So for my first trip outside of Germany, Cody and I headed to Vienna, Austria. The four/five hour train ride was a lot better than the previous trip to Switzerland, since this time we only had to change trains a few times, not seven like my aforementioned Switzerland trip. I also wasn't crazy tired. Always a plus.
Eichstätt, Deutschland nach Wien, Österreich
Once in Austria, we checked into our hostel, which was awesome. It was located very close to the train station, so it was easy to get to once we arrived and it was easy to get around once we bought train tickets. The room was pretty good, too. We had minimal interaction with our roommates, which is fine. It's better than having bad roommates.
For the first night Cody and I mostly just planned for the weekend, but we did head out for a little. There was actually a protest that had something to do with the Kurds and Syria (I think). Two people almost got in a fight (quickly broken up by the police).
Vienna is beautiful with tons of awesome cathedrals, churches, and other buildings. Stephansdom (St. Stephen's Cathedral) was particularly impressive. It caught fire back during World War II, and most of the cathedral's stained glass was destroyed (some had been removed prior to the fire and are persevered in one of Vienna's many museums).
Stephansdom
The roof of the cathedral was a beautiful, intricate design, such as double-headed eagle, a symbol of the Austrian Empire from back in the day.
Stephansdoms Dach
We were even treated to some music outside of the cathedral.
Vienna had tons of statues all over the place. Tons of them draw on upon Greco-Roman myths and figures. Hercules was a very common sight around the city, as were various gods and goddesses. Athena and Poseidon were the most easily identifiable.
some cool Austrian sculptures
Food was pretty good in Vienna, as well. Especially this delicious Apfelstrudel. It really was quite delicious.
Apfelstrudel
Back in the day, Vienna was home to a Roman fort, built to prevent intrusion from the badass Germans from the north (whom the Romans were never able to conquer, hence the reason why languages south of the Danube River are Latin-based, and languages north of the river are Germanic). There were some ruins right underneath the streets of the city, which I got to (almost) touch! It was so cool and interesting; there were no barriers preventing you from touching these 2000+ year old structures. It's not like the 3€ entrance fee would cover it if people started removing souvenirs. (Hopefully no one actually does such a thing!) What's also cool is that, as I mentioned before, I'm actually underneath the street right now.
me with Roman ruins!
There was lots of cool street performers as well, especially this guy. He was making some awesome art with just spray paint.
A definite highlight of the trip were all the directions that were up for Christkindelsmarkt (or Wiehnachtsmarkt in Germany). The entire city was directed, and there were multiple Christmas markets all over the city. All of them had great food, cool stuff to buy, and delicious Punsch, which is a fruity drink (available in both alcoholic and nonalcoholic varieties). We drank plenty of that stuff. It's so good.
decorated for the holiday season
decorated for the holiday season
Parliament building with the Rathaus in the background.
The Weihnachtsmarkt was on the grounds in front of the Rathaus. It was pretty big area.
entrance to Christkindelsmarkt
delicious Christkindelsmarkt food
Rathaus
Finally, we visited Schloß Schönbrunn, home to the late Franz Joseph I of the Hapsburg Dynastry. It was a pretty palace, but we were unfortunately not allowed to take pictures of the interior.
Schloß Schönbrunn
Schloß Schönbrunn (with Vienna in background)
Here's another really cool cathedral:
Maria vom Siege
I've got more pictures on Facebook and Google+. Check them out too:
So, I've obviously been doing a lot, so here's a collage of pictures depicting a lot of my time thus far in Eichstätt:
Teaching country swing to those unfortunate
Europeans who never had a chance to learn it.
Studihaus mit Chiara (Italien), Laura (Italien), und Martin (Frankreich)
Bad Taste Party mit Cody (Illinois) und Chiara (Italien)
making pigs-in-a-blanket
So the pigs-in-a-blanket picture has a fun story to go with it. It was Ayaka's birthday and everyone was asked to bring something, so Cody and I are wondering what we can bring. We had snacks and drinks, so we thought about bringing something with more substance. "We can just make hotdogs," Cody pointed out, "That'll be pretty American." This led me to the awesome idea of making pigs in a blanket for everyone. While we're patting ourselves on the back for our great idea, a woman in the store overhears our conversation, and, after mistaking us for incompetent foreign college students with no idea of how to cook food, went and got us hot dog rolls, explaining in broken English that they were what we needed. After we explained to her in German what it was we were making, she realized our degree of competence was at least slightly higher than she had originally thought, and let us go on our way. Of course, they ended up being awesome.
Chillaxen' in Edith Stein mit Marta (Polen), Chiara (Italien),
Martin (Frankreich), another Chiara (Italy), und Laurent (Frankreich)
I totally rocked the toilette paper mummy costume. Also,
Cody's Braveheart costume was my idea. Just saying.
Chillaxin' in St. Michael
Some stuff I don't have pictures for:
I've been attending Zumba classes. For those of you who don't know what that is, check it out here. Essentially, it's dancing for exercise. It's a lot of fun. The fact that it's 30 girls and then me is pretty nice too. And I'm not going to argue with having a gorgeous instructor.
Speaking of dancing, the University Ball is tonight, and I made an attempt to learn waltzing and such. I'm better at swing dancing.
Classes are going well. U.S. Foreign Policy is easily my favorite class. Deutsch Landeskunde nach '45 is good too. The rest are all less exciting, yet essential, German language classes.
Haven't done much travelling yet, but plans are in the works. Potential destinations include England and Ireland (one trip), Rome, Prague, Greece, Turkey, and, of course, all over Germany. I'm contemplating going to Israel, as well, but that one will be a little bit pricey, so I don't know if it's going to happen. Russia would be cool too. If anyone's got recommendations, I'd be happy to hear them.
It's been two weeks since I was in Switzerland, and I'm finally getting around to writing about it. Sorry. So on October 21, I headed on over to Switzerland to visit my oma and her nephew's family. It was a bit of a rough ride; a combination of start-of-the-semester party and a class at 8:00 AM Friday morning (U.S. Foreign Policy (it's awesome)) left me pretty tired. Fortunately, I was able to navigate the seven or so stops on the seven hour train ride to Switzerland.
Once there, I met up with Oma and Heinz Hersberger at the train station and it was off to the Hersberger household. Everyone was really great. And, when they spoke (High) German, I could actually understand them, at least some of the time. Swiss German, on the other hand, is another language entirely; I can't understand a word of it. Luckily, they all spoke English and High German, in addition to Swiss.
Also, (and in some ways, most importantly) the food was great. I had deer, red cabbage, various Swiss cheeses, pork, cold cuts, soup, jelly, chocolate (brought some back with me, too), and a bunch of other stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting. All of it was so good. So good.
So anyway, the first day we went to visit Uncle Ernst near Lake Luzerne. Check out the view of the lake from his house here:
I think that's a pretty nice view, but that's just me. We also went to a restaurant with Uncle Ernst, at which I ate the aforementioned deer. Also at Uncle Ernst's house were books. Tons and tons of books. He had an awesome library of new and old books (all in German, of course). I was told that I could take what I wanted, but unfortunately I didn't have any way take take them home. I grabbed Frankreich in Hitlers Europa by Eberhard Jäckel and a 1954 German copy of Die Gute Erde (The Good Earth) by Pearl S. Buck. (I grabbed the latter because I have the book in English and I thought that was pretty cool. It's a great book about Chinese villiage life in the early 1900s, just prior to World War II.) Hopefully, I'll be able to take more next time I go.
Here's a video of the view from <insert mountain name here>, where we had lunch with Uncle Ernst. Again, pretty nice. That is Luzern again.
So early (well, not early-early, but at about 7:45 or so) on Monday morning I headed out into Aarau for some pictures. It was quite dark at first, but it lightened up after a while. It's a very pretty city. A video of the town is below, and you can check out more pictures of everything on Google+ (just scroll down in the album a bit).
While making this post, I realized I don't have a picture of me with the Hersberger family. Oh well... I guess I'll just have to go back and visit them again, this time getting such a picture. A big thanks to the Hersberger family and, of course, Oma for a great weekend. I look forward to the next time. Until then, I'll just have to somehow satisfy myself with all of this Swiss chocolate. I don't know how I'll ever get by...
