First Week Back

After traveling around for 16 days, it was nice to finally relax and have nothing to worry about besides classes. As far as my classes go, I only have them Monday and Thursday so sometimes I feel like I don't even go to school. Haha. But I'm keeping myself busy nonetheless. During the beginning of the week, a couple of us from the program went geocaching. Two of the guys had a geocaching app on their phone so we used the GPS and on we went! After trying to find the first site for a good 30 minutes, the GPS brought us to the middle of a parking lot. FAIL! Haha. But we tried another and after a bit of hiking and searching we found this one! There was a little box connected to the end of a braided piece of long hair hanging outside a window and there was a long stick left there in order for us to retrieve it. The riddle we followed said something about Repunzle and using a weapon so there you go! It was so exciting and we didn't really have anything to leave in the box so we all just signed the date and our names in one of the little notepads.

After we returned the box to the hair and it's natural hanging habitat for the next geocacher to find, we hung around for a bit because the view was perfect...

And then we saw this other bottle with a message inside, not sure what it said but it was pretty cool. 

During the middle of the week I took a trip to Starbucks for their wifi...and the coffee. I was really going for wifi but I caved. However, I now know it is officially Christmas time because of the cups. Thank you for the update Starbucks! 

Thursday, November 7th, was the first day of my Austrian cuisine class! We met in the morning around 8:15am and walked over to one of the markets and bought out supplies we needed to cool out dinner later on. We were done within an hour. I had my photo class during the day and then at 6:45pm it was time for Austrian cuisine class part 2: cooking! We made vegetable soup, fresh potato salad, turkey schnitzel with cranberry sauce on the side and then a linzartarte for dessert! Everything was so delicious, I was surprised at how well we did. 

Just casually beating the meat with one of the host mothers next to me. Haha. She was the teacher of our cooking class, such a sweet lady! I can't wait to see what we make this Thursday. 

And she bought us a bottle of wine! I was  in a serious food coma after that meal. 

Friday, November 8th, the weather was beautiful so I woke up and took a nice run outside. I'm not exactly sure where I went but I found a farm along my travels and the views I had were just amazing...

Later that night, there was a wine tasting going on in town that we were told about. It was only 5 euros to get in so a group of us went at 7pm and I must have tasted a minimum of 30 wines. They hand you a packet of all the wines with a pen when you walk in and I tried to whole packet and gave each wine a star rating from 1-5 stars. That was fun haha. (Mom, dad and grandma this place was right up your alley!) They had little bowls of bread at each table in order to cleanse your pallet. Our group was easily the youngest there...

Oh and I did I mention our new friend we adopted for the weekend! She used to go to Salzburg college 2 semesters ago and was visiting from the good ol USA (Jenna, I miss ya already! Haha). 

After wine tasting was over, everyone partied ways for a bit and then met up again at a pub in town. It turned out to be a good night with lots of new faces. Unfortunately all the wine had me almost falling asleep at the table haha.

Saturday, November 9th, a day filled with laziness. But the night was approaching so we got ready and headed over to one of the host moms house! I tried her home made "

'Kasnocken' which may not look that appetizing in the photo below but it was awesome. I had some salad with dressing on top of it as well. 

And here's a selfie with the one and only Sissi, a great cook, a sweet lady and an awesome host mother to 2 girls in the program. 

One of the girls from the program had a friend she made from Vienna come to visit so he came out with us! (Lukas, if you read this today, happy belated birthday again! And come back to Salzburg to hang with us soon!). We all took the bus into town and headed to a bar that was super crowded but we had fun. 

Sunday, November 10th, another lazy day but today I went to the farm I found on my run! I hung out with all my farm friends that I already love so dearly. And this visit, I got to witness their feeding time.

Yes, there is a whole pond of flamingos (it's kind of hard to see but it's true). 

If you couldn't tell already, the goats are my favorite. They just make me laugh. So cute.

Monday, November 11th, woke up at a decent hour and took another nice stroll to the farm and then around town for about an hour and a half. And as you will see there is snow on the mountains which is pretty beautiful and exciting! 

Spent the rest of my day out in the town then headed back to the dorms. I was going to stream a movie online (The Life of Pi, I've heard great things about it) but within 10 minutes my internet stopped working. Fantastic. This is a daily occurrence at the dorms for me, and the wifi motor is in the guys room next door so I can't even restart it and they are usually out all day until dinner time. Next option....a nap!?! Yup, fell asleep for 3 hours. I guess that's a nap on crack. Haha. 

Tuesday, November 12th, got myself up early again (Mom, aren't you proud I'm not sleeping until 12pm like I normally would haha). I headed to the college a bit because every Tuesday we have general assemblies at 1pm. After that me and another girl from the program headed to the Fotohof (the photo gallery in town) and spent some time in the photo library doing research for one of the photo class assignments. Found some pretty awesome stuff and I found out they have wifi there...(lets be honest, thats another reason to go more often). Unfortunately on the week days they don't open until 3pm. Later that night, back at the dorms, I finally figured out how to fix the stupid treadmill that is in the basement and I finally got a workout in. I also skyped for a while with my friend Charleene who is studying abroad in London at the moment and we planned my trip to go visit her in a couple weeks! I should probably book those flights soon...Then I got to end the day with skyping with my sister! (Michelle, I miss you so much and your skypes always make me feel better! Love you). 

And that brings us to today...

Wednesday, November 13th, exactly one month from today I will be on a plane heading back to New York! Am I excited you ask? Of course! Right now I am sitting in Starbucks finishing up this blog. Unfortunately, I talked to one of the workers here and the wifi isn't working for anyone so they are trying to get someone to fix it. They better step up their game and get it done. I have faith in you Starbucks! This morning I woke up 'early' again (8:15), got ready and went for another adventurous walk. I found some cool paved walkways in the woods and then wound up by a playground and somehow managed to lead myself back into town. It was very relaxing. Who knows what I'll do the rest of the day but I will probably blog about! And hopefully I will find some inspiration to photograph here and for my next project.