swimming at the Donau (Sun) & drinking in the park(Mon night)

The Donau(Danube) River... evil swans! & the bridge a bunch of people jumped off of


In "Mozart Park" until midnight.. a beautiful view of this really nice restuarant behind the Albertina.

The Albertina Museum .....Vienna at night!

here's where I live!

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=54%20Donaufelderstrasse%20Vienna%20Austria&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=vl

-go here and if you zoom out you can see where we live in relationship to Vienna. I'm in the 21st district, "Florisdorf." There are 23 municipal districts in Vienna. If you click "get directions" after you go to my address on google maps, you can add "Webster University Vienna" to see where I live in relationship to school or "St. Stephan's Cathedral, Vienna" to see where I live in relationship to the City Center. When I get my computer to work, I will just get the google image and post in on here, so that will be easier, but I can't do it on this dumb PC!

first class in Vienna! sleeeeeppppy!

****I had my first class today in Vienna.. well actually my first summer class ever! The class is "Book Arts" and I had it today (Tuesday), this Thursday, next Tuesday & Next Thursday. It is only a 2 week class, but still for 3 credit hours, so the class is from 9am to 5pm those days with a 45 minute lunch break & little breaks whenever. I'm actually pretty tired! We were learning how to bind books today. I will post what mine look like probably tomorrow! We learned 4 different types today & it's really exciting to me because I got realy interested in book binding when I took papermaking last fall & of course I am interested in book design.

***Yesterday, after I posted the pictures & wrote about the Innere Stadt here at the computer at school, I went with a few Webster St.Louis girls to the Jewish Memorial like I mentioned, also went to H&M, Starbucks & went to drink wine & hang out at "Mozart Park" near Stephansdom. Beautiful! (that's what I keep saying about everything!) & it was open until 12am, which is nice.. a nice evening in the park with wine & friends.. what's better?
***more pics to come tomorrow of swimming at the Donau, of Webster's Vienna 'campus' (which is actually one building) & some pics of the park...

ps. Zach I love you & you should come visit me! now! :)
& sorry I haven't called you more, but I still get confused with the time & am still debating about getting a cell phone here!



examples of handmade books.. not mine.. I will put those up tomorrow!

I already feel like I am getting used to being in Vienna.. like the kind of used to that I don't feel it necessary to go somewhere every second like I'm missing something amazing.. maybe I'm just sleepy!

Innere Stadt!

Innere Stadt /the "City Center" where many of the historical sites are, tons of museums & the imperial palaces of the Hasburgs. The entire area is designated a "Historic District" ... all of the architecture is very old, so the building in the center image above is very controversial. "Haas Hause" is really the only glass and concrete structure of its kind in the Innere Stadt. The statue in the picture next to it is I think of one of the Hasburgs.

Below are images of Stephansdom (St. Stephan's Cathedral), began in 1147 but redone in Gothic style in 1359, which is the heart of the city center and Vienna itself. The image on the left is the organ, the center: inside the church and the right: from the outside. The big image below is of Stephansdom's roof, which is all tile & beautiful! in the sunlight.

Above are images of the Jewish Memorial in the "Judenplatz" (jewish square), which was the jewish ghetto from the 13th to 15th centuries. In the 1990s ruins of a synagogue were unearthed & above where it was found a Holocaust Memorial was built to honor Austrian Jews who died in the Holocaust. The rectangular concrete cube is library shelves of books facing inward to signify the amount of knowledge lost due to the Holocaust. Around the base are engraved the naems of places where Austrian Jews were put to death. (We studied this monument in I think my Current Art class at home.. it's very famous.) Next to it is the Jewish Museum. (In the picture above with the wooden door.)

***I actually am at school now & I am headed to the U-bahn stop at Kasiermuhlen to meet a few girls from Webster St. Louis to go there again. They are a few girls that I know but haven't yet seen here in Vienna.

1. a stop down to the U-Bahn, the underground train system

2. a street performer by the palaces that was balancing eggs on a stick on his nose (we thought we was drunk) ...funny little man!

3. Ruins of the old wall that surronded the Innere Stadt

on the left: we thought this looks like the Statue of Liberty, but oops! without clothes? Maybe it's her boyfriend? I will have to do some research on this!

on the right: sort part of the Imperial Palace of the Hasburgs .. that thing is huge I haven't really figure out what is what just yet


on the left: the main Opera of Vienna.. not sure what it's called but you can apparently get standing room only tickets there for 3euro.. something I will have to do before I leave

on the right: my favorite picture so far! Rebecca and me with this creepy fountain in Stodtpark. It's of a Viennese Cardinal (who looks soo mean and angry!) with water spewing out onto a naked little baby/cherub thing... just a little disturbing!

Lunch!

left: Robert & Rebecca had not had a real meal in weeks! So they loved the lasagna & spaghetti! ..they have been living on bologne and apples

middle: a sign with what the dishes look like

right: ahhhhh tap water! (sometimes it isn't even free)

ok.. I guess that is all for now! Auf Wiedersehen!

Later I will put up pics from yesterday at Kaisermuhlen and the Alte Donau!

Saturday lunch! 4.50 Euro

Sausage.
That's all I have to say about that.

more pictures! & internet is working now! yay!

** a few shots of inside my dorm.. the really dark one I tried to lighten up is the front of the apartments.. it says "Donaufelder" & the photo beside it is one of Stiege 2 (building 2) of the four Stieges (we are in Stiege 4)

*** Behind Donaufelder is a HUGE field.. which I'm not sure when I think mine be a government thing.. I need to look that up.. but it's cool because I was just walking and saw through this gate a big field with tall buildings in the distance.
** the Euros there.. I thought I only had 5E & some change but since they use 1 and 2 Euro coins, I actually had about 19Euro there! (Looks like Monopoly money doesn't it?)




Ok so I didn't get to finished writing about Wednesday or about Thursday, but that is ok because yesterday was pretty uneventful. I went to the police station with my RA David to register with my police. We were in the waiting room from 8:30 to 10:30 am! We were number 98. After that David had to get on the train the other way to go to school, but I stayed at the mall at Kagraner to look for an adaptor and an ethernet cable. The mall is just like any American mall, except no one speaks English. I managed the buy an ethernet cable & buy & then return an electrical adapter because I realized it won't work for my computer charger. I took the tram back to Fultonstrasse, the stop were our apartment is & bought groceries at the Penny Mart. I only spend 12Euro & got quite a few cheap foods. milk, juice, bread, cereal, a big bag of apples & cheese oh! and frozen pizza bread. yum! So I'm putting up some more pics from yesterday! (later tonight I will put up some stuff about what we did today... hint: we went down into the city & saw the historical area).

A few observations that go with the pics from Weds & Thurs (this post & the last one):
1. yes! Austria has Aldi's (I think it's from here or Germany) but it's call "Hofer"
2. Apparently Cindy Crawford has still got it.



Today we went down the the Innere Stadt to go to the open-air market at Karlsplatz & walked around the City Center ("Innere Stadt" means this). More details & pictures to come!

I'm in Vienna! ...first impressions..

So I made it to Vienna everyone! Yesterday I arrived here at 10:00am ish Vienna-time & was whisked away from the airport by a taxi driver with my name on a sign, but who spoke no English. He dropped me off at Haas Donaufeld.. the "studentheim" where I am staying.. it's cheap housing for students from many different schools or I think maybe non-students too. I was met by David, my RA, who showed me around the apartment complex & gave me my room key, etc. My roomate is Rebecca, who I already knew from the Webster art department back home.. so that is great! She has already told me a lot about Vienna, things they have learned so far, etc. She went to grab lunch & I walked around the neighborhood before I slept for about 15 hours last night! (which you know isn't much more than I usually like to sleep!)

Walking around the neighborhood, which is the 21st district of Vienna, called "Donaustadt" I already felt very comfortable with the area & the idea that I will be living here for 5 weeks. It felt very safe & residential, but also with many little shops, gas stations & grocery stores nearby.

I found an ice cream shop, a little bar, a cell phone store, 2 cheap food stores, an adorable church & stores I had no idea what they were.

After I explored the area for a good hour or two, my first task was to go find an ATM so I could get out my first Euros! I took out 50E, which is approximately $70. (The conversion rate right now is 1.40.. so it takes $1.40 to make 1E, meaning the Euro is worth more. Sucks for us, but the rate is better than it used to be.) After that I went to the 2nd nearest gas station.. (the first only had oil and what looked like 10 bottles of soda on its shelves.) My first purchases with the Euro were 1. a coke 2. a beer 3. potato chips & 4. a 1.70E sandwich that was actually pretty good!

...ok computer dying, more soon!

at Chicago O'Hare!

I'm at the airport in Chicago... waiting for my flight to Frankfurt that leaves at 3:45. I had a cheeseburger for breakfast at St. Louis airport at 10am! I paid to use the internet here at O'Hare because I had to do a few things online before I'm magically in another country & I wanted to check on what's going on with my pick-up in Vienna. I got an email from the Ra there that there will be a cab waiting for me at the airport to take me to my apartment.. so that's great! my first task: sheets. I forgot to pack some & after talking to Zach last night I think it will be a funny adventure for my first venture out into Vienna to be a search for bedsheets! "ya know.. (acting like sleeping) sheets!" :)

It's Weds, June 3

Just created this baby! I've used facebook for a long time, but this is my first foray into blogging. I'm not really into telling people all about my life.. it seems too self-absorbed for me... but since I'm going to be spending 5 weeks in Europe, I figure it's best to share my experiences! Especially to my family & my sweety.... so you can feel safe & maybe happier knowing what I'm up to! I'm hoping to include lots of amazing experiences & of course photographs for you to enjoy...
I leave in a week!