Mariahilf

Apparently I will be living in a district called Mariahilf. I am pretty excited about it. It appears to be where the Esterhazy palace is located and a number of other things. For those of you who don't know, Vienna is broken into districts surrounding the original walled city. I will be in the first set of districts surrounding the city to the southwest. Map here:
View Mariahilfer in a larger map

More information will come as I have time to read up on the area.

In other news I discovered an Alpine club aimed towards English speakers. They are a group that does climbing and hiking as well as social events. Perfect for me? I think so. I have tried to contact them but it being the holidays I have yet to hear back. Hopefully, things will work out. I also found out that there are quite a few climbing walls in the city including this one which is simply too cool for words. Now I just have to learn all the safety checks in German. :D

Fun Fact: The sport of rock climbing is das Klettern. The verb is klettern. (Thank you Chloe!)

Happy buildering!

I like letters. Actually, I love letters more than anything in whole wide world. However, I am horrible, and I do mean horrible about replying to them. My New Year's resolution is to be better about a) writing letters/emails and b) replying to received letters/emails. In the spirit of such correspondence, please address any mail to me here:

Rebecca Wallig
IES Abroad Vienna
Palais Corbeilli
Johannesgasse 7
A – 1010 Vienna
Austria

Happy writing!

Itinerary

I leave in 13 days. To say I am terrified would be an understatement. To say I am bouncing-off the-walls excited would be an understatement.

Current Itinerary:

January 12: Leave from O'Hare (let's not get started on potential problems here)
January 13: Arrive at Heathrow International and meet up with Noelle
January 13: Fly to Vienna and get lost in the city while we try to find our Hostel
January 14: Meet fellow IES Students at train station and head off to orientation (Fake magic fingers here)

February 6-14: Post-Intensive German Break
March 27-April 5: Easter Break
May 23: Last Day of Exams (and housing >.< )

June 8, 2010: Leave from Vienna back through Heathrow to O'Hare

Indeed. I leave in thirteen days and that is the extent of my personal itinerary. I should probably get on that.

I crossed off a few things on my list of things to do today:
1. Create Blog
2. Load Christmas pictures for Mom
3. Do Yoga

Okay, so I am cheating on the last thing but I hate lists that are only two lines long--they make me feel unaccomplished. I also managed to start taking care quite a few other things on my list but then I got distracted by computer related things--like trying to find a good map image of where I will be living in Vienna. Google Earth failed me on this. I am very disappointed in it. Oh well. When I have had a chance to talk to my sister about how the heck these addresses are listed (let's not talk about how confusing the IES email was) then I will list a photo of my housing destination.

Happy trails!