Linz, Austria

Jim and I visited Linz, and although at night the Danube is flanked by the gorgeously illuminated Lentos Art Hall and the Ars Electronica center, Jim didn't bother to take any pictures.
We took advantage of the Linz weekend package offered by the Linz tourism board, and so we were able to nab the neat Hotel Landgraf, with a convenient tram stop right out front. The first night, we were hungry, and low on cash, so we headed down to the river and strolled along until we came upon a boat serving up Italian food. Sadly, they didn't take credit cards, and there was only 20 EUR cash between us, so we each got a burger and drank tap water. We had enough left over to split some excellent Tiramisu. Jim had been craving Tiramisu ever since the last time he had it at Carraba's.
The next day, we had a full plate. We started off with a trip to the Ars Electronica center, which is basically the Linz COSI.
I really enjoyed the eye tracking demonstration, I was controlling a computer just by looking at what I want to. We also got to have pictures of our retinas taken. Jim's is below because I can't seem to locate mine.




Then we went to the Lentos Art museum, which had a creepy installation, Desire of Codes, by a Japanese artist consisting of night vision cameras that would follow you, and project the image onto the floor below it. There was also a wall of led's mounted on the ends of pointers, and they would all move to point at you like sunflowers to the sun. It would also take some of the images it had recorded throughout the day and project them onto wall behind you in a weird housefly's-eye looking pattern.
The other installation was a retrospective of the Irish artist Sean Scully. Perhaps I didn't spend enough time to appreciate the nuances of each piece, but I got the impression that this guy really knows how to do variations on a theme. They were all rectangular patterns, and really only the colors differed between each one.
Something that was pretty neat, however, was the gallery on the top floor housing the Sean Scully installation. The roof was translucent, so all the pieces were being lit with natural sunlight. It was pretty sunny when we were there, and at 1:30 the sun was almost directly above, so there was excellent lighting on everything.
Then we took the Poestlingberg Tram up to the mountain above the city. We stopped up at the Grottenbahn: a miniature railway flanked by gnomes. Beneath the circular railway, there were several depictions of fairytales by the brothers Grimm. And on the way out, we got to see some spotted fawns. Until a snotty little brat scared them off, of course.
Once we took the tram back down the mountain, we took the Linz City express around town. It was a car, mocked up like a train engine and pulling three wagons, that gave us a tour of the city.
Afterwards, we consulted the the TI regarding a place to dine. They recommended the Josef. We went there, and I found out that Wiener schnitzel is indeed not a wurst. I ended up trading Jim for his schweinsmedallions (Pork medallions) and ravioli.For the price, I don't think that we would eat there again. Fortunately, our Linz card came with a 10 EUR "gastronomy voucher"
Embarrassingly, Jim tried to leave a tip on my credit card when the bill came. Turns out, they don't "do" tips here. So Jim had 3.50 written on a random line in the middle of the receipt, thoroughly confusing our German speaking hostess.
Our less than stellar experience with the Josef was rectified by a trip to a cafe at the Hauptplatz (main square), where we ducked inside a small cafe. JIm had a cappuccino and I had a hot chocolate, and we each got a slice of Linzer Torte, the cake with the oldest recipe in the world (ca 1653).
Sunday, we tried to go out to the steel working museum, only to end up in the industrial section of town, and about a mile and a half from where we wanted to be. We decided we had chosen the wrong tram stop, and turned tail and headed back to the main square. Turned out to be a good idea; the voestAlpine Stahlwelt (steelworld) was closed on Sunday. Instead, we changed our plans and headed up to the Linz Castle and the Schlossmuseum. All kinds of different exhibits, ranging from Musical instruments to traditional clothing to the wildlife of the Danube. The place was massive. On one occasion, we even had to ask for help to get from one exhibit to the next.
After descending down from the castle, we grabbed some delicious pizza (Jim's a sucker for garlic on anything - Langos, Pizza, Soup), and afterwards, ice cream.
After coming up fruitless at the bookstore in the train station (all but one of the photography magazines were in German), Jim and I parted ways.

Budapest

Had a fun weekend visiting my boyfriend in Buda pest. He showed me some of the highlights of Budapest, but I really missed quite a bit considering we only had about 20 hrs.
Had a nice dinner on outdoor patio at Liszt Ferec Ter, where I got to try some Paprikash. It was a bit chilly that night, so the place was handing out wool blankets, which we quickly availed ourselves of. Our seats were directly in front of the guitar player, and the candles and orange party lights (not as tacky as it sounds) were just right.
Afterwards, we made our way to Heroe's Square, which is just down Andrassy Ut. Sadly, I didn't want Jim (my BF) to be the goofy tourist, so I convinced him to leave his new Nikon at the apartment. Otherwise, we would have had better pictures but we didn't look like we stuck out too much so it was ok.

Me at Heroes Square! You can see Vajdahunyad Castle in the background. 

Then we went and saw the riverfront all lit up at night, and i got to see Matthias Church, Fisherman's Bastion, Buda Castle, the Chain Bridge, the Statue of Liberty atop Gellert Hill and Parliament.

I was very concentrated on shaking this gentleman's hand.
This is down on the Metro Platform.

Me in front of Parliament.

In the morning,we got up and found our way to the Great Synagogue where we saw the Tree of Life Scuplture by Imre Varga. Sadly, we didn't have enough time to tour the building, but we could at least see the courtyard from the street.
















The Great Synagogue is the second largest in the world, behind only one in NYC.


As time dwindled away, we nabbed some lunch at the first McDonald's behind the Iron Curtain. On the way back to Ferenciek Tere, we stopped into Pariszi Udvar (Paris Courtyard) to admire the wood work.



















In this picture, you can see my Tom's on the left as prof that I was there.





I grabbed (rather, stole) his last two nectarines, collected my bags, and we took to the subway to make our way to Keleti.







On Saturday morning before I got here, Jim went out and wandered about for a bit.

Here are some pictures from his adventures.
























Liberty Square. Hammer and Sickle wasn't too popular with the locals, hence the fence around the monument.













The Opera House.


Overall Budapest is a beautiful city and hopefully I will go back during the semester.

Getting settled in

So it's been an eventful last few days.....

We'll start off with me leaving to go to Germany. Well I was flying out of Columbus Airport to go to JFK and then Frankfurt... (if only it was that easy.) It turned out that my flight in to JFK would be delayed and that I wouldn't be able to make my flight from JFK to Frankfurt. So instead of waiting and then missing my flight I decided to be proactive and change my flight to fly from Cbus to Detroit, then Detroit to Amsterdam and then Amsterdam to Frankfurt. After that getting to Amsterdam wasn't so hard but in the process I missed my flight to Frankfurt... so eventually I got to Frankfurt on a later plane and took the train to Mannheim. All in all it was an interesting adventure.

The Next day my buddy Mamy met me at my apartment and we went out to make sure I was registered and all that fun stuff. I believe I owe Mamy a giant debt of gratitude because I found out quickly I know little to no German that would help me get around as well as people would be confused if I tried to talk German to them. I don't know if this is due to me butchering German so bad or my accent but it was funny the looks on their faces when I would try to talk to them.

Later that night all the people in the summer academe went on a pub crawl in the city. I met a few people that you would never met any where else. The first person I met was Rhett who I was supposed to meet at the airport but wasn't able to due to flight problems. There were a few people that I met throughout the night that really stuck out to me. The first was Luke who is from Poland.  He stands out so much to me because he sound exactly like a British guy and even looked like it too. Later we met an actual British guy from London and the sad thing was that Luke sounded more British than him. All in all it was a very fun night and it should be interesting getting more aquatinted with the city.

The one thing I forgot was the cable cord to downlode pictures to my computer from my camera so it might be a while until there are pictures but I can see what all I can do.

Until then Auf Wiedersehen

Introduction

Let me start off by introducing myself and what this blog is all about....

A lovely Bavarian Micky Hat

My name is Katie and on July 31 I'll be leaving for Germany to study abroad for a semester. I'll be going to Mannheim, which is in the Baden Wurtemburg State and studying at Mannheim University.
This blog will help me document my adventures, problems, and everyday life. If you have any questions or any suggestions on where I should go, see, or do while I'm over there, feel free to comment.☺
Thanks and I hope you enjoy


Mannheim University