke some money. She said that it wasn’t a problem. In each tent there was a nice wooden floor about 5 feet wide and 6 1/2 feet long and had two cots on it. The tent was a little cozy, but I switched my bed to face the other way so that it wouldn’t be too awkward. Once our things were in the tent and my bed was made we walked over to the picnic area where Jen and Virginia were sitting and joined them. Janaya and I walked into the general store and bought a bottle of Chianti. We rejoined Jen and Virginia and started chatting. At the table next to us there were two other Canadians, Eric and Rebecca. They joined us and we all listened to Jen and Virginia’s travel stories. Jen and I were both cold so we decided to split a veggie pizza together. It was a great decision! It was so fresh and so warm! They had brought a ukelele along with them on their travels and had since learned to play it. Since I could sing they took turns playing and I sang along. It was really fun and relaxing. When it was about midnight Janaya and I headed back to the tent and we both went to bed. It was cold out so I didn’t even bother changing into anything different for sleeping. The bed, although a little short, was very comfortable and I fell asleep very quickly.

Day 66

On Thursday I woke up at 9:00 and had a slow morning. I watched a few episodes of Friends and then got a message from Janaya saying that she was coming back to the dorm from her 8:00 class. I went to the kitchen and started making pancakes. Every time anyone goes to Asia World for lunch they get a 400 g box that they can fill up at the buffet. They are the best tupperware substitutes in a pinch so I used them for pancake carriers. Since Janaya, Anneke, and I had had a pancake breakfast the previous Thursday, it seemed only right that we do it again this Thursday. So I made mini pancakes and filled three boxes with four each. I packed up some forks and the syrup and a tube of Burt’s Bees and then Janaya and I headed to the hospital. We got there around 12:30. As we ate we talked about our plans for the weekend. Janaya and I were supposed to be leaving the next day in order to go to Venice and Anneke, before she was hospitalized, was supposed to be doing the same. We eventually decided that I would be leaving the next day with Janaya and that Anneke would come to Venice when she could. I left the hospital and headed to the Westbahnhof. I bought my roundtrip ticket there and then took the U-bahn to the university. I arrived about 5 minutes before my class started. Dr. McLoughlin talked about the strategies of World War II and that typical day as a British soldier. He also said that the Canadians and Australians were seen as the real men of the war especially in the eyes of the British. After class I went to the office and rested for a bit. I walked to a local restaurant called the Pie Factory and bought a veggie pie for my dinner. Since it was a lot smaller than I had anticipated, I also went to a bakery again and bought another good sized chunk of bread that was very cheap. I ate the bread on the way to dance class. We learned the cha-cha, the foxtrot, and worked on the waltz again. After class Janaya and I headed back to the dorm and made dinner together. We chatted for a bit and then I headed back to my room. I showered and then packed for my weekend in Venice. After I was done I watched an episode of Friends and headed to sleep.

Day 65

On Wednesday I woke up around 9:00 and got ready for class. This week for Austria in Context we were meeting at a museum to look at old models of the city to learn about its history and how it had developed. Our tour guide that had been scheduled to work that day had called in sick so Ruth, having gone on the tour about 30 times, did her best to give us the comprehensive city history. At one point we were following a group of what looked like 4th graders who were very knowledgable about the city’s history. After we got done at the museum I went to Haus Salzburg with Stephen to get my camera back before the start of Easter vacation. After that I went to the office to meet with Ruth about my classes. I officially dropped a german science fiction class that I hadn’t been going to because my schedule was too full. Also, I asked if I could audit my music theory class since it won’t be counting as credit at Wabash (I need a full Wabash credit music theory class for my minor). I'll have to speak with my professor about that. After I was done straightening out my schedule with Ruth I met Janaya outside and we walked to the hospital together to visit Anneke. She had been hospitalized the day before. After getting kind of mixed up at the largeness of the hospital we eventually found her room. We stayed and talked until Andrew, her brother, and a few of his friends came to visit as well. I headed back home. On the way to my literature class I stopped in a bakery and bought a half of a loaf of bread for about a Euro and a half. I enjoyed that before class. Class was as normal and, sadly, very boring. Dr. Eschenmüller is a very nice man who cares about what he is teaching, but he is just so boring. It’s bad enough having to sit through a boring class in English. In German it’s a lot worse. It took a lot of effort to stay concentrated on his lecture. After class I headed back to the dorm with Janaya, Andy, and Erica. I was in a mood to get rid of my food so I made rice, spaghetti, and fried up all of my veggies. Erica and I split this meal and used some of Janaya’s pasta sauce and much coveted sriracha sauce. It was a really funky concoction, but it was insanely good! After dinner I went back to my room and watched an episode of Friends. Then it was time for bed.

Day 64

I got up on Tuesday around 8:00 so that I could get the rest of my homework done and have enough time to go for a run. I ran to Schönbrunn again and it was, once again, wonderful! When I got back from my run I took a shower and got ready for class. Class went well. Dan’s friends Aiden and Andre had wanted to go shopping, but Dan still had class for a while so I said that I would take them to Mariahilferstraße. We first stopped at the dorm, because Stephen had his last photography class that evening and wanted to borrow my camera again for it. We left and started walking down Mariahilferstraße and talked. The only place we stopped at was Forever 21, but that was only for about 10 minutes (thank goodness!). We kept on walking all the way to the Museums Quarter (Museumsquartier). Once we got there we turned around and started heading back towards the Westbahnhof. Dan called and said that he was available again to „take Adre and Aiden off of my hands“, but I was having a great time with them. I suggested to Dan that we meet at Bürgenland 3 for pancake appetizers. He said that that sounded great! On our way back to the dorm the three of us got ice cream. I got straciatella and mint-chocolate chip. I have a goal of not repeating a flavor until I’ve tried them all. So far it’s been very much worth while. Once we got back to the dorm, we all went upstairs to the third floor kitchen and I started mixing up the batter. Dan called and said that he, Charlotte, and Max were outside so I went downstairs and let them in. I was making pancakes like a machine and they were loving them too! Eventually Minnie, a friend of Max and Charlotte’s came with her boyfriend and joined in on the fun. Aiden and Andre couldn’t stop saying thank you. Since I love being a host it was no problem at all! Dan was really kind and washed the dishes for me. After everything was cleaned up we all left the dorm and went a block over to a restaurant for the main meal. I ordered a small beer and a greek potato pan, which consisted of pan fried potatoes with goat cheese, tomatoes, and spinach. It was fantastic! After dinner everyone was heading out to go to a bar. I had already used up my food allowance and was pretty tired, so I said goodbye and went back to the dorm. I went straight to bed and it was only about 10:00. I know that that doesn’t sound super early, but it was considering that I normally don’t go to bed until about midnight.

Day 63

On Monday morning I woke up at 1:00. Yes, 1:00. I was so incredibly tired from the weekend. I decided that since I had already missed class I might as well go and do something productive with my day so I decided to run to Schönbrunn. It was about 5 or 6 kilometers round trip and it was so beautiful and sunny. When I got back from my run I cleaned up my room and then made an early dinner. I wasn’t feeling up for much so I just made rice. I FaceTimed with Mother about the trip details again and then I got my homework and brought it to the kitchen to work on it in peace. I got almost all of my stuff done for my grammar class and then, when it was midnight, went to bed.

Day 62

On Sunday morning I woke up at 7:45 and packed my things. I got dressed, stripped the sheets off of my bed and brought everything downstairs. I put the sheets in the hamper and went to breakfast. Erica was already there and she told me that despite being two floors above us the night before she had still heard the ruckus that was coming from our room! Erica went to take care of a few last minute things and Stephen came down for breakfast. 10 minutes later Michaela arrived and Dan came down as well. Erica, Stephen, Dan, and I left for the Sound of Music tour. First we went to the mansion where the lake scenes were filmed. We took time to take pictures and then got back on the bus to go to Hellbrun where the gazebo from 16 Going on 17 was located. After this we took the bus for about 30 minutes to Mondsee to see the wedding church. On the way we learned about the history of the film and even sang along with the soundtrack! It was all super cheesy, but it was SO much fun! When we got to Mondsee, we were given an hour to look around. We spent a little time in the church and then went to a cafe to have some genuine apple strudel. We boarded the bus again and headed back to Salzburg again singing almost all the way. Erica and I headed back to the hostel to get some work done and to get some wifi. Everyone else met us there an hour later and we all headed to the train station to board our train. I stopped at the Spar in the train station and bought a tuna wrap, a yogurt drink, and some cheese for the ride back to Vienna. This time we had seats reserved in the upper deck of the train so we had an awesome view on our way back. Charlotte sat next to me and we watched World War Z. Riding the train with our group must have been a nightmare for Michaela because the guys were so loud and mostly due to the fact that we had gotten seats that were facing each other. When we got back we headed back to our dorms. Andy and I decided to make dinner together. It was a nice quiet wrap up of a long weekend. After dinner I went back to my room and FaceTimed with Kels. Afterwards it was time to hit the hay.

Day 61

I woke up at 8:00 on Saturday and packed up what I wanted to bring for my weekend in Salzurg. It involved testing to see whether or not the clothes were actually dry first, but luckily I found enough dry stuff to supply my need for the weekend. Once I was ready I walked to the ÖBB platform with Andy, Tony, and Paithan. We eventually found the right car and Erica and Dan saving our reserved seats. Charlotte had woken up late and was running to make it to the platform with me on the other end of the phone. Sadly, she didn’t make it. I handed my phone to Michaela and she talked to Charlotte and advised her as to what to do. I spent the first part of the trip writing out my journal from the bullet points that I had been putting down every night before I went to bed. I quickly got burned out from this task and started watching Phantom of the Opera. Once we arrived we all got off of the train and followed Michaela to our hostel. We all got checked in and put our things in our lockers in our rooms. We then headed to lunch. Still not being able to order schnitzel I decided on the trout. I was surprised when I got a whole fish on my plate, but (after a little instruction from Michaela on the technique of eating a whole fish) I was pleasantly surprised with how good the meal tasted. Once we were done with lunch our tour guide led us on our tour of Salzburg. We started out at the Sound of Music bridge that Maria and the children run across in their outing and then made our way to the birth house of Mozart and the Mirabell gardens where parts of Do-Re-Mi were filmed. After our tour we walked around for a half hour and then met Michaela to go up into the fortress. After spending some time there, we headed down the hill along the ridge of another hill to go to the Augustina Brewery (Augustinabräu). On the way there Michaela told us of her dream to visit a country for each letter of the alphabet and how far she had gotten. I’m pretty sure that the only country she was missing was Zimbabwe! Once we got to the brewery we found a table in the courtyard and got our beer and food. We were there for about an hour or so when Michaela said that she would be taking anyone who wanted to go back back to the hostel. All of the girls left and so did I. I honestly didn’t want to be spending any more money than I already had and I was very tired. Once we got back to the hostel I was invited to work on my homework in the girls’ room instead of having to do it alone in my room. We all talked for about two hours and then I decided that it was time for me to go to my room to get ready for bed. On my way out I heard singing coming from the bar downstairs. I went down there to see a choir serenading the bar, which was pretty cool. Andy and Dan were there and were very excited to see me. The three of us headed upstairs to our room and Dan went straight to sleep. The guys had all been drinking and it got loud! Somehow Dan managed to sleep through it all despite the fact that it went on until about 1:30! I eventually fell asleep around 2:00 which was a miracle considering how loud Dan was snoring!

Day 60

Friday morning I got up around 7:30 and was at the plasma center at 8:00 for my appointment. After I was done I went back to my dorm room and watched a few episodes of friends. Janaya and Anneke had invited me to go shopping with them that morning so I waited for a Facebook message from Anneke to say that she was actually awake. Once the message came, we went to Forever 21. I tried a few things on, wasn’t satisfied, and was done within 20 minutes. I waited outside for about 20 minutes and then got a call from Anneke saying that they would still be a while. She said that if I had something else to do I could and that they were sorry. I had no problem with that so I headed home by way of the kebab place to get a vegetarian sandwich. When I got home I decided to take a nap. We had arranged a get together that night at Haus Salzburg in order to get to know a few different people. We had all been tasked with bringing along an Austrian friend. Once we got there however we found out that not only my Austrian friend, but a lot of others’ Austrian friends weren’t able to make it. On my way to the party I had stopped at the grocery store to grab cheese, cookies, and Sekt. Eventually we moved from the garden (because it was getting a bit loud) to the 5th floor kitchen. We had a great time altogether and I met two of Dan’s friends who were in Vienna to visit him. They had been studying in Ireland, but their program was already done so they were just touring Europe. When it was time to go I left with Andy and Anneke and walked back to Haus Bürgenland 3. Since our Salzburg excursion was the next day I decided to run a load of laundry. While I was waiting for the laundry to finish I FaceTimed with Kels. Once the laundry was out of the washing machine, I brought it all up to my room and hung it all around the room to dry. This was especially difficult because Christoph was already fast asleep and I didn’t want to unnecessarily wake him. Once everything was drying, I headed to bed.

Day 59

On Thursday morning I woke up at 8:00. I had gotten a text from Maria saying that she’d be delivering my jacket sometime around 9:00. She came around 9:30 and apologized again for Boyce’s behavior on Tuesday evening, but I said that it was okay and that I wasn’t at all annoyed by her. She left to go to work and I went upstairs to the 3rd floor kitchen to make breakfast. I Facebook messaged Anneke, Janaya, and Andy and told them that pancakes were being made and that they should join! At 11:00 Janaya and Anneke came and we all had pancakes together and hung out. After our community breakfast I headed back to my room to work on an application for Sons of Wabash, an group of undergraduates at Wabash who work closely with alumni of the college. Since it had been a busy week I seriously thought about skipping my Britain at War class, but decided at the last moment to go anyway. I wasn’t disappointed about my decision. Class was good and very interesting as usual. After class I took another way back to the office and meandered into an antique store. I looked around for a while and then headed back. I played the piano for a while and then went back to my dorm to get changed for dance class. Dance class was good, but it got really of awkward. For one of the dances I was paired up with Anna Marie who is about 70 and we were dancing to Blurred Lines. You really notice how vile the lyrics are when you are dancing with someone who is at least three times as old as you. After class we went to a new brewery, the 1516 Brewery. We ordered drinks and Andy and I spilt a pretzel. Janaya left early and Erica and I followed shortly. I went straight home and went to bed.

Day 58

On Wednesday I woke up at 7:30 and worked on my reflective journal that was due for Austria in Context. I decided to finish it up on the Straßenbahn 5 on the way to the office. On my way though I heard raised voices in the back of the car. Two men were arguing in some Slavic language. I chose to ignore it until I heard a thump, which turned out to be one guy slamming the other guy’s head against the window of the car. I was freaked out, but had no idea what to do. I was very glad when they got off at the next stop! I got to the office, printed off my reflective journal and handed it in to Ruth. She started off the lecture talking about I don’t know what when Jesse started giving counter points and arguing them to no end. Everyone tuned out for about an hour at least and took turns going to the kitchen to get snacks and drinks while we waited for Jesse to stop talking. Eventually Charlotte reigned him in and Ruth who had not only been holding her ground, but also schooling him resumed her lecture. After class I play piano for a while and then went to music class. It’s a difficult class, not because it’s all that hard to understand, but rather that it's two hours of lecture. It’s always a battle trying to keep myself focused and not nodding. Once class was done I headed back to the office and read the rest of Bahnwärter Thiel, which we had to read for the literature class. I took a break to walk to Billa to grab some snacks then resumed reading before class. After my very long day, I almost fell into bed and fell asleep very quickly!

Day 57

On Tuesday morning I woke up late. When I got up I took my homework for my grammar class to the kitchen and got it done. I made lunch and then headed to the office for my 2:00 grammar class with Michaela. For every class we start off with some sort of game that gets our minds thinking in German. This time we played a guessing game. Class was very informative as usual. Afterwards I left to meet Maria, my German TA from my freshman year at Wabash, at the Billa nearby. It was wonderful seeing her again! We talked for a while while we waited for another Wabash guy who was also in Vienna. His name was Boyce Evans and once he arrived, we went to the University Brewery (Unibräu) and had a few drinks and talked. After about 30 minutes or so Maria had to leave because she was teaching a German class in town. Boyce and I chatted and waited for a friend of his. Eventually she did come and I was introduced to his friend Alex. As we were talking Boyce invited me to his birthday party at the Seven Star Brewery (Siebensternbräu) that evening so I said that I had to go home to drop off my backpack. I said goodbye and went to the office. I told Jessie about the birthday party and he and I headed back to Haus Bürgenland 3 to drop off our things. We got to the brewery on time and were the first ones there. A few of Boyce’s friends came and we all waited. Boyce eventually got there about 30 minutes late and very drunk. Jesse and I talked with Boyce’s friends and had a great time talking as much as we could in German. Boyce was so inebriated that he was just sitting in the corner quiet and sullen. I tried striking up a friendly conversation, but he just shut me down. I thought I had done something wrong, but later, when he was in the restroom, one of his friends said that that was just how Boyce gets when he has had too much to drink. Great impression. At some point Boyce left without saying anything. Everyone thought that he had gone to use the restroom, but when he didn’t come back for a while his friends started wondering about him. We kept on talking, despite Boyce’s absence, for another 30 minutes. When Jesse and I were leaving I realized that my coat was gone and that Boyce had taken it. I shrugged it off and Maria, who Boyce was staying with, said that she’d get it back for me. Jesse and I left disgusted with the night’s events and an alumnus’ actions and headed back to my dorm. Jesse grabbed his things and then went back to his dorm. I headed to bed.

Day 56

On Monday I woke up around 8:45 and got ready for class. In class, to change things up, we acted out a section of the play and then, after we were done practicing it, performed it for our teacher. It was good to change things up a bit and it also helped us to understand the text a little better. Once class was over I headed back to my dorm and had more soup for lunch. Janaya had asked earlier if I wanted to go for a walk in a new part of town so I said sure. I took the U-bahn to Kreplerplatz and met her there. She is currently in an urban-planning class and as a part of a class project she needed to measure out the store fronts for two blocks so I helped. We used my pace, which is approximately one meter, and spent a good hour walking in front of store fronts. After we were finished we headed back to the Westbahnhof and got ice cream to celebrate a job well done. Since I was getting ice cream again I told myself that I needed to try new flavors before I could repeat one so I got a scoop of poppy ice cream and a scoop of peanut. It was great! I headed back to the dorm and got dressed up. As part of the theater class we were actually going to see a performance of Arturo Ui at the Volkstheater. Andy, Stephen, Erica, and I all met there and waited for Frau Andreewitch to get there. She had been delayed because of the public transport. We got tickets in the back of the theater and watched the show. It was very well done, but I did not like it at all. The storyline followed a Chicago gangster’s rise to power which almost perfectly paralleled Hitler’s rise to power in Germany and Austria. After the performance I headed home. Before I went to bed I made sure to jot down the important happenings of the day in my computer.

Day 55

On Sunday I woke up late because I was so tired from Bratislava. Luckily church starts at 1:30 so when the time came I got ready and met Anneke and Andrew there. After church I went back home to my dorm and then took a nap. I probably napped for about 2 and a half hours then decided that it was time to get up and get some work done. I showered and started reading Arturo Ui for my theatre class. When suppertime rolled around I made rice and asparagus soup from a mix. In order to make the soup go further I added the rice. It was a good dinner and especially good for a breezy day. After dinner I kept reading and eventually went to bed.

Day 54

On Saturday morning I woke up around 8:15. I decided to take a shower and then got dressed. We had made plans to travel to Bratislava so we were going to try and leave on the 10:30 train. I packed up my things including my wallet, ticket, and map of Bratislava and then went downstairs to the lobby. Janaya and Andy were there and ready to go. I told them to go ahead while I waited for Anneke. She came down shortly and then we went to the Westbahnhof ÖBB office to buy her ticket. We took the U-bahn to the Hauptbahnhof. We got there a little after 10:30, but that was okay, because Andy and Janaya had missed it too. Erica and Paithan were on the 10:30 train so we took the 11:00 train so as not to be too far behind. On the way there I read a little for my theater class and then ended up playing around on my phone. Once we got into Bratislava we took a bus towards the castle. We got off and started walking towards what looked like downtown. We stopped at a Billa and bought supplies for lunch. I bought cheese, a yogurt drink, a small loaf of french bread, and two different Radlers. It seemed appropriate since it was a warm day. We found a park right outside of the store and ate there. After lunch we decided to walk towards the castle and hope that Erica and Paithan were there too. We stopped at the Crowne Plaza across from the presidential palace in order to use the restroom. While there we used the free wifi to update Erica of our location and plans via Facebook. Once everyone was ready to go again, we walked up to the castle. We took our time at the castle looking over the wall at Bratislava below. We documented it all with a few pictures and then walked over to another side of the castle grounds where we found an empty chunk of the wall. We all layer on the wall and soaked up the sun for around 30 minutes or so. We also made pinky promises that we would stay in touch with each other after our time abroad. :-) Janaya got a message on her phone telling us where she and Paithan were so we meandered to Cafe Hemingway. Just as we were walking towards the cafe we saw Erica and Paithan leaving! We walked with them to the old city center and started exploring. Janaya, Anneke, and I spotted a gellateria and bought some as an appetizer for dinner. We found a place that had offered genuine Slovakian food and were seated outside. We all ordered drinks and then placed our orders. I ordered the garlic soup and a plate of gnocchi. The soup was served in a bread bowl, which I ate, and was very filling. I couldn’t finish the gnocchi so I recruited Andy for some help. After dinner we made our way to the train station. We had thought that there would be a 7:45 train, but for some reason there wasn’t one so we had to wait for the 8:45 train back to Vienna. In the meantime Anneke orchestrated a few rounds of MASH for myself and Andy. By the time that it was her turn we had boarded the train and were heading back to Vienna. We were all so tired that it was almost impossible to be serious so we ended up laughing almost the entire way back. Janaya, Andy, Anneke, and I got off at Simmering which connects to the U3. We took the U3 back towards the Westbahnhof. Andy and I got off a stop before to get gellato. We walked back to the dorm and chatted until we got to our rooms. Since it was the weekend Chistoph was gone so I didn’t feel guilty about being loud and Skyping. I chatted with Kels again and told her all about my day in Bratislava. After we hung up I decided to update my journal before I headed to bed.

Day 53

On Friday morning I got up and went to the plasmazentrum to donate plasma. That took about 50 minutes. When I was done I stopped by a bakery and grabbed a chocolate muffin. I had said that I would go shopping with Charlotte so while I waited I watched an episode of Friends. When she called me we met at Neubaugasse and then started walking down Mariahilferstraße. We eventually made our way to Starbucks. Charlotte ordered a coffee drink and chocolate truffle cake and I ordered a hot chocolate and the caramel apple pie. We chatted for a while there and then decided that we’d better go leave to get ready to meet students from the Vienna University of Business and Economics. On our way back we saw Stephen who was just heading to Starbucks to get some studying done. Charlotte had not yet been to see my dorm so I showed her and then she headed back to her dorm and I headed to the office. Once I got there Erica, Stephen, Andy, Dan, and I left to go to meet the VU students at their campus. As part of our meeting we had made posters about what positive and negative stereotypes/opinions we had about Austria and the US and the VU students did the same. Next semester most of them will be studying in the US, so they actually wanted to meet and talk with actual US students to get to know more about the US. After going around the room and introducing ourselves, we all took time to look at everyone else’s posters. Many of the students were surprised to see that I had The Sound of Music on my poster, because it’s really just an American thing. Some of them didn’t even know what it meant. Of course they had things about fast food, guns, and Hollywood on their US posters. After our meeting, most of us headed across campus to the University Brewery (Unibräu). We all ordered drinks and dinner and had a blast talking with one another. We probably stayed there for about 2 hours! After I left I headed back home to my dorm. I skyped with Kels and we probably talked for about 2 hours. After that I FaceTimed with Mother. She led me through all of her tentative plans for her, Dad’s, and Ally’s time in Europe. She showed me a few hotels that she had booked and asked if there was anything extra that I thought we should be seeing. Since she had been working with Frau Smith all of it seemed perfect. After we hung up I decided that I was time for bed.

Day 52

On Thursday I, once again, didn’t have to get up early so I ended up getting up around 9:30. To be perfectly honest I spent most of the morning watching Friends, but I definitely don’t regret it. At 1:45 I went to the Westbahnhof and took the U6 to Alserstraße. I took the SB 43 to Schottentor and went to class. Dr. Finnbar lectured on the strategies of the World War I. After class I took the public transit back to the dorm to change for dance class. We learned the Viennese Waltz and then at the end, a few different variations in ¾ time. After class Janaya told us that she had just gotten a job for the summer so we all agreed that we’d head over to a new brewery called the 7-star-brewery to celebrate. I ordered two small sizes of their specialty beers: the chili beer and the smoke beer. After I was done with my drinks I went home and cooked some rice for dinner. I worked on my journal for a while and then went to bed.

Day 51

On Wednesday morning I woke up around 9:30 and got up slowly. After Christoph left I went through my slow morning routine of the open window, music, and homework. At 2:00 I went to my music class. We learned about dissonance and its many variations (okay, there’s only three, but it’d take a bit to explain). After what felt like an especially long music lecture, I headed back to the office. I told Michaela that I couldn’t meet with her today for pronunciation lessons, because I needed to go back to Haus Bürgenland 3 to grab my things for the literature course later in the evening. So that’s what I did. I returned about 10 minutes before class started. We went through the authors that we were reading and learned about their backgrounds. After a very long two-hour class, I headed back to my dorm. It’s funny, but a day of long classes can really take it out of you!

Day 50

On Tuesday morning I woke up later than expected, but it wasn’t that much of a problem since Grammar class didn’t begin until 2:00. I spent the morning getting my homework done with the window open and listening to music. After class I went back home again and made dinner for myself. After that I started working on homework again. The day wasn’t that exciting, but all in all it was a pretty good day.

Day 49

Monday wasn't all that entertaining of a day, but it wasn't bad. I woke up early to go to the plasma center at 8:00 for my donation appointment. During the donation I realized that it stinks having to drink so much water, because by the end of the donation process, I felt like I was going to burst!

I took the 13A bus to Skodagasse, which is about two blocks away from the office. I walked from there and got to Theater class on time. We discussed the play that we had read Arturo Ui, a parallelism of Hitler's rise to power set in gangster Chicago.

After class I headed back with the SB 5 and went to Hofer. I decided that I might as well stock up on my lunch supplies so I bought 10 single-serving containers of cottage cheese and 20 containers of yogurt. I carried them back to my dorm in their cardboard carriers. It took a bit to reorganize the fridge, but once I did it looked great!

I worked on homework for Tuesday and cleaned up the room. I spent the rest of the day putzing around the room and getting random bits of work done. Like I had said - not exciting, but not bad.

Day 48

Sunday was once again a follow up day of the opera workshop. I got up in time and got to Alexander's office around 10:00. I was surprised that he wasn't answering on the buzzer, but then I remembered that we weren't supposed to be there until 10:30 so I went for a walk and found a park nearby. I sat down on a bench and listened to my music. All of a sudden a small dog came trotting along and hopped up on the bench that I was on. It proceeded to hop into my lap too. I laughed and then picked it up and put it on the ground. Its owner, a 60-ish woman, said that she was sorry and that she hoped that her dog didn't get me too dirty. I said that it wasn't a problem at all. She and the dog left and I decided to head back to Alexander's office. On the way there I noticed little muddy paw prints on my sports jacket, but I didn't mind.

Once the others got there we started learning about Schönberg who introduced the use of free-tonal music. This meant that he used every note in a scale and every other note in-between. It was interesting listening to his music, not because it necessarily sounded good, but rather that it was a new sound.

After the workshop Alexander gave us our tickets for Wozzeck, the show we were going to see at the Staatsoper and we headed to the Pizzeria next door. We all ordered pizzas and I got mine with mushrooms. We spent the time refueling for the upcoming opera. After we were finished we all took the train to the Staatsoper. We found our assigned seats and settled in.

The opera, whose music was also composed by Schöberg, was very interesting. I'll still say that I'll take a good old musical any day of the week, but it was a good experience for sure. After the performance Janaya, Andy, and I decided that we'd head back to the dorm and cook dinner together so we did just that. We had discussed The Incredibles at some point earlier in the day so I invited them both to my room to watch the movie. We put a mattress on the floor and the three of us watched the movie. It was a blast!

Afterwards, the others headed back to their rooms and I headed to bed.

Day 47

Saturday I woke up to my 8:00 alarm and started to get ready. I had signed up for a weekend workshop to learn about opera in Vienna. I met Andy in the lobby at 9:15 and we headed to the appropriate stop on the train. When we got off we saw Erica, who having done a workshop last semester, knew exactly where to go.

When we got to the studio Alexander, our teacher, let us in and we saw Jesse and Stephen. It was an interesting day. We learned about Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven and history about each one of them. We took a break half way through around 12:30 to grab lunch and then kept on going until 6:00. Needless to say it was a long day.

When I got home that night, I skyped with Mother and Dad (and Louis). We talked for about an hour about how much time we'll want to spend in Vienna and where we'll be traveling for Easter. In the meantime I helped Dad schedule an appointment at the Apple Store in GR to fix his phone and looked at hotel options here in Vienna. They had to leave for the appointment at the Apple Store so we hung up.

I decided to see if Kels was available. She was. We probably talked for about 2 hours. Eventually we got to the point where we really didn't have that much more to say so we just started whining about being apart. We hung up and I decided to take a shower before I got ready for bed. I set my alarm again for 8:00 and went to sleep.

Day 46

Friday morning I got up at 6:45 and get ready. I headed out to the train station and took the U3 two stops to Neubaugasse. From there I walked to the Plasma center and went inside. My appointment was for 8:00. I was out of there by 9:00 with the satisfaction of waking up early and a mini-sized bar of Rittersport chocolate!

Since it was such a nice day out, I decided that I'd walk to the office. So, I just followed the route that the 13A busses take. It took about 30 minutes or so, but it was wonderful! The sun was shining and I didn't have any academic obligations whatsoever!

When I got to the office I went straight to the piano room and played for a while. I was probably there for about 45 minutes when I decided to head back to my dorm. On the way back I hopped off at an earlier stop and went to DM to buy a pair of sunglasses that I had been looking at earlier that morning. I decided to buy them and then headed home.

I decided to make a plan for the night that included kicking back and relaxing as well as getting homework done. I decided that I would go to Bar Salzburg and take the play that I had to read for Monday with me. So, I got ready and headed out. I stopped at Haus Salzburg on the way to a) use the restroom and b) ask someone if I was going in the right direction. Stephen let me in and we hung out with Jesse, Andy, and Paithan in the kitchen for a while. Stephen had to go see a play and I was still in the mood to go to the bar so we both headed out. Stephen told me that when he was done he'd meet me at the bar. I said that that sounded great.

I walked to the bar and found a nice table in the non-smoking section (another reason why I like the bar). I ordered a Hirtel Morchel (a really good type of dark beer) and German potato salad. I started reading. It actually wasn't too bad. To keep myself going, I rewarded myself with a sip for every page I finished and once I got to page 50, I was allowed to order another beer. That didn't happen for a long time, but by the time Stephen got there, I was already on page 70! He ordered a beer and we just started talking about life. It was really good to talk with him because I hadn't yet had an opportunity to talk with him one on one yet. We talked about future goals from our jobs to our marriages and ended up staying at the bar until 12:30.

We both headed back to our dorms and I had a fun time trying to be like a ninja so as not to wake up Christoph, which I'm fairly certain that I did successfully. I set my alarm for 8:00 and went to bed.

Day 45

Thursday morning I got up and wrote a two page paper on my favorite period in history. It was an assignment for my History class and the prof wanted to see how good everyone's English was. I wrote about the time of the American Revolution. Once I finished my paper, I emailed it to myself and went to the office to print it off.

I got to class early so that I could get a good seat. Dr. Finnbar talked about the WWI and the race to the sea and how it became a war of attrition. It was a very interesting class, but two hour classes are hard to sit through.

After class I headed back to the office and stuck around until it was time to leave for dance class. Janaya, Jesse, Andy, Erica, and I left and eventually found our way to the dance school. Jesse ended up leaving because it was too expensive in his opinion and Stephen and Anneke met us there later. Our class was good. We learned the basic waltz and next week we'll be working on the Viennese waltz which is somehow different though I'm not sure why.

Afterwards we all headed back to our dorms. I got back to my room and decided to journal for a bit. Shortly after making some good progress, I headed to bed.

Day 44

This last week's worth of posts is all about catching myself up so don't be too surprised if they're a little sparse. Wednesday I got up as usual and got some work done since I didn't have anything until 2:00. When 1:00 rolled around I got dressed and left to get to class. Yes, I got there about 20 minutes early, but I wanted to make sure that I had enough time to account for a possible snafu in my plans. Luckily, that never happened.

Music Theory started off pretty well, but every once in a while I noticed my attention veering off track. To be fair the class was two hours long so it was kind of excusable. I learned that the German way to do music is with the letter h. The example that I was given was C, D, E, F, G, A, H, C. H equals what is normally B and B represents what is normally Bb. That combined with calling a C# cis or an F# fis, I was pretty lost at first.

After music class I headed back to the office and waited there until my literature class. For the first half of the class we talked about the novella we had read throughout the previous week then we eventually transitioned to watching a film adaptation of the same story. I had to leave early to go to choir practice at 7:55, but Dr. Eschenmüller said that that was okay.

When I got to the choir room, which was only a five minute walk away, I had to wait in line to buy my copy of the music and pay the enrollment fee. I hadn't known about this beforehand so I could only pay the €10 for the music. I sat down with the rest of the tenors and we began working and did so until about 10:00. I could almost swear that by the end my throat was either bleeding or I wouldn't have a voice the next day. Needless to say it was a tough rehearsal, especially as it was my first.

At the end of rehearsal Vijay, the director, announced that there would be practice on Saturday. I couldn't do that because of the opera workshop I was doing, so after he was done I told him that if this was going to be a regular thing then I couldn't be a part of the choir. I handed my music back in and got my money back. I felt kind of bad about it, but on my ride home I felt SO relieved. Yes, I had made it into the choir, but I wasn't stuck doing it. Plus, the music selection was classical, which just isn't in my top anything preference-wise other than for study music, in which case it is the only thing that I can listen to.

Despite the late start it had been a long, exhausting day. When I got home, I had an apple for a snack and headed straight to bed. I fell asleep very quickly!

Day 43

Tuesday morning I woke up around 9:30 and got busy right away doing homework for my grammar class that afternoon. It included rewriting a few assignments that I had made grammatical mistakes on and reading an article about immigrants living in Germany who try to learn the German language. Pretty interesting stuff. I had a late lunch and then headed to the office for class.

Class was interesting as usual. We started with a game where we picked random letters and Michaela wrote them down on the chalkboard. Then she said that for each set of two letters, we had to think of German words that started and ended with the letters that had been written. We paired up into teams. I worked with Anneke and Stephen worked with Erica. It was a tough game, but it was good to activate the language before we started talking about the grammar lesson for the day.

After class, I went back to my dorm to get changed. As part of Monday’s theater class, we were all going to see Der Streit in a small theater within walking distance from Andy’s and my dorm. Andy came to my room about 15 minutes beforehand and asked if I knew where I was going. I said yes, that I’d be ready in a few, and that I’d meet him in the lobby.

It probably took us 15 minutes at the most to find the theatre. We had gotten there early so we decided to go to a cafe and relax until it came time to meet our professor at the theater. We chit-chatted for about 30 minutes and then headed back to the theater. We met our professor there.

The play itself had been adapted from its original form, but was done in a good way. And, since we had read the script beforehand, everything was really easy to understand. After the performance we got a chance to speak with the director and ask him any questions that we had. It was interesting to hear his opinions on his adaptation of the story.

After all of that Erica, Andy, and I walked back to Mariahilferstraße and headed back to our dorms. I put my nice clothes that I had worn to the play away, took a shower, and went to bed.

Day 42

Monday wasn’t all too busy of a day. I woke up around 7:30 and re-read through the play that I had had to read for class. I got to the office five minutes before class started and we spent the entire time talking about the play called Der Streit or the streif.

After class I went back to my dorm and worked on homework for Tuesday. I also went shopping at the Hofer (Austrian Aldi) around the corner and bought bread, butter, apples, and cottage cheese. I spent the afternoon cleaning up, folding clothes, and getting my half of the room to look good again.

Eventually I had to get ready to go to Kiss Me Kate at the Volksoper. Since Stephen hadn’t seen the first act last time, Andy and I had agreed to go with him a second time so that he could see the entire show. I made sure that I got there early enough to reserve good standing places for the three of us. Andy ended up not coming because he had decided to go out with the other guys for St. Patrick’s day festivities.

After the performance was done, I headed back home and went to bed.

Day 41

Sunday morning I woke up around 7:30, then rolled over and went back to sleep. This happened about 5 times and I eventually got up around 11:00. I had Facebook messaged Anneke the night before asking when church was, but hadn’t gotten a response… So I decided to get some work done and chill for a while. Around 12:30 I got a message from Anneke saying that church was at 1:30 and that we should meet in the lobby at 12:50. That was fine by me.

We met in the lobby then took the U-bahn to the same stop that I had gotten off at the night before. We walked for a few minutes and then ran into Andrew, Anneke’s brother. We walked up a block and then were suddenly at the church. The pastor greeted us, we got name tags, and then we sat down. The church service was all in English and was very well delivered. It was particularly interesting because the pastor had some sort of English accent.

After the service we all mingled for a time and had some tea and cookies. Anneke and I talked with two girls who are also studying here in Vienna. They’re in a different program and will eventually be transferring to Marburg, Germany. As we were about to leave Andrew told Anneke and me that we had been invited to go to someone’s house for a get together / happy almost St. Patrick’s Day party so we, of course, said that we’d love to go.

We took the U-bahn to Hütteldorf with the guy who led the praise team, a missionary living here in Vienna with his family, and the piano player, a fellow student and teacher at an English school in Vienna. The trip took about 30 minutes. When we got to Hüttledorf a guy, the owner of the house, came around with his car and picked the five of us up. We squeezed in a bit, but we made it work.

The guy, sadly I can’t remember his name right now,  drove us to his house. He and his wife had just built it and so it still had some finishing touches that needed to be added, but for all intensive purposes it was livable. The house looked like it had been preselected out of an IKEA catalogue because it was very modern and boxy looking and completely white. Initially I didn’t like it very much, but they did win me over when I sat down on their couch.

When we went inside we were introduced to everyone there, probably around 15 people, and we sat down on the couch. Two guys started playing guitar and we all started singing along and giving suggestions for songs. We did this until dinner was ready.

Dinner was buffet style compete with fresh fruits and veggies, potato zucchini soup, shepherds pie, cold cuts, cheese, an olive tray, and beer, wine, sekt (Austrian champagne), or juice. We sat and ate and talked for probably an hour and a half. Luckily all of it was in English!

We all stayed for about three and a half hours total, but it didn’t sen like it was too long. Anneke and I left together since we were going to the same dorm. We talked on the train about the pastor at the church and how studying abroad had/has affected our relationships whether that be with friends, family, or significant others. We chatted all the way until we got to her floor in our dorm. We said goodbye and then I headed upstairs. I was SO pooped, but still had a little bit of homework to do for my class the next day. I eventually got it done and then went to sleep.

Day 40

I woke up late this morning recovering from my long day yesterday. When I did get up, I took a shower, got dressed, and met Andy in the lobby. Together we walked to Pilgramgasse where we met Paithan and then went to the Naschmarkt.

Paithan was on a mission to look for a new watch and both he and Andy were looking for cheap sunglasses. By the time we walked to the far end of the market, Andy and Paithan had gotten their sunglasses and we found a little restaurant where we stopped for a light lunch and drinks. It had been windy, but then it really started picking up and raining. We finished up, paid our bills, and headed for the train station. I split off to look at some fresh vegetables then made my way home.

I came back to find that Christoph had already left for the weekend. Since I was cold and wet from my walk back, I decided to take a shower. Afterwards I took time to actually fold all of my clothes and put them away. Just as I was getting done I got a Facebook message from Kels asking if I was able to Skype. Naturally, I said yes. We ended up skyping for two and a half hours, which (as Kels told me) we haven't done since my freshman year at Wabash when she was still a senior in high school.

I got ready in my opera attire and headed to the train station. I took the U6 and the U3 to the Rathaus (the city hall) and walked from there to the Burgtheatre. Tonight they had a special event where stories of six surviving members of the Haulocaust were read. Then at the end, the survivors read one last, short excerpt. It was a truly amazing experience. A haunting experience, but one that I wouldn't trade.

I took the train back home and when I got there decided to keep working in my journal entries. I logged on Facebook and got a chance to catch up with Rob Shook, a fellow fraternity brother. It was a real treat. :) As I worked, I listened to the movie About Time play in the background. It's currently my favorite movie and it's so full of everything potentially perfect about love. Like the thunderstorm earlier today it was another perfect piece of my day slipping into place. Alright. Everything is caught up and good to go. Good night everyone!

Day 39

This morning I woke up at 6:45 and got dressed quietly so that I would wake up Christoph. I took the U3 two stops to the Plasmazentrum and waited until 8:00, their opening time. I went in and registered and met with the doctor who took some blood to test and gave me a basic health exam. Altogether the process took about 45 minutes, but pending on my good blood results, I will be able to donate plasma next Friday at 8:00AM (and get €20 in return)!

Since it was still early when I left the Plasmazentrum I headed across the street to a small cafe where I had a breakfast cappuccino and a glass of water. I thought about what, since it was (technically) the weekend, I should do with my morning. I decided to walk along Mariahilferstraße, which is the major shopping strip in Vienna, and do some window shopping. I walked around for probably an hour and a half going into a few stores and trying some things on, but not actually buying anything.

After that I decided that since I saw a 13A bus that I knew was heading back towards the office, I'd just walk there using the busses as my guides. It was sunny out and eventually I put my jacket in my bag and enjoyed the sunny walk back to the campus. Around 10:30 I got hungry for lunch so I stopped at a Döner restaurant and ordered their vegetarian sandwich. It was so good! In between a really soft roll were grilled onions and mushrooms topped with feta cheese, tomato slices, lettuce, yogurt sauce, and pepper. Once I finished that I kept following the passing busses to the office. I stopped at a Billa to grab some Golden delicious apples too for snacks later on.

I arrived at the Institute about a half of an hour later and went inside. I printed off some sheet music that I had been practicing in my computer and then headed to the piano to start working on it again. I played for about 45 minutes then decided that it'd probably be a goo idea to go back to my dorm and do my laundry. It's tricky doing laundry here because to the (approximately) 220 students living here there are only 2 washing machines and one dryer. It makes for a lot of waiting and passive aggressively moving someone else's laundry due to the fact that they're 10 minutes late to get their laundry.

I took the SB43 to the U6 and got off an the Westbahnhof. I headed up to my room just as Christoph was leaving to go to class. I took my laundry downstairs to the basement only to discover that each of the two washing machines still had about a hour to go on their cycles. So I took my stuff back upstairs and set an alarm on my phone so I would be downstairs right when the other laundry-doers where there to change their loads. I decided to take time working in my blog.

When my alarm went off I grabbed my things and booked it downstairs. One washing machine was already being loaded and the other still had laundry in it, but was finished with its cycle. After about 5 minutes of patiently waiting for the owner to come and claim their laundry, I moved it all out onto the top of the washing machine and put my things in. I stayed around for another 5 minutes once the cycle had started to make sure that I had selected the right program, then went upstairs again and set another alarm.

When my alarm went off and I went downstairs to change the load, I saw that the dryer was currently out of service. (Grumble, grumble, grumble...) So I loaded everything back into my laundry bag and took it all upstairs to dry. I hung my socks out of my desk drawers, jeans on the window, my sheets over my suitcase and anything else where it could dry. Then I had to get ready for the night.

At 5:20 I left my room to get to the same area as the Central College office, because I had an audition for the Vienna University choir. There were seven guys there and the director went around to us individually to hear us sing. The first guy, an Italian studying here, could understand most of what the director was saying, but not all of the technical terms so then the director started speaking (from what I could tell) perfect Italian. When he got to me had asked whether or not I had had singing lessons. I said yes. He then said "Your teacher is a soprano, right?". I was floored. Yup. He told me that I have a habit of singing like a soprano in terms of my muscular techniques and that because of that training I have been vocally castrating myself (Yeesh!). He worked with me for a few minutes on getting a full sound and then moved on to the others in the group. He had me read some music first so that I could go because he knew that I was going to see Die Fledermaus (The Bat) at the Volksoper in less than 30 minutes. He told me that practice was on Wednesday night at 8:00 and that he'd see me there.

After that I ran to the SB 41, about a mile and a half away, and took it to the Volksoper. I got my ticket from the reservation desk and took my place in the standing room in the back of the theatre. The show started and Stephen got there 10 minutes later. After the first act, we both found places to sit for the remaining two acts. After the show we separated and took transit back to our dorms.

When I got back to Haus Bürgenland 3 I went upstairs and got Andy. We knocked on Anneke and Janaya's doors (they weren't there) and walked to Haus Salzburg. We called up to Jesse's room and had him let us in. We headed upstairs to the kitchen on the 5th floor where everyone already was: Janaya, Anneke, Paithan, Tony, and Stephen.

Since I had made dinner last week for Stephen, Andy, and myself, Stephen said he'd do the same for us this week. So while the rest of us were chatting, Stephen was cooking salmon, rice, and mixed vegetables and it was a really good meal! We all hung out until about 2:00AM then I decided to go back to the dorm with Andy. I had to be quiet so as not to wake up Christoph while I made my way through my self-created jungle of dry/ drying clothes and made my bed. Then it was finally off to bed.

Day 38

Yesterday I woke up late, because my first class of the day was at 2:45 - Britain at War. I spent my morning in my room getting everything on my desk finally organized into nice, neat stacks and into drawers. Once I did eventually get out of my room, I went straight to the University to figure out where my class would be. It took me about a half hour to get to the University and then another 15 minutes to figure out where my class was.

I ate my lunch that I had bought at the train station: olive bread with feta cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and an olive aioli sauce. After lunch I headed to the reading room in the library and worked there for about an hour and a half translating the play that I had to read for Monday. My alarm went off telling me that there was 30 minutes before my class so I packed up my things and decided to go to my classroom and wait outside.

The classroom was big enough for about 20 people, but when it came time to start the class I would say that about 50 people were there. The professor called off the names of those who were registered to take the course and asked us to go stand in the hall. Anyone left afterwards was told that they didn't have a place in the class and that they would have to leave. After they cleared out, the rest of us filed back in and took our seats.

Our professor introduced himself and told us that for next week we had to write two pages on our favorite period of history so he could see how good our English was. Then he said that by the end of the semester we would be required to write a 10 page paper for the class, but the catch was that it didn't have to be turned in until the Winter Semester a.k.a. November. Hmm...

Even though class was in English, I spent the entire time scribbling notes down. We were going through the history of Britain's army compared to others as well as the British armies of colonial times as well as in World Wars 1 & 2. It was intense! Also, the professor has a very thick Irish accent which didn't help in the general comprehension of his speech.

After class I went back to the Central office and relaxed for a bit. The next class was the historical part of Austria in Context taught by Dr. Eschenmüller. We learned about the beginning of Austria until the time of the Habsburgs. It was a very interesting lecture, but afterwards I was tired! I headed back to my dorm where I made dinner with Anneke, Janaya, and Jesse. Afterwards I headed to bed!

Day 37

This morning I woke up at around 8:00 and got ready to go to Austria in Context. I arrived early but that was in order to be able to make my ritual peppermint tea for class. We reviewed the basic topics that we had gone over in the last week's class and then created posters for out meeting with the students from the Vienna Business school next week. They'll be traveling to America so it's our job as the ones with the insider information to give them a good, accurate view of America.

Class got done around 11:40 and I immediately headed to the Straßenbahn stop. I took it to the U2 and took the U2 to Karlsplatz, because I was meeting a mutual friend Suzanne Preston at the American Institute where she teaches. I was a bit late due to some confusion on the location, but eventually found where the Institute was. I went inside and met Suzanne. She had a quick 10 minutes meeting to attend to so I found a table in the common area and read up about the Institute.

Once her meeting was done, Suzanne and I talked for probably about an hour if not more. It was good to finally establish a connection besides the ones that I have with Ruth and Michaela. Afterwards I headed back to the Institute to get my things ready for the Literature class at 5:30. That meant that I had a little free time on my hands. For a time I played the piano, perused through Facebook, and watched the latest episode of Glee. Yes, I still watch it when I have the chance...

When 5:30 rolled around everyone went into the classroom and we stayed there until 8:00. We got our assignment of reading a short story for next week. My only worry is that it doesn't look very short. Oh well... Afterwards, I headed home and cleaned up my desk. It had become a bit of a mess with disorganized papers and clothes, but I put away the clothes and organized the papers into neat piles and now I am actually using my desk!

Before I head to bed I know that I have to get some homework done so that if I want to go out this weekend I can actually do so without feeling guilty. I think that I'll head to the University library tomorrow around lunch time. I'll have my Britain at War class in the same building so it'll be a good place for me to get some work done and it'll give me time to figure out where my class is! All in all though it should be a good day. Today was good, but near the end I got tired and (sadly) I slipped back into speaking English for a bit, but tomorrow is a fresh new day without any mistakes and I'm excited!

Day 36

I woke up this morning at 7:30 and decided that I might as well get ready for the day considering that I still had a little homework to do and that I had class at 10:00.

I took the U6 and the SB43 to the office as usual and sat down in the spare room to do my homework. I picked through the records and listened to Rachmaninov and Vivaldi while I did my work. Eventually 10:00 came around and I realized that I didn't have class until 2:00 so I decided that I would take the Der Streit, a play that I have to read for Monday's theater class, to Gasthaus Heidenkummer with me. Gasthaus Heidenkummer had been recommended to me by a professor at Wabash who had spent a great deal of time in Vienna. It's was only a little more than half a mile away so I decided that I would order a coffee, a light lunch, and do homework until it was time for class. Sadly, when I got there I saw a sign on the door that said that they were closed because of a birthday. So I decided to take a different path home.

I stopped by a bakery and bought a small veggie pizza baguette and then went to Spar and found a veggie and curry meal that I brought back to the office for lunch. After lunch, Stephen arrived at the office. We started working in the spare room and he put on his new Carpenters record. When 2:00 rolled around Michaela came in with Anneke, Erica, and Janaya and we began our grammar, stylistics, and idiomatics class.

After class, I gathered my things and headed home. When I got back to my room I ditched my things, grabbed my dinner supplies, and headed to the kitchen to make one of my salads. Afterwards, as I was heading back to my room, I saw Andy heading up the stairs. I stopped him and we chatted for a while. I went back to my room.

About an hour and a half later he knocked on my door to let me know that there was a party downstairs that started at 9:00. I said that I would be up for it once I got changed. He came back about 10 minutes later. He had spoken with Janaya and Anneke and they had said that they wanted to go to the party at around 9:45. So the four of us met in the lobby at 9:45 and headed down to the basement where the party was taking place.

There were perhaps 10 people there. It was a very chill gathering, but it had great music. Anneke, Andy, Janaya, and I had a chance to catch up on what the others had been doing over the past week or so. Since we all have different class schedules we are never, but a few times a week in class, guaranteed that we'll actually get a chance to talk to each other. I probably stayed until 11:20, then decided that I wanted to get to bed before midnight. I headed upstairs and took a shower and headed to bed.

Day 35

This morning I woke up to my alarm at 7:30. I took my time getting up and eventually took a shower. After my shower I hopped back into bed for a little while and listened to the noises outside. Christoph came in and said hello. He stayed around for about 15 minutes and then headed off to his class at the technological university. I got up, got dressed, and had breakfast.

Andy and I met in the lobby at 9:45 and walked down Mariahilferstraße to the U3 stop. We rode that to the Volktheater exit and saw the theatre immediately when we got up to the street level. We decided that since we were still 25 minutes early we'd stop in at a cafe and get a little treat. Our professor was there so we exchanged pleasantries and then sat down at a booth. I ordered a hot chocolate and Andy ordered a cafe latte. We left shortly after our professor in order to meet at the Volkstheater at the appropriate time.

When we got there we were led inside where we were taken into an upper level lounge. Some sort of assistant lady gave us an interview about her role in the theatre and how they go about deciding which plays to put on, the struggles in doing so, and everyday goings on in the theater as a whole. After our presentation our professor led us outside where we talked about any confusion that we had had during the interview. Our professor reminded us that we have to read a play for next week and then left.

Andy, Stephen, Erica, and I headed to the office. Once there, Stephen played his new Carpenters record that he had gotten and Andy headed to Billa across the quad. When Andy got back I asked them if they wanted to go see Die Fledermaus on Friday night as well as Kiss Me Kate on Monday. They said yes so I bought our tickets and then collected what they owed me. I decided that I would head back to my dorm to work on my homework and have lunch.

Lunch happened first, but then I got to work. I was casually listening to the Carpenters through my headphones when I decided that it might be nice to take a nap for a little while. I think I slept for about an hour and a half (maybe two hours). I even had a dream that I met my grandmother Thompson and that she sang to me. I think that I may refrain from listening to the Carpenters when I nap in the future.It was certainly an odd experience!

Afterwards I started to work on my homework again and, for a short time, my blog entries. Once it got later, I set my homework aside and decided to read up on one of my favorite blogs called The Art of Manliness. I read through some on the posts one there for about an hour and then headed to sleep.

Day 34

Today was a lazy, but good day. When I came home last night I found out that Christoph had already left to go back home so I slept the entire night with the window open (nice and chilly)! When I woke up I had a pickle of a time trying to figure out what time it actually was. I was trying to figure out whether I was supposed to be adding or subtracting an hour from the time. Eventually I just went back to sleep. When I woke up for real I checked Facebook and read that Austria won't have its daylight-savings time for about 3 weeks. I decided to take a shower and have a slow morning.

I looked up movies in German on Youtube and eventually found The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe on there in German. I watched that and listened to the sounds from the street outside. When my movie was done I switched to German music on Spotify and cleaned up the room a little.

For lunch I decided to make some gourmet spaghetti. I sliced up an onion, a few potatoes, a few mushrooms, and a red pepper that had to go soon and sautéed them in some olive oil. Since I only have a pan right now I emptied the veggies into a spare bowl and put water in the pan to boil for my spaghetti. However, while the spaghetti was cooking, I ate the veggies. So, once the noodles were done I put a a little pesto on them instead.

I went back to my room and did some homework. Kelsey called via Skype and we talked for over an hour. At one point we were laughing so hard that we both were tearing up. It felt good to be that kind of happy again. It's the same feeling of waking up to a perfect day after a good sleep; it's just so purifying. 

I decided to work on my blog again, since I was a few days behind. Ally and I chatted via Viber and talked about how she was starting to notice how close Easter was getting on her calendar. She was also told me about how she had worked with the Spring Break groups last week, how cold it was, and how she was grateful that she would be working at the office this week. We hung up and I called Mother via FaceTime. We talked for about 10 minutes then I got back to work on my blog with the help of my German playlist.

I finished just after midnight and then went to bed.

Day 33

I got up around 8:50 and made my way to the U6 platform at the train station by 9:30. I met Stephen and Andy there and we hopped on a train to Karlsplatz. Once we hopped off at the station it took us a little while to find the Naschmarkt, but eventually we did! It was probably about a mile long, filled with fresh food stalls, spice stores, and clothing shops.

We meandered from the start all the way to the end. Andy and I lost Stephen about ¾ of the way through due to a guy selling old records. He probably spent a good 45 minutes there, but walked away as the proud owner of a Carpenters record and a Chicago record.

I accidentally haggled for a belt. The guy at the stall saw that I was eyeing a belt and said that I could buy it for €15. I told him that I would walk around the market and then see him later, but then he kept on insisting. Thinking that I only had €9 with me, I told him that I didn't have enough and would need to come back. He kept on insisting and when I told him that I had €9, he said that he'd sell it to me to that price. Sadly (but not sadly), I had forgotten that I had also brought along about €6 more in change. So when I was paying him and selecting coins from my hand to give him, he clearly saw that I was lying (oops!).

When we got hungry we ended up stopping at a stand and getting a box of noodles (with veggies for me and meat for Andy and Stephen). We sat down on the overpass of the U-bahn and ate our lunches. Afterwards we took the U-bahn to Haus Salzburg where Stephen dropped off his groceries. We went to his room and he started listening to music and farting around on his computer. Andy was busying himself with his phone so I laid down on the floor and napped for a bit. We ended up staying there for an hour. I woke up when I heard one of them mention my name. We got ready to go.

We took the U4 to the U1 and took that to the Belvedere Palace. Stephen had read that the alpine garden there was the oldest in Europe and very beautiful on a sunny day. When we got to the palace we sat on the steps of upper Belvedere looking out over the courtyard (which had to be at least a ¾ of a mile long) towards lower Belevedere. We sat there and talked about how much nicer it'll all look when it's actually spring and how much we'd like to take our families there.

After about 15 minutes there we looked around for the alpine garden. Sadly it was closed, but we did get to take a peek inside before we left. We ended up taking the 13A bus back towards the office. On the way we stopped at Bar Salzburg to ask where to buy a specific beer that they had. We got directions to a local grocery store and found the same brand there but sadly not the specific beer. :-(

We headed to the office and watched Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark in German. Andy had to answer a phone call at one point so Stephen and I played darts and switched to watching The Sound of Music. Once Andy came back, we finished the movie and then headed home.

Day 32

Friday morning I slept in again. I am lucky because I don't have classes on Fridays so I didn't actually leave my dorm until noon. Once I got to the office I made a late lunch and played the piano for a while. Eventually I got out my homework and started watching the rest of Frühstück bei Tiffany.

At around 3:00 Michaela said that she was leaving. She said that she was happy to see that I had found a comfortable sofa and that I was watching a German film. She also wished me a happy weekend and a good time at Carmen! She left and I finished the movie. I cleaned up my dishes and then headed back to my dorm.

I took a shower, shaved, brushed my teeth, and got dressed for the show. The plan was to meet Stephen and Andy at the Westbahnhof U6 platform. Stephen was a few minutes late, but that was due to a train delay. We took the U6 up to the Volksoper stop and walked to the opera house.

Stephen picked up our tickets and we headed up to the balcony. We spent the first act in our standing places and then were able to find seats for the second act. All in all I didn't enjoy the performance as much as I thought I would because it had a much more modern feel to it. However, given the opportunity I would go again. But first I'd rather go see Kiss Me Kate again! I think I just like comedies better than dramas. 

After that opera, we headed back to Haus Bürgenland (Andy's and my dorm) to make some late dinner. Kels had sent me an email full of meat-free easy to make recipes so I had decided to make a frittata. I started out by caramelizing an onion with some potato chunks, a yellow pepper, and spinach. Then while that was all simmering I mixed 10 eggs with a bag of shredded cheese. Once the veggies were ready, I poured the egg-cheese mix over top and let it cook for two minutes. Then I put it into the preheated oven to cook for another 15 minutes. Once it was ready we cut it up like a pie and ate it all! And boy was it good!

It was about midnight when we were finished. Stephen headed back to Haus Salzburg and Andy and I said goodnight and headed to our rooms. We had made plans to meet up the next day at the U6 platform to go to the Naschmarkt, the open air market.

Day 31

I had a lazy morning getting up slow as I didn’t have anything planned for the day, because my Thursday class at the University won’t start until the 13th.

I got to the office at around noon. I spent a good hour or so playing around on the piano there. For lunch I made another salad and then suddenly my phone started working.

I started watching "Früstück bei Tiffany" before I went to the Rathaus. I got there around 6:30 and Stephen and Andy got there around 7:00 which gave me time to run to the bank to get some cash. Admission plus skate rentals rang up to €13 with a €2 deposit that we would get back once we gave back our admission card.

We put on our skates and headed out onto the rink directly in front of the Rathaus. I hadn't been skating since I was probably 7 years old (10 at the most) so it was pretty slow going at first. However, after a while of arm flailing, I somewhat got the hang of it. The big rink was connected to a second by a set of circular trails that went throughout the park in front of the Rathaus. It took some getting used to, but by the end of the night I was actually feeling somewhat confidant.

Halfway through our time there, they staff closed one of the rinks so that the Zamboni could smooth out the ice again. During this time Andy, Stephen, and I got crepes from the stand next to the rink. Mine was with cinnamon and sugar!

Once the rink opened up again, we headed back out. I headed into the trails with Andy while Stephen was going around the rink. We found out that the other rink had closed so we headed back to the first rink. After a while, we walked out and sat down. Stephen and Andy got punch which packed a punch and I tried a little of theirs. We decided that since my things were still at the office (and since it closes at 9:00 every night) we'd better make our way back. We headed back to the skate rental place and I got my student ID (which I had put down as collateral) back. We turned in our admission cards for the deposit, got our €2 back and headed back towards the office.

When we got there I grabbed my things and we all headed back to Haus Bürgenland where I dropped off my things. We then headed to Haus Salzburg with Anneke and Janaya. From there we walked to Bar Salzburg, the same bar that we had been searching for the previous weekend and had not found. When we got there we went to the non-smoking section and sat down. Stephen, Andy, and I ordered Hirtel Morchels. We chatted for about 45 minutes in German and then decided that it was time to head back to our dorms. Anneke, Janaya, and I were ahead of Stephen and Andy. When we passed Haus Salzburg (where Stephen lives) Andy had to run to catch up with us. We got back to Haus Bürgenland in record time. I headed straight to my room. My feet were sore so I fell asleep very quickly!

Day 30

I woke up this morning a little before 7:30. I had class at 9:45 and didn't want to take a chance with the trains just in case they were still out of order (they weren't). I got to the office at about 8:40, having left my dorm at 8:20. I sat down at the piano and practiced a few songs that I have on my computer.

At 9:45 we started our Austria In Context class. Ruth, the program director explained the basic overview of the class. Throughout the semester we will taking a historical, political, and geographical look at the country of Austria and specifically the city of Vienna. We took a quiz to see which information concerning Vienna and Austria we actually knew. I didn't know much.

After class I walked with Paithan to the registration office so that he could officially become a temporary citizen of Vienna. It only took him about 5 minutes to go through. Meanwhile I read a newspaper that had been handed to me on the way. I went through underlining words that I didn't know and then translated them with my phone. We headed back to campus and I decided to make lunch. Since I gave up meat for Lent I made a salad with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, peanuts, salt, and pepper and it was surprisingly satisfying! After lunch I watched 500 Days of Summer and rested for a while. I hadn't slept well last night, so I needed a little time to recuperate.

At around 4:00 I went with Andy to Billa and bought supplies for my upcoming meals this weekend including roasted red peppers, grated cheese, eggs, spinach, and mushrooms. We took our things back to the office and then I decided to walk to Handys King (handy is another word for cellphone) to buy a simcard. They had leftover phones from last semester at the office so I decided to use one of them. I bought a card for €15 that gave me 100 minutes or 100 texts to start out. I figured that I could last on that for a long while. I headed back to the office to get myself ready for the German Lit class that started at 5:45.

Our professor gave us out syllabi and went over what we will be expected to do throughout the semester. It sounds like it's going to be a tough class... Tough, but good. After class was over I took the bus to Haus Salzburg with Erica, Paithan, and Jesse because my phone wasn't working and Erica had an extra phone that her old roommate had left behind. She helped me set it up. It still can't call out, but I'll take it to Handys King tomorrow and have the guy there help me with it.

I walked home from Haus Salzburg to Haus Burgenland. It was about a 12 minute walk. The only problem was that since it was dark out I had a pickle of a time trying to be sure that I actually heading the right way. However, after a few second guesses, I eventually found my street again.

I don't really have anything to do tonight because tomorrow I don't have any classes. My University classes begin next week and the history portion of Austria In Context is every other week English and German. Therefore my only plans for tomorrow are to go ice skating in front of the Rathaus (the city hall) at 6:00PM... And yes I checked. They have big enough sakes for me!

Well, that's it! Gute Nacht!

Day 29

This morning I woke up as usual around 7:30 and laid in bed while Christoph was taking a shower. I decided to get ready. Stephen, Andy, and I had planned on meeting at the Central office at 9:30 so that we could go register with the city of Vienna.

I grabbed my lunch supplies and headed out the door and walked to the Westbahnhof. I took the U2 to Alserstrasse and took the SB43 to the office. When I got there I went to the piano and played for a while. Stephen was the first to arrive and Andy came a little bit later. I was playing All Of Me on the piano and Stephen joined in singing while I played. There's also a guitar in the office so a little bit later Andy picked it up and started playing Puff the Magic Dragon. It was great!

We ended up leaving the office at around 11:00 to go to the registration office which was about a 10 minute walk away. Once we got there we took numbers and waited to be called. When I was called in, I went to the office and handed the man there my paperwork and my passport. He entered my information into the system and then printed off my confirmation of residency. Andy and Stephen were after me and got through within 10 minutes. Afterwards we left and hopped on the SB5 to head back to the office.

We got off two stops later and went to a restaurant called Asia World that Ruth and Michaela had recommended yesterday. You can buy a 500ml to go container and fill it up with stuff from the buffet and it's only €4! So that's exactly what we did. I filled my container with some fish, rice, fried chicken, curry chicken, sweet and sour sauce, and a beef dish! We took our containers back to the office and ate our meals. With that as a meal option once a week I can say that I will be getting better at using chopsticks soon!

After lunch I walked over to the University Library to get my student library card. I handed the worker my student ID along with the verification of residency and he put a barcode sticker on my student ID. I walked around looking for my classrooms. I'll have my history class there starting next week. I couldn't find the classroom, but it wasn't that big of a deal so I walked back to the Central office.

Back at the office I made peppermint tea and got ready for the Grammar, Stylistics, and Idiomatics class with Michaela. The class lasted two and a half hours, but I didn't want it to end. We discussed the differences between written and spoken German, the difference between dialects and where they originally came from as well as fun phrases. At the end I told Michaela that I had an English joke for her. It went as follows:
Knock, knock
Who's there?
To
To who?
No... To whom!
Right as she said "to who" she got the joke! I didn't even have to deliver the punch line. I was so impressed and happy that she had understood the joke. She assigned a lot of homework, but I decided that really that was more than okay because I want to learn as much as possible here and this week, being the introductory week, shouldn't be all that bad.

After class I waited around for Andy to get done with his class. Charlotte asked if I would d go with her to the Westbahnhof to register for a discount coupon valid for all trains in Austria. I said that I was going there anyway so we took the SB43 to Alserstrasse and walked to the U6 platform where we waited for the train to come. It didn't. Something had happened which was causing the trains to not work so she and I hopped back on the SB43 (we had to skip the first strassenbahn because it was so full) and took it back to Langegasse where the Central office is. Then we took the SB5 all the way to the Westbahnhof. It was SO crowded, but we eventually made it.

When we got off I told her where to go to get her discount processed then I sprinted off towards the Raimann Theatre. It isn't far from my dormitory so it wasn't too hard to find. I had tickets waiting for me and Jesse to go see Der Besuch Der Alten Dame the musical. I had read the play last year in German class so I was excited to see an adaptation of a story that I already knew so well. However, when I got to the theatre I found out that Der Besuch Der Alten Dame was not playing there. It was back in the first district near Karlsplatz and the Ubahn trains were still down so I walked back to my dorm and went to Andy's room. We decided that since it was my last night of eating meat (I'm giving up English and meat for lent) we might as well go crazy and get a good last meal. We went to KFC! Yeah... Who would have ever thought that there would be a KFC in Vienna a world famous capitol city of Europe? Not me for sure.

We walked to Mariahilferstrasse, which is only 3 minutes away from our dorm, and found KFC. We split a bucket with fries and cokes to drink. It was so delicious, but I had forgotten that gross sticky feeling your fingers get when you're finally done eating the chicken that no amount of dry napkins can fix. Yuck! Afterwards we thought we might get lucky with the Ubahn and that the trains might be running again so we went to the nearest U3 stop. Still not working... So we headed home. I headed to my room to take a shower and got ready for bed.

Even though I am bummed that I wasn't able to make it to see Der Besuch Der Alten Dame tonight I know that I can see it at some other time. Plus, Stephen wasn't able to join us tonight due to the conflict of one of his classes. We'll be going to see Carmen on Friday evening at the Volksoper and I already know where that is. So all is well.

Goodnight all!