Arrival!

Hi family and friends!


I’ve been in Austria since last Thursday, August 19th, and there has been a LOT going on. After arriving at the airport, myself and 4 other IES students crammed ourselves into a taxi van with a driver who spoke very limited English. He also had no knowledge of The Sound of Music, and after I mentioned Julie Andrews and sang a few bars of “The Hills are Alive,” I’m pretty sure he started driving faster just to get me out of the van. We arrived at the Hütteldorf subway station, where there was a mob of other IES students waiting to be taken to orientation in Mariazell, a small city in the northern Alps of Austria. It was a 3 hour bus ride, full of twists and turns. I knocked myself out with a Dramamine and slept the whole way. Orientation consisted of information sessions, waiting for dinner, and drinking beer. Between all that fun, we also went into the actual village of Mariazell and took a tour of a very famous church there. Catholics from all over come to this church to pray to the Mary statue which has been there for decades. When prayed to, the Mary statue is said to produce miracles. The village was very small and not many people there spoke English. We bought a bottle of their famous schnapps, which turned out to be the most disgusting and bitter tasting drink EVER. The next day, we went to a lake in the middle of the alps and a few friends and I rented an electric boat to ride around in for an hour. It was really beautiful and serene. That night, IES surprised us with a bunch of Austrian men dancing in their lederhosen. They were like steppers, Austrian style. On Sunday we came back to Vienna and took taxis to our apartment. Aside from the mold in the fridge, the apartment is beautiful. Its very large and roomy. I live in the 17th district of Vienna, right across from a grocery store (that takes Visa!) and a pharmacy, so I’m pretty much set. The district is beautiful; lots of cafés to sit in and people watch. Today was our first day of the German Language Intensive, so we took the public transportation system to the IES center, which is located in a palace in the 1st district. The public transportation system is really simple…unless you rely on someone who doesn’t really know where they’re going to lead…then problems arise. But enough about that! It’s about a 30 minute commute from my apartment to the center, so it’s not too bad. We took a walking tour of the 1st district today, and my friends and I also found our way to a linens store so we could replace the old, uncomfortable ones on our beds. Later we went grocery shopping, and the prices seem to be a lot cheaper than at home. That might just be because they’re Euros though, and I don’t really convert them to dollars in my mind. I just charge it.  The wine and beer is really good, and very cheap. I bought a bottle of wine for 2 Euros today, and it felt very weird being able to just buy wine. I don’t feel old enough yet! Tonight we ventured downtown to a bar in the 1st district, and had some beer and just hung out. It was a lot of fun, but we have ANOTHER information session tomorrow at 9am, so we needed to come home early. I’ll post soon!

Auf Wiedersehen!