German class, tours, and some basketball

This past Monday we started German class here in Vienna. Let me tell you, it is very difficult to go 5 days of the week for 3 hours of intensive language learning! Our first week we mainly worked on simple vocabulary and phrases. For example, we learned how to have a short conversation and answer a variety of questions. A few examples are saying how are you, where do you live, where do you come from, what is your name, do you have kids, are you married/in relationship etc.

Here is a little German:

Und wer sind Sie?- What is your name (formal)

Ich HeiBe Matt- I am called Matt

Woher kommst Sie?- Where are you from?

Ich komme aus den USA- I am from the USA.

I can go on and on. There are around 20 to 30 phrases we learned so far and about 150 vocab words. Also, we learned the alphabet as well as counting 1-20. I think by the time the 8 weeks are over I will have learned enough German to hopefully understand 50% of the German I hear on the streets. 

Along with the German I had my other classes which were fun as well. I won't bore you talking about those. 

This past Friday we went to Dickmacs bar in the Schwedenplatz district of the city. It is an American/Irish themed bar with cheap drinks! Mixed drinks were 2.80 euro so we were able to enjoy the night without a large bar tab. Overall, it was a great night with great laughs. We all enjoyed our night out for the week.

Following up Friday night our entire IGE group went on two tours on Saturday. Our first tour was to Klosterneuburg Monastery right outside of Vienna. It is considered one of the oldest monasteries in all of Austria. Although, over the ages different Emperors have added more and more art from a variety of different artistic styles ranging from Gothic to Baroque art. One of the pieces I was most intrigued by was an alter piece from the Middle Ages that dated back to around 1134 AD. It was a gold plated altar that had three main sections each having 20 or so scenes from the Old Testament (before Moses received the commandments), Old Testament once again (from the commandments on), and the center piece of the altar were scenes from the New Testament. 

Along with seeing the church we also went through a museum and the residence of the monastery. The residence was built for the Emperors 3 day stay each year celebrating the feast of a Saint who found the monastery. It was all in baroque style art which is super extravagant and colorful. 

After the monastery we got some lunch and then went the Essel Museum for contemporary art right down the street. It was filled with abstract, realist, and socialist realism  paintings. It was cool having our professors discuss the various pieces of art and their meanings. It was a fun experience but by the time we made it to that museum we were all super exhausted!

Today I went and played basketball at Sports and Fun which is about 35 or so minutes away from my dorm on strassenbahn. I went and did drills for a few hours since no one was there playing. :( This has happened at least 2 times since I've to this place. Even though no one else is playing people tend to watch me do various ball handling drills and are impressed by them. Younger kids who are playing soccer have come over and wanted to play with me. One time I managed to teach them the game of "horse" in broken pieces of German and English. I think they liked the game, although, they lost interest after 10 minutes or so and went back to soccer. I am going to check out a few other places to see if I have better luck in finding other people to play with! Although, it has been fun over the past 2 and a half weeks to be playing basketball 3 times a week. 

This upcoming week my Mom is getting into Vienna on Wednesday! I am super excited to see her. We are planning to go to Budapest, Hungary for the weekend. It should be a fun trip! Until next time, I will hopefully have learned some more German and I will have had a great time in Budapest.