Vienna!

Yesterday, I was in Vienna! I was debating not going on Friday night because I had a lot of work to do, but as it turns out I have time to spare tonight. God is good, I am so thankful I had the energy to get through my major to do list today. However, back to my Vienna trip, it started with my alarm going off at 5:25 am. I got out the door a little after 5:45 and made a tram at 6 with my friends towards the center of town with my friends.

We then proceeded to buy our extremely cheap ticket for to and from vienna. It is normally 17 euros one way. However, with this ticket it was only 7 euros per person. We ended up having to take a really slow train though, which made a normal hour 20 min ride into a 3 hour one. However, it wasn’t bad as I was traveling with friends, all of whom were Hungarian. I just keep hanging out with all the hungarians. The group consisted of David, Tamas, Fanni, Nora, and myself.

We finally arrive in Vienna at 10 am. I hadn’t realized the train was going to be 3 hours so I was really hungry and wanted something breakfast-like, so I instantly thought of tea, specifically a chai tea latte. Linz oddly enough does not have a Starbucks, however, Vienna does. I was way more excited about getting a chai tea latte than I should have been. I ended up getting one, but not from Starbucks, but from a random cafe on the street we were walking on. It was very good, and I also got a warmed blueberry muffin that was much better than any of the pastries they have at Starbucks. I ended up being extremely happy, and felt like I was being a better exchange student by picking a random cafe.

The first stop of our day was Schönbrunn. It has beautiful grounds and gardens, and the weather was a lovely 70 degrees. I shared my family’s tradition with the group of mimicking the statues you are standing in front of when you take a photo. Our group photo of trying to mimic the biggest fountain ended up being one of my favorite photos of the trip. My other favorite is the spontaneous one with Nora (you can see all of her face and like a snippet of mine being over excited). We were not allowed to take photos inside Schönbrunn, however, it was neat to see how plain Franz Joseph’s quarters were as compared with the rest of the rooms. His bed was a twin bed with an iron frame. I mean grumpy college freshman get the same thing, his mattress just might have been a bit nicer. That was really interesting to learn. I also got to see the famous Sissi’s bedchambers. For all the americans that don’t know Sissi, she was Franz Joseph’s wife.However, the last German class I was in at C of C did a whole segment on her overdramatized self. We watched the Sissi film, and created spin-off skits from it. Schönbrunn was a lot of fun and we all enjoyed ourselves.

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We then went to lunch, enjoying resting our feet. Following lunch, we had decided that since we didn’t have a whole lot of time before we had to catch our train back,  we would rent the city bikes.They had stations for them spread through out the city, and we thought we could ride them around town and see some famous buildings. This ended up being a mild headache to start off with as the machine to unlock/rent the bikes was extremely slow and was very particular on what credit card you could use. Also we ended up going to a different section of the city than we really wanted for the first  half hour we were on the bikes. We did end up seeing some of the buildings we wanted to and just enjoyed biking on a lovely afternoon.

After the bikes were away, we got back to the train station with a half hour to spare before our 3 hour ride home. It was a good day I am glad I went, but I might revisit it as I meant to see a friend or two I have there and never got around to it. This week consists of catching up in my lab (still not caught up), preparing for a presentation for my German class for Thursday, and studying for a quiz or two next week. I still have a decent amount of reading to do and normal homework. However, it won’t be long until I am writing about my Italy trip 11 days! I will try to write between now and then though, as I would like to tell you a little more about daily living and the frustrations that come with it at times.

 

Family, Sölden, Zell am See

It has been two weeks since I posted, and I am sorry for that, however, next week my schedule should relax a little.
Two weeks ago, I wrote I was headed for Munich for the weekend. I went to Munich, and enjoyed a very relaxing weekend. Friday I caught up with Kristen and TJ at noon at the train station, and they both were exhausted. We then proceeded to head to the hotel so they could nap. Kristen and I got to talk some before we decided to sleep, and it was wonderful to just update her on all my classes and get her advice as she studied abroad in Germany for an entire year. While we were talking, I also got to snack on some Cheez Its (which I love and they cannot be found in Austria) and Starburst Jelly Beans (remind me of Easter time, and also can’t be found here). We then wandered around the town and had some classic German Cuisine for dinner. The next day my parents came in and this day was a bit of waiting around on them, however, we did end up going and seeing the BMW World and Museum. The museum had a lot of cars ranging all through the years BMW has been in production. It was interesting to learn that BMW actually got its start in plane production before it switched to motorcycles. Cars were the last to come along, before they attempted to produce speedboats for a couple years and stopped. It is a really interestingly structured building so I have included a photo of the building below.

BMW World basically a glorified showroom.

BMW Museum is the round one, kind of eclectic looking

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both of these are courteous of the internet because the day we were there was really cloudy, rainy, and cold.Also because I was honestly focused on enjoying my family more than taking pictures. Sunday we all got up and had breakfast together, then I went back to Linz and they went on to Sölden. I had to return to the university for monday and tuesday classes, but I reunited in Sölden with them by Tuesday evening.

On route to reuniting with them I had a very crazy five minutes. So I was waiting at the Linz Bahnhof on my platform for my train. It pulls in and it is extremely long for a train. I proceed to hop on the train when I see all the televisions on this train our not saying the destination they should be saying for my train. I then realize that there are two trains that have pulled into the platform currently attached to one another. I panic and run off the train with two other men that have done the same thing I have. I run, as the train was supposed to pull out at 48 it is now 49, and all three of us are trying to run with rather heavy suitcases (probably looking comical). The platform manager is nice enough to not let the train pull away before we scramble into the last car. I sat down in  a seat a car or two into the train breathing heavily and being thankful I made my train. I was upset that they would do that to people in the first place, but I was thankful I was on board. I then learn later at Innsbruck (20 minutes away from my final stop after 3 hours of being on that train) that the second train had stay attached to our train until this point. So there was no need for me to make the mad dash scramble that I had….. needless to say I wish I had stayed ignorant to this fact. However, I make it to my family and we enjoy a lovely dinner.

I went skiing for the next 3 days with them enjoying the very large mountain. It had 22 lifts, and it took a full 45 minutes of going from gondola to gondola to reach the highest area. The snow was really nice on the highest section of the mountain because there were two glaciers that helped keep everything cool and fresh. The mountain was flipped to what you would normally expect, the easy runs were at the top and the hard ones were more towards the bottom. The glaciers provided a pretty wide treeless base for the easy runs. I did take some photos here. It was always clear blue skies and gorgeous views. 

 

The next photo is of a ski tunnel! It was really cool, it was a tunnel through a mountain just for skiers to use! I have never seen one before in my life, and I believe I will never see another one.

Overall I think my days in Sölden with my family were really relaxing and wonderful, and I can’t wait to see them again. The next part of my week required me to be get on a train on Friday towards Zell am See!

 

I went to Zell am See because it was a ski trip I signed up for through Erasmus. I got to ski with friends of mine from the University for Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday the sun was shining and I went a full day. However, on Sunday it was practically a blizzard outside with how much snow was coming down and I only could manage a half day my legs were so tired from 5 days of skiing. However, courtesy of my friend Jacob, I have one picture to show you of the group that I roomed with and got to enjoy most my weekend with.

 It is Jacob (right), Fanni (middle right), Mathias (Middle Left), and Jay (Left). We all had a wonderful time joking around and skiing for the weekend.

This now brings me up to this week. After skipping  half a week of classes and being totally unproductive for a solid week, I have been playing catch up on a lot of things. However, for any of physics/engineers reading this I have started my Numerical Methods in Computational Fluid Dynamics  (CFD) Lab. We are using a program that runs on Linux called FLUENT. It is actually a really cool program for CFD and I don’t know if anyone needs to model fluids moving through or around any finite structure any time soon, but it would be useful to look up if you are. I spent like 5 hours playing catch up because I accidentally missed the first lab (thinking it started later in the semester), then I purposely missed the second one (with the family), and I am still not caught up. However, I have until Wednesday before we meet again. I also have a lot of other classes I need to stay on top of.

On the non-school side, I am planning on going to Vienna tomorrow and will take pictures, and am wrapping up my plans for my Easter break which is like Europe’s two week spring break. I will  be going to Italy and then meeting my parents to tour around Greece.My next post should be about Vienna, and then I am planning on writing a post about some of my frustrations coping with Austria again such as how I find Austrian supermarkets and other things.

Until next time!

 

 

School

I regret to inform you that this post will have no pictures. Classes started last Monday, and I just finished my second week of courses. I have been figuring out my schedule, trying to make sure everything will transfer back to C of C, and having some fun.

On the school side, I have 3 physics courses (all in english), 3 german as a foreign language courses, and 2 sociology courses. Now to the normal american eye it looks like I am taking 24 credit hours which would be crazy hard and impossible to do. However, they approach classes in quite a different fashion here in Austria. The classes meet once a week for 90 minutes. All of my physics courses give me no homework and no text book. They lecture over a topic, you take notes, and you take an oral exam at the end. It is a little scary due to the fact that your entire grade hangs on the one test. One of my physics courses does have a practical/lab you take with it, and in this course I will have a final project and presentation, which also determines your entire grade. During the semester it seems really relaxed until you realize you still have to do work of some sort and you have no real guidance on what that work should be doing. So as of the moment I just keep notes on everything they reference that I don’t understand or haven’t read over in awhile like certain theories or effects. I then make it a point to do some reading on those every week before class. In my German courses, it is totally different, I have homework every week, the grade comes from group projects, presentations, papers, and a single test at the end of each of them. I find the German courses here remind me of what I am used to having at home. There is better structure in what to study, do, and review when I am not in the course. My sociology courses will actually be the most challenging for me during the semester. This is because they are completely in German. One is a lecture, and one is a discussion group that reads and discusses texts associated with the topics covered in the lecture. For the lecture I have to do a group presentation, write a paper, and pass a test. For the discussion group, I have to read a text every week, write 7 response papers through the semester, have a group presentation, and do a large paper for the final. All of it is in German, which makes me a little worried. However, I believe I can accomplish it all. So that is my courses, so far I don’t have any super boring teachers, and all of the teachers seem to be fairly relaxed.

Onto the fun of my past two weeks! Last weekend I spent Thursday night in my room with 4 friends drinking a bottle of wine and playing low-cent poker. It was a really fun night with lots of laughs as 3 of us had not known the rules before hand. In total I lost 42 cents (I was really upset and had no idea how I was going to afford my next week in Austria). On Friday night I met up with an old friend of mine from C of C, he was a german major and a music major that graduated this past May. He heard from an old teacher of ours that I was here and sent me a facebook message in which we decided we would meet in Linz on Friday. He only lives 25 minutes outside of Linz and was going to be in town because a group of his friends were meeting up. This group of friends happened to turn out to be 15 or 16 people all of which were Teaching Assistants in Upper Austria for English. It was a really great night, I met people from Ireland, Britain, and more Americans, and we all did a pub crawl. I found a new favorite pub because of it. It plays american music, which is hard to find here, most places play electronic or house music, and it has guitars all over the walls. The music being played is about 8 months behind what is popular in America, but I am sure I will go there more than once later this semester. Then last night I want to a beer tasting at the school’s coffee place called Chat.I do realize that sounds odd but it is true, the coffee place was holding a beer tasting on school grounds hosted by a school group. They had a decent selection to taste for Austria, because when going to a bar in Austria, there is only one type of beer on tap. It is a pale crisp lager, so I have had a couple glasses of that in the  month I have been here, but have been able to try little else. So I got to try a total of 3 different beers last night, which was a nice change of pace. Tonight I have plans to meet my mentor to make dinner and speak German for a couple hours which should be fun, and tomorrow I get to see some of my family for the first time in over a month!

My family is coming in for a week to ski the Alps and I will get to join them for most of it. The nice side of a class only meeting once a week is if you skip half your week you only miss half your classes once. So that is what I will be doing. I will be heading to Munich for the weekend where they are arriving, and then going to classes for part of the week, then meeting back up with them in the Sölden area outside Innsbruck to ski the rest of the week. So on that note you can look forward to my next post having pictures once again.

Sorry for the delay, I will try and write another one Monday or Tuesday about my time in Munich!

Pécs, Hungary

My trip began at 4:30 am on Thursday as my alarm went off, I had to be out the door by 5 to get down to the station by 5:40 to  make my 6:00 am train. I got to the station earlier than expected ordered a hot tea and muffin and then boarded a train towards Budapest. I arrived in budapest at 11:45 and had an hour to find the international ticket office where I thankfully got a person who knew some english. However, this person told me I needed to head to the inland ticket office across the way, I again lucked out with a young lady who knew a lot of English. I quickly got a seat assignment and platform for my next train. After I boarded that train I was shortly in Pécs around 2 pm. I stepped off the train to find Csilla waving at me and coming towards me within a minute. It was then a taxi ride to her cousin’s house where she was staying and a late lunch. We then wandered through the city, got some groceries, and had a night indoors with cards and movies.

Friday was much more interesting as I got to see some of the major sights of Linz. The streets that had the shops along them were very friendly to those walking, and overall I felt the size of the buildings and how people interacted reminded me of Charleston.

Streets of Pécs

Leonardo Da Vinci Statue

I got to see the National Theater of Hungary next, and it was very pretty. Csilla told me in the Theater students receive their diplomas from the university. I think it is a beautiful place to have a graduation ceremony. There was also really neat fountains on either side of the square (pictured below). They weren’t running with water because it is still cold out, however, I just loved the fact that they had theater masks on them.

We then wandered through the streets of Pécs to discover a common site for lovers. These lovers purchase a lock and write their name and date on the lock. They then attach it to this fence on a quiet street in Pécs. Some are inscribed by a professional and some only have sharpie written on them. The bench I am sitting on had to be redone a year or two ago because the weight of the locks had all but ruined the base the fence was originally sitting on.

The last big sight we saw was what the locals call the Basilica and the tourist call Pécs Cathedral. I have to say out of all 5 or so churches I have seen so far, this has been my favorite. It is not overdone so that you can actual appreciate the details throughout the church. It also vibrant with color, which I haven’t seen in the previous churches. Csilla told me that everyone wishes to have their marriage ceremony in this church, however, you have to book at least one year in advance. I tried capturing all the detail in this church from the chandeliers, to the tiny gargoyles, and the 12 apostles painted on the ceiling.

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After that we decided we would head back to the house for a short break of sorts, and then out the door again for a short pretty walk before lunch. Csilla took me towards an area that had been renovated with money Hungary had recieved from the EU last year. Little did she realize this had become the visitor’s center for Pécs, we then were easily convinced to wonder around two exhibits. These were extremely cheap for me as a student in total 1100 Forints just under 4 euros. These exhibits ended up being the highlight of my trip, they were over a very highly prized form of porcelain in Hungary. They had signs in english and hungarian so I learned a lot about the techniques used for this sort of pottery. There were “older” types and more “modern” looking types. Csilla told me she got a teapot with 4 cups and plates in this type of pottery when she graduated high school, and it was a very expensive gift. Her aunt also collects this type of pottery. The pottery style is entitled “Zsolnay” after the creator.

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I know I will find nothing like these exhibits in any other city I visit. I will find churches and pretty architecture, but this was something unique. I am so grateful I got to see all the amazing pieces.

I got to try some common Hungarian pastries while I was with Csilla as well. Such as the ones pictured, chocolate croissant and something like our cinnamon rolls, and on Saturday afternoon Csilla’s cousin made homemade donuts. They were a real treat. On Saturday, I walked 15 minutes up to one of the highest points in the city. It was a pretty view, and a nice closing site to my weekend.

I want to thank Csilla and all her cousins for hosting me. Pécs is a beautiful city, and I would not have enjoyed it as much if it were not for my lovely hosts.

Next post will be all about my first week of classes as they started yesterday, thanks for reading , and thanks for the comments!