So one other thing worth mentioning was the soccer game I went to yesterday. It was the national Austrian team versus Spain. The staudium was packed, and I ended up standing most of the time for a better view. Spain basically kicked out butts 1 to 5. It’s not too surprising because Spain is known to be a pretty good team. A lot of Austria’s players kept getting hurt though, and it seemed like the ref kept siding with Spain which made quite a few people upset. The coolest part though was seeing how much the fans got into it. It wasn’t quite as intense like the Rapid Wien game I talked about in my earlier post, but people were still cheering pretty consistently. Especially where I was. My friend and I moved to Section C after intermission, where the crowd seemed a little more rowdy. Maybe that’s an understatement. We were one row below the guys that were standing up on their chairs, clapping, cheering, and waving their t-shirts around. You can imagine how many looks they got from the calmer fans there.
Afterwards, there wasn’t much of an afterparty (or really anything afterwards at all). But I’ve loved going to these soccer games. If anyone ever comes to Europe, they should definitely go to one. Especially a Rapid Wien game if they end up where I am. They’re just so much fun, and you don’t see that kind of enthusiasm for the sport in America.
Hey everyone!
So things have been kind of crazy the last couple of weeks, so I haven’t written anything until now. Two weekends ago I went with my roomate to Venice, Italy and I had the time of my life. We got there kind of early for check-in at 10:00 a.m. (we’re supposed to check in at 2), so we just walked around the city. As you might know, Venice is built around/on water because it helped with defense against enemies in older times. The buildings around this river/body of water were gorgeous, and the water would come right up to the first level. The bad thing about this, however, is that a lot of times the water would flood the main square. There were boardwalks built a few feet above the square so people could walk over the puddles.
As we were walking, we saw there were cute little shops everywhere, including places to buy masks (I guess Venice had a big mask tradition for balls and dances back in the day). We visited a museum about Venice’s history after walking aour stuff was away in the room. It was kind of boring, I’m not gonna lie, but my roomate really wanted to go so I didn’t see too much of a way around it. Afterwards, we continued walking around. We were basically going crazy with the camera, but I don’t see how anyone can’t when you’rei n a city like that. We even got a few pics of us with pidgeons on our arms. I would never have done that with bare arms, but I figured I’d be okay against whatever they were carrying with my coat on. And of course, we had gelatto and pizza for dinner later that night. Nothing like having that food when it’s in the original country. Later that night, we went out around the city a little moreand had a pretty good time before heading in.
The next day, we went to an island near Venice called Murano. Its known for its glass-making, and they have stuff ranging from random glass objects to chandaliers. I bought a glass turtle family set (that’s my sorority family), and a glass trinket of a gondola. Its one of those boats you see on t.v. where the guy rows you down the water in Venice. I wish we could have gone on that, but it could be around 80 euro (or $120 in U.S currency). Towards the end of the night, we packed our stuff to leave because we had an overnight train ride to make it back to Vienna for classes. We had a bit of a scare because the Venice train station staff went on strike for part of that day, but they officially finished it before we had to go home. I don’t know what we would have done if we had been stuck there, but I’m sure it would have cost us a lot more money to extend our stay in the hostel.
Speaking of which, if anyone ever goes to Venice, you should check out Absolut Venice for a hostel. The staff was pretty laid back and friendly, and there were college students from around the world there. Trang and I only got to talk to them a little because we were in the city most of the time, but everyone was really cool. Overall, I’m so glad I got to go on this trip. It may be the last trip I take out of Austria, but it was definitely worth it.
I finished midterms last Wednesday, and thank god for that. That week I felt basically trapped inside the apartment or library studying all day because they were one after another, something I’m not crazy about doing (especially abraod). But the end of the week was awesome. This Thursday I went to Munich with my roomate, Trang. She’s definitely one of my closest friends here, and one of the few girls I”m friends with from another country. She’s originally from Vietnam but studying in Washington State at Whitman college.
Anyways, we got into Munich at around 4 or 5 in the evening. It was already dark, so there wasn’t much we could do. We walked through one of the parks in Munich and just chilled there for a while. It might sound a little lame, but the scenery was gorgeous, there was a great view of the city at night from the top of the hill, and it was nice to just chill after traveling for 4 to 5 hours on the train. Later, we hung out at a bar in the hostel. Apparently, there wasn’t much going on that night, so we just decided to stay in and meet some people. One guy and his two brothers were just traveling around to European countries, and one of them had just graduated high school. How long were they traveling? Until their money ran out. It seemed so cool that they had decided that this is something they were going to just go and do because I don’t know if I could just go for something like that without trying to plan things out.
The next day, Trang and I got a free tour of the city. Like most of Europe, the architecture was beautiful. What was really cool was experiencing the beer culture here. Munich is known as the beer capital of the world. In Europe, you have to be either 16 or 18 (depending on the country) to drink legally, so it was really cool that I could experience that. One of the cool things they have is beergardens. In most of these places, you have long tables of about 10 to 12 people, and the tables aren’t seperated. This means you’ll end up sitting next to/talking with random people (hopefully some cool) people.
And of course, there’s Octoberfest. I’m so bummed I had to miss this, but it’s basically one of the biggest parties you can go to in Europe. For a few weeks from the middle of September to the beginning of October, Munich has a field full of games, rides, and of course the best beer. They come in huge liters (although it’s like 10 euro for each drink), and millions of tourists and locals come from around the world to experience it. If you’re ever in Europe around this time, I would highly recommend going to it because it’s garuanteed to be a very good time :).
After seeing the tour (I won’t bore you with a lot of the historical details), a couple of traveling girls came with Trang and I for lunch. The other thing I loved about Munich is the number of international people you’ll meet here.  One girl was from the Phillipines and wrote magazine articles about international living, and another girl was from London and just traveling around after college. This was the second or third time I had met people around my age or a little older just traveling for the heck of it, and it’s made me wonder if I would do the same after Witt. They hall all raved how awesome it was, and I can’t help but want to do it myself.
One of the last cool things worth mentioning was seeing Neuschwanstein Castle. Trang and I went with an Australian girl named Emma (who, as you can guess, was also traveling the world after college). It was a castle built by one of the monarchs in the 1800’s, and it’s known as the “fairytale castle” because it looks like one straight out of a storybook. (In fact, a Disney movie used this place for inspiration for one of its movies). We didn’t go inside because it’s kind of expensive, but the outside was beautiful. The whalls were pearl white with a pale blue rooftop, and there were numerous pointed towers almost touching the sky. It’s the first castle I’d ever seen, so it’s hard for me to compare to what others would lool like, but the castle and the beautiful landscape around it was definitely worth the two hour train trip from Munich.
After this, I traveled back to the apartment later that night and am now sitting here. Reality’s hitting me. I”ve got to figure out my schedule for next semester and classes will start again, but next week I”m going to Venice, Italy!
