Yesterday afternoon we had a bunch of time to kill so a group of us headed over to the Danube to hang out. It was pretty overcast, but perfect weather for just sitting around and shooting the bull. I REFUSED to get in, but Belle convinced me by saying "You don't want to have to say that you just LOOKED at the Danube, do you?". There was no way out after that. And, you know what? It was pretty frickin' gorgeous in that water. I'm so glad I caved in and just took a leap of faith. A literal leap at that!
Today after class I went on an IES organized bike tour of the Danube island. EVEN MORE DANUBE FUN! We got to rent bikes on the cheap and rode around for an hour and a half. I absolutely love biking, the sun was shining, and the backdrop was the shimmering water and rolling Austrian hills. I was in paradise (which is also the Austrian word for tomato!). We biked HARD too! The wind could be pretty damn fierce at times and although the ride was mostly flat, some of those hills were killerrrrrrrrr.
This one was taken post-ride when I was feeling pretty dang high and mighty:
Thankfully I was properly fueled up because today in class we had a legit feast. We're currently learning how to buy things at the market. This includes the names of the foods, the amounts you can buy them in, and how to interact with the salesperson (and the shit ton of gender memorization that goes with each noun we learn). Our assignment today was to go to the Nashmarkt early before class and buy things to bring and present. The Nashmarkt is this beautiful and huge open-air market. They sell EVERYTHING and it's sehr billig (very cheap). Belle and I were the cheese group, (I'm really predictable, right?), and we had to get Brie, Gouda, and Swiss. The salesman refused to slice the Swiss for us because "we are not a supermarket". HOKAAAAY, buddy, whatever you say. Also, everyone at the market responded to our German in English, without fail. So much for the point of THAT exercise.
Regardless, we ended up with 3 types of cheese, 15 balls of falafel, a vat of hummus, 2 pastries, 4 different types of bread, veggies, and this schmear type thing that's popular here in Austria that our teacher made herself! It's made with cream cheese and butter and peppers and that's good enough for me. The hummus from the Naschmarkt is also ridiculously amazing because Austria is just crawling with Turks. I would have taken a picture of the beautiful spread, but I had given up my camera at reception as collateral for my coffee mug. Just another first world problem to add to the list with being in pain every time I eat raw carrots because of my TMJ but loving carrots too much to stop. So tortured.
After the bike ride I came home and did a little grocery shopping with Sarah (we finally bought some real butter to replace the LARD), and took an amazing hot shower. Now I'm pretty much gonna just lie on my face and possibly look over some German or music for the next couple of hours. Tonight all of the IES kids are meeting up at the Travel Shack (a bar) to have a big "welcome to Vienna" shitshow time. (NOT IES sponsored). Tonight is also the "night ride" which is celebrating one year of the U-Bahn running 24 hours. If you printed out a free ticket, (this kid here), you get to ride the trains for free tonight and get into a huge list of clubs for free too! It's going to be absolutely amazing, hopefully I'm going to meet up with my new Austrian friend Lucas and he's going to show us which of the free clubs are the best and most fun. For further insight into what kind of night this is going to be: I only bought yogurts and redbulls at the grocery store this afternoon.
This weekend should prove to be just as awesome as tonight. A bunch of us have plans to spend the day at Schönbrunn which also houses Europe's oldest zoo!!!!!!!! For those of you that don't know, when I was little I told my parents that when I grew up I wanted to be an actress singer dancer painter ZOO KEEPER. Yup. Bronx Zoo overnights and camp. Birthday parties at the Central Park Zoo. NBD, I'm just a BOSS.
After Schönbrunn we're going to stand on line starting at like 4 or 5pm for standing room tickets to OPENING NIGHT AT THE STAATSOPER!!!!!! Standing room tickets go for only like 3 or 4 Euro and they're some of the best seats in the house! (Stands in the house?). Each standing room spot also has its own digital translator that you can set to any language. We're gonna get all dolled up and I swear, after a day at the zoo and a night at the opera, my wedding day will have tough competition for the "best day of my life" title.
Sunday, there's an IES organized hike in the Vienna woods. I figure I'll get in as much nature as possible before I go into "permanent anger at the outdoors" mode in the winter. Also, Tobi's football team is playing a match so maybe I'll make an appearance for that and see what all this European soccor hullabaloo is about.
And next week is the last week of intensive, immediately followed by the 3-city tour of Prague, Krakow, and Budapest!!! We got our schedule for the trip yesterday and I am SHITTING MYSELF WITH EXCITEMENT, but that's a story for another day.
WE WE WE SO EXCITED. WE SO EXCITED. FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN. WEEKEND. WEEKEND.
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