Salzburg 2008

Almost Done

2008-06-05T01:03:00.000+02:00

Hello once again. I just want to say that I still can't believe that this trip is almost over. Tomorrow is our last class and our closing party. On Friday most of the group is leaving and then Saturday I'll be catching my plane in the morning. It's all so exciting and sad at the same time. The good news is that we are still having a lot of fun as a group as the trip is coming to a close.

Today we took a day trip to Hallstatt. We had to be on the bus at 8:30 this morning and then we set off on our trip. The drive lasted about 90 minutes, but most of us were tired enough to sleep the whole time. On the way to Hallstatt we stopped at some ice caves which were naturally carved by flowing water. In order to get to the caves you have to ride up the side of a mountain suspended in a cable car. Usually I do okay on ski lifts and other similar means of transportation, but today I was rather nervous on the way up. It wasn't so bad looking ahead of the car, since it sill appeared that you weren't that high off of the ground. Looking behind the car was a completely different story. Looking behind the car made you feel like you were at least 100 feet off of the ground and that if you were to fall it would be quite painful. Luckily, the ride only lasted a few minutes and then all of our nerves were calm when we finally made it back on land. After a short hike up a mountain path we came to the entrance to the ice caves. Another group came up shortly after, and then we all went in the ice caves and met our tour guide. The tour was really interesting and the caves were amazing to see. Our tour guide gave the tour in both German and English, which was kind of nice in a way. He would say everything in German, and then English. This meant that I could try to understand him the first time that he spoke, and then when he switched to English I could see how much I understood. Aside from missing a few words here and there I generally understood what he was saying, which is always a nice feeling. The only thing that I didn't like about the ice caves was that there was no flash photography allowed, which means that it was almost impossible to get a good photograph of anything inside. But, other than that, the caves were a lot of fun. The return trip on the cable car was a lot quicker too, which made everyone less nervous than the first time.

We got back on our bus and drove to Hallstatt, which is a nice little town built right on the coast of a lake. In fact, some of the buildings and roads are actually held up by stilts that are in the water. We had almost 2 hours of free time there, which was rather nice, except for the fact that it rained(well really it poured) the entire time. We basically just walked around, went in a few shops, and visited one of the churches in the town. The main attraction in the church is an altar made our of bones that has over 1200 skulls in it. The altar was originally made because there was no more room left in the graveyards. What the people would do was they would bury a body, and after 10 years the bones would be dug up because they were done decaying. The bones were left in sunlight for weeks in order to bleach the bones and then the skull had the owner's name painted on it along with decorations such as flowers or ivy. Then the skulls were added to the altar. After visiting the altar, we made our way back to the bus and that was the end of our visit to Hallstatt. The ride home had just as many sleeping OU students as the ride there did.

Overall, the day was one of the more fun trips that we have taken. I just wish that the weather would have been better in Hallstatt. Since it is on the lake there are a bunch of activities involving the lake that you can do such as rent boats or conoes or sit in a cafe along the coast. The weather in Salzburg stayed sunny for most of the day until early evening when the clouds in Hallstatt finally caught up with us again. It has been raining since then so it is nice and cool and the bugs are finally staying away for an evening. When it's too hot here you have to open the windows due to lack of a/c, and this means that about 30 bugs fly into your room each night.

The rest of the night after the trip was nothing too special. I took a nap when we came back, ate dinner, did dishes, and then visited people in their rooms. It seems like I was one of the only people to get all of the homework done ahead of time. This was disappointing since no one wanted to do anything tonight since they were scrambling to get all of their work done. It was nice to be able to relax though.

Tomorrow really should be an exciting day. I'm hoping for nice weather so that I can go to the altstadt after our class in the morning. After I pick up a few things, I should be all set to come home. I haven't started to pack up anything yet, but everyone else seems to be packing already. It's so sad to see. It's a reminder that the trip really is almost over. Seeing everything packed up just seems so final. It wouldn't be that bad, but there are a few people who aren't going back to OU next year either because of graduation or transferring to another school. It will just be sad to see them go, but hopefully we can keep in touch.

And that's about all I have for now. Sorry that this started to get a little sappy at the end. I am realy excited to come home, just sad to leave a lot behind at the same time. Talk to you all again soon!

Great Weekend

2008-06-02T23:56:00.001+02:00

I have some extra time right now, so I figured that I'd hop on here and write a quick post. It's the last week in Salzburg, and I'm both excited and extremely sad to be leaving. I figure that in a few years from now I can always make a return trip here. Who knows, maybe my career will even bring me back here. I'm relieved right now, because I'm finished with all of my work for the rest of the quarter (I think) which means that the rest of this is going to be smooth sailing.

This weekend ended up being a lot of fun for me. Friday was spent in Munich again, only this time I went there with JJ. We ended up having a great day. We even found two random people to ride with us on our group ticket, which means that we got to travel to Munich and back and use the subways for 8,50. I spent 3,00 on food and another 2,00 on a drink, which means that I spent 13,50 for the entire day, and was still able to have a blast.

The rest of the weekend was spent getting homework done, playing soccer and frisbee, and taking pictures in the Altstadt. Overall, it was relaxing and fun.

This week we have our last couple of classes, a trip to Hallstatt, and our final group party. The party is this Thursday and it's going to be all you can eat and drink. The trip to Hallstatt is going to be pretty amazing. We are going to see a lot of sites including churches, ice caves, and we even get to ride on a summer louge. I'm looking forward to being able to go.

I'm going to get going for now, but I'll try to write again soon with any new and interesting stories. Talk to you all again soon.

Finally have some time to write!

2008-05-27T09:54:00.002+02:00

I just want to express how excited I am to finally be able to write on here. It has been so long that I actually have to read the last few posts so that I know what I need to talk about. I'll start with the notes that I made for myself a couple of posts ago.

I was finally able to get out and pick up some postcards from the Altstadt and I sent out the first round of them while I was in Vienna. I tried to send one to everyone that I could, but chances are that if you didn't get one I didn't have your address. I have plenty more postcards though, and I'm looking to send some more in the near future. If you feel like leaving your address, please send it to me in an email and please do not leave it in a comment. You can never be sure who might stumble upon this page.

Let's see, note #2 that I left myself was about presentations that all of us had to do while we were in Vienna. Each student here got to choose a landmark (wow, I haven't been able to remember that word in weeks. I have only been able to call them "sightseeing attractions") and we had to give a short presentation during our tour of the city. I had Stephansdom, which is a rather large, Gothic-style cathedral in the center of Vienna. I received an abundant amount of compliments when I was finished, and I even got a 98% on the presentation. I was just glad that I was able to memorize enough information to speak for 5 minutes without using my notes once, and that I only forgot to mention one or two pieces of information that I had planned to.

The weekend trips I will talk about a little bit later in this post.

We had a party for the 40th anniversary of the program two Tuesdays ago. It ended up being a ton of fun. There were past participants ranging from last year to 30 or so years ago, and past program directors also came into town for the occasion. We all met at a rather nice restaurant on the busiest street in Salzburg and had a delicious dinner along with short speeches given by our program director, past program directors, and the provost of OU, Kathy Krendl. I kind of felt bad for KK, because she didn't speak any German and the entire program, aside from her speech, was held in German. I was excited because I was able to follow along with everything that was being said and I even understood 99% of the jokes that were made during the speeches. It's incredibly fun to start to develop a sense of humor in another language.

The afternoon after the 40th anniversary party the entire group of us went to the Salzuburg zoo, which is located right next to Schloss Hellbrunn (the castle with all of the fountains and gardens). I don't have much to say about that, other than it was a beautiful day and it was a nice way to pass a few hours. However, the Cleveland zoo is much bigger and has more to see than this zoo, so I wasn't overly impressed by much here. We had to give short presentations about an animal, but those weren't graded at all. They were just a way to justify having OU pay for a trip to the zoo.

The day after the zoo we took our Trip to Vienna. It was quite the long weekend, but I don't have too much time to write about the whole thing here. I will try to cover as much as I can in as few words possible. The trip to Vienna wasn't too bad of a bus ride. I think that it lasted between 5 and 6 hours with rest stops and such. We stopped off at Mauthausen on the way, which was a concentration camp in WWII. The camp itself was a work camp, and not an execution camp. Regardless, thousands upon thousands of people died there. It was eerie to be there, but we were also able to learn quite a bit from our tour guide (who all of the girls had a huge crush on). After our stop at the camp we continued on to Vienna. The weekend was spent mostly of touring in large and small groups. Everyone gave their presentations when we were in the large group, and when we were in smaller groups we were allowed to do what we wanted. We saw so many landmarks there that it is hard to keep them all straight. It will probably be easier to just show everyone pictures and explain them when I am back in Ohio. When I was with smaller groups of people I visited the music museum, a history of soccer exhibition, the Donauinsel, and various other parks around the city. There really was an overly abundant amount to do in Vienna, and we did so much in a large group that we really just wanted to relax when we split into our smaller groups. The time that we spent in Vienna was pleasant and fun, but Sunday it had to come to an end. We hopped back on our bus to Salzburg and started back home. On the way we made two stops. One stop was at this beautiful monastery, and our second stop was at a tiny city that was nestled in the hills nearby the monastery (I forget the name of the city, but I can look it up later).

Last week was the shortest week of the quarter for us. They give you one long weekend during this trip so that everyone has a chance to travel. It really messes with your school schedule though, since the week really flew by. Monday and Tuesday were uneventful, but Wednesday was quite fun. We took a group trip in the evening to a salt mine in the city of Hallein. They have a rather large portion of the mine that you can take a tour of when you go. When you get there, they give you these white suits to wear (they make everyone there look a little bit like oompa-loompas) so that your clothes don't get destroyed in the mine. Once everyone is dressed and ready to go you ride a miniature train deep into the mines and start your tour. The tour guide not only gives you information, but she also uses projectors at various points to play movies that were corny, but funny. They followed the story of the Archbishop who ordered the mines to be dug. Even though the movies were corny, they were interesting because they were dubbed in English, but then still had German subtitles. It was fun to see how you would express certain ideas in German while being able to hear the English (since usually you hear the German, but don't think about it too much and wind up just reading the English subtitles). The mines are quite large, and you even cross over the border into Germany at one point during the trip. To move between the different levels of the mine there are these huge wooden chutes that you get to slide down, and one room even requires you ride in a boat across a chamber that has about 2-3 meters of standing water. The entire trip was both interesting and fun. The only bad part was that the other group that we were with inside the mines were some of the rudest people that I have ever encountered, but that's all that I would really like to say about them at the moment.

So this brings us all of the way up to my trip to Italy that I took this weekend with Anna and Learose. I'm slowly running out of time still, but I do want to say that I had an awesome, yet relaxing, time while we were there. We were able to see quite a large chunk of the city including churches, cafes, an aquarium, a synagogue, a few parks, a castle, a tropical bird exhibit, a rock beach, and much much more. I'm almost out of time, so I'm just going to give a quick rundown of everything that we did.

Thursday:
We searched for out hostel when we got there for about 2 hours, only to find that it was about a 2 minute walk from the train station. While we were searching, we were able to explore one of the main streets along the coast and were able to pick out some places to go see later on in the day. We visited the aquarium, and then explored the heart of the city during the evening/night. We were able to find a restaurant with amazing food and decent prices, and later we also spent a few hours in an outdoor cafe/bar drinking wine and relaxing.

Friday:
We got up and tried to find bus passes, which turned out to be an adventure in itself. We finally had success though, and we took the bus out to Castello Miramere (I hope that I spelled that correctly). We ended up spending almost the entire day at the castle and its surrounding park. We had a great time just trying to explore all of the different paths in the park to try to see what we could find. We ended up finding a tropical bird exhibit in the park, which turned out to be pretty fun. The castle itself was amazing to be able to walk through, and I saw some of the most intricate woodwork that I have ever seen in my life there. All of the walls, ceilings, tables, chairs, etc. were ornately decorated with woodwork. After our visit to the castle, we wound up being quite exhausted. We headed back to the hostel, took a nap, and then went out again for dinner and wine in the evening.

Saturday:
We originally wanted to take a trip to Slovenia, but we had a hell of a time trying to find out where to buy bus tickets or even trying to find the bus schedule. Instead, we went to the "beach." Most of the coast in Trieste is rock, but they have this really nice brick walkway that runs along the coast, and eventually there is a small beach-like area that you can get to. Most of the people there were on the walkway though, so the three of us changed into our swimsuits and hung out on the walkway for awhile, while we worked on our wonderful tans. After the "beach," we went back into the city and tried to see everything that we possibly could. Unfortunately, we could only see churches from the outside because 5 o'clock mass was taking place, and for some reason a lot of the other buildings were getting ready to close. We still had a blast trying to explore though, and we were able to see everything that we wanted to. At night (you guessed it) we went out for dinner and wine. Before we went out to a cafe/bar we sat on the pier and had a couple of bottles of wine while we watched the sunset. It was a little on the cloudy side, but you could still kind of see some color peeking out of the sky. We made it back to our hostel safe and sound and went to sleep. We got up the next morning, checked out, took the train home, and now I'm here.

This week is going to continue to be crazy. I have a presentation to give tomorrow and a project due Thursday. Both are going to take some time to finish, but I think that after I get these two things done the rest of this quarter will be amazingly smooth and free of all worries. I do have to leave for class in a few minutes though, and I am still here in my pajamas and I haven't eaten. So, I think that I am going to wrap this up for now. Hopefully, I will be able to come up with more fun things to write about soon! Thanks for reading all of this, and sorry that it was so long. This post really could have been at least triple this length if I would have let it though. Talk to you all again soon.

Ciao!

***There are new photos on my site and on the OU site too***

Back from Italy

2008-05-25T18:13:00.001+02:00

I made it back safe and sound. Unfortunately, I have a bunch of work that I have to do tonight since I didn't get as much done over the weekend as I would have like to. The good news is that I am adding new photos as I type this. Hopefully I will have a little bit of extra time tonight so that I can make an actual post on here rather than just another short one of these. Talk to you all soon.

Next post soon...I hope

2008-05-20T09:56:00.004+02:00

Hello everyone. I am alive still. Unfortunately, I am not sure when the next time that I will have enough time to make a longer post on here will be. Tonight I am going to be overly busy with homework and such, but I am hoping to get on here tomorrow night and post. If not, I won't be able to post again until Sunday at the very earliest, since I will be in Italy until then. I can share that I was able to buy my ticket and a round-trip ticket with seats reserved only ended up costing 100,20 Euro. I was extremely excited about that price.

I have to run off to class for now. Like I said though, I will try to update this tomorrow evening. If I end up finishing up work early tonight, I might try to get on here as well. Talk to you soon, I hope.

Leaving on a jetplane...or a bus

2008-05-15T00:43:00.003+02:00

That's right! Tomorrow we are traveling to Vienna, so I will not be able to talk with anyone until next week at the earliest. I'll be thinking about all of you and I can't wait to talk to write again and talk to you when I get back. I love all of you.

I really wanted to write a larger post, because I forgot to earlier today, but I ended up having way more work than I thought that I did tonight. It was my own fault though, because I didn't do too much work last night. I just need to make some mental notes for the next time that I post:

Postcards
Referate
Weekend Trips
40th Anniversary Party
Zoo

I'll be sure to write again as soon as I can. Talk to you all later!

Happy Mother's Day!

2008-05-11T21:42:00.005+02:00

I just wanted to hop on here really quickly and wish everyone a happy mother's day. I'm really bummed out that I can't see everyone today, but I'll be home soon and then I can make my visits. This weekend has not been as action packed as the past few weeks have been. Aside from going to Munich it has been pretty calm here, although I have been having a funky time trying to fall asleep the last couple of nights. Last night I did hang out with a former OU student who is here for the 40th anniversary party on Tuesday and Learose. She is extremely nice and fun to be around. Today she, Learose, and I went around the city for a little while. First, we tried to go to the old bakery, but they are closed on Sunday. Then we went to a hotel which has a cafe on the roof for lunch. Unfortunately, they were not serving normal food today since it was mother's day. The only thing that they had was a 23 Euro breakfast buffet which we politely chose to pass on. Finally, we ended up going to a pizza place that is built into the side of one of the mountains in the Altstadt, and after we ate lunch we decided to get some delicious ice cream on the way back to the bus stop. Other than that, nothing else exciting happened. More former students will be arriving in town soon. The party on Tuesday seems like it is going to be a blast, and we even have an administrator from OU who is coming to visit for the night.

Unfortunately, I have a ton of work that I should be doing, but I really haven't felt like doing much this weekend. Luckily, tomorrow is a holiday in Austria so we do not have class. Instead, we are going to a museum which has buildings that represent the different time periods in Austria. If you have seen South Park recently it is going to be like the episode where they go to the pioneer village, only this will actually be interesting. If I do a little bit of work tonight I should be fine because we will also have a ton of time to get work done tomorrow.

I almost forgot to say that next weekend we are going to Vienna. In fact, this weekend is only a two day school week, but I still am going to have a ton of stuff that is due coming up in the near future. The trip should be fun, since it is a 4 day trip. Then, next weekend we have a 4 day weekend to travel on our own. I still don't know where I will be going to, but I have to make up my mind very soon so that I can make plans and such.

That's all I have for now. I miss and love all of you terribly. I don't want this trip to end, but at the same time I am really looking forward to being at home again so that I can see all of you again. I'm sure that I'll be able to write again in the near future.

Just a quick post

2008-05-10T12:31:00.002+02:00

I just wanted to say that I am really excited because I got my first European haircut! I mean, they do things here pretty much the same way that they do at home, but it was fun getting it done and having to explain what I wanted in German. The girl who cut my hair was incredibly nice and did a good job with it. I'm going to try to take a picture or two of myself, but if they don't turn out well I am sure that I will have other people take pictures of me in the near future that I can post.

And with that, I think that I am going to be on my way. The weather is still gorgeous here, and I would like to spend as much time as I can outside this weekend. I'm sure that I will post later with more exciting stories and such. Talk to you all then!

An action packed couple of days

2008-05-10T01:41:00.003+02:00

This week has just been an absolute blast so far! Wednesday's tour of Schloss Hellbrunn was absolutely amazing. There is an area outdoors there where one of the old Archbishops decided to build trick fountains and miniature figures that run on water. We took the tour through the area and we had the perfect day for it too. The sun was out and there was not a cloud in the sky, which was good because we all ended up getting wet from the fountains. There were fountains hidden in floors, doorways, statues, chairs, and all over rooms. The cool part about it is that all of the fountains run on natural water pressure from water brought in from the river. The tour was also fun because our guide spoke a ton of different languages and ended up giving the tour in French, German, and she offered to give it in English too if we wanted. There are also some other beautiful gardens in the area all filled with flowers and statues and such. One of the cool things about Schloss Hellbrunn is that it is practically across the street from where we are living and I didn't even know about it. The path that you take to get to it is really beautiful as well. There are these hugs trees that line both sides of the path and there are big fields and farm areas that you go by.

Thursday was a fun day because a lot of people ended up leaving to travel for the weekend. I hung out here with some of the other students who didn't go anywhere for the weekend and we ended up having fun. In the afternoon I ended up going shopping and bought food, a soccer ball, and a new outfit for the 40th anniversary party of the Salzburg program that is coming up on Tuesday. In the evening I ended up kicking the soccer ball around with the rest of the people that stayed here and then at night I ended up watching Viva again.

Today was fun since I decided to pack up a bag this morning and go to Munich for the day. I hopped on a train a little bit after 11 and two hours later I was there. I took the subway down a few stops and ended up walking the rest of the way back to the English Gardens. I forget if I mentioned this already in another post, but the English Gardens is a huge park in Munich that is larger than Central Park in New York. Wednesday was beautiful at Hellbrunn, but today's weather was even better, and I ended up staying at the English Gardens for almost the entire afternoon. The pattern was 1) got there and walked around 2) sunbathed 3) went to the beer garden in the center of the park to listen to music, eat a gigantic pretzel, and drink a beer 4) sunbathed again. It was one of the most pleasant and relaxing days that I have had since I have been in Europe. After the sun started not to feel as warm, I packed up my bag and went searching for the Hofbraeuhaus again. Learose asked me to buy her a beer mass (a glass big enough to hold 1 L) for her since she accidentally dropped hers as we were leaving Munich last time. After making a wrong turn or two I ended up finding it and picking up a glass for Learose and also one for myself. Then, I hopped back on a train and now I'm back in Salzburg. Well, I've been here for a few hours now, but I just now got around to writing this.

I don't really have anything planned for this weekend, but I'm sure that I will come up with something fun to do. I'm about to add new pictures to the pictures link, so if you get a chance, be sure to check that out. That's all I have for now. Check back soon and hopefully I will get the chance to write again!

Finally, a new post!

2008-05-07T19:58:00.001+02:00

Hello once again everyone. Sorry that it has been so long since I wrote on here. After all, I hate to keep you all waiting. As usual, I have had a nice mix of free time and work to keep the time flying by. The weekend was filled mostly with studying and hanging around in Europa Kolleg. Unforturnately, the trip to Munich didn't happen, but it is a trip that I would be able to take easily on any weekend. On the plus side, I learned somewhere around 100 adjectives in German this weekend for the test that I had on Monday. I watched a lot more TV this weekend than I have any other weekend, but I was watching it with a bunch of other OU students, so it ended up being quite fun. We watched Viva, which is the music/MTV-ish channel here. They play videos in German and in English, and this ends up being a great mix of different types of music. Also, they have a lot of times when people can vote for the next video to be played. You have to vote with a text message, but then the text messages are played on the air as the videos are also being played. They are pretty fun to read, and you end up learning a lot of German words and sayings when you read them. They also have deliciously tacky shows here that are incredibly fun to watch. Now that I am thinking about Austrian TV, I really need to check when South Park is on here. I have not been able to watch it in German since the first week that I was here.

Classes are still going well and my grades are still pretty high. We had to turn in a sound project earlier today (I'm on my lunch break right now). For it we had to record a sound that we thought represented Salzburg the best and then we had to record our description of the sound as well as why we thought it was important. I hate hearing my voice in an English recording, but it is even stranger to hear when I am speaking German. It was nice though, because I can hear how I sound and make small changes in pronunciation of some words.

Yesterday we had Stammtisch, like we do every Tuesday. Yesterday ended up being really fun though. We went to the Stiegl Keller, which looks like a huge hunting hall on the inside. They had a traditional band playing in one of the rooms, and some of the other customers came dressed up in traditional clothing. I think that it was so much fun because everyone (at least the people that I was sitting near) tried to speak as much German as possible. Before the restaurant became too busy, the waiter even talked to us for a little while. It is always nice to have a conversation out in public where the other person can understand everything that you say.

Yesterday when I was at the supermarket I even had this older man joke around with me when we were standing in line at the checkout. He was asking if I thought he needed an ID to buy some beer, and he was clearly old enough. It made my day, since that means that I must look like I know what I'm doing finally. I do feel more comfortable doing everyday activities now than I did in the first week.

I have to hurry for now. If I don't catch the bus soon, I might be late to my class on the other side of the city. I will try to write again later though. Today after class we are going to see one of the castles in town, and that should be a ton of fun.

So long for now.

***This was posted way after I wrote it since I was running a little bit behind earlier today***

More Good News

2008-05-02T11:40:00.002+02:00

Hello everyone. I just woke up a little bit ago and checked my email and I have more good news to share. I was accepted as the Engineering Ambassador for computer science for the 2008-2009 school year! The position is similar to Precollege in that I will have to show parents and students around the engineering college, answer questions, etc. However, this position also allows me to represent the college when distinguished guests come to visit the college and I also get to attend special events to represent the college and my major. This position is not a full-time position, because there won't always be work to do everyday. That means that I can still have plenty of time to join other clubs, work another job, etc. Unfortunately, there are a couple of events before the end of the year that I am going to miss, but I think that it should be alright since they already knew that I was studying abroad when they accepted me.

I don't know what I have planned for today, but I think that I would like to get work out of the way and maybe take a trip to Europark. I suppose that I'll just have to play it by ear and see what everyone else is up to. That's it for now, but I might be back later today or tomorrow to post again.

Back in action in Salzburg

2008-05-01T16:24:00.004+02:00

Hello once again! It has been a little while since I have had enough time so sit down and write a new post, but I finally have a good chunk of time to recap everything that has happened during the last week.

Last weekend was our trip to Cologne, and it ended up being a lot of fun. It was a relatively long train ride there, but the time ended up going by quickly. As we got off of the train, our pen pals were there to greet us and we ended up going to a local brewery to sit down and talk for a bit before we went and checked in at the hostel. Later we ended up getting dinner and at night I ended up going out with a group of guys to watch the FC Bayern game at a bar. I ended up not staying out too late since we had to go to school on Friday morning. We ended up getting up around 6:30 Friday so that we could get breakfast and then catch the streetcars that would take us to the school. Being there was an interesting experience. I ended up going to a German class with my pen pal, which is the equivalent of our English class. They were discussing a novel for the whole time, and I was able to follow along with what was being said, but there was no way that I understood everything that was going on. After German class, we had group activities with the rest of the OU students and the rest of our pen pals. We played typical "getting to know you" games and, while it was not horrible, it was not horribly exciting.

I'm going to fast forward to Friday night, since that was probably the highlight of the weekend. Almost all of us went out to a club called Die Halle for a huge party being held for the end of the school year and graduation for students in Cologne. The building was packed full of people (10 or 11 thousand) and we ended up dancing all night until about 3 in the morning. There were lights everywhere, smoke machines, music blasting, people dancing. It was unlike anything that I have ever been to in my life and I wish that we had clubs like that back around OU. The only places that we can go are dark, small, and dirty. By the time that we made it back to the hostel and went to bed it was already almost 5:00.

Saturday I ended up going to the Koelner Dom, the zoo, and then to a cookout held at a pretty large park in the city. The day was also rather fun. The Dom was astoundingly beautiful and enormous. Our tour guide (who also gave us a tour of the city on Friday) was able to give a lot of information, but he also kept everything that he shared interesting and told a lot of stories that went along well with what he was saying. He also spoke English amazingly well, without any sign of an accent whatsoever. Later, at the zoo I saw most of your typical zoo animals. I also saw a raccoon and I laughed a little bit on the inside when I read the sign and saw Ohio highlighted on the map where the animals come from. In the evening at the cookout we ended up having a lot of fun just being able to hang out outside with great weather. Unfortunately, I didn't bring food along with me and I wasn't able to eat, but luckily the ice cream truck came by and I picked up an ice cream cone to hold me over until I could go to a restaurant later. Sunday, we traveled back to Salzburg by train from 10:20 - 5:00 and by the time we got back everyone seemed dead tired.

The weekend was a lot of fun, but unfortunately I was in a bit of a funky mood for most of it. Everyone that I met was amazingly nice and friendly, and they were also very helpful making sure that you got where you needed to be. I wish that I would have been able to meet a German family or see a typical German household, since the other OU students that did seemed like they had a ton of fun and really enjoyed themselves. But, even without being able to do that I still enjoyed my stay in Cologne. ((That was the really condensed version of the weekend, but to type it all out would take waaaaaaay to long to do. I'd be more than happy to talk about it more on the phone though))

This week in Salzburg has been surprisingly fun. I was expecting to just have a normal weekend, but little things have made this week different and interesting. We've had our classes and such, and those have been pretty normal, but on Tuesday we ended up having a potluck dinner. Every room (not person) was in charge of cooking at least one dish, and then we all met up in one of the study rooms down the hall. I figured that people would eat and leave, but almost everyone stuck around until about 11:00 (we started at 7). Overall, the food was good and it seemed like everyone had a lot of fun. We ended up bringing a guitar and computer to the room so that we could have some music and a mini dance party/sing-a-long. Unfortunately, just about everyone disappeared all at once and left trash/dishes behind so I ended up cleaning up the room, taking out the trash, and washing people's dishes for them.

Yesterday (Wednesday) was pretty ordinary, except that we had amazing weather and it was our first chance to go to a beer garden and to be able to sit out in the open. Wednesday was also the first day that we had nice weather on one of our city tours, and that was also a nice surprise. For once, I didn't have to fight with my umbrella to function while we were trying to walk around the city.

Today was my favorite day this week because earlier today we climbed to the top of a mountain called Gaisberg. By the time we got to the base of the mountain and started to hike it was about 10:20 and we ended up making it to the top at about 1:10 or so. It was a long (and after, a bit painful) hike, but it was worth the trip and energy that it took to get to the top of the mountain. At the top there were a couple of restaurants and we stopped in to rest and get some food. When we were finished, we took one last look around and then went back down. Luckily, there is a road that runs to the top of the mountain, so we were able to take a bus back down into the city.

Now, I'm here writing this and I'm going to get cleaned up soon and then take a well deserved nap. Hopefully, I will be able to write on here again soon with some more exciting stories. I feel like I cut a lot out from the stories that I put on this post, but maybe I can try to elaborate later if you would like.

Also, I have good news from OU. I received an email notifying me that I have been chosen as the outstanding junior computer science student for 2007-2008 and I also received a phone call yesterday about a possible internship with Lincoln Electric. The award comes with a cash prize and an invitation to an awards ceremony (which I cannot attend since I am on the wrong side of the world) and the internship will hopefully be during this summer if I am able to get it. I am still waiting for someone at Lincoln Electric to send me an email with the pertinent information.

I think that is all that I have for now. If anything else pops into my head I will make sure to hop back on here when I have a minute or two and write it down...and, as always, as I was typing this sentence something else popped into my head. I think that I might be heading back to Munich on Saturday with a couple of other students here from OU. We'll probably go on Saturday and just stay the night and then head back Sunday. It's a perfect short trip to take since you can get a 5-person ticket for only 29 Euro each way. Plans aren't finalized, but this is the kind of trip that you really can just decide last minute whether or not to go.

Thanks again for reading my blog. Keep leaving your comments, and if there is anything else that you would like to hear about feel free to ask either by email or by leaving a comment here. Talk to you again soon.

***New Photos Added Too***

Back and safe

2008-04-28T13:19:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone. I made it safely back to Salzburg. Unfortunately, the internet and phone were not working yesterday when we got back, so I was not able to call anyone or write on here. I will be writing the blog later tonight and most likely I will also be making calls tonight. Talk to you all later.

Leaving for Cologne

2008-04-24T07:12:00.002+02:00

Hi everyone. I'm leaving for Cologne within the hour. That means that I'm 99% sure that I won't be able to call anyone or write in my blog until Sunday evening (unless I go to an internet cafe or something). But I am sure that I will have 1 million stories when I return. Talk to you all later.

Great weekend in Salzburg

2008-04-21T11:56:00.009+02:00

Even though it didn't seem like I was doing much this weekend, this weekend ended up being a lot of fun. On Friday a group of us went to Europark, which is a very large mall on the other side of town. There were a bunch of stores with clothes that actually fit me when I tried them on. I'm lucky that I don't usually like to spend a lot of money or else I would be broke at the moment. Some people that were with us went a little bit spending crazy, but I think that they will probably take it easy for a while. It's always fun to notice how things differ in Austria from the U.S. and the mall had a few differences that I noticed right away. One was that there were a supermarket and stands inside the mall which sold fresh bread, fruit, vegetables, etc. The supermarket also had carts that you can take around the mall with you if you put a deposit down on the cart (like the carts at Aldi, only you need either a 1 or 2 Euro coin to get a cart). As always, when you take the cart back you get your money back. There were also lockers that you could use with the same system of putting a deposit down and getting your money back later. It just seems incredibly funny that if you want a cart or a locker in a mall back home you have to pay at least a few dollars and you don't get the money back. It seems like stores here actually care about security (being able to use lockers) and ease/comfort for families, especially families with children (free carts for shopping/pushing kids around in).

The other most exciting part of my weekend was the soccer game yesterday. Like I said in my last post, we won the game 2-0, although we should have had at least 2 more goals than that. We had great seats though for the game. We were in the third row toward the corner of the field on its east side. Since we were students we were able to get discounted tickets and we only had to pay 14 Euro. There is a section on either end of the field where the crazy-mega-fans for each team sit. We were a couple of sections over from the Salzburg fans and I don't think that they got quiet once the entire game. They have chants, motions, or songs for just about everything that can happen in a game. One thing that I thought was neat was that instead of booing, the crowd whistles when something bad happens. I remembered that from the bullfights in Spain also. It is such a horrible sound when an entire stadium is whistling as high as they possibly can, but it gets the point across. After the game, there were all sorts of police and crowd control around. The fan section from Salzburg took the field and marched across to the other team's fan section waving flags and chanting. The police formed a line in front and drove them back to the center of the field. From what I could see I don't think that anything violent or bad actually happened. Eventually, all of us went out on the field too. Players were walking around taking pictures with people, signing autographs, and being interviewed. It was a lot of fun overall to be able to go to the game and especially to be out on the field after the game was finished.

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out, studying, reading, doing homework, etc. I meant to do laundry at some point also, but I forgot to get that done. It's not too big of a deal. I just need to make sure that I wash everything that I have before we leave for Cologne Thursday morning. That's about all I have for now. Thanks, as always, for the comments that you all leave. I especially enjoyed the two comments that were in German on the last post. I'm sure I'll write on here again soon.

Video Clip:

At the game:

Soccer game

2008-04-20T20:14:00.002+02:00

I only have a little time for right now. But we won the soccer game 2-0! It was a ton of fun, but it went by way too fast. Unfortunately, I don't think that the Red Bulls play at home anymore while we are here, but I can probably travel one weekend if I want to go to another game.

One thing that I thought was kind of cool was that the Pfand system works at the stadium too. You have to pay 1 Euro for the cup if you get a drink, but you get the money back when you bring the cup back. There were a ton of kids collecting empty cups at the end of the game in order to get the deposit back. It makes sense since the stadium ends up being cleaner because of it.

I have to go finish up doing homework at the moment, but I will write again either later tonight or tomorrow sometime.

Soccer game this weekend

2008-04-18T12:02:00.004+02:00

This weekend a bunch of us might be going to the Salzburg Red Bulls soccer game. The game is this Sunday at 3:30. We don't have tickets yet, but we are going to go as a group to get them either today or tomorrow. I just felt like sharing that since I am excited to be able to see a soccer game in Europe.

Learning new things each day

2008-04-17T16:47:00.001+02:00

I am learning new things each day that I am here in Austria and I just wanted to share what I learned today.

For those of you who do not know, Europe, in general, tries to conserve energy, recycle, etc. more than we do in the United States. In an effort to help out the cause, some products that come in bottles require you to pay a deposit in addition to the shelf price of the item. For example, a six pack of beer (3 Liters total), requires you to pay 0,54 extra, or 0,09 per bottle. When you are finished with a bottle you have a few options. You can throw the bottle away, but then you do not get your deposit back and you feel bad for being wasteful. Your second option is to recycle. This option is a good one, but you still miss out on your deposit. The third option, which is also the best option, is to take the bottles back to the supermarket to get your deposit back.

I learned about the bottle deposit system when I was back in Athens, but today I finally figured out where I can take my bottles in order to get my deposit money back. There is a back hallway in Spar (one of the supermarkets here) where you can take your bottles to. There is a nifty machine with a screen and a turntable built into the wall in the hallway. You just put your bottles on the turntable, and then the turntable starts to spin and take your bottles around to a room in the back. If a bottle is accepted, it goes to a back room, you get credit for the bottle, and then the bottles are shipped back out to a brewery where it can be washed and reused. A bottle that is not accepted will stay on the turntable and come back to the opening so that you can take it back and recycle it yourself. After you place all of your bottles on the turntable and the credit for the bottles shows up on the screen you press a green button and receive a receipt. The receipt has the amount of credit that you received and it acts as credit to be used in the store.

I was excited to learn this because I was able to figure all of this out today by only asking questions in German and the people at the store were able to understand me (also, that I could understand them). In my opinion, this system is a great idea since it gives people an incentive to recycle and to be less wasteful. Also, it's nice to know how to get the deposit back, since I will no longer have to pay the deposit when I go to the store. Instead, I can take my bottles back, print out another receipt, and then use the receipt right after I print it in order cover the cost of the deposit (Pfand, in German. A Pfandflasche is a bottle that you must pay Pfand for). Another nice thing is that if there are people who are going to just throw their bottles away you can take them to the store and get the deposit that they paid. It's a great way to earn a few extra cents.

Some more exciting news is that today I bought the board game Die Siedler von Catan (The Settlers of Catan). I'm incredibly excited too! I read the entire instruction booklet and I was able to understand all of the rules (it helped that I already knew the rules to the game, but I was still excited that I could understand what I was reading). I am going to try to get a group of people to play it later on tonight either in the lobby or in my room. They have so many amazing board games and expansion packs here. I have to be careful that I don't go out and spend too much money on them. If I have extra money at the end of the trip, I might buy one or two more games/expansion packs. We'll see how that ends up going later on though.

Yesterday we had our second "official" class tour around Salzburg with Bärbel (like Bare-bel, our professor/program director from OU) and Herr Lochmann (our history professor from Salzburg). We covered a pretty decent amount of the Altstadt and we learned quite a lot of history as we stopped at each location. One of our main stops on the tour was at Stift Nonnberg Monastery, which you might recognize from the Sound of Music. It is the oldest monastery in the world which has existed as a monastery without interruptions. The church there was beautiful and the choir there is supposed to be amazing to listen to. We also stopped at the Neue Residenz, the Alter Markt, Mozartplatz, and saw the building where the first synagogue in Salzburg used to be. We made other small stops along the way too. After the tour we went to a brewery/restaurant called Die Weisse (w sounds like a v, ei as in Einstein and not Spielberg). I tried a small (0,03 L) dark beer and it was one of the best beers that I tried since I've been here. It's made me realize that I do like beer, I just don't like cheap beer. The beer (Bier) at Die Weisse almost tasted like you were eating a delicious loaf of bread (in liquid form, but not like soggy bread).

This weekend is another free weekend and then next weekend we travel to Cologne. I'm incredibly excited for that trip. I'll finally get to meet my pen pal, and she will be able to show me around the city along with other students from OU and some other students from Cologne. We're leaving for the trip next Thursday morning, which means that we will have a shortened school week in order to give us time to pack and travel.

Also, my email address should now show up over to the right of the screen for anyone who needs it. And once again, thank you for all of the comments that you all have been leaving. I smile every time that I see that someone has left me a new comment. That's all that I have for now. Keep checking back for more updates in the near future. I'll try to write again soon.

Recipes

2008-04-15T23:10:00.000+02:00

I just wanted to say thank you to my dad for giving me a recipe for pasta with broccoli, chicken, and Alfredo sauce. I made it tonight and it was spectacular. If anyone else reading this has recipes that I can cook with only a stove top and a microwave please feel free to share them with me. Otherwise I might run out of food ideas really quickly.

No Monday Morning Blues in Salzburg

2008-04-14T20:29:00.000+02:00

Monday, Monday, Monday. Usually people hate Mondays, but Mondays in Salzburg (as well as every other day of the week) are spectacular. The weekend wasn't too action filled, I did a lot of relaxing and studying. In fact, I memorized the entire continent of Europe in both English and German. Pretty cool, right?

Today was a nice day class-wise. I had to perform a soap opera skit with Learose and Jeremy that we wrote over the weekend. It was titled "Scandal in Euoropa Kolleg" (that's where we live). It turned out to be pretty entertaining and I think that we did a nice job with it. Our professor and the rest of the class seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. We started reading our first German play today too. We only read a page or two, but we have to continue reading it for homework. I'm pretty excited since I have never had the chance to read a full text in German before. We also had our second small test today. It was pretty easy, and there were only a couple of questions that I wasn't sure about. Studying in a group over the weekend for it definitely helped me out quite a bit.

Yet another great thing about today was that we received our second food allowance for the trip. Everyone headed out to the grocery store as soon as we got out of class and loaded up on food for the week. I've been going to a new grocery store that is one bus stop down from where I live and they have a much bigger selection of food to choose from as well as better deals on most of the food there. I've been eating a lot better lately now that I am finally settled in and I am getting more and more used to cooking with only a stove top. Tonight I had an apple with nutella, two tomatoes with a big ball of mozzarella, two massive poppyseed rolls, and a sandwich with pork and sauerkraut that I made out of one of the rolls. It was a lot of food to eat on my own, but the entire meal probably only cost me a total of 2-3 Euro.

I've been on a chocolate kick lately since there are a ton of different kinds of chocolate here that are amazingly delicious. While I was at Merkur (the new grocery store), I was able to buy a few different kinds of chocolate and the ones that I have tried have been great. There have been ones filled with yogurt, caramel, chocolate, vanilla, marzipan, and even ones with rum and flavored liqueur. The ones that I had tonight had an orange liqueur in them, but they were a little too strong for my liking and I had to share them with other people. There were also some the other day that were filled with a Bailey's-type of liqueur and those were the best without a doubt.

Other than that, not much else new is happening. My German is getting better each day and we are finally getting more homework so that we can keep busy when we aren't in class. It's still not too overwhelming though, and it is a nice change of pace from having computer science homework that takes hours or days to complete.

I think that's all for now. Actually, I lied. There are more new pictures on the OU site. To see them, use the link at the right of the page. When you are on the OU site, you will see a bar at the left with links for each week. If you click on week 1 or week 2 you should be able to see pictures.

Thanks again to those of you who leave comments. I really do love reading them! I'll try to write again soon.

Mirabell Gardens

2008-04-11T16:48:00.000+02:00

Hey everyone. I just got back from the Mirabell Gardens and a walk through the Altstadt. The gardens were incredibly beautiful and packed full of people. I'm sure that I'll be heading back there again in the near future since it is not too far away and it is free to go.

I'm about to try to add more pictures to the slide show, so make sure that you check that when you have a minute or two. I'm hoping that they will be available within the hour. I'm sure that I'll be writing some more this weekend or maybe even possibly later today.

Also, you can see more pictures if you go to the OU link on the right and look for picture links there. Here is a video that I took from the top of the Festung with my Kodak camera:

Week 2 in Salzburg

2008-04-11T12:30:00.000+02:00

This week has been a rather fun and busy one. This week was the first week that we had our full class schedule for the week, and other than being a lot of time, classes really aren't too bad. We had our first mini test/quiz this past week and I was able to get 99% on it. Hopefully I will be able to keep that up as the quarter goes on.

Monday wasn't too eventful this week. We just had class and such and I ended up only hanging out in the dorms at night. I've been doing a lot of wandering from room to room at night in order to make sure that I get to hang out with everyone that is on the trip at least a little bit. I hate it when I feel like groups are too cliquey. Tuesday was a normal day class-wise. For lunch, a group of us walked to the Altstadt and went to the oldest bakery in Salzburg. I forget if I have mentioned it before, but this bakery has the best bread that I have ever tasted in my life, and the bread doesn't cost too much either. I've been buying some roll-like bread that resemble bagels. They're much softer and sweeter than bagels and the raisins that are baked in them melt when you bite into them. Tuesday we had perfect timing and arrived at the bakery as soon as the rolls came out of the oven. I wish that I could send some back home so that you all could try some, but they don't keep for very long since they are baked fresh daily and without preservatives.

Wednesday was a different change of pace since we had our first real history class. I was nervous for the class before is started since it is taught all in German, but I was able to understand almost all of what was being said. I understood the context of everything, and there were only a few words that I couldn't figure out. The class is held on the other side of town in an art school for students that range in age from elementary school to high school. It was interesting to see and listen to younger Austrians speak German casually rather than only hearing people saying a few things in stores or on the bus. It was kind of fun to see how the kids around here dress, which is pretty similar to how kids in the US dress. Although, the girls here seem to be really into wearing neckerchiefs and a lot of layered clothing.

Wednesday evening we went to the Festung in Salzburg, which is a huge fort on top of a hill in town. The fort itself was amazing and in pretty good shape for being quite old. Also, since it was on top of a hill there was a great view of the rest of Salzburg and especially the Alps. We lucked out and had beautiful weather for the trip to the Festung. Inside the fort they have a museum, a puppet theater, a concert hall, a couple of restaurants, and an audio tour that you can take in one of 10 or so different languages. I was able to get some decent pictures while I was at the Festung and I'll be adding them (hopefully) shortly.

Thursday we had no classes. Instead, we got to meet the Landeshauptfrau (basically governor) of Salzburg, Gabi Burgstaller. She hosted a welcome reception for all of the students from America that are currently studying in Salzburg. I think that there were students from OU, BG, Portland, and one other university somewhere. It was held in the Residenz, which used to be where the Archbishops of Salzburg lived when they ruled over the city. The building itself was gorgeous, and the ceremony was a nice gesture to all of the students that attended. After the welcome ceremony, a group of us wandered around the Altstadt to get food, and later we went grocery shopping. At night, most of us ended up hanging around the dorms with each other and other students that live in Europa Kolleg.

This week had some other events that wouldn't seem huge, but they were pretty fun nonetheless. This week I actually was able to cook for myself (that is, things other than pasta). I made some sort of beef with green peppers and tomatoes, pork chops with mushroom gravy, and pork loins that were seasoned and delicious. It's a little tough to cook here since we only have a stove top and everything must be cooked in a skillet, but I am getting the hang of only being able to cook in a skillet. Also, I bought a huge bag of frozen bio-vegetables (organic vegetables) and they are the best frozen vegetables that I have ever tasted in my life. You don't even need salt or butter on them for them to be delicious. I was also finally able to do laundry this week for the first time last night. I thought it would be more of a hassle, but it ended up going pretty well and all of my laundry was actually dry.

I'll be back soon, but someone just came in and asked if I wanted to go to the Mirabell Gardens, so I will have to write again later.

Weekend in Munich/Back in Salzburg

2008-04-07T19:57:00.000+02:00

This weekend was both a long one and a fun one. We were in Munich the entire weekend, and as a group we had a lot of fun and bonded with each other. We started out Friday morning traveling by train to Munich. Before we met up as a group though, my first adventure of the weekend began. I went to the grocery store before we left so that I could buy some lunch food for the train ride. I got what I needed and headed out to the bus without any problems. It started going, and then a couple of stops later I realized that I got on the right bus, but in the wrong direction. I had to get off and wait for it to loop back around (which took quite a while). I got on going the correct direction, but I was afraid that I was going to be late for the train at 11 (it was about 10:30 at the time and it took 30 minutes or so to get to the train station). Luckily, the train didn't leave until 11:18 and we were only supposed to meet by the ticket counter at 11. I ended up making it there on time without any problems, but I was extremely nervous until I realized that the train left later than I thought.

The train ride over was extremely pretty. We passed city after city and field after field as we rode through the countryside. The cities looked similar, but each one would have at least one characteristic that made it stand out from the rest. Often, it would be the church in the center of the city or the way that the city's borders were laid out. After a 2-hour train ride we arrived at the Munich Hauptbahnhof (train station) and made our way to our hostel, which was about a block away. We dropped off our clothes and anything else that we didn't need for the trip and then hung out in the lobby for a little while. After everyone met up in the lobby, we started our tour of the city by riding the subway to the Pinakothek der Moderne (a modern art museum). We had about 90 minutes to wander around the building and to look at whatever we liked. Like most modern art museums there were some incredibly paintings and exhibits, but there were also some that I just couldn't understand or interpret.

After going to the art museum, we walked through the city for a little while and eventually came to the English Gardens. This is basically a large park in the middle of the city. It is quite large (larger than Central Park in New York) and it has so many paths that it is really easy to get lost if you don't check the maps as you walk. Our original plan was to go to a beer garden in the middle of the park and relax, but the weather was too cold and the entire beer garden was closed. We ended up walking back to the middle of town and finding a restaurant with outdoor seating. We ordered 4 coffees and 16 half-liter beers and sat outside and just relaxed for a while. It was nice to get to sit after walking all day, but sitting there was also quite comical. It was probably between 40-50 degrees outside and raining slightly, but here we were, a group of 20 people wearing gloves with an umbrella in one hand and a beer/coffee in the other. I saw quite a few people chuckle at us as they walked by and saw us sitting there. When everyone felt rested we walked around the city a bit longer and eventually got to the restaurant where we were eating dinner that evening. Nothing too exciting happened while we were in the restaurant, but overall we had a lot of fun being able to talk and fill our stomachs with some good food.

After we ate, we went to the Hofbraeuhaus (ae = an a with two dots above it ..), which is a very large brewery in Munich. Unfortunately, it is also filled with tourists and we were unable to find a place for the 20 of us that were there. A small group stayed, but the rest of us went down the street to a smaller bar/restaurant and had fun trying the Augustiner beer and speaking German. I tried a drink there called a radler. (Note: Since being here I have discovered the radler. Basically, it is half beer and half sprite/lemonade or some other fruity/sweetly flavored drink. The one that I had at the Augustiner place was delicious and it tasted a bit like peppermint or some other kind of herb. Best of all, it is delicious and isn't very alcoholic so it isn't as bad for you as beer) After hanging out for a while we all went back to the hostel and went to bed for the night.

The next day we got up to an amazing* (here the * denotes sarcasm) breakfast of toast, marmalade, and coffee. Actually, it did taste good but it wasn't very filling. Then, one of my instructor's friends who lives in Munich met up with us in the hostel and then took us around the town for the next few hours. We saw all sorts of buildings and churches and even got to climb to the top of a tower in the proximity of the Glockenspiel. Everything was beautiful and climbing the tower was a blast. There were 306 steps and most of the time only one person is able to fit on the staircase, which is the only staircase and has people climbing both up and down. We stayed at the top of the tower for 20 minutes or so and when we came down our instructor told us that we were free for the rest of the day. A small group of us went to the large outdoor market and ate and then went to the Alte Pinakothek (another art museum with art from the 14-17 century). While there, we had short worksheet that we had to fill out with information about the museum and also information over a specific painting that we liked. We were in there for a couple of hours and then eventually met up with another friend of one of the girls from OU. She took us around the town for a little and we eventually sat down in an outdoor cafe and talked and rested some more. Most of us had sore legs/backs/feet at this point in time and we needed time to sit and relax. After chatting with Isabell (the friend that we met up with), we made our way back to the hostel.

We rested for an hour or two and then a small group of us met up with our instructor and her friend to go out to dinner. We were going to get Mexican food for dinner, but every restaurant that we went to was packed and had no seats for the 11 of us. Eventually, we found a restaurant with enough space and were able to order our food without any problems. The food pretty much looked and tasted like I expected and the overall restaurant experience was not too memorable.

Some people went out after dinner, but I decided to stay in the hostel with a few friends and we sat around and talked until the wee hours of the morning (this contributed to the bonding part of the weekend). We went to bed and then all got up the next morning to meet at 10. The guys that I stayed with (there were 5 of us, all from OU) were a lot of fun and we had no problems getting ready in the morning or with each other (staying in the room was another rather large part of the bonding of the weekend). We rode the streetcars to Nymphenburg Castle and spent the next couple of hours visiting the castle, its gardens, and a hunting lodge all of which were amazing.

Most of the group left after visiting the castle, but 5 of us stayed in Munich for an extra couple of hours to walk around the city and to head back to the Hofbraeuhaus. The girls that were with us bought souvenir mugs and then we bought some ice cream down the street. It was some of the best ice cream that I ever had and it was only 1 Euro for a single scoop in a waffle cone. Eating ice cream sums up all of the exciting/eventful things that happened in Munich. After that all we did was walk back to the train and ride home. (Yet Another Note: Actually, two of the people that were with us got on the wrong train that was also heading to Salzburg after we got split up at the train station. They ended up getting kicked off at a stop, but they were able to get on our train shortly after since we also passed through that stop and they made it back without any problems. They said that the person who checked their ticket was really understanding about the whole situation and he did not give them any trouble or fine them)

Now, I'm back in Salzburg and I'm about go see what the other people here are up to. This took quite a while to write, and I think that there were some people that expected me to come earlier.

Before I go, I just wanted to give a class update. That is, classes are starting for real this week and they are going fine. We are slowly getting more and more homework, but none of it is too difficult at this point in time.

Also, there are a few new pictures in the picture slide show. And, as always, that's all that I have for now, but I will be writing again soon. Keep leaving your comments! I think that one of my favorite things about blogging is knowing that I have people who read this on a regular basis! Until next time!

Off to Munich

2008-04-04T09:37:00.000+02:00

I'm leaving for Munich in about 30 minutes or so. I'll write/make phone calls Sunday. Talk to you all then.

Heimbar anyone?

2008-04-03T16:23:00.000+02:00

So much has happened since the last time that I wrote, but I'll try to remember all that we ended up doing. Classes haven't really picked up or become to difficult yet. We've just been reviewing grammar that we already know and have been getting settled in.

Tuesday night was a lot of fun though. The college hosted the Heimbar, which is an event that they have once a month. Basically, they set up a bar in the basement of the dorm and all of the students go there to hang out until the wee hours of the morning. The place was really packed and almost everyone that is here with the OU program ended up showing up. I got to talk to some other students that are staying in the dorm (in German of course) and it was nice to have a chance to meet other people outside of the OU program. Unfortunately, one room had the glass knocked out of the door that separates the bedroom from the kitchen. Someone fell against the door at 4 in the morning and the glass hit the closet door handle and shattered the glass. Fortunately, I think that the person who fell against it wasn't hurt and all of the glass was able to be cleaned up. Apparently, someone's door gets broken every year and now we just kept the tradition going.

Yesterday was probably the most fun that we were able to have during the daytime so far (except for the bad weather). We had our first tour through the old part of Salzburg and we learned about the different styles of architecture in the city and were able to visit some of the churches. The teacher that leads the tours comes from Austria and he gives the tours all in German. I'd say that I could understand 90% of what was being said. It's hard to try to think too long about what something means, because if you do then you end up missing what is said next. Overall, I think that I did a decent job though. We ended our tour at a brewery where the beer is brewed by monks. There is a huge wall with mugs all over it and in order to buy a beer you have to pick a mug, pay, and then go visit the big burly man by the beer barrels (don't want to brag, but that was some nice alliteration) who will fill the mugs for you. I'm not really a beer type of guy, but this beer was probably the best that I have ever tried. Our teacher bought food for everyone and we had an Austrian-style picnic. We had fresh bread, cheese, radishes, peppers, different kinds of meat, and baby sweet and sour corn. By the time we were finished eating I was stuffed. After our picnic, we had our history class in the brewery. We just reviewed some things that we learned on the tour and got the syllabus for the course. Unfortunately, it was pretty loud in the brewery and it was hard to hear our teacher even though he was sitting right next to me.

After we were in the brewery we ended up coming back to the dorms. I had to do a little bit of homework, but then I was able to hang out with everyone. At the end of the night, we ended up dragging a couple of extra mattresses into one of the other rooms and had a sleepover. It was fun, and for some reason I was able to fall asleep and stay asleep a lot better than I am able to in my room. I've been falling asleep for short periods of time and then waking up a lot lately.

Tonight, I don't think that anyone has anything planned. We don't have class tomorrow, but we are leaving for Munich at 11 tomorrow morning. We have to be at the train station between 10 and 10:30 in order to make sure that everyone is there on time. We were given the schedule for this weekend and it looks like we are going to be busy the entire time. I'm hoping that the weather will be pretty nice for the trip so that we can get some nice pictures of the city and so that we won't be miserable the whole time.

I think that's all that I have for now. Keep checking the picture link for when I add new pictures. I think that I'm going to add it to the side of the blog so that it will be easier to find. Thanks for reading and feel free to keep leaving comments for me. They are nice to read!