Getting Ready For...

K:

Today is the last day we have any commitments here in Vienna. Eric is, as I speak, writing his last exam for school. Tonight we get to run away to vacation land and it could not come at a better time. I think we are both just looking forward to escaping life and spending a couple of weeks together before Christmas comes, and then New Year's and then home time. These are our last 12 days to just take off before the business sets in. So here is what we planned for our 12 Days of Christmas.

Barcelona - Spain

Which I am so much more excited for than I thought I would be. So excited! And it's warmish too, so added bonus. 

I'm hoping we make it to these next two, but the trains have changed so we'll have to kind of wait and see what happens I think. But these would be nice to see:

Nice - France

 Eric's parents have been here and really like it so we're going to try it out too. Also warm, and boasts a gelato shop with 96 flavours. I've already started trying to decide on which ones to try.

Monaco | Monte Carlo

Something about cars and Formula One something, I don't know Eric knows the detail.s I'm just up for the warm weather and beautiful beaches.

These are definite yeses that we are very excited for!

London - England

 I have always wanted to go here. My mom and her family are from England and here we will get to meet up with one of her aunts who I haven't seen in a long time, and Eric will get to meet her. I think she;s great, and I love family. It will be wonderful.

Last but not least...I'm sure you know what's coming. Think of somewhere romantic you would want to go for Christmas with your new husband...

Paris - France

I don't know what to say really, I just can't wait. And actually, we'll get our first few glimpses of it in about 24 hours from now because we take an overnight train there tonight and then go from there to Barcelona tomorrow. So tomorrow is the Paris Sneak Peak before the three days we get to really enjoy it.

And that is what we are spending all day today getting ready for. Lots to do before we go. Lots of exciting around this house today. Hope Eric is doing well on his exam right now. Soon we will be off and away on our last European adventure.

Trips to Take Us Home

K:

The last couple days have been frantic and messy. We've been trying to plan the trips we're going take this month, before Christmas. (So really, just the time we spent planning was stressful, the rest of the days were pretty dull and lazy actually.)

But everything is official now. I went to the train station today and reserved our seats for all the trains we will be taking from now until Christmas Eve. Want to hear about it? I'm going to tell you because I am so excited, and if you read this enough to still be reading this you'll be excited for us as well.

This week's trip is going to be pretty intense actually. We are going to see 3 great cities, in 3 separate countries, in 3 days (also with 3 different currencies).  Check it out:

Berlin - Germany

Prague - Czech Republic

Krakow - Poland

 Eric has an exam tomorrow morning, so good luck to him! Then in the evening we leave for this trip. We get home on Saturday, then Monday is another exam. Then right after that one we leave for the big trip. The one I have personally been looking forward to for a long time. Well, since we got back from Italy. Can't wait!

Day One of Strategic Management

E:
German--not so much my thing. Strategic Management -- what a refreshment to be able to follow and understand what’s going on. My teacher is quite entertaining, a life saver for the fact that the class is almost a 4^th of a whole day... 5 hours.

During the lecture, the professor asked, “Who is Porsche’s competition?” He got responses like Ferrari and BMW. Since I spent a summer listening to CBC radio, I was able to apply my knowledge gained from The Age of Persuasion with Terry O’Reilly. “Louis Vuitton,” I responded, “Porsche competes with other luxury brands.” The demand isn’t transportation, but for a status item. It just happens to be a car. The professor loved the answer and proceeded on with that idea for a little while. I regained a portion confidence lost from the German classes earlier this week.

A quick note on the spiritual side: I prayed that I’d be able to get into a good group for the group work part of the course. The answer to my prayer came rather easily. Two of the native students came over to me and another exchange student, whom I was sitting next to, and asked if we wanted to be a group together. They seem to be the sort of students that will be good to work with, and our group happens to have both locals and exchange students. We also picked up one more exchange student at the end of class who will be good.

Day Two of German Class

E:
The teacher speaks only German, which is tricky, and the class is 3 hours. So near the end I start to feel like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbs. All I’m hearing is waa wa waa wa... in an Austrian accent. I don’t know that I’ll ever learn German. I’m the only one in the class who knows only one language. I think that the kid from Lithuania knows 8 languages. I’ll keep at it and see what progress I can squeeze out of this class. It doesn’t count for credit and it’s free, so I’m not too worried about it.

Last couple things before classes start

K:

Today we needed to pay our power bill, before they cut us off. We weren't exactly sure what to do because the forms we got in the mail are ALL German. The other day when we were out shopping we saw a Wien Energie location, so we made our way over to Mariahilf Strasse today. We got there and didn't actually have to pay it yet, but the lady helped us fill out our forms properly and told us how to pay it at the end of the month. That was all we have planned for the day, so this is what we saw after. 

This is a really yummy pizza place we found. We were near here the other day (on Tuesday) and it smelled SO good, but we settled for Austrian McDonald's chicken nuggets because our curiosity got the best of us. This is the Della Cassa pizza we ordered today. It was good!

It was rainy today, so good thing we had our little umbrella. This is a 6euro umbrella we bought when we got stuck in the rain shopping in Der Graben after Stephansdom. 

Cool fun fact of today: Miriahilfstrasse (the shopping street from week one, and location of Wien Energie) links up with Museums Quartier (the place we took pictures of those GORGEOUS buildings on Tuesday the 13th). If we'd just walked 100m more either of those days we would have seen it, but we never did. Until this afternoon, we bumped into the pizza shop again and put the two together. It was fun. I feel like I'm getting to know the city a bit more, piece by piece. 

Anyway, so we wondered back into and around Museums Quartier for a little bit. We found this fun little yellow building and Eric just had to see what was inside. I bugged him at first, but I'm glad he did.

Everything in and around this building is yellow. The chairs, the tables the cabinets. Everything. It was cool. It's actually just a little promotional booth for one of the banks. They have iPads you can use in there and all kinds of free stuff. We talked to them for a few minutes about Vienna and they gave us some cool stuff like little subway maps, and light up pens, and a student planner...AND these drinks. We love them now. They're much like ginger ale, but BETTER. It's an Austrian specialty and we certainly enjoyed it. It's called Almdudler. We'll have to spend some time searching the super markets and restaurants for more of it before we leave. 

I love you little yellow umbrella.

Eric is right now in his very first class at school. German class!