BEST PARENTS IN THE WORLD

THANKS MOM AND DAD! LOVE YALL!

Mexi Food in Austria

After giving up on trying to pack I was only craving one thing. Mexican food. It has been about three weeks since I had my last dose of Paloma Blanca. There is only so much time I can go without indulging in some guacamole, enchiladas, or queso. Luckily, in Seattle I found my Mexican sanctuary. It is a restaurant in Madison Park called Cactus. I could eat there everyday if I didn't have Manny's wonderful meals waiting for me everyday at the sorority house. (Sarcasm) Cactus' chimichangas are to DIE FOR.

I believe there is only one Mexican restaurant in Innsbruck, at least that I know of. It is the second story of another restaurant that I have eaten at multiple times. I am a good critic of mexican food and this stuff was really good. Of course me and my roommate, who is from California so she speaks mexican food also, go all out. We both order mojitos and guacamole to start. The guacamole tasted alright but it looked like they threw all the ingredients in a blender cause it was very paste-y like. But still tasted right. For dinner I ordered the Enchiladas pollo. When they brought my dish my jaw dropped. It was a bowl of three "enchiladas", more like tacos than enchiladas. It was perfectly pulled chicken in corn tortillas with cheese, lettuce and plenty of tomatillo salsa on top. My mouth is watering just thinking about. It was really good, really spicy but still really good. They could have been better than Palmoa's enchiladas verdes. I might have to stop there for lunch before I leave for Vienna. Our train leaves at 2:09pm and I get out of class at 12:20, I think I have time! Before we left I stopped by the restroom and I don't know if I just thought this was funny but you don't expect a window when you walk into a bathroom stall.

And then of course we got gelato. This time it was Nougat, vanilla and tiramisu.

I just probably start trying to pay attention in my geology test. My next post I will be writing as a TWENTY ONE YEAR OLD! Cannot wait! Get ready Vienna and Prague, Julia's bday is coming!

Auf Wiedersehen!

Midterms, Manny and Soccer Games.

Sorry, I know it has been a couple days since my last post. We had midterms this week so studying has kept me a little busy, mom and dad y'all should be happy. I just finished my last one and I am so happy to be done. It is so strange that I am officially half way done with my study abroad program, I'm not ready for that! There is still so much I want to do and not enough time aka weekends to travel.

Sidenote: for all you music fanatics, pandora is not allowed outside of the states so I have had to find alternative ways to jam out in Innsbruck. Best website, 8tracks.com. Do the Happy + Summer combo and choose the Summer Love playlist, you won't regret it.

Back to midterms. They weren't so bad. The highlight of my midterms week was on Tuesday. We had class then our Geology midterm was at 3:40pm later that afternoon. So a group of us from class decided we should get together after class and just cram. Seven brains is better than one right? After grabbing some Mensa for lunch (brain food right?? NOT. I had a plate of pasta and french fries.) we headed back to our classroom to study. Of course the first couple minutes of group study sessions are never productive, we spent our time Youtube-ing geology videos. Thank you Bill Nye for the creation of Rocks Rock Harder, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aqy-p41VpKU . Shortly after we decided that we were all screwed for this test cause our professor is crazy, can barely speak english, and didn't give us a study guide or anything. He just suggested we use his lectures to study. Two years have college has taught me that is never a good sign. So why waste time distracting ourselves in a classroom when we can just go to the local pub and get a beer and go over notes? Of course we all thought it was a brilliant idea! We are in Austria, so why not? After settling in with a round of beers Manny, the owner of Pub 7, gave us a round of free shots for being the first customers of the day. It was 2pm. So here we are with 7 beers and 7 shots and guess who walks by? OUR PROFESSOR! The girl sitting at the end of the table screams "Oh shoot" and the rest of us look to see our Professor walking towards us. He is this little Bangladeshi man walking with his daughter. He gets up to our table and just starts cracking up! But in our defense, yes we were sitting at a table with beers and shots but we also had our geology notes out! We were actually studying and getting more done than we were in the classroom.

Of course when he showed up at the midterm he just laughed at us and thought it was so funny. Especially because he was explaining to his daughter on their walk home how great of students we were then they run into us drinking! 

Thought I would include this picture I took before taking my final. This is my view from my classroom. It doesn't get much better than that! 

Later that night a ton of us went to a summer league soccer game. The game kinda sucked, they weren't very good. It was manchester city vs. dynamo or something I don't know. It looked like one of the IMA soccer games back at school that my sorority plays in. The only cool thing was that the stadium it took place in was where they had the olympics! There have been two winter Olympics in Innsbruck, 1964 and 1976 I think. So that was pretty cool! 

Then of course we had to get gelato on the way home. Ever since Italy if I don't have a gelato a day I struggle. I was used to having at least two gelatos a day! 

(inside to out: Nougat, Vanilla, Carmel) Such a good combo!

Today I had my German final. I am pretty sure I got an A. I know I got one problem wrong and I probably had a couple grammatical errors here and there. But midterms are over! YAYY! 

Now I am "doing laundry" old school style. I don't feel like washing everything so I am doing the necessities in the sink cause I a) don't want to pay to do my laundry b) have no money anyways c) way too lazy to walk to the bubble point.

When I am done with that my plan is to just relax. I need to paint my nails cause I am going to Prague so I need to look good and they have just gotten disgusting. You're welcome Lauren. I am also going to  start packing because I learned my lesson in Verona/Venice to not over pack. For Vienna/Prague I will be using my school backpack, hope I can fit everything, but I need to strategically plan my outfits for the day and night. Unlike Venice, Prague has a very big night life. So big they have a 5-story disco AND an ice bar. Plus I will be turning 21 on Friday so I necessary I look my best for the big 2-1! Still can't believe I am turning 21 nonetheless celebrate in PRAGUE! Best birthday present ever parents, THANK YOU!

Cuticles are calling! XOXO 

Verona, Venice and Lake Garda.

My first weekend was fantastic! I love it here. I am ready to live in Europe for the rest of my life. It is wonderful here!

We left after school on Thursday for Verona, Italy. The train ride was almost four hours long. It is easy to tell when you cross the border from Austria to Italy by the architecture and agriculture. I fell asleep then woke up and there were vineyards outside the window, thats when I knew we were in Italy.

When we got to the train station we got on a bus to our hostel. We did not pay for our bus ride when we got on, whether it was out of laziness or we just didn't know how I don't remember. But at one stop a bus official guy got on so we immediately jumped off because we didn't want to get a ticket. So then we waited for about 30 minutes at some rando bus stop waiting for the next bus to come by. When we finally got to the hostel we had to use some james bond moves. We booked a hostel that slept four people but there were six of us. After getting around the front desk and dropping our stuff into our hostel we hopped on the bus to go to the city center.

After walking around a while we found a spot for dinner then kept walking and would run into random squares. 

And of course gelato

After having drinks at some hippo restaurant... only place open... we made our way back to the hostel. Luckily at this hostel we had our own bathroom which was really nice. Unfortunately since there were only four beds two of the guys slept on the floor. 

The next morning we woke up, ate breakfast and checked out of the hostel. We made our way back to the city center to see it in the daylight. 

Our first stop was the Verona Colosseum. The night before they held an opera there so the stage was still set up. When we walked in the colosseum there was a woman standing on the balcony singing opera. She was really good at it and it echoed through the whole colosseum. Everyone in the colosseum was dead quite and just watched her sing in awe. She sure knew how to calm a crowd.

After that we kept walking around Verona seeing the sights. The architecture is just gorgeous. Even the shudders on the colorful stucco buildings.

After one last gelato we made our way back to the train station and got on a train to Lake Garda. We decided that we wanted to go to a cool lake town just for lunch really fast and it was only 15 minutes away. Definitely one of the prettiest lakes I have ever seen. Lake McQueeney has no comparison, sorry grandpa. We walked along the water until we found a nice little italian restaurant to eat at then we lounged along the water until we had to leave for the train station.

Sarah, me and Michelle (my roommate)

We got back on the train and made our way to Venice! I am so glad that I went back to Venice. My first trip was not as exciting. We had bad weather and it was cold whereas this trip it was hot and sunny, perfect water weather. As soon as we got to Venice we wanted to go to the hostel first because some of us, me, don't know how to pack lightly so I had to lug around this giant backpack everywhere we went this weekend. 

Let me just say that trying to navigate yourself through the alleys/canals of Venice is one of the hardest things to do. Good thing the people of Venice are really nice and don't mind helping you. But since it is so difficult they can't give you the full directions, only parts. So a typical answer we would receive would be, "go over three more bridges then ask someone" or "go all the way down here take a left then find someone to ask," they just give you the general direction to where you need to go then pass you off to someone else. When we got to the square where we needed to be the hostel directions said to find this specific cafe and ask for the hostel. So this guy that works at the cafe lead us out and down this kinda sketch alley to a door that doesn't have a sign, windows or anything. He yells for someone inside to throw him down a key and then we go in. Of course we are all looking at each other thinking what the hell have we gotten ourselves into. We follow him upstairs to the "office." I pretty sure the bed in the corner no longer makes it an office. So here we all are sitting on a bed in these Indian's office and they are speaking to each other in a different language. You can imagine out freaked out I was. But then he looks at our reservation and realizes he made a mistake. He only made a reservation for one person instead of six. So again we all started looking at each other with one thing in mind, lets get out of here! But luckily they moved some things around and had rooms for us. The first night it was the three girls in one room and the three boys in another. The second night they put us all in one room. The rooms weren't bad which is why we probably decided to stay in the end. The only creepy thing was the bathroom on floor that we had to share with everyone else. It was a large bathroom but it wasn't made to be a communal one. We were always to scared to go alone so we always brought someone with us. Once we freshened up we headed to Piazzo San Marco to see the bell tower and the church. We found a random restaurant for dinner without thinking it could get that expensive. Little did we know that it is more important to look at the drink menu than the food menu when it comes to prices. Our dinners were reasonably priced I had a 13 euro ravioli. The wine was good too, it was 14 euro for half a bottle. I also tried Bass! But after dinner I ordered lemonchello for the group, thats what I was taught from my lovely grandparents. I didn't think it would be 42 euros for a round of lemonchello. I could have bought a whole bottle for 15 euros. But it was worth it! Our total bill ended up to be 320 euros, so warning... venice can get very expensive! After dinner we made our way back the square our hostel was in. There are a lot of bars and restaurants there. The university is around the corner so it was a very youthful area. 

The next morning we woke up early to start our touristy adventure in Venice. I'm pretty sure we did everything one could possibly do; museums, churches, palaces, bridges, and gelato... I think thats all you need. 

my first cappuccino 

Just for you Lauren!

 The main reason we picked Venice was because of a festival they were having this weekend. I cannot remember the name of the festival but it is an annual event they hold to celebrate the ending of the plague. Basically an excuse to have a giant firework show. We made our way to the very tip of venice with bottles of cheap wine, thank you Indian hostel owners for the tip on where to sit and what to drink. We got there at about 9:30 and the show did not start until around 11:30 so we had time to kill by just sitting and talking. 

The firework show was so fantastic, mind blowing. I have never seen a better firework show ever. It was along the grand canal and we really picked the best spot. It was right in front of us. They had the firework cannon launchers, whatever you call them, lined along the other side of the canal where everyone was sitting. It was just the best. I loved Venice and this past weekend was so much fun!!! It is making me even more excited from Vienna and Praque next weekend!

This is a picture I took from our way home. Austria is so pretty rain or shine!