Winter is Here

Its quickly turning to winter here which I really regret. Fall is so beautiful! 

The mountains turn orange with fire 

and the leaves twirl and sway as the dance to the earth. 

The colors are warm and inviting, yet still ablaze with passion.

But as these leaves slowly cover the earth with their golden blanket, 

the trees begin to shiver from their bareness. 

The clouds turn more gray, and the wind more harsh. 

First its rain, 

then its snow, 

and winter is here.

An Update

When I was in Vienna at the end of September my camera broke :( So I won't have that many pictures to upload on here until I buy a new one, which might not be for a while. All my friends have been taking pictures on our trips for me though and tagging me on facebook.
Since I've last blogged I've gone on quite a few major trips: Vienna, Oktoberfest, Fussen Germany, Slovenia, and France. Everything's just been moving so fast and been so exciting; it seems as if I never have time to blog! But here's a recap of some of those trips:

Baguettes and the Eiffel Tower

           I just got back from a week in France. This was a trip everybody in my program goes to—our fall tour. So we took a bus the whole way and our art teacher, Frau Loos, accompanied us as well. It’s great because we got to so many museums and stay at hotels that I’d never go to if I had to pay myself lol! On the way to Paris we stopped in Ulm and Metz. In Ulm we toured their cathedral which was really beautiful. It’s my favorite gothic cathedral we’ve visited so far and trust me we see a ton of them lol! In Metz we toured Champagne Cellar Taittinger. This is in the Champagne region of France which is the only place that is actually allowed to call their sparkling wine Champagne. They have a ton of rules too about the process, like grapes have to be hand picked. It was cool touring the cellar because it has so much history: It was dug first by the Romans for chalk the used for their buildings, then later in 13^th cent. it was used as a prayer room and wine cellar for catholic monks, then in WWI it was used as a bomb shelter and hospital, and now it’s a wine cellar again. In one place you could see carvings from all these people and time of history on the walls!
            In Paris we had a full schedule. We visited Fontainebleau: a castle and hunting villa went to mass in Notre Dame, saw the Gates of hell at Musée Rodin, toured Versailles, wandered through the Louvre, looked at paintings in Musée d’Orsay, and walked through Sainte-Chapelle. And this was just our schedule group tours! In the evenings we were free to wander wherever we wanted, so the first night we went to see the Eiffel tower. I know it’s such a stereotypical thing, when you think France you think Eiffel tower, but it was really gorgeous. It made me realize that I’m actually here—I’m in Europe! Other nights we shopped, walked around the city, and watched the people. The city was the best at night—it cam alive with culture and people. On the last night, I had an actual French meal of escargot, lamb chops, and a baked apple dessert. It was delicious! On other nights we usually just brought picnic food (stuff we stole from breakfast and baguettes ha) and just found pretty spots to eat, like under the Eiffel tower or over looking the city from the Sacre Coeur cathedral. This was probably one of my favorite trips thus far :)

Our first night seeing the Eiffel Tower :)

Slovenia Sun

Slovenia was a last minute trip. 5 other girls and I wanted to go to Switzerland but it was pretty expensive, so we just bought tickets to Ljubljana two days before we left instead ha. I wasn’t sure about the place when we first arrived. It was 6am and everything was dark and looked pretty dirty, but the next day we took a tour around the old part of the city and I fell in love with it. There was just something about the feeling and culture of the place. Every local we met was proud to be there and everyone hung out outside—at night the streets and parks became filled with people talking and mingling. Our hostel was great as well. It was really small and cosy. We met quite a lot of other travelers there and went on a few trips with two of them. I think that is my favorite part about hostels: everybody is in the same boat—everybody’s far away from home, curious about the world, and wanting to make friends with its inhabitants. The last day of our trip we took a bus to Lake Bled which is about an hour away. It’s a really touristy part of Slovenia, but really beautiful! We had a picnic by the lake and then rented a row boat for two hours! There’s an island in the middle of the lake so we rowed there and went swimming for a while then rowed back. It was probably one of the most refreshing and relaxing afternoons with the sound of the oars in the water and the sun beating down on us.

The view from the island

Oktoberfest and Cinderella

 My weekend trip to Oktoberfest and Fussen, Germany was an adventure. On Friday morning I caught a train with 4 other girls to Oktoberfest. It was crazy, on the ride there we met 5 other students (they were from all over: Salzburg, England, Spain, etc) but they all studied abroad in Flagstaff last year! They'd been to Kingman before which was really rare considering most people I met in Oregon didn't even know where Kingman was. I met one of the girls that lives in Salzburg for coffee last week. She studies at the University of Salzburg and is involved in a lot of stuff in the city which is nice because she updates me on local events ha. Oktoberfest was a lot better than I was expecting. I thought it was just all beer tents (since drinking is all you here about it in the States) but it was really a huge carnival. There were rides and cotton candy and kids and families all over. Of course there were huge beer tents and that’s were all the craziness happens ha. We had a blast, but that night two other friends (John and Bethany) and I caught a train to Fussen, Germany. We got there about 1 in the morning and didn’t have a hostel so we slept on a bench in a park ha! It was freezing and super uncomfortable but we made it fine. We would get up every few hours to walk around and try to warm up until finally at 6am a coffee shop opened (Nothing is open 24hrs in Europe). The next day we hiked to the Newschwanstein castle which is the castle Cinderella’s castle was based off of. It was in the Alps over looking 5 lakes and with a waterfall to its side. So beautiful! I think my favorite part was hiking around rather than the actual castle. We lucked out with beautiful weather and everything was just so peaceful. Bethany and John are really good to travel with just because we’re all pretty chill people. We don’t need plans and just kind of go with the flow of things.

John and I in front of the castle

Work Study and Apple Strudel

I am participating in the work study program while I'm here in Salzburg since I only have a student visa and a work visa is required if I worked anywhere else. There was 7 different job positions you could have here and us 9 student workers had to make a list of our top 3 choices. My first choice was to work with Frau Strobl, the cook, because she only speaks German so I would be forced to practice German ha. However, a lot of people, including my director, say she can be pretty mean and rude sometimes. I have to work with her for the first time today so I'm hoping that this is not true! When I met her this morning she seemed really nice and sweet, so we will see.

Last night we had a dinner with all the faculty from the UP center. In the  beginning, I was kind of dreading it, but it turned out to be a really interesting evening. At my table was the metaphysics teacher, Herr Zecha, and the theology teachers, Herr and Frau Aussmair (they're married). Herr Zecha and Sam (a very knowledgeable girl in my program) had some really interesting conversations about the differences between American and Austrian culture, including politics, that was super interesting to listen too. Herr Zecha also answered a lot of our questions about Austrian culture. Oh and I had my first Austrian apple strudel--very delicious. And a traditional Austrian drink call Almdudler. It's kind of like a sparkling apple juice.

Nightlife and Friends

Besides all these awesome planned adventures, we (the other students and I) have been exploring the city at night. It’s quite beautiful! We’ve been to a few fun bars, but there seems to be a major cultural difference from the US. People just got to the bars to drink and talk, they don’t (usually) get too rowdy. Even in the beer gardens there will be children and older people all there too. I feel like we have American stamped on our foreheads though. We tend to be a lot louder and there’s usually a lot more of us than any of the locals. Sometimes we get some disapproving looks, but other times, like last night, we meet really friendly people—the bathroom lady who locked us in, or the group Hannah successfully asked in German if they wanted to be our friends. I think a few us are going to start going in smaller groups together. So far all of us 40 students seem to be getting along really well, although it is the first week so if we weren’t I’d be worried. I thought maybe it would be a little awkward with my roommate, Nicole, since we didn’t really hangout much at school, but so far it has been super good. We just kind of fell into how we lived together last year even though we didn’t talk all summer. It hasn’t been awkward going out together either. I’ve pretty much hung out with all the different groups so far which I like cause I don’t want to just hang out with same people all the time. The people I’m most close with so far is Bethany and Issa. But anyways… so far so good.  

Salzburg at night.