April has come and gone in the blink of an eye. Group projects and exams have taken up my time and I can’t hardly believe that I am more than halfway done with my exchange. This time last year Vienna was just a dream and I can’t believe I’ve already lived here for 3 months.
This month I had to buckle down and put work into the real reason why I am in Europe. With so much going on around me and so many places still to be visited it was difficult to get into the mindset of working. The way I scheduled my classes I spent most of the last few weeks in the classroom all day Tuesday-Friday. I will admit, the courses I selected have been much more difficult than I expected. Thankfully, though, after June 3rd I will be done and ready to keep exploring this beautiful city as well as more of Europe!
From the experience of my friends and myself I have learned that here at WU classes range in difficulty from low-intensive to fairly challenging and fast-paced classes. When studying here, it is incredibly important to keep up with your work especially in group project heavy classes. I got the experience of having a project group in my International Business class with all Austrian members and it was really interesting to work with them and get to know them better!
Of course not all of my time has been spent on school, though. I have put in quite a bit of time to learn German this semester. With my Tandem Language Learning partner and through classes I have gone from knowing absolutely nothing to having a very basic understanding of the language. There is nothing more exciting than, after months of having no idea what is ever going around you, being able to pick up a little bit of the conversation the people on the U-Bahn are having or actually knowing what a sign says. It is a very complex and confusing?language with extremely long words but I have learned to appreciate it nonetheless!
After the voyage across Europe that was Easter Break, I decided to take a break from traveling outside of Austria. I love going to different countries but I am?living in Vienna and I feel like I want to explore as much of this city as possible! Picnics at Museumsquartier, runs around Sch?nbrunn Palace, hiking to the top of the Vienna mountains, enjoying some delicious Wiener Schnitzel ?and exploring a few of the museums this city has to offer just name a few of the cool things I’ve gotten to do. I love the beauty and the culture of Vienna, however, one of my new favorite?things about it is the Prater.?Prater is an amusement park located right next to the WU Campus. There is nothing like getting out of a stressful class and being able to walk just a couple hundred feet to a rollercoaster to help let go.
April was jam-packed and exciting and I cannot wait to see what May has in store!