First full day in VIENNA!

13 September 2013 Friday

We woke up at our pink hotel at 8:00am and went downstairs for breakfast. They serve bread and slices of meat and cheese, yogurt, glass bottles of orange juice, apple juice, milk, and water, eggs...breads.  We got all our bags and put them in a room to hold them while we did some things around the city.  

Ran into Jim and Jan in the hotel!

We took a bus/train/street car (I don't know which is which) to "The Institute". That is what we call our school.  It is a really big, nice building. Super old.  The Amerikan Institute owns the third floor, and there are four classrooms I think. Between our 17 students from BYU, and 3 groups from other colleges in the US, and English speaking classes taught to Austrian people, there are around 45 classes a day or something! So it is always going to be busy. We have classes there three days a week, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday.  Wednesdays we just have religion and it is taught at the Minert's house. I'll write more about the classes after they start!

Monika Ottehenning took this photo (she is a photography major,

and so she has taken way more photos than I have already!

So on her photos I'm just going to put (MO). So there ya go.

So anyways we went to the Institute and we had a meeting where they told us about rules and what to expect and such with our host families...like if we should do the laundry, when to, be sure to ask if we can use the kitchen, what to expect to eat and to take short showers and to take our hair out of the drain etc. Then we left with this man who is in charge of the program named Hermann... (It might be Herr Mann..??? But I think his name is actually Hermann. I don't really know hahaha).  Anyways, he took us around the area near the school.  We did a big circle around, and Hermann showed us where good food places are and what his favorites are, then we had like 45 minutes to go find our own food to eat.  We went to this yummy sandwich stand where we could get sandwich (more like bread pouches) or wraps with chicken or lamb, and both the meats were off of the spear thing. They had yogurt and chili powder on them, along with lettuce, tomato, and onion.  I didn't get the tomatoes or onions. Obviously. I got LAMB. First time eating lamb. It tasted like pork. 

Our lunch stand to get Döners (MO)

THE WHOLE GROUP

This is Monika Ottehenning (MO). She has a twin, Stephanie, who probably took this haha.

Amy Saunders and I eating

We met back on a certain corner and walked back to the Institute, where we met our host parents! Ours is an old little lady named Frau Feest. She does not speak much English at all...but it isn't impossible. I have two roommates (the only group of 3)--Caelyn Rice and Kimber Logan.  They both went to BYU Idaho.  I like them a lot. I got pretty lucky. So we went down to the street and waited for a cab, and we got one that was medium sized...and our luggage BARELY fit.  We each had two pieces of luggage, and we were all crammed in the backseat. FUNNY STORY: We were at a red light in the street with our windows down, and there was a really good looking guy on a scooter in the lane next to us.  I said to Caelyn- "WOW that guy is soo hot!! Look at him!!"  And we start talking about him.  He started to smile...and he turned around and glanced at us a couple of times.  "Can he hear us? Can he even understand us...? Noo. No he can't duh." Then he laughed and turned and looked right at us! It was so embarrassing he totally heard and understood what we were saying I think...so LUCKY by then the light turned green, and we drove off! When we drove past him I gave him this look, like big eyes and open mouth, eyebrows raised? a look saying "DANG BOY you're good looking"....I thought I might as well since it was awkward and we were driving away!!  HAHA And then, of COURSE we stop at the next light right next to him...he pulled his scooter up right next to our window and said something in German that was like "What's up ladies how are you?" And gave us a huge smile and we just froze and couldn't think of how to say GOOD! THANKS!.. and then he said "English only?" We nodded...yes yes...He laughed. I said, "You speak English...?" He said yes and smiled again. It was so awkward.. my face was bright red, I could tell. I said, "So, did you hear everything I said a second ago?..." He laughed, and said "Not all of it, but I could tell from the looks on your faces what you were probably saying!!!" I didn't know what to say next, and LUCKILY (again) the light changed and he zoomed off and we all laughed really hard. We tried to tell our lady what happened but I don't think she understood what we were saying. Plus we were laughing really hard.

(iPhone quality) front doors of our apartment

We made it to Frau Freest's apartment!!  We went in these huge dark wood doors, into an entry way, up the stairs to an elevator, up 4 floors, and into this glass hallway with three doors we had to unlock to get into! It was so pretty with potted plants ALL over.  I haven't taken pictures of it yet but I will and I'll post them when I dooooo...Anyways, you go through the three doors, and then there is an entryway to her apartment, and to the left is our section of the apartment, and it is pretty much its own apartment. We have our own bathroom, two showers, two kitchens, and two bedrooms. It is amazing!! But yeah, it is really old but other than that it is awesome. And!! We have the most AMAZING VIEW. Tomorrow I'll take a lot more pictures, because it is dark already.  So it was like 4:00 when we got there probably.  We talked and unpacked.  Caelyn and I are sharing the room with the view, and Kimber is in the other room.  We all just hang out in our room though.  Caelyn fell asleep around 7...then I unpacked.  We connected to the wifi. WITH WIFI I can Snap Chat, get on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, email, and I can text to iPhones who are on iMessage because that runs off the internet, not through a cellular plan.  I turned my phone on "airplane mode" so my cell service isn't even on.  If anybody else texts me, I won't get it, and my data is NOT ON.  So I live off wifi, but I have it more than I thought I would (at home, at school, and in most restaurants).

(iPhone quality) of our amazing view...

better photos to come hhahah.

I tried hard to stay up till 10:00pm...I was soo tired. I did my first blog post to stay awake. I can't wait to figure out the formatting of it more, but that will have to come later because I have like NO time! I'm always tired.