I have officially been in Vienna for one week! It feels like it has flown by while also feeling like I have been here for a lot longer. Just in the last 7 days I have:

• visited Johann Strauss’ old apartment
• gone to the Vienna Criminal Museum (the first Sunday of each month most museums in Vienna are free of charge!!)
• had 5 days of intensive German language class
• gone to an event where Ben & Jerry’s employees tossed free ice cream at us from the top of their truck
• been to multiple cafes and beer gardens
• climbed 184 steps to see a bird’s eye view of Vienna

and have nearly mastered the various types of public transportation around the city! On the first day after showing us around a bit and helping us drop off our luggage, our resident director left us to take the S-Bahn ourselves so we had to figure things out pretty quickly! (The app qando Wien is a LIFESAVER)

I have class from 9am-12pm on the weekdays and have the weekends off. The institution where I am studying (Internationales Kulturinstitut, aka IKI) has small trips throughout the week that the students can attend, which is how I saw a bird’s eye view of Vienna. Other than that, it is pretty much up to us how we want to spend our afternoons and evenings. There are only three other students on my program from America, so we have been doing most things together.

It is really interesting how international Vienna is. In my class alone I have people from Italy, Taiwan, China, the Philippines, Serbia, Ukraine, Siberia, Poland and Thailand. I also know of some people at IKI from the Czech Republic and Canada. Most of them also speak a fair amount of English, but it blows my mind that we can communicate in German even though our native languages are so different. I have heard so many languages on public transportation. It definitely helps to speak some level of German before you come to Vienna, but you can still live here without it.

I will dedicate a post to vegan food later on but just as an update: it’s easy to be vegan in Vienna! There are tons of options at local grocery stores and most restaurants have options that are clearly labeled. I have had little to no problems finding good food to buy and cook.

I have always liked learning German and I am glad to have this opportunity to use it everyday! That being said, language fatigue is definitely REAL. Thinking and speaking in a foreign language is exciting but quickly drains my brainpower. It has taken almost this entire week to not want to crash directly after class (although that is probably also in part because of the time zone change). The first night I was extremely homesick and did not know how I could do this for almost 5 months. Now, I know that my family is coming to visit in a mere 5 weeks and I have already survived 1!!

This next week, my goal is to remember self care. While I want to push myself to go out and explore more than I would at home, I cannot take sleep and alone-time for granted. We all need different things to function effectively and I need to be okay with saying no. Hopefully I listen to my own advice!!

I’ll check in again next week. Bis spaeter 🙂