Study Abroaders are Just Like You!

So for the most part, I seem to only post whenever I go somewhere or when something really exciting happens. The problem with that is: (a) you get a bit of a skewed vision of my life here and (b) pretty much everything I do here is actually exciting because HELLO! I'm in Vienna. So maybe it's more telling than skewed. It's up to you to determine. Anyways, despite what some people (ahem: JOSH) believe I don't actually have school. This is not true. As I find them interesting, I've decided that you should feel the same about my current class schedule. I'm not taking any business classes whilst here because I decided that my study abroad experience should be one lacking in the intensity and rigor of my usual business-style classes. I decided that since I was already moving to another country and required to begin learning a new language, I would take a course-load that was different, interesting, and would enable me to get a bit more of a grasp of this country that I'm living in.

So what am I taking?

GERMAN

All of us in the program are required to take a German class (well, if you're fluent I think you can test out of taking the language course, but then would have to take another class of your choosing in German). Seeing as before coming here the only German I knew was what I had learned from The Sound of Music and various German songs from voice lessons and choirs, I obviously tested out of having to take any German class. Wait a second. No, my bad. That's wrong. I'm in Elementary German I. Same thing, right? It's only slightly difficult seeing as I naturally think first in English, then in French, then grasp at straws to try to produce a German equivalent. Luckily, a lot of German words sound like their English counterparts plus a little bit of a different accent. Seriously - I've convinced someone I was speaking German by just speaking English with a German accent. That being said, I wouldn't have been making any sense had I in fact been speaking German. Whoops! I think probably the most difficult part of the language might be the grammar...because it makes NO SENSE. Not if you think of it in English terms...or in those associated with French. Ah well. It works. I do now know more German than Spanish, so that's exciting. I've also had to use it on a daily basis (you know - like asking men to dance at balls...more on that at another time)!

FIN DE SIÈCLE: VIENNA 1865-1914

Ta da! Guess who's taking a history class? Yep! I don't even know the last time I took one...probably junior year of high school. Crazy, eh? Not JUST history though - as we're currently living in the city that we're studying, we can actually see a lot of the things that we would just be talking about in class. What does that mean? We have normal lectures on Monday and then take walking tours and such on Wednesdays. So far, we've gone to see the Imperial jewels, the only standing synagogue in Vienna from before WWII, the Imperial Library, etc. It's been wonderful - minus the FREEZING day that my teacher decided was a good time for a walking tour. We were standing outside the Stephansdom studying the symbolism while the icy wind whipped at our faces, forcing us to try to stuff our necks and any showing skin underneath scarves, as we slushed through the snow to our next destination. Those of us who remembered hats were much warmer, although they (as I was obviously not one of those people...I think one of my hats was at that time on a snowman on our terrace) completely missed out on an important part of our winter study abroad experience. Right? Let me just tell you a bit about this teacher: he's a fairly young researcher. "Yes" to whatever image that just conjured for you - he's very skinny, wears circular glasses, and is one of those teachers who I think feels like he needs to wear a suit in order to not appear as one of the students. Or maybe he just likes wearing suits. You decide.

ART ANALYSIS 2

Not that I took Art Analysis 1 or anything. Ah well. It involves a museum pass, looking at lots of artwork, and discussing all of that in classes. Works for me. The teacher is a short ball-of-fire, no-nonsense, 50-60-something woman. She is entertaining to say the least. Especially the shock that crosses her face when people ask questions about our topic of lecture for the previous 2 weeks. Hahahaha. Seriously. That happened. I think she almost had a heart attack in the Kunsthistoriches.

THE FEMALE AS WRITER AND PERSPECTIVE IN AUSTRIAN LITERATURE

Interestingly enough, my teacher is a man. With a small ponytail...and balding on top. And glasses. Hahahaha. I love him. Seriously though. He's awesome. He's actually really cool. Not all of our texts are available in English, so he translates some of them for us. He's also currently translating an English text into German for a German publishing company. I wasn't kidding - he's cool. Let me know if you need more evidence of this. I also like the stories we've been reading for this class. It may be the first English/Lit class I've actually read all of the material for...since like 6th grade. 2 weeks in and I'm still going strong. We'll see how long this goes on! :D

COEXISTENCE AND CONFLICT: THE HISTORY OF EASTERN EUROPEAN JEWS

My teacher from this is one of the two teachers who commute from Budapest. Crazy, eh? Yep. How to describe his physical appearance? Well, let me just tell you that this morning he was wearing a khaki corduroy jacket, a plaid button-up shirt, with a polka dot tie. Obviously he also wears glasses and has old-man perfectly combed hair. :D I have that class late Tuesdays and early Wednesdays. It's a little rough Tuesday nights because it's always right when I want to be eating and after spending an entire day at the IES center in classes. It's a bit sporadic. But, it's still fairly interesting, especially since we're getting it from the viewpoint of an Eastern European Jew, so even if we hear about things that we already new, it's still new. The main problem is that he says "um" at the same pitch that he speaks, which makes it a bit difficult to distinguish his words from his "um's"...which takes me an extra second or two to realize as I sit there trying to figure out what in the world that word was...before realizing that there was an "um" in the mix that completely threw me off. Whoops. Keeps me on my toes.

I do not associate my classes with descriptions of the teachers. Wait. Maybe I do.

Ex-SPAIN-d your horizons

So after having intense German for 3 weeks along with a corresponding final, it was obviously time for us to have a week-long break. Obviously. So what to do but visit two of my favorite fellow TUers, who happen to both be studying in Spain. Woo! Spain trip! Done. Whit made a pit stop in Bordeaux while I got a taste of an Austrian Super Bowl Party along with having a fajita and mojito night. Yum! I got into Barcelona with 3 hours to spare before Elizabeth would be out of her class. So what do I decide to do in a city in which I do NOT know ANY of the language (AHEM - not Spanish, but Catalan), only know a bit of Spanish, don't know my way around, and can't ask for directions if I get lost? Obviously, I decide to tourist it up and walk around. After getting equipped with a map of the city, I decide that my destination is (duh) the water. A thought of 'this street seems to lead to the waterfront' and I'm off! I was only a bit uncomfortable and intimidated at the thought of setting off on that journey alone. However, within the first block I was more thrilled than anything else. How could I not be with such interesting architecture (mostly by Gaudi) and beautiful views wherever I looked? Staring at the architecture, the millions o mopeds: 

taking a break to read in Plaza Catalunya: walking through the largest store ever (seriously - like 9 floors. Ridiculous.), many many MANY street performers (including an Edward Scissorhands), and making it to the harbor/port: made up my 3-hour walk. The whole time I had been in Spain, my phone hadn't been able to make/receive calls/texts for whatever reason ("Limited Service" apparently actually means 'Good luck trying to talk to anyone, suckaaa!' Good to know.) which made finding Elizabeth only slightly more complicated (read: we had to run into each other at my hostel. Apparently, she had been freaking out for an hour and a half because she couldn't get a hold of me, whilst I was just chilling and taking in the views. Whoops). At least once every half hour of that first night, Elizabeth would get really giddy and look at me with crazed eyes and the biggest smile on her face and squeal, "NIKKI! We're in Europe together! We're in Spain! It's really happening!" The giddiness was very contagious, especially as I was definitely pretty much already there. Barcelona adventures included eating A LOT (FRESH SEAFOOD!!! Paella, wine, baguette with ham and cheese, tapas...just to name a few), picking Whit up from the train station (we realized once we got there that we didn't actually know what city she was coming from so we picked a random WRONG one. But it all worked out), Guell Park (which looked like it came out of the board game Candy Land):

 

walking across town and climbing a mountain to get to the amusement park on top (which was closed), meeting up with ALEJANDRO!!!, going to a crazy fun shot bar that had at least 500 different types of shots (Boy Scout!), dancing, having a 'Spanish night' in which we didn't go home until after 4, climbing another mountain, and going to the Olympic Stadium (!!!!!).We were pretty much in awe of the Olympic Stadium. Imagine: interesting architecture (of course)...where hundreds of the best athletes in the world had been at one point..at the edge of a mountain from which you could see the city of Barcelona lying quietly and quaintly below, its bright colors gleaming up in sharp contrast to the green rolling hills, blue clear sky, and deep blue of the mountains in the distance. It was one of the most beautiful sights I'd seen. I love scenery. I never seem to tire of landscapes, and they never cease to amaze me and leave me standing there: eyes wide, jaw dropped and slightly upturned in a huge smile as I quietly (or accompanied by slight squeals of joy) try to take it all in, capture the view as though staring in this way will somehow engrave the view more vibrantly and for longer.

After these Barcelonian adventures brought a new one - in MADRID!!! It started off with the adventure of finding our hostel (take the metro to Sol, then look for the bear statue. Follow that street until you see the optical store. Look for sketchy door across the street - that's the hostel) where we finally saw EMILYYYY!!!! EEEEE!!!! There was obviously many smiles and hugs accompanied by squeals of delight. Our foursome comprising of two sets of roommates was finally complete! We were only mildly excited. At the hostel, what should happen to me but to find a random guy that I went to high school with (who I'd only met maybe twice) who happened to recognize me and stopped me to say hey. How random! Elizabeth, Whitney, Emily, and I had a bit of a calm Euro night - a picnic of bread, cheese, wine, and cookies in our hostel room. Saturday was walking around time, with stops at a few parks around the city and then hitting up the Prado during its free hour. That night we decided to go out Madrid-style with our fellow hostlians. I'm not sure if this was a good idea or not as we ended up at a place called Tupperware after having walked FOR-EV-ER. Sure, there was dancing, but we were in the center of Madrid! We definitely had other (better?) options such as the 7-story club we heard about. Ah well. There was a French guy there so I got to speak a little French!!! Also, some German boys who Whit and I talked to (I mostly listened as I'm better at understanding than at actually speaking). Sweet, yo. However, this all meant that I didn't get to bed until somewhere between 6-7am. Whoops. Sunday was spent mostly at this park that we absolutely loved:

With Emily and Whit at the really fun, beautiful park!

Then it was a metro ride with a goodbye to Emily, flight to Barcelona with a bye to Elizabeth, a night spent on the floor of the Barcelona airport, an early morning flight back to Vienna, and then we were back home! A quick shower and a nap concluded our wonderful week off! Perfect ending, I'd say.