First Days

Day 2: August 2, 2012

German word of the day = kämmen

In a sentence = (this is a stretch, but…) Ich kämmen gern – I comb well???

So day 1 was effectively a check in day, so not really sure what there is to write about there. But I arrived in Vienna on Sunday, July 29^th at 0500 on an overnight train from Munich (I left Amsterdam at 0700 to get to Munich on Saturday). I spent the day walking through the city and ultimately ending up at a hostel, which brings me to July 30^th, when I Couchsurfed with a 22 year-old born and raised Viennese university student for the night. His name was Markus and he showed me a good deal of the city in a short period of time. He spoke English very well and was able to give me an insight into what life is like in Vienna. The people may be perceived as hard to approach, or unwelcoming, or in a general negative light, however, Markus and his friends were far from that. He told me that the Viennese are very relaxed people, but there are a few bad apples that bring the negativity. I was under the impression that American’s might be looked at as imperialist, snobby, fat, pushy, annoying, selfish, but he said that they love American’s. And as a waiter, he gets to speak English and also gets bigger tips, so it was refreshing to hear that they like us more than I expected!

Since I have been here for 20 something days, I am adjusted to the time, weather, people, (and crazy people driving), food and drinks.  It’s been great so far and Vienna is beautiful. For the next month, the most challenging aspect will be keeping up with Professor Stuart when she leads us around. Day 2 and I’m already struggling.

Today, we met up at 1000 and learned how to get to our classroom and the Austro-American Institute in Europe. It is located right across the Opera House, in a prime location. It’s within a few minutes walk from the Naschmarkt, which is an open air shopping/food eating place (I bought some sausage there today!).

First impressions of Vienna’s public transportation are that it is awesome, you can get anywhere without too much hassle. Today, one of the subway lines wasn’t coming for some reason so we just took the tram instead; it was no trouble at all.