American Schnitzel

Dear reader you know how everyone has that story or stories that will make everyone burst out laughing? Well here is mine! I had just gotten home from meeting up with one of my friends and had a few groceries to put away. I do not know about you but, when you know you are not going to leave home again for the day one of the first things you do is kick off your clothes and shoes and get comfy in those P.Js that welcome you home. Well after getting comfy I figured time to put away my groceries. I had not been home for a few days and well some stuff started to go bad. After cleaning out my fridge, what ever stunk up my extremely tiny fridge started stinking even worse in the garbage. And who really wants to have the kitchen also starting to smell? So I did the next logical step that any person would do, take the trash outside. But I figured I don't want to get dressed right now so I had planned on placeing it outside my apartment door for me to take down later. ANYBODY who is j...

So for the past month this is how I have been feeling since the beginning of this month was my BIG German exam. If you know me you would know how I am not the best test taking person and considering that this was the last German test I had to take which would give me the green light for being able to finish my pre-studies and the proficency the Universtiy is wanting to see that I have. So I was more than stressed out and for about a good month of non-stop studying for the test and practising my writing in German. I was more than happy when the test had ended and took a break from German and just enjoying not having to study for the test. Well two weeks after the test would I and my other peers be able to see our results, the night after my test I had nightmares and dreams about the test. Dreaming about what I had written and that it was utterly false and then dreaming up of a better paper. So I was just counting the days down for the results since half of the test I found to be a bit...

Like most everyone else in the blogger world, I am going to write a post about my New Years and all of that good stuff! I will just say it now, New Years in Vienna is something everyone should have on their bucket lists. New Years in Times Square seems to be the place to be for New Years for any American but the idea of having to stand for 6 hours to watch a ball drop seems to extreme for me. Even though Florida is a great place to live New Years is not a big hoopla like it is here. My family has no real New Years traditions other than sitting in front of the T.V. and watching the ball drop and afterwards going to bed. Exciting I know. There is quite a build-up to New Years in Vienna, buying fireworks, stands all over the city selling luck charms which can be strange to any onlooker. Stands that look similar to Christmas markets sell Pig charms to big stuffed pig toys, mushroom, four leafed clovers and chimney sweeper figures in all different sizes. Having any one of the named item...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas this year!  This year Christmas was a rollercoaster for me since I was not able to be back home and nor was my family with me. I spent this Christmas with my lovely boyfriend and his parents. For me an average Christmas entails baking some cookies with maybe a pie. Other than that I spend maybe a day shopping and I am ready for the holidays. This year was certainly different.   I always plan to bake like there is no tomorrow and have different sortiments of all kinds of sweets and lots of them, but then when time rolls by reality sinks in and I never bake as much as I plan. Well this year was a tad bit different. Since for my birthday I was given a mixer I wanted to bake something that would require me to use it, and also find a recipes that my European boyfriend wouldn't find too sweet. Since most Europeans will say American baked goods are too sweet for their taste. So I found a really yummy Cinnamon Swirl Bread recipie that ...

Last week here in Austria was another Holiday, which meant pretty much everything would be closed even school! Two weeks before I had gone in to the OEBB office and was checking out some train ticket prices when I saw that no matter when you buy your ticket a two way ticket to Bratislava was only 14 euros. I figured, I can afford that and asked a freind the day before if she was wanting to come with me. So the next day we woke up and got ourselves ready for an excursion to Bratislava, Slovakia. The morning was starting off good until when we were buying our train tickets the woman in the office told us that we have about 20 minutes to make the train at another train station and not where we were. In Vienna there are more than one major train station and I got mine mixed up. I think if you would ask anybody that has traveled with me they would tell you there is never a dull moment! Between the running to get to the train's platform in time or just simply touring a new city. When...

Tipping in Austria is unlike in the States. Tipping in Florida is 10% of your total at a resturant and at a coffee shop the change given back goes into the tip jar. Waiters and Waitresses normally are paid lower than minimum wage and live off their tips. When I was living in the States I worked at a local smoothie bar and I know tips were what really made working with all the rude people easier and helped with the wages I was paid. I could right a whole post on how you are supposed to act around a tipping jar because after working at the smoothie bar for a year I saw some people that did not know what was proper. For example we had a few people steal our tips, we even had people search in the tip jar for the change when a order was 3.25 they would thumb around looking for the 25 cents. I believe Tips should not suppliment a low wage but rather reflect on the service itself. If that person went out of their way for you and was not rude then tipping is easy. When I was in France ...

Moving abroad can be a big decision for anybody, but what happens when you don't know where to go? If you are not moving for work reasons, it makes the deciding of where in the world to go a bit difficult.  Most common is to move to a country where the language is same as your own, or a large popular city. London, Paris, Rome, Barcelona are the top names I have heard when people are talking about Europe. It was also the cities people would have expected me to move to. But in fact not only is Vienna a big metropolitain city but it is cheaper than the cities talked about above. Paris can just burn a whole through your wallet by finding the tiniest closest to call home, I would say it is comparable to trying to live in an apartment in Manhatten close to Times Square. Also another thing to think about is you don't want to move abroad with out knowing the quality of life. So not only for me personally was Vienna the perfect choice but now according to Mercer's 2011 Quality ...

That is RIGHT I offically turned TWENTY last Sunday! I must say that I had a really good birthday and due to my good friends here it was a great weekend. It began with a Surpise birthday party for me on Friday. That I actually came late to! What I thought was going to be coming over to one of my friends apartment for coffee ended up being a schock. My friends not only went to the lengths of making me Empanadas, a banana and guava cake, with decor, but they even went to lengths to get their hands on my cell phone for my boyfriends phone number. K had a birthday a week prior to mine and when I was not looking she was feeling my purse to see if I had left my phone in.  O asked me if she could send a quick text to her boyfriend on my phone since she was out of minutes and she and her boyfriend were having a quarll. SNEAKY!!! It was a really good suprise and made me very happy to have friends that would do so much for my birthday. As funny as life can be my close friends are not ba...

Thanksgiving is pretty much my one favorite holiday out of the year and sadly for me not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving. Living in Vienna has pros and cons when it comes to Thanksgiving. When living abroad Thanksgiving is not anything to shake a stick at and days off or big feasts with family are just non-existant. If you have your family living with you than is this not so much a big deal since you are togther unlike when living alone. The benefits of not living in the States during Thanksgiving is you will always find a Turkey, Markets are never jammed pack with last minute shoppers, it is just much more laid back. This year I decided when I woke up in the morning that I myself would not let my favorite holiday just slip by but rather I was going to cook for my boyfriend and myself our very own Thanksgiving feast. As we were only 2 people and knowing that there would be side dishes I was not wanting to spend a lot of money on a bird and then in the end have to throw it o...

Learning a new language can be as difficult or as simple as you make it. When moving abroad and not knowing a single word can make your life more than complicated. I have been asked my opinion more than once on what program I would reccomend for learning a new language, and my personal expierence is if you are trying to learn a new language you will never go far by learning it on your own and living in your home country. I know people can learn a new language and not have to live in a region where the language is being spoken but you have to have so much contact with a certain language before you can really get the flow of it. In America we are surrounded my English, you can't drive 6 hours in one direction and find a different language being spoken. We have Spanish and as a South Florida girl for my whole life I was surrounded by Spanish and had contact with it everyday but I had no drive to learn it. So my spanish is so small you could say it is nonexistant. Keys to REALLY le...

Some basic knowledge about Student Visas: All Students residing in any country that does not hold a passport from that country WILL need a visa! American's do not need to request for a visa prior to departure. American's have the privilege to stay in a foriegn country for 3 months without the need for a visa.  People from other countries might need to apply for a visa before entering foriegn territory. (check with your embassy for more information)  Onto about renewing your Student Visa in Vienna.  When renewing your visa you normally try to have all your ducks in a row so you don't need to be running around getting this paper and that paper. Any thinking person would think the most logical thing would be to take all the papers I had to hand in last time. So you go to your university re-enroll yourself for the next semester, keep the paper showing you have paid. You might even go to the extent of making sure you can prove your grades from the exams from the pa...