Venice, Trieste, Pilan, Umag, Vienna . . .

October was the big travel month for me! I went to 5 places over the course of 3 weekends... cool! First, we traveled to Venice by train (me and 7 other people). That was quite adventurous, especially when it came to places to stay. Us girls (there were 4 of us) booked a hotel room, but it turned out to be in the wrong spot (because the website that I found was dumb) but we managed to find a room for two nights when we first arrived! The boys, however, had a lot harder of a time finding a place. Lucky them... they got to stay in a SKETCHY place (even during the day) on the second night that we were there... but we still had a ton of fun! Venice was a beautiful city and I would love to go back (as long as I don't have to stay anywhere sketchy...)

The next weekend we took a lovely trip to Croatia by bus through Italy and Slovenia. On the way there, we stopped in Trieste which is where the Americans had one of their bases during world war 2. It was a beautiful chateau/palace thing right on the water. Then we drove through Slovenia and went to cross the border with Croatia (non-EU member) and ended up having to leave Ja at the border because she is Thai... :( Poor Ja had to stay in Slovenia all by herself overnight. Luckily, we weren't in Croatia for very long. We had a very late Calamari lunch (I don't really like Calamari...) and then got to our hotel at about 4:30. A bunch of us headed down to the beach and me, being the smart SWIMMER... forgot my swimsuit :/ But I still stuck my feet in (it was COLD). We got back to the hotel after the sun had set & ate a buffet dinner (it was a LOT of food!) We took a walk into town, but most places were closed because it was like 9 at night. After arriving back at the hotel, some of the cool people elected to stay in and just have drinks at the bar in the hotel. Most of the girls got Cuba Libres which was basically rum, coke, and lime (it was good- tasted a lot like a limeade). And of course, the exchange rate there is wonderful so those cost us something like 4 or 5 dollars. It was nice.

The next morning, we headed back into EU territory (Slovenia) and picked up Ja. We spent about an hour in a small costal town there... and ate some gelato. Then we headed inland for a little while and stopped at the Postojnska Jama (Jama means Cave in Slovenian). That was cool. It reminded me a lot of Carlsbad caverns only a lot bigger! And it had an underground river flowing through it. Which made it even cooler.

And of course, this last weekend, AIFS took us on a nice trip to Vienna! On Friday we took city tour and then had the rest of the day free. So a big group of us headed to the Staatsoper and saw The Marriage of Figaro for 3 euros (standing room of course). It was really well done! The next day we got to go to the Art History Museum, which was pretty incredible (especially considering how much I don't care about art). The rest of the day was once again free, so I met up with Lisa's friend Maggie who is studying there for the semester and we wandered around Naschmarkt together. That is basically a giant market with lots of food and lots of random stuff (probably geared towards tourists... though anyone can use a 5 euro scarf!) That night we wandered around Vienna and had some Wiener Schnitzel (it was huge and delicious!). Then we tried to find a club or something, but everywhere we went seemed sketchier than the place before... and I was tired. So I went back to the hotel with some other people and went to bed.

On Sunday morning, AIFS took us to Schloss Schoenbrunn, the summer residence of the Habsburgs during the Austro-Hungarian empire. It's not very far out of town, but I guess it took us like 10 min. by bus, so it would have taken them a few hours by horse-drawn carriage? That was amazing. I wouldn't mind living there. They had a HUGE backyard... that includes a large maze made from bushes... and a freaking ZOO. I want a Zoo in my backyard. That was a lot of fun. We also went to Stift Melk, a monestary in Lower Austria. That was pretty cool too. Unfortunately, we were so hungry that we probably didn't enjoy it as much as we could have... oh well. It was still a lot of fun & was really wonderful to see.

And of course, I have in fact been going to school too. I had a presentation in Austrian Culture on Monday about the Far-right parties in Austria. That has apparently become a hot topic internationally due to Jorg Haider's death a few weeks ago... That went well (at least I hope so). I also took midterms in Political Economy and Conflicts last week. I guess I did well on the Conflicts test, which was the one that I was worried about, so I guess the Pol Econ test went well too. I'll find out on Monday! I picked a paper & presentation topic for my Hitler & die Dritte Reich class, so I have to start research on that.

This weekend I'm not really going on any big trips. If we do anything it would be to bike down to Hallein and maybe go to the Salt mines and then bike back, but I don't really know what people are up to. Tomorrow morning I am attending a cooking course on how to make Goulash and Knodel! I'm really excited about that! Oh yeah. And my parents are coming to visit for Thanksgiving! :) That is going to be exciting and fun!

Bis Spater!
:)

Pictures:
1- Kate, Me, and Samantha in Venice
2- Canal in Venice (with Scottie's rose)
3- Me, Taryn, Kate, and Samantha in Trieste, Italy
4- Sunset on "beach" in Umag, Croatia
5- Sailboats in Piran, Italy
6-Kate, Taryn, and Samantha in front of the Staatsoper in Vienna
7- Kate and Samantha looking at the best piece of art in the Art History Museum
8- Mummy (in the Art History Museum)
9- AIFS group at Schloss Schonbrunn (outside of Vienna)
10- Maze at Schloss Schonbrunn
11- Stift Melk Library (Outside of Vienna in Lower Austria)
12- The Fat Cat (Blunzi?) I have no idea how she got in there... or back out for that matter.