sunday

I only got about half of my errands done yesterday because most of vienna shuts down around 1 on saturday....and stays closed until monday morning.  I went out for my big walk around 6 and didn't come back until around 10:45.  I explored more of the museum district and found a whole section of really beautiful/huge imperial palaces--or else buildings that look like palaces.  I uploaded a few of the better shots on here but will post more a bit later.  It was really cold but really exciting and I really loved just like wandering around with no direction.  

When I got back to the building Pierre told me that we had been invited by his friend Anna (she came to my birthday @ the student bar) to go to a birthday party in the 7th district near GP.  Again, In america I would probably not have gone but before I had time to think I said "lets go".  The party was in a really cool student apartment with atleast 15 foot ceilings.  There were two other Americans there and it was nice to be able to have a conversation where you could use the subtleties of english and not just flat communication.  They were both from california and were studying urban planning and they were both new to Vienna as well.  I talked to an austrian guy who spoke fairly good english for a long time and ended up having a much more fulfilling conversation with him than the americans.  Almost everyone I talked to asked me about Obama and what I thought about everything.  All the austrians/germans were just as thrilled about him as I was and thought that it was a big step for america.  

It's funny...when walking around here it feels really different than the US, but when you are with the people you realize how amazingly similar everything is.