Vienna! Part 1

So, the second week of my time off before the semester, I got to go to Vienna for 4 days to hang out with Kate, one of my wonderful friends from Schwabisch Hall who's studying there. They were on break too, so we could do stuff all day, and here roommate was out of town so I even got to sleep in the spare bed instead of in a hostel! It was absolutely wonderful. We had so much fun. I totally wish we were in the same program or at least the same city so we could hang out all the time.
Travelling was an adventure, though. I forgot that, over here, Easter Monday is an official holiday as well. Therefore the busses were on a different schedule. I realized this about 5 minutes too late. That means that the bus I was planning on taking to the train station was not coming. So I had to take one about 20 minutes later. Which meant I missed my train to Stuttgart by approximately 1 minute. Which meant that even though I splurged on a taxi and the guy drove me there crazy (illegally) fast and helped me find my check-in place, I missed my plane. Yeah. So I had to rebook. Luckily I found one for later that evening. So I hung out in the Stuttgart airport for a few hours, and landed in Vienna at about 10:15 pm.
I had had to spend basically all of my on-hand cash for the new ticket (my debit card was being stupid), and I had to spend the rest of it on a bus to get to the subway station. I then had about 75 cents, and had to ride the U-Bahn (subway) *gasp!* without a ticket. Luckily for me I was correct in assuming no one would come around to check at 12:15am. I finally made it, and Kate met me at the U-Bahn stop and took me to her dorm. Relief.

Day 1
So, the first day we went around the main part of Vienna looking at all the pretty and important buildings (basically following the principle of "oooh, that looks shiny and/or important; let's go there!), and then went to a triple museum--The Imperial Silver (i.e. all their dishes), the Sisi Museum (of the famous Kaiserin (Empress) Elisabeth), and the Imperial Apartments. It was really neat, but unfortunately I could only take pictures in the first one. Oh well. We ate at an Italian restaurant, and went home, exhausted, by 7pm, and then stayed up chatting until much later than intended, haha!



One of the important buildings - Parliament!

The super-secret Imperial napkin fold, which may only be used when the Imperial family is dining and is known only to 2 staff members to protect its secrecy. I'm totally serious!

Kate in one of the rooms in the Silver Museum. There were at least 10 rooms, I would estimate, maybe 15. I have no pictures that accurately express just how many dishes there were. It was actually pretty cool, but we had definately had our fill of dishes by the end!




Day 2
On the second day, we went to an aquarium/zoo (i.e. mostly an aquarium with a bit of a rainforesty greenhouse section) called Haus des Meers, or House of the Sea. Oh yeah, it's a cheesy name.



It is kind of a strange building, not the sort of place you would expect to be a super-cool aquarium.

There were Hammerhead sharks in the tank just past the register!

We went through the way they suggested, which involved first going up to the very top, where the viewing platform offered a fantastic view of Vienna!




We were a little concerned after that that we'd been ripped off, because the next couple floors were basically a stairwell with posters along it. Yeah. Turns out the aquarium itself doesn't begin until floor 4 or 5 (the top is floor 9), so we were considerably relieved to come out in a room with a giant tank in it.

This sea turtle was a total diva and was posing for me the entire time we were in that room. I probably have a dozen pictures just of him. :)

This is the rainforesty greenhouse add-on. There were birds and turtles and tiny little monkeys (just like I saw in Brazil!) basically roaming free in their little "habitat". So cool!

Tiny little monkeys!

There were lots of other things like sting rays, eels, jellyfish, pregnant seahorses, snakes, lots of fish, etc.

This tube is full of ants that are traveling between one terrarium and another. The tube curves down shortly after this to about handrail level, probably mostly to creep people out!

I found Nemo in the gift shop! He looks smaller on film...

Kate doesn't like large snakes, lol.

The Past Two Weeks

After this post, you should be pretty much up-to-date on my life to this point!

On Friday, April 3rd, the group took one last outing to Stuttgart before the course ended. We left in the afternoon, so it wasn't an all-day outing, but it was still great! We went first to the Mercedes-Benz Museum, which was actually pretty interesting. You get a private audio guide (in your choice of language: I chose English because of the specific vocabulary), and so you can actually choose which parts to listen to the guide for and which to avoid. That way, non-car-freaks can avoid the techy parts that we won't really understand anyway! I walked around looking for pretty or interesting cars and listening to the history and/or social impact parts.



This is the outside of the museum. You start at the top and the path gradually winds back down to the bottom.

This was my favorite car in the museum, the Gullwing. Isn't it fun?

This little guy's pretty cute too, though I'm not sure I'd want to drive it! I love how the old cars have all the gold detailing and such...




After that we had some free time in the city to have dinner and go shopping and such. After that we went to a ballet! This one was based on Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. In the programs that the teachers printed out for the trip there was a plot summary so we knew what was going on (always a plus with ballets!), and it was really pretty good. The opera house is beautiful and old-timey; I wish my camera hadn't died so I could have taken pictures (it seems to do that at the most inconvenient times). But it was also really nice to get to dress up for an evening out. Fun!

On a less fun note, my laptop was out of commission for about a week and a half with a virus. I was in and out of internet cafes to chat with Erick to get it fixed the entire time. Apparently I lucked out and got a new one that doesn't have a program to fix it yet, so we had to wipe the whole thing clean and start over. Luckily I was able to go buy an external hard drive to save all my documents and pictures first! Then, after the laptop was better, I had issues getting internet in my dorm again, and eventually called the dorm internet people and they came out the same day and fixed it! Now all that's better, and I am once again connected with the world. Yay!

I had some issues trying to pin down plans for the break. I didn't want to go anywhere until my laptop was fixed, so that stuck me here until Tuesday or so. I also didn't want to go anywhere by myself, but haven't made any friends here so far that I'm that close to. It was a trick getting a hold of Kate and Courtney to find out their plans, but I finally got together with Kate and we started making plans for the coming week. We had a really neat trip all laid out, but then when we went to book things, we discovered that the price to get to the starting point and the price to get back home were just too high. Everything in the middle had flowed perfectly, but we just couldn't get there.
But it all worked out. Now I am leaving tomorrow afternoon to fly to Vienna (where Kate lives) for the week. She decided she needed some time to rest after living with a family in Salzburg for a week, and Vienna is reputed as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, so it's a win-win situation. Plus, Kate's roommate is out of town, so I can bunk in the spare bed in her room and save on hostel prices! This will leave me with more money to make cool weekend trips during the semester and in June, and I get to see one of the must-see cities in Europe, and spend time with my friends! I'm really excited! I'm all packed, and I just need to get a few things wrapped up here in Tubingen (i.e. extending my residency permit) before I'm off to Stuttgart to catch my flight! And don't worry, I'm bringing spare batteries this time so I won't get caught off guard by a dying camera, haha.

By the way, Happy Easter to everyone, and I hope you had a fabulous day! I went to the big main evangelical church in Tubingen for the service. It was the fullest I expect I will see a church during my stay in Germany, almost 2/3! It's always a neat experience to go to services in the big old cathedrals here, if only because it's so different. There was actually a choir today, which was beautiful and echoed through the church from behind the congregation.



St. Georg Evangelical Stiftskirche
Where I attended Easter services this morning, in the middle of the of the city center. And, yes, St. George as in the dragon-slayer. :)

A really neat Easter decoration in the church. It is a giant crown of thorns with roses suspended from it in their little vases for water. It was hanging over the altar this morning.

The altar as it looked this morning. The gold communion goblets are on it.





Since the weather in April has been so nice (one day it got warm and has just stayed like that!), I think it's time for some long-overdue Tubingen pictures!



Marktplatz (Market Square). The colorful building on the right is the Rathaus (City Hall). Notice all the chairs set out in the square, from the cafes since it's so nice out!

Arguably one of the prettiest views in Tubingen, from the bridge over the Neckar River. The trees on the island were planted by the city undertaker when he, being put out of work by a change in the law, was given a post as a gardener. Fun story, huh? Oh, notice the boats by the willows. Tubingen has boats kind of like the gondolas in Venice, except these have tall seat-backs sticking up on the sides like ribs. Also, the yellow house behind the willows is where the poet Hoelderlin lived.

Another pretty view of the Neckar River.

Still on the bridge, looking the other direction. This area is just so pretty!

Finally, you know you're in Germany when your bank looks like this! Classic German wood-beamed building.







Now you are up-to-date on the happenings in Deutschland. I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter with friends and family, and I can't wait to see you all again!

Ludwigsburg and Esslingen

Okay, to pick up where I left off, though it may be somewhat abbrieviated...

On the Wednesday after we got back from Blaubeuren (March 25th), we took a "Day Excursion" to Ludwigsburg and Esslingen. In the morning we hopped on the bus and headed to Ludwigsburg. Our goal there was a beautiful Baroque palace. The town is actually not that old (only a few hundred years, haha!), and this is the palace that was built (well, begun anyway) by the founder of the town, or rather, the noble that the town grew up around and is named after. It was absolutely gorgeous! I love this style, and I was absolutely in heaven, and took way too many pictures for my own good. I will only post a few here:

The palace from the outside, seen across the courtyard


Central Ballroom


The King's Bedroom (or whatever lord lived here at the time)


The original Baroque style of the palace (lots of gold, lots of fancy). Updates were made over the years to some parts in the Classicism and Rococco styles. All are pretty.


One of the aforementioned Classicism updates: beautiful ceiling frescoes


The Gallery


The Gardens. If we'd been a few weeks later, they would be in bloom... Still pretty though.

I sadly come to the realization that many of my pictures are blurry (as we were moving quickly through and were not supposed to use flash), and do not do their subject justice. One might be able to get some sort of sense of it going through all 200 pictures I took there, haha, but I hope that these pictures give you at least a little bit of an idea how pretty it is. I want to live there.

Anyway, after the tour of the palace we had some free time to wander about the city (though we did not much, as the weather was rather gross) before meeting again at the Film Academy.




An important-looking building in Ludwigsburg






At the film academy some of the students took us on a tour and showed us what they do there. Apparently it is very hard to get into this school, and it has a very high reputation. It was kind of interesting to see how a film school works (each student gets a budget to produce, direct, write, animate, whatever their specialty/major is, film(s), which apparently is still not very much when it comes to the film business, and the budget and assignment lengths increase for upperclassmen), but there wasn't really much to take pictures of. It was, though, I must say, more interesting than I had expected going in.

In Esslingen, we were going to have a short tour of the old town, but the weather was so drizzly and gross that they just kind of said, go hang out in a cafe or something (which we did, gratefully). Actually they did encourage us to walk around a little bit and see stuff. We went to a cafe and had some (in my case) hot chocolate. After that we still had some time, so we walked over to the main shopping drag, walked around for a little while, and stopped in one or two stores. The weather had lightened up by this point.
In the evening, we had a wine-tasting. We went to a wine cellar in the city center, and they had dinner for us (a basic German cold-cuts and cheese with bread dinner) and 6 different kinds of wine to try. I thought it was kind of crazy that they were pouring full glasses for everything! I had about a half-glass of each. It was fun, and I think I'm getting closer to "acquiring" the wine taste, or whatever. Just enough to be able to be fancy and have wine with dinner once in a blue moon. It was helpful to learn that it is more important to me if the wine is "light" or "full" than if it is "dry" or "sweet".
After that we headed back home. A large portion of the group went out to the disco afterwards, but I decided that since it was already 11pm and we had class in the morning, it was better to pass. I was well-rested the next day. ;)

Main Church in Esslingen

Miscellaneous nice view in Esslingen

Ulm Pictures

Views of the Ulmer Munster (the cathedral) on the way toward it. The round white building on the right edge of the right-hand picture is the new community building or some such, which is very modern and caused some controversy. About half the people love it and the rest hate it. The architect (American) kept it low to the ground so as not to compete with the cathedral or block the view, and included a lot of windows to "mimic" the gothic style, though I don't really see that it helps the resemblance any, haha. Interesting contrast, though.

Inside the Munster.

There were figures like this on every column. The ones on the right are from the New Testament and the ones on the left from the Old Testament, if I remember correctly. This one is Paul.

This is the Rathaus (City Hall), and is pretty much the only picture of Ulm that I have that is not the cathedral or the view from it, as my camera's batteries died at this point. This just means I have to go back. ;)

View out of one of the beautiful Gothic windows on the way up to the top of the tower.

View of the back part of the cathedral from the top of the tower.

View from the top of the highest church tower in the world!

Again.

On the other side of the river you can see New Ulm which is in Bavaria (Deutsch: Bayern), the neighboring German state, where Munich is. This division was made by Napoleon.

The remaining height of the tower past where you can climb.

The super-modern community center juxtaposed with one of the gargoyles on the old Gothic cathedral.

If you look at the tiny people and trees you can kind of get a sense of how high up we were.

Me with the fabulous view of Ulm.

The staircase was really narrow and twisty!

Translation: Tower Climb
768 steps

Tickets at the Register across from here (but that's not important)
I did that!!!!

McDonald's had Schnitzel Nuggets. (Schnitzel is flat-pounded deep-fried pork that is very German) I could only think, oh my goodness, I am definately in Germany. Only here...

A nifty little lighted sculpture at the train station. (says "City train station Ulm")