Day 21: June 3rd, My Goodbye to Austria

While I did not go home to the US when everyone else did I still had quite the long travel day. It honestly felt a lot like being on a plane for six hours because I didn't get up at all (I had no idea where food or bathrooms where on the train). This gave me a lot of time to think about different things. I thought a lot about Austria and how I was going to miss it. I thought about what I was going to do in Germany, since I still didn't have a plan for that. Strangely enough I did feel a little homesick, but not really for America per say but for my parents. They are like my best friends so I miss seeing them. Of  all these things though I thought a lot about myself and how I was going to go forward after this adventure. In all honesty I really don't feel like I have changed much, I never do. I just continue with my life and hope I do good things to help improve the world with things I have learned. I've leaned so much on this trip too, not just history and culture, but real world things I can use on campus or just in my life. I am thankful to Austria for al the things it has taught me. I feel like I can't do justice to its beauty, amazement, and spirit in words. I am going to miss it so much. Like other adventure though I will return home, make a scrapbook, stay in touch with people I went with. A walk through each day knowing that theres a special place in my mind and soul for Austria and its people. This blog really isn't long because I am so tired (and still on European time). Just know that I am extremely grateful for the chance to go on this trip, and I don't regret a single moment of it. Thank you for everything, and have a good night! So Long, Farewell! (also my computer is misbehaving again so I will post picture later)

Day 20: June 2nd, Ground Control to Major Tom...

Today was the end, the real last day in Vienna and all day all I could think of was the song Space Oddity by David Bowie. Much like how the chorus goes it felt weird to go through city once more before I left. I seemed to float along melancholy way remembering all the great times I had and reminiscing on all the things I have learned. I may not have learned the same things as the other students but I felt like I was relearning things I knew. In a way this trip retaught me several things. It taught me to be optimistic again, to aim for higher ideals, and dream of the ways I can help others. There were so many things that Vienna does that I could see be implemented in the US or even on campus. It taught me to believe in myself again and to teach myself that my independence isn't a curse but a strong trait to have. It taught me that even though I may not agree with the current state of my country I can still be proud to be from there, and I can make the change I want to see there. I feel like I will always hold the experiences that taught me these things close to my heart. While I did so many fun and exciting things, the most educational things were the places we would go and just listen to other perspectives. Like the Shades Tours where we learned about the homeless situation in Vienna, I never imagine and system like that but seeing it at work just made me think how that could be done in the US. There was also the day we visited Krems and learned about the health care system. I learned so many new things about how the rest of the world works in help and learned good and bad things. One of the most inspiring things for me was hearing the presentation in the US Embassy, because here was a professional women who was married and still had a family, but was able to travel and help change the world in her own way. I never really thought I could be able to do that as a career but it is possible you just have to look for the opportunities. It was inspiring to see and I enjoyed learning about the whole process of forge in service. Really just being abroad was in a way refreshing for me. After being surrounded by pretty like minded people in college (they do have different ways of thinking I just talk to the same people quite often) it was exciting to hear from people from a culture I didn't have much experience with. It's really hard to say what I am going to miss the most about Austria (especially since I am not going to far for the time being). I have to say I definitely will be the leisure time, relaxation, and their tap water. I will also miss the small things though like riding the U, seeing all the interesting people there, the sheer number of bakeries, and I think strangle enough I will miss the Vienna State Opera House. It was my first real impression of Vienna and I really fell in love with the building and what it does on the first day. Being able to go inside and see a stunning ballet performance there too just made the Opera House one of my favorite places to go. I am going to miss walking by it on my way to AAIE. It's really hard to say in total though what I miss and what I learned here, because you don't really realize it until it happens to you. Perhaps one day I will run into a situation where something from Vienna will help me be a better person, or I will go to fill up my water bottle months later and still remember the good taste of the tap water. I look forward to seeing how I grow from here on out, after all Austria is a part of my heart now. Until next time Austria.

Day 19: June 1st, To Reminisce Is A Beautiful Thing

I know I said that today was the beginning of the end, well today was the part right before the climax. Today we deregistered from the country so we could leave on Sunday, and while the process was quite painless I was quite sad doing it. It was one of the first solid steps to leaving Vienna and after the last few weeks I am really sad to have to leave. Even though I did quite a bit of adventuring in my time here I felt like there were still so many adventures to be had. I may have just been a visitor to the city I was really starting to feel comfortable with how things work. Deregistering felt like I was losing part of my identity in Vienna, I was just a regular tourist now. In way though I am not regular in the slightest after this trip. I have learned so much about Vienna's history, culture, and inner workings that if I ever returned I could handle myself well and see things that I have already seen. This experience has been a joyous one, and I may be sad to lave but I know I will always have my memories of my time here. Strange enough the most uncomfortable I felt really during our trip (besides the obvious language barrier) was when visiting the U.S. Embassy. While I loved visiting ad thought the presentation was very interesting and inspiring, considering how I am looking for careers I could travel with, I just felt like I had come back to the U.S. too suddenly in a way. A bit like being thrown into cold water very suddenly, you know you will adjust to it but the shock is still here. I guess it was early on set reverse culture shock.

In all seriousness though experiencing Austrian culture was very interesting because I didn't feel quite like an other most of the time. After all most of the people here look like me in a way, they speak english, and are still polite in there own way. I know the purpose of this trip was to fee like the "other" in a culture that wasn't yours, but after ll my interactions with my interaction friends a lot of the things that would make me feel like an other I was used to. After all my international friends often didn't always speak english around me, we had different ideas about how things worked, and we had culture differences that we worked through. When I came to Austria I tried to handle myself the same way I would around my friends, and so I didn't feel too much like an other. I did sometimes for example when someone would say joke in german to me, or a culture difference would come up and didn't know how to handle it, or even getting used to simple things like relying heavily on coins. For me though these challenges we face in a different country are part of the adventure of traveling. It is to get our of your comfort zone and learn something new, and I wouldn't trade anything for the the awkward moments I experienced to feel comfortable at home all summer. To explain study abroad in hashtag I would probably use #gobeyondyourbounds. I often feel like we hold ourself back in different ways not just in study abroad, but I feel like in order to experience it fully you must go beyond what you think you can do and just go for it. On the other hand though I would say study abroad is like a sentence from a poem my Mom read to me quite often "Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence." For me this means that when you study abroad don't try and stick to your ways too much, become and chameleon and bend into the culture in order to learn something new about the world and yourself. You ay just find a peace in yourself in all the chaos that you never knew you had. I am so glad I was able to go on this trip, and I wouldn't change any experience in the world. They are all unique to me, and I hold them near and dear to my heart. Tomorrow is my last official day in Vienna and I plan to make the most of it. Until tomorrow then!

Day 18: May 31st, The Beginning of The End

All great things must come to an end, and the end must always begin somewhere. The end of my time of Vienna been when I opened my suitcase and started packing. For me that symbolizes the end of an amazing trip that I will remember for the rest of my life. Even though this day is the beginning of the end for me, I am not going out without a fight. So on this peaceful Thursday  decided to do two things: go to a going away party for some students I had meet, and attend the Summer Concert for the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. After all before I left for Vienna I was told by my music majors that it wouldn't be a trip to Vienna without seeing a classical concert (so a free concert in the park seemed like an obvious idea). Before that though I went to the going away party for the girls I share my host house with. They had been really sweet to me while we stayed together so I really wanted to go and support them. It was interesting for me to go and see some cult differences in person with the idea of swimming and different foods that are traditional. With swimming it was seen more as a way to relax and cool off than exercise (which is really the same for many Americans it just seemed different with them). The food was first off incredible and second really kind of interesting. IT was amid of things we had and things I would never expect at a pool party. For instance in Austria some people eat radishes whole, a bit like an apple. They also included many foods I would consider fancy dinner foods like a cheese board, bread, and sausages. I really had a good time talking to the adults about different topics, including making a great game plan for the concert. I enjoyed all the food and learning more about Austrian culture. Sadly I had a concert to catch so I hurried off to catch a train (which ended up being a bus) to get a good spot for the concert.

I really would like to put in words how amazing the concert was, but I don't think I can do it justice. To start there were a large number of people there I honestly felt like I was a t a football game in America with all the excitement and competing for the best spot. The wait for the concert was also really exhausting since i had to stand for two plus hours just to have a good spot. Luckily I made some friends with some girls from Quebec in Canada who had just started working as doctors there. They were very nice and we talked a lot about traveling, cultures, and the excitement for the concert. Once the concert began all the pain of standing and waiting was immediately worth it. I could have stayed for just one song and have been satisfied, the music was that beyond amazing. The lights that lit up Schonbrunn Palace beautifully and expertly set the mood for the different songs. In a way this concert was a lot like how the Super Bowl is to us. I even saw a bar playing the concert on TV (the concert was broadcasted live to city). I could feel the love for music all around, every bit of pain of standing was worth the beauty of that evening. It will definitely be a stand out in my memories of Vienna. Even now as I look back I start to pick out special moments. There are so many great experiences I have had here, and I don't regret a minute of this trip. Some stand outs are really the whole week in the Alps, exploring museums in Vienna, and really just learning Vienna as a city. Learning how to get places fast, where good food it, how to find cheap bathrooms, even the not as glamorous moments of walking through the city to get from one place to the next. With each moment I could just admire and wonder about the city and its stories. I get quite sad with the thought of leaving, I have really fallen in love with the city. I hope someday I can return, still there are a free days left, and I tend to make the most of them. Until next time!

Day 17: May 30th, A Day At The Castle, A Night At The Ballet

One of the biggest differences between Europe and the United States is an extreme lack of castles in the US. This is probably due to the fact the castle building had gone out of style by the time we were a country. So the only time to really see castles is when you visit Europe, and boy do they not disappoint. While we had been to many palaces over the last few days we had yet to go to a stereotypical medieval castle, so you can imagine my excitement when it was announced that we could be going to Lichtenstein. Lichtenstein is a very unique castle for due to various circumstances the castle had different sections that date from various time periods (some as early as the 12th century and as late as the 19th century). The area surrounding the castle is a forrest planted by one of the owners with many trails and ruins (it was romantic at the time to take a walk in the woods and come across a ruin). The castle itself was a incredible place to tour though. Our tour guide of course gave us a lot of information about the castle like how it can to be, who owned it, etc. but the most interesting part for me was trying to imagine how people actually lived there. After all many things were different than they are now. The whole castle was meant for just one lord and his family, so what did the rest of the people do? Where did they stay? Did they just work their entire lives or did other things happen? Wandering the halls may have gave me a better idea about how royalty lived, but it only raised more questions about how others lived. Something we learned about at the castle was that people slept sitting up due to superstition of the dead laying down, and while the Lord's bed looked quite big and comfortable, how did the servants and other staff mange? Today made me think a lot about assumptions. After all we assume people have slept like we did but really laying down is quite a recent fashion. There is so much we assume about our past and other people and its interesting to think about how much they affect our lives. I am not saying assumption are bad by many means, its just he way our brain works, assumptions are the quickest and most effective ways of thinking for our brain. We have to put real effort in if we want to look past assumptions, which is something I have been trying to work on this trip. To see beyond what I think of others at first, whether I ave been successful or not is the real question I guess. Back on topic though something else I really enjoyed about the castle was just how beautiful everything was inside and out. While the views may not have been the most impressive we have seen (peaks of mountains in the Alps is quite hard to beat) there was something beautifully tranquil about the views from the balconies. It was like I could sit there staring out at Vienna or the forest all day. As a whole I enjoyed Lichtenstein and everything it had to offer.

Later that day some people from the trip and I hurried to the Vienna State Opera House to buy standing room tickets to the ballet Giselle. We though we were quite lucky at first since there was no line outside the building yet, but we were quickly stopped by the Usher who said we were not allowed to enter the Opera in shorts. Just goes to show you you should always look into the dress code of buildings before you enter them. However we weren't going to let a pair of shorts stop us from experiencing the beauty of the ballet, so we ran to the shopping district a rushed to find some pants and a proper outfit for the State Opera House. It was in my mind at least a lot like Pretty Women were we went from drab outfits to very pretty ones. After we bought our new clothes we rushed to a bathroom to change and then got in line again. Now standing room is quite nice in theory a cheap ticket to see an experience, but in execution it quite painful to stand as long as you have to. You stand not only for the performance but to get the ticket, to stand in line to get a place, and then if there are not enough places on the rail you get to stand next to the rail with no support. As one would expect in a situation like this people were quite rude to each other in attempts to get a better spot or claim spots that weren't marked. Despite all the negativity I stayed positive and excited about the whole experience, I love and appreciate ballet after years of doing it myself so I was excited to see a world wide recognized company perform, and man did they not let me down. Despite half the stage being blocked by a very tall man in front of me the dancers were phenomenal. The story was simple but the emotion and performance were astounding, after all Giselle is a romantic period ballet which meant it was very dramatic and compelling. Despite no words being used you could just feel the story being told. I loved the performance and was even able to make a friend with someone near me. She was visiting from Spain and had seen many ballets before (we talked quite a bit before the show and she helped raise my sprints considerably). Even though I got home late and was very tired it was worth it to see the ballet in its entirety and to thank the dancers with my applause. Today was a great day to start winding down on my time in Vienna, but I still look forward to my last few days. Until next time! (P.S. Photos will be up later my computer is acting up right now)

Day 16: May 29th, Discussion of Health in Krems

In every system there are advantages and flaws, for there is no system that is perfect and depending on your perspective one system may be better than the other. That is why it is important to examine both our own systems and other systems used in the world. A great example of this is the American Health Care System versus the Austrian Health Care System. Both have their advantages and disadvantages but in the end one has to think of what is better for the people. The Austrian system runs on the ideal mandatory insurance payed on different rates based on income to support everyone equally. This makes healthcare affordable, accessible, and quell to all. Which in the eyes of many including myself is the best system to have in order to improve the health of a nation as a whole. In American we may get to choose how much we want to pay and what kind of insurance we want and to what extent it goes to, but not everyone can have insurance if they need it. So when they do get sick the uninsured fall into debt or even worse situations. The Austrian system is also advantageous because it is possible to do private insurance and care if someone wishes to do it (though their general hospitals are more then adequate). Even if you don't have private insurance you can choose your own doctor and have freedom in your insurance. Overall I think the American System could learn a lot form Austrian in the insurance and healthcare division. There are some things I do think that the American System does better. In Austria there is a clear division between doctors and nurses. Doctors do most to all of the work for the patient when it comes to their health, while the nurse is there more as a caretaker getting food and different things the patients need. There is also a very different level of respect for a doctor versus a nurse. In American we have a varying range of nurses that have different responsibilities in the hospital, and have more respect from society as whole. This helps the patients get better care since they do not always have to wait specifically for a doctor for help. Doctors in Austria on theater hand are often overworked because they have to be extremely hands on with their patients. As a whole I enjoyed learning and comparing the two health care systems and I an glad we were able to visit Danube University.

Another very interesting thing we did while at the University was talk with some of the medical school students. While we didn't really talk much about school we did talk throughly about cultural differences and ideas about the others culture. It was very interesting to see what they thought about Americans and how similar some of our thoughts were. We also found out we had pretty similar senses of humor (at least I thought we did). I also will admit I did not get to talk with them as much as I wanted. Much like our own groups they had their own groups which they preferred talking to. I am usually very outgoing and really excited to talk to other students especially from other cultures, but I guess today just wasn't my day for it. I did enjoy talking with them when I did though. I also enjoyed the House vs. Prof program and discussion (even though I didn't understand much of the medical terminology they used). The doctor that was there to discuss the diagnosis was very intelligent in what he was explaining and I was able to understand the basic idea despite not know the terminology. Another thing we did with a student from the university was go snack and drink (which I did not do) by the Danube River and walk around the city. Krems as a whole is a very small charming peaceful despite the university and prison in its centre. I never felt uneasy there and enjoyed the fair weather. Something I did notice was the face that many of the buildings were quite old, but they were working on and already hadmnay new modern buildings near the University. It was a bit like Vienna where the old and new were colliding but Krems was doing it in a very different way since much of the change seemed recent. Today as whole was very educational and enjoyable and I hope the rest of the week is just the same, until next time!

Day 15: May 28th, A Palace Fit For Complicated Royal History?

The one thing we did as a group today was visit Schonbrunn Plaace which resides in the city limits of Vienna. Now I have to be honest here, I really didn't know much about the Austrian Royal Family before I came here, and I still don't know much. I guess if I had to complain about something about the place it would be the lack of history of the family and what occurred in the palace, not just the purpose of each room. Other than that the tour was quiet enjoyable. The audioguide was very helpful in getting us to understand the history of the construction of the palace and what the various rooms were used for. All of this was done while filling in some important historic points and using many first person sources which I thought was very interesting to hear from. Overall I had fun exploring the different rooms and imaging what it was like for those to live there years ago. I guess I didn't enjoy myself as much as I could due to the large amount fo people there since the Palace is one of Vienna's biggest tourist spots. Also they kind of went a little overboard with the gift shops and souvenirs, and this is coming from a girl who loves souvenirs! I did enjoy some of the history I learned like the fact that many of the heads of the imperial family order remodels to reflect the styles the time. Or how Napoleon's son was separated for his mother and kept at the palace due to his father's actions and beliefs. I did throughly enjoy the gardens attached the palace. The baroque styling of the garden amazed me despite all the construction around it. My friend Kirsten and I even went through the mazes they had in the garden which actually proved to be pretty hard at times. It was interesting to think that even with all the visitors the park didn't seem crowded, which really got me thinking what it would be like with only the imperial family there. Royals sure were lucky in some ways I guess. I do appreciate how the city of Vienna has turned these gardens into parks for the public to enjoy. As a whole I enjoyed the palace but I think I would only want to visit there the one time and maybe return to the garden someday.

While the rest of the day was a free day I knew I wanted to make the most of my time since my time was running out in Vienna. So Kirsten and I went on a adventure to see more of the city. The first place we visited was Prater an amusement park inside the city limits. The whole park felt like a weird thrown together rejection pile for Disney with most of the rides and attractions right on top of each other with no rhyme or reason. Admission was thankfully free but the prices to ride the rides was steep, on average it was 5 euros and there were hundreds of rides there to ride. There were also many carnival games to play and a surprising number of haunted houses. The park was also home to a very historic ferris wheel which while a little overpriced was still a lot of fun to go on and learn the history of. As a whole the park was fun but expensive but I did enjoy getting to the city from so high on some of the rides.

After Prater we went to St. Stephen's Cathedral in the city center. While we had seen the outside of the church several times on our adventures in Vienna we had yet to actually go inside. So with much anticipation we hurried inside the cathedral and basked in the beauty that is St. Stephen's Cathedral. While enjoying the beautiful interior I couldn't hep but think about how much of the church was reconstructed due to bombings during World War II, much like the rest of Vienna. It can really make you be proud of how far Vienna and its people have come and how well they have recovered from the ghosts of its past. I do find the attitudes of Viennise people very interesting. Take for instance my host mom, much like her Vienna is very environmentally and medically conscious. People try nd eat healthy organic foods and save water and energy in the home, but then they turn around do things like smoke everywhere in public. While they act like they are perfect (much like the US does) they still have many flaws about them. Which I think is something we will never be able to escape as a society.

This trip has been an amazing experience for me, and as it draws to a close I have been started how much things have changed for me. I talked a lot about this in my blog yesterday but somethings that happened today have cleared my image of myself. I am learning to stand for myself again, while also learning different kinds of patience I am not used to using. I believe I am changing and learning for the better on this trip. Still there are still couple days left and many adventures left to write about, until next time!