First Day of Classes!

16 September 2013 Monday

This morning, we were supposed to meet at St. Stephen’s cathedral at 8:30 with two forms, and a printed photo of ourselves for a train pass thing. I had to stop at the school to get the picture printed. Caelyn, Kimber and I got a little confused on the way to the Institute…it was really frustrating because we were so late. We made it to our meeting spot 40 minutes late, but Roger was still there waiting for latecomers!! It was a frustrating frantic morning. We had to go to an office to apply for temporary residency or something, and then take the train somewhere to the OBB office and get the train pass for the next three months. It gets us a discount.  We finished that, then had time to walk around until class at 12:00.  We had ART HISTORY. Our teacher is pretty cool…his first language is German but he is good at English. We talked all about history and no art, but tomorrow we go to a museum so that is good.  We had an hour and a half before our next class, so we EXPLORED!!! Here are some pictures from the afternoon:

Lunch group (MO) 

Garrison (MO)

My Brat dog (MO)

Kimber Logan (MO)

the meat that goes in our sandwiches! so good.

brat dog today!

Lexi Nay 

(MO)

the wind is blowing in my shirt so I'm a fatty (MO)

(MO)

Haley Jan Hawkes, my sister

Stefanie Otthenning

handle on one of the museum doors

 Our next class was German 102 from 2:30-4:00 but he accidentally went till 4:30. I fell asleep a few times….I love our building.  After class we went out. Haley and I had a mission to find some purses…we didn’t bring any larger bags to carry around when we don’t want to have our big heavy backpack! Because we can get lockers at the school where we can leave our books and laptop for when we go explore between classes. So we went to H&M, F21 and Zara (really European, I know…but we knew they’d be cheap haha). We both ended up getting bags at some random shop called “Six” which is probably European which is good! Haha! I did get a blazer on sale at Zara though for 14 Euro…its adorable.

staircase inside the Institute

this statue is at the entrance to the Institute

inside our German classroom, taken while I was trying to stay awake

shopping hunt...notice all the American titles haha

So we started getting stressed…because I was with Haley, Monika, and Stefanie. We split up from Amy, Caelyn, and Kimber (my roommates and Haley’s roommate) and we forgot to set up a time or place to meet up with them again!! WHAT were we THINKING. We don’t have our phones set up…so we had to guess on where they would be. They were planning on going to the Billa (grocery store) and the Bipa (like Rite Aid) in the mall area..so we looked there, but no luck. So we all decided to just go. Because Haley and Amy were supposed to be at FHE, and my roommates and I had dinner with Frau Feest tonight. So I had to travel alone, Haley had to travel alone (to FHE in a place she had never been before and the directions were CONFUSING…) and Amy was also traveling alone somewhere. Thankfully we all made it safely and close to on time for our dinners.

DINNER WITH FRAU FEEST!!!! She is the absolute cutest!! We had three courses: vegetable soup: blended carrots, celery, ginger, potatoes, and something long and green she didn’t know the word for which might have been asparagus? We couldn’t figure out the word. It is so funny that we don’t speak the same language hahaha. We can communicate fine though. Next, we had small brats called something else…with a spiced rice, salad with French balsamic dressing (she is French), bread, and grapes.  For dessert we had GOURMET ice cream cones like drumsticks but sooo much better, and some ginger snap spice cookies. So great!! We practiced our German on her, and learned the words for lots of foods.  She showed us on a map where to take a train to get to some forest areas to walk around where it is really beautiful. I can’t wait to go explore out there!!

first course: vegetable soup

she went on a walk in the forest and picked these flowers today! cutie.

main course: brats?

Frau Feest: she is the absolute cutest and she loves us

dessert!: ice cream and cookies

Kimber, me, Caelyn

 Oh, this morning, there was a sticky note on the toilet door that said “Tür zumachen” and under in English it said “Not Open”…and when we read it early this morning before we were really awake for some reason we thought it meant broken? Like the bathroom is closed. Out of order. We weren’t sure, we were scared something was wrong with the toilet! So we didn’t use it! Then we had to pee so bad all morning! But yeah, Mom and Dad as you know already cause you are probably laughing…she meant don’t leave the door open. Hahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa.

We have been in our room enjoying this rainstorm!! This is what is out our window right now!! Feels so amazing. Caelyn almost melted her laptop…it started melting! We don’t know why because her charger allows up to 270 V. But we think it might be because her phone was plugged into her laptop so maybe that was adding more power that it needed? Well it smelled really bad and she is scared to use it now and her laptop is dead. Haha. 

So Monika is really good at taking photos. I love it, but it also frustrates me! Because we are in the same places and I just wish I could find these photos like she can. But I am trying to get more and more practice, because that’s the difference! She is always always taking photos and knows exactly how to capture the best moments. She is amazing at editing, and is so quick with her camera. So I’m trying to observe her and learn how to be quicker with my camera! So while I’m still learning and improving, I will still post some of her photos because I can’t help it! She sends them on an online drive every night to us to look at. They are all so great. I just want to make sure she is getting due credit for her amazing talent. So again, hers are marked with the (MO).

(MO)