I'm alive, etc

Florence and Barcelona were amazing (Milan less so, but still good), classes have started, classes are amazing... I'm cooking my roommates yellow curry tonight... and tomorrow we're going to MQ Vienna Fashion Week (Thai designers! Yes, I themed the meal).

I haven't done any homework yet... but I promise I'll get to that tonight. There's a cafe nearby that plays nothing but bad American music from the 70s and 80s and has terrible upholstery on the booth covers. I think I'm in love with it. So hopefully I'll go there tonight and get some work done.

View from the top of the Duomo in Florence, Italy!

Um...

I haven't posted about my second or third weeks yet and it's already time for our nine-day break... What happened?!

At any rate, I'm going tonight on an overnight train to Florence, where we'll spend a few days (I'm traveling with my flight buddy, Kim), then to Milan for a day and a flight to Barcelona, where we'll meet up with some other IES students for the last four days! And hopefully go to the BEACH.

Update: I'm not taking any computers on the trip with me... but I'll try to be in touch here and there if possible.

Just a quick update...

Kim (my flight buddy) and I went wandering through the inner city with some other IES students a few days ago, and, being the ones with cameras, we were a little bit slow and distracted and ended up wandering off and getting lost. We found a place called (get this) "The Choco Bar", however, that had a special: prosecco with lemon gelato and a champagne truffle.

We split it. 

I love Vienna.

Wir sind Wien!

Today was great. The weather warmed up, the sun shone, I wandered around the inner city eating chocolate... at any rate, there was a group of people in front of the Stephansdom (St. Steven's Cathedral) holding these signs, with a photographer with a tripod in front of them, and when he asked them to jump... I snapped this photo!

I'm guessing it's for the tourism board, or some business, or... I actually have no idea. But "Wir sind Wien" means "We are Vienna", so... it's clearly something close to home. :) It made me smile.

First Week

Oh my god, where do I even start. 

This banana approves of Liechtensteinstrasse.

The view over Wien

See! I'm actually there! Not lying!

IES organized a bus tour for us on Saturday that took us around the city and up into the mountains to look out over Vienna. It was cold, but beautiful. The city is large, but completely surrounded by forest. Very strange. No suburban sprawl.

 But it was so cold! Not bringing a coat was a mistake. I need to buy one soon. It feels like it's going to start snowing tomorrow (though it's actually only around 60 F; me thinking that it feels like freezing is probably still due to being adapted to living in a stuffy 100 F apartment all summer).

The front of the pilgrimage basilica in Mariazell

das ist alles