U-BAhn Adventure

On Sunday nights we have religion class and dinner at our professor’s apartment at 5pm. Lexi and I leave our place at 4 so we can catch the bus, get to the U-Bahn (subway) station, and make it to our destination by 5. This Sunday we left our place at 4 like normal and got on the U6 line. We took it quite a few stops until at one stop the conductor came on over the intercom and made some sort of announcement. All I understood was “everyone get off”, but I was really unsure as to what exactly was going on. One lady stayed on, and there were a bunch of people getting on, so I was even more confused. One guy sat down next to me and I asked him what was going on. He pointed down one of the tracks and said “Siebenhirten”. I jumped out of my seat and got off as fast as I could. Siebenhirten is in the direction we had come. We went and found a lady that actually spoke English to explain what was going on. We had to go out of the station, catch a bus that went two more stations, get back onto the train, take it two stops, switch train lines, then take it one stop and get off. Confusing enough? We made it to the bus okay, but I guess we went around the wrong side of the bus and spent another five minutes looking for the station entrance. We had to ask someone else for directions to the entrance, and finally we were back on the U-bahn. Everyone was looking very grave and panicked, so we thought someone had jumped on the tracks (which happens quite often, sadly enough). Turns out some of the tracks were just under construction. But luckily we found our way to our professor’s place. (Well, we accidentally buzzed apt 8 in the wrong building and annoyed some people…) We made it there at 5:20. Somehow we left early and still managed to be late.

The Drive Home

On our way back to Vienna, just like on our way to Salzburg, we made a couple of stops at the local sites. Both times we stopped at quaint country lakes surrounded by tiny villages. I don’t know what the lakes were called, but we had about an hour at each place to just marvel at the scenery before us.
The first lake was very blue-green, with water so clear you could see the bottom under ten feet or so of water, as well as dozens of fish. It was so nice to just sit and relax there. At the second lake we saw some swans. (There were a few swans at the first lake, but only a few.) Stephanie remembered having a stale role on the bus, so we grabbed it and started feeding the swans. Before we knew it we were feeding eleven swans and half a dozen or so ducks. Swans are really not very intelligent creatures. Bad as this sounds, it was fun to throw the bread at their necks so they couldn’t see where it bounced off and they would look all confused in search of it. There was also this one swan that looked like he was ready to attack three of us. We puffed ourselves up and made absurd snorting sounds, at which he started to back away. He was so clumsy when he was backing up that he fell over himself trying to get in the water. It was quite the sight.


At the second lake there was also a miniature playground area. Included in this area was a ping-pong table. Stephanie and I decided that we were going to play- there weren’t any balls or paddles, so we decided upon outrageous arm/body movements and sound effects. I think it was the greatest game of ping-pong I have ever played ☺
And finally, at about 8pm, we drove back into Vienna. It was surprising how much it felt like we were coming back home even though we have been here less than three weeks. Salzburg was a great vacation, but now Vienna is home.

Untersberg

We weren’t leaving Salzburg until 1pm on Saturday, so that morning we decided to go see more of the countryside. We took a bus from our hotel out of the city to the base of a huge mountain known as Untersberg (berg=mountain). We made it just as one of the trams was headed up the mountainside. When we got there, Diane and Melissa and I went on a little hike. The mountain had some pretty intense trails, but it was one of the most beautiful views I had ever seen. You could see for miles on end. I don’t think I can describe the enormity of the land that I saw. Simply amazing.

Exploring Salzburg

On Friday we didn’t have anything planned, so we went exploring. We went to Mozart’s birthplace, saw three different churches, and spent the afternoon in Mirabell gardens. Much of “The Sound of Music” was filmed here, and I had great fun pretending to be Maria, singing on the steps just like she was. It was a little drizzly, so Anne, Lindsay, Stephanie, and I spent three hours just sitting in the gardens talking and enjoying our surroundings. People kept on staring at us for some reason, and we could never quite figure out why. There were plenty of other people doing the same thing, but everybody really seemed to enjoy staring at us and giving us weird looks. But we were having fun, and that’s what counts.
Stephanie and I also went perfume shopping on Friday. We weren’t really sure what kind of souvenirs we should get to remind us of Salzburg, so we thought perfume shopping was a good plan. And it was. We were looking for cool European scents (as everyone we pass by here smells really good), but my favorite one that I found was actually a DKNY scent that I could probably buy at any Nordstrom’s in the states. But it smells amazing. Red Delicious. Yep- like the apple. I pretty much smell amazing right now. It’s great.



Later in the evening we kept seeing a bunch of people dressed in the Dirndles and Lederhosen. Plus there were a lot of people playing the accordion. Apparently it was some sort of saint’s day that everyone was celebrating- there were carnival rides, cotton candy stands, and everything. Strangely enough, mass was cancelled that night, I guess for that reason. We had been planning on going, but when we got to the cathedral a little after six they were kicking everyone out. I thought it was a little strange you would cancel mass on a saint’s day. Oh well. I was happy with the way my day went. It was great.

Salzburg City Tour

Later on Thursday, the 14th, we took a walking tour of the city of Salzburg. We were able to meet the guide that had no idea our group existed in the morning for the afternoon. We didn’t see quite as much as I would have liked- we mostly stood outside of places where our guide told us the lengthy history of whatever it was we were standing in front of. But the city’s beauty more than made up for it, and we had Friday free to go and explore whatever we wished. So it all worked out.
We went to places like St. Paul’s cathedral, the Salzburg fortress (which mostly just looked like a great white castle), places where Mozart lived, the oldest restaurant in Europe (operating since somewhere around 803 AD) and a few places where “The Sound of Music” was filmed. We did get to take a tram (an extremely crowded one) up to the fortress, thankfully so we didn’t have to climb the massive hill. It was pretty sweet, and we did get to see a lot of the city.


Thursday night we also had the chance to go to a marionette presentation of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro.” The puppets were wildly entertaining, and so was some of the translation. Every scene or so there was a description of what was going on in five different languages, just for those of us who couldn’t understand the Italian it was presented in. Some of the phrases we thought were hilarious were “stage a passionate love scene,” “pay court to,” and “as Susanna luxuriates in the garden” (apparently “luxuriating” is singing to yourself, but that was news to us).

Salzburg Salt Mines!

The next day, (Thursday), we were supposed to go on a city tour straight after breakfast. There was, however, a slight mix-up in communication with our guide, and she had no idea that she was taking us anywhere that day. So off to the salt mines we went. I was thinking we would just kind of go walk around in some dark caves, listening to some guy rattle on about the wealth of Salzburg (Salzburg= salt castle). Boy was I wrong.
And boy am I glad I was wrong. This was probably my favorite favoritest thing we did while we were there. First off, to protect our clothes we got these white mining suits that made us looking like we were KKK members. I guess we all kind of looked like snow monsters, too. To get into the mines we got to ride this crazy little train thing, which was pretty fun in itself. We walked through the mines a ways and every little bit there were some video clips we watched about the history of Salzburg and what salt did for the growth and economy of the city. Part of the salt mines also crosses over the German border and the Swiss border- within an hour I had visited three different countries. Sweetness. We also crossed one of the salt mine lakes in a boat during part of the tour, which was cool. But my favoritest part of my favoritest favorite part of Salzburg were the slides. There were two wooden slides we slid down to get deeper into the mines, one 27 meters and one 42 meters long. I could have gone down those slides all day they were so fun, plus our marshmallow uniforms made us slide like a dream. It was great. We kept walking through, tasted some brine, and admiring the cool salt formations. Our guide had been an actual miner too, until 1989 when they closed the mines because they were no longer profitable enough. He has been giving tours ever since.





After one of the video clips our guide asked if anyone had any questions. There were a bunch of adorable little children on the tour with us, and without any hesitation one piped up, “When do we get out of here?” Everyone laughed pretty hard at that. We then took an escalator and another little train out of the salt mines. That place was so so so much fun. And I loved it. I want to go down the slide again.

Hellbrun!

Hellbrun definitely makes it to my “top three things to do in Salzburg” list. This was our last stop of day one, and it is on the way into Salzburg. Several centuries ago there was an archbishop who enjoyed building things to amuse himself. He spent his time making water powered toys and amusing devices; Hellbrun was his estate.
First we all gathered to hear our guide tell us about the history of Hellbrun. Then he invited a few of us to sit around the wine-cooling table. I volunteered and took my seat. All of a sudden water came shooting through my seat and out of fountains around the table. I was SOAKED. I loved it. He he… There were also other cool amusing devices powered only by water, most of which I can’t describe without using my hands. It was really fun to play in all of the shooting fountains and it took me the rest of the day and evening to fully dry off.
Also at Hellbrun is the gazebo where they filmed one of the scenes in “The Sound of Music”. So of course we took a picture. ☺ There was also one of the coolest parks I have ever seen- it had a merry-go-round, three different kinds of swings, a hammock, and a zip line, on which we loaded as many people at a time as would fit and zipped down the track. It was such a beautiful day!

St. Florian's

Our next stop was, (thankfully), a much more positive one: we stopped at the monastery of St. Florian’s. The monastery was built on some old Christian burial site. When they were building they dug up the bones and stacked them in the crypts- I am standing in front of the remains of over 6,000 people in that picture. Kind of creepy, kind of cool.
When we walked into the library, I was instantly reminded of the castle library in the Disney “Beauty and the Beast” movie. It was too cool. I really wanted to open up the books and feel all of the old pages. After we walked through the library we walked into none other than the ballroom from “Beauty and the Beast”. Whoever designed the background art for that movie must have been to St. Florian’s- the two are way too much alike.



The rest of the place was sweet too, especially the chapel. The paintings there were so detailed. There was one statue there that I found rather humorous- it was a woman representing chastity, and she was standing on cupid so his face was crushed. It made me laugh.

Mauthausen

We took a bus to Salzburg, so on the way there and back we made several smaller side stops. The first of these side stops was Mauthausen, the only Austrian extermination concentration camp from WWII. I can’t describe the way the place made me feel. It was eerie and almost haunted feeling, but I also felt undertones of pure intensity and depression. Over 120,000 people died there. Mauthausen was a foreigners’ camp, so most that died were Hungarian, Czech, or even Soviet POWs.
The bunks were tiny and hard, the barracks cold, and the barbed wire intimidating. They eeriest parts were the gas chambers and ovens, but the hardest thing there was watching a film about it. The people in the local village had no idea whatsoever what was going on just a few minutes away. There was also a quarry at Mauthausen where the inhabitants would be sent to work. The stairs to get down to it were more treacherous than I had ever seen, and I could not even imagine what it would be like to have to walk up them in the snow, a huge stone on your back, no shoes, and be half-starved. I am so lucky.

Salzburg!

W00t w00t! Salzburg is no less than absolutely gorgeous! So cool. We left early early on Wednesday morning and stayed until Saturday night. Salzburg is a “little” town really close to the German border with 150,000 inhabitants, making it the fourth largest in Austria. There was so much to see and do; I would love to go back sometime. We did so much that I feel I cannot do our adventures justice on this blog- there is just way too much to talk about and too many pictures to post them all.

Weekend of 9/8-9/10

This past weekend went by much too fast. On Friday morning a group of us went to play soccer in the park. It was too fun- we were the vicious “Stingrays” (yes, in honor of the Great One). There were also four Austrian boys about 14 or 15 years old playing some serious soccer of their own. We all really wanted to join them, and our opportunity came when one of them kicked the ball out of the court. One girl rushed in with it, the rest of us joined her, and before long we were playing against them. They, however, kicked our trash. But it was fun, and they warmed up pretty quickly to the idea of American college girls playing with them. It was great. Their names were Manchester, Morris, Nikki, and Fabio, and it was a riot. Once while we were playing, the ball got kicked over the 12’ tall fence. This old man came up to it (he was probably 70 or so), and he kicked it right back over the fence! We were all quite impressed.




Friday night we went to a local stake dance that we had been invited to. Stake dances have never been so fun. There were quite a few Austrian guys who could actually dance. One was really good at swing (which I just loved) and another taught me the Viennese Waltz! It was so sweet. Learning the Viennese Waltz in Vienna. From an Austrian. So cool.

Saturday was a little bit more relaxed, but on Saturday night we all went to the Lange Nacht der Musik, or the long night of music. There were about 40 places all over the city where you could go and listen to different styles of music. My personal favorite was listening to traditional choral music inside of Stephansdom, the gigantic gorgeous church in the very center of the city.

Sunday we had stake conference at the Vienna International Center. We laft our house at nine and were still ten minutes late because we had to take three different subway lines. Sunday nights now we have religion class at our director’s apartment and Sunday dinner group. It was the perfect end to a busy week. I am still wondering how time seems to go faster here. But I love it.

Bratislava!

On Wednesday we went to Bratislava, Slovakia for the course of the day. Who goes to Bratislava? I guess we do. Bratislava is located about 50 km from Vienna, so the bus ride took about an hour. When we got off the bus in Bratislava, a few of us were in desperate need of a bathroom and we set off to find a lavatory. We stepped off the bus platform… and almost got hit by another bus. It was quite a close one. It missed us by barely two feet. So far, so good. We eventually found what we were looking for, and after some Slovakian lady yelling foreign things at us, we met back up with the group. We were told to meet back at the bus stop at 5:50, and then we were set free.

To be honest we really had no idea what we were doing. We were in a strange country where almost no one speaks English and they don’t take Euros. So off we went, into the unknown. We could see a small castle from where we were and we decided to go check it out. It turned out to be pretty cool. There was a museum inside with inventions of DaVinci recreated, along with prints of his sketches. There was also a dungeon-like area with a very deep well. We threw a penny down and it took four seconds to hit the water down below. It was pretty sweet.

After the castle we found a small pizzeria and sat down for lunch. I, (being Elizabeth, as we all know she is the only one actually writing on this blog…), had some pasta. I cannot remember eating a more divine dish of pasta. It had chicken, corn, mushrooms, and leeks in a cream sauce. Not exactly your typical dish, but mouthwatering nonetheless.






We then wandered around downtown for the afternoon. The city is simply beautiful. One thing that I really liked was that it isn’t a huge tourist attraction, so the streets were pretty empty. But my favorite thing of all was all of the random statues scattered throughout town. A few crazy girls, a foreign city, fun statues, and digital cameras and we were set for an entertaining afternoon. We really had fun imitating the statues as well, which I suppose is fully evident. We also had some fun with some cute scarves that we had bought, pretending to be babushkas and Miss America contestants. There was also this sweet modern art statue. We weren’t really sure what to do, so we decided to imitate it. People were laughing at us so hard as we walked by, and one lady thought we were weird enough to take a picture of her own. It was great.





Later on in the afternoon, we spotted a young guy in slacks and a white shirt with a backpack, looking for people to talk to. As we came a little closer, we also saw exactly what we were expecting: a little black nametag. We approached him and I shouted, “Hey Elder!” He responded with, “Whoah- you guys speak English!?” He was too excited. I think his name was Elder Talbot; he was from Utah and had been in the field for only two months. We explained who we were and asked how the language was going, and he just laughed at that. Turns out there were 35 Elders there from the Prague mission collecting enough signatures to open up the country for more missionary work. If they are successful throughout this month, it is likely there will be a Slovakian mission in two years or so, which sounds pretty sweet. We stopped and talked to several, but many had already run into other small groups of us and already knew who we were. They were all pretty grateful for friendly hellos instead of wary glances. There was, however, one missionary, Elder Hassel (appropriately named, I thought), who tried to flirt with every BYU girl on this trip. After we had all met up as a group again we realized he had given his address out to each of us, telling us to write to him and to send him pictures. He gave the excuse that “A happy missionary gets mail. A happy missionary is a good missionary. Good missionaries do good work.” We didn’t buy it. He just wanted to flirt.

Instead of taking the bus back to Vienna we were able to get tickets on a ferry to take us back down the Danube to Vienna. It was so so pretty, as you can probably see. On the upper deck we watched the sun set through the river spray the ferry made. It was a nice relaxing end to a long day.




Bratislava was beautiful. It had a very quaint atmosphere and so many fun statues. I loved it.

Oh, die Essen und die Eis!

Oh the food! Oh the ice cream! Oh Elizabeth could get used to this! (At least, that is if one day she would like to be removed from her house by a crane.) Breakfast is light at least, usually consisting of a combination of yogurt, bread, fruit, or juice. Today for lunch we stopped with our new friends Jenna and Natalie at one of the several fast Turkish eateries, as there are many Turkish immigrants here and it appears to Elizabeth that 90% of them are in the making-good-food business. After that it was time for Zanoni and Zanoni, the best ice cream place downtown, where ice cream is creamy, big, cheep, and in great flavors (we both recommend the hazelnut, as that is what we both tried today). Good for the wallet, good for the soul (or at least the emotional status of most girls). He he.
But then, only an hour after that, we were informed that “the best wiener-schnitzel place in Vienna,” (according to our director, the one who would know), has half-off first Monday of the month deals, for 3,50 Euros and huge portions (as you can see on our plates), accompanied by what Elizabeth has confirmed to be the best potato salad. Oh, it was amazing. And we were served by the cutest littlest oldest Austrian lady who had quite the skill of stacking and carrying plates. Just a little ways from this schnitzel place, in district 22, was the best gelato place in all of Eastern Europe. So of course our group had to go. Who could resist? Yes, it made Elizabeth’s second ice cream cone within the space of a mere four hours. And that matters because…? And this was indeed better (unfortunately a little farther than zanoni’s). You could have the same amount of ice cream for ten cents less, AND you got to have three different flavors in your scoop. Elizabeth chose coconut, lemon, and mountainberry. Maybe not lemon next time, but oh, oh, oh! The other two flavors! Simply wondrous. Why can’t smart Americans invent heaven like these people have?

Missing Internet :(

Unfortunately, we only have internet at school. And we only have school three days a week. Thus, our blog posts may seem sporadic and lengthy when we finally do post something. Living without internet and a cell phone has been a difficult thing to adjust to for Elizabeth. She never realized how much she has become attached. She has always thought only morons ever got so hooked. Well, Elizabeth guesses she has joined them- she figures she would rather be an attached moron. This is okay with her. Because she is in like the coolest city ever. Ever ever. (And yes, she realizes also that her grammar and sentence fragments are quite horrendous. But yes, surprisingly, this is okay as well, since it is more fun to write this way and easier to get the tone across. She does, however, want you all to know that she really can write much better but is simply choosing not to ☺ .)

This Place is SO cool

Ha ha- okay, we love it so much already. Vienna is just so COOL! We haven’t been very many places yet (that is a big big YET), but we have glanced a few grand ones (and further exploration is to come). First off, we do have school across the street from the Opera House, and behind the opera house is a huge car-free street lined with ritzy stores, restaurants, and some of the best ice cream in the world. In the picture is the backside of Stephansdom, which is absolutely and gorgeously ginormous.

Time-Change Agony

The nine-hour time change. Oh the agony. So far, without much of a schedule to guide us, it has been immensely hard to adjust to the time change. We keep waking up around 4:30 am, wide-awake and ready, when we had only gone to sleep five hours before. We then become extremely tired around 2 or 3pm. Hopefully with the start of school tomorrow and a real schedule it will be easier to adjust. We are hoping.

Kirche

Today, (as I write this on Sunday) we went to Kirche. We are in the Wien 3 ward, and the building is fairly close- it is in our district. We only need to take the bus a little way to get there. People there were very nice, and they all seemed to know that we were coming. When we arrived we were directed in German to a classroom. A little unsure still, we found two sister missionaries, (both from the states), and they were able to direct us in English.
We started with Relief Society, but we understood very little, only catching words here and there that we knew. Our Sunday School class was given in English this week, just for us, as we made up 7 of the 10 students in the class. Our teacher was Peruvian, and his German is hard to understand because of his accent; next week he is teaching in German, and I doubt we will understand any great amount. Sacrament Meeting wasn’t as hard to understand because it was testimony meeting, and even if you couldn’t understand the way one person spoke, there were others that you could understand.
We did find some cute guys at church today, three of them, actually. One was German and two were American. Elizabeth finds it highly ironic that we traveled all the way to Europe and the cutest boys here are American. Sadly, all three are missionaries and are highly off-limits. The ward has six missionaries in all, four elders and two sisters.
Overall Kirche was great. It has been Elizabeth’s favorite thing thus far, as it has been the place she has been able to understand the most.

Goldhammergasse 31

We live at Goldhammergasse 31, 1232 Wien. We live in the last district, district 23, almost out of Vienna. Although technically part if Vienna, it is more like the suburbs than anything else. We live in a house and we have the basement (really the ground floor) to ourselves. Our room is like a little apartment, with a sleeping/living area and a small kitchen off to the side. We are lucky; we have our own fridge, sink, cupboard space, and a little cooking appliance that has a dinky toaster oven with a tiny hot plate on top. This is good- now we don’t have to eat out every meal.
The only unfortunate part about where we live is that it takes quite a while to get downtown, to school and other cultural events. On Saturday we took the route to school to make sure we could do it on Monday and to see how long it would take; it took about 45 minutes. Our route is as follows: we take bus 64A from the stop at the end of Goldhammergasse (a three to four minute walk) to the Alterlaa U-bahn (subway) station, about five stops away. There we get on the U6 line and head towards Floridsdorf; we take this five stops until Langedfeldg where the U6 and U4 lines intersect. There we get off U6, cross the platform to the waiting train, and take the U4 line headed towards Heiligenstadt an additional five stops till the Karlsplatz stop. From there we walk about ten minutes to our final destination, the AAIE.

Frau Alfons

After touring downtown as a group and becoming familiar with important places, such as the bank and the post office, we met our host families. Before we actually met them, the assistant director told us each a little bit about our host families. To us she said, “Frau Alfons works for a cosmetics company, and you can tell as soon as she walks in the room.”
To be honest we were expecting someone a little more flamboyant, but she is still quite the character. She has traveled around much and (thankfully) speaks substantial English so when we are confused in Deutsch she explains in English. Her grown son and grandson live with her, as well as her dachshund, Assini. (He is a psychotic dog that likes to run around the yard chewing and tearing at flowerpot liners.) She is very kind and accommodating, and we think we will like her very much.

The AAIE

We are attending the Austro-Amerikan Institute of Education while we are here. It is in the first district (the very center of Vienna) and is across the street from the opera house. Yes, you can daydream in class, stare absentmindedly out the window, and see one of the most beautiful and famous buildings in Europe. Amazing. The AAIE is in a very old building where a noble family once lived, and we have class in their living room.

The Garden

So on Thursday night, our first night here, we went to an Italian restaurant as a group. There was pizza and pasta, and it was our task to decipher what came with each option. Some things were easy like “Mozzarella” and “Tomatensauce.” But some things were harder, like “Schinken” (Ham). Lexi decided upon a nice simple plate of spaghetti adorned with basil, and Elizabeth decided upon the “ Delicato” pizza, adorned with Mozzarella, Tomatensauce, Rokule, Shrimps, and Granakase.
Shrimp sounded great to Elizabeth, and “kase” is cheese, so Granakase must have met grated cheese. So far, so good. Now for the Rokule. Having no idea what it could be, she asked the director of the program, who is fluent in German. “Must be some kind of cheese,” he said. And so the order was placed.

After several minutes, the waiter arrived carrying what appeared to be a salad. He placed it in front of Elizabeth and said, “Delicato.” She was thoroughly confused, but upon further inspection there were shrimps underneath this garden and there was grated cheese on top. Evidently Rokule is a green related to the dandelion, but thankfully it is not as bitter. The garden actually tasted pretty good, and Elizabeth had the bonus of a salad with her meal.