Sightseeing And Learning to Cook

This week hasn’t been the easiest, if I’m being honest. I’m sure a lot of this is just part of culture shock, but at the beginning of the week I wasn’t feeling so great.

I found that staying busy is a much better strategy for dealing with that than just sitting in my room with my fan on is (also — have I mentioned that I bought a small fan to deal with the heat? it was my best decision yet).

So what have I been doing to keep myself busy?

An Underground Lake

Fun fact: the lake has a lot of streams going into it, but no exit. As a result, they have to use pumps to keep the waterlevel down.

I went on an excursion trip with a group from IKI last Sunday, to the largest underground lake in Europe: Seegrotte Hinterbrühl. Originally it had been a mine, until it had flooded. And later, during WWII, the higher area of the mine was used to produce jet fighter planes for the Nazis. Now, Seegrotte is a popular place for people to visit.

It was really beautiful, and the temperature inside was a lovely 9°C (48°F). It felt fantastic compared to the ~30°C (86°F) the weather’s been outside.

On the trip, I also had a chance to make some friends who are also studying at IKI! A couple people I sort of knew from my class or from the trip to Jubiläumswarte, but I met a lot more new people. I also took a lot more initiative in talking to other people, and didn’t feel as anxious as I did on the last trip.

Eating Good and Cheap

This platter is only half of the schnitzel we made.

On Tuesday, IKI hosted a Wiener Schnitzel party and I am so glad that I went. I only paid 5€, and in exchange got to make and eat a fantastic meal.

There were roughly 20 people there, and we were all separated into different groups to make different parts of the meal. I ended up in the group that was making the schnitzel. It’s surprisingly easy, and we made a ton of it. Learning how to make schnitzel was definitely a benefit of going, beyond the simple “getting to stuff my face with good food” aspect of it. I’m already looking forward to making this for family and friends back home, or even just cooking it for dinner with friends here one night.

A meal like this could easily cost over 20€ in a restaurant, and I got to have two schnitzels.

In addition to the schnitzel, the groups also made potato salad, a regular salad, and fresh apple strudel. While I don’t usually enjoy the potato salad here, the one they made wasn’t bad at all. And the apple strudel was simply fantastic.

A couple of friends I’d already made were also at the event, and I met a few more new people, too.

A viewing tower, the sequel

The sun was also just beginning to set, which was beautiful.

Remember the viewing tower I visited last week? This week, I went to another one, the Donauturm (with — you guessed it — IKI). The Donauturm, at 252m (1032ft), is much, much taller than the Jubiläumswarte tower, and required an elevator to reach the top. The view was definitely worth it though!

 

This boy is 117m (383ft) tall!

After the Donauturm, we all went to Prater, a theme park across the street from my dorm that I pass by every day but had never actually gone into. Although it was free admission to enter, the rides were expensive (like 5€). I ended up going on three rides: a 90 meter drop, the Praterturm (the highest flying swing ride in the world!), and the Olympiabahn (one of the big rollercoasters at the park).

My favorite ride was definitely the Praterturm. I already love swinging chair rides in general, and the height we were at made it even better. I love feeling like I’m flying, it was fantastic.

At one point during one of the rides, I made an… interesting language mistake. I finally reached the point of switching between English and German enough that I mixed them up, and said a sentence in English with German grammar. I said, “We can so much here see,” and I’m not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing to happen, if I’m being honest.

Thousands of Cool Rocks and Taxidermied Birds

Saturday morning, I spent at the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien (Natural History Museum Vienna), the museum that mirrors the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

The museum had an enormous geology display, with literally thousands of rocks on display. Apparently the collection was started 500 years ago, with more minerals and stones being added to it over time.

Most of the second floor of the museum was entirely made up of taxidermied animals, birds especially. In retrospect, I should have taken more general room photos to give a better sense of the sheer number of birds they had on display. Just know that there were four big rooms of just birds, and each room had some 4-7 giant display cases, with between  20 and 100 birds in each one (depending on the size).

One of my favorite displays there was one about minerals named after animals and animals named after minerals. It showed the examples of each side by side. While it wasn’t always clear which was named first, the chicken or the rock, the comparisons were very interesting to see.

In summary, I’ve been busy doing and seeing as much as I can while I’m here. Beyond that, I’ve just been getting to know the city of Vienna better, and I’ve been hanging out with friends I’ve made here.