This is the life
I know it must seem like I go to a lot of parties...when I read back through this semester, I will probably think the same thing but it is the only way to really see people during exchange. We don’t have a lot of classes together, and during the day it is hard to meet up so a lot of people are “nighttime” friends. Honestly, it is a great way to meet so many people and it isn’t just party boozehounds that are at these parties, we have had some great discussions about different cultures, our countries and of course favorite travels to date. The Erasmus Student Network (ESN) had an anniversary party on the Friday night after my first final, it was a casual formal party and I thought it would be a huge turn out because the network is massive and they throw a lot of the events that we all go to. But we were wrong...there were hardly any people there and on our way in, a group of American guys convinced us to join them in a park instead until it picked up. Best decision. We ended up have a Canada(Taryn & Walker) vs Canada (Me & Nick) vs Netherlands(Lisa & French guy?) piggy back race in formal wear by the Hofburg Palace. How many people can say they have done that? EPIC and incredibly random. I got second place and Taryn got 3rd, apparently North Americans are not the best in a piggy back race. Overall fantastic night, the shenanigans at the start set the mood for the whole night. We have decided that our next meeting will be the obscure sports olympics with wheelbarrow races, three legged races, sack races...anything from when we were in elementary school? Also, this was the second night in a row where I saw this Croatian guy. He is 6’8” (unmanageably tall) and from Dubrovnik (prettiest place, OMG), and my greeting for him is always “Croatia!”, which he hates.
The next morning, Taryn and I met up for “studying”...which didn’t even last an hour for me before I digressed into hostel and flight booking, Taryn followed suit pretty quickly. Haha we were comparing the prices for the different trips we were doing and hers were significantly cheaper, but also in Eastern Europe/ Middle East area. The evening was a “party for the friendly friends of Max”, and luckily for me there were no crazy Russian drinking games. :) We ended up with a huge flip cup game, my first game ever...it spanned the entire room. It was really fun and Croatia showed up again too. This is a pattern I was a fan of, he’s really fun to talk to and seems to be a decent guy, he tries to teach me German which doesn’t work...
Finally I decided to bite the bullet and actually reconcile my budget with my spending...it was a painful process but I wasn’t too far off. Recommendation: do this as you go instead of waiting 4 months. I’ve managed to do a lot with the money I have spent and I calculated money spent on photography...153 euros. That is film, film development and Lomo Fisheye camera. Not bad, but still a lot. I am known to some people as the girl with 4 cameras, one day I didn’t have any camera and an Icelandic guy told me that he didn’t recognize me. I need a camera for positive identification apparently.
After another final, I competed in an official beer pong tournament organized by the Vienna beer pong league! It was really fun and only my second time playing, it was Javier’s third time so we were hoping for beginners luck. We won a game and lost two but still had a great time.
I really wanted to do this bike tour through Wachau valley in the Melk region of Austria, it is a wine valley and tours are offered through a Viennese company to bike for a full day, have wine tastings, chocolate tasting, schnapps tasting and swim in the Donau. I invited close to 40 people and ended up with a random mix of a group of 9 but it was so great, I figured that the people that signed up for it were the ones who were really interested in it so it was guaranteed to be a good day. We had 4 canadians (Hanif, Nicole, Tina and Me), 4 Americans (Natasha, Kathryn, Chris and Huan) and a Norwegian (Kasandra). We hit up 2 wineries, a heurigen for lunch and biked a solid 26 kilometres. We all started the day with helmets and slowly all took them off because it felt more freeing to have a breeze through our hair, gay I know. As the only students on this trip with middle aged people, we were immediately flagged as loud and obnoxious. We learned the 5 S’s of wine tasting: Swirl, Smell, Sip, Savor, Swallow. We got to experience a ferry that wasn’t powered...it was pulled across the river using a cable and the current. Some of my favorite moments of the day:
-Chris riding in front of me and me talking at him nonstop when we started the trip, I was really excited
-Taking a selfy when the whole group was right there and able to take a picture of me
-All of us answering prost in unison when our guide asked how we say cheers in Austria
-Learning how to swirl properly, and all of us admiring others swirling skills...AKA the adult in the room
-Being warned down the line of bikers that there is a bump at the bottom of the hill...never experienced the bump
-Looking at Natasha and saying “I want to go faster”, we both geared up and giggled like children as we passed everyone else, then we got tired and lazy again
-Playing on the swing set and teeter totter with Chris and Natasha, to have an old man comment on our level of education
-Swimming AKA Slowly submerging my body into the Donau river, which felt Baltic still. Our lovely group of 9 were the first ones to go in deeper than our ankles this year
-Nearly falling off my bike because I was too busy trying to get good biking pictures of other people, most of my attempts to capture Nicole were of the ground as I had to grab the handle bar and steer
-Kathryn saying “I wish I had my bike still, I am going so SLOOOOW now” after we returned the bikes and walked to the train station
-Hanif using Ceaser Milan techniques on me when I was trying to ask him a question repeatedly