Class? What Class?

So it's springtime in Vienna, and I find myself with very little time to do anything. I mean, recently, I've just had to lay in the grass for hours, or go for long walks, or go for hikes in the Vienna woods with my friends. The warm temperatures and sun are really keeping me busy! With the weather being so wonderful, I feel like I'm in a whole new city--the fountains have turned on, the trees have growth into canopies in the parks and along the streets, the smell of lilacs fills the air. It's really wonderful.I've made a list of all the things I still want to do while I am here...and unfortunately that's not much longer. We've got three weeks to cram it all in, then it's back to the real world. My friends and I feel like we've been living the dream for the last few months, and now when we go back home, it'll be our senior year of college...Where has the time gone?!?!?

Spring Break

     My mother has been pestering me to update...so I suppose I shall! I've probably just been putting it off because so much has happened since I last wrote that I don't really know where to begin. I am going to choose my spring break, because IT WAS AWESOME.

 So for several weeks before hand, my roommate Lauren and I decided that we wanted to go south for spring break, perhaps find a beach and just park it for a few days. So originally, we wer thinking Grecian islands--which turned out to be WAY to expensive. Then one Thursday night (we have a tradition wit some friends to get together every Thursday and make huge  meals), our friend Will says he wants to go to Venice--which we all decided was a great idea.

    So a night train to Venice, check. Then what? Somehow, it popped into my head that taking a ferry to Croatia would be a fantastic idea, but would probably never happen...but when we actually looked into, made some phone calls, looked at countless websites, we figured out a way! Over night ferry ride across the Adriatic sea to the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. Once we finally got everything settled--transportation, accommodation--I started to get really excited. It just sounds like the greatest spring break ever. "How was your spring break?" everyone always asks..."Oh it was great, I went to Italy then Croatia."

So Friday, April 3rd, myself, Lauren, Tori, Mike, Ben, and Will (and a random friend from Conn College I'd never met) all left from our apartment towards the Westbanhof to catch an 8pm  night train to Venice...Now, luckily, "Mama Lauren" as we began to affectionately call her, had reserved us a cabin so while the six of us had a cabin and seats all to ourselves, there were people standing out in the walkway, sitting on their suitcases for at least three hours until the train got to Salzburg. Who knew this such a popular route! So while a group of people stood outside our door, we played cards, ate homebaked cookies, and drank two bottles of REALLY CHEAP champagne. By 1am, we were pretty much all ready to go to sleep, so we flattened all the seats to at least try and sleep. Let's just say, after six people "sleeping" in conditions that cramped, we all felt a little bit closer to each other...

       8am on Saturday, we arrive in Venice! After a much needed espresso and loaf of bread, we set out for our apartment. Now, the man on the phone said to get on ferry 7 or 8 and take it two stops. We saw that a one way pass on the ferry was 6 euro, so we figured, 2 stops? How far 

could that really be? Turns out, quite far when considering none of the streets in Venice are straight or direct AT ALL. Finally, we find Franco, who was to show us to our apartment. We met him by the Rialto bridge and then followed him as we wound through several streets, taking a left then a right then another right and a left and a u-turn then over a canal, then over another a canal and there we were! I swear, we never took the same path twice  (not true, but we were always so confused, it was hard to recognize anything). Franco was probably the most entertaining man I've met--we were pretty sure he spoke both English and German, but once he found out that's what we spoke, he used only Italian with some French thrown in. It probably took him about 4 times as long to explain things to us than it should have, but it was fantastic.

 Anyways, we somehow managed to pay only 26 euro a night per person for this big, nice apartment that was only a five minute walk from San Marco, which is pretty much like the "center" of Venice--what everything revolves around. It was the most incredible location. We had some friends in Venice at the same time and they were in some hostel on the mainland for 17 euro a night, but had to take a half hour bus ride every morning...we totally lucked out!

Probably the best part of the apartment was waking up in the morning--every morning, we woke up to the smells of the bakery 

right beneath us, the continuous ringing of church bells, gondoliers singing, and Italian men playfully arguing with each other...I think. It was absolutely wonderful.

First thing we did when we left the apartment on Saturday was get gelato at 10am...and it was great. It was the first of many gelato stops, I mean, we were in Italy, it's kind of an unwritten rule. This day included a lot of wandering around, looking at the many canals and getting pretty lost. We went into a few beautiful churches and came upon an outdoor antique market. It was really interesting to wander around and look at all the things for sale--the most interesting was a case full of Nazi medals and badges, but I highly doubt any of them 

were real. We ate lunch in some busy square, complete with an Italian bottle of wine. My 

favorite part of the day happened after dinner however. We had just finished some great pasta by the Rialto Bridge and we were walking around and all of the sudden found ourselves in the middle of this big outdoor party where some club was piping music out into the square and there were wine bars and fruit vendors everywhere. We went into one wine bar and each ended up getting a glass of ice wine--which I learned is very rare, because they make it out of grapes that have been frozen in the first frost, so it either goes really well, or really wrong. It was some of the most delicious wine we had the entire trip. 

In short, our entire trip consisted of walking everywhere, finding the next place to eat a picnic lunch, or drink a nice bottle of wine out of little plastic cups we bought at the grocery 

store. Our favorite afternoon activity was to sit by a canal and eat fresh fruit from the market, along with a loaf of bread and some cheese. But we also went to several museums, including the Guggenheim and the Academia (which we got into for free because we told the woman we were all Art History majors, which was great), as well as inside San Marco Cathedral, and up inside the Bell Tower, which was about 70 meters up. 

On Sunday, we went to Murano, the island famous for it's glass blowing, and then to the cemetery island, which was beautiful, but also a little bit creepy. And of course, we bit the bullet and took an evening time gondola ride with a 4th generation gondolier. 

Originally, Lauren, Will, Tori, and I were going to leave Tuesday afternoon for Ancona, where our ferry was leaving from Wednesday night, but we decided we wanted to stay for a little longer in Venice, so we booked a hostel/campground on the mainland, where we pretty 

much slept in a trailer right next to an airport runway. It wasn't exactly the cleanest or most cozy of places to stay seeing as it was literally a trailer from the '70's, but we had fun, pretty much just because it was so ridiculous. Made us appreciate the apartment we had even more. Thursday we hoped on a train at 11am for a 5-hour trip down the coast to Ancona. Once we got 

there, we rode a bus around in circles, found the harbor, checked into the ferry and got tickets, attempted to find a grocery store, which led to more bus-riding in circles, and then boarded the ferry at 9 that night. 

Now, I'd never been on a boat this big or fir this long before, so I was kind of freaking out.  We had dinner on the boat before it pushed off, and then as it finally left the port, Will and I went outside to watch. Once the lights disappeared and we were out in open water, I decided I needed a little distraction, so we played some cards, watched Croatian TV, then attempted a 

night of sleep. I thought the overnight train to Venice was bad but this was worse. Probably one of the worst night's of sleep I've ever gotten. The "reclining" chairs we reserved went back about 3 inches and were hard as a rock. I attempted making myself a little bed on the floor, but that may have been even worse. Once the sun finally started rising, I could see the mountains on the coast, and I started to get real excited. Just before 7am, we got off the boat, went through customs, and made our way to the hostel. We found it with not much trouble, but we weren't going to be able to check in until 8am so we found a coffee shop where we quickly realized the waiter spoke no English and that we had to find an ATM in order to get some of the local currency--which is called a kuna. 

Our hostel was right near a park and a large outdoor market full of Croatian women trying 

to sell you fresh produce, fish, bread, and cheese. We were also right next to the Old Town, which was all from Ancient Roman times, when Diocletian built his retirement palace. In the 

old town was a church, a tall bell tower that you could climb up with steps that were up to your knee, catacombs, and lots of small cobble stone streets. Thursday we spent walking around, getting

 ourselves aquatinted with everything in the area. That night we went out for cheap and DELICIOUS food, like mussels and seafood pasta. Probably the best thing about Croatia was that they are not yet in the EU, let alone the eurozone, so everything is still pretty cheap. You could get a nice big meal, plus a drink and a dessert for under 15 euro--it was a nice change from the expensive city of Venice. Friday, we decided we needed a beach day, so after drinking a coffee in some Roman ruins (we loved saying that) we walked for a while down the board walk towards the pebble 

beaches. First we climbed a little hill to a church the was literally on a cliff, over looking the Adriatic with great views of some of the many islands in the area. Then we followed a winding cement path among some boulders in the water. We found a beach that had a little bar on it, so we parked it there. We read books, ate the most delicious strawberries I have ever tasted, and tried to get tan. After awhile, Will and I decided that we needed to swim in the Adriatic Sea, no matter how cold it was. So while Will dived right in, trying to convince me that it wasn't that bad, I stood in the water about knee-high, still a little unsure. Finally, with several count-downs from Lauren, who was laughing at me on the beach, I went all the way

 in...for about a minute, then had to get

 our and sprawl across the warm rocks. Definitely worth it. Later, we started to walk back, because we were getting hungry, but then decided to climb out on some rocks that were out in the water and watch the sunset. Not a bad way to end our beach day--

Saturday we hoped on a ferry to go to an island called Solta, that a book said had a series of little pebbly coves all the shore. We walked along this winding dirt path that passed all of the little coves, and it was absolutely beautiful. We finally picked one to sit at for a few hours and perfect our rock skipping. Once we got hungry, we walked back to the main part of the island in search of a market or at least a restaurant, but no. Little did we know, in the off-season, restaurants on this island feel no need to be open and the market closed at 3pm, so by the time we would have walked to 2km to get there, it would have been too late. So what we resorted to for "lunch" was an ice cream bar and

 a glass of beer. Then we sat on some rocks again, drinking another beer, watching the tide come in a wait for the ferry to come back. This night, we got to see the sun set from on the water, which was also great.

Sunday was Easter, and we woke up to church bells ringing for what literally seemed like an hour, constantly. Lauren played Easter bunny and hide chocolate eggs and bunnies all around our room. After sitting and drinking coffee, listening to mass in Croatian being played on speakers outside the packed church (in Roman Ruins of course), we decided to hike the mountain that was just north of town...and by hike I mean climb about a thousand steps and then follow a winding pathway along the top of the hill, past monk hermit houses in the cliffs, past rock climbers and farms. Then we could see down below a beach that we wanted to go to, so we found some steep dirt path that we basically just had to slide down. It was great. So after some more sun tanning and swimming (we got Lauren to come in with us!) we made the long walk back to the hostel. I wanted to hitchhike back, but everyone else didn't like that idea...

Monday we had to wake up and catch a 7am train to Zagreb, the capital, where we had a 3 hour layover to Vienna. The ride from Split to Zagreb was beautiful. Croatia is all rolling hills and farms and mountains and small villages...The train ride was pretty entertaining, too. The train would do these turns and it would lean out over valleys and cliffs, which was kind of scary, but also really cool. I also made friends with an old man who was an economist and was talking to me about some of life's major lessons. His name was Michael, and he was very interesting. In Zagreb, we walked out of the train station into a park full of blooming tulips and daffodils and fountains and statues everywhere. So we set down all our bags and layed in the grass, and went in shifts to explore the city. From the very little of the city I saw, I liked it--it was so beautiful! Seeing as I've used the word "beautiful" about 20 times to describe Croatia, I think that maybe you get the point...I kind of liked it, just a little bit :)

My favorite quote from the whole trip came on this last day as we layed in the grass waiting for the train back home. Lauren looks at us and says, "Guys, we literally haven't had a bad day." How right she was...I loved this vacation. I literally had a smile on my face the entire time!

easyLondon

Last Friday, I went for a lovely visit to London. Alex has been studying there since the end of January, and seeing as we've been friends for 7 years now, I decided it would be nice to spend time with someone I know and love...

Friday afternoon, I made my way out to the Vienna airport, which took about 45 minutes. It was kind of a funny journey out there because the only other time I'd done that trip I was sleep deprived, jet-lagged, and full of nerves--the first time around I didn't even notice that you ride the train for about 20 minutes through pastures and farmlands. Arriving at the airport, I checked in, went through security--my boots set off the metal detector and I forgot about my Leatherman on my keychain (which they promptly confiscated)--so Austrian security didn't really like me that day. My flight was on easyJet, some no-frills airline where there are no assigned seats or complimentary beverages or snacks. Boarding was quite the experience

 because everyone races across the jetway, hoping to get the PERFECT SEAT! Lucky me got first row window seat with some smelly boy reading porn magazines the whole time...I

 thankfully fell asleep. Once I arrived in London Luton, I found the bus I had booked a ticket to Central London on, called easyBus (obviously the same company I had just flown on). In about an hour, I was dropped off amongst the largest crowd of people I have seen in a while, at Marble Arch.

This was about 5:30 in the evening now, and Alex had class until 6:30, so I decided to just sit at a deli and read a crappy, free newspaper and eat some chips (or crisps....is that the British term?). Alex met up with me about an hour later, and since I am on a college-student budget,

 we decided to walk back to her flat, which was only about half an hour away. We made dinner, and I met some her friends and crazy roommates and politely nodded along amongst all the theater talk (did I mention Alex is in a program called The London Dramatic School?). Exhausted and perhaps coming down with a cold, Alex made me a nest of couches in her living room and I fell asleep.

Saturday was full of Tube riding, gap minding, walking, National Portrait gallery viewing, G-20 riot avoiding, more walking, BUCKINGHAM PALACE, tea-drinking, walking, and rain, of course. We started off the day going to Trafalger(?) Square, where it was sunny for at least a little while. This is also where we saw part of the massive parade of some 50,000 people marching for Put People First. There were lots of smaller groups, I think. Like teachers unions,

environmentalists, anarchists, communists. I saw Tibetan flags and banners proclaiming "Capitalism Isn't Working". There were loud chants, drum beats, trumpets, whistles. It was just chaos everywhere, and it went on and on and on. While this march was a peaceful one, there were police everywhere, in anticipation of violence--which apparently did break out today in front of a bank in London. 

But after we got out of that crowd, Alex and I just did a lot of walking and picture taking--I wanted to be pretty much as touristy as possible, which I realized is kind of what you have to do when you spend only two days in a city. It was nice to have someone who knew where to take me! That night, we did a little bit of pub-hopping in Alex's area of town--Westminster--and we ate fish and chips, which were 

accompanied with "mushy peas". The name turned me off a little, but I've heard good things, and they were GREAT. I want more mushy peas.

Sunday was not quite as sunny as Saturday, but we spent a majority of the day in the park anyways--Hyde Park. I have never been to a park so large, but I think that maybe this is the parks of all parks. Alex explained to me that pretty much everyone in London wishes they lived in the country, so they just make themselves really incredible parks instead. There were daffodils, statues, and English Sheepdogs everywhere. I loved it! Westminster We then met up with my friend Christine from Whitman (though unfortunately nearly an hour late because we forgot about the time change that morning) and got lunch at a French place near Alex's school. Because everything is cheaper take-away than sitting down in London, we got our sandwiches to-go and ate while walking around. Not far from where we got our lunch was T.S. Eliot's house, which I was super excited about. I love T.S. 

Eliot. We were going to go to Abbey and see his grave, but it is apparently 15 Pounds to go inside, and we did not particularly want to do that. Then we walked around the park some more and parted ways with Christine who had essays to write, and Alex and I went into this shop called "Hotel Chocolat" and it was the most amazing place...CHOCOLATE EVERYWHERE. It was all really expensive chocolate, but we got free samples of something I can't even describe, other than that it was incredible. Hazelnut was involved. Next, we hopped on a series of double-decker buses (which I was also really excited about) and made our way back to the flat. We drank tea, made a curry dinner, Skyped with Alex's family, and then went for a nighttime walk through a park called "Little Venice".

Monday morning, we had to wake up early so I could catch my easyBus back to the airport to get on my easyJet and return back to Vienna...Next, it's Alex's turn to come visit me--IT WILL BE FANTASTIC!

All in all, as Alex and the British would say, it was a lovely weekend.

Friday, I am off to Venice for a few days, then to the Croatian coast! I love European spring breaks already...

Romeo and Juliet

      This afternoon, as I sat sort-of doing my homework in the IES library, I decided that I wanted to do something tonight. My first thought was to look at the schedule for the Staatsoper, so I look it up online, and low and behold, the ballet of Romeo and Juliet is on. 

So Instead of sitting at a table doing my reading, I decide that I will go grab dinner, and read about International Finance while waiting in line for standing room tickets. I got there about two hours before the show started, an hour before the box office opened, and by the time I got to the window, the lower level "seats" were already sold out, so I had to buy a 3 euro ticket up on the balcony--aka the nosebleeds of the Staatsoper. Luckily, I was one of the first to get the balcony tickets, so I got the front row. There was a lot of leaning over the railing involved, and I couldn't exactly see what was happening on far stage right...but hey...the people with real seats right in front of me paid about 6 times more than I did for my ticket, so I really have nothing to complain about.

I love the fact that I can make a last minute decision to go to a ballet and it works out totally fine--aside from the fact that I was wearing tennis shoes and a t-shirt. But really, what else is new for me? I feel like I'm pretty much always under dressed :)

Monet bis Picasso und Gerhard Richter

Yesterday, Saturday, after getting some much needed sleep until about noon, I turn to roommate Lauren and announce that we need to get out of our pajamas and go a museum I've been wanting to see since I got here, the Albertina. This museum is just behind the Hofburg palace in the 1st district, only a few blocks from the IES center. It was once the guest apartments of the royal family--I decided as we walked through the state rooms on the second floor that I would be okay with staying there.  The Albertina has an absolutely enormous collection of 

graphics and paintings, which are pretty much in constant rotation, so for the next few months, there is a "Monet bis Picasso" exhibition, which is based off of a collection from a family that was very into the expressionist style and all things similar. I was particularly excited about this because with my art class all I've been seeing lately is ancient Roman ruins and early Christian paintings, which all get a little boring to me after awhile. Plus, I've always loved Monet...who doesn't really? 

I really enjoyed the exhibit, even though it only ended up having about three Monet paintings, but lots of Picasso I'd never seen before and many artists my art-illiterate self had never heard of, but liked. Lauren is an art history major, so however much I don't like studying it, I like having her in a museum with me, full of lots of interesting information that I can only appreciate as the art is here in front of me. 

So while we went there for the expressionist exhibit, we were of course also going to see the other exhibition going on, of an artist I did not know by name, but recognized some of his

 work when I actually saw it, Gerhard Richter. At the beginning of the exhibit, there was an

explanation of his artwork (though I realized, that it really cannot be explained), and it quoted him saying something like, he never went into his art with any intentions, and he didn't want it to have to be anything. That's not the best explanation of what I read, but walking through this exhibition, it is clear that this man had absolutely no boundaries, or perhaps even direction. There was just so much variety of art, from all gray paintings to HUGE canvas' coated in bright, clashing colors. There were dozens of watercolors and even more graphite drawings--everything. But what I was most impressed by was the paintings that looked like pictures from a camera--just so absolutely perfect that you could only really tell it was an oil painting by

 getting up close and seeing the brush strokes. Wandering through this exhibit, seeing over 40 years of this artist's work hung up on the walls, was wonderful. I really enjoyed myself. I would

definitely be willing to pay the 7 euro again, just to go back and see it.

Lauren and I were sitting in front of one of the last paintings in the exhibit--an extremely realistic oil painting of a lit candle--and she leans to me and says, "You know, I've always thought of a great artist as someone who can make the sun shine through the clouds, or make the water glisten, or make  a candle flicker." Gerhard Richter did all three of those things, and we had just seen all of them. 

This one day, we decided to go to Slovakia

The train from Vienna to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, is only about an hour, and 14 euro, so why WOULDN'T we go? A few friends and myself pulled ourselves out of bed at 11am one Saturday, and had a wonderful time--here are some pictures!

Uploading pictures is a little tricky on this site...so it looks a little bit funny! Es tut mir lied.

A Weekend in the Alps

Last weekend, IES led a ski trip to a ski area called Radtstat, not too far out of Saltzburg (where The Sound of Music took place). We left Vienna about 1 o'clock on Friday, and got to the mountain at about 6pm that night. After renting all our skis and snowboards, we checked into our hostel that was about a five minute walk to the base of the mountain. Apparently, a five a hour bus ride makes you very tired, so we all went to bed around 11pm. Next morning we woke up to snow falling and a fresh few inches (centimeters?) of snow. After a big breakfast and stuffing our pockets with food from the buffet, we got our two day passes and headed up the gondola. Me and a few friends broke off from the massive IES group that formed at the top of the mountain, and explored the mountain. Usually, I'm one of a few snowboarders

 in a group, but all the people I spent the day with were snowboarding too, and only one skier! It was a bit surprising at first, but I liked it. I also found it funny that out of the entire 40 IES people, I was the only girl snowboarder--it kind of made me feel like a badass. But anyways, the snow was pretty good, and it wasn't too crowded, so no lines and no traffic jams on the hill. The mountain we were on had only a few lifts on it, so that evening we decided we would take a bus to another mountain near by that looked much bigger and went up much higher. 

Sunday we woke up a cloudless ski, and an ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE VIEW. I was in awe at how beautiful these mountains were. My friends were all surprised by my reaction considering the fact that I live in the Rockies, but these mountains were in a whole different category--I feel like I can't even explain it! So we rode the gondola up to the mountain we had skied the day before, then skied over to the base of another little mountain to catch the bus. Once we got to the other mountain (only about a 10 minute bus ride), we immediately got in the gondola line, to go up to the very top. Now as some of you know, the Europeans don't exactly believe in standing in line, so the whole process of getting into the gondola was a little hectic, but I ended up getting in one of this tiny, definitely still from the 70's, 4-person gondola with two little girls and their ski instructor. The first hill we went up was probably at a 70degree angle, which freaked me out a little bit, but I brushed it off--the view was fantastic and I was enjoying trying to figure out what the little girls were talking about. After about five minutes, we come up over

 a ridge, and all of the sudden there's this huge gust of wind that slams my snowboard into the window outside and scares all of us. We all kind of laugh while I'm hoping that it doesn't fall off or something. All the sudden, the gondola jerks to a stop, and the wind is so strong, the car is LITERALLY almost sideways. I then made the mistake and looked down, realizing that we are about 100 feet in the air, with a very steep slope and jagged rocks below us. We are stopped for about 30 seconds, then jerk and start going again. At this point, I'm a little freaked out, but I can see the end of the ride is near, we should be there soon...BUT NO. It stops again, and the car swings and swings and the little girls start crying for their mothers and I ask the ski instructor, who should obviously be experienced with this ride, if this is normal--her eyes are wide as she replies "No, this is not normal at all". Alas, I did not plummet to my death, but for a while there, I thought that I might. (The ski area actually shut down the gondola just after we got off, and it ended up being closed the entire day.) I waited at the top for the rest of my friends, all who were equally as terrified as I was. After taking a break to regain our nerves and take in the most incredible view of mountains I have ever seen, we preceded to have on of the best days of boarding of my life. We spent very little time on actual trails and were exploring the woods with 3 feet of untouched powder almost all day long. There was even one bowl that we dropped into that had a "BEWARE OF AVALANCHE" warning sign that people had been ducking under all day--it was literally the most snow I've ever seen in one place...

We were having such a great time that we didn't even stop to have lunch--just got the best brautwurst I've ever eaten from a little trailer at the end of the day. Needless to say, the bus ride back was full of 40 very sleepy (and some very sunburned) people. I slept the entire way back!