Europe Post #2: Getting there

Getting there:

My flight to Amsterdam left the Atlanta airport at 10:40 pm.  So after driving to Atlanta (and eating at the original Chick-fil-a), I got going.  My flight was great except for some turbulence and the immature college boy beside me that puked all morning.  But really, I did manage to get a decent amount of sleep so that was a success.  I had a layover in Amsterdam from 1 pm to 8pm, and my flight to Vienna landed at 10:10 pm.  I sat beside an Austrian man (Thomas, ~27 years old) on my flight to Vienna, and we basically compared our cultures.  He couldn't believe how many students went to Auburn and how much we drive cars.  I was rather surprised that the only sports Austrians "care" about is skiing.  Thomas was appalled I had never been skiing and surprised at the amount of snow we get in Alabama (uh... nearly none!)  Mr. Mike graciously met me at the airport, and I finally arrived at my host home (Mrs. Miller) around 11:20 ish.

Sunday:

Melissa (my roommate) and I had to be at the Institute (Amerika Institut - a host for study abroad programs in Vienna) at 9:45 am for orientation.  It's a full 45-minute commute from our house (walking --> bus --> U-bahn (subway system) --> more walking.  It's really not too bad, but it really sucks time.  Orientation was mainly rules and info and such, nothing too fun.  Then the whole group went to lunch at a really nice sit-down restaurant.  I would say what the name of it was, but it just looked like a bunch of jumbled letters (as does most German at the moment... working on that).  I had goulash soup, pretty tasty.  Lunch took like 2 hours... they're not too quick to get you in and out of resturaunts - and that's not unusual.  After walking around downtown (at this point I was dragging big time -- so tired!), we headed out to this massive music festival out in the middle of the river on an island.  Definitely a cultural experience (I'm glad I went but it's not my speed).  There were like 12 stages playing at a time, but the place was so huge that we stayed for ~1.5 hours and only saw about 5 of them.  I was really glad we headed out pretty early though cause a huge storm came.  Melissa and I would have made it home before the storm started except we accidentally caught the long bus home and had to ride like 3 x as long... whoops.

Monday:

After about 5 hours of class (German and culture aka overview of Austrian history and the excursions we will be making), a few of us went to eat at a restaurant called something like Goulash Museum (again... the jumbled letter issue... I need to start writing this down).  Afterwards, we walked around a part of the city we hadn't been yet and particularly enjoyed a park.  I tried to take some pictures with my point and shoot camera (the DSLR didn't make it from the house cause of the weather).  So yeah, Sunday = 85 and humid; Monday = 65 and very wet.  Quite the contrast.

A few thoughts:

Vienna is very clean.  The U-Bahn doesn't smell bad.  I rarely see trash.  It's impressive.  They're huge on recycling and using glass, so I'm sure that helps.  At the grocery store you take your own bags.

At restaurants, water costs about the same as coke.  So - expensive.

Most stores are closed on Sunday.

I will post some more thoughts soon... I'm still a little jet-lagged, but I am going to try to post every day we have class (M-T).  I'm sure our weekend trips will disrupt that a bit, but we will see.

Now for a few pictures.

Monday's "lunch":  Apple strudel and expresso.  Once again, my lactose-intolerance is a pain.  I drank just plain expresso.  It wasn't bad, but the drinks with milk looked much better... ha.

A few random photos from our wanderings.  And no, I do not know what most of this is unfortunately. Hopefully our walking tour tomorrow will help with this.

Dinner menu:  HORSE... seriously??

I got some sort of quiche-ish dish at the goulash restaurant since I had just had it the day before.  It was egg, potato, and sausage with spices.  Very good and filling.  Also some sort of half-cooked lettuce dish with lots of vinegar.  Not as bad as it sounds.