Week 18: The Last Goodbye

No one can escape the fact that all good things must eventually come to an end.  People say the time flew by, that they can hardly believe it is over.  The time passed, but my time abroad honestly felt like a robust four and a half months.  Without the intense academic and student organization pressures from home, life moved a little more slowly in all honesty.  I had time to take in and absorb the moments, while keeping this blog helped me record many of them.  Of course, some weeks passed by rather quickly, but my time does not feel like a blur.  I believe wholeheartedly that I used my time, money, and resources well to make a collection of memories which will last a lifetime.  Saying goodbye to Austria was thus definitely not an easy task.

11 May

Monday was such a crazy day!  I woke up super early to get ready to go to my teaching internship for the last time and to put the final touches on my lesson for the day, which comprised of English sentences describing buildings on the Ringstrasse in Vienna.  I hurried over to school for the last time and taught my lesson on the Ringstrasse, which ended up being a dictation of the sentences to the students.  We had a lot of fun with the younger students in the second class, since I created a lesson on the spot about parties. We played pin the tail on the donkey and talked about different words used at parties.  It was definitely one of my highlight lessons of the semester, even though I planned it on the spot with Eva Maria's help!  We took a break afterwards and went into the courtyard, where the students played for awhile.  One of my favorite students, Carlos, approached me and asked me about a problem he faced.  He said that he wants to be an English teacher, but feels like he can't easily be one, since they do not earn much money.  He needs to find another job, so that he can support a wife and family when the time comes.  I suggested perhaps trying to find work that incorporates English, but I felt his pain, as I face the same challenge.  

In the final period of the morning, we had a farewell party with the older students.  I had baked them blueberry muffins and presented them to the students now, then expressed my appreciation for the semester.  The students did the same and one girl, Christina, even gave me muffins which she had baked herself!  I was totally surprised, since she often remained quiet in class and I had not interacted with her as much.  I guess you never really know the impact you leave on students.  I also said my final good-bye to Eva Maria, by giving her a special card and a chocolate bar.  She has left a deep mark upon my heart, by all she taught me about refugees and immigrants and educating them.  I will never forget the lessons I learned from her.

My students

Eva Maria and I

After finishing at school, I participated in a Kaffeestand (coffee stand) on the University of Vienna's campus for ÖSM.  We gave out free coffee to students passing by, along with information about upcoming events.  I enjoyed talking with a few of the students for the last time and then said my farewells to everyone.  I've greatly appreciated the spiritual encouragement of this student ministry and will remember the times with them for many years to come.

Freedom to soak in the joys of Vienna uninhibited stood on the horizon as I rode the public transportation back to IES to take my Managing Behavior in Organizations exam.  I frantically reviewed a few final notes on the way over and in the waiting room before my exam.  Fortunately, the test did not end up being quite so difficult as I thought and I was able to write solid essay answers to almost all the questions, only forgetting a few details.  Hopefully my second exam turned out as well as my midterm!  I walked out of the exam feeling like I had a load lifted off my shoulders.  My only responsibility left was my German exam on Friday, which I knew would be a piece of cake.  So I felt SO gloriously free!  Free to begin my responsibilities of cleaning up the apartment and preparing for my departure, that is (in reality).  Sadness.  But buying gifts for all my friends in Vienna and people back home ended up not really being all that sad, since preparing to give always puts joy in my heart.

12 May

I met with Amina quickly in the morning to give her the money for my final heating bill and to say good-bye.  I expressed my deep gratefulness for the opportunity she gave me to live in Vienna in one of their apartments and the way she so often helped me, whether with directions, printing, or recovering after forgetting my passport for a trip.  So thankful that she always remained there for me!  Amina was thankful to have me in the apartment as well and explained the whole situation with the heat, which helped me understand it much better.  I said farewell to her and then headed over to eat brunch with Katie at Café Demel, where I bought ridiculously priced hot chocolate.  Never again.  We then wandered over to the gorgeous main building of the University of Vienna, where she showed me her lecture hall with its horrifically uncomfortable, straight-backed wooden benches.  The outside of the building was pretty, though!

I met with Meral in the afternoon to talk about my apprehension in returning to IU to my old student organization positions, since I had not moved up farther after studying abroad.  She acknowledged the difficulty of the situation, but encouraged me to enter the situation with a prepared attitude.  I should ask myself how to turn these old positions into a new learning opportunity and to recognize the difficulties which I will overcome.  She also encouraged me to think of ways to continue excelling in the work involved in the positions and the way I can best benefit other students around me.  It helped to think through the challenges I will face and to voice the difficulties I feel internally, along with orienting my mind for a positive start next school year.

I worked on more personal things in the afternoon and ran over to Franziska's office later in the day to give her a chocolate bar from Switzerland as a parting gift.  Then I headed over to the Donau Canal, where I ran into Georg and Julia as we all headed to a Strandbar (makeshift beach bar along the Danube canal) to meet with Lisa and a friend of hers.  We met Lisa there and all enjoyed talking for awhile, until Georg and Julia had to take off to watch a soccer game with their friend Patrick.  They gave me a picture of us together as a parting gift and I hugged them good-bye.  I will definitely miss them, since I loved seeing them around our apartment and getting to know them better.  They were always so friendly - often inviting me to go out with them, telling me about Burgenland, and so many other things.  It was so kind of them to reach out to me and welcome me into their life here in Austria!  I stayed with Lisa at the bar for a couple more hours, just enjoying the fact that we could all easily carry a conversation on in German.  Hours like these remind me again and again why I love learning languages in the first place.

Georg, Julia, and I

13 May

A couple weeks before, I contacted my cousin Anna's aunt in Ulm who had wanted me to come for a visit.  She had primarily kept up the contact with my mom's family after it had been partially lost at some point in the 20th century, so visiting perhaps meant the most to her of all my distant relatives in Germany.  We had arranged a visit and I had bought my tickets to Ulm last week.  So I woke up at an unearthly hour and headed through the city to drive off by bus to Ulm.  I felt very unfortunate, because I had no free seat next to me during the entire 8 hour bus ride there (with a stop in-between in Munich).  I met an interesting guy on the stretch from Munich to Ulm, who is a semi-professional actor and recently worked on a film with Nicholas Cage.  He said Nicholas is very closed off in person, but he met some other famous person (I forget who) that is really quite friendly and open with his co-workers.  Interesting experience...I never met someone who worked with Nicholas Cage before!

When I arrived, I timidly walked off the bus, not exactly knowing the appearance of the person who would pick me up.  I looked around and finally the brother of Tante Leni (Anna's aunt), Jakob Klassen, spotted me.  The family later tried to ask me if I recognized him by familial appearance, but I can't exactly said I did.  Upon further reflection, I realized his striking blue eyes as the similar feature from my Oma's side.  Jakob is married to Rosa and they work together in a Tierforschung (animal research center) and live in an apartment in Neu-Ulm.  Ulm lies in Baden-Württemberg, while Neu Ulm lies across the Donau in Bavaria.  They took me back to their apartment, where Rosa stuffed me full of good food from Kazakhstan and then let me shower and nap.  We talked about their lives in Ulm and their 6 weeks of vacation per year, since they are on vacation from work right now!  We also talked about their love for fishing in the nearby lakes and for roasting and eating sunflower seeds.

After my nap, Jakob drove me over to the house of Johann, his youngest brother who has 6 children!   I met Tante Leni there and we celebrated the birthday of Johann's wife, Nellie, with a delicious barbecue and dessert.  Johann's other brother, Alfred, and his wife Ellie were also present at the celebration.  I talked with Johann's children (Christian, Richard, Jana, Ellen, Gabriel, Lisa) and Tante Leni quite a bit and then we spent quite a bit of time in the yard playing badminton and just talking with each other.  We gathered under the porch when it started to rain and shared stories about life with the family in Canada and in Germany, then later moved inside for a bit of tea and talking with boys after the others moved on to cleaning up and to bed.  What a lovely day!

14 May

I spent the night at Johann and Nellie's and woke up for a late, but delicious, breakfast of pretzels, bread, cheese, and spreads.  The pretzels were definitely some of the best I have eaten in Germany so far!  I gathered all my things together and Richard drove Jana, Ellen, Lisa, and I over to Tante Leni's house to start our day poking around Ulm.  We took a leisurely walk down to the old town through some fields and across the Donau, enjoying the beautiful blossoming trees along the way.  We stopped for smoothies partway into town and I got a delicious flavor called Meerjungfrau, which I think basically means "mermaid", but don't quote me on that.  It just had a bunch of really delicious berries in it.  We slowly ate our smoothies and meandered over to the Ulmer Münster, which is actually the highest church tower in the world!  Jana, Ellen, Lisa, and I decided to climb the tower using a sharply winding set of steps in a very narrow tower.  As always, this cathedral did not fail to amaze me with its intricacy.  Climbing it made me truly experience its intricacy and beauty, especially when we stopped in a small room above the bells and saw several pictures of the most famous cathedrals around Europe.  We finally made it to the top and then Ellen, Lisa, and I climbed a staircase to the very tip of the cathedral tower, from which we could look out on a balcony over the giant valley.  We made our way back down after absorbing the breathtaking views and all we could say at the bottom of the tower was, "Meine Beine zittern!" (My legs are shaking!).  Lisa counted and we estimated that there are approximately 620 steps to the top of the tower!  We wandered around a bit inside the beautiful cathedral with Tante Leni and I was particularly struck with the many old medieval paintings still clearly visible on the walls.  I reassured Tante Leni that this visit to the cathedral really made my visit worthwhile, when she asked me if I had any doubts!

Ellen, Leni, Lisa, and I

View from the cathedral tower

Medieval artwork

Fishermen's quarter

We grabbed a small bite to eat and contained wandering around Ulm into the Fishermen's Quarter, which is a beautiful little area of the town which reminded me of Venice.  Little canals weave in and around the quaint houses, built in the old Fachwerk style.  One house had these funny bowed and crooked walls and was aptly named the "Crooked House" in German!  Tante Leni bought us ice cream on the way back to her house and Lisa just barely made it back - that poor little girl was so very tired after our long hike up the church tower and back!  We talked a little more at Tante Leni's apartment and then Nellie came to pick her girls up.  I took a rest, since I felt rather tired still.  Leni made some supper for me later and we talked about her experiences growing up in Kazakhstan, as she flipped through an old photo album with me which she had brought along in her suitcase to Germany.  I found it fascinating to see that all the pictures in Kazakhstan were taken in black-and-white, even through the 1990s, and that the Germany pictures suddenly were taken in color.  What an incredible representation of the change in their lives between these times!  Leni explained the difficulties to me once again and about the many years it took to become re-established in Germany, after leaving behind their money and careers in Kazakhstan.  I greatly appreciated hearing the stories from her and experiencing the love she showed me, despite the significant distance in our familial relationship.  Jakob and his wife Rosa drove me over to the train station, where I freaked out because I thought I forgot my train ticket.  I checked again and I actually had it with me, so we had time for final good-byes and a couple pictures.  Jakob and Rosa actually brought me a bag of sunflower seeds and a magnet of Ulm as a good-bye present!  They were so sweet!  I hugged everyone and headed off on the train.  I studied for my German final the next day and pondered on my gratefulness for spending the time in Ulm with these lovely relatives.  The trip was a whirlwind, but totally worth it!

Rosa, Jakob, and I

Rosa, Leni, and I

15 May

I headed over to IES in the morning to write my German final, not really feeling like I had prepared sufficiently for the test.  I ended up having studied well and wrote the test without significant difficulty, then took a couple pictures with my German teachers and gave them their thank-you cards.  I will miss Frau Schachermeier and Frau Sernett so much - they taught me loads about German language and grammar and Austrian culture!  I truly feel like I have a much deeper grasp of the language and culture through their teaching, especially more nuanced areas in language.  They will definitely receive visits from me on my next trip to Austria!

Frau Schachermeier and I

Frau Sernett and I

I met up with Lisa and Max for one last time and we had lunch at a yummy Italian place, Vapiano's, where I got a mushroom risotto that I could hardly finish!  My love for mushrooms is really quite a problem.  Lisa and I talked quite a bit in line and we both noticed that the cook for pasta looked oddly like her brother, Georg.  Then we made the creepy realization that his name was Georg!  We got our food and sat down at a table, but I found it a little hard to talk during the meal because an awkward large lamp separated us in the middle of the table.  We talked more on the way home and I learned that Lisa and Max will likely work for the post in the summer and now Lisa needs to finish up writing her Bachelorarbeit (bachelor's degree thesis), while Max plans to write his admissions test for medical school soon.  I bet they are going to be incredibly successful scientific professionals when they start their careers!  I found it hard to say farewell to Lisa, since she answered so many of my questions while here and helped me through difficult times with the apartment situation.  She showed me real friendship and kindness, reaching across cultural barriers to help make my time in Austria a pleasant one.  I will hopefully see them in San Francisco in September, but I still need to order my tickets.

Max, Lisa, and I (w/ random man in background)

I spent the rest of Friday sadly packing up my room and cleaning the apartment.  I promised myself I would get lots of sleep that night and be well-rested for my travel on Saturday, but of course, that didn't happen.  I stayed up late in the night getting everything all sorted and squeezed into my suitcase for the journey home.

16 May

I woke up early on Saturday morning to meet Katie for breakfast at Café Himmelblau, where we talked about my going home and her plans with friends over the next few weeks.  She had three dear friends coming from England to visit and greatly looked forward to spending much time with them for an entire week!  I didn't exactly feel sad to be leaving Austria, but more numb.  I would miss everyone here, but I also felt stressed out about arrangements back home for my senior year and wanted to return to sort through them.  We enjoyed our breakfast, except for the fact that I completely swiped our glasses off the table while standing up to pay my check.  The loud bang caught the attention of everyone in the restaurant, but the waiter graciously cleaned up the mess.  I must have been a basket of nerves inside, but Katie and I eventually got out of the restaurant and hugged each other good-bye.  I thanked her for her friendship and headed back to my apartment to pick up my suitcases to travel through the city all the way down to the airport.

A mix of feelings wafted through me as I headed towards the airport and traveled home.  I didn't really cry uncontrollably, but I think I had been a bit sick and upset inside the past few days over the prospect of leaving Vienna, a city which I truly came to love.  As a study abroad student, you put yourself so fully into your life for 4.5 months with full knowledge of the end, which makes you take advantage of every moment.  You have to live without thinking about the end, then everything stops.  Perhaps that it was permeated my thoughts - everything stopped so abruptly.  I knew this inevitable moment would one day arrive and frankly, it felt sad.

Fortunately, I had no travel mishaps to cry over during the day, except for the fact that I stupidly put my toiletries in my carry on and had to turn them over to the authorities.  My main suitcase was not even overweight, which I definitely thought would happen.  I boarded my flight to Munich on time, made my connection in time, and then headed to Chicago on a 9-hour flight.  I watched several movies, including one called Honig im Kopf (Honey in the Head).  The film tells the story of a family who takes in their grandfather with Alzheimer's and cares for him.  They struggle to treat him properly, so the 11-year old daughter takes her grandfather on a trip to Venice to give him a new purpose.  I think my tears over remembering my own grandma's struggle with Alzheimer's and my sadness to leave Austria came out of the floodgates, since I bawled my way through half the movie.  The lady sitting next to me on the plane probably thought I have psychological issues.

Well, the plane didn't crash and wasn't hijacked, so I arrived safely in Chicago.  My baggage arrived safely and I talked to a few students from the Dominican Republic, while waiting for my bus to South Bend to arrive.  Apparently I can still speak basic Spanish and remember a lot of obscure words, but struggle to put them into coherent thoughts.  Good to know.  Even better was seeing my parents and catching up with them over the weekend, before heading off to Chicago on Tuesday for my internship with Siemens.  This officially meant the semester finally came to a close, after exceeding my expectations in many ways.  God brought everything together with classes, housing, finances, and community incredibly!  As I face this unknown future, why should I doubt His greatness and goodness?

Week 17: The End Approaches

Life had begun to settle down a little bit during the past couple weeks and I found myself getting into a regular routine again after traveling for a significant portion of the time between approximately March 20 and April 20.  This week changed that routine as the intensity of my schoolwork began to increase towards the end of the semester, in addition to the events and time spent related to saying good-bye to friends. 

4 May

The church lunch on Sunday ended up lasting significantly longer than I originally expected and I spent time working on finances and other personal responsibilities later on Sunday.  This meant that I needed to use my Monday morning to finish up writing my Seminararbeit (semester paper) for my teaching internship.  I really appreciate the challenge of writing German papers, which is why I plan to write a German honors thesis during my senior year.  Nevertheless, I often face difficulty finding my concentration and end up feeling like writing German papers makes me want to pull out my teeth.  I discovered that the time of day during which I write significantly changes the quality of my work and my ability to concentrate, so first thing in the morning is truly the best time for me to work on my German papers.

I fortunately finished the draft of my 9-page Seminararbeit before heading off to my last Managing Behavior in Organizations class.  I made sure to pay careful attention to the teacher's oral review for the class, since he refused to send out a list of review topics via e-mail before the midterm.  What a joy to approach the end of this class!  Afterwards, we headed over to Heidi's classroom to fill out an evaluation of our teaching internship and say good-bye to her.  I'm so thankful for the instruction she gave us this semester and the way she arranged our internship.  It has truly been a life-changing experience!  

5 May

Today in Viennese Theater class we talked all about Sommernachtstraum (A Midsummer Night's Dream).  Dr. Haika surprised us by telling us that the actor who plays Puck in this performance is actually an 80-year old woman!  We were completely shocked at this fact!  Puck had a rather high voice in the play, but I certainly did not guess this about the actress.

After class, I ran down to Spar (a European grocery chain) to grab a bag of snack mix which cost 69 Euro cent in order to satiate my hunger.  I then headed back to IES to force myself to study for my final in Cultural History of Austria the next day.  Fortunately I ran into a group of students who planned to study for it.  We all divided up the themes which our teacher gave us to study and then taught them to each other after reviewing our individual themes.  That definitely helped a lot for reviewing for the final!  I went home later and reviewed some more, in order to make sure I solidified all the material in my brain.

6 May

I headed over to IES to write my final for Cultural History of Austria and found that I had prepared sufficiently for the exam.  A few things ran out of my head, but I think I gathered enough information to write substantial answers to the essay questions which I chose on the exam.  The window of our classroom was open to the courtyard and we could very clearly hear the music students practicing on the other side of the building.  I found this quite distracting and appreciated that Frau Schachermeier let me take my exam in a different classroom, so I could fully concentrate. I took way longer on the first essay question of the exam than I should have due to my distractions, but I ended up finishing the answers to all the required questions in time.  Thank goodness Schachermeier gave us a little extra time at the end.  I turned in my exam and headed out to buy a few things, before heading back home.  I then zipped home and worked like crazy on making blueberry muffins as a goodbye treat for Laurenz, along with ordering my tickets for my trip to Ulm the next week.

I went to pick up Laurenz from school for the last time and we walked back to my apartment, where I finished up reading a section of a book with him on knights and castles.  I really enjoyed reading this book with him at the end, since he had begun to develop strong reading comprehension and could understand the slightly more complicated storyline.  I said good-bye to Laurenz and talked to Amina for a bit, when she dropped by to tell me news about our heat bill.  We had an issue with the heat at the end of my stay, since the bill went up majorly due to the presence of a third person in the house.  After clarifying the situation, Laurenz left with her and I relished in the wonderful free time I had for the rest of the day!

7 May

Thursday ended up being crazy busy with classes and meetings.  I needed to complete many responsibilities and thought about not going to an IES presentation between my classes to discuss reverse culture shock.  I decided to go anyways, since I had begun to think and feel a lot of things towards my departure.  I felt stress about wanting to return home to deal with the mess which my senior year had become, but I also did not want to leave Austria so quickly.  I am definitely glad I went, because the meeting helped equip me for the situation I would face upon arriving home.  Meral, the IES Health Coordinator, talked to us about how we will go through a process upon coming home.  We might at first really want to arrive home and feel euphoric, but then memories of Austria will slowly come back to us.  We might feel strange in many of our friendships and suddenly see great gulfs between formerly close friends and ourselves.  And perhaps the most valuable piece of advice: only a few people will truly care about your time abroad, the rest will only want to hear a canned answer or lose interest quickly.  Stay connected to friends made while studying abroad or in your host country.  Stay connected to this foreign country and culture back in your home country as much as possible.  Regardless of what happens, you will have forever changed...so true.

In our Viennese Theater class, we finished practicing our theater piece for the last time.  I was sad to see the class end, but I also looked forward to the end of my classes and freedom to immerse myself fully in absorbing the experiences with friends in my last days there.  Our performance went well and I stuck around to hear the music and opera pieces from a few IES students.  While waiting there, I realized deeply the rift between the other IES students and myself.  I did not feel sorry for the rift, but the recognition rippled through me that my experience in Austria turned out completely different than theirs.  Many of them hardly knew any Austrians and spent a significant amount of time in the IES Center.  They likely traveled more, went to bars more, and saw more museums than I did.  I am happy for the balance which I chose - seeking to immerse myself more fully in the community through living with Austrians and being involved in an internship, church, and a student organization.  But I would not trade my travels for the world either.

I slipped out partway through the conference in order to go to Bible study and cherished my last time there with the group of people from church who I got to know well through this opportunity.  Thankful for good parting reflections on the book of John with them.

Bible Study at Nate & Bethany's (they're on the left)

 8 May

I woke up bright and early for my final Gebetsfrühstück (prayer breakfast) with students from ÖSM, which I enjoyed as usual.  We prayed for the upcoming events happening for ÖSM and different personal challenges for each of us - upcoming tests, employment, upcoming trips, etc.  For breakfast we had one of the BEST conversations with Europeans I ever experienced!  We somehow managed to wander to the topic of cheese, which puts an American in a rather bad position when she is surrounded by Swiss and Austrians.  The Austrians argued over the horribleness of blue cheese and their personal preferences for or against it.  Meanwhile the Swiss student, Robin, told us all about how the Swiss forget to patent "Swiss cheese", meaning that all manner of it exists around the world without the actual quality of true cheese from Switzerland.  Ellie told us that her mom or grandma used to identify the quality of a cheese by its smell.  And I horrified them all with my tales of spray cheese and Velveeta from America.  We died laughing and had such a wonderful morning!

Students from ÖSM (excuse the low picture quality)

I eventually needed to head off and went to go review my Seminararbeit, on which a friend of mine from church graciously made corrections for the final draft.  The corrections fortunately went more quickly than I expected, giving me time to work on a couple personal things before heading over to meet up with my language buddy, Franziska, for the final time.  Franziska gave me a wonderfully thorough tour of the literature museum at which works, which actually happens to lie directly across the street from the IES Center in Vienna. She showed me all about the beginnings of Viennese literature in the 1700s and the prose which emerged during the 1800s, highly characterized by strong satire.  Viennese coffee house literature emerged later in the 1800s and lasted through the beginning of World War II, but then began to die out.  Newer Viennese authors focus on bending shape and sound to create new impressions.  I found it fascinating to see these all put together in one museum and also finally to see the result of Franziska's work over the past few months.  She was primarily responsible for putting together many of the individual exhibits in the museum.

After our tour, we went out for Wiener Schnitzel!  I realized at Bible Study on Thursday that I had completely forgotten to try Wiener Schnitzel in my entire time in Vienna!  It was as delicious as expected, especially with the traditional potato salad and cranberries alongside.  Franziska and I talked more about her work with refugees and I told her how much I appreciated getting exposed to her care, concern, and work with them through her poetry translation group.  In the museum she pointed out to me that the identity of one of the men I met at her party had been one of the leaders of a protest in the Votivkirche, which had peacefully expressed the needs of the refugees waiting for official asylum in Austria.  She explained the condition of many waiting here and also the story behind the Schutzebefohlenen, a play by Elfrida Jelinek which I saw in the Burgtheater.  Her group works to present the play with actual refugees, rather than only using European actors like the Burgtheater.  Although I did not spend many times with Franziska, I am incredibly grateful for her friendship.  She has truly impacted my life by helping me understand more deeply the Middle Easterners seeking asylum in Vienna and teaching me about the literature culture here.

Traditional Wiener Schnitzel!!

I wrapped up the evening by attending a housewarming party at the apartment of Julia, Georg's girlfriend, and her sister Lisa.  I had a fun time getting to know their friends from Burgenland, which helped me understand their life there better.

Julia and I at the party

9-10 May

I rushed over to IES on Saturday morning after waking up late due to the party the night before.  I proofed and printed my paper for my teaching internship and turned it in on time, after making a makeshift cover page which I had totally forgotten beforehand.  Thank goodness other students were there to remind me of that requirement!  I then ran a couple errands before heading home and working on a few personal projects and schoolwork for the afternoon.  I went to a concert in the evening put on by my church and a couple other spiritual institutions in town.  The orchestra who played came from All Souls' Church in London, Katie's church.  The concert sounded beautiful in the concert hall where the Vienna Boys' Choir actually performs!  It was a mixture of classical, contemporary, and Christian music with explanations before many songs which helped me understand the music more deeply.

I went to church for the last time in Austria on Sunday and appreciated the message, which left me understanding again my identity in Christ which never fails and the question in my mind: do I see myself the same way in which God sees me?  I said good-bye to many people, thanking them for their friendship and involvement in my life during the past few months.  I greatly appreciated my time at this church and will definitely miss it, as it has often reminded me of my need to turn continually to my identity in Christ.  Katie and I went with a couple international students after church to get street food and to eat lunch on the lawns of Schönbrunn Palace - a truly beautiful close to Sunday and a good start to my final week in Austria.  I worked on studying (rather distractedly) for my Managing Behavior in Organizations final the next day and preparing the lesson for my final teaching internship session.

Week 16: Soaking in Austria

As the weeks pass seemingly quicker by, I become more aware that I will leave Austria soon.  These final days are an emotional up-and-down and full of busyness between finishing up final projects here and working on arrangements back home for next school year.

27 April

I feel so free without my internship commitment on Monday mornings!  I appreciated having the extra time to catch up on a few bits of school which I could not manage to finish over the weekend. The rest of the day ended up being quite busy with classes and then a play in the evening for my Viennese Theater class.  Today we had our last teaching internship class with Heidi and she raised all of our emotions a little bit with her sentimentalism about everything we experienced in Austria so far. Our teaching internships have truly been a unique opportunity, as we received the chance to go straight into Austrian schools and help out with classes.  We will always treasure this time abroad in our hearts and need to figure out ways to stay connected with it, since it has forever changed us.  In the evening I attended a performance of Die Schutzbefohlenen, a play by Nobel prize winning Austrian author, Elfrida Jelinek.  The plot of the play focuses on refugees in Austria, a topic which has been near and dear to my heart in Austria due to the many refugee and immigrant students in the classes at my internship.  Very powerful to see real life portrayed on the stage.  However, I noticed that all the actors portraying the refugees came from Austria - interesting twist that people from the refugees' native countries were not included.  Honestly, I find this quite offensive on the part of the Burgtheater.

 28 April

Different feelings tugged at my heart as I began to approach the end of classes and assignments due at the semester's end.  On the one hand, I wanted to savor the end of my learning experiences, but I also wanted to simply finish them so I could remain free to spend time with people during my last days in Austria.  I spent time in my regular Tuesday classes and we talked about Die Schutzbefohlenen in my
Viennese Theater class.  I appreciated Dr. Haika's reflections on the play, which helped me understand the symbolism of the costumes and the set of the play.  The actors wore these masks made of plastic bags at the beginning and end of the play, which he pointed out as representing the water-logged faces of people who have drowned.  The refugees in the play had survived, but their voices represented the many refugees who succumbed to the sea on their flight.  This symbol will resonate with me for a long time to come.

In the evening I headed home to finish working on my Seminararbeit (semester paper), which was due for Cultural History of Austria the next day.  We only needed to write 4 pages, but I ended up writing 5 pages due to my inability to write concisely (as you, my most faithful readers, have come to learn from this blog!).  I reviewed and edited everything in the evening, so that I could turn it in to Frau Schachermeier in the morning.

29 April

I woke up at an unearthly hour to go to Gebetsfrühstück (prayer breakfast) for ÖSM, which happened to be at the same place as a different time and I found it super easy to find!  I appreciate these times in prayer with the students, as we focus on God in the morning and lift many in Austria up to Him in prayer.  I still find praying in German very challenging, since the language is often different than everyday speech.  But every time to practice helps!

At 9:00 am, we met at IES for a tour called "Hitler in Vienna" for my last Cultural History of Austria class.  A friend of Frau Schachermeier's took us on a nearly 2.5 hour tour of Vienna, showing us several important spots which played an influential role in Hitler's life.  She gave us so many details about his life, including many stories which I had never heard before.  For instance, we stopped by the Wiener Staatsoper (Vienna State Opera), where Hitler always went to the performances of Wagner's operas.  Later we dropped in at Die Akademie der bildenden Kunst (Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna), where Hitler was rejected and thus failed to fulfill his dream to become an artist.  I found it quite eerie to stand outside the apartment building where Hitler once lived, especially since it actually looked quite similar in the 1930s, according to our tour guide.  He often would go down the street to pick up food from a soup kitchen, because he was so poor.  I find it unbelievable that he arose from his homeless state to his horrific political reign in Germany.  It saddens me that much of the Aryan views upon which he acted during his reign actually arose during his time here in Vienna, because of the anti-Semitic cultural and philosophical influences of the time.

After the end of the tour, I dropped by a sausage shop on the way home to pick up salami for lunch sandwiches and had a rather strange encounter with a Viennese man, along with realizing my disgust for certain types of sausages.  The man in the store asked me a question and we started talking about the store, which he apparently regularly visits for his salami.  He recommended the house salami to me, which ended up being quite good as I discovered later.  He simply would not stop talking to me about different types of food and recipes, which I found quite odd coming from an Austrian, since Austrians normally avoid excessive small talk with strangers.  As I looked around the store, I noticed the many different types of unappealing meat available, such as Presswurst and Leberkäse.  Presswurst is a sausage which contains large chunks of well, uh, I´m not really sure what.  Leberkäse is this loaf of processed meat, often filled with melting cheese (Käseleberkäse) or little chunks of vegetables (Pikantwurst).  I used to think I loved sausage, but this level of processing, smooshing, and unknown meat bits simply proves too much for me.  Here are pictures for your reference:

Käseleberkäse

Presswurst

My experience with strange food and overly friendly Austrians actually repeated itself in the evening when I found myself on the way over to Bible study after tutoring and running in the afternoon.  I stopped to grab a quick snack and some clementines to contribute to Bible study snacks.  In typical Austrian fashion, only a couple stores remained open at around 7 pm in the evening.  I managed to snag a couple things from a fruit shop before getting back onto the Schnellbahn (fast train).  Part of my snack was a small, hard sweet roll with a filling of poppy seeds.  Poppy seeds are very popular with Austria and are often mixed with sugar to create a paste that fills the inside of many pastries.  Until now, I had not tasted any poppy seed filled pastries, but I realized that I prefer not eat them.  The poppy seed filling tasted extremely potent and overwhelming, making it hard to finish the small, dense pastry.

I enjoyed my time in Bible study, especially as we talked about communication styles.  I found it hilarious as an American to hear all these Austrian girls talk about how ridiculously indirectly Austrians prefer to communicate!  I also learned a fun new idiom: durch die Blumen zu reden (literally: to talk through the flowers).  That's basically used to express a feigned attitude of politeness in your speech, when you actually mean something completely different.

The Austrian I met on the way home from Bible study certainly did not feign an attitude of politeness, but rather started talking to me quite animatedly on the Schnellbahn.  Some children were playing a funny game in seats near us and I laughed a little, smiling at the older man across from me.  He then proceeded to launch into a conversation with me about sports, telling me that he was the only man in his yoga class.  He told me a couple very silly jokes and didn't fail to include the details of his consulting business in our conversation either.  At the end he gave me his number before I stepped off the train.  I looked back a little to make sure he wasn't following me - so odd to be told jokes on a train by a 60-something Austrian man!

30 April

Thursday passed by rather quickly, as I continued to chip away at upcoming papers and school assignments.  Our Viennese Theater class put together an end of semester play based on lines taken from a play by Thomas Bernhard.  We avidly practiced this in class today, making sure all necessary lines were properly translated into Wienerisch (Viennese dialect).  Needless to say, Dr. Haika, the native Viennese, has done all the "translating" for us!  I continued to work on school in the afternoon and then went to our final performance of the semester for Viennese Theater.  This time we saw Sommernachtstraum (Midsummer Night's Dream) in the Volkstheater (People's Theater).  I absolutely fell in love with the stage set of this play.  I can hardly even describe the intricacies of the red and gold stage.  My favorite part was probably these little stage boxes on either side of the stage which the actors used as part of the set.  The second story stage boxes contained musicians for the play, while the actors actually entered and exited sometimes from the alcoves directly beneath.  Besides the super fascinating play set, I found myself getting incredibly stressed during the play due to my worries about work and living arrangements for next school year.  I eagerly went home after the play and sent in my application for a position within IUSA, in the hopes of securing a directorship for next year.

1 May

Today was May Day in Vienna and is actually celebrated as a holiday, so that students and employees can rest from school and work.  Several students from ÖSM had planned a bike tour to a nearby park surrounding an old summer home of the Hapsburg family, called Schloss Laxenburg.  I borrowed a bike from a girl at church and headed down to the end of the U6 metro line to meet everyone else for our bike trip.  The weather decided to stay beautiful all day, which meant we could ride our bikes under the glorious Austrian sun through the sprawling golden fields.  Werner led us on our way through the countryside and out into the quaint little town of Laxenburg.  I enjoyed my conversation with the other students in the group and one new person, an Iranian studying at a university in Vienna.  Once we arrived at the park, we locked up our bikes and wandered around to a car show with old Mercedes parked right inside the gates.  We enjoyed seeing all the beautiful old cars and one girl, Ellie, wanted to honk the horn very badly of the beautiful red and white Mercedes in the picture below!  The forest paths and gardens created a fairytale atmosphere and we stopped by a beautiful pond surrounding a castle to picnic.  I loved sitting there in the sunshine eating our food and talking for hours.  The best part was sitting there and feeling like I could understand almost everything happening in the conversation, from jokes to descriptions of the St. Stephen's bell tower in World War II!  Our way home from the park took far longer than we expected and my legs felt a little jelly-ish by the time I returned my bike to Priska and made it back to my apartment.  I did a couple things around the apartment and then headed to bed early, completely bushed by my beautiful day in the Austrian countryside!

Biking to Laxenburg

Beautiful old Mercedes

Magical Schloss Franzensburg in the park

2-3 May

On Saturday I needed to begin typing up my big reflection paper for my teaching internship.  I had committed to write the paper in German, in order to challenge myself.  I had written a couple pages and made my outline the weekend before, but needed to complete the majority of the grunt work this weekend.  So I hacked away at the entire project on Saturday, completing several pages in the morning.  In the afternoon I took a several hour break to run and buy groceries, then continued writing in the evening.  I woke up early on Sunday to complete my writing goal then I unfortunately could not finish on Saturday night.  I found church incredibly moving as we witnessed the baptism and testimonies of several people who professed their faith in Christ.  I always find it so encouraging to see the work of God in other peoples' lives and in the growth of the church.  God has recently been pressing into my heart my need for Him and my need to focus on my relationship with Him centrally, rather than merely thinking about He can facilitate my dreams and desires for my life.  Before all those things, I dwell on the fact that He is my Savior, the God who died for my sins.  The service drove that deep into my heart once again.

Week 15: Back At Life

After returning home from an incredible weekend in Paris, this week hit me in the face with the reality of schoolwork and changes back home.  I found it a little hard to get back on my feet and deal with everything happening at once, but fortunately I had a free weekend to catch up on all my school responsibilities.

20 April

I went to my teaching internship for the last time today before May 11.  Eva Maria had planned to go teach for 2 weeks in Egypt, to help with an international school there.  Due to various situations at the school, she decided it would not be best for me to come in alone and teach the students.  For Monday I prepared a lesson on sports, to help students understand popular sports in America and learn sports vocabulary.  I was so excited because the lesson ended up going very well!  The kids in the older class did not pay attention as well as I would prefer, especially when I asked them to write answers to a few questions in response.  But overall I think I taught more to their level during this class. The class with the younger students went better, especially as Eva Maria gave me a few pointers on discussion throughout the lesson.  Overall she complimented me for the lesson, which I really appreciated!

We had classes in the afternoon as usual, but I felt intensely distracted after finding out rather distressing news about my employment situation for next year.  I made it through class and then headed over to my German teacher's house, where she hosted a dinner to help us learn how to cook different Austrian dishes.  I arrived late due to class, but was there to help with making Spinatknödel (spinach dumplings).  Traditional Austrian (and European meals in general) have many courses and this was no exception.  We started off with a soup that contained Griesnöckerl (dumpling), then the main course was Gulashsuppe (goulash soup) with the Spinatknödel, and for dessert we ate the best Sachertorte (traditional Viennese torte) I will ever consume. While the delicious supper and wonderful company helped relieve some of my stress, I went home still worried and was relieved to Skype with my parents to start working out things for next year.

21 April

Stress started to wear away a little in the morning, as I continued on here with classes and catching up from my Paris trip.  I read a story for my Cultural History of Austria class for homework and then Skyped an old friend from work in the evening, which helped provide a significant amount of clarity in regards to my employment situation.

22 April

Our class met early in the morning at Café Central, one of the most famous cafés in Vienna.  I always love it when IES likes to give us "free stuff" (a.k.a. what we pay tuition for) and so I thoroughly enjoyed my hot chocolate at Café Central, for which IES paid.  Our teacher then talked with us about Kaffeehäuser (coffee houses) and the development of Kaffeehausliteratur (coffee house literature) in Vienna.  We then went to the Naturhistorisches Museum, which I really enjoyed!  The museum contained different types of gems from all over the world and other collections from the Hapsburgs. My favorite part was when we actually got to go up to the roof of the museum!  The person who led our tour has personal connections to IES and let us go up there to see one of the best overviews of Vienna which I ever saw!

View of the courtyard in front of the museum

Having fun on the roof!

The beauty of Vienna extending into the horizon...

After enjoying a beautiful view from the museum, I headed back home and tutored Laurenz as usual. I then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening catching up on e-mail and sending out e-mails for jobs and apartments for next year.  I ended the evening by Skyping with another one of my old friends from IU, who provided further helpful advice.

23 April

This morning I met for breakfast with the coordinator of my teaching internship, Heidi, whom I really love!  She is such an encouraging and great person!  We went over to Café Frauenhuber, a favorite of Mozart's back in the day.  She was kind enough to buy me breakfast as we talked through some of the concerns about my internship.  One thing that really challenged me was that Eva Maria often corrects me in the middle of my lessons or will completely take over from me, which is different than my experiences presenting in business situations.  I often became frustrated and confused inside, although I tried not to express it.  Eva Maria could see this on the outside and I was afraid that I offended her. Heidi explained to me that I need to simply recognize the culture difference between professions, then do my best to express at the end of the semester how much Eva Maria truly taught me.  I appreciated our conversation as it helped me process some very confusing moments which I had experienced while teaching at school.

I headed over to my Bezirksmuseum (museum for the history of my district in Vienna) in the afternoon after classes, in order to start my research for a Seminararbeit (final paper). I ran into a couple IES students there, but took my time gathering info from the museum and taking a million pictures of different signs, so I could reference then later when writing my paper.  For the evening, I headed over to a café near my house where Österreichische Studentenmission (campus ministry) was holding a meeting. We talked a lot about foundational assumptions of life and how they relate to our work.  The discussion was pretty deep and while I didn't understand everything perfectly during the presentation, it was really cool to be able to understand most everything in our small group discussion!  I love practicing German in these situations that challenge both my intellectual and linguistic ability!

24-26 April

This weekend was really not fun and exciting, because I spent it mostly catching up on school and getting my head screwed back on straight after my whole living and employment situation was thrown up in the air earlier in the week.  My German teacher assigned us a book to read in German.  I also started hacking away at my Seminararbeit and my reflection paper for my internship, through which I decided to challenge myself by writing it in German.  I fortunately got most of my homework completed over the weekend and felt much better starting the next week.

A couple highlights on the weekend came in the time I spent with my friend, Katie, on Saturday and Sunday.  On Saturday morning we met in a district called Ottakring and enjoyed a traditional Viennese breakfast at Café Raimann, which we both noticed was way cheaper than the prices at cafés in the center of Vienna.  I appreciated our conversation to catch up on life and to talk about the frustrating housing situations we were both facing. Afterwards, we headed over to the 16th district, where we met my internship coordinator, Heidi, at a local Saturday farmer's market.  She showed us a place where she buys food from a bunch of local producers - cheese, bread, fruit, juice!  All in a little market hidden in the 16th district of Vienna!  She even bought us little samples at several places...I really love Heidi, she is so sweet!  Katie and I then saw each other again on Sunday at church and went over to Café Himmelblau for lunch, a small café near my apartment.  I had to interview several people for my Seminararbeit (term paper) about their life in my district, since that was the theme of the paper.  My landlady, Amina, actually told me that Café Himmelblau was operated by an old acquaintance of hers who went to study at a chef school in America and then came back to Austria. How fascinating!

Week 14: An Adventure in Paris

This week ended up being very condensed due to going to Paris over the weekend, so I had to cram a significant amount of schoolwork and other activities into about 3.5 days. The extra effort was totally worth it for the wonderful opportunity I had to spend time in Paris with Catherine, along with a friend of hers and a friend of mine.  Truly another weekend that I will not soon forget!

13 April

As I remember back on this morning, I think I had the feeling that I did not want to go to my teaching internship that day.  I continued building on my lesson using adjectives and landscapes which I made for the Thursday before.  Class was as usual in the afternoon with Managing Behaviour in Organizations and our teaching internship class.  Researched for Paris and continued to edit papers in the evening.

14-15 April

During Tuesday and Wednesday, I crammed in schoolwork alongside researching places to visit in Paris and hanging out with a few friends. My schoolwork mainly involved finishing up my essays due for Cultural History of Austria and writing a theater scene for my Viennese Theater course's performance of our own original theater piece in a talent show at the end of the semester.  I also quickly put together a lesson on popular sports in the USA for my English teaching internship. On Tuesday night, my English friend Katie invited me over to her house for supper to catch up.  I rounded out our Italian dinner by bringing some tiramisu from Aida, a successful Austrian bakery with several locations throughout Vienna.  I appreciate Katie's friendship so much as we both face challenges together in Austria and grow with God in our time abroad.

In Cultural History of Austria today, we made an excursion to the Kunsthistorisches Museum.  I met with a helpful contact in the afternoon, who gave me better guidance than anyone else so far as I think about applying for a Fulbright Grant, in order to return to Austria.  In the evening, I headed over to Bible study at Katie's house with several girls from our church.  I love being able to express myself more fully in situations like this and understand better, now having practiced German in Austria for about 3 months.

16 April

I woke up early on Thursday, in order to cram in all my responsibilities before I headed out for Bratislava, from where I would fly to Paris.  Finishing up schoolwork in the morning, going to class, and cleaning our apartment made the morning fly by.  I was sitting on the bus to Bratislava before I knew it, rather excited for my adventures in Paris during the weekend ahead.  My trip to Bratislava went smoothly, although the RyanAir flight to Paris was a slightly new experience.  They often try to sell you lots of items on the plane and the seats are a little hard, but it's definitely worth it for less than 30 Euro!  When I arrived in Paris, I easily followed my sister's very exact directions to the airbnb where we would stay.  I arrived safely and was greeted warmly by Catherine and our welcoming host, Felix.  Catherine and I immediately fell in love with our flat, which was 4 floors up in an old French apartment building and lined with old wooden beams and plaster on the walls and ceiling.  We grabbed a bit of food at a supermarket next door and then sat down to a quick snack, before heading to bed to catch a few winks before our big day on Friday.

17 April

Catherine and I spent a lazy morning in the apartment planning out our sight-seeing for the day and then headed off on a wonderfully long walk to take in the city of Paris.  We first headed down to the Place de la Bastille, which became plastered with posters and graffiti (in typical French fashion) after the political unrest earlier this year.  We wandered on down along the Seine, past more monuments and Pont Neuf, a main bridge crossing the Seine.  After crossing the river, we passed through Notre Dame cathedral and ate a delicious galette in a little shop along a side street nearby.  Notre Dame was truly beautiful and breathtaking, especially the painted and decorated chapels lining the inside walls.  Our galette with melty goat cheese and fresh tomatoes rounded out our wonderful visit!  We continued on past a bridge with thousands of "love locks," then through the Tuilereis Gardens and Champs Elysees, which contained the entrance to the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe.

Place de la Bastille, covered in grafitti and posters

Beautiful Notre Dame

Sun glimmering at Notre Dame

Typical tourist pic at the Louvre entrance, 'nuff said

Hanging out at the Arc de Triomphe

For the evening we headed over to the apartment of Catherine's friend from Kenya, Matthieu.  I loved getting to see a more personal side of Paris as we heard about the life of Matthieu and his cousin, then later went out to a bar to meet several of their friends.  Things got a little slow at the bar, since most of the friends knew each other from business school and had reunited to visit Matthieu's brother as he passed through Paris.  We chose not to stay out super late and went back home to eat a little and then head to bed, where I crankily tried to make a few decisions about the next day's plan with Catherine.

18 April

We headed out fairly early in the morning after eating breakfast and showering, since we wanted to go visit Musee de la Orangerie.  The museum ended up being a beautiful place right beside the Tuileries Gardens, where we could see several artists from the impressionist period up through modern times.  Catherine and I both loved the "Water Lily Rooms" in the top floor of the museum, which are two oval-shaped rooms containing Monet's panorama pictures of water lilies at different times of the day.  The artists in the lower museum floor ranged from impressionistic to pre-modern, showing the development of French art throughout this period and the cultural influences upon it.  I particularly appreciated the manageable size of the museum - easily viewable in 1.5-2 hours, rather than feeling like you could only scratch the surface of a massive collection in the Louvre.

Favorite painting at the museum

Louis Vuitton's "floating cloud"

Catherine and I met up with Matthieu again in the afternoon to go see a new exhibit in Paris, a huge cloud-like building and museum recently built by the fashion company, Louis Vuitton.  The building and the art inside formed a Gesamtkunstwerk, or an artistic synthesis.  The structure itself blended in with the surrounding park atmosphere with its gently bending arches and the waterfall splashing down the steps in front of the building. The building supposedly represents a floating cloud, which contained several modern artwork exhibits inside.  A particularly special piece was "The Scream" by Mönch.  I find modern art often hard to understand, but the museum provided a thorough explanation of each piece to help explain its importance in history.  I ended up becoming rather cranky towards the end of the museum, since we skipped lunch earlier.  I began to regret that I had not seen more of the classical sites in Paris, especially since I could enter for free and avoid their exorbitant prices due to my status as a student.  Catherine and I chatted a bit about it throughout the day and looking back, I now more thoroughly appreciate seeing Paris off-the-beaten track and getting to know real Parisians.  Catherine mentioned that wanting to experience cities in this way often comes with more traveling experience, after you have seen many of the old buildings and museums which exist in Europe. It simply becomes more fascinating to know a city intimately through its people and local places.

We experienced a bit more of "local Paris" in the evening when we hung out with my friend, Tom, who currently works for a nonprofit located slightly outside of Paris.  He helped Catherine and I find a Senegalese restaurant so that Catherine could reminisce about her Peace Corps times, by eating the type of food she "gets once every 5 years." Tom gave us a tour of the African quarter in Paris, showing us places where West African fabric and food were sold and chatting it up with the store owners in about three different languages.  I felt as though I were in Senegal again.  Funny how 10 years ago, Catherine and I saw each other in Senegal.  Exactly 10 years later, we ate Senegalese food in a restaurant in Paris.  I would not have exactly expected that as an 11-year old; funny how things change...

 

Hanging out at Sacre Coeur

We ended the evening by heading up to Montmartre and the gorgeous church of Sacre Coeur.  After wandering around the quaint streets of Montmartre, Cat, Tom, and I bought a bottle of wine and found a staircase on which to sit and watch the sunset of Paris.  I insisted that I had to eat a chocolate crepe while in Paris, so Cat and Tom found me a cheap shop and I bought myself a delicious, genuine French crepe.  It was worth every penny!  Cat then proceeded to make fun of me for taking the following silly picture with my crepe...

Chowing down on a Parisian Nutella crepe

Apparently she doesn't understand the necessity of taking all food pics with a wide open mouth...

After saying good-bye to Tom, Cat and I headed back towards the Seine in order to go visit the Eiffel Tower.  Our route took longer than we expected and we both ended up needing to go to the bathroom really badly, but the Parisians apparently close their public toilets at 10 pm.  We eventually found one and then could enjoy a beautiful walk around the lighted Eiffel tower, gazing up into the giant feat of construction soaring above our heads.  What a magical end to a beautiful day!

The Eiffel tower

19 April

Catherine said good-bye to me in the morning and headed out to catch her flight back home to Scotland.  I fully woke up an hour or so later and packed my things to head out to attend church with Tom.  After a slight mishap with the train in the morning, I eventually reached a suburb near where Tom lives.  We drove over to the church together and I attended my second French service while here in Europe.  I find it fun to hear the different words I can pick out of the songs and occasionally conversations, based on my knowledge of German and Spanish.  Tom introduced me to some of the people he knows at the church and then we headed over to his host family's house for a birthday lunch and party for their daughter.  After going on a short hike in the surrounding woods, Tom drove me over to the airport.  I safely arrived on my flight and headed home to Vienna after a wonderful weekend with family and friends.

Week 13: A Whirlwind Week

This week ended up being quite a whirlwind due to coming home from my long Easter break trip and then having a weekend full of visitors and a day trip!

6-7 April

Joyce took me on a tour of Lausanne before I headed out for Vienna around lunchtime. Joyce has lived in Lausanne for 32 years, so she knows the city very well!  She showed me places like where her daughter went to school and an area where the river Lausanne has been totally encased underground.  One bridge was a major construction feat, since it was an arch bridge, theough which they later constructed a metro crossing in the bottom part!  I wrapped up my visit with Joyce shortly before noon and then headed to the train station.  I unfortunately faced issues with my travel home and stayed in Bern at a hostel overnight.  The extra time gave me a chance to work on getting caught up on my blog and other school work, so I would start off in a good position after returning home from break. I arrived home on Tuesday night, thoroughly tired out from my trip but looking forward to classes again.

Overlooking Lausanne

On the steps of the university in Lausanne

8 April

My Kulturgeschichte Österreichs class met this morning and enjoyed an excursion to Schloss Belvedere (a palace in Vienna, built by Prince Eugene of Savoy).  We visited the upper Belvedere, which is an absolutely breathtaking art museum.  Our teacher explained several paintings to us from the Biedermeier period, several decades in the mid-1800s, when censorship was extremely strong in Austria. This led to people promoting culture privately within their homes, by holding concerts, exhibits, and gatherings in their parlors. Many of the paintings from this period reflect this private, "home-grown" culture.

In the early afternoon, I was sitting at IES doing homework, not really sure whether a group of girls planned to meet in the evening for Bible study or not.  Turns out the meeting could not happen, so I had the chance to go to the Wagner opera which I knew happened that day.  All of a sudden, I realized the opera started at 5 pm rather than 7 pm, the normal time.  I rushed out of IES and headed over to the Wiener Staatsoper (Vienna National Opera) and got in line for my tickets at around 2:30 pm, because you always need to arrive super early.  I got my tickets, whilst helping a couple other people in line become oriented to the opera.  One of these couples only spoke Spanish and I realized how horrific my Spanish has really become.  I felt like I couldn't pull up all the words I used to know, since the German ones kept interfering!  I eventually managed to help them understand and then settled in for the 5-hour long opera, Parsifal.  The German subtitles were tough to understand with their old-fashioned language, but I managed.  Wagner's opera was truly nothing short of incredible with its intense passion and conflict.  But the best part came at the end of the play.  I was talking to my friend, Arya, in the standing section of the opera, when an old woman came over to us.  I asked if she need something and she wanted to give up her FRONT ROW SEAT for the last act.  So yes, I got to see a Wagner opera from the front row of the Wiener Staatsoper.  The close-up view of the characters and the intense sound of the orchestra were absolutely breathtaking.  I will never forget as the singers' voices reverberated around the opera hall on the last line "Erlösung dem Erlöser."  What a beautiful, unforgettable night!

9 April

Thursday ended up being a catch-up day, since my friend Maggie planned to visit from Freiburg on Friday.  Went to class and worked on school as usual, then headed over to the Burgtheater (main theater in Vienna) for a performance of Dantons Tod, which focuses on the life of main characters in the French Revolution.  We had to attend the performance for my Viennese Theater class, but I could hardly concentrate due to my rising stress about finding housing in Chicago for the summer and employment for next school year.  I honestly spent most of the time writing e-mails on my phone in the back row, rather than attempting to listen to actors running about the stage and jabbering about French philosophy in German.  The fact that I consumed a rather large coffee before attending the play likely contributed to my distractions...

10 April

After German class in the morning, I met up with Aaron Martin and Maggie Kline near the Wiener Staatsoper (Vienna National Opera).  All of us lived together in the Global Village Living-Learning Center at IU during our first two years at university.  Aaron and I are studying abroad together in Vienna, while Maggie currently lives in Freiburg, Germany, for her study abroad semester.  We met up to show Maggie a few of the main sites around Vienna, so that she could get a taste of our beautiful city!  Aaron and I took her to Karlskirche (St. Charles' Church), where we rode up the elevator to the top of the church and enjoyed the gorgeous view of the city.  We then showed her around the Schatzkammer (Royal Treasury), which contains gems and belongings from the Hapsburg dynasty.  Aaron and I had already visited most of the Schatzkammer for our Cultural History of Austria class, but we took time to see an extra portion during this visit which our class skipped during our tour.  I loved going a second time to both these locations - they truly display the glory of Vienna and never fail to fascinate me with their incredible handiwork!  We then grabbed snacks at a local grocery store and sat down to rest our weary legs for an hour or so in Stadtpark (City Park), which lies alongside a river in downtown Vienna.  For supper, we enjoyed traditional Viennese food at the Zwolfapostelkeller (12 Apostles' Cellar), a centuries old wine cellar in Vienna.  I tried Käsespätzle for the first time and completely loved it!

Delicious Käsespätzle!

11 April

I headed out to the Wachau Valley today for a day-long field trip with my study abroad program.  We left Vienna on a bus shortly after 9 am and first visited the Monastery of Melk, which contains over 5,000 rooms and perhaps the most decked out Baroque church which I ever saw.  We did not visit all 5,000 rooms, of course, especially since a sizable section of the monastery is still in use as a Catholic school today.  After the monastery, we headed over to a traditional Austrian restaurant, where I enjoyed a Knoblauchcremesuppe (garlic cream soup), salad, and a delicious Topfenstrudl with plumsauce!  In the afternoon we hiked up to the ruins of the castle Durnstein, where Richard the Lionheart was supposedly imprisoned in the 12th century during his return home from the Crusades.  The view of the entire Wachau valley from Durnstein was absolutely gorgeous - a sweeping and breathtaking Austrian landscape.  We finished off the day with a tour of a family-run winery in the Wachau, where we learned all about the process of making wine.  We traipsed down into the old wine cellar and found layers of wet, sticky mold on the brick walls, into which people sometimes press coins for good luck.  The rich, clear flavors of the wine were among the best I ever tasted!

View of the Wachau from Melk Monastery

View of the Wachau from Castle Durnstein

Ruins of Castle Durnstein, prison of Richard the Lionheart

12 April

I enjoyed a refreshing morning at church, where Reinhold, one of the pastors, preached a message on encouragement from 2 Corinthians.  I went to lunch afterwards with several people from church and then headed off to catch up on school for the rest of the day.  I spent most of my time working on essays due on Wednesday for Cultural History of Austria, along with visiting Die Sammlung alter Musikinstrumente (Collection of Old Music Instruments) in the Hofburg (Royal Palace).  My visit helped me realize how ridiculously large the Hofburg actually is with is winding halls and rooms.  I enjoyed seeing the predecessor instruments of the piano, along with browsing through a myriad of strange instruments from the Middle Ages.