Vienna

Ohh Vienna. What a time.

We left early Sunday morning, changed trains four times and four and a half hours later, found ourselves in Austria's capital.

The sites that we went too mostly concerned Sissy, the Marie Antoinette of the time. She was really focused on fashion and good times lol. She died from a stab wound. Interestingly enough, she didn't even know she had BEEN stabbed. After she was attacked by a man as she was walking, she made it to the ship, where she passed out. They took off her tight corset, that had been preventing her from bleeding to death...and that was the end. We went to two of her castles, or palaces...places of living.

We also went on a tour of the city, but it only lasted a half hour and was really just done like two streets haha. The audio guide was about three or four seconds too fast, so I think i missed a lot of what was going on, honestly. But it was so blooming hot I couldn't really focus anyway.

I don't feel like we saw that much for being in Vienna for two and a half days. But regardless, it will be a time i certainly will never forget. The people make the place.

Anyway, I have a feeling that this blog will be one of my last on this fine trip of mine. Getting internet is getting harder and harder, and I only have a little over a week left. I'm excited to see my friends and family again, but I gotta say...I wish I could stay longer. I've really had a better time than I ever imaged that I would.

We are taking a test on Tuesday. Something about being certified to a certain point...or something. I know, i'm not very useful on the informational part...like history, or...anything significant like that. Only four days of classes left! This weekend we're going to another castle...then the test...then home that Friday!

Castles and the Internet (No relation)

Yesterday, we celebrated the 4th of July at two castles!...Actually not that exciting. Well it was...ok...breathe...let me explain. (I get ahead of myself)

The day started with breakfast at 7:15. We packed a sack lunch and were off....on a pretty sweet bus. We all could have two seats to ourselves, so we just sacked out and slept the 3 hour drive away.

As we approached the Neuschwanstein castle...wow....beautiful (google it and you'll see why). But everyone knows me as a sucker for scenery. I can just go on and on about it. But this castle...just sits on this lush, green mountain side. It's on a plateau and is surrounded by mountains, and a huge lake. Freakin' beautiful. Unfortunately, the king of that time had extremely ambition plans and only finished 15 of the 200 rooms in the castle. And those 15 rooms were the only ones we could tour. Now 15 ROOMS sounds like a lot...but they were counting things like the king's dressing room, and probably hallways or something lol. The point is, it took us a half hour to get through the tour.

The other castle, must less impressive. Although I can't really say why, except the walls were covered in murals versus the extreme golden laden EVERYTHING, which is more to my liking haha. We were unable to take pictures inside of either of the places, so what i'm talking about will probably remain a mystery to all of you.

As for the internet. They have cut our hours down, and now we only have access two hours every day. Hopefully, I'll be able to update my blog just as frequently, but if missing for awhile, you'll know why.

We don't have an excursion this Wednesday like we usually do, but instead are taking a three day trip to Vienna! Austria's capital. Noooo idea what we're doing there, but i'm excited!!

As for the 4th of July, Bogi should their love for us foreigners and lit some fireworks (surely more than dad ever would have if I had been at home lol--you know it's true). We say a weak "Oh Say Can You See" and ate hot dogs and watermelon, but for some reason had Spanish music playing in the background the whole time.

Speaking of foreigners, I think just about the strangest thing of being here is when people ask where I'm from. I'm just to saying "From Union College," or "South Dakota" maybe even "Sioux Falls." But here, they're looking for a country. And it's weird when people say "yeah that word is hard for foreigners to say." Definitely a different feel.

Munich

Ok, so I know I said Salzburg was the most beautiful city I've seen...but I take it all back. Munich...I love you. But I'll probably say that about Vienna when we go there next weekend.

Munich really felt like EUROPE, ya know? It seemed a llliiitttllee less set up for tourists then Salzburg did, and felt more like the Big Apple of Germany.

We started our day at 8:20, meeting in the parkplatz. There we took about 4 vans to get the 21 ACA students to larger train station. Goodness, I'm not sure how many times we had to switch trains...I think it was around 4 times. And all I can say is that I'm happy Markus (our excursion planner guy) knows what he's doing. Although we did get on the wrong trains twice lol.

We started off at the Allianz Stadium. It seats 66,000 people and since it opened in 2004, every game has been sold out. With bigger games they sell standing tickets and can cram 69,000 people in. The stadium changes colors at night. The outside is made of a really tough, thin plastic that heightens the reflection of the different color lights.

We went into the changing rooms and I was kinda surprised to see how simple it all was. The guide said it was because many of the players come from very simple backgrounds and prefer things to remain that way.

The green, the most important part of the stadium, is maintained unbelievably. The sprinkler system that runs over the field has UV lights on the bottom, as to give the grass even expsore. From the months of August to about April the grass is heated from beneath. They have a series of pipes under the field and they heat the water, no more than 50 degrees F, to keep it growing.

After that, we hopped about three more trains and ended up at, what I call the Munich Empire State Building. It was pretty small actually...only one elevator for about 20 seconds. But it was right over the Olympic park. So we got to see a lot of the stadium that was used for the Olympics a few years back.

After that we went into town farther and ended up that this magnificently...indescribable castle, palace, church thing. Honestly, I have no idea what it was but it was.....wow. I really couldn't pry my eyes off it. It's incredibly gothic influences. Creepy Gargoyles everywhere, so much ornamentation...incredible. and HUGE. ENORMOUS. The thing didn't come even close do fitting into my camera picture, no matter where I stood or what angle.

After that we just kinda roamed around and did our own thing. Three of us were so exhausted from the heat and running around we just gt ice cream and french fries and lazily roamed around town until we all met but that ridiculously awesome castle, palace, church place again lol.

Classes are getting harder and harder to focus in. We are CHECKED OUT. We just want to party it up, roam around the country side, and work on our sleep. I'm not sure if we're jet lagged still, but our bodies are definitely still trying to adjust. When I get up at 6:30am it really DOES feel like the 11:30 pm my friends and family are enjoying.

But again, I freakin' am in love with Austria. I couldn't be happier with my decision to come here, more thankful for my parents helping me get here, and my friends for pushing me to go through with it. I owe you all!

Tomorrow, Munich!

There's not bunches to report. Today was a typical day of classes, although (plug your ears...er close your eyes, mom and dad) paying attention in class is getting harder and harder. There's just something about people talking in a language that you don't understand that will make your head hurt, and your eyes heavier than you could ever imange. We're all kinda feeling our summer slipping away and the drone of classes four hours a day. We're very excited about going on an excursion to Munich! Not only are we off campus, but no classes!!! Wahhooo!!

I'm in the process of posting pictures of Salzburg on Facebook, I was in a rush to post them, so I doubt they're the cream of the crop, but hopefully you'll get to admire some of the beauty regardless!

Mauthausen

Today we went to Mauthausen, an old concentration camp. It was pretty...awful. Like you hear about everything the Jews and thousands of others went through, but standing there, standing where they did roll call for hours, shot people, beat them, just because, it feels different. You can image thousands of people being herded into a small, hot space. Clad in their stripped, heavy work clothes, being beaten for no reason, held inexplicably captive.

We walked through the barracks, that were meant for 300 people, but usually "housed" up to 2,000. The bunk beds we narrow, and they forced two people to sleep on each one. So four to a set of bunk beds. They dressed bigger people in too small of clothes, and smaller people in bagger ones.

We stood by the wailing wall, a spot between the barrack and the gate. People would stand there and weep, pray, just wail to get out of there.

We walked through the gas chambers, another chamber were they kept all the corpses, and finally the room that they cremated the bodies in. Adjacent to the furnaces was a room with a single, operation table. That's where they would cut the tattoos from the corpses and send the skin off to sick people, some who made lampshades, book covers, among other things, out of it. It all smelled of death.

It was terribly hot there, felt like a desert. Made the whole tour and experience feel more real, and more dreadful.

Although this experience kinda made me feel sick to my stomach, I think it's an important thing to see. To realize the cruelty that is in this world is the first step to making it a better place.

Salzburg

Salzburg *sigh* How I love thee. It's so beautiful there, not to mention the birthplace of Mozart. I took almost 400 pictures there yesterday, just of everything. The buildings, the water, the beautiful mountains (which was so lovely with the super green ones on one side, and the snow capped ones adjacent), buildings, people. We left Bogenhofen at 8:30 and came back at 8pm. It took us about an hour to get there by train. While we were there we went on a tour of Mozart's home...got yelled at twice for taking pictures...we went into a huge cathedral, that i'm sure held some historical significance I'm unaware off. We say some old men playing chess on a HUGE sidewalk chess set, we took a tour of a fortress once overcome by Napoleon.

The first place we went was called "the house of water tricks" or something to that effect. It was built in the 1500s by some important, rich guy (you can tell history is really my thing). There are beautiful scultpures all around. In the middle of one section is this table, that I thought kinda looked like a table for human sacrifices (I apologize to my audience for this reference lol, I think I've watched too much Alien vs. Predator, kidding kidding...kinda) The table looked kinda odd because the center was missing. Like there was a slit in the middle of the table that came six inches to the end, and was about 6 inches wide. This is were water would flow through to keep the wine cool. When the rich guy would want his guests to leave, or they were getting too rowdy, his servants would pull a lever and water would shoot out of the stools they were sitting on. His seat was the only one that would remain dry.

His courtyard had all kinds of "tricks" like this, and I don't think any of us managed to make it out dry.

I felt more at home in Salzburg ironically, lol. I heard a lot of English, big tourist place. Most of the vendors spoke English, so buying things was a lot less stressful. At the end of our trip many of us opted to eat in town. I bought one of my first cuisines (I did have handtossed pizza early, that made me a little sick)...although it was Turkish, not Austria or even German. It was a kebeb. They actually save the meat off right in front of you. There's this large rack of...lamb? Prehaps, that is just hanging over this counter. When you order they pick up this electric razor and just shave off pieces. Nice and fresh and delicious, sorry to all the vegetarians and vegans out there!

I really can't say enough about Salzburg, you'll just have to see it! I'll try to get pictures up on facebook sooner vs later.

This upcoming weekend we are going to a concentration camp site and on Wednesday will be going to Munich.

My teacher has decided that we don't study our vocab words well enough from each lesson, so tomorrow we will have our weekly test, along with a specially made vocab test. My friend, Alexendria from Macedonia, is trying desperately to help me learn things. She always says, "you MUST learn!" (she says must for everything, which makes her sound super serious about everything lol) She has been learning German for the past 7 years. At lunch Erika, a secretary here, sat with me at lunch and tried to teach me proper pronunciation. She made me feel like there MAY be hope, but I'm not so sure. but it's only been two weeks! So I can't get too discouraged. All of my friend agree that I need my own personal tutor, because people can say the same word to me 20 times, and I still can't get it to come out right.

A chance to hitch hike

Today's walk was filled with strange auto behavior. We decided to direct our walking path toward St. Peter, a close by, small town. We were walking on a pretty main road most of the way there. About half way down the road, with cars whizzing by...because they do NOT stop or even slow down when you're walking on the side of the street, crossing the street, really anything near the street...eventually we her the crunching of wheels behind us get closer...and then slower? That's odd. We turn around and this single lady says, "Hallo! Are you going to Braunau?" She motioned toward her backseat like "Yeah, come on in, I'll drive ya'll there." It was only Kelsey and I, but still, I've never been offered a ride from a total stranger before. Nice lady lol.

When we got into St. Peters, we walked by this church with a large funeral party (ok, not positive it was a funeral party, but it kinda seems to be the only explanation)eating outside. As we were walking down the stairs to get to the main sidewalk again, this large garbage truck slowed way down and just starts honking at us. We're kinda like "uhh...ok.....awkward" and keep walking. Well the honking gets louder and more incessant...we quicken our step. Suddenly, we hear all this shouting from the driver. So finally I turn around and as I turn I realize I don't have my camera anymore. So it clicks. This truck driver saw me drop my camera and took the time to literally pull into the middle of the street and honk for a solid 45 seconds until the stupid die Touristien turns around and picks up her Fotoapparat. A little embarrassing, considering he had completely stopped traffic for me, but I will be forever grateful!

Today was the first day I felt like I knew what they were talking about in my class. I did some hardcore vocab studying last night. I've started to write down each chapters vocab words, with its article, the plural form of the word, and the English translation. Memorizing the articles of the words as well was what pronoun (er, es, die, der, das, sein, seine, dein, deine, eure, eurne, meine, meine, ist, ihr, ihre, Ihre, Ihr, ect) will definitely take the longest....along with pronunciation. I am infamous here for not being able to pronounce anything. Not being able to roll my R's is a pretty huge problem. I'm also infamous for my larger in size caboose, so I guess I'm known for that no matter what continent I'm on lol