Categories
Austria

Aquarium

I promised another post, and here it is. I’m hoping once we get down into the pictures1 you’ll see why I broke it into its own thing.
We went to the aquarium.
It wasn’t really a planned thing – we were trying to find a shop somewhere and got a bit lost, and when we were looking for distinctive landmarks the aquarium was the biggest thing we could see. It’s rather noticeable:2
Still of the Night
I’d previously mentioned the flak towers of Vienna, and even made a reference to the fact that one had been converted into an aquarium. This is the one.3 And I’ll say right now, before I get into actually showing you what all there was to see, that this is has become the absolute top of my “things to do in Vienna” list.4 Seriously, it’s an incredible aquarium/zoo, with a fascinating history and some stellar views. If you’re ever in Vienna, I cannot recommend it enough.
Now, pictures:

Categories
Austria

Romans

All three of our history/politics classes are now in session, the first of the other study abroad groups1 have arrived, and our weekly field trips around Vienna have begun – school is well and truly in session now, folks.
As an aside, the blog post for this week will arrive in two parts – this, the first, showing a bit of our academic exploration of Vienna, and the second will show up sometime soon. I had a lot of pictures from my own explorations this week, so it’s going to take me a while to get them all in order.
But now, on to the photos:

Categories
Austria

Schönbrunn

Once again, we’ve had quite a busy week. If I’m remembering the schedule properly,1 we’re now done with the ‘Conversation’ component of our Survival German classes and are moving into the Grammar unit. I’m excited – historically, I do better with a language by learning the grammatical structures than I do trying to memorize specific instances of those rules.
The other big thing we did this week was our district presentations – something that faithful readers have already seen a hint of. To be honest, there wasn’t much more to the presentations than what you can see in the aforelinked2 blog post, but for the presentations we had a more captive audience than anyone here reading is.
That said, once the weekend hit, we split up a bit: I know that there’s a group, as I write this, hopping on a bus back from Bratislava, and Paris, Sierra, and I headed over to Schönbrunn3 to explore the park.

Categories
Austria

Flakturm

I have done a lot of German class this week. Can the human brain overflow? I think mine is going to overflow.1 We also started our Regular Classes, which was pretty fun – we’ve got the Austrian Cultural History one that I believe I’ve mentioned previously2 and another one – Politics of European Integration – that I find fascinating. There’s been a lot of talk about what the European Union is and how it’s all structured.3 It’s very cool.
Basically, they’ve been keeping us very busy learning enough of the language to (hopefully) survive. I think it’s been a bit of a success – Paris and I managed to successfully order food at a restaurant today, and what more do you really need?4
That doesn’t mean I haven’t had a chance to get out a little bit; yesterday, Alyssa walked down the street and yelled at me to go outside, and we wound up going by the big park right by where we live. And today, she and I went up and made a spirited attempt to walk around the Ringstraße5 that ended up with us wandering around the Kunsthistorisches Museum,6 and then somehow meeting Paris and Sierra for lunch in the Second District. Fun was had, and pictures were taken:

Categories
Austria

Donau

It’s been, like, three whole days since my last post. This probably seems like a long stretch to people who’ve gotten used to my post a day thing, but I can’t exactly keep that pace up now that I’m back in the Real World.1 If I were to hazard a guess, one a week is going to be more realistic an expectation to have.2
Administrative stuff out of the way, though, because it’s time to see some of Vienna. It’s a pretty city, folks! I saw a really cool library the other day, but no pictures for you because I didn’t plan on going there and thus didn’t bring my camera.3
Okay, I’m done teasing you. Today, Anna and I headed out towards the end of the U14 to explore the parks around the Danube.5
It actually took us a while to get started – we were planning to meet at the Donau Zentrum which we were assuming was a park – “Danube Center,” right? But no, it was actually a sprawling mall complex like half a mile from the river. Whoops. Next time we’re meeting at the metro station.
But once we got to the river, hoo boy, was it pretty.

Categories
Austria

Salzburg

Today was the last day of our ‘around Austria’ orientation program.1 We had an early breakfast2 and then hopped aboard a train to Salzburg.
We were met at the platform by our tour guide, who gave us a few minutes to find some lockers to leave our luggage in before we were off. The tour was… I’d say interesting, but to be honest the man had a gift for finding the least interesting thing about all the locations we visited. And while he tried to crack some jokes, they ranged from falling flat to downright cringe-inducing.3 I suspect the tour company is going to be getting some unhappy phone calls tomorrow.
But hey, that aside, Salzburg is a pretty city, and we managed to see a good amount of it despite how tired we all are.4 Have some pictures:

Categories
Austria

Altitude

Today was a trip up almost as far as yesterday, though this time the climb was done by bus instead of suspended gondola.1 We wound up in Sportgastein, the far end of the Gastein valley, in an area that’s set up for a mix of skiing and farming with no actual permanent residents. It’s an interesting shared space – any of the farmers of the valley can bring their livestock there to graze.
Of course, being a mountain valley in Austria, it’s pretty like you wouldn’t believe. Seriously, the first picture I’m going to show you is titled “Hobbiton” because it kinda makes me feel like I’m in a movie scene.

Categories
Austria

Mass on the Mountain

We had German class in the morning today1 and then hopped aboard a suspended gondola2 that carried us a couple thousand feet up the side of the mountains over Dorfgastein.3 (For this trip, I just brought my whole backpack, which I wound up pretty happy about as I kept switching out lenses on my camera.4)
The goal of the trip was to attend the Mass on the Mountain, something which I believe takes place once a year and is basically exactly what it sounds like: a Catholic Mass, held on the side of the mountain. It’s a bit of a hike from the gondola station,5 but it was a really cool experience. Have some pictures:

Categories
Austria

Liechtensteinklamm

Somehow I’m already writing another blog post, which feels a bit excessive, but everything happens so much. And hey, I’m a Professional Blogger at the moment, so why not?1
Anyhow, today was a trip up to a nearby park, about half an hour’s drive away,2 because if we’ve got nice weather, may as well take advantage of it, right?
And once again, I remembered my camera. Have a look at the pictures I liked:3

Categories
Austria

Arrival

After a rather grueling amount of flying, we’re here in Austria! I’m taking advantage of my body’s confused circadian rhythm to write this at a nice 6:30 in the morning, having already been up for almost an hour.

We landed at about 8:30 in the morning what feels like a couple of weeks ago, but looking at my calendar1 was actually only a couple days ago. From the airport, we went by the hotel we’d be staying at to drop off our bags – the rooms wouldn’t be ready until later in the day – and then took Vienna’s impressive public transit system to the Austro-American Institute of Education for our initial orientation. Getting there was fun – it’s just a couple of trams away, but because Vienna is Vienna, there’s a lot of stuff to see on the way.2

After the orientation, we wandered around a market for a bit to get lunch3 and then made our way back to the hotel.4 I took a bit of an unplanned nap, and then we were off to dinner at an Italian restaurant a short walk away.5

The next morning we were up, bright and early, and off into a longer trek through Vienna’s public transit system. It’s an impressive system, with a lot of well-developed infrastructure.6 And then we were on the train to Dorfgastein, where I finally got my camera out and started taking pictures, because good lord, look at this.

Categories
Photography United States

Swamp

You can’t go to Louisiana without visiting a swamp. It took us until the last couple weeks of the program, but we did eventually get around to it, and boy was it wonderful. Some of the best weather (in my opinion, at least) that we’ve had the whole time – it was a cool summer day, and the brief spat of rain we had while we were out there was very light, of that nice kind where you never get wet enough that it won’t dry off after a couple of minutes. It was wonderful.
I brought my camera, of course, because how could I not? By the end of the tour – it lasted a couple of hours – I’d snapped almost 500 pictures. It was one heck of a trip, and I’m incredibly glad that I went. (It also turned into one heck of a road trip getting back – the Atchafalaya Bridge had a couple accidents in the direction we were heading, and we wound up taking a detour that more than doubled the actual length of the bridge. It was an Adventure.)
As I write this, I have been sitting down for a couple hours, working away at sorting those pictures. By the time this goes up, I’ll have posted a few on my Instagram, because I’m not above a bit of shameless self-promotion. For the ones I kept for this here site, head below the fold.

Categories
Photography United States

Los Angeles Against the Mountains

So, as I mentioned in my previous post, I’m doing a bit of traveling this summer. The first trip was down to Los Angeles, because that’s the only place where you can go to get an Austrian Visa-D, if you live on the West Coast.1

Anyhow, while I was there I was able to meet up with a family friend and take some pictures out in Santa Monica. There’s a conference center there, the Serra Retreat Center, and it’s got some awesome views. Take a look, and feel free to click on any of these pictures to see them in a larger size:

One of the things I wanted to do while I was in LA was look at the mountains. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do since I read the essay after which I titled this post: Los Angeles Against the Mountains.

I read the essay for an English class I took, fully expecting to hate it – I have an inherent dislike of anything that’s intended to be ‘literature.’ I was wrong: the essay was a fascinating look at an aspect of Los Angeles that I’d never considered. Long story made incredibly short, the mountains over LA are unstable, and the city has to deal with flooding that gets turned into pseudo-pyroclastic flows by the amount of rubble put out by the mountains. It’s a wonderful read, and I highly recommend it.


  1. Because heaven forbid we be able to turn in a stack of paperwork and get our fingerprints taken anywhere less than a thousand miles from home. 
Categories
Photography

Zoo!

So, the other day I wound up going to the zoo with my mom and my cousin – he’s at the age where nothing is more fascinating than animals and trains. Fortunately, our local zoo has both of those things, so he was just in hog heaven.

Categories
Photography

Sunset

I noticed the other day that the sunset was being very pretty! It was a nice break from the ‘being grumpy’ that I was in the middle of, and it turned an all-around grouchy moment into a contemplative one. So I took a picture. Enjoy!

Categories
Photography

Short Sands

Hey, I bet you thought I was done talking about the beach after last time. Nope! This time I have even less to say, since there are some pretty dang beautiful pictures in here, if I do say so myself. The subject matter made it fairly easy.