Long overdue-I suppose I'll start with my arrival

So I get into Vienna around 10 in the morning, had a layover in Frankfort around 6am, oh joy, so by this time I'm ready to get to my friend Lisa's apartment and dump all of my luggage down and start exploring, despite the already onsetting exhaustion that I know will exist for a few days afterwards. Nevertheless, I set out to look for Lisa after obtaining my luggage. I exchanged my money and found Lisa waiting outside, after running into 2 people who would be in my program this semester. From there, we took the subway, two small girls trying to lug these huge suitcases onto the subway was a sight to be seen. What was worse, was trying to get those same suitcases up the 3 flights of stairs to her apartment since her building was old and didn't have an elevator! No wonder Europeans are so in shape haha. We made it though, although by that time I was so sweaty that a shower was necessary followed by food which we found at a nice little Italian place around the corner from where Lisa lives. I got chicken risotto and it was amazing and so filling. Couldn't even finish it. This was followed by a tour through the center of the city and little necessities such as taking care of my phone, etc...and of course I fell asleep right when we got back to her place. 

The next morning, I went to meet the rest of my program at the Westbahnhoff and must have looked pathetic trying to carry all that luggage myself. As a matter of fact, this German guy ended up helping me find the group and ended up being a great help because I was still so lost at that point. Alot of people were already there and after a few hours of sitting and making small talk we headed off to Mariazell by bus, a small town in the countryside of Austria in the Wachau region. The weekend there consisted of MEETINGS galore, but all of the people speaking at least tried to keep it short and interesting so it wasn't as bad. One of the speakers encouraged us to "squeeze the juice," in other words, get as much out of Vienna and Europe as possible, and that expression has become a regular part of our IES conversations. 

We moved into our apartments that first Sunday, I think it was like the 23rd of August, and it is amazing! I live with 3 other girls, all vocalists, and they are all very sweet. Our landlord is pretty awesome too. He provided us with anything we could ask for. Our fridge was filled with food and drinks and then he got our registration signature for us and walked us to IES the following day. It was way more help than I expected. German classes started that Monday, and I have already had 2 tests...The grammer is a bit hard to grasp with the rapid pace we are going at, but hopefully after a few more weeks I'll feel more comfortable with the language. Already, I am understanding things at the grocery store and signs in German, which is encouraging. 

Besides that, we have gone on bus tours, gone to the Rathaus for viewings of Cinderella the ballet by Prokofiev and Don Giovanni. This is a really neat concept because it's an outdoor movie theater type thing, but they show operas and ballets rather than movies. I also met my violin teacher and heard one of her students play in a recital. She was amazing. Beautiful tone, expressive musicianship, no mistakes, and it was a 2 hour program. Afterwards, the teacher took us out for drinks and food. I will probably start lessons with her this next week. We received our chamber music for the semester and I'm playing 5 chamber pieces, so I'll probably be pretty busy, and our teacher already told us we will be spending our Saturdays rehearsing from 11-3 ouch, but it should be good for me! I think I needed a teacher like this, who expects a lot and is brutally honest. 

I also went on a bus tour the other day along the Danube. It was such a great start to my day. The ride lasted about 2 hours and the weather was perfect! There were many naked old men along the road, but that was definitely not the highlight of the trip. We also saw the Copacagrana which is a play on words based on the copacabana. Here, they have water-skiing where you go across on a wire. It looks so fun! Maybe I'll go next weekend if it's still nice out. 

Budapest was this past weekend with my friend Allison, and it was such a beautiful city! On the train ride there, we met a Hungarian women who told us everything we needed to know about the city, and good thing she was on the train because they never announced the stops, so otherwise we might have ended up in Romania which was the final destination ha! She even drew on the map all the places we needed to go and spent the whole 3-4 hour train ride talking to us, so we got her e-mail address and might meet back up in Wien since she works there. Right when we got in to the hostel, after having a bit of trouble figuring out the metra and the money situation, there was a group of Slovakians who were going out, so we joined them and went to this club on the roof of a building! It was really interesting. Then, the next morning, we got up early, walked to the House of Terror, only to find that it was closed due to construction just that one day ughh, but oh well. From there, we passed the opera house and went to St. Peter's Basilica. Our new friend told us we absolutely must go to the top of the basilica, so we did and the view was just breathtaking! You could see all of Budapest from there for less than 2 Euros, or 520 Huff (the Hungarian money). After that, we checked out some vendors as they were hard to resist, had lunch outside, and found this little second hand shop that we were told about, although it closed right when we got there. Just our luck! 

Then, we crossed the bridge to the Buda part, we were previously in the Pest part and the Buda part is sooo gorgeous! We hiked up to the Royal Palace and went into the Museum there that was filled with information about the gaining of independence from the Turks. We also got some sweet Hungarian bread. They served it to us and it was still piping hot and extremely delicious. By this time, we had been walking so much, that a nap was necessary, although there were 4 British girls staying in our room, since we were in the 10-person dorm that only cost 8 Euros a night, that sounded like girls from the Spice Girls and came in and woke us up as they got all excited to go out....Dinner was at this little hole in the wall restaurant we found out about from Dett, the woman on the train, call Besche and it was the best food I've had in Europe thus far. It was so delicious, and so was the wine! I'm definitely a fan of Goulash. Anyways, then we went to a jazz club nearby and ended the night at a bar close to the hostel that had live fish swimming underneath the see-through stairs. It was pretty cool and once again, more good wine! The night ended around 2am, and we got up at 7 to catch the train the next morning. Lets just say when I got home, I took a shower and crashed for 2 hours! 

This has quite possibly been the longest blog I've ever written, since I'm not really a journal type person, but I felt like I should share all of my adventures thus far. I will try to keep it updated every week or so.