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Published: August 2nd 2008
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the Belvedere... the GUEST HOUSE! Saturday, 8/02
The German word of the day is: verdienen (to earn).
Today I decided that it was a brilliant move on my part to bring some Febreeze with me to Vienna. The weather here, aside from being all over the board from sun to rain, is crazy humid. Without explaining the details of walking around all day in high humidity (which I have never truly experienced before), I'm grateful for having some sort of method of fabric refreshing. On that note, allegedly this dorm doesn't have any clothes dryers. Okay, but they also don't allow you to dry your clothes indoors (apparenly the humidity will prevent them from drying?)... Mom, I recall you telling me I was going to a civilized country? How do they expect me to dry my clothes? Some of the other students have balconies, but I don't know how I feel about allowing a whole load of laundry to be drying on someone else's balcony. I'll have to be creative with this one.
Anyway, I'll leave that tangent to discuss my day. I woke up this morning, and promptly turned on my TV. I haven't had a cable TV in my bedroom ever so this
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view from the top of Kahlenburg is kind of a treat. I have a few channels to pick from, mainly CNN and MTV (last night I was watching Rock of Love... it's amazing how something I make fun of at home is a huge relief in a non-English speaking country!). I spent about 15 minutes stretching, after all the traveling and tiredness I was feeling pretty tense. We met up in the lobby of our dorms, and took the U-bahn to our classroom. This trip gave me another conundrum about how this city runs. The city is really clean, but there is not a garbage can to be seen. I guess the Viennese are extraordinarily willing to hang on to their trash? Who knows. Our classroom is in an Austrian-American Institute, and the lady who showed us around the building was really helpful. The building has an elevator (we're on the 3rd floor) but she explained that we were not allowed to use it, it was for old people only. The students on my program played a name game so we could get to know each other, and there are a handful of other BioSci-ish people on the trip too. We then were given a two-hour
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Hundertwasserhaus, with trees growing out of the building break to do whatever, and most of us used the time to eat and explore the first district (center of town). I went with some people to the Nasctmarkt (spelled something like that) which is kind of like a daily farmer's market plus flea market. I saw tons of delicious looking produce, including some I've never seen before. I also saw every kind of dried fruit you could imagine, and there was a fruit juice stand with juice from fruits I didn't know you could juice (like bananas!) There was also 8 billion types of green olives, and I will go back later and buy some. I did buy some dried apricots, and another girl from the program told me (somewhat agressively) that I needed to learn the numbers in German. My first reaction was feeling a bit put off, because I was handling the transaction just fine, but it made me think about the daunting task of learning German. I am not sure how to feel about it, I think its unrealistic to learn any significant amount in a month. There's also a part of me that feels like I've paid my dues by having various non-English speaking TA's
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the other side of Hundertwasserhaus in college. What goes around comes around! I get the feeling that many of the people who live in Vienna know English, but choose not to use it until they realize that its their last hope. After our break, we got on a bus for a tour of the city. We got off at the Belvedere Palace, and while our tour guide was explaining to us the history of the palace's owners, I saw a dude walk by with a UC Davis hat on. This truly is a small world. We got back on the bus and drove up a windy road to the top of a hill to see the whole city. Probably 3/4 of the bus was dozing off at this point, as most people are still jetlagged and the tour guide had a rather soothing voice. The foothills we were on top of are apparently the end of the Alps, and everything east of those hills is completely flat. We could see our district from the view, as our dorms are really close to a distinct-looking power-planty thing (that we jokingly call Martinez, CA). It started to rain as we continued on with the tour, driving along
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the opera house at Karlsplatz the Danube and into "Millenium City". Austria is very picky about where they have their "skyscrapers" (with the tallest one at a whopping 36 floors) and the district with the skyscrapers is on the other side of the Danube from St. Stephen's Cathedral. Everything around the Cathedral is only allowed to be as tall as about half of the Cathedral's height in order to preserve the skyline with the towering Cathedral. Our last stop was at the Hundertwasser Haus, which is an apartment building who's architect had some pretty wacky ideas about living aesthetics. We finished up the tour and headed home. I was drying to go to H&M to get some shorts (since I left a few pairs at home) and the store was going to close at 6. In a frenzied shopping trip, I managed to grab a few pairs before getting shooed out the door. The mall I was at is like a block away from my dorm, and I will definitely be going back! Apparently they have Red Bull flavored ice cream, and I have noticed that in Vienna, they are ALL ABOUT Red Bull. They sell it everywhere, and they even have Red Bull soda
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some statue in front of the Secession museum (a blue and red can). I even saw an apartment with a Red Bull flag! (I just Googled Red Bull... it originated in Austria! This all makes more sense now...) One more interesting comment, oue tour guide was going on and on about how wonderful Austrian wine is. Ironically, a bus full of Californians are probably better wine critics than her average tour group. Americans may not know much, but some of us do know wine!
Tonight I may go out with everyone, I'm gonna play it by ear! Miss everyone!
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Emily
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I wish I were there!
Frick...everything sounds so amazing and familiar to me!!! I spent a lot of time at that mall and just to let you know there is a bigger grocery store in there (has a little more selection than the one across the street from you). Wasn't the view of Vienna amazing??? I can't wait to read more of your blogs!