What a day. Days. (Part Zwei)

Mittwoch (heute) - Kara and I woke up and got ready for the day. I was desperate for a shower, but I had no towel, so I just used a t-shirt to dry myself off. Again with the improvisation, you see. Two doves landed on our windowsill as we were eating breakfast, but I accidentally scared them away when I pointed at them out of glee. Hopefully they'll come back. The night before, Kara had picked up a piece of cheese to eat with our bread. It looked like brie, and had about the same texture as brie, so she figured it must be at least similar to the French classic. We opened it up and phew! It stunk. Like pumpkin. And farts. Pardon our word usage, but the cheese smelled like pumpkin farts. Once we got past the smell and put in on our bread, we decided that the taste made it a winner. We opted to leave our window open for a little bit to air out the room. For the curious, it was Saint Albray cheese.


My desk and dresser


My bed, nightstand, and bookshelf


Anyone who knows me could figure that I'm hot for our curtains.

The group and I then set off to figure out our route to school. Let me tell you, I cannot say enough good things about the public transportation here. After buying our passes at a Tabak, we hopped on the Strassenbahn, or the street car for about five minutes. Then we got on the U-bahn, or the underground metro for another five minutes. Once we got off that, we got on a bus (again, for about five minutes) that took us close to campus. We met up with the three from the apartments at about 1:00. Once we got acquaited with where school was, we took a little walk around the neighborhood to see what was around. Webster's campus is in the 22 district, almost directly on the Donau. It would have been nicer if the weather wasn't so cold and rainy; today was a dreary day for the most part.
After a short walk around, we decided to head back to our residences to prepare for the evening's plans: Falstaff at the Wiener Staatsoper!

We came back to the dorms at about 3:00 and rested and changed before leaving at 4:30. We got off the U-bahn at Stevensplatz - right in the heart of downtown Vienna! That's when I really felt like I was in the city that all the guidebooks had been talking about. No longer were we in a quiet suburb, but surrounded by both stately buildings, Stephansdom, and open plazas as well as urban traffic, haute couture shopping, and bright lights. The Opera House was a short walk away and we waited in line to get discounted standing-room only tickets for four euro, or about five dollars. After we staked our claim, Maddy, Sam, and I went to find some dinner. We stopped at a food stand and I ordered a bratwurst, which filled me up and hit the spot.




The Staatsoper





Inside the Staatsoper:











You can see the electronic subtitle screens in front of the seats

Falstaff was an excellent production. The staging was fun and the characters even more so. One of the great features of the Staatsoper is that it had little electronic translation screens for us to follow right in front of us. After all the frazzling travel and short nerves, we needed a comedy to brighten our spirits. That, or a drink - which was soon to follow. Picture your typical Viennese pub with beers on tap, a big cuckoo clock on the wall, and gentlemen sitting everywhere smoking a pipe over conversation or a newspaper. That's exactly where we wound up. Of course, a crown of eight college kids stuck out like a sore thumb in this setting, so our server knew to bring us English menus. I didn't need a menu to figure out what I wanted - eine Bier, bitte! Maddy and I also split a coffee sundae of sorts (I swear, that must be the only thing keeping me going at this hour.) We ate and drank our fill and headed bedward at 11:30. By midnight, we had arrived back at our dorms, changed into pajamas, and settled down for the night. Then I got started on my blog post after catching up with Neil.


My drink. I know, I know, I didn't come to Austria to drink a beer that's brewed in my hometown. It was what they had on tap. There will be plenty more beer drinking opportunities.


Cute cute cute


Kara and the clock




Something was hella funny.

Now it's 2:15 AM and I'm definitely ready for bed. I promise promise promise I'll figure out how to post pictures soon. If I can't do that, I'll at least set up a photo hosting account and put them up there. I can't wait for you all to see my snapshots from the last few days.

I hope you all are doing well and aren't missing us too much. We all miss you too. We have orientation tomorrow morning, which I'm sure I'll need a fresh start for. I miss and love you all. Take care! Gute Nacht!

- Lucy