First Week in Salzburg...

First things first: I GOT A NEW # IN AUSTRIA. MY PHONE BROKE ALREADY. :( HERE IT IS: 011-43-0664-588-35-98 (That is the number calling from the US to Austria.) But now this one is barring calls - so I'll update everyone as soon as I know what is going on. GRR.

I know that I haven’t written much about being in Salzburg so far; it has just been so busy that I honestly haven’t had the time to sit or if I did it was doing homework or updating about London and such. Things might be kind of settling down soon, but probably not! haha. I’ll try to just sum up what has happened so far here in Salzburg, but it still might long because I’ve done so much (& I have pictures). So on Monday and Tuesday I had orientation with all the other people in the program (about 50 from all over the US) and it was just kind of business stuff (registering, trips, housing, etc). On Monday after the orientation we went on a walking/hiking tour of Salzburg and man was it a hike – part of it was up a mountain basically. haha. Andres (works for AIFS) took us around and the views were great, even though it was a little cloudy. (Side note: but the first 5 days I’ve been here everyone has been saying what GREAT weather we’ve had. Normally it would be foggy, rainy, snowy, etc, but it has been cool and sunny. It’s awesome. Today is the first day that it hasn’t been like that and there are little snow flurries coming down. I like that too though!!!)

Mozart's birthhouse

About the food, I’ve eaten döner kebap which is kind of like an Austrian gyro. YUM. and I’ve made lots of salami and/or turkey sandwiches. I also bought some pasta to cook. We have oranges and carrots for snacks, cereal for in the morning, and juice/water to drink. I also visited the frankfurter stand and it was good!!! I had Kaiser____ something I can’t remember that had cheese and mustard served with a roll. It’s like the fast food of Austria. Although today I broke down and had a cheeseburger from McDonalds and some coke. Wow that felt really good. All I could think of was Alexis wanting Dr. Pepper so badly.

My first Austrian "hotdog"

Then after the second orientation on Tuesday I went to my first German class. I’m obviously in the lowest one (beginning German 101). It has its ups and downs. Most of the kids have already had some; there are around 12 in our class. Bad thing – I didn’t know anything and I can’t really do anything by myself – well conversing with people – I can get around and whatever. Also the teachers’ first language is German and their English isn’t great so sometimes it’s hard to understand what they mean. (I guess I’m kind of used to that at UT when ¾ of the teachers are foreign…anyways!) But the plus side is that the teachers that we have for the beginning German are super nice and we also have “easier” homework since we are just starting. It’s not like we have to remember things from previous semesters. So about that – it’s basically an intensive course in which we go for 3 hours a day and learn German. It’s pretty hard, but I can definitely say I am getting better!

Ex: Ich bin Emily. (I am Emily.) Wie geht’s (How are you?) Ich spreche Englisch und bisschen Deutsch. (I speak English and a little German.) Ich wohne in Texas. (I live in Texas.) Ich koome aus den USA (I come from the US.) Ich möchte _____ (I would like a ____.)

There are more, but I will spare you for now. haha. On Wednesday we had a pastry tasting, which was awesome. Austria, especially Salzburg, is known for its pastries (also coffee and music). We tasted Esterhazytorte, Rigojanschi, Apfelstrudel, Sachertorte, Guglhupf. HAHA. Those names are awesome. I also drank hot chocolate which was such a good little treat, although half of it was filled with whipped cream (Hannah – you wouldn’t have liked it…haha). We also went to Ikea (the first time I’ve been to one) and it was so big and had all this stuff for really cheap. I bought 2 pillows for .99 Euros each and also some Tupperware. Caitlin got some jeans and then the four (me, Caitlin, Emily, Clayton) of us also got some groceries.

Caitlin and Emily at the pastry tasting

First plate

Second plate

Half of the group standing outside the shop

Oh! Another thing that is crazy is at the grocery store. It’s so stressful going because it is always crowded and you have to know what you want, know how much it is, have your money ready and basically throw it at the person checking you out. Everyone behind you is waiting and there aren’t bags (unless you buy them) so you have to shove all the stuff in your backpack and go. Most of the time I just say: “Groß Gott” when I’m checking out and “danke shön” when I leave. If they say other things to me, I don’t answer because I don’t know what they are saying. Other times they can tell straight away that I am American and don’t even try to talk to me in German which is sometimes frustrating if I want to see if I can do it. Oh well!

On Thursday we had to go sit in this registration office to get our University ID’s and then of course they were like “our printer is broken.” We had been sitting there for an hour before they started calling us up. Mind you, it’s a small building and there was no one in there – all of us were scattered all over the floor. A man walks in proceeds to say, “What are you all doing?” We just looked at him and said, “waiting.” I was lounged back on my backpack with my IPod on and he said in German to one guy who worked there, “What does she think this is? This isn’t a couch” and then he stormed away. He then just stormed back out when he left too and gave us all horrible looks. It’s not my fault that the printers sucked. This is also coming from a man wearing white clogs! haha. I wasn’t offended, but it’s just a story to look back upon.

Yesterday (Thursday) was Valentine’s Day so we got some Swiss chocolate, wine, pasta, bread, gouda, and pesto sauce, made dinner in our kitchen, and ate it in our room. It was really fun and we also tried to guess everything about each other based on the little stuff we knew about one another. (stereotype game). It was pretty fun because we guessed and some of the stuff was right but other things were way off. We just got to learn a lot about one another (mind you this was just about 7 – me, Caitlin, Clayton, Emily, Kendra, Natalie, Michelle of us) and have a good time. We then headed to O’Malleys our favorite bar so far about 7 minutes away. (I went there Monday night too). I think our group half the time is taking up the whole place. haha. But we do have to be really careful though because someone from our group already got her phone, wallet and camera stolen.

Our pasta for Valentine's

Some of them eating in our room

Some of the group in O'Malley's night 1

Group of girls in O'Malley's night 1

Tom from our group (middle) playing some guitar

Matt and Zach

Caitlin, Brynna, Matt, Zach

Me, Jessica, Matt from NY

Speaking of phones, I don’t know if it’s just mine or what but now my row of 3,6,9 on my phone doesn’t work as of today. I have to go back to the place to get a new one (thank goodness it is within 6 days or else I would have to just buy a new one). Boo.
Gosh, I have so much to say. But Andres told us that normally skiing season is over before Spring Break…some of the big places will be open but not many. So that means that we need to go within the next month. The “problem” (meaning there is not really a problem since its ok…haha) is that we go to Munich next weekend, Vienna the next, the next one is open, then its spring break. Most of us really want to go to Italy and Greece so that is probably where we’ll be headed. SO anyways, we need to go skiing like this weekend. We are going to Augustinerbräu Kloster Mülln (I think that’s how you spell it – a place where monks brew their own beer – its basically awesome) tonight, so we would have to leave early tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes and check back to see what I’m doing. AHH this is so great!

Snow and ice by the river

Snow on Caitlin's glove!

Cloudy/snowy day in Salzburg