Thursday, October 25, 2007

vienna

so we traveled to vienna this weekend with all the exchange students. everything was amazingly beautiful. we did so much sightseeing. friday evening we arrived in vienna and had to find our way to the hostel. we only got lost once or twice and had to ask for directions once. but we finally made it there. we ate dinner and then had a little speech about vienna and then free time! we went out into the city and explored. everything was so different than my small town of wels. we made itback to the hostel around 12 and went straight to bed.
breakfast was at 7:15 and then we left for a walking tour of the first district. we saw the statue of Maria-Theresia between the twin museums…i went into the Naturhistorisches Museum with about half the of exchange students. after an hour we walked toward Stephensplatz and the Stephensdom…the cathedral which is over 900 years old and is now being ‘cleaned’ of the marks from the bombs of WWII. after seeing that we had lunch. and then we went to Schönbrunn Palace. it was the viennese summer residence for austrian royalty for many decades. the castle was built by the ruling Habsburgs and has 1,441 rooms. one of austrias great rulers, Maria Theresia, resided in the palace and gave birth to most of her 16 children there, including Marie Antoinette. (’If the peasants dont have bread, let them eat cake!’). after we finished the tour there it was our duty to find our way back to the hostel by ourselves. which we were successful. then we ate dinner and got ready for the opera! we saw ‘Die Zauberflöte’…the Magic Flute by Mozart. it was different. very strange and hard to follow because it was all in german. after that we went out into the city for a few hours and then back to the hostel to sleep.
sunday morning we had a bus tour of vienna. we saw so many different things. Ruprechtskirche….the oldest church in vienna…Hundertwasserhaus, the Danube River and Canal, the Secession building, the Austrian Parliament with the statue of Athena, Ringstrasse, Karlskirche, Wien Oper Haus…basically we saw just about everything.
sunday afternoon we took a train back to wels and well here i am again. in wels!
Posted by Ashley at 16:24:16 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Thursday, October 11, 2007

nothing new…

but i am going to vienna next weekend so a big update after that!
Posted by Ashley at 17:29:28 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

wine country aus

okay so we are in history class and they are talking about the roaring 20s. im not understand anything but when she says the roaring 20s. so she talking and talking and says something about california and then new york city and then ohio. and everyone starts laughing. and then the teacher is like what? and someone said my name. and she turns to me and is like ‘where do you come from?’ ‘ummm ohio!’ ‘ohh sorry’ and i turn to the girl beside and ask what was said. and the teacher starts telling me in english. ‘well when europeans think of america they think of the life style in california or in new york city and not square little ohio’ meaning ohio isnt as good as nyc or cali. and she kept apologizing and well we had a good laught for about 10 minutes about it.
dissed by my own history teacher….in german!
okay just wanted to share that little story from today.
wine country aus….bear country usa??? mom, dad, paige…remember that?
last weekend i went with my rotary club to lower austra, wine country. we got to melch around 10 in the morning and went on a walking tour of the town. our tour guide was from vermont but has lived in austria for 17 years so she explained everything in english to me. thank god. after the tour we ate lunch and then piled on a bus and went to a musuem. about ‘the new world, brazil’ it wasnt the most exciting thing but it was interesting. after that we went to a winery. very good wine! and then we went to another winery, but no tasting there. we drove by the ruins of the castle where richard the lionheart was kept captive. so now i have learned the whole story of richard the lionheart while he was in austria! after that we went to dinner. by this time i was dead tired because i had only 4 hours of sleep the night before because amanda and i went out into wels. where we met up with other exchange students and some locals…okay back to my rotary weekend. so i was dead tired and we were eating dinner and i almost fell asleep at the table. finally we went back to the hotel around 11 and i went straight to bed. but could i sleep? no! the church bells from abbey rang all night on the hour! okay so i woke up sunday morning, got ready, and went downstairs. where a couple asked me if i wanted to go to mass. i was like okay thats fine. so we walked up the hill to the abbey and went to mass. the church was huge! about 3 or 4 times bigger than st marys church in marietta. and 10 times more beautiful! all the statues were in gold. so pretty. after mass we met up with everyone else and had a tour of the abbey. which was in german. and i didnt understand anything. but lucky after the tour a very nice lady from the club bought be a book on the abbey, in english! so i learned that it was required for the abbey to have a ‘room’ where the queen could stay when she came through. and okay its not just a room. but a whole building. bigger than any mansion i have seen! after the tour of the abbey we went to lunch and then a nice couple from steinerkirchen brought me home.
tuesday night. brians birthday party. lots of fun. it was mostly just exchange students and one exchange students host sister. we had so much fun. there was more spanish speaking people there so almost everything was spanish but lucky majo from ecuador translated for us non spanish speakers!
ps. i forgot to add that we have a student teacher in english. he is 22 and from minnesota. its nice to speak regular english with someone…even though it is only once every two weeks. but he is also fluent in german! so many ill learn from him too!
Posted by Ashley at 16:09:04 | Permalink | Comments (1) »