An Erasmus Thanksgiving!

Prague!

Well, another weekend another trip. This time to Prague for two nights and three days. We arrived late on Friday night after a 5 hour bus ride from Vienna. After making our way to the Hostel we checked in. We decided to call it a night so that we could get an early start the next day.

The next morning, we worked our way to the town square via bus and foot. We met up with a free tour 4 hour tour here. Not the best tour guide I might add... but we got to see the city anyways. After the tour rapped up, we spent the rest of the day wondering the streets, seeing sights and eating lots of food. We decided to stay on the side of the river we were on, and save the other side for the next day. We ate some Czech food for dinner, and called it a night, spent a few more hours wondering and then called it a night (there is a story here, but you'll have to ask me sometime).



We woke the next morning and cleaned up our things. The Hostel locked up our bags for us so we would not have to carry them with us. After a bus ride down town, we walked across the rive to the castle side. The whole rest of the day was spent sight seeing and walking around. It is a very beautiful city. Tons of old buildings to see. in the evening we went back to the Hostel to get our bags, made our way to the bus station for out 12AM bus back to Vienna. I got back to my dorm about 6:30AM tired and not ready for class at 8.

Road Trip!

View Larger Map


Well, Its been about two weeks, but I finally have a few minutes to do a little blog about Berlin. We rented our car in Bratislava early Saturday morning. And we were off for a long dive to Berlin. As you can see from the map we did not take the most direct route to Berlin. The reason for that is that a car rented in Bratislava can not be driven through the Czech Republic. Don't ask me... So through across Austria and into Germany we went. I did most of the driving, but Alex also drove some of the way. We rolled into Berlin around 7 that evening. After checking into our hostel, we went out for a little night exploration. And saw a few sights. We were all pretty tired so we called it an early night.

The next day we hit up a free tour in the morning that met up near the Brandenburg Gate. (see pic). The tour lasted four hours and we hit a lot of the major sights in Berlin. Good deal for free. We spent the rest of the day wondering around Berlin on our own. Its an amazing city, but it was really freaking cold while we were there.

The next day the real festivities began. It was the big celebration for the wall coming down. We spent our morning and afternoon wandering around, seeing the festivities for the wall. The real show did not begin until about 8. When they began having speeches. The German chancellor spoke, along with Hillary Clinton, Gordon Brown, Dmitry Medvedev, and Nicolas Sarkozy. There was also a performance by Bon Jovi... I know I know, Bon Jovi. Bet your super jealous. Then finally the Dominoes came down. Fireworks. We caught the ubahn back to where we parked our car and hit the road about 10PM. After a long night on the road we pulled up to Haus Erasmus in Vienna around 6AM. Tired. we went to bed.

Back.

Still going to post. I got back from Prague this morning at 5. I have class from 8:30AM to 5PM today. More to come soon!

Back from Berlin.

Well I just got back today. I will post on it soon, but just to give you a taste I'm just going to say... Giant Dominos, Police, Tons of People, Prostitutes, Autobahn, Opel, Fireworks, and Hillary Clinton.

Dinner and a Movie

Just a little update...

Yesterday was a busy day. In the afternoon I met up with my tandem partner (Sophia) for a little Coffee/Hot Chocolate. We went to a fancy little shop in the city center somewhere near the photo. After the the coffee shop we had a nice little stroll though downtown before we parted ways. When I got back to my dorm I met up with a few friends and we went to a Turkish restaurant for dinner. Really Really good food. This was followed by a movie. The Michael Jackson Movie at the english theater. Good stuff.

Side Note. For those of you who don't know what the tandem program is. It is a program through the school were they set up Students who want to learn each others language. There is no structure to it. Basically it ends up being be and her meeting up about once a week, doing some random thing we can think up. We mostly just speak english (practice for her) and she teaches me random German words here and there.

I know, I know. More pictures coming. I need to go buy a new SD card today. Mine Corrupted... Don't know why.

Thanks!

Thanks Mother and Sister for the package!

Strategy Weekend - Payerbach

Well, last week was fun. The majority of my time was dedicated to working on three fifteen page group projects. They were basically an analysis of three different companies. We had to write the papers and put together a power point and 10 minute presentation for each.


On Friday afternoon we caught train to Payerbach (a small town an hour and a half outside Vienna); where we stayed the night in a conference hotel. In the morning we had to be ready to present on one of the three cases. We were not told which groups were presenting which case until just before we presented. The whole process took from around 8AM to around 3PM. It actually wasn't as bad as it sounds. The cool thing is, that was my final for the class. I am now done with one class.

The fun part... After the presentations, we went to a gondola and rode it up a hillside (about 1500m). From up top, we got an amazing view of the Austrian countryside and the first official mtn. of the Alps. It was Cold... There was Snow. From here, we rode the gondola back down and went to the train station to catch the train back home.

Strategy Weekend

I'm back from my strategy retreat in Payerbach, Austria. Info to come soon.

A quick look around

This is the ubahn map of Wien. I marked where I live and where WU is
Haus Erasmus - Where I live

The corner market near Haus Erasmus

This is facing the other way from the Billa pic. The building is a library. It is also the ubahn station Burggasse Stadthalle

Behind the strassenbahn in the pic above is the food stands that sell Doner Kebab
This is the meat they use to make a kebab. Oh so good!

Budapest Pt. 1 and Pt. 2

Budapest Pt. 1

Well, It all started on a Saturday afternoon with the question, “What else are you going to do tonight?” Next thing I knew I found myself on a three-hour bus ride to Budapest. No plans and no place to stay meant this was a true adventure. It was Troy (Wisconsin), Christina (Minnesota), Helmut (Florida), Bahar (Oregon), and I. We arrived around 7 in the evening and caught the subway to downtown. After an hour of wandering we found ourselves a hostel. That out of the way, it was our hunger we sought to satisfy next. It took about another hour to find a decent place to eat, but our choice was perfect. Dinner was delicious. We spend the rest of the evening wondering and then called it a night.

The morning was used for sight seeing; we spent all morning and afternoon walking from one side of the city to the other, catching all the sights possible. We finished our day with a quick bite at burger king before catching the 3:00PM (Last Bus) for Vienna.

Budapest Pt. 2

Then next weekend was the Buddy Network trip to Budapest, which I had signed up for in the first week of being in Vienna. It was an 8AM buss from the School (WU). There were about 150 exchange students on this trip. So you can imagine it was quit the deal. Immediately upon arrival in Budapest we picked up a tour guide, who gave us a guided bus tour of the city. Slightly shorted by the fact it was a National Holiday in Hungary and some places were closed for demonstrations. This was followed by a few hours of free time, and then we met in the lobby for dinner. Dinner was on a boat on the Danube right next to downtown. The food was delicious. I have yet to have Hungarian food that is not good. That about did it for the night. I went back to the hotel and went to bed.

Saturday…. Saturday began with breakfast in the hotel and a trip to the Terror Museum (about the Nazi occupation and communism in Hungary). The rest of the day was free, so I used it to do some more exploring. In the evening we met as a group and left for dinner at a Mongolian bbq. Now this was no Changs but it was still great food, and a good end to the day.

Sunday… This was baths day. We met downstairs in the lobby and headed out for several hours at the Budapest City Baths. Great way to end the trip. Saunas, Hot Tubs, Pools, Steam Rooms, ect. We later all met back up at the hotel and got the bus back to Vienna, relaxed and tired.

Budapest Coming Soon.

Its been a busy week between classes and Budapest. I will post soon.

Snow

Yes, Thats right. It is snowing in Vienna today.

Adventures Through Italy

Let me first start by saying that I am starting this blog with Italy and then moving back to the beginning of this Austrian adventure. I realize that it would probably have been a better idea to start this at the beginning of my trip, but… well, I didn’t.

Anyways, Off to Italy. Well, It all started Tuesday afternoon when Jenn (Vancouver BC), Sarah (OSU), Lena(OSU) and I boarded a bus for Bratislava Airport. Now, as we soon found out, Airport is a rather generous term for what we flew out of… More like bus terminal with a runway. I guess we really couldn’t complain. The flight was cheep. Well, after two hours on a bus and just over one hour on a pane we arrived in Bergamo, Italy. A quick city bus ride got us to the Bergamo train station where we bought train tickets for Venice, which left around 7 the next morning. We then proceeded to hop on the wrong bus and ended up back at the airport. So, after looping back to the train station we then got onto the right bus and rode it a whole two blocks to our hostel… needless to say we felt pretty stupid after that one.

Wednesday… 6:30 AM… A quick walk to the train station where we boarded our train for Venice. We arrived in Venice at 10, booked our tickets for Rome departing around 11:30 PM, and stored our luggage. We then met up with a friend of Jenn’s, Brian. Brian had a friend with him, Christabel. They are on a trip through Europe and it worked out that we met up in Venice. The six of us then set off on a 1-day sight seeing tour of Venice. Not much to say about this other then Venice is freaking crazy amazing. Also we splurged on a Gondola ride. Totally worth it. After an amazing day we made it back to train station, got our luggage, said goodbye to Brian and Christabel, and prepared to board the night train.

The Night Train… I am giving the night train its own section because it was such a huge MISTAKE. Words cannot describe how bad this train was. First, we were unable to get seats next to each other, normally not a problem, but on a night train through Italy. Not so good. Second, the train was over-crowded; people were sitting on the ground outside the compartments. Next, it was packed full of some of the most sketch people I have ever seen in my life. And we were stuck. For 8 hours in uncomfortable seats. Each of us crammed into a little room with 5 extremely sketch people who did not speak English. Longest 8 hours of my life. Needless to say, almost no sleep was gotten on this train. Luckily, none of us had anything stolen.

Thursday… Exhausted, we got off the train in Rome. It was early, we were tired, and we were hungry. So, the first thing we did was eat breakfast at McDonalds. Amazing. We then waked the 5-6 blocks to our hostel and checked in. We couldn’t get to our rooms until 3, but they stored our bags for us. All we wanted to do at this point was take a shower and sleep, we couldn’t. So we started to walk around Rome for an hour or two. At around 10 another friend of Jenn, David, arrived in Rome. So we met him at the train station. We helped him get checked into his Hostel, and then it was off to see some real sights. The Coliseum and the Palatino were the big ones for the first day. I could write a book on these two alone, but I will be short. It was Epoch. We called it an early night.

Friday… Waking around 7, we met up with David at the train station; where we caught the metro to Vatican City. We made a quick stop in St. Peter’s Square and then headed straight for the museum. A couple of hours were spent touring the museum and seeing all the sights. This was followed by a visit to St. Peter’s Basilica. Such a crazy church. We even got to climb to the top of the St. Peter’s, 551 steps, where we got a great view of Rome. After seeing all the sights of Vatican City we made are way through Rome. Hitting just about every major sight along the way. Castel Sant’ Angelo, Pantheon, Trevi, and Campidoglio just to name a few. It was a long day with a lot of walking. But well worth it. For dinner we got some pasta from a place near our Hostel. And then headed to the train station to catch our night train to Milan.

Night Train 2.0… Let me start by saying this ticket cost us double what the last night train cost. Let me also say it was the best purchase of my life. A warm bed with sheets, wake up service in the morning, a breakfast snack served to us. IT WAS AWSOME.

Saturday… We arrived in Milan around 7. Jenn and David were spending the night in Milan, so we went to their hostel to check them in. After getting that taken care of, we headed to the town square to see Duomo. We also climbed to the top of Duomo to get a good view of Milan. Next, we hoped on the metro and headed out to the Milan soccer stadium; home of AC Milan and Inter Milan. We took a tour, pretty cool stuff. We then headed back to the Town center and wandered around the fancy shops. There was a castle not too far away so we went and saw that too. That pretty much ate up the rest of the day. We said our goodbyes to Jenn and David; Sarah, Lena, and I hopped on a bus bound for Bergamo. In Bergamo, we checked into our hostel and went to sleep.

Sunday… Flight back to Bratislava left a 7AM. Caught that, and then caught the bus back to Vienna. We arrived in Vienna around 11:30 AM exhausted but extremely happy about our trip.