76. Profiles

On Monday in photo class we practiced taking portraits.  This meant sixty minutes of getting in one another's faces.  I learned that I have some fabulous looking friends here in Vienna.  Here are are five of the best photos I took.

This is Ambree.  I want all her clothes.  She used to work at Anthropologie.  She lost her passport somewhere in the flight here: luckily the Austrians let her still enter the country.

Here is Cassie.  She is originally from China and she had a bit of a nightmare getting her Visa worked out so she could come here, but she made it.  She's willing to try anything, she shocks us all with her daring.

And there is Ale.  Everyone loves her and gets lost in her eyes, but the Hungarians ESPECIALLY adore her.  She has a standing offer to meet a young man in Iceland.  Romantic!

And then there is Kayla who looks amazing in every photo ever taken of her.  Not joking.  I couldn't decide which of these two looked best, so you get both.  Kayla is from a small town and it is fun to see her open up and have crazy adventures (and hear about them in writing class).

 

And for an extra photo: JP.  It is a lot harder to take narcissistic photos of yourself with a DSLR, but I successfully did not drop the camera on this one. 

Prague Photos

A few more photos from my trip to Prague--sometimes five a day isn't as much as I think it is.

Below is the old-new synagogue (and Jana).  This Jewish Synagogue was preserved because Hitler was planning on using it as a museum for an extinct race.  He loved Prague. He wanted it to become the culture capital of his Third Reich.  When I heard that I almost lost it.  That man was crazy.

Here is our group after taking the walking tour.  Yeah, it's a lot of people.  

It turns out that Prague restaurants really don't like feeding large groups of American college students.  We usually had to split into smaller groups to get any kind of dinner.  It was even hard with small groups sometimes.  My favorite attempt was at a pub near old town.  The conversation went something like this.

Me: "Excuse me, we have six (hold up six fingers) people that want to eat dinner (hand on stomach).  Do you have a table?"

Restaurant Manager: "That is nice.  We have no room."

Usually, we would wander around until we found a place that would seat us, and the food was always amazing (luckily).  It might have just been amazing because we were all STARVING, but it really tasted so good, and it was cheap.  In Czech currency, one CZK is equal to $.05.  So at first everything looks like it costs 100 dollars, but really it's only 5.

The whole trip involved on lot of 'czech' jokes.  You know, like, "Visit the Castle.  Czech!" or "Oh, Czech it out!" or like our tour guide pointed out, "We are Czechsperts."  Apparently the locals have caught on to this play on words.  I'm still surprised Whitney didn't buy this shirt.

Our last night in Prague was so wonderful.  We ate at a restaurant with a nice waitress, and a fireplace, and such good food.  Afterwards we wandered around the city at night and caught a free concert on the River.  We watched from the Charles Bridge and all had warm fuzzies inside (even though we were soaking wet and freezing--it rained all day).  I talked to a German couple behind me (in German).  That was exciting.  In this photo: Ambree, Whitney (hiding), Krystle, Jana, Maria, and William's backpack cover.

And in case you were wondering if I was actually in Prague or not, here are a few photos of me at the Lennon wall.  

56. Strassenbahn

So, public transport. It's a complicated thing sometimes.  Our commute to school isn't too bad.  We walk about 15 minutes to the street car.  Apparently we can take a bus instead of walking, but Breanna and I can't figure out where the bus stop is.  The first day we went and stood where we thought it was, but the bus just sped right past us.  So now we just walk every day.  The street car is OLD.  It creaks and has wooden chairs, but it has personality.  We only have to ride it for like 20 minutes, and we get dropped off basically at our school door (which is right by the Opera house--awesome).

There are 4 modes of transportation overall in Vienna: the train, the subway, the streetcar, and the bus.  Between those four things I can get anywhere, it just takes patience and some time looking at this CRAZY map of Vienna.  I'll have to take a picture of this map or something, it is ridiculous.  The street names are SO LONG here that any attempt to make a map is just ridiculous.  This map tries its hardest though.  It makes me cross-eyed every time I look at it.

Here are a few photos I took taking the street car home one night.

Since I don't have 5 photos for the day, here are a few bonus photos pertaining to public transport in Vienna:

Here: Jana and I after making it out to the 19th district to fetch my wallet from a nice guy that picked it up for me.  We had to take the subway and a bus (which we took the wrong way at first) to get out there.  The whole thing took about 2 hours.  I kinda wish the guy would have just met me downtown (especially since when I got to his house he asked me to come in).

Below, Breanna and I riding the street car on our first day.  Yeah, my hair is crazy.  I know.

And here is Jana, Amelia, me and Kayla being Superfly.  This is on an U-Bahn station downtown.  Apparently it is a radio station advertisement.  There is American music playing ALL THE TIME here.  I guess I was hoping I could get away from Lady Gag-Gag.  Oh well.  Pervasive American culture, I guess.

Just My Luck

When I moved to Lake Powell I lost my cell phone on a trip to St. George.

When I moved to Houston I lost my car keys within 12 hours of my arrival.

When I moved to Vienna I lost my wallet in the first week.

Does anyone see a pattern here?

Before I left to Vienna, my Dad kept telling me I was going to lose my passport.  “You have to keep it in the same place!  I’ve seen it kicking around for weeks now, and you need to get in the habit of putting it in one location, EVERY TIME.”  One day, he saw it sitting out on the coffee table and he decided he was going to teach me a lesson.  He picked it up and put it with his passport in his nightstand.  I started looking for it (a few days later) and started stressing that I’d lost that $100 booklet.  I frantically asked my family if anyone had seen it, insisting that it had been on the coffee table all week.  He finally admitted that he had seen it with his passport.  Well Dad, I haven’t lost my Passport, but maybe you should have done the same thing when you saw my wallet sitting on the kitchen table.

The good news is that this wallet story ends better than the cell phone and key fiasco.  In St. George I had to get a new phone shipped to me, and Houston my mom FedEx-ed a key overnight, but in Vienna a very nice University Student facebooked me and said:

I was very relieved to see this message, as I had been stressing about the wallet situation for about an hour.  I had already called the bank to cancel my cards, but that’s all right, I can get new ones.  I just can’t believe I left it on the bench like that.  I am ridiculous.

Why was I sitting on that bench in the first place?  Well that’s the awesome part.  Maria, Whitney, Breanna and I were enjoying our first scoop of Eis here in Vienna.  I still can’t believe how good it was.  Not only was my hazelnut gelato the most amazing treat I had that day, but they way they scoop it makes it look so adorable!!  I wish I had taken a photo, but I was too busy raving about how good it tasted. 

All the food here tastes good and looks incredible.  The servings are much smaller, but you are still quite full at the end of every meal.  You never walk away from a restaurant feeling sick or overstuffed; it seems to always be just right.  Sometimes, I might be a little thirsty, because I haven’t quite figured out how to get ‘plain water’, but I’m never sick to my stomach.  And because the meals aren’t mondo huge here, you can sit down and eat with friends three times a day, and not feel like you are overeating.  The café’s are so pleasant, they make time slow down a little bit.

Time to get ready for school, I have to buy a streetcar pass before I go today.  My all-you-can-ride public transportation ticket is in my wallet, which I won’t get from Michel until tomorrow probably.   So glad there are nice people all over the world.

27. New

My camera arrived today.  This calls for a narcissistic shot of my excitement.

This week's photos better be better than last week's.  Otherwise there is no hope for me.