Oh mein Gott! Paris: The city of light!

Marisa really loves travel books, she is definitely the resident Rick Steves

We have a LOT of photos of each other taking photos, Amanda is very

 excited!

The organ at St. Paul

Our hostel was really close to the Bastille

Sonntag 12 September: Ubahn to the bus station, bus to the Bratislava airport, plane from Bratislava to Paris BVA, bus from BVA into the city, metro to the hostel. Welcome to Paris, the city of light. (haha, or at least that's what the Let's Go Europe book calls it.) The trip to Paris was with Emily, Marisa, Amanda, Jeremy, Evan and Zan is arriving late on Monday. We arrived in Paris and got all checked into our hostel. We stayed at the AIJ Bastille Hostel, which was pretty good and it was really cheap since we got a private room and split it between three of us! We only actually reserved one room in the hostel, we were going to play it by ear and see just how possible it would be to fit more people in a room and split the price. The answer came to us in the form of a very bright pink sign in the lobby stating that if anyone was found in the hostel that wasn't a registered guest they would be turned over to the police... So we booked another room. From there we were all super hungry, so we

Notre Dame, there's a cafe nearby called Esmerelda's

There was a lot of looking at maps today...

We went across this bridge where couples put locks with their initials on them.

Approaching the Eiffel Tower!

Later, the tower began to sparkle, there was a unison "Aah!"

On the Metro after a long afternoon of walking.

went to a little cafe and got late lunch or early dinner, whatever you want to call it. I had tomatoes and mozzarella, which was super tasty! After that we decided to walk around the city with the ultimate destination of the Eiffel Tower. We went into St. Paul cathedral first. Every time I go into any church in Europe I'm just really blown away that people were able to create something so detailed and amazing! After that we continued walking down the Seine until we got to Notre Dame. We went in, but they were having mass, and I always feel weird being a tourist when people are trying to worship, so I decided to go outside and take pictures and we all decided to go back tomorrow. After that we kept walking and as the sun set we made it to the Eiffel Tower! It was so exciting to see! To be honest, I got really teary eyed and overwhelmed. It just seems like this fairy tale that you grow up with and then when you are walking up to it, you realize that it's real, and that you are so lucky to have the opportunity to be there and see it for yourself! That's kind of just how I felt this entire trip. Like I was living a fairy tale, realizing it was real and how lucky I am to be able to experience it all! We ate crepes and french fries under the Eiffel Tower, I got a chestnut crepe, which was really weird... It kind of tasted like apple cinnamon, but also kind of like gravy... which just sounds nasty, but I liked it and was weirded out by the fact that I liked it. After that we went back to the hostel and called it a night.

The Louvre

We had way too much fun imitating sculptures...

I loved all the Egyptian beads and jewelry!

The Louvre itself is a piece of art, the ceilings, the floors, it's all so beautiful!

The Winged Victory of Samothrace, hands down my favorite Masterpiece

The inside of Notre Dame

The view from the top of Notre Dame

Half way to the top of Notre Dame.

Montag 13 September: We all woke up bright and early today grabbed breakfast at the hostel and were off to the Louvre. We planned it just right, we got there twenty minutes before it opened and right after we got in line, all these people showed up and the line got so long. After getting into the Louvre we went to buy tickets and thanks to Amanda asking we all got in free with our visas since we are students studying in the EU! That was pretty great. The Louvre was absolutely amazing! It was overwhelming how much there is to see there! We all started out together but all went our separate ways and decided on a meeting place at lunch time. I started on the ground floor and saw amazing French sculptures, I think this was one of my favorite sections. I saw the Mesopotamia, Iran, Egypt, Greek, Italian and Northern European sculptures sections. Another part that I really liked was all of the Egyptian jewelry. It was so amazing all of the details on these tiny beads. There was this other awesome exhibit in the thematic circuit that was this collection of these stamps that were used on clay pots. They were like a bead that was rolled onto the clay making a continuous design! They were so cool! I saw the Code of Hammurabi and the Venus de Milo. After the ground floor I went downstairs and saw more sculptures including St. Mary Magdalene and the Medieval Moat exhibit. After that I went through the Spanish and Italian paintings and saw The Mona Lisa (which is very small), The Consecration of the Emperor Napoeon I (which Evan called "The Consummation of the Emperor Napoleon I", not quite the same thing, haha) and The Wedding Feast at Cana. It's amazing seeing the Mona Lisa in person, even though it's a lot smaller than you might imagine it's still amazing of what a crowd it draws and it's interesting to try to figure out what is so special about it. Rooms with masterpieces are also strange because all the other artwork in that room is fairly ignored since everyone is so drawn to the masterpieces, it's just interesting to try to understand hype I guess. The Louvre itself is a piece of art, each room has an amazing ceiling with paintings and carvings and even the floor is beautiful and people just walk on it while observing what's on the walls. After we met for lunch we decided to stay for another three hours. I went and saw The Winged Victory of Samothrace, which was definitely my favorite of the masterpieces of the Louvre. I don't really know why, but it really stood out to me. I walked through more Greek and Egyptian exhibits and saw the Seated Scribe. I skipped over the Renaissance, Middle Ages and Restoration Sections and went straight to the Napoleon III Apartments, which were really gaudy and cool. After that I went to the second floor and saw the paintings from the Netherlands, Germany and France. These were all really beautiful, but by this point I was so tired and we had been at the Louvre for five hours, so things started kind of looking the same to me and I got really turned around and lost, finally when it was about time to go I just followed all the exit signs and made it downstairs. The whole Louvre experience was just incredible! After the Louvre, we went to Notre Dame again and went inside now that they weren't having service. Then we climbed to the top of Notre Dame. To get to the top it takes over 400 steps. There was an amazing view of Paris from the top. Notre Dame took 200 years to build, but looking at it I'm amazed that's all it took, there is so much detail, it's just insane! After Notre Dame we went to find some of us another hostel to stay in, since the original one was full and we didn't make enough reservations. Then we went to meet Zan and we all got dinner. Paris is very expensive! I think I did a pretty good job regulating costs, but everything is just so much more than it is in Vienna. Before we all went to our respective hostels we all decided on what to do on Tuesday because we were going to all split up. My choice was between going to the Catacombs or Versailles in the morning. I couldn't decide so I decided to make a decision in the morning. I took off my shoes to find my right foot severely blistered from a day of walking. Ouch.

The carpet in a room in Versailles, believe it.

You've got to love the juxtaposition here

The Enceladus Grove. I can read you the story from my guide book.

The Orangery. This also has a cool story that goes with it.

We were pretty tired.

Oscar Wilde's grave.

The top of Gertrude Stein's grave, I left the yellow colored rock.

The cheese we got smelled so bad. We didn't eat from this one.

Au Revoire Paris, it's been fun.

Dienstag 14 September: So I decided to go to Versailles. The travel book told us that a roundtrip train ticket to Versailles cost 6 Euros and then admission was 8. Not so bad. Well, don't always trust the book. We bought the train ticket, then we got there and admission to the palace was 15 Euros, but we were there so we all bought a ticket. Amanda bought a guide book for the palace and I bought a guide book for the gardens (which is what I wanted to see most anyway) We went through the palace and Amanda read to me about each room. It was really interesting because the artist Takashi Murakami had his art on display in all the rooms. I really liked it all in the palace because it created this really dramatic juxtaposition. It's also cool, because they exhibit artwork in Versailles to continue a tradition that Louis XIV started. Murakami's work is very poppy, Japanese and manga oriented, so I'm sure you can imagine how strange it was in the gaudy Baroque palace! I think that was part of what justified the price to me though... I really loved it all! After going through the palace, we decided to go to the gardens. One problem, to go to the gardens, you have to pay another 7 Euros... ugh. Thanks a lot deceiving travel book. We decided we were at Versailles, so we should see Versailles, plus I already bought the guide book, so we all bought tickets to the gardens. We walked around for a few hours and I read about each fountain and grove that we walked through. I'm really glad we had the guides, it made everything a lot more significant than if I was just looking at it. Marisa wanted to go to Marie Antoinette's estate, but guess what? That cost more money too! So we decided to draw the line and stop throwing money at Versailles. I didn't eat lunch though, so I didn't feel too terrible about buying the garden ticket. After Versailles, we met up with everyone else that went to the Catacombs. We all laid in the grass for about an hour pretty exhausted. When we all managed to sit up we decided to go to the Le Père Lachaise Cemetery. The cemetery is over 105 acres and the largest cemetery in Paris. It was so cool, it was like a little town with streets and blocks. We saw Chopin, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, Bizet, Poulenc, Lalo and Jim Morrisons' graves. I was so happy to see Gertrude Stein's grave. I picked a rock and said a prayer for myself and Allison, thanking her for what she's given to our friendship and left it on her grave. Oscar Wilde's grave was covered in kisses and lipstick, I researched the significance of that, but as far as I can tell it's just from admirers who view Wilde as a martyr for love. Zan was really mad about the vandalism. I don't really know how I feel about it. I think it would be really amazing to make such an impact in peoples' lives that they want to leave their mark on you somehow, but I think if people only did it for nostalgia reasons, I would be upset, if I were Oscar Wilde that is. Jim Morrison's grave is near a tree where people have written notes to him and Doors lyrics. While walking through the cemetery we saw a black cat, so that was a little weird and foreboding... After the cemetery I'm pretty sure we all felt like we were going to die from walking so much. We went to a grocery store and got picnic stuff for dinner and headed to the Eiffel Tower for our last night. We had a picnic and of course ate baguettes with cheese and wine under the Eiffel Tower. Then something weird happened and police started clearing out this huge area around the Eiffel Tower and we found out later there was a bomb threat, but it was really strange, because no one actually left. We all went our separate ways since everyone else was going to Barcelona in the morning.

Sigh of relief, we made it to Bratislava and we're almost home!

Mittwoch 15 September: We have to catch a bus from Paris to the BVA airport, they recommend that you catch the bus three and a half hours before your flight, so we're all meeting at the bus stop at 11. Marisa went to church (which she actually missed because the travel book listed incorrect service times) Emily and I went shopping and Zan went to the bus stop early. I bought Little Prince pajama shorts! That's where the fun of this morning ended. So it was around 10:30 and we were only a few stops away from the bus stop on the metro, so Emily and I were headed that way. She wanted to mail some postcards and I figured it couldn't take that long. Well it did. We were at the post office until 11... we ran to the Metro and made a train, but then it was delayed for 20 minutes! (We still don't understand why) In the meantime I'm hoping that Marisa and Zan get on the bus for the airport. We finally make it to the bus station, the only problem, we're on the wrong side of the road and have to back track to get to a crosswalk. The time is now 11:45 and we have finally made it to the bus stop. It takes an hour to get to BVA. The next bus comes at 1:10. As soon as the bus guy said that, I thought I was going to throw up. I felt so sick and worried for about thirty seconds, then we pulled it together and flagged down a taxi. We had to take an hour long taxi ride to the airport, but we made it in time. Yikes, that was so scary. Then I was terrified to go through security, I didn't mention earlier, but I really could have packed better for this trip. Since we had just taken a trip by train, I didn't really think about carry on restrictions and I packed a full tube of toothpaste, a giant bottle of lotion, a bottle of face lotion and then a large bottle of face wash, plus tweezers and nail clippers. All of these are not supposed to go through in a carry on, but somehow I made it through with them all on the way into Paris and I wasn't about to just throw them away and give up. Well guess what? I made it through security with everything! That's reassuring huh? Emily made it through with a corkscrew, but they did manage to take her toothpaste... We made it to Bratislava without any hitches and then the bus ride to Vienna went well too. It's good to be home.

Lessons Learned From This Trip:
1. Don't pack things in your bag that are not carry on appropriate.
2. Research things from travel books on the internet ahead of time, secondary sources are good.
3. Book the hostel for everyone, it's cheap anyway.
4. Allow extra time, just in case you get held up at the post office or in a freak metro stall.
5. Wear comfy shoes and bring bandaids if you know you will be walking a lot. Alternating shoes each day works well too.
6. It's cheaper to buy beverages of any kind at the grocery store than at a restaurant or at a vending machine.
7. Always ask if there's some kind of student discount.
8. Sometimes being cheap is not always best.
9. When in crisis: Keep calm and carry on.

Tour of Dürergasse 1812, Sick Days, First Lesson, German Finals, Staying Full in Hungary and That Money We Hate...

So once again, it's been a while since I updated. This last week was the last week of German intensive, so it was very busy! But here we go! This post covers a tour of my apartment (finally), my first lesson, German finals and our trip to Budapest, Hungary!

Eine Melange bitte!

Sonntag 5 September: This morning I went to church. I got all dressed up and headed to St. Augustin with Marisa and Meg. We ran into Zan on the way there so we all sat together. The church was so amazing, I didn't bring my camera, because who brings their camera to church? Apparently everyone. There were people just walking around during the mass taking pictures all over the place, tourist groups were walking by, it was very strange. I always feel pretty out of place when I go to Catholic churches, I guess just because I don't really know what to do and when to do it, but I felt really out of place when I didn't really know what to do since everything was in German. There was a lot of sitting and standing. Sometimes you would stand up and they would say one word and you would sit down. It was very interesting. It was super cool though because there is an orchestra and choir and the music was really amazing! After that, Marisa and I went to McDonalds. (We figure it's a pretty big part of the culture here so we should explore it and it's different here) I got a cheeseburger (my first McDondalds cheese burger in probably six years!) with fries and a coke. It tasted really different than in the states. Very real. The fries tasted like potatoes. Marisa got these things called potato rounds that were really good! They're kind of like flattened curly fries and you dip them in sour cream. After lunch we decided to find a cafe to do homework at. We found a place near our house called "Phil". It's a cafe and book store and seeing how I had over three hours of homework, it was perfect. I ordered a melange, (half coffee, half steamed milk). It's gotten to be my coffee drink of choice here. Coffee is just so amazing in Vienna. Anywhere you go, it's incredible! So the rest of the day was pretty much devoted to homework. Oh ya, I also made sushi today. Which despite not having everything like it is at home, turned out pretty good!

The triple. This is where Katie, Marisa and Elizabeth live.

Montag 6 September: Today I woke up so sick, but came home right after class and slept for a long time. The maid came today. We were all kind of confused about what day and when she comes. Turns out it's every other Monday in the morning. Now that the apartment is clean, I thought it would be a good time to take pictures, since I still haven't done that. So here is the virtual tour of Dürergasse 18, number 12:

This is my and Meg's room, mine is the right side.

Here's the living room, as you can see we've got a puzzle going.

Our kitchen, with Elizabeth and Lauren making lunch.

This is our bathroom, with our cute little cubbies!

This is Emily and Lauren's room.

My favorite part of the kitchen, the Obama magnet on the fridge! (It came that way :) )

Dienstag 7 September: Today I woke up and couldn't talk or move, so I stayed home. I slept until 3:00 and Ben brought me my homework. I left the house to register for classes and buy more orange juice (I drank 3 L of Orange juice today) and then I did my homework and went back to bed. That was about it for today.

There was a brochure of a rat at the Rathaus... Kind of funny.

Mittwoch 8 September: I still felt pretty bad when I woke up today, but my German class had a field trip to the Rathaus today, so I felt like it was pretty important for me to go. We had a tour and the entire tour was in German... So I didn't really understand most of it. It was really exciting whenever there was something that I understood though! Our final for German is on Friday so I started studying today. Emily made all of the roommates curry chicken today for dinner and that was really good.

One thing I understood is 10 people can fit in this chandelier!

There is a flag for each state, which we now know from our quiz.

The ballroom, for waltzing obviously.

The ceiling of every room was amazing!

Everything here is just so amazing!

Courtyard. It was raining a lot today.

Donnerstag 9 September: Today I woke up and felt so much better! Today was such a busy day! I called my teacher last night to see when I should have a lesson, his answer: "Tomorrow!" So today I had my first lesson. It was really good. It was two hours long and we spent one hour on the first line of my sonata alone. He's demanding, but nice about it so I think it will be good. Funny story, so I allowed myself an hour to get to the lesson since I've never been there. It took fifteen minutes. He lives by this huge park, I've never seen so many kids playing at a park before! It was incredible! So I decided to go to Billa (the grocery store) and get an apple and sit in the park and wait for my lesson. Well today at Billa with every purchase, you got a free apple, so I bought an apple, then I got a free apple... It was pretty funny. Then I met my Austrian buddy today also. Her name is Krisztina. She is so cool! I like her so much! We went to a traditional Viennese cafe and had coffee and talked about music and movies and culture for almost three hours! It was so much fun. We mostly spoke in English this time, but next time we're going to try German. I'm so excited to get to know someone who lives here! Then I went home and studied a lot.

Our little hostel room! It was so nice!

The strange but amazing instrument.

Our home made Hungarian dinner.

Literally a hole in the wall.

Freitag 10 September: German finals today. It wasn't so bad. Just very long, but I think I probably did alright. At 1:50 our train to Budapest left. I went with Kristin, Marisa and Emily. Three hours later, we made it to Budapest. (I was really sad because they didn't even check our passports or anything, so according to my passport I've never been to Hungary, but I have!) It was pouring rain when we got there, but luckily we all brought umbrellas. The first thing we did was go to the atm to take out some Hungarian money which is called Forint. (And we hate it) Kristin went first and thought she did the math right, but ended up taking out the equivalent of about 600 US dollars. I ended up taking out about 30 US dollars, which proved not to be enough, but I was able to buy some from Kristin. 1 US dollar = 223.264121 Hungarian Forints. Not the easiest conversion... We went and checked into our hostel. Hostel Adagio! It was so cute. It was an apartment and there were four rooms, one big dorm and then a few private rooms. We got a private room and it was really nice. Marisa has the Let's Go Europe book so we followed that a lot. We found a little hole in the wall place to eat dinner where there is no menu, you just go and this family cooks you a traditional Hungarian home cooked meal. There was also live music! There was this instrument that looked like a piano and harp combined, but the strings are hit with mallets! It sounds so amazing! For dinner we had this pasta with some sort of really good oil and then bits of steak and sausage. It was really really good. And then we each got a beer. It got pretty awkward towards the end though, these two violinists came and tried to sell us their cd. Then when we left they were like "Ciao Baby, ciao, sex" It was just so weird. But everything else was good. When we went back to the hostel there was a cute couple our age from Wales. They asked us if we wanted to go out with them to meet up with some other people staying at the hostel from Belgium. (It was so great because most of the people working at/staying at the hostel spoke English!) So we went with them and we went to this super intense club! It was three floors and huge. You had to pay a few dollars to get in then had to go through this labrynth of coat rooms and bars and other rooms and there were all these rules about where you could and couldn't go if you had a jacket or a bag and it was just so confusing and everything was so expensive and there were so many people there we couldn't really find the Belgians! Sara (the girl from Wales) found one, but he didn't stay long and it was just so crowded! The US Open was playing on a big screen near the dancing room, so I thought that was pretty funny! It's so weird how just a three hour train ride away from Vienna can be so different! Everyone at this club was dressed like they were going out at the Jersey shore, it was so different from what we've become used to in Vienna! Then we left this place to find a backpacker bar that we read about in the travel book. We walked all around and could not find it! We finally ended up at some random bar (which oddly enough was also playing the US Open) and played billiards. We went back to the hostel around 2 and slept like babies!

The inside of the antique subway car

The outside of the antique Subway ca

Samstag 11 September:

The location of Hostel Adagio.

Crepe and shake. This milkshake brings all the boys to the yard!

Welcome to the Castle District.

Parlament and the view from the Castles.

Walking around aimlessly. Everything is so beautiful!

Marisa and Kristin walking next to the Danube.

Walking across the bridge over the Danube.

The Danube, separating Buda on the left and Pest on the right.

The triathlon

The hummace bar (pre-hummace)

Are you HUNGARY for Hannah Montana funyons?

We woke up today in our lovely hostel ready to do more in Budapest. We stayed on the Pest side so we decided to go to Buda today. We took the subway which was just crazy! It looked like we were getting into this antique box that went speeding around underground! Once again, just very different from Vienna. We ate at this amazing crepe place we read about. It's open 24 hours a day and was really cheap! I got an apple and poppy crepe and then to drink a cherry and cinnamon milk shake! It was so good! So sososososososo tasty! Needless to say, we were not going hungry in Hungary. We decided to go to the castle district from there. We walked all around just looking at all the buildings and architecture of churches and castles in Buda. It finally stopped raining, which was great. It was very touristy in this area but it was just so incredibly beautiful! We decided to walk back to the hostel so we could walk across the bridge over the Danube. I'm so glad we walked, we got to see so much of the city! We stopped in a second hand store to buy some socks to change into on the train since all of our feet were soaked. The ones I got are grey and say in very colorful letters "OFF RUN". They're awesome! The lady that worked there was super sweet and was so excited to speak English with us. It occurred to me today that this is the first time that I've visited another country where I had literally no clue about the language spoken. I've been to Argentina, Spain and Austria and I've taken Spanish and German in school. But here, I don't know a single word in Hungarian, and even though some people speak English, not everyone does. That was kind of a weird realization. Anyway going back to the bridge. As we neared the bridge it seemed like some sort of event was going on. It was some sort of world wide traithlon! They were on the bike portion. There were so many people there so we waited and watched for a bit. It's just so crazy how there is so much going on in a city that you might not even be aware of. We kept walking on the Pest side for a long time looking at everything and decided for lunch to go to a hummace bar that we read about in the book. (Yes we really used that book!) It was incredible! SO good! (We ate well in Hungary, so well!) I got a falafel pita with hummace. Marisa got lafa bread that tasted like magic so I ate a lot of that too. We walked around a little more, but stores close really early in Budapest on Saturdays and everyone was pretty tired so we decided to head back to Vienna. We went to the train station and got some postcards and I got a scarf. We were going to take the 5:10 train, but we ended up hoping on a 4:10 train that we had to make a transfer on. Literally a minute after we got on the train it took off. I wrote my postcards and slept some. Then we transferred trains and made it back to Vienna! It was interesting coming back to Vienna, it really feels like coming home! We said goodbye to Kristin who will be leaving tomorrow for a week in Poland by herself! I hope she has a good time and is safe! We had a lot of fun on our Budapest adventure. Tomorrow we leave at 7:20 to catch a bus to Bratislava to catch our flight to Paris!

The dead Habsburgs, the party of the year and we're going to Paris!

Mittwoch 1 September: So today we had our performance workshop meeting and got all of our chamber group assignments and teacher assignments. I am playing in ten chamber groups... wow. Ok, so the most anyone else is playing in is 5. I don't know how well this is going to work. I guess we'll just have to wait and see... We've all been talking a lot about travel plans for the nine day break which is coming up after one more week of German intensive. (hooray!) Originally we were thinking of going to Spain and then maybe Morocco for a day. The only thing with that is that it's pretty dangerous to travel as a girl alone in Morocco, (there would be four of us, but still all girls, one is blond, probably just not a good idea) Plus you need shots and stuff so I think it requires a little more planning than we have time for. Anyway, after hours of deliberating and discussion we've decided on a trip to Paris! There weren't any flights until Sunday and Marisa and I have to fly back Wednesday so that we are back to Vienna since we're going to Oktoberfest on Friday in Munich.

Fruit at the Naschmarkt, it wasn't too crowded at 8 am

There are so many spices at the Naschmarkt! The air smells amazing!

One of the rooms of coffins, I like the symmetry here

This room was really weird, but the ceiling created an interesting light.

The ceiling/top of a coffin...

Donnerstag 2 September: Yesterday my German class had the assignment for each of us to buy something from the Naschmarkt and order in German. I bought 30 dag Gouda. (Which is pronounced Gauwda rather than Gooda) Then we all brought what we bought to class and we made breakfast, so that was pretty fun. Since no one else wanted to get up early to book the flights to Paris we had to wait to do it until I was done with my German class. What unfolded next is quite unfortunate, but I saw it coming. I checked in the morning and plane fares were the same as the night before. By lunchtime they went up 10 Euros. I bought my ticket then they went up 10 Euros. Emily bought her ticket and the went up 20 Euros. Then Marisa bought her ticket. Kind of unfortunate... The moral of the story is book things as soon as you know you are going to do it!!! After that I went with another one of my roommates, Lauren to see the dead Habsburgs since they're all buried in a church a block away from where we have school. It was really interesting. There were about five or six rooms of these elaborate coffins. It was really interesting to read about how long they all lived and where they were born and where they died. There were a ton that died as babies or infants. Another trend was that a lot of them were born somewhere else, but died in Vienna, I guess that would make sense since Austrian royalty settled things through marriage not war. Some coffins had lots of flowers and things people had left, which I thought was pretty fascinating. I decided to make dinner for my roommates and David and Ben since Meg found asparagus for me at the Naschmarkt!!! (You just cannot find vegetables here... I guess all they eat is bread, meat and chocolate. I made a pasta dish with olive oil, lemon juice, oregano and satéd asparagus with feta sprinkled on top. Then I made a garlic bread with Katie's loaf of ciabatta, just using butter and garlic sprinkles. Emily made a salad and bought some cookies. Later a bunch of my friends went to Porgy and Bess which is a jazz club here but I had so much homework and I'm starting to get sick so I decided not to go, which I was very sad about.

Peach and raspberry wine at the Rathaus

The Rathaus with the giant screen in front

Feitag 3 September: So tonight is the first night of 24 hour Ubahn. It's a big deal (All the papers are calling it the party of the year) and starting this weekend the Ubahn will run 24 hours every weekend. No more taxis or Night bus! So in honor of the Ubahn, there's a huge celebration in all Vienna. Tons of bars and Diskos are letting people in for free if they print out a ticket online. We all have our tickets and are ready to go out and celebrate! (I'm still sick so I rested up all afternoon) First we went to the Rathaus. They were playing the LA Phil premiering the John Adams piece "City Noire" which was really amazing. Then they played Mahler 1, which I was never really fond of before seeing this (I'm more partial to Mahler 2 and 5) but after seeing this performance, I love Mahler 1 also! It was so amazing. Dudamel was conducting and it was just so good! The second and third movements were my favorites!!! At the Rathaus Emily and Marisa got raspberry wines and I got a peach wine, which was very good. I just love going to the Rathaus at night, it's so much fun and you can see really amazing performances! After that it was party time! We went back to the apartment to change and everything. On our way upstairs our downstairs neighbor yelled at us for being too loud, even though it was the boys in number 6 below them, so Emily went down and told them to be quiet. Then about half an hour later she came and knocked on our door and yelled at me, so I told everyone they had to leave and I got upset because no one was listening to me and didn't care that the neighbor was mad! Ugh. So finally we left. Then we had this funny confusion of waiting for some of my friends Amanda, Siena and Jeremy. Finally after we all found each other we went to get our other friend Zan and we all went to the Volksgarten which is a Disko and we danced for a long time. It was really weird because we all danced with people there but all the boys looked like they were 16 or 17 or 35... It was all very strange, but we had fun anyway. Then we left around 2:30 and got pizza and kebaps and by the time we got home it was 4 in the morning! Needless to say, we all slept in Saturday, haha.

Hahahaha, I can't even recreate the scariness of this picture!!!

Samstag 4 September: So like I said, everyone in my apartment slept in today except for Katie, who left for a weekend trip and Lauren, who didn't go out. The other five of us were out until lunch. Emily and Marisa and I went and got sushi at a place up the street from where we live and I got a fortune that reads "Answer just what the heart prompts to you"or in German "Antworte mit deinem Herzen". How's that for a culture trip. Going to a Japanese restaurant in Austria where you receive a fortune cookie (usually found in Chinese restaurants) where the fortune is in English and German. Then we went to the Westbanhoff station to buy our Vorteil cards. (This is a card that gives you huge discounts on train travel within Austria and to neighboring countries.) You have to have a picture of yourself to get the card so we had to go to these photo booth things and get our pictures taken, which was pretty hilarious since all the instructions are in automated German. You're also not allowed to smile so all of our pictures look like we're ax murderers or something. Mine is so funny and for some reason my eyes are huge in it! I look like some demonic character from Sailor Moon... wow, glad that's going to be on my train card now... Then we were going to try to book a train from Vienna to Prague and then from Prague to Bratislava, which is all relatively close, but the lady was just being rude and said the ticket was a lot more money than I found online without the Vorteil card, so we just bagged that and I'm going to look online. Then we went to the Naschmarkt and Emily got sachertorte, I got cheesecake and Marisa got black coffee. Now we're just lazing around, I'm probably going to do my German homework. I can't practice this weekend because I didn't know the center was going to be closed today so I didn't bring my viola home yesterday! I'm going to have to plan better I guess. Tonight there is a 20 years of Hip hop party! I'm so excited! I hope people want to go after staying out so late last night. I really like the people I've been hanging out with here and I think this is the first weekend so far where I actually feel like I live here. The past weeks I've just felt like a strange visitor and have been having bouts of homesickness and culture shock, but I think I'm finally getting it so that's exciting! Well I guess I'm going to look up trains to Prague!