So yeah, I was going to post my general impressions of Europe so I'd better get on that before I forget I was even over there. There are so many things that I absolutely loved over there it's hard to begin.

Things I'm Going to Miss About Austria/Europe:
Country Hopping
Great Public Transportation
Beer at McDonald's (and everywhere else you could possibly think of...I'm pretty sure they even serve it at church)
The History-every building seemed to have something important about it
The Castles and Palaces-there were some buildings that were straight out of fairy tales
Ice Cream
The Scenery
Sausage/Pizza Stands on Every Corner (I never really ate street sausage but it was nice to know it was an option)

Things I Missed About Home:
Free Refills
English (although just about everyone over there spoke at least a little bit)
Driving

So yeah, there you have it. Go to Europe, it's awesome. Although just about everyone else was more than ready to come home. Me, not so much. But that's okay, I'll be back. And next time I'll have way more money!!
I've decided that having a journal is very theraputic and I think I'm going to continue it. I'll keep you updated on the address and such. Not that I think anyone will really care that much, but like I said before, it's more for me. Anyway, for now, auf wiedersehen!







- posted by Jaime @ 5:02 PM (0) comments

 
Yeah, so this is going to take awhile...
Well, first of all, I'm home. And I'm not happy about it. But I can't wait to see everyone! I also can't wait to shower, it's been almost 2 days and most of those 2 days were spent on some mode of transportation. But I felt that this was more important. Glad to see my priorities are still in order.
Anyway, last time I updated this bitch I think I we were going out with Markus. We ended up going to this place called Bricks. It was pretty sweet. The drinks were all half price because it was happy hour. This meant that they were like 3 something instead of 6 something. Damn Vienna is expensive. Anyway, it was 60s night so we drank a little and danced alot. They played American Woman for some reason. Nice.
After Bricks we went to the Philosoph for a little while. It was lame so we went home and went to bed. I think. That was like a week ago, I'm having trouble remembering.
The next day we did some stuff. I think. I'm pretty sure we all napped for awhile. Then Robbie G took us out for dinner. I tried the Weiner Shnitzel. It's so not all it's cracked up to be. Imagine a dry breaded pork chop. Now eat it. Bleh. We had to get up early the next morning to go to Prague so it was a relatively early night. Anything before 3:30 is an early night though...
The next morning Carrie, Tom, Stacy and I dragged our asses out of bed to catch the 7 am bus to Prague. We boarded at 6:58 and it left exactly on time. Phew!!! It was about 5 hours there, which wasn't too bad, I guess. For those who are wondering, Prague (or Pray-goo, as SOME of us pronounce it (CAT)) is in the Czech Republic. When we got our luggage we got some directions and headed down in the Metro to get to our hotel. We held a conference and decided that we didn't really need to buy a subway ticket, no one ever checks in Vienna, it's got to be about the same in Prague right? WRONG. We wandered down to where the trains were and within seconds two Czech police officers approached us and asked for our train tickets. Just so you know, playing dumb American DOES NOT work on the Czech police. One of them was an absolute bastard. So they took us back up top, showed us the white line that you CANNOT cross if you don't have a ticket, and fined us 400 Crowns each, which is about $16. We had only been in the city for 10 minutes!!!! Tom was pissed and gave him a really hard time. I wanted to punch the cop guy in the eye but I was too busy laughing.
Things went a little more smoothly after that, we went to our hotel, Carrie got stuck in the stairwell, and we unpacked. It was a nice hotel, a Holiday Inn pretty close to downtown. We wandered around downtown for awhile, there was a historic bridge over the Danube that was filled with vendors and street performers. The was even one guy playing the washboard with whisks! It was really cool. We wandered up and saw a castle and looked out over Prague, which is a beautiful city. The parts we saw were alot cleaner than Budapest and it was even more Westernized. We didn't really hear anything but English when we were walking around.
After that we grabbed something to eat at this way cool sports bar called Jagr's. As in, Jaromir Jagr, the hockey player. It was filled with hockey paraphernalia and there were a bunch of Johnny Walker Red bottles with varying amounts of scotch in them locked up and on display. They were the personal bottles of pro hockey players. I even recognized some of the names. Carrie and I decided to check out the town a little bit after that. We ended up at an Irish pub FILLED with drunk British men. They were everywhere in Prague. I don't really know why. It was pretty cool but we were tired so we went back pretty early.
The next day we walked around some more and then caught our bus back at 2. Not much time to rest when we got home though! It was Saturday night in Vienna and nobody stays home. Besides, we had to go visit our favorite bartender Charlie at the Philosoph! Not before we went to TGI Fridays though. Seriously, I think that place could afford to build an addition just from what we spent there over the course of a month. Anyway, it was an okay night. Carrie and Tom got wasted and I sat on my barstool and laughed at them. I wasn't really in the drinking mood so I behaved myself.
The next day we went to the maze at Schonbrunn. It was one of those cool hedge mazes. It was super easy though. The only thing we had problems with was the kiddie labrinth. It took us forever to get out and we could see exactly where we were going. Frustrating! After that we took a bus up to the Wienerwald, which is the Vienna forest. The view up there was gorgeous, you could look around and see the entire city. We only stayed for about 5 minutes before we went back down and ate the Wienerwald, the restaurant.
That night we went out for my birthday because we didn't want to go out the night before we had to leave. I turned 22 at midnight anyway. EWWWWWW, 22. What's the point?? From here on out it's just me getting old. We went to Bricks again for a couple, had a couple drinks and a couple shots of tequila. Then we went to the Philosoph and had more than a couple shots of tequila. They use oranges instead of limes over there. Mmmmm! Stacy got pretty drunk. She's a very entertaining drunk too, that girls cracks me up. We went to the Kaktus for one after spending quite awhile at the Philosoph, we knew it would be our last time. *tear* Tom took Stacy home and Carrie went back with Casey, the new guy, so Mike and I stayed for little while before we finally gave up and went home too.
The next day, Monday, we were all a little hungover so it was a bit of a late start. Basically we just did some last minute souvenir shopping. I went to the Lippanzer museum by myself. It was alright but definitely nothing specatacular. We went out for ribs that night at the AWESOME rib place that we had gone to before. They're so good. It was pretty sad, being the last night and all. We wandered around the city for awhile after that. The Rathaus at night is absolutely beautiful so we took our picture in front of that. Then we walked to Cafe Central, where Stalin used to play chess when he was in town. It was closed so we couldn't go in. Finally, we headed home. We all had to finish packing anyway.
Our plane left at 11 yesterday morning so we had to get up pretty early to check out and get to the airport. I think I got about 3 1/2 hours of sleep. Yuck. Getting all our luggage to the airport was quite the process, we had to work out a system of getting on and off the trolleys and the metro. It was certainly interesting. I only severly damaged one toe in the process though. Carrie and I said our goodbyes to Tom and Stacy at the airport, they were flying to Detroit instead of Chicago. That sucked quite a bit. I don't think I had spent more than 6 waking hours away from them in a month. I got kind of misty eyed thinking about how Tom wouldn't be around to double ass punch me, make fun of the horse tee-shirts I used to wear, or talk about our "gross" asses. (Gross means large en Deutch) Okay, I didn't get misty eyed, but I'm still gonna miss them this summer.
Then it was time for our 9 hour flight to DC. I watched 2 movies, read an entire book, and took a half an hour nap. That's a long frickin' flight. Then it was DC to Chicago, where Nat and Katie picked Carrie and I up. In my car. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????? My car can barely hold four people let alone 4 people and SIX HUGE SUITCASES. It was ridiculous. There was some serious tetris action happening in the trunk and we ended up having to put two suitcases in the back seat. It was not a comfortable ride home. It was pretty though, there were thunderstorms the whole way back and the lightening was incredible. We got home at about 3 am central time, which means it was 10 am in Vienna. I had gotten about a half an hour of sleep out of 30 awake, and all this on 3 1/2 hours of sleep the previous night so I collapsed into bed.
But anyway, it's time for a shower and then I have to unpack and do ALOT of laundry. I'll have to post my overall impression of my trip later today, right now the grease in my hair is dripping into my eyes.

- posted by Jaime @ 9:10 AM (1) comments

 
Cat went home. =( We had to wake up early and take her to the airport. Somehow she still has NO idea how to get around Vienna, although it's probably the easiest city to figure out that I've ever been in. That's okay though, I got to miss class for a valid reason.
Yesterday we went and visited the cemetary where Strauss, Brahams, and Schubert are buried. That was pretty neat, but we only stayed for a little while. Cemetaries are depressing!! You wouldn't believe how huge this one is though. There are THREE trolley stops along the way. That's insanity! Anywho, after that we went shopping for a little while, Cat wanted to pick up some last minute things. We stopped at Mexicali for a margarita on our way back. YUM!!! I would come over here again just for one of those! =)
We decided to get all gussied up to go out for Cat's last night. Gussied up to eat ribs. Hmm...There was a cute little semi-outdoor restaurant thing down by the river that we decided to try. The ribs were good but the best part was that they played Bohemian Rapsody. We all sang along at the tops of our lungs, to the great delight of the other table in the restaurant. They played another song after that and then guess what, Bohemian Rhapsody again. We looked at each other, laughed, and sang it at the top of our lungs again. Quality. This time we got a round of applause from the other table. We considered charging for our entertainment services.
Since everything was closed down by the water when we got done we went to the Triangle again. It was alright. We had a drink at the Philosoph. There were some older British men in there. They were talking about how they could outdrink us (don't worry mom, we didn't get into an international drink-off) and I came up with the not so PC comment 'Didn't we beat you guys in a war or something?'. Pat on the back for that one Jaim...After that we went to the Kactus for one, sang a little, danced a little, and then decided to head home. That was, as ever, easier said than done. Once again Tom chose to lead the way and once again, we got on the wrong bus. It wasn't as bad as last time, we knew where we were when we eventually got off but we still had ALOT of walking to do. Oh well, gotta work off those rib calories somehow!
Carrie and I didn't do too much today, we were all tired out from our 3 am walk. This was evident in the fact that we couldn't seem to manage to get off at the right stop ever, be it the U-bahn or the S-bahn. How many Americans does it take to screw in a light bulb....? Anyway, we're supposed to go out with our teacher from Acti-Lingua tonight. That should be pretty fun, although I can think of nothing I want to do less than go out to the bars tonight. Oh well. But that's all I have for now. TTFN!
- posted by Jaime @ 7:15 AM (0) comments