Whirlwind City Tours

I am sure that there are a dozen noteworthy events that took place today, but I simply can't remember any of them. We had our "Welcome and Briefing" at the Austro-American Institute. This was basically a brief introduction on classes and some other information. We then had a tour of the city with Markus. Never go on a whirlwind tour with jet lag. You won't remember a thing. I know that we saw some of the shopping areas. I know we walked through the Hofburg past the dome I fell in love with yesterday. I remember passing the Spanish Riding School, which I only noticed because Nate talked to me about it a bit. We ended up by Stephansdom again, and basically repeated the day that I had lived yesterday, but in fast forward and with more useful information. Still, I really didn't absorb anything. Being in a group I basically just followed where they were going, listened to Markus talk, promptly forgot what he said, and then moved on to the next amazing feature of Vienna. We covered transportation. All I really remember from this tour is this: Lunch at the Naschmarkt.

The Naschmarkt is a beautiful place where dreams come true. Okay, so not exactly, but maybe a little. It's an outdoor marketplace with fruit stands, a few tea and coffee places, flowers (some of which are amazing!), and on the other side of the food are stands with scarves and skirts and other random rip-off items. Markus gave us 10 Euro and let us loose for lunch. I purchased (insert dramatic pause) a Hühner Kebab. It was a little bit like heaven on Earth, in the form of meat, bread, and veggies. There is a solid slab of meat roasting on a vertical rod. You order a kebab, they grab some bread, slice it open, take a large sword/knife, shave off quite a lot of meat, and put it into the bread followed by lettuce, onion (oh so much onion), cabbage, way too much salt, and some sort of sauce. It was so delicious, the meat was so tender, and my mouth was so happy. It was actually more food than I really needed, but I couldn't bear to throw it away. I see myself becoming a frequent visitor of the Naschmarkt.

We ended the day by meeting our host families. I am staying with Frau Thierry, an elderly woman with two cats. She is actually a Baroness. She now lives alone as her husband passed away last year. We left the school and met a taxicab downstairs. I spent most of the time trying to mentally piece together German statements, giving up, and speaking English instead. She told me a little bit about herself, and pointed out the Votivskirche which is very near her apartment. She said, "You will always know you are home when you see the towers." When we got into the apartment she showed me around a bit. It's a larger apartment than I expected. It used to be two, but she and her husband had three sons and so bought the apartment next to theirs and turned it into one. Her bedroom is in the back. Her husbands bedroom is connected to it and remains empty. She said she could rent that one out, but people would need to cross through her bedroom to get to it, so she doesn't. The living room and dining room are in the front, and both contain chandeliers. The kitchen is just off the dining room, and a corner of it is walled off. This is the shower. Yes, I will be showering in the kitchen. She showed me my bathroom, which is essentially a toilet in a hallway. There is a hole cut into the door so that the cats can come in and out, as I share the bathroom with their litter box. The whole time I couldn't stop smiling. Finally, she showed me my bedroom. It is perfect. There is a large window overlooking the courtyard of the building (the courtyard is a small cement slab) and directly across from another window with a large window box full of red geraniums. The bed was already made, and there is an old white tubular construction metal armchair with yellow cushioning, which she has covered with a brown plaid blanket. Next to this is a small table with a white lacy cover, and next to that a tall brown coat rack. There are two wardrobes in the room, one for her coats and one for me. Across from the bed is a white desk with a television, a radio, a desk lamp, and what looks to be a collection of pens and pencils of students past. The floor is a checkered pattern of dark green and light green carpet squares which cover what I'm assuming is the same hardwood as the dining room. Every inch of the floor squeaks terribly, and parts of it feel as though one more step will have your foot going straight through. I couldn't stop smiling. It was perfect. This was my European bedroom. It was simple, and actually had more than I expected. The furnishings had clearly been collected over the years and were horribly out of fashion. Green carpet, yellow armchair, green wardrobe, red and white peruvian rug on the floor, blue paisley bedspread, and pink and white french country curtains. I was at home.

I set about unpacking, which took me about 15 minutes, then stowed my suitcases in the wardrobe. I am incredibly blessed, as Frau Thierry has wifi internet access, thus I will be able to communicate with all of my friends (and, of particular concern to me right now, with Nate). To conclude the evening, she gave me a list entitled "Eight Golden Rules for Living with Angela." They are :

1.) Please close entrance door always by key - there are 2 locks!
Do not loose key, we have a safety door, in case of loss I would have to charge you for the replacement.

2.) In case of travelling away, please give notice in advance about departure and return date.

3.) Turn off lights in your room when leaving, also turn off heating of oil stove when room is warm enough or when you leave the apartment. Heating is expensive!

4.) Door of refrigerator in kitchen has to be closed with special attention, sometimes it stays gaping.

5.) Please rinse your used dishes and kitchen utensils- I will then locate them in the dishwasher.

6.) Your used laundry and underwear should be deposited in the special bag in your room, I will wash it, when the bag is full.

7.) Turn off the heating in the bathroom when you finished showering, it is not only expensive to leave it on, but also dangerous.

8.) Keep your room tidy, neat and proper, don't leave anything lying on the floor as the room has to be vacuum-cleaned regularly. Make your bed every day before leaving.

She seems to be a fairly easy-going woman. I think that we will get along. She also speaks really great English. It's going to be difficult to practice German when everyone speaks English so well. Oh well. For now, it's just nice to be in my apartment and have things set up and ready to go.

First Day in Vienna

My first day in Vienna is a bit of a blur. It seemed like the longest day in existence. This is probably due to the fact that, for me, it was the longest day in existence. I spent the night before packing and largely unable to sleep. The fact that I was about to leave the United States for the first time, and for three months solid at that, was a little bit difficult for me to wrap my head around. My flight was at 7:00am on the eighth of September. I wanted to be there by 6:00am at least, which left me getting up around 4:30am. I went to bed around 2:00am. When I sleep this little, I somehow lose a night and live one extended day with a brief nap in the middle. I double checked my bags, tried to organize the things I would be leaving at home, said a prayer with my parents, and (already exhausted) headed for the airport.

Are you ever in those experiences where something feels normal, but because you feel that it shouldn't feel normal it feels abnormal? This describes the drive to the airport that morning. It was just a few minutes in the car with my parents. It was altogether ordinary. I went to the counter at the airport, checked my bags, accidentally left my pink Nalgene bottle there (a tragedy, truly), and said goodbye to my parents. It was all just ordinary.

The first leg of my flight was from Sacramento Metro to Washington Dulles. I ended up being on the same flight as a few of the people from my group. I met up with Jessie, who gave me what she had left over of her chicken salad wrap. We noticed Dan, who sat on the other side of the gate and looked somewhat unhappy. Kristian, Carolyn, and Melissa showed up and we all chatted a while. All except for Dan, who stayed on the other side of the gate looking somber.

None of us ended up together on the flight. I stepped onto the plane and sat next to an old woman who eventually put in her iPod and couldn't figure out the volume. In demonstrating how to work the wheel, I ended up blasting Christian Easy Listening in her ear. She later began to sing along to this. At any rate, before the flight even took off the Austrian Airlines stewardess came over and said something in German, which I absolutely didn't understand. At this point I sent a text message to my boyfriend that read something along the lines of, "EPIC FAIL!" This is when it hit me that I was headed for a foreign land.


I spent a lot of time on that flight staring out the window. I also watched Cars in German and The Notebook in German, even though I hate that movie. Every once in a while I would flip to the feature on the screen that tells you where you are in the flight. It was interesting to look at the screen and out the window. "Oh, we're over England. Oh, look. That's England down there." I looked for icebergs while we were over ocean, but it was dark and there was nothing to be seen. The moon was lovely, though.

16 hours after my departure from Sacramento I landed in Vienna. It was 7:40am the 9th September local time, making it 10:40pm Sacramento time. I had been awake now for around 18 hours. I had been instructed to stay awake the entire day if I could and then sleep a normal night. This would ease my transition and lessen the jetlag. This is, I must say, excellent advice. It is also ridiculously challenging.

We were met at the airport by Markus from the Austro American Institute. We took a van/bus to our hotel, the Pension Baronesse, where we left our baggage and decided to go exploring. We met up with Melinda, who had been there since earlier that morning, and we called up to John in another room, who had been in Europe for a while already. Up to this point, I was fairly lucid. It is around this time that things start to blur.

We didn't have to be back at our hotel until 6:00pm, and I knew that if I went back to the hotel early I would fall asleep, which I didn't want to do. It ended up being a lot of walking around in a city that I didn't know at all. It was, however, beautiful. The buildings were stunning. Walking through Vienna was like taking a stroll through my Interior Design class during the chapter on architecture through the ages. Every different style was here. We started out looking for a park, which we found next to the Rathaus. This is basically the city hall. We spent some time wandering through. We found a statue of a knight with very long pointed shoes. He is henceforth known as the Pointy Shoed Man. It's not a very creative title, I know. I later noticed that this statue was a copy of the statue that tops the Rathaus.
It was sitting down on the benches in the park that was the real beginning of the end. At this point I realized that I was absolutely exhausted. From here on out, everything I did was something for which I was just slightly less awake.

Jet lag is awful. I had never been this kind of tired. Counting the hours I had been awake already was both torturous because I didn't really need to know how long I'd been up, and frustrating because I was too tired to do math all that well. I would like to say I never want to feel that way again, but it's a bit of a lost cause as I'll go through it at least once more on the return to the States in December. I am not looking forward to that feeling again.

We eventually found our way to a shopping area with a huge cathedral (Stephansdom). We wandered around and took a few pictures. The architecture was gothic. I have never been a fan of gothic architecture. The large and over-decorated spires are not appealing to me. The gargoyles are even less so. I was more fascinated by everything else around the cathedral. This is where I saw the first really modern building I had seen since getting in to Vienna. There was a dog lying in front of a small building next to the cathedral, which was just such a peaceful scene. There were also street performers everywhere. This was easily identified as a HUGE tourist area because of the street performers. The thing is, most of them weren't actually performing. The street performing there seemed to be people who dress up and paint themselves, then pretend to be statues. Some are better than others. One was a violinist who would play a simple tune every time someone gave him a tip. Another was a man painted entirely silver. The variety of costumes was at least interesting. The silver man was fairly simple. He was dressed in silver. That's about all there was to it. The violinist had on dark clothing with a black coat. Somewhere down the way a bit from the cathedral was a woman in a large billowy dress. She was seated on the ground, her face painted white, keeping her eyes closed. I'm assuming that she had yet to master the art of not blinking.

We eventually ended up back at the hotel where we met up with Markus and the rest of the group. We first went for Pizza where I discovered that Buffalo Mozzarella is amazing. Next we went to the LDS Institute building where I literally fell asleep standing up. Once we got back to the hotel I was out. Thus, the day had passed in a complete blur. I remember bits and pieces, such as attempting to order ice cream in German and failing, or not being able to understand a word of what was happening around me, or Melinda's face when she tried to exchange money in the bank... in German. I was sure of one thing: This would be a grand adventure.

Mom, Odd Questions, and Mimi's Cafe

Despite the world not being perfect, I occasionally find myself experiencing what I would consider to be entirely perfect days.  Every once in a while two of these perfect days run into eachother, and most frequently this occurs in some combination of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  This is what is referred to as the fantastic weekend.

My mom and my grandma are in town.  They have been on a grand roadtrip to see my grandma's family in Colorado and they just stopped by on their way home.  I was very excited to have them come in to visit, despite the fact that my mom does drive me absolutely up the wall on more than rare occasion.

The visit started with me and my mom going to dinner.  My grandma, being 81, is now not in the best of health and preferred to stay in the hotel room.  Enter: the strangest line of questioning as dinner conversation goes.

"Cara, if the government said that for national security reasons they had to implant a chip in your body that would have your information on it, like your driver's license or passport information, and would also track you, would you let them?"

"No, mom.  That's pretty creepy."

"What if they linked it to your bank account and you couldn't access your funds without it?"

"No.  That's still pretty creepy."

"Well.  I think you should be prepared for some pretty odd things during Obama's presidency."

"That wouldn't happen, mom.  First off, they've shown that tracking chips implanted in dogs and cats have produced cancerous growths surrounding the chips, so it would be a health risk.  Second, nobody would go for it, because it's a huge invasion of personal privacy."

"Yeah, but I'm just telling you that weird things are going to happen."

"Mom, I don't think Obama is the devil."

"No.  I think he's an Antichrist."

At this point, I just gave up on the conversation and asked her about some members of the family.

Today was the day to spend lunch with my grandma.  We went to Mimi's Cafe.  I felt pretty awkward being in a restaurant on a Sunday.  It's a pretty unusual feeling for me.  All the same, my grandma has a pretty restricted diet, and I didn't have anything I could make for her.  She said she wanted soup, so we went to Mimi's for their Chicken Noodle.  My grandma struck up a conversation with another old woman while we waited.  They discussed earrings and European travel.  It was pretty entertaining, and I smiled at the way two old women could become friends in the restaurant waiting area the same way that little kids make friends in the grocery store.

Once at our table I smiled timidly at our waitress to convey that fact that I was sorry she was clearly miserable in the first place, and now had to deal with my grandma's requests due to dietary restrictions, and my mom's requests due to odd preferences.  It's all part of the job, I know.  I still felt for her.

The rest of my day was spent making lasagna with mom and eating dinner with her and three of my closest friends.  After dinner, we taught my mom how to play Settlers of Catan.  Later I dropped her off at her hotel room and she informed me that she would be totally okay with me marrying any one of the three fellows she had just met.  So supportive.  Bless her.

To sum up this weekend quite simply:  It was glorious.  I don't think I could have asked for anything better without requesting immediate translation and entry into the highest degree of heaven.  

Other things I did this weekend:

-Printed off a few pictures to put on my bare walls.

-Attended church and found it to be most uplifting.

-Hiked with some rather amazing folks that I'm blessed to know.

-Breathed deeply the aroma of Aspens in the cool breeze.

-Cleaned my kitchen and living room.  Yeah.  It's great.

Pathetic Middle Ground

I am an optimist.  Unfortunately, I am also a pessimist.  We shouldn't forget the part of me that's a realist, either.  I can do anything (optimistic).  Anything that I can do, that is (realistic).  And there's probably somebody who already does it, and does it better, so why bother (pessimistic).  But with time and practice, I could learn to do most things (optimistic realism).  But there doesn't seem to be anything I'm naturally good at, so my success will likely be moderate (pessimistic realism).

I tend to live in the middle.  The middle of everything.  I even prefer the middle seat, and I somehow manage to end up in the middle of the people I'm walking with.  I like my pizza best room temperature.  I take warm showers.  I like grey days.  My favorite movies are not entirely predictable, but not so off the wall as to be beyond all reason.  Two people have a fight, I see both sides.  I'm very outgoing, except when I'm shy.  I'm a great student when I actually care.

The middle ground has its perks.  I get along with just about anyone, which makes it really easy to make friends.  On the other side, it's difficult to build a life on the middle.  Most of the time I feel fairly aimless.

Conclusion: Find those things that draw you out of the middle, and that will lead to a successful and happy life built on actual passion instead of "going with the flow."

I'm working on it.