Wednesday

Today was an average day. I didn't have class until 1pm today, but I got up in the morning and did some homework and cleaning. My room gets messy as fast as I clean it because I have to eat in my room (there is no kitchen in my apartment). So I'm always having to sweep and clean things up constantly. 

I had class at 1pm and that seemed to drag on for a while, it's the film class on Wednesdays, so we just talked about the film that we watched yesterday (Sissi). I won't be there for the film next week because that's the day mom comes!! so she burned me a DVD of the movie for next week (another Sissi film, but a more modern version) so I can watch it this weekend. It's 3 hours long..so I hope it's at least semi interesting.

After class, I took the bus back to my room, ate a banana because I was super hungry, did my German homework, went on a long run (went exploring and ended up on the hill above Salzburg, that was pretty fun), came back to my room and did an ab workout in my room. Then I ate dinner, took a shower, and watched an episode of one of my shows..and now I'm typing this! 

Everything is blooming here and it's really beautiful right now! I hope it lasts for a while until mom gets here next week! Now I only have to get through Thursday classes, and the weekend will be here :)

Tuesday!

Tuesday is usually my busiest day. Today, I woke up, ate breakfast in my room as usually, and went to class from 11:30-1. It was my DaF German class again, and we just went over more grammar stuff, she literally just talked for an hour and a half about grammar and it was really boring today!

After class, Erin and I went to the grocery store and bought a little frozen pizza to share for lunch, so we walked back to her dorm and cooked it, which was enjoyable, plus a little piece of cake for dessert :) then we had to take the bus back out to the other side of the city for our other Tuesday classes: Literature, where we talked about Kafka, and Film. On Tuesday's we actually watch the film. Today we watched the film Sissi about an Austrian queen..both classes are always held in my resident director's apartment, and back to back from each other. It got a little boring but the film was pretty interesting.

After class I came back to my room, talked myself out of running because it was chilly today and I was drained of energy from sitting down for such a long time..weird but true how sitting still makes you tired. So I made pasta instead for dinner, and then tonight I booked a TRIP TO PARIS FRANCE in May! I'm going with my friends Erin and Paige and then Kris is meeting us there! It should be a lot of fun!!! Paris was at the top of my list for places to see!

Now it's late and I'm about to head to bed, I didn't sleep very well last night, but I'll try to do more entries all this week!

Oh, and this is a super weird random fact, but we are looking at a map of the Paris metro right now and talking about how complicated it is, and it reminded me of how I wanted to comment that in Rome, the metro only has TWO lines on it..because they have so many ruins and things under the city, I guess they can't build a very complex metro system. But it was very surprising that for such a large city they have such a simple metro. They do have buses though. Oh well... :) bye for now!

Monday..

I figured I will try to do a blog entry every day this week so you can get an idea of what I do every week. Just to begin, Monday always comes so quickly, the weekend always flies by. Sunday afternoon was pretty nice, I relaxed down by the river with my friends Erin, Ashley and Lindsay and listened to some music and did a regular journal entry. It was such a GORGEOUS day yesterday.

Today I got up at around 10, had some breakfast and hung out in my room. It's raining today unfortunately, not really hard but enough that I wore my rain jacket and got wet on my way to the bus stop. Luckily it's not far away. On Mondays I only have one class, DaF, so I took the bus to class at 12, and it went pretty well today, it went by quickly (it's an hour and a half 3 days a week, so sometimes it feels really long). Today we went over more grammar and had a mini surprise quiz at the end of class...

After class I headed directly to the grocery store and hunted out some sales, definitely saving some money for the week. I usually do my grocery shopping on Mondays. Fact of the day: mayonnaise and mustard come in tubes here. I got a tube of mustard for 0,39 cents! Oh and just as a side note my bus pass finally got checked for the first time today, they use an honors system here, so you buy a bus pass and then they check it at random. I bought a semester bus pass so I'm all set, but this was the first time since I got here in February that I've been asked to show it.

Then I came back and made mashed potatoes and a piece of white sausage for lunch. I'm getting slightly better at cooking living here, but not much. I really need a meat thermometer so I can know for sure when things are done, I'm not good with cooking meat at all. I had to go online and look up how to cook "white sausage" because I had no idea. It's a Bavarian, southern German sausage. I only had a little piece but it was good. Otherwise I was proud of myself for making my own mashed potatoes. They turned out pretty good and then I added a little bit of garlic powder, salt and pepper to season them, so I think I did a decent job! I guess I have to learn how to cook real food sometime, but as always pasta is still the cheapest thing you can find!

Mondays are usually pretty mundane..right now I should be doing some DaF sentences for homework, we have to write them out to practice different types of grammar, so I guess I will get that over with. After that, maybe do a little reading for German and then call it a night, and probably catch up on some Survivor episodes! I think I'm 4 or 5 behind...I want to know what's going on!

Well, as long as I remember I'll do an entry for Tuesday tomorrow! :) hope all is well with everyone!

another great weekend!

Well, this has been a really great weekend! Thursday night (which is when my weekend starts) we went out to dinner at a pizza/Italian restaurant in Salzburg. It was spontaneous and very delicious! We also got dessert crepes which were pretty yummy but kindof a ripoff (not worth the price at all, but worth a try I guess). Thursday night I caught up on some tv shows which was pretty fun.

Friday I went running with Lindsay (she's in my group), did a couple quick errands, and then Erin and I cooked dinner (omelets and homefries, which were super delicious). Friday night we hung out with our resident director Gabriella outside of class which was pretty fun! She took us to a cafe/restaurant on the roof of a hotel with a great view of the city below. I want to take Mom there when she comes :)

On Saturday I had the best day so far almost!! With Erin, Josh, his roommate Tyler, a kid Bobby I met, and these girls Shannon and April hiked the Gaisberg and it was such a gorgeous day..and a challenging hike! I guess we ended up taking the "hard" path up the mountain rather than the easy one..little did we know. By the top of the mountain my legs were basically numb, but I felt so accomplished. It was such a great workout with the most amazing views I have seen so far in Salzburg. It looked just like the Sound of Music mountains, green hills and huge Alps..we could see mountains that were over the border in Germany. Then at the top Josh had packed cookies for us, plus a piece of cake. It was SUCH a great day. And when we got back we made homeade alfredo sauce for pasta..it felt well deserved after such a great hike!

It's another beautiful day in Salzburg today (it's 71 degrees!!) so I might go down to the river and do some homework. My German as a foreign language class is a little harder than I would have expected, so I need to study little by little if I want to do well in it. I feel so lucky that I get to see this beautiful country and live here for study abroad! It was a great decision to experience this and to already have seen Italy and a few other cities in Austria. I'm also going to Barcelona and Mallorca (island off of Spain) to visit Kris, and want to book a trip to Paris today!!

I'm so excited because Mom is here in a little over a week, and my spring break is also a little bit after that! There should be some fun times ahead :) :)

recap of the weekend

So, I finally branched out and decided to buy some more food rather than just..nutella, bread, and pasta. So I have gotten some onions, eggs, potatoes, carrots, more fruit..tonight I made an omelet with garlic potatoes, it was so good! I'm proud of myself for actually cooking something..haha!

This past weekend was pretty fun. Thursday night, I got all my homework done early so I could enjoy the weekend. On Friday, Josh and I went to Fuschl, which is like a little town maybe a 20 minute bus ride outside of Salzburg. We tried a bit of hiking (it was hard to find the right paths so we didn't do too much) and walked around the lake. When I got back, I went running with Erin. Friday night, I went out with some friends. Saturday, I lazed around and didn't do too much..Saturday night I caught up with my Pretty Little Liars show, and I skyped home Saturday too. I needed a relaxed day! Sunday, again I didn't do a whole lot until the evening, when I went to a concert which my roommate was in (she is a music student who plays the oboe, and she gave me a free voucher for it). It was an orchestra, but there was a surprise visit by a slam poet at the end which was really interesting. I'd say it was a fairly "modern" orchestra. I went to the concert with Erin and Paige, who are both in my program.

And now..it's Monday again! I have one class on Monday from 12:30-2. After class I went running and ran up Kapuzinerberg Mountain..ok well I didn't run up all the way, because it's REALLY steep, but I did intervals and just kept going until I made it to the top, which was totally worth the view of the green hills, and also the city below! There are a lot of nice trails in that area, and the path to get there is only about 5 minutes running, 10 or so walking, from my dorm!

I guess tonight I'm going to relax, and do some homework, which I unfortunately must get done...tomorrow is my busiest day of classes. Looking forward to another weekend coming up, because those are always the most fun..but I also appreciate the weekdays, especially Monday and Wednesday where I only have one class on each day so I can fit in some sightseeing and exploring in the afternoon!

Oh..and I'm really excited that my mom is coming to visit in 2 weeks!! it will be so much fun to show her around and see her!! :)

And one more note..I got all my classes for UMaine next semester which is wonderful, and housing selection is tonight so hopefully from afar everything will work out! It was a little stressful taking care of everything from overseas, including faxing a housing application, but I'm glad it's all looking to work out nicely!

Roma, and another weekend is coming!

Hello everyone..only one more class for me at 4:30 this afternoon and then it's the weekend! Although it won't involve quite the traveling I did last weekend, I'm still really looking forward to it!

Rome was really fun. The only thing that wasn't fun about the trip was the train fiasco when I was trying to come home, and also a 9 hour train ride is never fun, even if it does go smoothly. Luckily I was able to sleep for a lot of the way there. On the first day that we got there, we met up in the train station, and after we were all settled we walked around and just tried to get our bearings of the city. We checked out the Colosseum from the outside and ate some Italian gelato, which is very good but probably overhyped. The gelato I've gotten in Austria is just as good :) We also got stuck in a rainstorm at the Colosseum and as a result also saw a rainbow right over the Colosseum! That was really cool, getting stuck in a rainstorm, not quite so cool... also, later that night we had pizza which was yummy!

On Saturday we took a trip to Vatican City which was very interesting, I don't really know much about Catholicism but I'm glad I saw what it's like there. St. Peter's Basiica was sooo detailed, it was crazy how much work they clearly put into building it. We unfortunately didn't get to go in the Sistine Chapel because it was closed for father's day (their version of father's day) so I may have to try to go back sometime to see the famous Michelangelo ceiling! After the Vatican we hit some other locations like: The Spanish Steps (a famous square area with a church at the top), The Pantheon, The Piazza Navona, another famous square with 3 fountains, The Trevy Fountain, basically the most beautiful fountain I've ever seen, and then stopped for some real Italian pasta which was delicious! We also ate outside and had someone with an accordion come over and serenade us, it was pretty cool. Overall the food in Rome was delicious, the pastries were actually one of my favorite things there.

On Sunday we went to the Colosseum and actually took a tour inside, which was one of the most amazing things I think that we saw. It was crazy to imagine what it was actually used for so long ago, with all the gladiator fights and things. Then we went in the Forum which is a big area connected to gardens and old houses and ruins, but it's basically where the center of Ancient Rome was. There were just crumbling ruins everywhere you went, it was amazing! You couldn't go anywhere in Rome without seeing ancient ruins everywhere. Before we left we got more pizza for dinner which was VERY yummy.

It was a really fun trip and it was great to see Kris too. I'm glad I can say I've been to Rome! I bought a little painting of the Spanish Steps, and a t-shirt that says I "<3" Roma, like the picture of a heart (like an I love New York t-shirt). Kinda touristy but that's ok.

If I have a chance I wouldn't mind going to a few other places in Italy: either Florence, Venice or Sicily. We'll see what happens. This weekend, I don't have very many big plans. My friends and I were going to hike Mount Untersberg but I guess that not all the snow has melted so it's not really safe to hike yet. Hopefully we can go in a few weeks! For lunch I just made a grilled Nutella and banana sandwich and it was delicious...luckily I've also been running quite a bit so all this food hasn't caught up with me! It's a good way to see the city and it really helps me to find the fastest, easiest ways to get places and really know where I'm going in Salzburg.

Well, I'm going to go do some homework so I can get a lot of it done and then be able to enjoy the weekend! It's 60 degrees here today and I think it's supposed to be fairly nice weather this weekend, at least on Friday! It might rain on Saturday so I'll probably use that time as a chance to catch up on all my American TV shows! :) I'll try to write more later this weekend!

Train Misadventures...

So here is the really long blog I wrote on the train at about 5:00 in the morning when I was really angry. It's rambling but it explains why my train got messed up and what happened. At this point I'm tired and just going to maybe take a nap before my class at 12:30...or if I can't sleep I'll just upload pictures. I'll update about Rome later....

Sorry this is long winded but if you feel like reading about my train misadventure it’s all written here. I am seriously so pissed off right now I could scream. When I bought my tickets for Rome, I got a round trip ticket for Salzburg to Villach, and then a one way (each way) from Villach to Rome. So on the way to Rome, I went from Salzburg, to Villach, to Rome. On the way home it was supposed to be just the opposite. Well, it worked fine on the way to Rome: I got on at Salzburg, got off at Villach, waited for a one hour layover, and got on the train to Rome successfully. But this time…

I got to the terminal with plenty of time to spare with the train leaving Rome at 7:05 pm. I got on the train that was the same number and time as my ticket: #234 at 7:05 pm, got in the section with the seat it told me to be in (63) and rode all the way to the time when I was supposed to be getting off (4:14 am) in “Villach.” I stood up to get ready to get off, and a German mother and daughter ask me as I started to get up, “are you transferring in Innsbruck too?” I said “no, I’m getting off in Villach,” and they were like…”this train isn’t going to Villach.” I went and asked the police that had just checked our passports as we got back into Austria, if the train was going to Villach, and they said no, you’re on the wrong train, you can get off at a certain stop, I think it was Klagenfurt or something like that, or Innsbruck, and change trains. Apparently, the train was in two pieces or something ridiculous like that, and one of them was headed in the wrong direction (to Munich) which was the one I was on, and the one I was supposed to be on was headed to Vienna (with a stop in Villach where I needed to go). Well, first of all thanks for all the informative signs and things letting me know there are TWO HALVES to the damn train. So I was a little shaken and pretty pissed but I thought, whatever, I should just get off here rather than any other station. Innsbruck is a big station, and that’s where the mother and daughter were getting off the train so they could help me.

So I get off the train at Innsbruck, and the mother and daughter and daughter were really nice. The mother went and spoke to the train officer in German to be absolutely sure I couldn’t get to Villach from the train I had been on. Then they went downstairs with me and looked at the board and told me that I could get on the train going to Budapest, but to be sure to get on the back part of the train because the back part was headed towards Vienna, meaning it was stopping in Salzburg.  Again, who knew trains had two halves…I will admit at this point there was another girl who was trying to find her train that spoke English, and I sort of tried to help her but I was worried about my own situation, although I do feel bad I didn’t help her more. She was trying to figure out which train to get on at the same time the German people were talking to me, so I only half listened to her and sortof waved her off to check one of the platforms, which is probably why Karma came back to bite me in the end. Hopefully she got to her train.

 Anyway, I said thank you to the mother and daughter (they were really nice to help me), and ran to that platform, where I met these 3 random Hungarian people who I thought were just traveling to Vienna. They said yes, we are going to Vienna, blah blah. So then the driver of the train came up and the Hungarian guy spoke to him for me, and I told him my situation.  The driver said, “you don’t have the right tickets, but it’s ok. You can get on this train and ride with me and get off at Salzburg.” I said, thank you so much, and then stood there for 10 minutes and talked to the people a little bit, the random Hungarian guy was like “oh yes, I’d like to go with you to America,” in that stereotypical foreign accent, implying that America was so wonderful. He seemed nice, I was really happy at that point that he had spoken to the driver for me.

Then, the train finally came and the driver walked away to one end, which I thought was where we had to go (so worried about which half of the train to take) but then the Hungarian people were going to the OTHER end of the train, so I said, “is this the part of the train going to Vienna?” to the Hungarian guy, and he said something I couldn’t really understand, so I asked the other Hungarian man and he said yes. So I got on the train, and finally see a sign that says the train is going to Salzburg, and I think YES this is awesome, I finally made it.

As I got on the train I realized that the Hungarian people are actually workers on the train serving food in the dining car to first class and everything. It was strange. So anyway, the driver had told me it was fine to be on that train, so I just sat down in the back of first class after asking a final random guy at the info desk if both parts of the train were going to Salzburg (of course I was overly paranoid at this point about being in the wrong half of the train). He said yes, the whole section I was on was all Salzburg.

So I’m sitting there, thinking I have it made, I even got juice and a Kit Kat bar, when the same info booth guy comes back to check everyone’s tickets. So, thinking he would be as nice as the driver who SAID I COULD RIDE WITH HIM AND IT WAS FINE, I tried to explain the situation, and instead of being understanding he decided to be an, excuse my language, asshole. He also didn’t speak perfect English or anything but he definitely understood what I was saying. He kept saying, “this ticket is not for this train,” and I said “I KNOW it’s not for this train, I was on the WRONG train and I talked to the officer on the platform and he said it was ok and I could ride to Salzburg on this train, he told me it was ok.” The guy said, “this is not the right ticket, I’m the officer right now on this train and this is not the right ticket.” I even tried to flag down the Hungarian guy, who halfheartedly attempted to explain the situation, as well as the Hungarian girl that was with him, but the officer on the train seriously had to be an asshole and ruin my day, he was like “where did this happen” or something along those lines, I was like, “I just talked to him out on the platform, I KNOW this isn’t the right ticket he told me it was ok.” But this guy seriously would not budge and I was starting to cry because at this point it was 5:00 in the morning, I slept awkwardly and hardly very well on the whole 9 hour train from Rome to “Villach” aka Innsbruck, and all I want to do is get back to Salzburg. I was also upset that the Hungarian guy would not help me more, he just shrugged and said “well, you don’t have a ticket for this train.” Thanks for sticking up for me buddy! You barely explained to this guy that I talked to the driver and he already said it was ok…whatever, maybe he was afraid of getting fired or yelled at if he said something.

 So I finally said “fine, can I just buy a ticket here then?” He said yes, and I was sitting in first class luckily I was able to tell him I wanted to move and sit in economy class because I would not want to pay for a first class ticket. So I had to pay 40.80 Euros..which is like the equivalent of probably $55 or $60, for a ticket just to go from Innsbruck to Salzburg. Absolutely ridiculous. Thank God they took debit cards because I did not have enough cash for that, I don’t even know what I would have done in this situation if I had decided not to bring my debit card with me to Rome, which I almost didn’t do. I’m just so infuriated that I already paid for the round trip ticket from Villach to Salzburg, used one half of it and probably will never use it. And it makes me really angry that the signs at the train were not more clear that they were going to two separate places, or maybe you had to switch halfway through, but I wasn’t aware of it. Two different people looked at my ticket that said “Roma to Villach” and didn’t say anything to help me. I’m just really angry that I had to spend that money on a stupid ticket, all because that one guy decided to be a real ass and ruin my day. I’m so tired and right now it’s 5:39 in the morning, the ONLY good thing about this is that I don’t have a 3 hour layover in Villach, so I’m getting back to Salzburg a few hours earlier than I was going to, I should be back in Salzburg at 6:57, rather than 9:48. I’ll probably take a nap for a few hours and then I have a class at 12:30. I really just want to GET OFF THIS TRAIN. Oh, and by the way I kept the orange juice and the Kit Kat that I got when I was sitting in first class, I think I deserve it. I was so thirsty for 9 hours on that other  stupid train going in the wrong direction, I guess orange juice will have to do for now. As long as the guy doesn’t come and make me pay for that too. Ugh. I know everyone says that the train system in Europe is “so great” but really, it’s not that great….I do not enjoy taking the train alone, and I think next time I may try taking a flight wherever I travel, depending on the price. The good thing is, I handled the situation well enough, I don’t think there was really anything else I could have done at that point, it definitely wasn’t made clear when I got on the train at Rome that one HALF was going to Munich and one HALF was going to Wien, I was a little bit confused about why the sign said “Wien-Munich” in Rome and my ticket said “Wien Medlung,” but now I guess I know. Thanks for the help train people, I’ll be flying next time if I can help it.

I will have to write more details about the actual FUN WEEKEND I had in Rome later! This was just kind of a crummy experience, and at this point all I want to do is get off the train and be safely in Salzburg. Luckily less than an hour until we are due to arrive there, and I can put this situation behind me.