Out of order

I may, eventually, get around to continuing my sordid tale of the trip around Europe, but I thought everyone would appreciate a little update about Vienna. This from Friday:

We arrived in Vienna yesterday at 8:30ish. We arrived in the Westbahnhof train station, which was actually different than we had told our group director. We were supposed to arrive in the Sudbahnhof station, which explained why we waited for an hour for someone to pick us up to no avail. Turns out they wouldn’t have picked us up either way, as we were supposed to just make our way to the institute to meet everyone by about 12:00. Finally we got into the metro system (we’d become pros at the metros in Europe by this point and found our way to the AAIE. Took a minute to find, but it wasn’t difficult as it was right next to the StaatOpera in downtown Vienna. We arrived and slowly a few other students started to straggle in. Most of the group came from the US together and so they all showed up at the same time with Dr. Hansen. To be perfectly frank, I appreciated the entire group showing up. I had enjoyed my trip and time with Andrew, Ellen and Kimberlee but I was definitely ready to expand my social circle a bit. The nice part is that the 4 of us are still great friends but probably get along better now that we don’t have to be around each other 24/7.

Vienna is very nice. It’s a bit like Paris with the architecture and style but seems a little smaller and cleaner. Thus far I’ve been VERY impressed with the cleanliness and apparent safety of the city. Of course you can still do stupid stuff and get into a lot of trouble but frankly, if you’re smart, you’ll be ok.

After the entire group arrived I looked around and was a bit shocked. 4 guys, 27 girls. Talk about weird. It’s strange to think that guys are in that much of a minority. I’m no ladies man, but with that many females I think I may actually do all right in that department for the first time in my life. Hahahahahaha….. We have one guy in our group who is rapidly becoming the ladies’ favorite (Ty) but I imagine as soon as they all settle down and stop fighting over him like a bunch of starving animals on the Serengeti us other guys will start looking better and better. Other than Ty the big suave guy there is Andrew the hyperactive film freak and David the tall quiet dude. As I told the other guys, we each get 7 girls so no one get greedy. That should be plenty.

After we arrived we went on a little walk aroud the city to keep all of the plane folks awake until nighttime (to combat jetlag) and got some dessert. My first taste of Vienna was an apple strudel. Definitely impressive. I’m going to like this town. The girls, of course, are all freaking out about the gelato, but let’s face it: you don’t come to Vienna for ice cream. Baked treats, my friends. Baked treats.

We stopped by Stefansdom, the large cathedral in the middle of Wien and looked around for abit and proceeded on to Peter’s something-or-other, another church. We arrived at 3:00 which happened to be the exact time they were starting an organ concert, which sounded very good. Sadly the group left after one piece and I had no choice but to follow. Blasted. I am EXTREMELY excited about the music in this town. Everybody talks about the upcoming concerts, there are ticket vendors for operas and ballets on every corner; basically these people are freaks for classical and that’s awesome. Mozart is basically the city’s patron saint at this point. Between that and the food I feel like I’ve finally found a town slightly more suited to my interests. Now if only I could find a well-populated basketball court…

We grabbed little luggage and headed to our hotel, the pension baronesse. Nice place. All the amenities. All four of the guys stayed in the same room with our own bathroom and that worked out well. Andrew and I hopped into the shower immediately, as an unfortunate side effect of out three day night train and Switzerland experience was no showers for 72 hours. Lots of interesting odors. The shower water was actually brown and filmy as it drained. Not a pretty site. I also shaved for the first time in weeks. That took a while…

The AAIE took us out to dinner to a very nice Italian place with quite authentic food. I got a Bella Napoli pizza which basically was a crust with tomato sauce baked and then they throw on fresh cherry tomatoes, some kind of light spinach, spices, chunks of buffalo mozzarella and cured ham. The whole thing was beautiful and tasted even better. One of the best meals I’ve had to date. (That’s saying quite a bit, mind you) After dinner we returned to the hotel, played around on the internet and eventually crashed into our beds.

This morning we woke at about 8ish, dressed, and headed down for a continental breakfast provided by the hotel in the basement. The breakfast was significantly better than expected. There were several kinds of juices, breads, jams, cheeses, meats, fancy cereals, toast, hot chocolate, fruit….on and on. I ate a ton (for the first time ever in Europe. In fact, this was probably the first time I’d had two decently large meals in a row in my entire trip)

We left for the institute and sat around there for a few hours listening to orientation stuff. Pretty boring, really, but important information was mixed in and it was worthwhile to wade through all the easy garbage to get the crucial info for our stay here. One of the directors of the program took us on a practical tour of the area, showing us grocery stores and post offices and the like followed by a stop for lunch at the local market, Kunsmarkt. There we sampled some eastern cuisine (a sort of gyro style falafel sandwich). We returned to the institute like a herd of cattle and sat through more boring orientation information before going upstairs to meet our families. David Scoville and I are staying with a woman named Hedy Drapal in the 17^th bizirk. She is a widow of a philharmonic clarinet soloist who lives by herself. Very nice lady, probably in her 70s. We had a tour of the house, talked about the house rules and she left us to unpack. Had a good dinner of schnitzel and talked (half in broken English and half in bad german) for an hour or so. We gave her the gifts we’d brought and headed to the third floor which is sort of our domain. That’s where I am now, sitting here at 8:40 and wondering what on earth I’ll do with myself tonight. I’m not entirely used to going to bed before midnight.

------------------Back to reality---------------------

Ok, so here I am in the present. I am currently sitting in the lovely little building that is the LDS institute, enjoying their free internet, snacks provided by kind senior missionaries and air conditioning. It really is a great place to call home in the city since my "home" is 45 minutes away from the city center and really only where I sleep.

I went to church on Sunday. It was a cool little building in the suburb area. The people were super nice but the fact of the matter is I was completely and utterly lost for 3 hours. It's VERY hard to stay awake when you don't understand much of anything. Occasionally an American would speak "gringo" german and I caught a little bit but usually I just stared and wondered. Things can only go up in that department.

Classes started today. We had our first german class followed by a bit more orientation, me wandering around Vienna looking for a grocery store (Lunch: an apple-swiss sandwich. Interesting!) and then european history. Not sure what I'll do for the rest of the afternoon. Perhaps read my new Bertrand Russell book I picked up and wait for institute? More wandering around Vienna? The nicest part about this trip is the lack of work/responsibilities and the opportunity I have to do whatever I want and pursue my interests. So far very refreshing!