First night

I woke up for the first time in Vienna this morning. Yesterday was kindof a whir. Fortunately, I managed to stay awake until about midnight last night (that's 32 consecutive hours of staying awake - I was pooped).

Once we arrived in the city center via train from the airport, we took the escalator up out of the ground, and BOOM, there was St. Stephen's Cathedral. IT IS HUGE. I looked around and saw that all the buildings in sight were historical and beautiful. I don't know how I'm going to cope with my urge to photograph every single building. The only exception to the old buildings (containing stores like Louis Vuitton, Boss, and Burberry - we were, after all, in District 1) was was a very nice, modern building.I asked Billy what it was and he responded "I don't know, but nobody likes that building being here."

We had walked to the IES office from Stephensplatz many times via Google Maps, but this time it was for real! It felt a lot longer in real life than I thought it would, but maybe that's because I was gawking at everything I was seeing and I was dragging a suitcase on an old cobblestone road. The office looks like it's in an alleyway perpendicular to the main street, Kartnerstrasse. It's right behind a building that looks like UT's CMA building. It's very out of place, so the locals call it "the ugly building." Billy says the mayor who let them demolish the historical building that was there and replace it with that was definitely not reelected.

Once we got to the office and were buzzed into both of the doors (remember in The Wizard of Oz how there are little doors cut out of big doors? ALL of the older buildings' entrances are like that here!), we were told to leave our stuff downstairs, and walk up a flight of magnificent marble stairs to the ballroom...er...classroom with a beautiful painted/sculpted ceiling. We had an orientation session with Kent - the Vienna IES director, Helmut - the housing coordinator, Meral - the counselor, and Tobi - the helpful fourth guy. Helmut & Tobi are austrian natives, and Meral is half Turkish, half Austrian (but went to an american school, then NYU, then Columbia). In this session, we got phone numbers, filled out our residency forms, and got our cell phones. It's 9 cents to call per minute and 3 cents to text. We have 20-euro worth of credit for our whole trip.

Finally, they called taxis to come and get us. Our cab  driver didn't speak english at all, so that was interesting: "149 Margaretenstrasse, bitte." "Die nummer?" "...149." "Nein. Die nummer Nhdaberiuqbgjdwdnragkj uafnerlkugbjre urabkjbg barabg;uakr  bua;bgaeudkjgb?" "Uh...und...Johannesgasse?" Then he sighed and drove in awwwwkward silence. When we got to the apartments, Corin payed him 16.60 and I said "Die reichnung, bitte" (receipt, please). He responded with "reichnung prinkathabrueiarbh" (receipt <word that starts like "print">), and then gave Corin a receipt so that IES can reimburse him.

We met the landlord's representative and went up to see an apartment with her. they're very very small, but are like Ikea-lovers playgrounds! I share an apartment with 4 other guys (Jonathon, Ryan, Corin, and Thomas) and share my room with Thomas. The toilet is in a separate room from the shower, which seems weird, but makes sense for multiple people, but seems weird. Also, the windows are friggen amazing! you turn the handle vertically, and they open vertically. Turn it horizontally, and they open like a door!

Anyway, she told us we each needed to pay her a deposit of 40 euros to get our keys, which took us all by surprise, especially because none ofus had that much. we pooled money to get one key, and we'll exchange money to get our own keys today.

We got a tour from one of the RA's, Christine, so we know where the grocery store, pharmacy, subway, and ATM are, but she suggested we order for delivery, so we did, and it was really inexpensive. The pizza we got from Amigo’s Pizzeria was fantastic! We now have our first favorite local restaurants! We might not need one for awhile though, because Jonathon brought A TON of snacky-food. We ate some last night and some for breakfast, and there’s still a lot left over.

We sympathetically saved some pizza for David though. He didn’t get in until about 23 (everything here in on a 24-hour clock), even thought he was supposed to be here at 11. He was supposed to stay in a different apartment, but apparently Tobi made a mistake and emailed him that he was in our apartment. We DO have an extra bed, but he doesn’t really mesh with the other people in our apartment and we were really happy with the group we had before. He seemed pretty determined to stay here. Even though Helmut says he’s assigned to the apartment upstairs , he’s determined to stay here tonight. I did tell him a few times that he was supposed to be upstairs, but he just rolled his eyes and went to take a shower…Whatevs. In light of the many problems he had getting here, I decided not to be a jerk about it. I just went to bed while he was in the shower (wearing my NightGuard, Mom). I accidentally had my alarm set for 8:30 instead of 9:30 (we need to be at the school at 11), so I am up, and with the sun there is no hope of going back to sleep. I showered, and have been passing the extra time by writing this post. We are supposed to meet downstairs at 10:20 to travel on the U-bahn in a group, and I don’t even know if anyone else in my apartment is awake, so I’m going to go check on them and then go make sure the group doesn’t leave without them.