Maymester Adventures.... exploring Vienna!

I arrived in Austria late at night so I decided to just take a taxi into the city to my hostel.  I stayed at Wombats which is a chain of hostels but it’s really nice, cheap and was filled with people so it was nice.
 It even included a bar but I had some homework to do so I just hung out in the lounge.  I don’t know any German so it was pretty interesting to try and communicate and read all the signs. I tried to ask someone if they spoke English, in German and I was laughed at haha. The next day I was able to figure out the metro and made it to the hotel that I was staying at with my group for school. The metro or U-bana uses the honesty system where you don’t need to scan your ticket in which I wasn’t used to since they are so hardcore in Paris. It was in a really nice area and was even next to the Opera in the shopping district.

Vienna is a relatively new city in terms of buildings because most of it is destroyed during WWII. Our hotel is really nice compared to all the hostels I have been to and luckily everyone spoke English. I am roommates with Mary, a girl from USC and who went to ABS with me last semester. We even have a bathtub which is amazing compared to my little shower stall in Paris. After I got back to the hotel I went to meet with everyone in our Maymester. We have about 25 people from USC, mostly IB majors, an IB advisor and a retired professor from USC that now lives in Vienna with his Austrian wife. They are going to be our tour guides for most of the trip and the language barrier shouldn’t be too much of a problem. We had discussed our itinerary for the next couple days and introduced ourselves to the group. In addition to a paper we have a group presentation about a selected topic pertaining to Central and Eastern Europe. 

After meeting for about 2 hours we went on a City walking tour held by Gertrude, the wife of our professor Dr. Ricks. She was able to give us an awesome tour and give some in-depth history about some of the sights in Vienna. It was a little rainy outside but it wasn’t too cold and luckily it was the only rainy day of our trip so it wasn’t too bad.  Some of the sights that we saw included Saint Stephen’s Cathedral which is an amazing Cathedrale built in the 1100s. It has this awesome mosaic roof that was beautiful. Some of the other sights that we saw included the Hofsburg palace Complex which once was the winter palace of the famous Hapsburg family. It included the Vienna Boys Choir, the Augustin church, the Spanish Riding School with the famous Lipizazzaner horses, and the Imperial Apartments. The horses were pure white and beautiful, and the complex was very ornately decorated with courtyards and gardens.

We took a break to go to this upscale grocery store that had some of the strangest/gourmet items, some of my favorites were the really bizarre chocolates. They even had a ketchup and banana chocolate? Oh well. We saw some other sights such as St.Rupert's Church, the oldest in Vienna, Mozarts house, and a cool astrological clock. After our walking tour around Vienna we went to Bretzels, which is a very authentic Viennese restaurant in a wine cellar. I had a pork dish with sauerkraut, a cream sauce and dumplings, and a local beer combination called Radler. Its beer with lemonade, which sounds weird but it is actually really delicious. After dinner I met up with some of the people from our group and we decided to go out for the night. We first went to this bar called 1516 then an Irish Pub called Flannigan’s. It was a fun night and we actually met some US Marines that were stationed at the US Embassy. They were so happy to see some Americans that we hung out with them for some of the night

Crown of the Hapsburg Family (Holy Roman Empire)

The next morning we got to sleep in a little bit before we had some group presentations at our Professors house. I didn’t have to meet my group until 12 to work on our project so I decided to walk around and explore for a while and I decided to go to the Imperial Treasury. It discussed the Hapsburgs, the ruling family of 700 years for the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and all of treasures that they accumulated throughout their rule. There were some amazing treasures including intricate crowns, crosses, robes and also some religious relics. Meeting with my group afterwards, we got lunch at a food stand near our hotel where I ate a huge slice of pizza with artichokes, mushrooms and tomatoes. It was really delicious and I definitely frequented that stand during my time in Vienna. On the way to our professor’s house, he showed us the Belvedere Palace, one of the Prince's houses. It was similar to Versailles with the architecture and flower gardens.

Belvedere Palace

After exploring we went to his house to start our presentations. Our presentation was “Should Austrian Banks have invested so heavily in Eastern Europe.” I learned a lot from our presentation and also from the other groups as well. We were at our professor’s appt for a couple hours going then we went outside of the city limits to a restaurant/vineyard called Heuringen. It was a buffet style with traditional food such a spinach strudel, vegetables, wienerschnitzel

OPEC

The next day we had an early morning as we had a very busy day. We had breakfast and then we had a meeting at OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.  The headquarters is in Vienna so it was a great experience. We got the see the official conference room, hear from the Press Relations woman and also get some cool free stuff.  I learned a lot about OPEC as an organization, the members, and also about the Oil industry in General. After OPEC we ate a restaurant near OPEC where I ate a delicious veal dish with gravy, special mushrooms only found in Austria,and of course dumplings. I also had a beer called Sterq with my meal.  After lunch we took the U-bana to the Shoenbrunn Palace. It is the biggest Hapsburg palace located about 15 minutes outside the city center.

We got to walk around the beautiful gardens and see the famous Neptune fountain, zoo and labyrinth maze. After the gardens we had a meeting with the CEO of the palace who discussed some of the business strategies in making a profit in managing a tourist attraction. It was interesting but the best part was being able to tour the castle and see all the rooms/hear the stories. It was really awesome to see the furniture, original paintings and artifacts from the times of the Habsburgs. For dinner we got to explore Vienna on our own so I ate dinner with some people at a delicious Italian restaurant on the main walking street... I have to say the Italian food in Europe is much better than it is in America. That night we spent a lot of time walking out with our "group" walking around trying to find a place to go out.

We finally spent some time at this tiny bar where we were pretty much the only people, so they played whatever we requested including Toni Braxton, Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, etc. It was a really fun night with lots of dancing and living up our youth hahaha. On the way phone me and my friend Kaitlyn stopped at a McDonalds where we tried some of their AMAZING waffle fries, literally the best I have ever had :)

 I was pretty sad when I woke up the next morning because I knew it was my last day in Vienna, although I was excited for a fun adventure.We started out taking the train to one of the United Nations headquarters even though there are 3 others: NY, Geneva and Kenya. 

We had to go through lots of security and then we had a a tour guide from Slovenia give us a tour of some of the UN Departments and explained in detail what they were. It was really interesting, especially since Vienna is the home of the International Atomic Energy Association to see what was going on after the aftermath of the Earthquake in Japan. After the tour we heard a presentation about world trafficking by this French woman who worked for the UN. It was very interesting and gave me a lot of inside about the hidden world of trafficking although at times it was very hard to watch. After the presentation we had a quick lunch break and I ate at Smokey's which was a delicious burger place, except with a twist.

 I got a burger with garlic aioli sauce and sweet potato fries, and of course a huge beer. Austrians drink beer pretty much for lunch and dinner every day so its not unusual. It was probably the best burger I had while in Europe. We then met to go to one of the biggest banks in Austrian named Raiffeisen Bank and we were able to have a meeting in a beautiful business room with floor to ceiling windows on one side... it was great to be able to see the view of Vienna. The meeting was very interesting, discussing the bank's strategy, investing in Eastern Europe, goals for the future and he answered many of our questions. It was cool and we got some snacks too so that definitely helped. On the way back to the hotel we walked through this beautiful park with sculptures, really cool play areas for kids, and the first drinking fountains I have seen in Europe. Yay! I ate 2 slices of Delicious peperoni and corn pizza... don't knock it unless you try it!!! I took a short nap and got ready for the Opera.

The Vienna Opera house is very famous obviously because the influential music that was composed in Austria by names such as Bach, Mozart, Liszt, etc. We got all dressed up and walked around the Opera house for a while until it started, and we took our seats that were pretty high up. The Opera was Manon, and it was in French which meant it was a little bit easier to understand, but luckily there were English subtitles to help. At intermission we got a glass of champagne and toasted to a great time in Vienna. After the Opera, I got ready for a fun night out. We ended up going to Salin's again and had a pretty crazy night. We basically were the DJs and were able to control all of the music. We danced to some of our favorite songs of our childhood and some recent ones as well. It was definitely one of the best nights I have had in Europe and lets just say I have some pictures to show for it. The next day we were off to the countryside of Austria, but I will cover that in my next entry :)