Ski Week/First Impressions/Misc.

Warning: This is going to be a super long entry. It will probably also be extremely disorganized and poorly written. Sorry about that.

I suppose I'll just start from the beginning. I will make different sections so you can skip to parts that seem more er... appealing or something, if you wish.

Airport/Flight/Etc.

I got to O'hare super early (because I'm really paranoid) which turned out to be completely unnecessary because there were NO PEOPLE. Well, okay, there were a few, but not many. In the SAS check-in place, I was the only person. Some Swedish businessmen and another girl from the program arrived after me, but that was pretty much it.

If you plan on flying anytime soon, I highly recommend flying with Scandinavian (SAS). They're extremely punctual and I feel like they offer coffee/tea in-flight way more than any other airline I've ever flown. This may be due to the fact that Swedes are obsessed with coffee. Somewhat related anecdote -- I don't really drink coffee and I definitely didn't want to drink any since I was trying to sleep on the flight so I'd just say, "Nej, tack" every time they asked. One of the stewards was basically like, "NO COFFEE?!" when he heard that. I was amused, haha. I don't think anyone else refused coffee on that flight. It was also nice because I spoke a tiny bit of Swedish to the steward(esse)s and then they started talking to me in Swedish after that :D. But anyway, the flight was pretty good despite the fact that I couldn't sleep. It was fairly empty and I got to hear a lot of Swedish (and Finnish!) which was awesome.

We landed in Stockholm - Arlanda (layover) around 30 minutes early which was really nice. Arlanda is seriously the most beautiful/classy airport I have ever seen. I would probably be content spending a few hours there just exploring (I'm quite fond of airports in general). Just never order eggs there... I didn't get any food but the person I was flying with was dying of hunger so she ordered this sausage-egg-potato thing and the eggs were disgusting. They looked like yellow-coloured mush and they tasted vaguely of potatoes.

Stockholm --> Vienna

So because the other person and I didn't fly with the group flight, we were supposed to order a taxi to get to the dorm since our flight arrived around 2 hours after the group flight. Luckily, the group flight was delayed and they happened to arrive around the same time as us so we traveled in the group bus. How convenient.

Vienna (First impressions... but not really?)

I was only in Vienna from around 2PM-6AM before leaving for Salzburg the next morning. I spent around 2 hours wandering a bit and I basically noticed that the city felt really similar to Chinese cities somehow... And that there are A TON of kebap places. This is probably a good thing because kebap is cheap and delicious. Oh, and it's pretty dirty but I suppose that is to be expected of a big city.

 My dorm is pretty interesting though. The rooms are quite a bit bigger than back at PAR and we have our own bathrooms in the room. Fridges and lighting are also provided which is quite nice. There are also cleaning people who come once (or twice?) a week to clean and vacuum. I'm still not sure when they come but apparently some of them kick you out of the room when they come to clean... Luckily, that hasn't happened yet.

The main difference in the dorm here is that it's basically just like an apartment. There aren't activities and there aren't posters, flyers, and bulletins everywhere. You would be lucky if you even catch anyone at the main desk. You have to use a key for everything (to unlock the main door, the lock and unlock your room door, etc). There is a communal kitchen on each floor, which is rather nice since you can cook your own meals. This is also problematic if you are super lazy/tired, haha. Also, people are allowed to smoke in the dorm/rooms, which is somewhat annoying, but oh well.

My room

Ski Week (Saalbach-Hinterglemm)

On Saturday (January 29th), we took a 4-hour train to Zell am See (in the district of Salzburg).

From there, we traveled by bus to some ski lift/place where we rented skis and took a gondola up to our hotel. Well, *almost* to our hotel. The hotel that we stayed at (Seidl-Alm) was literally in the middle of the mountain. It was ski-in, ski-out so we had to hike from a ski lift down to the hotel. It was pretty crazy since hiking down a mountain covered in snow and ice is usually not a good idea (hiking up is also a bad idea, but more on that later).

Zell am See

 Overall, it was a pretty grueling (but awesome) week. I had never skied in my life but luckily, we had 2 awesome instructors (Joschi [j = y] and Borgi [I'm actually not sure if this is spelled right]).

Joschi

 Joschi is pretty awesome. I'm sure Borgi is awesome too, but I didn't spend much time with her. Joshi is around 70 and he hardcore skis and snowboards. He's like a mountain man. It's intense.

Anyway, the first days of skiing were extremely painful. We had to practice on this tiny bunny hill so it was basically skiing down and hiking back up for hours. However, I'm going to say that I become pretty good at skiing by the end of the week, harhar. Now I can safely say that I really enjoyed skiing. There are some really nice, scenic routes and the Alps are ridiculously gorgeous. Seriously. Can you imagine seeing this every morning?:
 

The mountains are so... majestic? I don't really know what word to use to describe them. They just seem to go on forever and they were so jagged/perfectly snow capped... Seriously amazing.

Other random things related to ski week that I'm too lazy to put into paragraph form:

• Everyone skiing was Dutch. Okay, not everyone, but there were A TON of Dutch people.
• Everyone was a pro. Even the little 5 year old children. I guess not being able to ski in Austria is like not knowing how to hit a baseball or throw a football in the US (eh, lame comparison but you know what I mean).
• I sort of fell off one of the ski lifts. It was embarrassing, haha.
• Good skiers wore obnoxious clothing. Or perhaps I noticed them because they were wearing obnoxious clothing and they happened to be good at skiing (or vice versa). Who knows?
• Hiking up from the hotel to the ski lift was brutal.
•  I learned a lot of random vocab from the ski instructors. A lot of the time, they would start speaking in English and randomly switch to German. It was kind of awesome because I could understand mostly everything they said. 
• Everyone says hello/good morning when they see you.
• The waiter in the hotel in Saalbach where we had kaffee und kuchen was very annoyed with us... for no reason? I guess we were too noisy and American for him to handle.

Sachertorte in Saalbach

Random place in the hotel

 Vienna (First impressions, for real... and some other stuff)

Okay, this section might not be too interesting since I really haven't done ANYTHING yet. We got back to Vienna on February 6th, I believe, and since then I've been... sick. So basically I haven't done anything. I've been wandering around trying to buy random things (e.g., sponges, pots, pans, silverware, miscellaneous cooking things, etc.). That's really it. I might go to the Schönbrunn Palace tomorrow... or I might go to Ikea to pick up some final items. I'll decide later, haha.

Also, my roommate moved in. It was not really who I expected. I was supposed to room with this other UofI girl, but then something happened so now I'm rooming with some girl from Wisconsin-Madison (Kim: Maybe you know her? Haha...). It seems okay, thus far.

I haven't met that many people since I haven't gone out at all due to being sick and all... not that I really go out in general, but yeah. So far, I've met people in the kitchen. It's pretty interesting. Even though the majority of people here are American, I haven't met many and to be honest, I'm perfectly okay with that.

Once again, a list because I'm lazy:

• Lots of people have dogs. They bring their dogs everywhere... including stores. Yes, people bring their dogs inside stores.
• Many people smoke.
• Public transport is really efficient. This is good because I have to take the U-Bahn to get to the WU/class. It's pretty cool though.
• Everyone wears scarves. If you want to fit in, you better have a ton of scarves. Oh, and boots. Every female wears a wool coat, a scarf, and boots (mostly knee-high).
• There are hardly any Asians.
• There are a million H&M stores (this is perfectly fine with me, haha).
• Stuff isn't as expensive as I expected. This is not saying that stuff isn't expensive though.
• There are tons of cafes (obviously).
• Nobody has to go to school...? I see teenagers roaming the streets all day. Maybe everyone starts school really late here. Or everyone just ditches school. I'm not sure.
• The chocolate here is way better than back home.
• Finding soy sauce and turkey is really difficult.
• All the food is really rich (tip: Spinatnockerl is delicious!) 
• Everything has hazelnut stuff in it (that is: everything has Nutella-like stuff in it). There is even a cereal that's basically like a puff filled with hazelnut-chocolate cream.

I really can't think of anything else right now, and I'm pretty tired. There isn't too much to say at this point since I've literally done... nothing. I hope to do more exploring tomorrow though.

I'm going to try to update more often because there is too much to say and I'm really lazy... so then I just end up making lists and such. Ehh.

Next update: München.