Week 4: Finals, Redecorating and Oktoberfest

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my blog that I am not very good at keeping on time. In my defense, I have not had WiFi or data long enough to actually write anything because of all the exploring I've been doing.


My favorite thing in the beginning of the week was food.  Because I had been so sick last week, my appetite was non existent, so as soon as I started feeling better, food became a priority.



This was dinner on Wednesday! Pasta, vegetables and chicken in a garlic and oil sauce. We did very well for ourselves.

Some more food victories include that, after a few weeks of searching, I've finally found a good sushi place! It's not only a sushi place, but an all you can eat for 8 Euro buffet. I absolutely love it.



I'm probably just biased because I get unlimited dumplings, but that's okay.

It also has what they call running sushi.



No, the sushi did not grow legs! It's just on a conveyor belt and you can pick whatever you want out of the two rows. It goes very very fast.



Also it's starting to get really cold in Graz! The only reason I still have this is because I angrily sent it to my friends. They still get to wear shorts and I wore TWO JACKETS to class the other day!

I comforted myself by decorating my room (or at least finishing my decorations)
Here's the finished product!! That world map will soon be filled with flags noting the places I've traveled.



On this wall, though it looks like nothing, I'm collecting postcards from everywhere I go. So far I only have one from Vienna (not even one from Graz yet... I'm a little behind.)



Friday was the last day of my German intensive course and I had my final that day. It went pretty well!

On Saturday I left for Munich! Which if you don't know, Munich is home to Oktoberfest. I've actually wanted to go to Oktoberfest since I started taking German classes at about 12. I really got to check something off of my bucket list!!

The bus ride there was (too early but also) so beautiful!



I feel like Austria just likes to show off how absolutely beautiful it is.

And we went to Oktoberfest the next day! By the time we got to Munich (at around 5), there wouldn't have been anywhere to sit, so we decided to walk around the center of the city so that I could get myself a Dirndl. If you have no idea what that is, you'll find out in a second!

Here are some pictures I took while we were walking around.











The next day, I put on my Dirndl and headed to Oktoberfest. Here I am at the entrance. (I love my dirndl)



Even at 10 am on a Sunday, we could barely find a place to sit! Even outside the tents were very crowded but I was so excited to be there!




It was a lot more like an amusement park than I thought it would be! I'm not sure if you can see, but there were a lot of horses and also a lot of roller coasters and rides! I didn't go on any Sunday, but I did plenty on Monday.

Here's me with their famous mug of beer, called a Maß (pronounced kind of like mass) and it is one liter of beer. As my friend said, it's Maßive. I also bought bread with bacon and melted cheese. I love my carbs!



I LOVED the tent we were in. The ceiling was decorated so beautifully to make it look like a sky.



Here is something I still can't believe I witnessed. This is a man chugging his liter of beer out of his own shoe.



Everyone cheered for him but I can't help feeling like that was a bad idea. Doesn't that smell and taste really bad? Won't he have a soggy shoe now???? I guess that's Oktoberfest for you.

We went again on Monday. Here is my attempt at showing off my Bratwurst and making it look like I'm good at taking cool pictures. I definitely should have painted my nails before hand.




The tent we went to on Monday was a lot more calm and was decorated in a style that looked a lot like Christmas to me. Unsurprisingly, I loved it.



Speaking of attempts at taking cool pictures, here are the pictures I took on a Ferris wheel and then on a very VERY high swing.





I didn't take any pictures from the swing because I was very sure that I'd drop my phone!

So today, after all that fun, we woke up early to take a bus to Salzburg. More on that in next week's post but here's some of the pictures I took while we were on the way.






I just wanted to point out that there were so many farms with lots of cows on them! A lot of the cows were laying on the ground. I guess because they didn't feel like mooving.

Thanks for reading see you (hopefully on time) next week!

Week 3: Vienna, Aufsteirern and more!

Happy Monday everyone!

I know this is a day late, but I have been sick this week on and off and last night was especially bad. But I am feeling a little better today and got plenty of rest :)

The first few days of the week I spent studying for my German class. There's not much there unfortunately because of how I was feeling I either was in class, studying or asleep.

Wednesday was my second Stammtisch of international students


Unfortunately I did not get to take a picture of them because I was mesmerized, but I discovered some incredibly amazing nachos so I picked this clip art of nachos!

On Thursday I actually couldn't do anything besides study because I had my midterm for my German intensive class. There is definitely a reason they don't call it the German relaxive course. That's for sure. This is my stud y guide. It took me a very very long time to make!!


On Friday we celebrated finishing our midterms at another pub and a jazz bar. I tried Sturm for the first time which is an Austrian kind of wine only available in the fall (unfortunately for me). It's wine that hasn't fully fermented and I'm not sure who was impatient enough to try wine before it fermented but I am so glad they did. It really tastes amazing, like melted popsicles and fruit. If I were to recommend anything here it would probably be Sturm.

Friday was also the first day of Aufsteirern with lots of street performers, but more on that later.



On Saturday I got acquainted with Vienna. The bus ride was about two and a half hours, but also made me realize that it's somehow Fall already?



Vienna was a lot of walking around, just trying to soak it all in.



There were also people in horse and buggy! I believe it was a tour of the city in horse and buggy, but regardless made me feel like I was in the 1800s.




After walking around for about 2 hours, we decided to stop and get lunch!



I got Backhendl with fries. It's pretty much more nicely prepared chicken nuggets. It felt like home!

After lunch, a little more walking, where we discovered that little tents with DJs were popping up all over the place. It was really interesting!

In that same area is the Museum Quartier where, you guessed it, there were museums!



We decided to go to this one, the Kunsthistorisches Museum or the Art History museum. The architecture and interior design are so beautiful I'm not even going to pick out any more adjectives and I'm just gonna let you see for yourself.




There were paintings from all around the world there, and we also saw an exhibit about the types of coins that were used throughout history and one of the Austrian King's gold collection.




Unfortunately I did not get many pictures of the paintings, but they were amazing,

After the museum, we walked around some more and discovered that there was a street performance festival going on. And I'm not even kidding,



That is a real thing that I saw.

Now, because I have so many pictures from Vienna, I will add the rest at the end of this post if you're interested but figured I should put them at the end so that it's not necessary to scroll past if you don't want to see them all!



Sunday was, as I mentioned before, Aufsteirern! It's basically a festival in the entire city to celebrate Austrian (and also Styrian) culture. There's tons of food, drinks and traditional music and clothing.

It made me sad that I don't have a Dirndl yet, but I will get one soon if it's the last thing I do!!



I really loved the traditional music the most. There were also people that knew the dances to the music. I want to learn them so much!!

And of course, this is what I ate.



Above my food is two Austria donuts. They are similar to American donuts but significantly less dense. They are SO GOOD.

Bonus adventure: Monday!

I did not go to class today because I was not feeling well still, but after class I had to go to T Mobile to figure out phone stuff for next week (because I'll be out of the country... no spoilers yet!) and we decided to go to McDonald's!



And wow, they're actually a lot different! There were two floors and ordering kiosks! This is nice for the person who is not feeling 100% and is probably going to struggle with speaking another language (aka me).

I just wanted to say a few interesting things about my Graz McDonald's experience, and most of it is waffle fries.

They sell waffle fries at that McDonald's. This made me feel very excited because waffle fries are pretty much the best way to treat a potato. The place in general was a lot more clean than our McDonald's and it seemed like a sort of hang out spot for younger kids.

Also I got a McChicken and I think my bun was toasted. I was confused by how good it tasted.

That's all for this week guys! Thanks for reading!


A very large hint as to where I'm going next week:
(Note and another hint, since I will be out of the country next weekend, I may not be able to post again until next Wednesday but will hopefully be able to anyway!)



And here are the rest of my Vienna pictures.