Ich wohne jetz in Wien

I've been with IES for some time now. I met the group at the West Banhof (a train station) wondering if showing up 3 hours before we were supposed to was going to mean sitting in the train station alone for 2 hours or so...I could not have been more mistaken. When I went up the escalator there was a group of about 100 students already sitting there...I was tipped off that they were IES by the fact that they were speaking English and had IES tags on their luggage (and yes, Meghan was among them). We were then Bussed off to the alps for the weekend. The trip in the alps let us get to know each other, gave a gorgeous spot for a first impression of Austria and gave them and us a chance to figure out housing. The first night, Friday, we were given a lot of information about the program and Mariazell, the town in which we stayed, a presentation by dancers in lederhosen…this is one of the most non traditional ice breakers I’ve yet encountered… and a free drink ticket. Part of the information we were given was that we do get to choose roommates, but you had less than 24 hours to do so, this also seemed a more effective way of making people meet each other than the traditional relay race. Somehow I did manage to find roommates in that time and after that first weekend we returned to Vienna (or Wien as it is called locally) and I moved into a beautiful and large apartment with 5 other girls: Ann (whom I share an actual room with) Esther, Katy, Leslie and Christina.

After Mariazell, the first 3 weeks are Intensive German. This is 3 hours every day and in the last two weeks I’ve learned probably about ½ a semesters worth of German. Apart from German there have been various tours and information sessions, particularly in the first week. These have ranged how to find what you need to how to get into the Vienna State Opera for 2 euro to seeing all the pretty touristy sights in Vienna.

There is always something to do here. Over the summer they had an open air film festival outside the Rathaus, which is the parliament house with a huge screen set up with lots of seating-both chairs and bleachers and food stands of all sorts. The most interesting thing about this film festival however was that the films they were showing were mostly Operas. Over the last weekend I saw both Rigoletto and Nozze di Figaro. The state Opera opens this week and they have a performance every night--at that theater you have your own personal translator in whatever language you pick. There is also the Volksoper which performs always in German and the Musikverein which is a concert hall with unbelievable acoustics (this is where the Vienna Philharmonic performs). I haven’t been in any of these big halls for shows yet but I can’t wait too.

Tomorrow morning I have my second German test which will be followed by a field trip to a Heurige (including a paid for lunch). A Heurige is a restaurant that has its own vineyard in the back and (as is obvious by the vineyard) specializes in wine and serves the house wine or a variety of other wines from that and previous years. I went to one of these already for the Birthday of one of my roommates, and it was very nice with homemade food and a nice but quaint atmosphere.

I believe those are the big highlights so far, but I plan on keeping these posts more frequent and possibly somewhat shorter from now on.

Also, pictures coming soon.