My Exchange to Austria!

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

A day trip to Innsbruck and Fasching

Last Thursday, the 28th, a friend of mine's host dad took me and the other exchange students in my town to Innsbruck!!!! Even though this was my second time visiting this beautiful city I still love going and was super excited to see it again. It did not disappoint.

Bad Ischl before we leave

Ahhh

waking up to this makes my day

now actually in Innsbruck

Goldenes Dach- Gold roof

Typical Innsbruck photo

Back at the ski jump place

Cemetery with the best view in the world

looking out at the mountains

loving Innsbruck

The next adventure I have been able to experience here in Austria is this wonderful event called Fasching. Fasching starts either on the 11th of November or the 7th of January. It is "celebrated" right before Lent. So the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. In Austria this is usually parades and "balls" where there is a lot of dancing and drinking. It is a celebration of fun, food and festivity before Lent and fasting time. In the old days it was used to scare away spirits and drive winter away. Now it is more just a time to have fun and dress up!! I can not think of an American tradition that is similar, maybe a bit like Halloween. Here are photos and hopefully that can help explain.

Sunday:

wearing Lederhosen with my host family..we have black/ash smeared on our face.

Ashley, an exchange student from Idaho and I. We are at the Würderer Ball which is on top of the mountain in Bad Ischl

Its only 3pm......Austrians know how to drink

Wow

Top of the mountain

On the Katrin with Austrian friends.

Monday:

On Minday my host family and I drove to Ebensee, a near by town, where we watched the "Umzug". An Umzug is a roughly a parade in English. This was super cool to see.

They are coming

The front part.....I have noticed that in Austrian traditions you end up getting hit a lot. These joker creatures and Krampus....

Lets just appreciate this mans make up and out fit

impressive rag dress

Taking my Barbie horse for a walk

And now we have donkey kong out for a stroll

i need a mask like this for Halloween

It has two faces........ermm

This is beyond impressive and some serious dedication

I was given a new hair style and was sprayed with water by the masked people

To finish an amazing day off...

Tuesday:

On Tuesday, Bad Ischl had its Umzug. (Bad Ischl is the town that I am living in). This was also quite impressive!! For this Umzug (parade) everyone dresses up and has lots of fun. After the parade everyone goes crazy with dancing and in general having lots of fun before Lent starts on Ash Wednesday.

Host parents going as bunnies together!!! so sweet

my class mates costume....what can i say.

a yellow bear

the ski teams trailer..they actually had people ski down it

go fire men.......

with my host bro (the tiger) at the parade!!

Happy Fasching everyone!!!

Saturday, January 30, 2016

The first part of 2016!!!!!!

Hello!!! I hope everyone are having an amazing first month of 2016!! It is unbelievable how fast time is going by, already 2016.........wow!! This first month of 2016 has been an epic adventure!!! One of the first amazing parts was going Nordic skiing, I did about 9km.

Yay!!!

The next great thing was having my first powder day skiing. My host family loves to alpine ski but we didnt have a powder day until January.

This makes me sooo happy

The next amazing part of this month was having two balls and in between them a week with my Austrian class in Vienna!!

We arrived in Vienna on the 17th, and after dinner we went to an all English movie theater. It was astonishing how many people were there, I never would have guessed that there were so many English speakers in Vienna,

Haydn......

On Monday, the 18th, my class and i visited Schön Brunn

On the way there

The castle and I...it was a cold week

A part of the gardens....sadly no photos are allowed to be taken inside. This is a really beautiful place in the fall when all the leaves have turned red.

Looking at the castle from the other side

looking onto the grounds

these birds........

After the castle and lunch we went to Karlskirche (karls church) and had a short tour there and then went to Belvedere..an art museum and a building representing the baroque times of Austria.

Karlskirche from the outside

Its saying running and jumping it putting your life in danger. And yelling is not cool. It has this sign because they are repainting the church and have a platform set up so you can go all the way up to the top....only the platform sways and there can only be up to 10 people on it.

photo from the top

part of the way

the photo above this one was taken on the platform you can see

the alter

the paintings

after a crash course on the Karlskirche we went to Belvedere.

the sphinx guarding the entrance

Steaphans dome

Stating austrian rights...

Inside of belvedere

an Austrian snowman......

On Tuesday ( i will try and keep this short but no promises)

Went to Albertina, an art museum.

In the afternoon we had a parliament tour

old parliament room

After that we had free time and I spent the time running around with my Austrian class

Wednesday

Another art museum, this one was more focused on modern art.

Afterwards we went through the center, in the near from Stephans Platz, and had an architecture tour.

Busy Vienna streets

Thursday ( personally my favorite day)

first on the list is a Stephans platz tour

proof i was there

looking out across Vienna from Stephans Dome

The photo above was taken from the top of the tower on the right.....yes i climbed all 334 stairs

The next stop and easily my favorite....

yup, Spanish riding school

beautiful

Training is over

After Lunch we headed to the Vienna Zoo!!!

I was surprised that there were other animals out other than the penguins and polar bears.
It was a cold week