Thankful.

28 November Thursday

Well, real quick, today did not feel like Thanksgiving. I'm sad about it.

Anyways, I woke up and still felt sick.  But more of a headache, not the throwy-up kind of sick.  So I took some Advil and laid in bed for another hour till I felt better.

We had our last German class today before our final....hahah that class is a J O K E.  It's fine.  For our history class, we went to the war museum, which was cool, but hard to pay attention.  It is always hard to pay attention to him.  The building was cool though!  And there is going to be a medieval market out front starting tomorrow!  We will have to go back.

So after the museum, Amy, Haley and I went to this one subway station to talk to a guy about getting train tickets for the morning to get to the airport.  He helped us calculate what time we would need to leave and where to go and everything (the transportation is different at 5AM).  In the subway station, there were all these papers taped to the wall.  Mara helped me understand that it said to take one!  And they were little poems.  I grabbed two little guys. 

   

The more we

want to earn

The more things

will serve us

For me but

more

must earn.

The Google translation on the other one didn't really make too much sense.

I had to go back to the school to do some Copenhagen research (oh yeah, that's where we are going) and to print off some of my maps.  Here's the opera house on this freezing cold night coming out of the escalator.

This is down one of the streets on my walk home!  Christmas!!!!

For dinner (and for lunch earlier...) I had leftover schnitzel.  YAY HAPPY THANKSGIVING!....ugh.  So sad.

I also got myself this apple pastry.  It was almost like an apple pie.

And now it is time to do a little bit more Copenhagen planning, some packing, some homework, and maybe some Grey's Anatomy-watching.

I can't believe my last trip is tomorrow.

Real quick, I want to throw in a "thankful" post...because I just gotta.

I am so thankful for my parents, first of all, who have made traveling not only a possibility in my life, but a reality...honestly without them I wouldn't have been able to be studying in this amazing city.

I am thankful for this beautiful world.  It is amazing.  

I am thankful for knowledge, and the opportunity I have to learn more and more.

I'm thankful for umbrellas.

I'm thankful for cars, trains, busses, planes, and wifi--all allowing me to travel easier.

I'm thankful for the English language and that I know it already because it would suck to learn.

I am thankful for my curly hair from my daddy.

I'm thankful for Steve Jobs.

I'm thankful that so many of my friends are out serving missions!!

I'm thankful for the technology that allows me to call home, and allows me to save my memories easily ...all in my computer through photos and journals.

I'm thankful for doctors who can perform surgeries on feet well enough that I can walk around Europe for months and be fine about it (a real miracle there).

I'm thankful for generous people.

I'm thankful for butter and sugar...always.

I'm thankful that God can hear us and will answer our prayers.

Okay those were super random.  Homework time!!

Thanksgiving

27 November Wednesday

Today we didn't have to be to class at the Minert's apartment until 3:00, so I took advantage of my morning!  Well, I tried to.

I got up at 9 and headed out.

Oh, and I forgot my camera so here's to iPhone photos! (not as bad as I think...but yeah whatevs)

DESTINATION: back to the BELVEDERE

GOAL: to see that Schiele portrait I missed yesterday

Well, I got to the strassenbahn stop at Karlsplatz (by taking the 2A bus there), and it pulled away right before I could cross the street to get to it.  The next D car came in 23 minutes!  I thought that couldn't be true, so I sat and waited...

it was truuuue.

Sometime in there this cute class of kinder piled into a street car.

One was dressed particularly well, and one couldn't stop looking at me, so I took a picture of him, natürlich.

Well, I finally got on the D street car.

Three stops later I realized I was going the wrong direction.

DUHHHHHHH

So I got off at the Rathause and crossed the street and waited 8 more minutes for the next car.

 Of course I made use of those 8 minutes enjoying the large Christmas market right behind me.

 So I finally was en route to the Belvedere...it was about 10:55 by now.  This girl sat by me, and I noticed she had English language worksheets!  So I told her I spoke English, and I asked if she needed any help.  I helped her through a couple sections of her worksheet...it was hard!  Not for me to answer, but to explain?  Explaining that in English didn't even make sense, let alone trying to find German words to help her understand.  I think she might have learned one or two things though so that's good.  She needs to be taking English classes for her Business major is what I understood.  It was a fun chat.

Well guys, I made it to the Belvedere...I convinced the guy to let me in with my ticket with the wrong date but hand-written correct date....BUT the room I wanted to go in was still being remodeled!  Well, more of it was done than yesterday, but they weren't quite finished.  I don't think that portrait is in there anyways.  Our professor is going to show us tomorrow in class what it looks like so then I'll know if I've seen it somewhere else (because I've seen a lot of his work by now, let's be real).

When I left, I went quickly through the Christmas market right outside the museum to make myself feel better.  I was really so sad that I didn't get to see anything new after all that traveling work.  Days like this I miss my car!  And I bought a cute little nutcracker ornament which made me feel a lot better.

NEXT STOP: The Albertina

They have a special exhibit up right now--Matisse & the Fauves.  Fauvism was a type of impressionism...they used bright colors, thick brush strokes, and some of the time didn't even cover all of the canvas.  That was especially appalling to viewers of the time, and most people hated this art and said it was childish.  There's something about the colors that is just beautiful, though.

portrait of Matisse by Derian

 I bout a 5 euro poster of this...doooowop

 London...!! I've been here!

 There were three other modern exhibits here.  One was this woman who took still frames from the ends of movies and she drew them with pencil (maybe charcoal), but they are so exact they look like photos...or the actual still images from the movies, but they are all hand-drawn!!  She also had a series of eyes, most of them HUGE....unreal.  So photographic-looking.  I liked the small circle ones...

 Then some weird guy did these two upside-down things.  They are huge.

 I went into this other exhibit that was in the area of the building that was preserved as a palace...I turned the corner and this is what I saw!!!

Yessss.  SCHIELE.  So much glare on the glass but hey.  Beautiful still.

 These Dürer drawings are fakes....stupid.

 So I wandered through that palace part for a bit.  Saw some Rubens sketches.  In one room there was a live decorated Christmas tree!  I loved it.

 Selfie with the red carpet palace stairs...just cause.. palace.

the view of the Opera house from the top of the Albertina

 We had our last religion class today!  Our final is open-note, take home, to be finished in the next week and a half.  We practiced our songs, with me on the piano, and we ate pumpkin pie!!!  AHHHH I am so sad about missing Thanksgiving.

 BUT

NO WORRIES

Because we had Thanksgiving dinner tonight, at Schnitzelvirt.  All that's important is I feel really sick now.  Mine is a cordon bleu schnitzel.  I ate maybe 1/3 of it...haha.

 Oh and you KNOW where we ended up after that dinner!!

CHRISTMAS MARKETS.

I got a couple more beautiful ornaments.  I am in love with them.  I made friends with the lady at my favorite booth.  I will be back there...I ran out of cash hahaha.

This is a unique nativity set I found...different from the wooden ones I have seen, but I'm still not falling in love.

 After our hands were sufficiently numb, we came home and threw on sweats and forced ourselves to do some homework.  We have an essay due for history next week...so I got researching.  I ate this applesauce with jam and cinnamon.  Maybe that's why I feel sick...but who knows.

It is weird what our expectations can do to our attitudes.  This morning I was expecting to see a Schiele portrait in the Belvedere, and after all that work to get there I was disappointed and I really could have cried!!  But when I ran into some in the Albertina...I was so happy!!  The surprise was just as good as it would have been to see it when I thought I would.  That doesn't make much sense.  I was just really happy because it wasn't what I was expecting.

I'm listening to this right now from one of my old playlists of music, and I remember 

how much I love it: 

The Beauty of Who You Are - Marc Broussard

I feel really sick.