Day 2/3

Yes, I’m still alive, although my family might tell you otherwise.

Oh my……I am unbelievably behind on updating this blog.  Thank goodness for pictures, or else I would be completely lost as to what I did everyday.

So, I would attempt to be more economical in my blogging and just give you some highlights from the past weeks, but since the first few days were so jam packed with exciting things, I’m just going to do a day to day summary of my experiences here.

Hopefully I will be able to keep it short……

Day 2 (1/20):

We had orientation with the AAIE people, and we all went to the Naschmarkt  for lunch!  The Naschmarkt is a market with a hundreds (maybe I’m exaggerating?) of stalls lined along for a little less than a mile.  Most of the stores sell food (fruit, dried fruit, vegetables, meat, bread, restaurants, backeries, etc.), but there are some clothing and souvenir stores.

The Naschmarkt kind of reminds me of Seattle’s Pipe Place Market.

Anyone know what this fruit is?

Dragon fruit!

This was our lunch, payed for, by the AAIE.

These huge sandwiches are called Kebaps, and they are amazing.  Well, at least, if you life meat.

After orientation, Julia, Lucy, Kristen and I decided to explore for a while.  We made our way over to the Karlskirche, and another random church (or maybe it’s not so random, and we just didn’t know the name?) that we saw in the distance.

Some cute cakes we saw on the way.

Accordion players by the Karlskirche.  There are always accordion players at Ressel park.

Trying (without success) to pose like the guys in the background.

A random second hand shop.

We want in the piano shop!  We want to play that beautiful piano!

Yes, as you can probably tell, we got lost.  But we meant to.

The best way to get to know the city is to get lost, right?

After we got back to our “castle” (actually, our “home,” but we call it the castle because our host family is related to the Hapsburg family through marriage), I realized that if we had made one different turn, we could have gone to Belvedere palace from Karlskirche.

Everything is so compact here, it’s crazy!

Day 3 (1/21):

Julia and I went on the U-Bahn for the first time to go to the Hinckley’s home, our program directors.

The U-Bahn is the subway line here in Vienna, and we quickly decided that we really like the U-Bahn:  The train stations have electric boards that tell you exactly when the trains are coming, and it’s super easy to figure out where you are and how you get there.

We are definitely fans of the U-Bahn :)

Famous composers in the Karlsplatz U-Bahn station.

First time on the U-Bahn.  We love the U-Bahn!!!!

Later in the evening (like 6:30), it started to snow!  Sadly, it didn’t stick, but it was the first snow we’d had since we’d arrived in Vienna (and it hasn’t snowed since).

We were supposed to join the group in front of the AAIE to celebrate someone’s birthday, but we got there late and couldn’t find them, so Julia and I decided to visit our first café :)

I am hoping to do a review on the café later, so more about that in a different post!

But let me just say, our first Viennese café experience was perfect.  It was snowing and cold outside, and we were sitting in a quiet Viennese café eating warm chocolate cake.  Yes, it was great.

To go back to the "castle" we always pass through the Burggarten (the garden with the Mozart statue), and our walk through the garden turned into a random photo shoot in the beautiful snow.  Most of the pictures didn’t turn out because we couldn’t get our cameras to cooperate, but we had fun nonetheless.

Julia with Mozart.

Around 7:00, we realized with a sudden jolt that the garden gates close sometime around 7:00, and so we ran to one of the nearby gates, which were thankfully, still open.

Remember not to be in a gated garden past 6:50!

Day 4 and on to be continued on the next post!