Vienna, oh my!

Howdy folks.

Sorry for not posting since forever (or just the 18th), but I was in VIENNA! (read: the only city I hate more than Montreal.) But when Rutgers pays, you order the most expensive thing on the menu, right? So I went.

The city is beautiful, but in like a pompous in-your-face sort of way that I really dislike. Plus there like, waaay too many tourists. Also, we were on a bus tour the whole weekend, which meant we were the only people under the age of 70, which meant all our time was very heavily structured, which I'm also not a fan of. But minus my sheer and utter hatred of our destination, the trip was actually pretty okay. Austria on the whole is absolutly stunning (even prettier than Germany, if I'm being honest). Also, some really neat/hilarious stuff went down, which I will now detail for you in the form of...short stories!

There Are No Women In Romania

Okay, so the hotel that Erin (the other girl from my school that also went) and I were staying in was really nice--right at the foot of the mountains with a pretty kickass view. Except also staying on our floor was a (male) football team. We originally thought they were Italian, but then we heard someone say something about "The Romanian soccer players" so...who knows. The point is, they were absolutley out of their minds, and everytime we passed them they would stop talking, turn, and just stare until we were out of sight. It got especially awkward when the coaches started following us around and flashing weird U+Me hand signs at us, which is when we usually saw fit to vanish ASAP. But one night we were coming through the lobby when the a bunch of footballers playing Dominos stopped us and said in broken English, "You want to play with us?" "What are you guys playing?" we asked. "You learn as we play." "Oh." Erin and I stood there very awkwardly, trying to think of something to say. Luckily Romanian Footballer broke the silence by throwing out a "Or if you do not want to play, you could give us massage." "What? What? What? Bye." And we vanished ASAP. On later discussion, we decided that the reason for their retarded-ness is because they don't have women-types in Romania. If they did, they'd be normal.

Holland Loves Us

On our first morning in the hotel, we made friends with a Dutch woman who heard us speaking English and got all excited about it, because she was an English teacher. Then she decided to just be in love with us, and every time she saw us would come running to ask us what we had done today, what we were doing tomorrow, and basically just have an hour-long conversation with us. On the morning we left she was all depressed and said, "When your bus pulls away, I'll wave a handkerchief at you!" Does Holland jest? Of course not. Take them Dutch at their word, she stood outside and waved us away until the bus was out of sight.

We Climb Castles

Possibly the COOLEST part of our trip was when, on our way home, we stopped at a little wine town so the seniors on our bus could pick some alcohol up. We, however, spotted THIS piece of kickass on the mountain:

and decided to explore. Yes that IS an old ruined castle sitting above the town, and yes it HAS been destroyed and abandoned since before the pilgrims settled at Plymouth Rock. If that's not totally awesome, nothing is. Here are some more pictures:

An old ruined gate:

Heehee:

Some more coolness:

The view from the very very top:

It's fair to say that Austria is absolutley breathtaking. Their major cities may blow more than French Canada's, but at least the view is nice.

The Bowling Club, or, How The Americans Learned To Be On Time

There were maybe 30 people in our group, but the ones we made friends with were the four married couples who made up the local bowling club. So minus how this in itself is kind of funny, they absolutley loved us and we really loved them. At one point they almost got on the wrong tour bus, and came up to me and said "Hey! We almost got on the wrong bus!" I didn't really know what to say, so I just said "Cool." "Cool?" "Yeah, really cool." "Hey everyone! The Americans think it's really cool that we almost got on the wrong bus!" And then they proceeded to have a good laugh at my way of saying 'really cool'. I said 'echt cool', but apparently you can't say that past the age of 15. But they had a blast with it, and the whole trip was one long : "Hey! Look at that Tree/River/Town/Mountain/Castle. What is it!" To which all the other bowling club members would burst out with "Echt cool! Echt cool!" And then everyone would laugh some more about it. So hanging with the bowling club was quite a good time.

Our first morning in Vienna the bus driver said specifically, "We're leaving at 9.15." Erin and I got to breakfast a little late, were eating and not really paying attention to the time, when our program director ran in all in a panic because she couldn't find us. "Hurry! Hurry! We're late!" So we ran like mad to the bus, climbed in all out of breath, and of course the bowling club started yelling "The Americans are late! Echt cool!" But just how late were we? I looked at my watch. Time was 9.16.

People don't believe me when I tell them Germany is punctual, but I swear to you, we held up the entire bus and pissed off the driver because we showed up at 9.16 instead of 9.15. At the next stop we made extra sure to be on time (Bus driver: Is everyone in the back there? Bowling club: Yes! And America's here too, don't worry!). But we're Americans, we slip up sometimes. We were four minutes late after hiking down from the castle, which meant the bus driver waving his arms like crazy, us running like crazy, and the bowling club erupting in shouts of "Rounds of schnaps for every minute the Americans are late!" I don't think they needed our schnaps, they managed quite well on their own. They were doing shots at one point...it was awesome.

Here's a picture of us and the bowling club:


So that's about all folks! Will report back soon! Adios!