This is my first few days away from home! I feel like I've been all over the place in such a short amount of time. On Wednesday, I flew from Orlando to Washington, D.C. to Vienna. The plane to Vienna was amazing! All of the flight attendants were dressed in red outfits from head to toe and the seats were lime green with red pillows and blankets...it was so cute! Lots of people from my program were on the plane, so we lugged our ENORMOUS suitcases into a taxi and to the U-Bahn station, which is the train system in Vienna. We waited at the station for a couple of hours and ordered pastries and coffee while we waited for our program leaders to come meet us. From the station, we took a 3-hour bus ride to Mariazell, which is a small town in the Alps that is close to Styria, Austria. Mariazell is most known for being a site of Catholic pilgrimages because it has a beautiful bascillica with a special statue of the Virgin Mary. (I'm not totally sure why it is so much more special than other statues, but it was beautiful!!) We have been staying in a hostel, but it is as nice as almost any hotel. (It even had chocolates on the pillows!)
Other than going to meetings about the program, we have been able to do two main activities during the day and random things at night. On Friday, I went to an amazing lake that was about a 15 minute bus ride from our hostel with one of my program leaders and a bunch of other students. We stuck out pretty obviously as being American, but all of the locals were really nice. We rented an electric boat and just laid out on the lake and took pictures. On Saturday, we went into the town of Mariazell and toured the bascillica and walked around eating. I have never seen anything like Mariazell...it is such an incredible sight!!!! Mom and Dad, I think you guys should for sure drive there while I'm in class when you come to visit! I can't even imagine what the town is like with snow. On Friday night, we had a "surprise," which was a group of about 8 dancers dressed in traditional Austrian dress. They did a couple of dances for us and then taught us to dance. Part of the tradition is drinking this weird honey drink and eating bread in between dances, so the dancers would frantically give out the drink to all 150 us using only about 5 glasses. It was mass chaos, but so much fun! Then on Saturday night we were taught how to do the Viennese waltz, which is apparently different from the American waltz. So I am now ready to go to one of the traditional Viennese balls...I am so excited! After all of the dancing on both nights, we sat outside with an incredible view of the bascillica and the Alps.
On Sunday, we drove back to Vienna and moved into our apartment. Our landlady speaks almost no English, so it was a pretty interesting situation. Our apartment is a beautiful old apartment that is really close to the tram, subways, and delicious bakeries and gelato shops. Today (which is now Monday night) we had our first day of class, so we took the tram all the way to the building where I have my classes. The building is an old palace, so the school is absolutely beautiful! (Even though there is no air conditioning!!) It is also really close to the Belvedere palace, which is one of the most famous landmarks in Vienna. After German class, in which I shamelessly butcher my German, I went with a few people from Emory to an Irish pub where I got a delicious chicken schniztel. I forgot to mention the food in the hostel, but needless to say nobody in my program ate the entire time we were there. So it was pretty nice to get back to Vienna and eat delicious food. I also got the most amazing chocolate croissant before I went to class, so my tummy was very happy today. After lunch, I went over to my friend's apartment that has 12 girls living in it and is huge and absolutely amazing. It has an incredible view of the city, so I stayed there all day and we ate outside (Mom, you would be proud!) and then I took the train home. My friends and I wanted to go out, but we got so lost on the train that they ended up just going back home once I finally found my apartment. We took 4 different trains and finally ended up taking a taxi back to my apartment. Even the taxi was confusing because I can barely pronounce my street name (Eslarngasse!!) But I will have to write more and put up pictures later because all of my roommates are sleeping and I have to get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow for German class. Gute nacht!!!
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