Vienna begins

So as I hope you all assumed, I am safe and sound in Vienna. Traveling here was fairly easy, the plane was pretty empty, our luggage was quick we took a taxi to the dorm, ate and then fell right asleep. Right now we are living in temporary dorms because we can't move into our until the 1st of October. But they are still good dorms none the less, plus I've got a single so it's nice to have some space to myself for a little while.
Friday we had our orientation, that was long. We just went over a bunch of stuff, filled out forms, toured the University, which I decided is basically Hogwarts without the moving staircases. You can fit all of AC into the main building. it's nutttssss and wonderful. We took a city tour that afternoon of just a little of the 1st district then had dinner with the central college program professors. There are some classes here offered by the school just for us that are more American style classes except in German and relevent to life in Austria, I think I'm taking the german literature class and a german writing class. But all the profs seem really cool, one gave me some advice on finding a theatre I can do work with, and told me I could probably find an Improv troupe to at least see if not hang out with.
Last night we stayed up till the unbelieveably late hour of 5 am to watch the presidential debate. It was moderatly worth it. but now I'm tired. Today was a fun day, Nicole and Stacy and I went shopping and touring around the city and then tonight neighbor from across the hall took me on a city tour of several interesting places in the city. We saw Karlskirche, Stephansdom, Prater Amusement Park, the Rathaus, the Opera House, a couple of parks, the Hapsburg Palace. It was a lot of fun. But now I am even more exhausted.
I really love Vienna so far. Everyone here is so nice, the city is beautiful and public transportation is my new favorite thing ever. I am really looking forward to the next 4 months here. I know it's just going to fly by so I better start taking advantage of my time here now!

Last day in Schwabisch Hall

So that's it, time to go to Vienna! We take the Institute's bus to Nurnberg today to catch our plane to Vienna and then that's where I'll be till February. You know, until I go travel, I've already got quite a number of places i want to go on weekends, old friends to visit, things to see. I can' tell you or I'll jinx me actually getting to go to them. :D
Anyway this last week was fantastic! It was just one big party after another, started with Oktoberfest, then Monday was Stammtisch where everyone gets together just to chat (in German of course!), and hang out, then there was the last Goethe party, which didn't really count as the last one because last night we all went out to the club in town and danced some more. This week has just been an absolutely fantastic one and it's a great send off from Schwabisch Hall. I'm definitely sad to be going, leaving some people behind while others go back home, I've met a lot of wonderful people here and have really enjoyed this experience. But I suppose it's time to move on to the next!
In other news I have been told by several different native German speakers that my speaking and grammar have improved tremendously in the last two months. So whoo hoo to Goethe doing it's job and teaching me German.
Next time you hear from me I'll be in Vienna!
love you all
ann

Oktoberfest!!!

So this week has been full of fun things! Wednesday we played soccer for a while and then went out dancing all night, it was really fun but it caused only about half the people to show up on Thursday, which made class nice cause we had a much much smaller class. Thursday was just another lazy lazy day, but then we tried to go Salsa dancing again that night, but ended up sitting around in the bar again because our teacher didn't show up, but we still had a really good time just hanging out. Then I got back and some of us went and sat up on the room and chatted for a while, it was a really clear night with very little wind so it was perfect for star gazing. Friday, I spent the entire day speaking only in german, I probably only said about 20 things in English the entire day, from class, to playing soccer, where I found out I am really good at playing goalie, to dinner, until we got to the texas hold em poker party the school out on that night, then we were forced to speak english cause there is a group of Italians here learning German, but are just at the beginning so the easiest way to explain things to them was in English. I should have won right? I mean come on, I 'm from Texas! I did alright, but I still had fun.
Then yesterday we went to Munich to go to Oktoberfest! We got up super early to catch a train out there and we got into Munich about noon. It was a lot of fun, it's like a million Wurstfests put together with about 2 million times as many drunk people. We got into a couple of the tents and they are freaking huge! I couldn't believe how many people were inside one, we didn't sit down though cause the group I was with didn't really want to pay 8 euro per beer. But we rode some rides, ate some freakishly good sausage and had a lot of fun. But on the way back there were so many people on our train that we had to stand most of the way to our first stop, but we finally got seats and my roommate and I sat with some guys from Nurnburg who were really nice and we had a really good conversation with them. But we then ended up missing our connection because the train we were on had been delayed, so we rode the train all the way to Nurnburg, and our new friends helped us to try to figure out what we needed to do to get back, but the Deutsche Bahn ended up sending us to Ansbach which is like 30 minutes from here and then paid for us to have a taxi ride home since there were no more trains anywhere that were going to Schwabisch Hall until the next morning. So we finally made it back around midnight, but every minute of it was worth it. I'm really glad we went, even though it was just for a day.

A Perfect Day in Germany

So yesterday was probably the best day I have had the entire time I have been here.
I took a mental health day off class, come on you know class for 5 hours a day 5 days a week gets to you after a while, and it was well worth it. I slept in some, then got up, did some German work, looked up Oktoberfest information, hopefully we are going to make it out to Oktoberfest this Saturday! and just relaxed and had some alone time until class was over. After class there was a walk up to a castle/church/cloister that's about 3 kilometers away, so I went on that with some of my friends and the school. That was a lot of fun, it was a beautiful walk and we had some good company to enjoy it with. After that we got some dinner and then went to Salsa dancing lessons, who knew you could learn salsa in Schwabisch Hall? Anyway, you can, and it was a lot of fun! It's not too different from Mambo, but I learned quite a bit and we had a really good time. One of the other students that is here is from Argentina so he helped to teach us, and we having another lessons on Thursday. There is a party on Saturday, but I don't know if we will be back from Munich in time to go. The lessons were in the back of a cafe, so afterwards we all sat around and had some drinks and people just kept showing up randomly, so we had a wirklich Stammtisch, Stammtisch is when people meet somewhere, sit around and drink and chat for a while. It was a lot of fun, especially because I was the only American there, I think that is the only time this entire time I have been in Germany that there hasn't been another American present at a group gathering. It was weird, but I definitely like it better that way.
In a little bit we are going out to play soccer in the freezing cold, I mean it's still in the 40's here, then we have an international buffet, which is like a pot luck where you bring a traditional dish from your home country, still trying to figure out what to take, American doesn't have many traditional dishes, and I don't think anyone wants meatloaf. Then later tonight we are going out to the club to do dancing. It looks like this week is going to be a fantastic one!
I'm finally starting to feel competent in my German speaking ability, like I'm actually understood and can speak fluently, when I know the words, but I'm getting good at describing things I don't know.
The only thing that sucks is now that everything here is getting easier and I'm having a blast, it's time to leave. But I'm sure Vienna will be even better.

It's finally fall

So this month has been totally and completely different than last month. Things are a lot more low key and relaxed, there is generally less to do but we still have fun, class is not as good, but I'm still learning and the weather has been as cold as it will be in the Winter back home. Right now it's in the 50's, but yesterday it was in the low 40's.
This week has pretty much been a relax and recharge week because classes are really intense this month. We do 5 hours of non-stop brain aching work and then are pretty lethargic the rest of the day because we can't get up the energy to much else.
I can't believe that it is 11 days until I go to Vienna, where as all the time gone? It's flying by so fast that I don't even know what day it is anymore. I'm really looking forward to being in Vienna though, I'm just a little worried about the city and the school being about 200 gagillion times larger than I'm used to for that kind of setting. But it's going to be a blast, so I don't know what I'm worried about!
Next weekend I'm going to try to go to Mainz to visit some friends I know from AC, but it's going to be really expensive to go, so I'll see if I can find a cheaper ticket or way to get there.
I'm going to go back to being mellow now for the rest of the weekend so I can survive another week of german grammar assault!

New Address!

Okay guys if you decide you want to send me anything, from now on, send it to

Ann Nelson

Central College in Vienna

Alser Strasse 4, Hof 1, Stg. 16, Top 3

A-1090 Vienna, Austria

fun huh?

today's two adventures, register to get my absentee ballot. get a haircut. this should be a fun day.

The Start of Month 2 at the Goethe Institute

Hey everybody!
So the end of our trip was pretty good, I think I left off when we went to Zurich, that was okay. We just sight saw and ate sushi :) how wonderful. We met some nice Swiss women that we shared a table with at dinner one night and conversed with them for a while about Switzerland and things to do. After Zurich we went to Lindau, Germany for a couple of days. We didn't actually spend much time there as Liechenstein was the place to be :) We hung out in that small and awesome principality one day, there happened to be a pretty cool festival going on. All the museums were free and we got some food from streetvendor that was probably the best Wurst we have had yet.
Well now I'm back in Schwäbisch Hall for another month.
So far this month is going pretty well! I like my new teacher most of the time, he's totally different from my last one, but I have still learned quite a bit from him. I think it's because he looks exactly like Einstein, so he just exudes knowledge. It's pretty crazy, I'll try to remember to take a picture with him so you guys can see how weird this is. anyway, I really like my new roommate. Her name is Amber and she is from Ohio, which I was actually really disappointed about at first, but so far we are getting along really well, so I'm happy. It's so weird though, there are only about half of the amount of people here this month, so there is way less of a cultural variety and of things to do. I'm getting sick of hanging out with Americans in Germany, but I'll have some Austrians pretty soon. And of course we still have Pelle, our trusty Sweede, who might as well be American, I mean he speaks perfect English, sounds like an American and knows everything about American culture, well at least about American culture on the Simpsons. It's pretty hilarious when he asks questions about the states, he's asks like, 'so I saw this on the Simpsons, is it true?' or like 'Oh... like this one time they did that on the Simpsons!' He's a funny guy.
Today I also had my first meeting with my Tandempartner, which is when they pair you up with a native Schwäbisch Hallian who wants to learn your native language, aka english and you meet and speak in both German and English, helping each other to practice speaking. It was really fun! Her name is Jana, she's 17. today we just went for ice cream and chatted a little bit, but next week when we have more time I think we are going to go to the movies and dinner or something.
I miss you guys! Hope you are all doing well. Send me an email and let me know what's up!
love you all,
Ann