Sabina's blog

Servus!
Ahhh where to begin?? I’m sorry I haven’t updated you much before this but let me just say settling in Vienna has been crazy–in the best way possible of course

I can’t believe it has only been a little over 2 weeks; I have done so much it feels like it MUST be longer!

Well to start classes has not yet been one of the things I have done haha Ok so what have I done? Well the first day I got here my buddy Claudia took me on a quick tour of the inner part of the city center. Lots of historical beautiful buildings. Then I went to the school, BOKU or rather the Universitat of Bodenkultur. It is hilarious every time I tell someone I am a Communications major..studying at BOKU haha but whatever, it doesn’t matter, more fun for me

I met my coordinator here, Max. He is awesome. period. Great guy. He taught me this phrase: Bier auf Wein, das lass sein. Wein auf Bier, das rat’ ich dir!

I think by Saturday I finally met up with some other people, the Americans I had been in email contact with over the summer and then we found some more English speakers: 2 Austrailian boys and 1 New Zealand girl oh and a totally awesome Brazilian guy.

We went up to the hills of Vienna where you can see the whole city and we walked through vineyards and ate grapes and drank Sturm is the big thing right now. It’s unfiltered not yet finished fermenting wine that tastes like delicious juice.

I live in this adorable part of town that is just outside the city, so it is very convenient to get to where everything is happenin’ but it is a quiet district so it’s nice and safe and peaceful to sleep at night. The only thing is it is far away from where everyone else I have met lives haha. But it’s ok, I have many friends yet to make. Where I live is also an older part of Vienna so it is quite picturesque whereas most people live over in the more developed part of the city by the school. That is another thing that is so weird. Not just having everyone live more or less on campus close to each other. I have about a 30 minute commute to school which is not bad at all. The public transport here is amazinggg!!! So far I feel safe everywhere I have been.

In my german “refresher” course I met a bunch of cool people. In fact a lot of them are planning on staying the year, which is really reassuring to know others will be here too (that is assuming I stay..I am STILL waiting on my residence permit visa approval-it is on my to do list to go to the place this week).

In other news, my roommate literally just arrived. Her name is Amy and she’s a PhD student from Hong-Kong who knows English quite well, so I am not worried. I had another roommate before from Russia who didn’t know much English so we communicated in German! but she was only here temporarily and so this weekend I had the place to myself, which was nice. I share my kitchen and bathroom with another girl named Elena who is from Spain studying at the business school here, and she’s also here for the year! Our schedules have really matched up yet so I don’t really know her but she seems cool.

A few other short updates:

There is American music EVERYWHERE. I had no idea that our crappy pop music is popular around the world. I actually have to search to find german/austrian music! haha

They have lots of markets here like a big flea market sort of aka flohmarkt which I went to one and got some sweet shoes. I feel like I have been going shopping everyday here.

I have had lots of yummy fatty Austrian food though like schnitzel, bratwurst and pizza–with corn (apparently that is really common in Europe, who knew?)

I finally had Orientation aka Welcome Days and there are about 150 amazing people from all over Europe We went on an intense 2 hour walking tour through the city.

And there was also this awesome museum night where all 107 of the city’s museums were open to the public for one fee–11 euros!! Instead of going to the big museums that were packed and super crowded we went to cute ones including the Belvedere palaces looked at famous art like Gustav Klimt and Monet. Then a museum about heat, got free snacks, free bag, hat, and the easiest (most unsafe) lighter ever, played interactive games, next museum was tasting wine-and there were approximately 2 other people in the museum a mere 50 years older than us, and finally the coffee house museum = my glory.

Ok I have to go now–I am leaving Vienna for 5 nights and 6 days on a Field Camp in the Mountains!!!

Freundliche Grüße,

Sabina

p.s. everyone says my name right here, guess its meant to be