The One With The Catch

Hallo!

As far as Mondays go... this was a pretty great one! We had to get up super early because we had to register in the country of Austria this morning. Apparently everyone who visits Austria has to register, but most hotels do it for tourists/visitors, but because we aren't staying at a hotel we had to do it ourselves. I figure you don't want to know about the super exciting documents and meetings I had to go to and fill out so I'll skip ahead. :)



After that a group of us went on a hunt for a Cafe to get some hot chocolate. We ended up at a cafe by St. Stephens called "Café Gerstner." We all ordered hot chocolates and just ended up talking for 30 minutes or so. We got a few dirty looks from some of the locals that were in the cafe drinking their coffee. Apparently being American means you're pretty loud, or at least louder than the quiet Austrians.



We all quickly discovered that European hot chocolate is a little less sweet than America's. This especially was obvious to Garen who went ahead and poured his entire sugar packet into his hot chocolate, creating a mountain of sugar in the middle of his mug. Let's play SPOT THE AMERICANS. haha! But it was so fun to hang out in a Cafe with no time limit for the first time.



after we finished, we then headed to Mozarthaus (Mozart's House). It was a tour of his life's work and his actual apartment. It was incredible to see all the original scores, notes, letters, and scribbles from Mozart. In the tour, it was said that he composed an average of six and a half pages per day. He would sometimes start composing at 5 or 6 in the morning and would finish at midnight. His music was in such high command that it kept him working all day and night. His scores were so interesting to look at, you could tell how fast he was actually writing them because of how rough his notes looked. Sometimes it just looked like strikes through the bars. So incredible to experience.



We then had about an hour before class so we just wondered around the streets of Vienna. We went into a catholic church that was in the middle of a baptism. A couple were giving their baby to the priest and it was so quiet in the room. The church itself was absolutely beautiful. The amount of detail in the engravings, ceilings, and walls was breath taking.



Here are a few more pictures of us wandering around within that hour:



I then went to German Class for the next hour and a half. It was the first time we had class. I really enjoyed it! It's going to be a very fast pace class but I think I'll pick up on it just fine because I'm surrounded by it almost 24/7. The teacher is just one of the other students in the program who is fluent in German. He spoke to German to us the entire time and after awhile we were able to get the most part of what he was saying. I think it's going to be a lot of work, but I'm hoping to see really awesome results!

We all met up again after class and went to the Schmetterlinghaus (The Butterfly House). We walked in and almost started suffocating. It was SO humid and SO HOT. Like SO HOT. We could only stay in there for about 5 minutes before needing to get out. But having butterflies fly all around you is super fun. We got to be really close to them because they're so used to people. They were beautiful! However if you are in Vienna for just a few days, don't feel like you need to go to the Schmetterlinghaus. :) Definitely a cool experiences nevertheless though.



Today we received a museum pass that gets us into some of the museums around the city for free. So we took a look at the list and picked one, we chose the treasury. When I looked at the building, I thought it was going to be one room with some of the ancient/famous crowns and jewels, but it was so much bigger than that! It ended up being quite the maze but it was really awesome to see all the ancient royalty's possessions. It really blew my mind that they engraved all of those clothes, rugs, and tapestries by hand. The masonry work was also incredible to look at. All the detail in all the staffs, swords, and crowns were incredible.



One thing that I found really interesting was that they had a display that was more about Christ. They had an "original" piece of the table clothe from the last supper, Christ's loincloth, a little bit of wood from the manager, and part of his original cross. I say "original" because I guess you never quite know if it's real or not, but it's still cool to think about and to be reminded of those times.



Delanie, Lizzy, and I broke up from the large group and set out to have a late lunch. We walked for about twenty minutes and found "Blue Orange." It was a place that sold bagel sandwiches (and gluten free bagel sandwiches! Yay!) We called it day after that, since I had homework and we all needed to get a little more sleep. We have a big trip around Austria on Thursday so we're all preparing for that.



You may be asking yourself at this point, why is this post called "The One With The Catch"? Glad you asked. So last night (Sunday night) Delanie and I were coming back from Sister Brewers (The professor over the program) house for dinner. We got onto the bus to come back home and a young, blonde, guy got in the bus behind us with four HUGE bags full of stuff. The bags were full of odds and ends but mostly clothes. But in one of his bags he had a white rose. No idea why. But he did. When the bus started moving again, I obviously wasn't paying attention. I lost my footing and fell backwards. This guy instantly caught me and pushed me back on my feet. He smiled and said something in German. All I could do was smile back because I had no idea what he was saying. Delanie turned to him and said, "Good catch." He then realized that he spoke English so he switched over and said "No problem, no problem." He then went on to explain his bags, he said that was moving across town and it was a lot cheaper on free public transport. We had a short conversation about living as a cheap university student, but then our stop had come up. When he saw us leaving, he turned to me and said in his Austrian accent, "You are a very beautiful young lady."

... To say I blushed would be an understandment. It was definitely an uplifting way to end my day yesterday. Plus I thought it was a clever blog post title so I couldn't NOT talk about it. So here's to the Austrian guy that made it to the title of one of my posts and that I'll never see again.

Yikes.

I'm going to do my homework now.

Auf Wiedersehen!