Vienna and Some Other Things

Hello, my dear blogging world!

It's been a little while (or at least it feels like a little while) since I've blogged. And let's face it, my last blog post was a little depressing.

Let it be known that I'm doing SO much better. I'm really beginning to love it here and it's starting to feel like home. I'm starting to really understand what an amazing opportunity this is and that I need to take it in while I can or I'll regret it.

One thing that really helped me come to this realization was traveling to Vienna. This was the first time I've left Innsbruck since arriving, and heaven knows I needed to travel. I love Innsbruck, but I was starting to spend time in my apartment more than the city because I didn't know what else to do. So Marissa and I hopped on a train and visited Wien for a couple days.

We wanted to spend as much time as we could in Vienna, but didn't actually have that much time. Therefore, we woke up at 4:00 am on Friday morning to catch a 5:00 train. The train ride (my first!) was about four and a half hours, and I did my best to sleep the whole way there.

We got to Vienna around 9:30, ate some breakfast in the Bahnhof, and attempted to understand where to go and what to do next. We didn't really have much of a plan other than directions to the apartment we were staying at that night and a list of sites to see that my wonderful roommate wrote down for me.

We ventured outside and found the subway system. It's super easy to use, which was very nice. Our plan was to find the apartment, and then go site seeing. After getting on the wrong subway once, we finally found our way to the right stop and tried to find the apartment by foot. We walked for probably a good half hour, only to find out that we had been walking parallel to the right street the whole time. We backtracked, found the apartment, rang the doorbell...and nobody answered. We resolved that we would just come back at night and go find some sites.

Our first stop was Stephensdom. Man, this place was awesome. We came up the escalator from the subway and immediately saw this HUGE cathedral. It was amazing. We walked inside (equally awesome) and saw that there was an English tour in three hours, so we decided to come back later for that.

We walked outside, where we saw a bunch of horse carriages. We figured we'd be touristy and take a short city tour. Well worth it. Vienna is an incredibly beautiful city. Our driver (is that what you call them?) was a really nice guy that asked us all about where we were from and what we were doing in Austria.

Next we decided to just walk around and explore. We found more awesome buildings, awesome street performers, and I found some hot chocolate because I was FREEZING. Then we made our way back to Stephensdom for the tour. However, instead of THAT tour we changed our minds really fast and decided to take a different tour of the catacombs underneath the cathedral. SUPER creepy, but also really cool. During the time of the plague, they would just throw bodies down there because people were dying so fast. But then it started to stink really bad so they had to clean it up a little, but there are bones of over 11,000 people down there and they stacked all the bones up. There was a little room where the entire wall was just bones. It was insane and so cool.

Then we made our way to Schloss Schoenbrunn, which is a pretty sweet castle. Okay, it's more than pretty sweet. However, everything was already closing by this time so we decided to come back the next morning and instead just find our way back to the apartment.

We found the apartment and people were home this time. (By the way, we stayed with the girlfriend of a guy in the branch here. Her name is Melissa and she and her roommates were so nice and wonderful.) They were having an Institute activity so we went with them and played games with other YSAs and it was really fun. When we got back, some of the YSAs came over and they started to make plaster masks, but I was so incredibly tired that I ended up just going to sleep.

The next day we went back to Schloss Schoenbrunn and spent a good couple hours there. We got a tour of the palace, walked through a maze, got an incredible view of Vienna, and wandered through some gardens. We had to catch a train not too long after we finished, so we just went back to Stephansplatz and walked around until we headed back to the train station and made our way back to Innsbruck.

I really wish we would have had more time in Vienna. It was sooo amazing and there was so much to see that we just couldn't fit in. I definitely want to go back if time and money allow.

One great thing about going to Vienna was coming home and feeling like Innsbruck was home. It was a city I was familiar with. It felt good to finally feel at home here, you know? We got in at around 9:00 pm, I walked home, and promptly went to sleep. It was a great weekend to be sure.

In other news, I had my very first presentation today for one of my classes. I feel like it went really well, and I got a lot of really kind comments afterward. One of my classmates said, "Well, I can't even give a presentation now because it won't be that good." In all reality, I feel like I have a huge advantage because 1) My first language is English and 2) I've been analyzing literature for at least two years. Most of the students in my class can't say that. So, I was able to focus on the text instead of focusing on my English. All I know is that it feels good to get one done and over with. Three more to go! (With four more long papers due as well, but...let's not dwell on those.)

In conclusion, this place is amazing. I got the first hint of "I'm really going to miss this place" this week, which is a good sign. One thing I'll miss for sure is the food. More on that another time. Kudos for reading this far. I'll try to do better about blogging.

I'd post pictures, but I'm falling asleep writing this. They're on Facebook. Check them out there. I'm lazy, I know.

Anyway, I love you all. See you in 7 1/2 short weeks.

Tschüss!