The first two weeks

So I know it has been a while but there has been a lot going on here in Vienna. Rather than bore you all with a long, tedious, repetitive post about my day to day activities, I will highlight 4 events out of the last 2 weeks. By the way, if you asked me how long I have been in Vienna I would probably say twice that. It is going by so quickly! Especially when compared to Cairo. I kind of want it to slow down, but at the same time I am really excited for the 9 day tour as well as getting to see my parents and Katie later on in the month.

I will cover the events in chronological order, and the first event is the Football game between Rapid Wien (one of the Viennese soccer teams) and Aston Villa. This was a match to see if we could make it into the group phase of a tournament. The teams had already played once in Vienna and tied so we needed to win this game or tie by scoring more than one goal to have overtime. We watched the game with one of the student associates of IES, Tobi, who is huge fan of football. He brought us to a bar he know and we watched with about 15 IES people and 10 Austrians. It was a very cozy room filled with smoke and cheers. One thing that I have not gotten used to and probably never will is the amount at which people smoke here. Austria is a little behind the US to say the least. The smoke did not deter us from going absolutely insane afrter each goal and Vienna ended up winning 3-2! It was an incredible game as two of our goals came in the 78^th and 81^st minutes. We also learned a cheer, “Wir sind Rapid und wer seit ihr?” It translate to: WE ARE RAPID AND WHO ARE YOU?? I think the following pictures do a good job of summing up our emotions.

Precious

More precious right after we won

Us with Roger

Cheering after a goal, Tobi is the one in the green shirt. This picture is also eerily similar to a picture of my Mom

The next event I went to was a free showing of Don Giovanni at the Rathaus. Rathaus is German for city hall by the way. Every summer from early August to late September Vienna puts a huge screen in front of their City Hall and shows operas put on by orchestras around the world. Don Giovanni was done by the Norwegian National Orchestra and was very well done. I decided I had to see at least part of it since we studied it in my Humanities at Davidson. A quick fun fact someone told me: The city of Vienna spends more money on the arts then the entire United States. Not sure exactly what is included in that figure, but it is impressive nonetheless. The only problem with the showing was that it was freezing outside. I told myself I had to wait until I saw the scene we studied in class. Luckily it came in the first hour and after I watched it, I decided to head home.

From where I was sitting

Lots of shops around for the film festival

The third event happened this past Thursday and it was Schnitzel Tag! Vienna is famous for its Schnitzel as I am sure many of you are well aware. Over orientation, I answered a trivia question correctly and won a date with the student associates and free Schnitzel. Naturally, Jack joined us. It was a nice dinner (even better since it was free) and afterwards we headed to ice cream. The ice cream stand we went to was AMAZING!! (I am aware that last sentence read in a kind of girly way haha, but the ice cream really was good) I love ice cream, especially the softer kind and after eating at Eis am Schwedenplatz I decided I will be going back many times over the next couple of weeks for desert. Once we finished our ice cream we all went our separate ways and Jack and I decided to check out the city bike system. Basically, Vienna has stands of bikes all over the city that you can rent. The first time you sign up you pay 1 euro. From then on, every first hour you use a bike it is free. It gets more expensive after that and really expensive if you break the bike but the system is completely worth it if you want to get home. So Jack and I biked halfway around the Ringstraße (the street is where the old city wall used to be before they tore it down) and then hopped on the UBahn home. Biking through the streets of Vienna was a great way to end our Schnitzel Tag.

Outside of the restaurant with Katya and Kyle

Figuring out City Bikes

The last event I will highlight actually happened last night and it was the 24 hour U Bahn party. Viennese citizens have been arguing to have the UBahn run for 24 hours for a long time apparently and last night was the first night it happened. Naturally, there was a huge party and all of the clubs around Vienna opened their doors for free. Jack, David (one of our good friends here and roommate) and I made a pact that we would make it till 5 in the morning in celebration of this glorious event. We were successful and it was well worth it as many things occurred last night that will make for some good stories. I will leave it at that.

In a Bar with Ashley

MY MAN!

The club in the basement of the Leopold Museum

Hard to stay up till 5 without being a little tired

Overall, it has been a great first two weeks in Vienna. Already it has been a great experience and I am even more excited for when we can find some more places that are off the beaten trail. I keep telling people that we are officially Viennese since we turned in our residence forms and so we cant keep going to the tourist locations. We are getting better though and are slowly beginning to not roam in groups of 25 IES students.