German is an Ugly Language

Greetings from Vienna! Or Wien, if we're being all European.  Our 10 day has officially started, and day one was a success. (just a note right now, there may be a lot of typos in this, because Austrian keyboards don't have the letters in the same location as American keyboards.  Most notably the z and y are switched. Its been super frustrating thus far.  and it took me five minutes to figure out how to get the @ symbol to appear... i hate technology.  especially the foreign kind).

We left for ten day on Thursday, which was Saint Patrick's day, but it was also the celebration of 150 years of Italian unification.  WHICH IS APPARENTLY A BIG DEAL. So of course the buses weren't running on their normal schedule, which resulted in many a UD student standing out at the bus stop in the cold rain for over an hour.  Luckily, our group was already running late so we only had to wait fifteen minutes.  Procrastination at its finest.  But we got to the train station with three hours to spare.  During those three hours, we managed to eat, and get our eyes violated on so many different levels.  Here's a fun fact about Italians: they have no sense of decency and think its appropriate to grope each other in public, even if your standing two feet away. Gross.

So we got on the overnight train to Vienna, which was also stopping in Munich. There were evidently about 10 UD students on the train, but we were the only ones that didn't cheap out.  We actually paid for the upgrade to a  sleeper car.  Which was SO SMALL. It was three bunks high on each side, and I couldn't even lay across the whole car, it was that tiny. And we shared it with two Italian women who were apparently really noisy.  But I didn't notice, because Dramamine is magical.  And I learned my lesson from the boat, I took the dramamine and went straight to bed so I couldn't say anything stupid and get made fun of for the whole rest of the trip.

We got to Vienna at 8:30 in the morning and made our way to the hostel.  It's really nice! I'm glad we didn't cheap out and go for the sketchy 5€ hostels, but we do have a 4€ hostel in Prague, so hopefully that wont be too  suspicious.  Yesterday we went and saw the Imperial Jewels.  NOTE TO FUTURE HUSBAND: my expectations have been raised, so start saving ;)  Anyway, they were beautiful.  We then headed over to the Imperial Crypt, which was really cool but I think I would have appreciated it more if I was familiar with all the different Kaisers and whatnot.  In West Civ. II we only ever discussed Hitler...apparently you can never understand Hitler until you understand a struggling artist.... I evidently didn't learn much.

We bought tickets for Mozart and Strauss concert in the evening.  Which was impossible to find.  Every main square in Vienna has a statue with a man on a horse, and thats all the map showed.  So we arrived 20 minutes late.  Luckily it wasn't a formal affair, more of an Austrian recital.   So we got to see an Austrian string quartet, two ballet dancers (and yes, they were legit ballerinas) and two opera singers.  German is an ugly language.  It's even uglier when it's being belted out in Opera, and that's all I have to say on the subject.

Because we were so cultured and classy earlier in the day, Elise and I decided to counterbalance it by going to a bar later.  Best drink EVER.  Screwdriver with fresh squeezed blood orange juice.  SOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOOD.  Highly recommended to everyone.

Today we're going to the market and eating pastries until we explode.

On another note, i feel completely lied to about how many pastry shops are in Vienna.  We walked for a solid hour without seeing one yesterday.  What the heck!

On yet another note, Austrian boys are gorgeous.  Finally entering into the realm of the tall and blonde, and getting away from the short, greasy Italian men.

Hopefully I'll update from Prague or Krakow! :)