Vienna Waits for You....

So I am currently on yet another study abroad trip, this one only 18 days over December Intercession.  The two classes contributing to this trip are Turn-of-the-Century (Fin-de-Siecle) Vienna and Food and Culture in Vienna.  The two teachers split fall quarter in half (Tuesdays and Thursdays), and then we meet with them on alternating days while here, and next quarter we will meet a few times before turning in our finals (probably done by midterms).

Sonntag, 27. November
Chicago, in the air
Today we left for the München airport.  I ended up packing a lot later than I had planned, and we speedily left the house around 7:20 instead of 6:50 (to meet there at 7:30),  I only got there about 5 minutes late though, so it wasn´t really an issue.  Except for some intense turbulence at the beginning, the plane was fairly uneventful; we had personal TVs with on-demand, so that was kinda cool.   I watched The Truman Show, which was good, and Bad Teacher, which was really awful.  I think I got a few naps in too, but no major hardcore sleeping.


Montag, 28. November
in the air, München
We arrived at the München Flughafen (airport), but could not get to a gate, so they brought out the stairs and a bus to take us to the terminal.  Our plane arrived about half an hour early, so our greeter took us on a brief tour of the city in our coach bus on the way to the hotel.  The tour was alright...she was not that interesting of a person/speaker.  After we got to the hotel (which was in the cheaper, Turkish, Casino-automats-on-every-corner part of town), we had the evening free to do whatever.  We gathered most of the group (which, by the way, is 11 people, 10 of which are female) and walked around the city.  We went to Karlsplatz (they have an ice rink there!), walked through die Alte Stadt (old town) until we found a Christmas market, which we followed into Marienplatz.

I discovered a few things in these adventures:
(1) Every Glühwein (delicious hot mulled wine) stand has different mugs.
(2) These are almost two times more expensive in Karlsplatz (very touristy, off a main thoroughfare) than deeper within the market.
(3) I am starting a collection of Glühwein mugs.

We then tried to find the Viktrolenmarkt, and after some difficulty, eventually found it.  The amount of open-air markets and grocery stores with their wares outside is just so amazing to me.  It´s cold out, but they don´t care.  They still put out their fruits and veggies into the chilliness.  Crazy.

After walking around for a bit, it got a bit chilly, so we went to the Hofbräuhaus.  I got Kaiserschmarr´n, which had apple sauce instead of berry, so that was kind of interesting.  Definitely not the best Kaiserschmarr´n I´ve had, but still alright.  We then ambled back to the hotel, where I went to bed around 9:30ish or so.


Dienstag, 29. November
München, Salzburg
The next day, we basically woke up, ate breakfast (which was quite a spread....everything from breakfast and lunch in America and in Germany, plus with a really cool coffee machine), and left for the train station.  We then took a 2 hour train to Salzburg, on which nothing too exciting happened.  When we got there, we had the afternoon free, before we met up to go to Augustiner Bräu for dinner.  The afternoon (for the majority of our group anyway) consisted of going to the Schloss Mirabel und Mirabel Gartens (Mirabel palace & gardens) and then walking around die Altstadt.  At one point we went inside a church, and then Brendan couldn´t open the door, so we thought we were locked in, then we realized he just didn´t/couldn´t read the German instructions for opening the door.

That night for dinner, we went to the Augustiner Bräu, which is a brewery run by monks (we even saw a monk there).  They had a sort of food-court atmosphere, where you go to each smaller station to get each thing (go the bakery to get bread, the butcher for meat, etc).  Drs. Souchuk and Rotenberg got us a bunch of food to all share, including whole chickens, cucumber salad, sauerkraut, and a bunch of other things.  Pretty tasty stuff.  Afterwards, a few of us went on a small adventure to find some Gelato (one of the other girls had a craving for it).  We found a Christmas market, but they were closing down for the night, and didn´t have any gelato anyway.  We then ended up at a cafe called Cup & Cino, where I got a Cappuccino (so ironic).

Then we went back to the hotel, where I turned on the TV to find something to watch.  The hotel had an entire channel of Sound of Music on loop.  I ended up watching High Fidelity for a while, before I started falling asleep (around 10 or so).



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So now I must go, we are meeting up in about fifteen minutes to go to a cool Christmas market.  I will post more either later this evening or whenever I have time.