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.

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.

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!

So far, the only other places I”ve been is to Croacow, Poland, Budapest, Hungary, and Prague, Czech Republic. It was part of my ten day field trip for IES to Eastern Europe, and it was amazing! Prague was beautiful with its architecture, and I went to a soccer game there. It wasn’t as cool as the Rapid Wien game (no one looked like they were about to jump into the soccer field and start a fight), but I love experiencing the games here when they’re not as popular in the States. Of course, I got a tour of the city and there is no way I could possibly begin to describe everything that was there. One thing I thought was really cool was this chain of locks aligning a bridge in Prague. Supposedly, once you’re married you put you and your spouse’s names on the lock because your heart has been “loced away”. A little corny, but so is our tradition of whoever you kiss on the kissing bridge at Wittenberg is the person you’ll marry.

 In Croacow, I went to a salt mine (yes, a salt mine). They showed us the underground place where they used to work, and there were whole rooms (even a ballroom) where the floors, walls, everything was made of salt. It may sound kind of stupid, but if you actually saw it was actually pretty good. The other important thing we saw was Auschwitz. It was a very sad thing to see, and you could see some clothing, hair, and other items belonging to the prisoners. I won’t go too much into it because it’s a depressing topic, but it’s one of those places that’s important for everyone to see.

In Budapest, our group had a little more free time than the other trips. We saw some of the Roman ruins in the area, and I went shopping for some souveneirs in their mall. The mall was an interesting setup. It was like one of those outdoor markets with the owner sitting behind the table of their spot/in front of their spot but packed inside. I got one of those stereotypical nesting dolls (those wooden dolls that have layers and you keep taking off the layers and it gets smaller and smaller), and a ”secret box” with a key hidden inside the wall to open it.

I”m so glad I got to go on this field trip to Eastern Europe because I know I probably wouldn’t have gone otherwise and the inflation in these countries made everything so cheap. And since it was the week before classes, it was a chance to relax, travel around, and have some really fun nights before classes actually began. Munich will be the first place I’m going to since then, and next weekend I”m going to Venice, Italy. Hopefully I’ll be able to work out going to Barcelona for the second week of November, but money may be an issue. We’ll see. That’s all that’s really going on right now. And now to start studying…

Where to begin! I’ve been abroad in Vienna, Austria for the last couple of months and it’s been amazing! It really is a city where the past and the present live next to each other. There are buildings dating from hundreds of years back with beautiful architecture you just can’t see in America. There are 23 districts in Vienna, and I live in the 19th district. Each one’s got it’s own personality, and mine is supposedly the rich, posh district lol. I guess I got lucky. I live with five other girls, and we get along pretty well. Living with that many girls made me a little uneasy at first about how much space there was going to be, but our place is huge! A lot of the furniture looks like it’s been barely used, and my room is gorgeous. It’s got huge, square windows overlooking the other small flats next door, a wooden closet with several shelves, a couple other small drawers, a nice rug covering most of the floor and still PLENTY of space. I’m sure I’ll get a nice/decent apartment at Witt, but it may never be quite like this.

The only thing that sucks about living there is it’s far away from my school (I went through an international program called IES, or the International Education of Students). I miss the times at Witt when the farthest a class is is 15 minutes away. I’ve got to take a train, the u-bahn (subway), and the Strabenbahn (basically a trolley) which takes 30 minutes if I time it right. Right now, I’m taking 5 classes there: a public service internship, personality and psychopathology, cross-cultural psychology, German, and Music in Performance (basically studying classical music).

Because I don’t speak a lot of German, I’m taking classes at the Insitute here in English. People who can speak German can go to the University of Vienna, which is pretty cool because you can meet more Austrians. I’ve met some through a public service internship I’m doing for my sociology minor and hung out with them a few times. One of them is Sebastian, who works as a type of supervisor there. I’ve met some more people through him and he’s taken me to some parties at the University of Vienna that have been pretty sick.

Obviously, I can’t go into everything I’ve done over the last couple of months. I already feel like I’ve written a book (lol), but I’ll try to recap some things as I write different posts. Vienna is a huge classical music center, so I’ve been to the opera a couple of times. Last Thursday, I went to a standing opera. You can buy a ticket for 3 to 4 Euro (A Euro is $1.50), and you bring a scarf with you. When you get to your place, you have to tie on a railing around the area you’re standing and that marks your spot for the whole performance. It kind of sucks to have to stand the whole performance, but it’s cheap and the view was still pretty good.

The other thing that was pretty cool to see was an official soccer game. A bunch of people from IES and I went to a Rapid Wien (Vienna), soccer game. It’s a little shorter than an official soccer game, but it’s so intense! People were yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs, and I swear it looked like a couple of people were going to hop the wall and scream at the rep. The cheering section was AMAZING! These people were some of the biggest fans of the Viennese team, and they didn’t stop cheering for a second. Literally. I don’t know how they did it, but it would have been so awesome to have been in there.

I know this definitely doesn’t cover everything I’ve experienced in Vienna, but I’ll be sure to recap as much as I can throughout the rest of the semester.