August 2

I woke up very early today, even though I was exhausted from the lack of sleep on the plane rides here to Vienna. I was excited to see the city and meet everyone else in the program. One of the first things I noticed about Vienna is that it is very humid here. In Davis, it is more of a dry heat. I could tell that all the walking around Vienna would make for a very sweaty trip. Anyway, after meeting in the lobby of our dorm building, we all rushed over to the Ubahn station across the street. At first, I was confused by the complicated system of train lines, but after riding it a few times I realized that this subway system is a really easy and convenient way to get around the city. The public transportation system also includes many buses and trams that come every 5 or 10 minutes to each stop. This transportation system is much better than in the US, where buses come only every 30 minutes or so and where the trains, such as Bart, don’t even go everywhere. We rode the U3 and U1 trains to our classroom across from the opera house in downtown Vienna. Most of the buildings in this area of town are very pretty because they were mostly built in the 19th century in the baroque style. The opera house across from our classroom was very beautiful as well. The classroom was also in a nice building with a pretty little courtyard. Here we talked about the class and met Birgit, who works in the building, and she told us some relevant information about living in Vienna. After orientation, some of us went to the Naschmarkt for lunch. The Naschmarkt is a huge market that extends over a long distance. There are many restaurants, flea markets, food stands, and pickpockets apparently, throughout the market. I have never seen so much dried fruit, cheese, and spice stands in one place. We ate at a small restaurant where we all ordered a kabob. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was but it turned out to be a huge sandwich filled with marinated pork and other ingredients that looked and tasted very good. Later on, we all met with our tour guide, Dr. O, for a bus tour of the city. We drove by many of the main sights in Vienna, and even stopped at a few of them. The first stop we made was at Belvedere Palace, which is the guest palace that Prince Eugene had built by the famous baroque architect, Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt, in 1714. The palace is surrounded by beautiful gardens, and it also houses the Osterreichische Galerie Belvedere Museum. We also drove up through the Vienna forest, which is where Dr. O told us that many of the Viennese go for hiking and other outdoor activities because many of them don’t have backyards due to the fact that most people live in apartments in Vienna. We also stopped at the Hundertwasser House, which is a very cool apartment building that was designed by the radical architect Hundertwasser. He didn’t believe that everything had to be symmetrical when it came to buildings, so many of the windows were different sizes, and there is even a tree growing out of one of the windows. At the end of the tour some of us went to the supermarket across the street from our dorms. I had a difficult time there because I didn’t know what some of the items were because I don’t know German. It would have been helpful to know some of the German words for the main foods. I think I am better off than many of the other students though, because I took German in high school and I remember a few words and phrases. Speaking of that, the German word of the day is verdienen, which means to earn.