Vienna Week One

Vienna is exactly what I have always pictured Europe to look like. Every street is lined by at least five story buildings that are beautifully decorated. Mixed in are beautiful Cathedrals and churches that are hundreds of years old. Every morning I wake up and can’t believe I am really here.

 Vienna is divided into districts. District 1 being in the center and the higher the number the farther out you are. School is in district 1 and Zac and I live in district 17. So we live pretty far out. We live next to the Vienna Woods. It is just as beautiful as the main city.

Zac and I are becoming quite the pros at public transportation. We take a bus, a tram and the subway (or as they call it over here the U-bahn) to get to school. It takes around 45 minutes.

The first thing we did as a group was go to the Opera. We saw The Magic Flute. When Mozart first wrote this opera, it premiered in Vienna. How cool is that?! We got to see a Mozart opera preformed in the city is premiered.

Next we went to the Schonbrunn Palace. It is massive with some of the most beautiful grounds I have ever seen. We hiked up a hill and the view was amazing, the palace in front with the city sprawling behind it. The other day we went to four different churches. One really neat thing about Vienna is that most of the really old cathedrals and churches are open to the public most days of the week. We first went to St. Stephan’s Cathedral. This one is the most famous. When it was first built it was the tallest building in all of Europe. We then went to a Jesuit church, Dominican church, and last the Votive Cathedral. Each was unique and completely breathe taking. Pictures will never do them justice.

This week we also went to the Gulasch museum. It was actually a restaurant. Gulacsh is usually a meat with a spicy sauce on top with a side of potatoes or dumplings. It is a very traditional Viennese food. It was delicious! I also had a dessert Gulasch. It was pieces of cake with a chocolate sauce. Yes, I am in heaven here.

On Sundays we will probably go to the international ward. We could go the ward we live in but I think I would like to understand the talks. J This past Sunday we actually went to the Institute building. It was Institute graduation so they had a special sacrament meeting. On Monday nights the institute has a very cheap dinner then FHE. Zac and I went and it was really fun to have FHE with a group of people instead of just us.

German is coming very, very slowly. I can count, say my colors and what I am wearing in German. I can even spell in German! It is really fun to learn another language while living in that country. I have only been brave enough to order ice cream in German this far.

I don’t know what I am going to do when I get back to the states. They have the most delicious ice cream and bread over here. I probably ate bread with either Nutella or cheese for almost every dinner and lunch this week.

Being here is amazing and I’m so glad Zac and I decided to do this. It has been a great experience so far. I love learning about another culture. At a glance you don’t think that there is really any difference, but when you look closer there are a lot of differences. It is really good for me to get out of my bubble. I think the biggest adjustment I have had to make is getting used to the fact that most people here don’t use deodorant. Haha! On public transportation it can get pretty smelly especially on a hot afternoon with no air conditioning. I love all the other people in the group. They make it so much fun. I do miss all my family and friends a lot. I’m so glad Zac is with me or else I would be really home sick. J The German word of the week is “Fünf” that is the number five. It is just really fun to say.

P.S. All my pictures are on Facebook. It is really difficult to load pictures on here and Facebook when I have limited access to the internet. 

Hallo Wien!!!

Can you believe it Zac and I made it to Vienna after 12 1/2 hours on planes and 7 hours sitting in airports.hat was the longest flight of my life and I am so glad it is over. We flew over with three other girls from our group which made the trip a lot more fun.

Just chilling in the Dallas Airport. We had a five hour layover, blah.

We were both pretty tired after the flight as you can see. Zac was pooped.  We had a couple hours to relax at the hotel before we met up with the Isaaks, who are our program coordinators.

Zac and I with some of our new friends!

We then went out to eat to an Italian restaurant. Zac was happy because of how large his pizza was. The food there was soooo good. I don't  know if it tasted so good because I was so hungry or because is was authentic. We also had try some Austrian soda called Almbudler. It was pretty good!

Last but not least Katie Isaak took us on a little mini tour of this part of town. This beautiful building is the Rathaus. It is  the city council building. It is so beautiful.

Know we are back at our hotel and ready to go to bed! I don't think I have ever been more grateful to go to sleep.
Gute Nacht 

Count Down

Today is Zac's birthday!! He is the big 2-4. We celebrated yesterday by going to Tucanos. So good! I didn't even feel guilty, because we had both just ran the Utah Valley Half Marathon. Today, we kept it pretty low key. Going to Vienna was both his and mine birthday present, so he didn't get very many presents. But that never bothers Zac. He is good like that, he really doesn't mind. Paul and Katherine came over for cake and ice cream. That was great! Then Zac got to Skype the rest of his family. I think he had a good birthday. :)

 Yesterday Zac and I ran the Utah Valley Half Marathon. It was actually really fun looking back on it.  Yesterday at 3 in the morning though, it was not fun. Zac did really well, but is really feeling it today. I did ok. I  ran it in 1:55:44. So just about a minute slower than our last one. But that's ok, by mile 12 I was just glad that it was almost over. :) It was really fun because Aunt Linda and Uncle Jamie did the full so I got to see them. I also got to see almost all of Uncle Steve's family. Wendy and Karen did the half, and Cassie, Jake, Cliff, and Melanie did the 5k. It is always fun to be around family.  Zac really wants to do a full marathon in the future. I'm still not sure if I want to do that. Half marathons feel like a good distance for me.

In other good news this week. I got an internship!!! YAY!!!! I have to have an internship in order to graduate so I had been looking and applying to a lot recently. I will be interning at Y-Be-Fit at BYU. There I will council faculty on how to be healthy. I will make diet plans, exercise plans, take body composition and things like that. I am so excited!! It will be great! I also get to work there for Fall and Winter semester. It is just perfect. This relieves a lot of stress. Getting an internship was the only thing in the way of me graduating next April.

Less than one week now til Zac and I leave for Vienna! I am getting really excited as well as really nervous as I realize there is still a lot I need to do before we leave. We fly out of the Salt Lake airport at 8:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Fly to Dallas then to London then to Vienna. We arrive in Vienna 1:00p.m. Vienna time on Monday. That is one long flight. We also found out who our host family is, The Drapals. I hope they are nice. haha. From what I can tell from Google maps, they live on the edge of Vienna, by what looks like a large forest. We don't know really anything about them except their name and their address. I will be blogging at least once a week about our study abroad. So probably my next blog post will be from Vienna!

Fire

At this moment the beautiful mountains of Arizona are burning. It is a strange feeling, realizing that a lot of the places I went camping as a little girl are gone. It brings back so many memories. One in particular. After playing a soccer game in Round Valley Mom, Dad, Lindsey, and Michelle surprised me. We went up into the mountains and had a picnic dinner and looked at all the beautiful yellow leaves of fall. Now it will be quite awhile before the forest can grow back.

I can only imagine how awful the smoke is right now. Thick and smelly. I remember the Rodeo-Chediski fire back in 2002 and how every time I would step outside and smell the smoke I would get a headache. I hope that the wind stops blowing and that all those brave firefighters are kept save.