When in Wien

Week two has come and gone, and I'm ready to tell the tale. This was another week of orientation, but also a week of adventure and truly getting to know the city. I still have a hard time fathoming that for the next four and a half months I can walk around downtown Vienna whenever I want and cities like Munich and Prague are at my fingertips. Even though I am sure to do guided tours and sightseeing in the coming months, it is a great feeling to be "more" than a tourist.
Sunday: Lazy day, deep discussion at Diskothek Panorama, late night skype. Diskothek Panorama is the name that has been given to the community kitchens in one of the other dorms where students from the Illinois Exchange can easily meet up and hang out. One of the lights flickers, so I guess you could call that our strobe light.
Monday: Orientation (adjective endings and a cold trek around the city to see different university buildings), pick up more groceries (tasty plums), book a flight to ATHENS for the second week of spring break. Also discover where my roommate has been all this time: across the hall at her boyfriend's! Anyway, the university libraries we went into were eerily quiet. They are probably too quiet for me to study in, but I definitely want to spend some time there. I love books!
Tuesday: Orientation (relative prounouns), buy 2 Euro pan at XXXLutz, see a few minutes of MTV's Parental Control with German subtitles (the way to really learn colloquialisms, lol), attend Buddy Network "Heuriger," adventure home. The Buddy Network advertised the evening's event as a traditional Heuriger, which implies a sort of wine-tasting party with the new wine from local vineyards. After finally finding the place in the middle of nowhere Vienna, my friends and I discovered that the Heuriger was not much more than a small restaurant that had been opened up for us. The wine selection consisted of white and red. Disappointed, three of my program friends and I left relatively early. We got back to the bus which would take us by the dorm, but we neglected to press the stop button near our stop and the bus drove right by the dorm. Thinking the bus would soon turn around and drive by the other side of the dorm building, we didn't get off. Well, the bus did no such think and ignorance and indecision kept us on the bus all the way to the other side of the city (Krieau!). We finally exited at a subway station and were able to take a sequence of U-Bahns (subways) home. Gotta love the U-Bahns and their color-coded maps...much easier than bus routes.
Wednesday: Get awesome free bag from university student group, orientation, register for a German literature class. Unfortunately the statistics class that Illinois approved before I left conflicts with German courses I need to take, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do on the math front this semester.
Thursday: Orientation in the morning, get cheap flats at H&M in preparation for evening festivities, nap, Ladies' Night (free entrance) at Prater Dom. The club was HUGE and one of the rooms had crazy laser lights shooting around. There is a slight damper on my memory of the night because I accidently gave the taxi driver an extra 10 Euro for the ride home (I had had two tens folded together in my pocket and handed them to him thinking it was only one).
Friday: Sleep in, afternoon orientation (last day!), Strozzigasse girls make pasta for dinner and have their first visitors, apartment party hosted by a girl in the program and the cousin she is staying with for the semester. The "Wienerisch" dialect of real Viennese was very difficult to understand and some of the cousin's friends seemed a little sketchy, but we Americans watch out for each other and it ended up being fun.
Saturday: Walk around Naschmarkt (food and flea market), Professor Murray buys us XXL-sized Krapfen, shopping in and around Stephansplatz, get awesome spray-painted street art, McDonald's, early night.
Sunday: "Europa in Diskurs: Twenty Years After 1989" panel discussion at the Burgtheater, watch Liverpool and Manchester City match at Flanagan's Irish Pub (1-1 tie, which thrilled my Man City-fan friend, but disappointed all the Liverpool supporters), enjoy Anchorman in the dorm. The morning's discussion was interesting, although I wish I had more background knowledge about the break-up of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in general. The panel recognized the past twenty years as a successful time in Europe, but said Europe needs to wake up and act to combat the economic crisis and meet the new realities of the 21st century. Will the uniting power of the European Union be expanded in the next decade or will countries revert to protectionist policies?

Posaunezahl: So far I have seen 2 trombone players carrying their trombones around.

I know I'm in Europe because...
1) people take their dogs with them everywhere! Public transportation, grocery store, you name it. I miss Chester.
2) the Naschmarkt has tons of stands which sell soccer scarves, soccer jerseys, soccer everything. And all the televisions in Flanagan's had soccer matches on.
3) there are usually as many or more containers devoted to recycling as to regular trash in pulic areas (at the school and dorm expecially). Go, Europe!
4) kebap and duener stands are on every corner.
5) a guy at the train stop found out my friend and I were from Chicago, said "Barack Obama" with his broken English, and did the sign of the cross to show his approval of our new president.

Vienna Calling

Well, after almost a week in Vienna I figure it's time to update the world (or rather, the handful of people who may read this) on what I've been up to! Here's a quick recap:
Monday: Evening group flight out of O'Hare airport. Since I got to the airport so early, there was plenty of time to kill, and I ran into Heej (who I knew from German class) and hung out with her and her parents before going through security. I didn't know this at the time, but Heej's dad is an olympic medalist!
Tuesday: Layover in Zurich (made longer by weather-related delay), land in Vienna, find dorm and drop off luggage with Professor Murray, group dinner at Centimeter II, get slightly lost on the way home, meet roommate, Maria, for two minutes, crash. Centimeter II is one of seven "Centimeter" restaurants in Vienna. The menu looks like a ruler, and certain items on the menu can be ordered by length.
Wednesday: First day of orientation (aka intense German review), get student ID, buy phone, semmeln (basically large rolls), and grapes, chill at Haus Panorama, access the internet! It's sad to admit, but going almost two days without internet felt like torture. And even though I bought some food, the spoon and knife I had packed somehow got lost en route from the US, so all I ate for dinner was some grapes. Breakfast and lunch had been decent, though; Professor Murray provided fruit and Krapfen (think bready, filled donut holes) in the morning and we were introduced to the university mensa (cafeteria) for lunch.
Thursday: Navigate to university with other Strozzigasse girls, have grapes and chocolate croissant for breakfast (mmm), more orientation, buy bananas, lunchmeat, cheese, and a glass at the Zielpunkt a block from the dorm, watch Wall-E! Unfortuntately, a fork was still my only utensil, but I could now have sandwiches with my semmeln.
Friday: Orientation, ice skate at the "Wiener Eistraum (Viennese Ice Dream)" in front of the Rathaus, eat tasty italian pizza, Maria sighting (she popped in to change after work). The Eistraum was amazing! There were two rinks and connecting paths, and a zamboni came around to clean the ice! Also, as it was only my second time ice skating, I was proud of myself for not falling down and not being dependent on railings (except to stop...since I don't know how to do that on my own). After all that skating, the onion pizza I ordered at the restaurant afterwards really hit the spot.
Saturday: Find XXXLutz as recommended by Bee (finally get utensils!!), Prof. Murray's inner-city walking tour, go out for Valentine's Dinner at Cafe Stein followed by Charlie P's bar. Jen, Jess, and I were a little late to the walking tour because we took a tram going the wrong direction, but that was bound to happen sometime. The tour hit a lot of places that I'd already seen with Herr Ladenburger and Herr Z's trips, but there are definitely places I will want to go back and take pictures of when the weather is warmer and plants are in bloom. There is a legend about a half frog-half chicken basilick that lived in a fountain in the center of Vienna, and the way to scare it a way was to have it see it's reflection in a mirror (Harry Potter, anyone?).

And here is the first installment of something I'd like to call
I know I'm in Europe because...
1) a lady in the Zurich airport went completely topless in the middle of the bathroom in order to wash off and apply deodorant.
2) there is no sign of peanut butter anywhere. I'm very glad to have brought my own (Thanks, Mom!)

3) I saw a 25,000 Euro bottle of Cognac in a grocery store. (Louis XIII Black Pearl Cognac)

4) all the stores close really early (usually 4-6pm) and nothing is open on Sunday.
5) the ground floor isn't considered the first floor. You have to go upstairs to hit the "first" floor.

6) I ordered myself a glass of Riesling wine at dinner last night and bought a Radler (lemonade + beer) at Charlie P's. They aren't my new favorite drinks by any means, but they actually tasted fine.