Since Landing....

This isn't Stefan's Dom... But I'm sure you get the idea....

I have been all over town! Megan and I live in the first district. Which is highly convinent and has tons of land marks so it's difficult to get lost. We have a cute little room over looking the Danube Canal. We also happen to live in an area with tons of resturants. Also highly convinent.... As I write this, I am sitting at my desk with a cup of Kakao looking out at the river, and the passing traffic below. I'm so Vinnese it's ridiculous. Megan and I are now discussing Sunday morning strolls along the Danube!!! hahaha. who does that? oh yeah, me!

Yesterday we went all over the first district. My school is right across the street from the Staadtoper. So it's really easy to find. We started out with orientation at the school. Which wasn't too exciting, so I won't bore you with the details. We then went through the shopping district. And Rachel, you would die at the stores they have here (and I'm only 10 minutes away walking distance!). I'll take pictures some time. Then we went to Nachsmarkt where we were given 10 Euros and told to go buy lunch. I'm not sure what I ate, but i bought it off some turkish guys.. it was delicious!!!! Megan and I are going back tomorrow! there's a flea market then.

Then we walked around the city more. We say Micheal's Platz und the Karl's Platz, the Hofburg, some museums. Basically we went all around Ringstrasse. I was bushed!


After walking around, we went back to the school for our host family to pick us up. We are staying with Frau Feest. She's very nice. She's French actually, but she's been living in Germany since she was about 20. She's an Oma now. There are about 11 doors we have to open to get to our room... No joke! We'll take pictures one of theses days... ok. maybe there's only seven, but who's counting. and five of these doors we have to unlock and lock each time we enter or exit... so it takes about ten minutes for us to actually leave the building. Crazy huh?

All that being said, we love our apartment; especially the location.

Today, we had to register with the Viennese government. And so, one stamp later, I am a citizen of the city of Vienna! For three months anyway.

Later we took a tour of Stefan's Dom. It was amazing! I have pictures on facebook. But the coolest part was the catacombs, where we were not allowed to take pictures unfortunately. Of course there were bishops and emporers and what not buried there. But then there were the mass graves! During the plauge, thousands of people died, and their bodies were just thrown into a hole in the ground because the people couldn't keep up with all the dead. The smell was so bad that eventually they had to shut down services at the church for a time. Later, they had prisoner's come in to organize the bones. They would pull off the decaying flesh and stack the bones neatly..... Imagine now, you're feet below the ground. It's cold and dark. You peek through a window, and see nothing but piles and stacks of bones. Leg bones, and arm bones, and skulls! Apprentaly, the catacombs were used for bomb shelters during WWII. I would almost take my chances on the surface. It's that intensly creepy there.

Later we had lunch at the Holmes' and then we came back to our apartment for roomie bonding. It was lovely. And then we tried to make our way, tried being the key word, to dinner at the Schnitzel place... It took us about a half hour to take the U-Bahn to the right stop. In the 7th district. But then we were lost for anothe half hour trying to find the resturant... We weren't very happy campers once we got there. But the Schintzel was incredable!!! I have enough for two more meals. Maybe three.

On the way home, we figured we deserved some gelatto for our efforts. I had a scoop of Hazel nut and Chocolate. Basically I made Nutella Ice cream.... MMMMMMM! yum! and now we're back in our room. Spending a quiet Friday night at home, quite exhausted, thank you very much!

Tomorrow we're off to the flea market early and then we're meeting the rest of our group at 12 in front of the Hofburg for the Harvest Festival! Hooray!