Last Day

Hey guys, I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. I can't believe I am sitting here writing my 2nd to last blog (I will write my final blog back in the USA giving my final thoughts). It just seems like yesterday I was sitting here writing my first blog entry. The past 60 days have gone by sooooooo fast.

My final week was pretty quiet. On Tuesday I went to Linz for the day to buy some gifts. On Wednesday morning I paid my last visit to a school. I was there for a couple hours then I met Guenter, Gerlinde, Michael and Richard for lunch. I wanted to take them out as a thank you for being such amazing hosts. We went to Venezia, an italian restaurant that has HUGE portions. Gerlinde and Guenter each got a pizza and I went with the Weinerschnitzel. I felt like I can eat pizza anywhere in America but Weinerschnitzel is pretty hard to come by.

On Thursday I helped Gerlinde get ready for the big Thanksgiving dinner she was to prepare. She was having over her friend Maria, her husband Kanchi (remember, that Japanese guy I went on the Ferris wheel with in Linz, man I never thought I'd say that sentence once let alone twice!!!!!), and Gerlinde's mother. Gerlinde went all out for this Thanksgiving celebration She took out the table cloth, lit candles al over the house and I never saw the house so clean. Since Gerlinde never made turkey before she decided to make chicken instead. It was just as good. She also made, mashed potatoes, stuffing, carrots, corn, and cranberry sauce. For dessert her friend made Apple Cake and we ate it was ice cream. After dinner she said this is a holiday for giving thanks and then she gave me a bag with some presents and said that she was for thankful for having me be her "son" for the past two months. It was very sweet and thoughtful of her. In the bag were some sweets, a cookbook (Austrian meals, but in English. I told her I am going to learn to cook when I get home and I mean it) and a picture collage she made (pictures of me and the family) which looks so perfect.

Today (Friday) I am just spending some time with the family and going to pack this afternoon. I hate packing, and I feel like I am definitely leaving with more stuff than I came with. I ended up with 35 new pez. Super excited about that. We have to wake up at 4:30 tomorrow morning and leave by 5am. It's about a 3 hour drive to Vienna so that should put me there by 8. My flight leaves at 10:45 Austrian time and arrives back in DC at 3:00pm EST. Michael is going to drive with Guenter and I to the airport because he has never been before and is excited to see the big planes.

Well I am signing off now from Austria. Stay tuned in a couple days for a final blog entry from America!!!!

Surprise Blog Entry

So I know I wrote you this morning talking about Budapest and how I didn't have much going on this week but Gerlinde, the boys, and I went on a little road trip today.

I was reading online a couple weeks ago about the funniest names of towns all around the world and TWO of them were in Austria. One of them is called Fucking. No joke there is a Fucking, Austria. Unfortunately Fucking is about three hours away. The other one in Austria was only 45 minutes away so Gerlinde said we could drive there today. So see below where we went today.

Back From Budapest, Final Week

Hey guys, well I got back from Budapest yesterday (Sunday night). The internet wasn't working last night so I didn't get to see another heartbreaking Ravens loss.

So after my last post from Budapest I went and walked around the Pest side of Budapest. Buda is on one side of the Danube and Pest the other. The Pest side is the flatter more commercial side and Buda is the hilly, greener side. On Friday I visited St Stephens Church, the largest in Hungary. I went to Heroes Square and visited their Christmas Market. The Christmas Market was really cool because they had all the Christmas lights on and it made the city look even more pretty. The weather was very misty/foggy so you didn't get a lot of good views but at least it wasn't raining (I'm looking at you Prague). Also on Friday I needed to get some money out of the ATM since they use Forints and not the Euro. It was pretty confusing since $1 = 180 Forints. So I had to get out 25,000 Forints.

Saturday is when I toured the Buda side of Budapest. The Buda side is where the castle sits and from this side you have an excellent view of the Hungary Parliament building.

My hotel was very nice and was one block off of Andrazzy Street and right next to the Opera House. Andrazzy Street is modeled after the Champs D'Elysses in Paris. It is a very straight street running from Heroes Square all the way down to near the Danube. It is a very pretty with trees outlining it and many posh stores.

Coming back yesterday (Sunday) all my modes of transportation were on time to the minute. I took the 11:10 train from Budapest to Vienna. I arrived in Vienna at 2:08 and took the 2:20 train to Linz. I arrived in Linz at 3:50 and took the 4:42 bus back to Freistadt.

So here I am on Monday for my last 5 days in Austria. I can't believe how fast this trip has gone and that I will be home on Saturday. I don't have much planned for this week except one day I will go to Linz to do some shopping and on Thursday night Gerlinde will be making Thanksgiving dinner for me, but with chicken not turkey.

Thank you all who have stuck with me and continue to read this thing. I will see all of you very soon.

Hello There Budapest

Hey guys, I made it to Budafest safe and sound and right on time. The journey to get here was long but uneventful. I first had to catch the bus from Lichtaneu to Freistadt at 6:07.I got to Freistadt at 6:20. I then had to take the bus from Freistadt to Linz. I got to Linz at around 7:30. I then had to take the train to Vienna at 8:10. We didn't leave until 8:20 which made me a little nervous because I only had 10 minutes to change trains. The ticket checker guy told me that the train to Budapest would be waiting for us, so that made me happy. I then took the 10 train to Budapest and arrived at 1 in the afternoon. I sat with 2 nice people from England. We chatted for the first hour then I listened to some music. I set up a transfer with the hotel for a taxi to pick me up. There was a guy there holding a sign with my name on it. The drive was about 5 minutes. The weather here is nice but a little foggy. The hotel is also pretty decent. I am about to go site see now so I will update later.

Final 10 Days

Hello everybody, I can't believe I only have ten more days left in Austria. This "trip" has absolutely flown by. The past 5 days the weather has been perfect. Very clear blue skies and daytime temps in the 50's.

I left off my last blog talking about going to school on Friday afternoon to help out with the Cambridge Certificate students. That went well and afterward I had a nice dinner by myself at a nice restaurant on the square in Freistadt. Outside the door they were advertising a gnocchi special and for those of you who don't know gnocchi is my favorite pasta. So I had to give it a go. When I sat down and the waitress came over she said they were out of the gnocchi special, my luck. She translated the menu for me, and did quite a good job at it too. I decided to go with the Cordon Bleu with Pomme Frites (french fries). Cordon Bleu obviously means with ham and cheese. So in Austria when you see Cordon Bleu on a menu it means a Weinerschnitzel has ham and cheese inside it. It was soooo good. After dinner I went to McDonalds to hang out (and to eat a piece of Tiramasu from McCafe) until I met some friends later that night. We went out to Latino and Acanto. We had some trouble getting a taxi to take us home but I made it home eventually.

During the day on Saturday was pretty quiet and Saturday night I went out with Gerlinde and some of her classmates to Linz. They wanted more experience talking with a native speaker. We first went to a bar called Cubus. It is on the top floor of the Ars Electronica Center (sorta like a science center). This building is right on the Danube so we had some really nice views. After a drink we went to eat at a place called the Yellow Crocodile (that is what it is called in English). It was very good there as well. I ordered the tortellini. After dinner we went home.

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday wasn't that exciting. I don't think I did anything blog worthy.

Today (Wednesday) Ingrid came over for lunch at around 11:00. She was working on the farm in the morning and I asked if she needed help after lunch and she eagerly accepted. So Michael and I went back with her to help her on the farm. My first task was to feed the cows. I had a pitchfork and I had to bring the hay to the cows. It was pretty easy, I think I did a decent job. After that task Ingrid and I had to load a trailer with rocks that were laying in the front of the house and move them to the back of the house. They were mostly pretty small rocks but they had some big ones as well. This took a long time cause there so many rocks. After we loaded and unloaded rocks my next task was to bring firewood from the barn into the house so she could warm the house. After that we trimmed a tree. Before Ingrid took us back home she cut a small patch of grass, with a reaper. Maybe I should start to do that when I get home on my small lawn. I think it would be pretty funny.

Tomorrow I am off to visit a new school because they heard I have some awesome English speaking abilities. I am not sure how many classes I am visiting tomorrow, it might just be one. And then tomorrow night I need to pack my bags for Budapest!!!!

Yup I decided to spend my last weekend in Budapest and I am going all by myself. I am leaving Friday morning and returning Sunday afternoon. I will take the bus from Freistadt to Linz then the train from Linz to Vienna then the train from Vienna to Budapest. Even though I had a good experience staying at a hostel in Prague I decided to go with a regular hotel. It's supposed to be a good one, it was ranked 4th (out of 5, just kidding out of 325) from Tripadvisor.

Time For An Update

Hey guys, sorry this is my first update all week. Not much has been going on in Upper Austria.

Monday - Wednesday was pretty quiet. On Tuesday Gerlinde and I made potato soup. We sorta have a running joke about all the pumpkin soup I have been eating so when I heard she knows how to make potato soup I asked if she could make it. Before she started to make it, their potato soup is different than ours. Theirs is just broth and potatoes. So I found a recipe online for the "American" baked potato soup. You know, like the kind you can find at TGI Fridays or Red Robin. So Gerlinde had all the ingredients except for the bacon, sour cream and cheddar cheese. We went to the grocery store and picked them up. Although the soup was ok it definitely didn't taste like TGI Fridays and not in a good way.

On Thursday it was back to the school I went to visit 3 new classes I haven't been and it was the same routine, a question and answer session. I got a new question yesterday from two of the classes. They want to know if all Americans are overweight. I guess that is a stereotype most countries have about Americans. Last night Gerlinde got a phone call from Ingrid asking me if I wanted to go out to Lusthouse last night. So after pretty much staying in the house Monday - Wednesday I eagerly accepted her proposal. At 9, Ingrid, her cousin, and her friend Alex picked me up and we headed to Lusthouse. Lusthouse is a bar/club. Thursday night they mostly played "oldies" Austrian music. I had a nice time but didn't get home until 3:30.

Today (Friday) I am going back to the school this afternoon to assist with the students who are getting their Cambridge Certificate. This is what the teacher had to say about it "basically fce (first cambridge certificate, if you're intersted www.cambridgeesol.org - general english - fce)is for our advanced pupils and they will take an external standardized exam in june".

This weekend I don't have much planned but hope to do something since this is my 2nd to last weekend in Austria and there is a chance next weekend I might be going to Budapest. I will keep you posted.

Hope everyone is doing well in America and I hope to see you all when I get back in 15 days.

Hello, I'm back from Vienna

So here is my Vienna spiel. Gerlinde dropped me off in Freistadt around 1 on Friday so I could take the bus to Linz. I got to Linz at around 2:30 and took the 3:30 train to Vienna. The train ride was about 1 hour and 45 minutes. I was staying with someone from school's sister and her bf. The sister met me at the train station and took me back to their flat. Before we left the train station I bought a 3 day bus/tram/metro pass. It entitles me to unlimited rides on any of the public transportation for 72 hours. From the train station we took the metro 3 stops and then we had a ten minute walk to their flat. After I got situated they went over the layout of the city with me which was good cause I didn't have any clue at first. It turned out to be quite easy really (mostly all the main tourist attractions are located inside the ring in the center of town). After talking for a little bit we went out to dinner at a Chinese Buffet restaurant. It's pretty much like any other Chinese Buffet back at home, just maybe a little smaller. They had french fries, fried shrimp, spring rolls, rice, lo mein, fruit, sushi, etc. It was really good. After dinner I took the tram into the city center just so I could get my bearings straight for my day of site-seeing on Saturday.

I left their flat around 9:30 and headed straight to the ring. As I was walking I saw the Hotel Sacher. The Hotel Sacher was where the Sachertorte was created. This is what wikipedia has to say about it "Sachertorte is a chocolate cake, invented by Franz Sacher in 1832 for Klemens Wenzel von Metternich in Vienna, Austria. It is one of the most famous Viennese culinary specialties. The Original Sachertorte is only made in Vienna and Salzburg, and is shipped from both locations. The only place where you can find the Original Sacher Torte outside of Austria, is in the Sacher shop of Bolzano, Italy. The cake consists of two layers of dense, not overly sweet chocolate cake (traditionally a sponge cake) with a thin layer of apricot jam in the middle and dark chocolate icing on the top and sides. It is traditionally served with whipped cream without any sugar in it, as most Viennese consider the Sachertorte too "dry" to be eaten on its own." Anyway they have a cafe where you can go in and have some and that is what I did. It was really good but honestly it tastes the same as the chocolate cake I have after Table Tennis sometimes (shout out to Ed, Ed, George and Ron, I'll be back soon guys).

After the Sachertorte I headed to the Stephansdom (St. Stepehens Cathedral). This is the most famous (and tallest) church in all of Vienna. It was very beautiful but a lot of the outside had scaffolding all around it (like most of the buildings in Europe). I went inside and had a look and of course, like most of the churches in Europe, it was very pretty. The church has two towers you can go up, the north and south tower. The north tower is shorter and you take an elevator up and the south tower is taller and you take stairs up. I opted for the, you guessed it, the south tower. You get better views from the taller tower obviously. To reach the top of the south tower you are to take 343 stairs (says the sign) but I counted and only got to 335 stairs. Either way it was a lot of stairs. The views from the top were of course amazing. Vienna is a very pretty city too. After the church I walked around a little bit. I saw the Hofburg Imperial Palace but did not go inside. Around two I met up with the people I was staying with and we went to an Australian pub to have lunch. After lunch we went back to their flat. I took a little nap and got ready for the night. We headed back downtown around 6:15 and were trying to get tickets to a musical (I believe it was a Roman Polansky piece) but it was sold out. So we met up with a few of their friends and went back to the Australian Pub for dinner/drinks. We got back home around 12ish.

On Sunday they took me to the Belvedere and the Schonbrunn, both of which are palaces. After them we went back to their flat, had lunch and they took me to the train station. I took the 2:40 train back to Linz and caught the 4:45 bus back to Freistadt.

Once again the Ravens go back to sucking really bad.

Between Vienna and Prague I would have to say I enjoyed Vienna more. I think a lot of this has to do with the weather. Prague was very cold and rainy and Vienna was only a little cold and no rain. Good weather can make any average city amazing and bad weather could make any amazing city average, in my opinion. Also, Vienna is a much bigger city and I feel like there is more to do and see there.

This week is probably going to be a pretty quiet one. I do know I am going back to the school on Thursday. I do leave in 20 days though. I can't believe it has been 6 weeks already. Time is seriously flying by.

Back From Prague, Off to Vienna

Well I just got back from Prague on Tuesday and now I am off to Vienna tomorrow (Friday). I am quite the jet-setter this week.

On Wednesday Gunter was home from work so Gerlinde and I did some major tutoring. She meant business this time cause we left the house to get away from Gunter, Michael and Richard. She took me to Vis a Vis, a nice little restaurant in Old Town Freistadt. We did some studying and had lunch. I have been here for almost 6 weeks and this was the FIRST time that either her or Gunter had eaten out at a restaurant. The meal was very good. I had soup, bierschnitzel and apfelstrudel. Gerlinde was kind enough to pay for me. We were probably there for 3 hours. We came back in time for Michael to watch Dora on my slingbox.

Today (Thursday) I went back to the school to give a helping hand. But before I went to school I went up a tower in Old Town Freistadt. It was a beautiful sunny day and I had some good views, see pics above. The main teacher I have been working with wanted me to help with special projects for a couple of her classes. The first class I went to is going to put in a role play for the school's open house in December. The teacher wanted me to walk around to different groups and to see if any of them needed help with vocabulary for their skits. After that class we went to another class, which she has for 2 hours and 15 minutes. The teacher wanted the class to break into 3 groups (two groups of four and one group of 3). I would then take each group, one at a time, to the supermarket right up the street from the school and I would spend about 40 minutes going up and down the aisles going over vocabulary with them. It was a lot of fun and I think the students enjoyed it as well.

So tomorrow I will take the 1pm bus to Linz and arrive around 2:30. I will then take the 3:30 train to Vienna and arrive around 5:15. I will be staying to around midday on Sunday. I don't have much planned for Vienna but I just downloaded the Vienna ToGo App for my iphone so I should be good to go.

Prague, you're so cold but oh so beautiful

As promised here is my Prague review. The last blog left off right before I was about to meet Alex at the train station. So her bus was due in (buses come to the train station too) at 4:30. Of course since I am always early for everything I got there around 3:45. Our plan was to meet at 4:30, and if by some chance we don't see each other by 5 then to just meet at the hostel. I wasn't exactly sure where the buses drop off is. I found a sign that said something about buses from Nurenberg stop at a cafe on Wilsonova street. I thought since I had time I would meet her at the bus station (instead of the agreed upon meeting place - in front of the train station's main entrance). So it took me a little while to find it but I eventually found Wilsonova Street and the cafe, well sorta. I was across the street from it and had no idea how to get to the other side. Wilsonova is a pretty big street. So it's about 4:15 now and I'm hoping to see her from across the street. Another problem is I have no idea what the bus looks like. There were a ton of buses driving by, including one Contiki Bus. So at 4:30 a bus stopped across the street and I looked to see if I saw Alex but I didn't recognize anyone coming off the bus (I was probably 200 feet away). So it gets to about 4:45 and still no sign of Alex at the bus station so I decide to go to our meeting place. And sure enough when I got there Alex tracked me down.

We head straight to the hostel to check in. We are staying in an 8 bed room. When we checked in the guy told us that we were the last 2 to arrive, meaning our room was going to be full. Staying in our room were 3 Australians that were traveling together, 1 old creepy dude who apparently was moaning in the shower, and two other guys that we didn't get to talk to. We dropped off our stuff and walked around Prague for a few hours. We started at Old Town Square (which is about a 1 minute walk from our hostel). We saw the Astronomical Clock and the "big" show the clock does at the top of every year. For those of you who have been to Munich, it's sorta like the Glockenspeil. very disappointing. From Old Town we walked towards the river and Charles Bridge. Once we got to the river we were able to see the Prague Castle. It was so nice lit up at night. At this point we were absolutely freezing and wanted to go somewhere to warm up. Surprisingly enough we came across a TGI Fridays. We each got a soup and hot tea. I NEVER drink tea but I needed something to warm me up. After Fridays we walked back to the hostel and we were saying to each other, the cold is ok and we can deal with it just as long as it isn't raining. KISS OF DEATH!!!!!

Monday we woke up, had breakfast and got ready to start our day. We decided to go visit the castle in the morning and do a free walking tour of the city in the afternoon. While getting dressed we looked outside and it wasn't raining so we decided not to bring our umbrellas. As soon as we step outside the rain began. We went back to the hostel to get the umbrellas which might have been the smartest idea ever because the rain didn't stop until Tuesday morning. It wasn't a real heavy rain (although Alex thought it was pouring), but it was a consistent light rain. It was about a 30 minute walk to the castle - uphill in the rain and cold. There were two options for tickets, the long tour or short tour. We decided upon the short tour and we were glad that we did. The short tour just gave you access to less of the buildings. I think Alex and I had very high expectations of the Castle and I think we might have been a bit disappointed in it. Not sure if the weather had to do with it or not. After the castle we were heading back to the hostel to rest up before the 3 hour walking tour. When we got back to the hostel we checked our room to see if any new people were there and at this point it was just Alex and myself.

The tour started at 2 and met in Old Town Square. The tour leader's name was Mark and he is from North Carolina. He has been living in Prague for the past 5 years. (we later found out that we were his 2nd tour ever, we would have never have known because he was awesome). Basically the tour started in Old Town Square, then to Wenchelas Square then to the Jewish Quarters. He would tell us interesting facts about the buildings and tell us a lot about Czech's history. Even though we were in the rain for 3 hours we LOVED this tour. I think it might have been my favorite part of Prague. After the tour we went back to the hostel to rest up before dinner and magnet buying. We checked the room and still no one there.

While walking around in the morning we saw a doner kabob place and decided to go back there for dinner. It took us some time to figure out which street it was on but we eventually found it. After our doner kababs we bought some souvenirs and headed back to the hostel, we were both exhausted. Two girls from France ended up staying in our room last night but we didn't see them until the morning cause they went out last night.

On Tuesday we went back to Old Town Square and went up the Clock Tower. From here we had unbelievable views of Prague. After the Clock Tower we went inside some churches and then went to the market. I bought some chocolate for Gerlinde and Gunter. After that Alex needed to head to the train station to catch her bus back to Germany. My train left a few hours after hers so I just hung out at the hostel until it was my time to leave. My train left exactly on time and got into Freistadt exactly on time.

All in all I had a great time in Prague and so happy I got the opportunity to go. Even with the rain Prague might be the 2nd prettiest city I have been to, after Paris.

Photo 1 - Prague Castle
Photo 2 - Prague view from Clock Tower
Photo 3 - Church in Old Town Square
Photo 4 - Alex rubbing a statue on Charles Bridge, everyone else was doing it. Apparently we learned on our tour the statue she rubbed meant she was going to get pregnant soon.
Photo 5 - Me chillen on Charles Bridge.

Prague Updates

Sike!!!!! Didn't you read my last blog, I said no new updates until Wednesday.

Ok Ok I'll give you a little update. The train left Freistadt exactly on time at 7:05 this morning. Each car of the train had rooms going down the right side of the train. In each room there were 6 chairs (3 facing each other). I was lucky to have the whole room to myself for the whole ride. I was due to get into Prague at 11:40 but didn't arrive until 12:30. We ended up getting lost and ended up in Slovakia. Just kidding, the train broke down about halfway there and we needed to wait until another locomotive came. This is what I gathered from someone who works from the train who doesn't speak any English. I did understand "loco kaput".

The walk from the train station to the hostel is about 15 minutes. Just from the walk from the train station to the hostel I can tell that Prague is such a pretty city. The hostel seems pretty nice although I can't check in until 2. I met a couple of Australians in the computer room. They seem nice.

I'm just going to hang out for a little bit then meet Alex at 4:30 at the train station. Maybe I will give you another update before Wednesday.