Fun Stories of My Life

I realize that its been a while that Ive sent a fun story or two from Austria, but now I think that I've had sufficient time to build up some good material for my loyal (maybe even anxious? readers back home... right.

Seeing as how I'm coming home in only a mere 3 weeks, you can imagine how excited I am. Of course, that also means that I've had to pack in some last-minute Euro-traveling before hopping the planes back to the States, at which point it will be a bit late to regret never having not going to places like Prague, which are only so far away as the equivalent of driving across WA state (5 hours away by bus). And, of course, I would so dreadfully regret not going back to Zurich and seeing friends from age 5 before leaving here (one of the main purposes of coming to Europe in the first place). So I'm leaving for Zurich tomorrow morning for a 5-day weekend. Not bad, eh? I have a feeling that will turn out similar to how it did last time.. if not worse ( i.e. watching the beautiful Swiss sun rise over the Zurisee (lake Zurich) from my bar stool).

As you may have seen (if you have taken a look at my recent pictures), I did make it to Prague 2 weekends ago, and to our satisfaction, it was just as beautiful as everyone ranted ("Prague is sooo beautiful!") I had never experienced so many gorgeous castles clustered in one 'down town' area, as if they just popped up behind you to taunt you. I'm pretty sure at least one of them whispered behind me, "sucks that you don't get to live here, doesn't it?" Very beautiful it was, indeed, but at this point in my excursion abroad, I'm ready to see the Cascades and Olympics in the distance saying "welcome home". After all, I can give you an exact account of what we had to eat while staying there:

(Arrival) Night 1: Buffalo Bills Tex Mex (Burrito)
Day 2, Lunch: KFC
Dinner: Buffalo Bills Tex Mex (Spicy Stir Fry)
Day 3, Lunch: KFC
(Departure) Dinner: Subway (Turkey club)

Very cultural, eh? Yeah, whateve. We were craving burritos, and KFC was cheap and everywhere in sight... oh, and subway was convenient for the bus ride home.

OK, so I have to tell you about a few of my most memorable/funny/annoying things about Vienna:

#1. Have you ever heard a group of German speakers sing happy birthday? I think this one falls into all 3 of the for-mentioned categories. It a goes a little something like this: "Happy Buersday du you, Happy Buersday du you. Happy Buerday lieber Hans. Happy Buersday du you". Now sing that with 50 other people in your best Arnold accents, and maybe you can see why you want to scream, "BirTHHHHday!!!! Its BirTHHHHday!". I asked why they do this, and apparently, while almost all of these 50 can say "BirTHday" in regular speech, it is considered frowned upon to sing it the correct way, as your thought to think yourself better than others if you do so. So that's a fun Austrian fact for you.

#2. This one's just annoying: Due to the lack of grass in the city, many people find it unnecessary to purposefully go in search of it while taking their dogs out for a walk. As a result, you may just find a fun surprise on the bottom of your shoe if your not staring at the sidewalk all the time... last night I got 2 fun surprises!!

#3. And to even the bad out with the good, I have to give 'major props' to the Viennese public transportation system. You can get anywhere in the city without a car in a matter of 20 minutes max, using the U-Bahns (underground trains), S-Bahns (trams), Buses, or Night buses. And all of that only costs €45 per month! What a deal, eh? I think I will probably miss that most out anything here. I am certainly not looking forward to metro when I get back.

In other exciting news, that package that has been traveling across the world for 2 months finally made it safe and sound back to my dads house in Bellevue!! So while I didn't get the pleasure of wearing those clothes here, at least they're not gone forever! YAY! And my mommy comes to visit me in 2 weeks! Double YAY! Man this is exciting.

Well, I will leave you with all of my life updates, with hopes of hearing some of your own. Only 3 weeks to go! Tripple YAY!