So much...

I've written 4 posts (this being my 5th) in the last 2 days - I'm trying to get to current date. Everything here happens so fast and I feel as if I have no time to really get on my computer to do this... I just want to get caught up and let everyone know what I'm doing/ been doing as well!

I started class this Monday - here is my current schedule:

Montag - 16:45 - 18:15 - Contemporary Austrian Culture

Dienstag - 8:30 -10:00 - Austrian Folk Art and Folk Customs

- 14:15 - 15:45 - German 2

Mittwoch - 8:30 - 10:00 - Austrian Folk Art and Folk Customs

Donnerstag - 13:15 - 14:45 - German 2

- 16:45 - 18:15 - Contemporary Austrian Culture

I am also taking Communications Skills for Management. I don't know when that is going to be yet, because we haven't had class yet and when we have the first meeting we decide on a weekly time. It's an independent study class so you only go once a week and write a paper at the end. I've heard the professor is excellent so I decided to try it - and after Fascism class....this should be a lot easier. Let's just say that I went the first day (to fascism) and was scared. haha. Everyone knew all about government, political leaders, history, etc. and it was basically a debate/ the teacher was asking all these questions. Anyways....I basically had no clue what was going on and dropped that like it was hot. :)

But the schedules are a little different here and I have some classes really early, some really late, and German kind of in the middle. At least there are no Friday ones!! (Well hopefully my business comm won't be then).

So I'm really into the Culture class and the professor really knows his stuff. Folk art is interesting as well because she is now talking about farm houses all over Austria, etc. (Dad - you would really like this class). Plus the teacher is like 70 and sometimes hard to understand - especially so early.

But as for German, I am learning a lot! To think that I basically knew like 5 words and now I can form sentences and understand most of what my teacher is saying is pretty cool. I got a 1 (A) on my final and was put into the higher beginner's German for the semester (Caitlin, Emily, and Clayton are in there too). It is proving to be more challenging, but we all love our teacher!!! She dressed up in her dirndl for us during the 2nd week of orientation....haha. What a good sport!

Here is our beginner's orientation class with Elke our teacher!

But we are going as a group to Wien (Vienna auf Deutsch) tomorrow and are meeting at 7:30 to take a bus there. We are staying until Sunday so it should be a great time!!

OH and then the next weekend we are going skiing, then it's EASTER BREAK!! We already have our trains, flights, hostels, and ferry booked!!! TO ITALY AND GREECE IT IS!!! :)

To the Untersberg we go...

On Monday we didn't have class until 4:30 so we decided to explore a little more of Austria and go up the Untersberg mountain! We first headed over the AIFS office to get our Culture reader and also get our internet refund.

Anyways...we bought a day bus ticket and took the 25 to the very end of the route - at the foot of the mountain. Then we saw the cable car that was going to take us to the top. 12.50 Euros is kind of expensive, but it was sooooooooooo worth it. Here are some pictures of the trip! (the best part)

Picture before we got in the cable carThe cable that is holdin the whole car up....scaryOur cable car!Our shadow at the beginning Us starting to go up!!

Picture of down below!Looking toward the topThe car coming from the other directionWe are so high up!!Awesome mountains, I am still not tired of them :)

WOW. long way down....City below us...Cross on top of the mountain View of the surrounding mountains...awesomeCaitlin and I in front of the "guard rail" that was only in a small part - the rest was open for you to fall to your death. haha.

Caitlin going up the mountain...with tennis shoes mind you...Emily and I Caitlin and Emily helping each other get up the mountainNatalie, Caitlin and Emily - they all look so happy!The group who traveled to the top of the Untersberg

Us on the cable car Now its a long way down!Passing us on the way down

I think that this experience was one of the best in my life. It was absolutely beautiful and just being able to walk up and down the snow basically seeing everything beneath you. But I'll try to put this video on here so you can see what it looked like more in real life than just in pictures!!

Everyone filming at this point

Us sliding down the mountain - sorry it's sideways - but then at the end you'll hear me scream because I fell - haha.

Hike it up...

On Sunday it was an absolutely gorgeous day. Just a side note about the weather right now. It was around a high of 52 or so which is really weird for Salzburg at this time of the year. It has also been sunny everyday but one since I've been here too - which is again rare because it's normally rainy/foggy/snowy.





Anyways...so we decided to get out of the room and explore the mountain behind our road. We (Emily, Natalie, Caitlin, and I) headed up the first set of stairs....wow. haha. Then it just kept going up and up a steep driveway - we kept going and stopped at a looking point to see over the city. cool....

We can play I SPY - so this is zoomed out and what am I taking a picture of??

Guess.....

Keep guessing.....

Maybe just a house.....






Maybe not.....






What is it??

HAHA. EINE KATZE! :)

We just basically kept going and it was a good work out let me tell you!! Here are just some more pictures to show you the view. There is a monastery and a restaurant (at the top) and basically just trails/stairs the rest of the way.
View of the fortress and mountain

Natalie hanging from a tree that crossed our path

View from the very top!

I can't wait to see what this looks like in the spring!

Doesn't this look like a green screen behind me - or I was just placed in front of a photo...haha -nope...I'm really there

Picture of the mountain from up above - well on a sign at least...

The three of them walking back down

OH! and on the way back I spotted a mouse running in the street. I tried to take a picture of it but everytime I would try to, it would run soooo fast down the street. At one point a lady walked out of a building and it was right there and she yelped and jumped back. I was just laughing.... good times.

Day trip to Munich...

On Saturday I woke up at around 7:00 to walk over to the train station to catch the train to Munich with around half of the group. (The other half had gone early so they could go out Friday night). I was super exhausted from the night before, but that wasn't going to stop me from going to Munich. :) We took the train and it was around a 2 hour ride. After arriving, we met Andreas to take our tour around the city. It was a pretty cool city - then again it was a Saturday so it was really crowded too.

This is basically what I saw when I first walked out of the train station and down the road - the gates to Munich.

Here is just a picture down the road and you can see the amount of people there

This is the Glockenspeil that rings its bells at 11/12 everyday for a while then little characters spin around "fighting" each other and finally at the end the rooster crows. It's pretty amazing and everyone was just stopped staring up at it playing.

This is me outside a really beautiful church

This is the inside of it with absolutely amazing stained glass windows

Gosh I would have loved to hear this pipe organ play something

Just a really cool building in Munich - I can't remember all the info that we get on these tours

So after the at least 2 hour tour, we were so hungry and hadn't eaten since before we left on the train. We heard from the other half of the group that they ate at Hofbrauhaus the night before and it was really good. It's a hugeeee German restuarant that is 2 stories with liter pints and authentic food. So we headed over there to get some grub. There was an um-pah (haha) band playing and we walked around for like at least 15 minutes trying to get a table. It was packed. Finally we randomly selected something off the German menu and ordered. By the time we got our food we basically just ate in silence because we were so hungry. ha. We then visited the gift shop and tried to figure out what to do next.

Caitlin, Emily and Natalie outside the restaurant

My food from the restaurant

We didn't really know where to go so just started walking in the direction we thought this big outdoor market was and imagine that....we found it! Everyone was selling fruits, vegetables, sauces, ice cream, cookies, basically anything food wise you can think of! We got a cone of ice cream and then just strolled around the city.

Here is some of the dried fruit we also purchased!

It was nice to explore and walk around. We had looked in the "Let's Go Europe" book and found this place that had 32 kinds of hot chocolate so we wanted to try that out! Searching on the map again, we walked in that direction and found it outside all the tourists areas around 20 mins away. It was a pretty cool local coffee shop and I got banana hot chocolate...YUM!

The hot chocolate place

The group of us that was walking around. We put the timer on my camera standing on a rail....pretty good job/looking group if I do say so myself!

Walking toward the train station we stopped and were listening to this band made up of an accordion, violin, bass, and cello. There isn't even a word to describe how awesome they were. I love music and they were absolutely wonderful - they sold around 15 cds in the 45 minutes we were standing there (not including all the money thrown in their case). Clayton bought one and I'm actually listening to it as we speak. It was so relaxing and great way to end the trip to Munich.

One last picture before we were heading home! hehe.

New friends!

So last week (Friday) I went out to O'Malleys for happy hour since we had finished our 2 week intensive German course and taken our final. It was pretty fun and Clayton and I met two girls (twins actually) that go to school at the University here. They were really nice. We were talking about Austrian food and they said that they would take us out to some places so that was really cool. I was thinking I wonder if she even remembers us, but then I got a text from her the next day seeing how I was doing and that we needed to get together soon. So hopefully more to come about that!

Michaela, Clayton, and Anne about to take their Apfel Strudel shots - so good!!
A group of us at O'Malleys


We also ran into more of the people from Salzburg College - they were celebrating someone's 21st birthday. I met a lot of them. There was an Emily from Texas in their group too. haha. But then after a while we wanted to try a more Austrian bar called Flip, but for some reason Macy didn't want to go, so we headed to Republic which is kind of like a restaurant/kaffee haus during the day, but at night it turns into more of a bar and club (there was live music too). They have a HUGE underground like concert looking arena. It's crazy that that is under the street in Salzburg...but anyways...this English guy that we met wanted to come, so here is a pic of him and Macy... He said that we was on the English skiing team?? It was kind of weird because we were like...umm really? So he was probably lying. haha. Oh and he also said that he was only 20 - you look at him to see if you think he is. Probably lying about that too. haha. But overall it was a fun night!!