Side Note

Oh, just as a random aside: They like to put corn on their pizza here. That's a little weird.

That is all.

Have a nice weekend! =)

Term 1: A Retrospective

1/6.

Since my two years here are split up here into trimesters, I've labeled this post 1/6.

Exams are done, "skills seminars" are in full swing, and people are starting to leave for winter break. Honestly, this term as gone by so fast and now it's already almost Christmas! And my German is still terrible! AHHH!

Here's a little recap of the last few months, apologies to those of you who've been following, as some of this stuff will be a rehash of previous posts (but not all of it!).

September

Orientation and meeting a million and a half people...

Dinner out after our walking tour of Vienna

October

Belvedere Palace

Schönbrunn Palace

Gloriette at Schönbrunn

(These last two stand directly across from each other, hence the huge diff in lighting. These were taken on the same day within minutes of each other, but somehow, the top one has 0 clouds. To the photographers out there, is this some weird trick that the light plays?)

Lunch with Ambassador Wesner

November

French dinner made by amazing friends Amaia, Anne-Sophie, and Julie

 What we had at said dinner. Poulet à la diable et Ratatouille. Amazing.

Yes, I took a picture of food. It was THAT good

(And don't be a smart-ass and think "but how could you have known 

if you took the picture before tasting it?")

Fun times at the US vs. Austria friendly

Weihnachtsmärkte galore (this one is at the Rathaus)

We also had a huge Canamerican Thanksgiving dinner, but I have no decent pictures of the people or the food, so I'll just give a shout out to Rohde and Flokwong for cooking deliciousness!

December

This lovely month was taken up mostly by taking finals. 

And studying for finals, like I'm doing here...

Luckily, December will also consist of some fun things like traveling, more German learning, lots of sleeping and maybe some movie watching! 

Thanks to all the wonderful DAers who've made this a great 1st term, looking forward to many more, and have a terrific break! If you're among those who will be in or around Vienna over break, gimme a shout!

James Bond will return....

Interesting Encounters and Failed Outings

So I knew that by coming to Vienna, I would meet some interesting and eclectic people. Little did I know. Here is a short list of interesting encounters I've had since I've been here:

1) One of my classmates works as a line judge for Wimbledon. Yes, the tennis tournament. Yes, that's awesome.
2) Also, one of the people in our administration looks like Madam Hooch.
3) Finally, I met a girl in my Chinese course who comes from Luxembourg. She moved to Vienna because she's a PROFESSIONAL PING PONG PLAYER. ?!?!?!
4) Oh, and I'm friends with people from Colombia, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Spain, France, the UK, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Turkey, Canada, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Luxembourg, Argentina and Kazakhstan, among others. Yea, no big deal.

Here is a picture of us:

Failed Outing #1 (I number this as 1, not b/c this is a list of many, but b/c I know that this is just the first of what will undoubtedly be a list of many)

Since I don't have class on Monday until 4pm, I decided to out on this beautiful day(!) to run a couple of errands and buy some things I needed: some pens, a dictionary, and laundry detergent (so I don't keep stealing my friend's).

Success rate: 1 out of 3... kind of.

I got the pens, and got what I thought was laundry detergent, but couldn't find a dictionary that I liked. I got back to school and upon closer inspection saw in very small print "Do not pour directly on laundry" (btw, this whole bottle is in German, French and Italian only). Now being somewhat skeptical, I asked some of my German speaking friends if the liquid that I bought was, in fact, laundry detergent. After all, it said things like "Fresh Meadow," and "4x Longer Freshness," all over the bottle. Guess what? Even my native German speaking friends had trouble figuring out if this stupid thing was laundry detergent or just fabric softener. Of course, in the end, turns out I bought fabric softener. I guess I'm just supposed to know that "Lenor" only makes fabric softener? Now I have to go back and see if I can exchange it or get a refund or something. Yay.

In other news, I finally went to visit Schönbrunn palace the other day, so I'll post pics of that soon. Also, those of you who asked for postcards should be getting them within the next couple of weeks. I finally went out to buy some.

Tschüss!

So they tell me I came here to study...

A week in the life of...

So here's a little breakdown of what classes I'm taking (Yay so interesting, right?)

Core Courses:

Political Science: Scopes and Methods

Principles of Microeconomics
Evolution of the International System 1815-1945

Principles of International Law

Institutional Law of the European Union

In other words, PolySci, Econ, History and Law. Forget the fancy names.

Other Courses:

Current EU Issues: Institutions and the EU Decision Making Process

Middle East in World Politics

German A1+ (Second to lowest level)

Chinese A1 Phase 1 (Lowest level)

As you can see, my language levels are atrocious!

Busy busy! Most of these should actually be really interesting, but the amount of reading? Yikes! Plus things aren't organized here quite as well as I would like. Oh well.

And then, after that, we go to cafés, bars, or sightseeing. Studying? What's that? So here are some pictures of random friends. Hopefully, they will not hate me for exploiting their images for the sake of this blog. =D

On a random side note: You KNOW the bureaucracy's bad here when you have other EUROPEANS telling you it's bad even for them. Wow.

Also, hello to any cool Italians who are following these posts! =P

Bureaucracy... UGHHHHH!!

Are you KIDDING me?

Austrian bureaucracy seems to be even worse than French bureaucracy. I'll spare the gory details, but essentially, it comes down to the consulate in the US telling me one thing, the administration here telling me another, and me having to spend more money on things I've already paid for (among other things) in order to navigate their ridiculous requirements. Oh, and all of this took a 5 minute meeting which was preceded by a 2 and a half hour wait, PLUS a half hour FIRE DRILL??? Wow.

Oh and goody, looks like the idiots in Congress can't even work together to sustain a functioning government. Again. Yay.

Breathe.... On a lighter note...

If any of you would like to see pictures of particular things, or if you would like me to talk about anything in particular about my school, Vienna, etc., please feel free to comment! I'll try my best to accommodate everyone's requests! =)

Wishing you all a better day than mine!