Thursday, March 12, 2009

I've caught the Travel Bug..

It's Thursday night here in Vienna and I finally have some down time to write, watch TV and just relax. For the past few weeks it feels like it's just been non-stop with everything. We packed up and went to Prague last Thursday which was simply amazing. The city, the people, the culture.. everything. I was a little nervous at first as this was going to be my first expirence staying in a hostel and we just booked the cheapest one with the best ratings. When we got there early Thursday morning we couldn't find it anywhere and were literally walking up and down the streets until this guy was like .. "Hey lost girls.. this way" .. He worked at the hostel and showed us where to go. This became our theme for the rest of the trip! As it turned out the hostel was run by two Canadian guys, who were so wonderful. The hostel was amazing, Lauren and I stayed in a room with 8 other people, all Americans! They were from the deep south so their accent was too funny.. they ended up being really cool and we partied with them on the weekend. I was completely shocked at the atmosphere and cleanliness of the hostel. You can cook, watch movies, go on the internet, do anything you want. It's better than a hotel as you get the chance to sit and talk to so many people. One of my absolute favorite things about being here is hearing stories from travellers all around the world. Or as my professor's would say I'm "networking"!

On Friday night the hostel put on a pubcrawl which was about 10 Euro's .. and it was free wine and beer. Needless to say.. this night turned into one big drunk fest. We had SO much fun, got to see the entire night life of the city while having a great tour guide walking us from bar to bar.. He too was also American! However as 6 of us were travelling together, the next morning it was a process to get all 6 very hungover people up and out of bed to do some touring! .. We went out that afternoon to go see the Prague Castle, for some reason we got lost and could not get to it, everyone was hungry and tired and now walking around in the rain.. as we stopped to look at a map my friend so loudly just said "Fuck the Castle"!! I don't think I've laughed so hard in a long time! It was so fitting for the moment. After about 2 hours we found it.. took a few pictures and made our way to the closest food establishment! .. After some food, the mood lightend and we spent the rest of day walking around the city.

Since Prague was the only other place besides Vienna that I have seen I was in awe. It was beautiful, the buildings, the water, I loved everything about it. What is very famous in Prauge is the Charles Bridge. From this bridge you can look over the city, I remember just standing there and thinking .. wow. I have never seen anything like that before, I didn't want to leave.

On the bus ride home back to Vienna all that was running through my head was what Stephen once said to me when he came home from Spain.. he said once you get a taste of travelling, you just want to see more and more. And right now, thats where I am. I want to see more. I find it so ironic how scared I was to come here and worried about so many things, and now all I want to do is see more cities, meet more people, and expirence more cultures. So like most people call it.. I have the travel bug. Our next little trip will be to Germany in about 10 days, this time it will just be Lauren and I which I think will be good. We'll be staying in Berlin for 3 nights and then back to Vienna. Travelling at night is my favorite thing to do.. I can just put my headphones in, look out the window and zone out. It gives you a lot of time to think.. Being in Vienna, and traveling has made me think a lot about my Grandmother Sturrock. I remember hearing all the stories of her travels and Im so happy that I will get to do the same thing now. I know she would be so proud of both Stephen and I.

As for everything else, it's going pretty good. My classes are very interesting, I love learning about PR and marketing from a different perspective, the change is so great. I have a class starting next week that focus's on Media and Culture which I'm really looking forward to. My German language class is kicking my ass. It's not like studying French or Spanish which is a pretty language, it's this yucky language! Lauren and I try and talk to each other at home sometimes in German! The good thing is that it has taught us a lot of the basic's for us to get around the city. We are constantly meeting new people and it's so great. We have become friends with these two guys who are from France. We spend a lot of time with them and have noticed so many different things between our cultures. They always get mad at us when we leave a bar without telling them, or don't talk to them for a few days. It's so weird. And Im talking like getting MAD! We of course just laugh it off.. but it's so very odd. But they are both cute :)

One last story and then I promise I'm going to stop writing! .. So this weekend in Prague we had a guy and girl from Finland come with us. The guy's name is Jussi. I absolutly adore him. He is so funny and such a nice guy. Anyways, we were sitting around the table having dinner one night, and the conversations are so different, we go around the table and tell everyone what our parents do, what our families are like and the difference between our cities. (it's really fun) Anyways, we got to talking about homeless people in Canada, and Lauren and I said because of the cold many of the hobo's live under the bridge. When I said this he looked at me very oddly and I wasn't sure if I said something politicaly incorrect or what.. as it turns out he thought I said "homo" and that we make the "homos" live under the bridges in Canada!! SO funny, I seriously was crying laughing. Anyways.. just another language barrier that is fun to get around!!

I'm posting some pictures from our weekend in Prague and a few from a night of ice skating in Vienna.

Lot's of love from Vienna.



This is me standing on the Charles Bridge in Prague, so beautiful.




This is the view from just one angle of the bridge; you could see so much of the city.




I took a lot of photos, I loved it.



This is a church that was across the street from out hostel.. I don't know the name of it, but it was really pretty!



This is in the middle of the City Centre.. we walked in the rain for hours that day. But well worth it :)


This is me a little scared of this guard! They were all around the Castle and tourists would just go up and get pictures, wave in their faces, it was so weird!! .. so of course I had to be that tourist as well!



This is the Prague Castle that took forever to get to, but it was very nice!



Another shot of the Castle..



And one more!



This is me with my Chec. money... it was like monopoly money!! It was so hard to understand what it was to the Euro.


Another shot of the six of us at a festival downtown.



This is the six of us at the Prague Castle that day.


Having dinner before a night on the town!


Lauren and Henni, night of the pub crawl!


Me... Loving the 1E for a glass of wine!


This is a night when we went skating down at City Hall.. the skating rink is huge with lots of people.



This is Oliver (my new French friend) and I.



Laruen and I skating..



And again!



This is a picture of City Hall at night time in the winter in Vienna. This photo can’t even do justice to how beautiful it really is. There are light everywhere and the skating rink is HUGE. We spent hours there one night. They have lots of music, food and drinks. Lots of fun.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

February in Vienna..

Today is the first of March, and I can't believe that I have been in Vienna for almost a month now. Time is flying by. I started classes on Monday and it got intense very fast. I am taking quite a few classes, but they are arranged very differently here. For many of the courses you attend all day from 8-4 for two or three days and then that class is over. There is no exam or assignments, it's very odd. I took a Body Language course which felt more like a drama class. It was so much fun. Everyone in the class was an exchange student which gave us a chance to get to know each other better and this class completely took you out of your comfort zone. We practiced lots of improv and had to preform skits with different rolls. It was really interesting because so many people come from all around the world with different cultures and speak different languages. I really enjoyed the course, which is now over!

I have also started my German Language Course which I hate. I would honestly rather be learning chinese. I find the language incredibly hard to pronounce, and I am completly lost in the class. Our teacher, although very nice, has a hard time speaking English, so she basically teaches the class in German. I never have any idea what is going on and she is all over the place. I have so much appreciation for the people in my class who not only struggle to speak English, but are now learning to speak German as well. So.. like everything else it is a learning experience. I am going on a hunt tomorrow to find an electronic German dictionary which will hopefully help me out!

With school getting well on it's way we haven't had too much time to do much touring this week. As I just got over what I thought was the worst flu ever, Lauren has now caught it. Hopefully she will get better soon. It's been nice however to stay in, watch some movies and slow down a bit. Everything here is so expensive, you have to watch what you spend all the time because the Euro is double. Whenever we buy groceries for 50E I think about how that $100. It's crazy. Because of this I have decided to cut my trip a month short. I'm not sure I will be able to afford to stay the month of June. I do have a few classes that go until the end of June, but our exchange Counselors say we are able to drop those classes if necessary. So my plan is to make my way home on around the end of May.

We did make it out to a popular market here in Vienna on Monday called the Nachmarket. It was awesome, and very cheap! We bought some pasta and some pashmina's. They have so many for under 5E .. and because it's so cold right now they have come in handy! The market is so much fun with SO many Austrian foods. They are really big into meat here.. sausauges, pork, you name it!

I almost forgot to mention our trip to the Imperial Palace. This was the most amazing thing I have yet to see. You are taken on a tour of the Imperial aparments where Princess Cici and the Emperor Franz Joseph of Vienna lived. They give you an audio that you listen to throughout your tour. As you listen to the story you become completly mesmorized by her life and her entire story. It was a sad love story and an empowering story of such a remarkable woman. Unfortunaltely you weren't allowed to take pictures.. but it was simply amazing.

We have plans to travel to Prague on Thursday. We are able to take the bus to Prague for 20E and stay in a hostel that is 13E a night, not too shabby! (Thanks to my brother who showed me all these websites :) There are about 6 of us travelling there together, all who I met in my Body Language course. It will be great to see a new city with new friends.

I'm posting a few pictures, this time with some descriptions!

I hope everything is wonderful for all of my family and friends back home. xo




This is the Prater Wheel, a popular amusement park and area in Vienna. It’s so cool to see at night. I can’t wait for Summer to be able to ride it!





Another photo of the St. Stephens Cathedral.




This is a picture of the outside of our University. It’s very modern.




This is a picture I managed to snap inside the Imperial Palace, this is one of the many center pieces they displayed from many years ago. They were absolutely stunning.




This is me in front of Vienna’s public Library; it is huge and very beautiful.




This is inside the Prater Done Night Club, the biggest night club in Europe.




Lauren and I out and about one night in the Bermuda Triangle!




A wonderful new group of friends ... From the left: Henni from Finland, Sammy from Australia, myself, Agnar from Iceland, Rachel from L.A and Mark from Australia.




The Nachmarket in Vienna. So many people..




Lots of food!




The Vienna Library




Lauren and I outside of the Imperial Palace




Mark and I waiting for the U-Ban




A new German friend :)