Wien: Week 17

This marked the final week of my exchange semester in Vienna. I can’t believe how fast it’s gone by! This week, I wrapped up the administrative duties associated with moving out of a dorm and away from a country. It passed by in a blur, but I still wanted to make sure I got some bucket list things done before leaving the city.

Rathaus looked stunning that day

Cafe Landtmann, a classic Viennese cafe. It was delicious!

One night, we went to Ribs of Vienna for a friend’s birthday. It. Was. Delicious. It was classic “American” ribs with a variety of marinades and sauces to choose from. The décor was cool too, the restaurant was inside an old tavern. Jason and I shared 5 half-racks with some side dishes, and we were still super full by the end. Would definitely recommend this place!

Ribs of Vienna… soooo good.

Angel, Jocelyn, Florence and I went to this cool exhibition called the Olympus Photography Playground. You could rent an Olympus camera (a variety of different cameras for different photography levels), and they had several different decorated and interactive rooms where you could test the cameras and learn about photography. From a marketing point of view, this was a fantastic move for Olympus because through my marketing courses and from personal experience, I’ve learned that consumers love “trialability”. People like to try products with no strings attached, to see if they like them before they commit to buying anything. This “photography playground” did just that – it allowed thousands of people to test drive several Olympus camera models in creatively decorated rooms… for free! They relied heavily on an online presence for promotions, because I didn’t see any signs or advertisements other than via Facebook and their website. I think it was a genius move on Olympus’ part to set up the photography playground – it was a relatively low setup cost for exposure to thousands of customers.

Exterior of Olympus Photography Playground… very “hole in the wall” operation. I wonder if this was intentional, or if their signage wasn’t that great?

One of the many super cool rooms in which you could play around with photography and videography

Angel & Joce experimenting with this cool mirror exhibition thing

That night, a few of us went to Der Nussknacker (The Nutcracker) ballet at the State Opera House. My vision was limited since we were quite far away with our standing tickets (€3!), but it was a lovely show nonetheless. After the ballet, we had a super fun night at Passage, the nicest club in Vienna (in my opinion).

Standing tickets at Der Nussknacker

The next day, Jocelyn, Florence and I went to Naschmarkt and ordered some meat and cheese from Urbanek. We got the idea from the outdoor market itself – each time we’d go to Naschmarkt, there were always people standing outside Urbanek sipping on wine and eating delicious charcuterie. So, one day we finally tried it ourselves! It was a wonderful experience at the family business. We had no idea what to order, so we asked the brothers behind the counter (at least they looked like brothers) to prepare an assortment of meat & cheeses for us for about €20 each. The meats were some type of ham, salami, traditional bacon and prosciutto. We also ordered a fruity white wine to pair with the assortment – it was all so delicious. It ended up being about €45 per person, more than expected, but the overall experience was totally worth doing once.

The super friendly owners at Urbanek

Our meet, cheese and wine assortment @___@

A display in an U-Bahn station which counts how many Wiener Schnitzels are being consumed in Vienna

I realized that I still hadn’t gone to see an opera show, so I was determined to see one before leaving Vienna. Finally, Jason and I went to see the opera Rigoletto, a tragedy with the following themes: “a pivotal relationship between father and daughter, the inexorability of fate, love, revenge and sacrifice, as well as a close look at the suffering of a social outcast”. To be honest, I thought the opera would be really boring, but the English subtitles made it suspenseful and exciting because we could actually understand what was happening in the story. I would definitely recommend going to see a tragic opera, because it totally exceeded my expectations.

Ending of Rigoletto – Bravo!

Jason and I at Rigoletto

We planned to spend Christmas with friends who were still in Vienna for the holidays. It felt weird being here around this time, since it was my first Christmas away from home. I wouldn’t say Christmas is a huge production back home, but being with family has always been a constant around the holidays. Our Viennese Christmas was a potluck at Jason’s place, about 11 people who showed up in the end. It ended up being a very Italian-themed dinner, with dishes including antipasto, lasagna, spaghetti, risotto, and delicious orange-infused tiramisu (made by Jason). The odd dishes out were my mashed sweet potatoes, some tortilla chips, and the Spanish guys’ yummy sangria. By the end, we were all absolutely stuffed and satisfied. Overall, it was a really nice get together with friends, new and old.

Friends on Christmas Eve!

Unintentionally Italian Christmas Dinner

Cheers to friends!

We hit up some other clubs during our last week in Vienna: Prater Dome, Volksgarten, and Säulenhalle. Prater Dome is the biggest club in Vienna by size, with several rooms with different music. However, we were constantly warned by locals that Prater Dome is a place where “uneducated, uncivilized” people go. Nonetheless, we heard that Prater Dome had a room with really good hardstyle EDM, which Jason got excited about. I guess the locals meant “white trash” personalities (pardon the term), and once we arrived we understood what they meant. But the people didn’t really deter from us having a good time, because as I’ve repeatedly said… it’s about who you’re with that makes the experience enjoyable! Volksgarten and Säulenhalle are nicer clubs, with higher prices. They are frequented by young people and both great music. I didn’t make it to all the clubs in Vienna, but I was pretty happy with all the ones I did visit.

The morning before our departure, it snowed! We woke up in shock to see a thin blanket of snow covering the neighbouring building roofs. It truly felt like Christmas (though it was late December). In celebration, Amanda and I went to the Gasometer Noodle House very close to our dorm, a Chinese restaurant we’d been wanting to try for the longest time. Despite wanting to have the most authentic Austrian culinary experience we could during exchange, we gave in on our last day. We ordered duck on rice noodles, as well as beef rice noodle. It was actually run by Chinese people, so that was a semi-promising sign. The food was alright, not too authentic but our expectations were pretty low to begin with. I probably wouldn’t go back there voluntarily though.

Snow at Gasometer?!

After packing up the last of our things at home, we met up with our WU buddies for “the last supper” before our departure at this really nice Vietnamese restaurant called ___. After that, we went to a bar to play pool and have a few beers. We also had a bit of a snowball fight while walking down the street, because it had snowed more since the morning. We had a flight in the middle of the night, so we were trying to draw out the time as much as we could. I gotta say that I’m so grateful for our buddies, especially my buddy Andi, who took time out of their busy schedules to hang out with us, drive us to the airport, and just be great friends to us.

WU buddies – great friends for life! [we attempted a self-timed photo here]

Fun fact: the first thing we ate in Vienna was McDonalds, and guess what the last thing was??

When Andi dropped us off at the airport, I got a bit emotional. I still remember the first day he picked us up and introduced us to Vienna four months ago. As Amanda and I went through security and sat in the terminal waiting for our flight, we couldn’t believe it was all over. It was a reflective moment as we mentally recapped everything that had happened during our exchange semester, good and bad. It was a bittersweet moment as we boarded the plane – we were both incredibly sad to leave the wonderful four-month experience that had been exchange, but we were also happy to be returning home to see our friends and family. Now, off I go with my cheesy photo of my passport about to take off……

Next post: Exchange recap and… Europeans are a bit racist. THERE, I said it.

Budapest + Wien: Week 16

After visiting my cousins in Rostock, I took a bus back to Berlin, where I took a 14-hr overnight train to Budapest to meet up with my fellow WU exchange friends. It was quite the long ride, with the ticket officers coming in to check our tickets at every stop (I swear it was every hour), but I finally made it at 8:30am. I joined the others (Jason, Melissa, Jessica and Ryoka) at our Airbnb and we did some sightseeing that day. They had already stayed one night and had seen a lot of the city already, but they were nice enough to accompany me again.

Selfie during exhausting trip to Budapest

After having brunch at this cute little Italian-style café, we took a hike up Gellérthegy (Gellért Hill) to check out Szabadság Szobor, Budapest’s very own Statue of Liberty. It was first erected in 1947 in remembrance of the Soviet liberation of Hungary from Nazi forces during WW2. The 14m statue holds a palm leaf in the air, and its once bronze figure had transformed into a green-black coating over the years, similar to many of the old European buildings that were once adorned with copper and bronze accents. The air was cold and humid while hiking, but it was some much needed “exercise” due to my workout laziness from all the travelling I’d been doing in recent weeks.

Szabadság Szobor

Cute little Budapest statue

Friends in Budapest!

Our sightseeing continued and it was very foggy, which inhibited our full view of the landscape, but we went on to see some of the city’s major points. We must have walked 10km that day. We snapped some pictures at Buda Castle, where there was a mini version of Vienna’s Stephansdom. This one was called Matthias Church. Over the course of the day I realized that certain parts of Budapest looked exactly like Vienna – a smaller, rough-around-the-edges replica. I recall seeing a mini Parliament, Greek-style and all, as well as a structure that looked suspiciously similar to Vienna’s Schwarzenbergplatz. And need I mention the State Opera Houses in both cities? Carbon copies. I suppose it makes sense that both were once part of the formerly powerful Austro-Hungarian Empire and that rulers wanted the architecture to look similar in both of the major cities. I haven’t done any research on this, but the evidence is there. Well, it is to me anyway.

Foggy Budapest

Matthias Church, Budapest

State Opera House in Budapest…. see the resemblance to Vienna’s?!

We walked across the Chain Bridge to visit the Pest side (Budapest was once two cities separated by the Danube, called Buda & Óbuda and Pest, but in 1873 they united to form a single Budapest). To be honest, the Chain Bridge was a bit underwhelming. But I guess I was expecting more after hearing friends talk about it and the fact that it’s in the Top 15 things to do in Budapest, according to TripAdvisor.ca. Nonetheless, bridges are pretty sweet because of their ingenious architectural design and structural strength. After walking around a little bit, we started to get tired and cold. So…. naturally, we went back to our Airbnb to take naps!

Chain Bridge

That evening, we’d planned on going to the thermal baths that Budapest was so famous for. Sadly, Jessica and Ryoka couldn’t join us, so the three of us went. We were so excited to visit Széchenyi fürdő (Széchenyi Baths), which are considered to be the best and most popular in the city. It was 4,100 HUF (€13.50) for a daypass and a locker, not bad for a prime tourist attraction. The building itself looked like a Baroque palace, making us feel like royalty. There were a few baths each at different temperatures, but it was extremely soothing. Personally, I’m not one to enjoy spending more than 15-20 minutes in a hot environment like saunas or thermal baths, so I had to hope from pool to pool to mix it up. In the colder bath, there was a little whirlpool that went around a tiled pillar. We had way too much fun being swept away by the “current”. From what I’ve researched, the Széchenyi baths also has 15 indoor pools, and several steam baths and saunas. We didn’t have enough time to explore those areas, but overall it was a fun, relaxing time at the famous baths in Budapest.

After bathing, we were pretty hungry. Jason, who’s a pro at choosing places to eat (based on ratings and reviews), chose a restaurant called Paprika. It’s meant to be a traditional Hungarian restaurant, and it was delicious!! The portions were huge, and I’m pretty sure nobody paid more than €12-15 per person.

Paprika…. such good Hungarian food!

After stuffing ourselves with the best meal of our Budapest trip, we hit up Szimpla Kert, a really cool and eclectic bar within walking distance of our accommodations. It wasn’t really “hipster” and pretentious, it was more just a hodgepodge of random décor: wires from electronics strung across rooms, plants growing from ceiling-suspended pots, brick walls paired with steel accents… it was a bit grungy and worn, but very lively and full of energy. One of my favourite things about this place was that they had people walking around selling carrots. No, not chopped up into nice bite-sized sticks… these carrots could have literally been pulled from the ground, skin peeled, and ends chopped off minutes before they arrived in a bucket at our table. I love carrots, and I was so taken aback by this ridiculously random carrot vendor. I just had to. It was one tasty carrot alright.

That was one good carrot.

The next day, we had one final meal before returning “home”. Wanting to move away from the heavy Hungarian food we’d had the night before, we stumbled upon a Mexican joint at the right moment. It was called Arriba Taqueria, and it was a really good choice. It didn’t even phase us that we were a group of North Americans eating Mexican food in Budapest. There’s globalization for ya. The ingredients were really fresh, and even though I just had a taco salad, it was really filling and satisfying.

And with that, we took the bus back to good ol’ Vienna, where it began to dawn on us that we had a mere 10 days before leaving the wonderful experience that was exchange.

Next post: Final week in Vienna 😦

Wien + Berlin + Rostock: Week 15

This week marked the end of my exams and academics at Wirtschaftsuniversität-Wien (The Vienna school of Economics and Business, or WU for short)! Although exchange is sometimes made out to be an excuse to take time off school and go travelling, I disagree. Yes, I did do a considerable amount of travelling, but I did it alongside studying and meaningful academic enrichment. I just never talked about it here because I didn’t want to bore the readers (whoever reads this)! It’s true that many people take electives outside of their area of study during exchange (because often those courses will transfer back the easiest), but I see it as an opportunity to pursue some other interests that might not fit into your schedule back home. For example, I took some International Business courses and a Management Accounting course out of interest, even though they aren’t directly related to my Finance/Marketing degree. But I ended up really enjoying them and learning tons from my peers and professors.

WU is a world-class institution. It’s the biggest university focusing on business and economics in Europe, it’s EFMD EQUIS Accredited, and recognized in the local and international business community. That last point I mentioned is prominent because the brand new campus is heavily sponsored by well-known companies. For example, there’s the giant central library in the Learning Centre (aka spaceship building), sponsored by the Austrian petrol company OMV. There’s also the Raiffaisen Bank Sprachlernzentrum, a language resource centre for WU students. Other companies who have sponsored WU in some way are EY, Red Bull, Siemens, Coca-Cola, PwC, and many more Austrian & European companies. The entire campus was designed by architecture firms from all over the world, who won bids to each design a building. That’s why the campus doesn’t look cohesive at all, design-wise.

A glorious day on campus at WU. The futuristic-looking buildings look like they’re straight out of a magazine.

The Learning Centre (LC), aka “Spaceship building”, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, Hamburg

Interior of Spaceship building

Outside D4 building, designed by Estudio Carme Pinós S. L., Barcelona

Sitting on these chair things that look soft and drape-y, but are actually really hard. Outside D3/AD buildings, designed by CRABstudio, London

To be honest, I didn’t realize how good of a school WU was until I started taking classes there. The campus is not only esthetically advanced, but also functionally. Smart Boards adorn every classroom, electronic screens track the progress of each class in session, and everything seems to be designed with ergonomics in mind. It’s clear that the university aims to gain recognition on a global scale, and that student success is on the radar. I thought the Sauder School of Business at UBC was advanced (and it is), but WU has definitely raised the bar.

Orientation at WU

Well that’s my plug about WU. It’s a great school, and as an exchange student I felt lucky to be able to take certain classes because it’s so competitive among locals due to the fact that university is free in Austria. Yeah, it blew my mind too. All they need to pay are some admin fees. But in turn, they need to work that much harder to maintain their spot in the university because apparently it’s not uncommon to get kicked out because you don’t meet a certain (somewhat high) grade point average.

PART 1: BERLIN

So! Onto blurbs about my travels this week! I had my last exam on Wednesday of this week, and later that night I left for Berlin with my roomie Amanda. I was quite excited to go to Berlin because of its richness in history directly related to WW2, and its eclectic nature according to friends who had already gone. We took a 10-hr overnight train from Vienna to Berlin, and it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. It was better than our 10-hr bus ride to Croatia because we had a train compartment to ourselves and could lie down to sleep.

Reichstag Berlin

Walked around Brandenburger Tor while waiting for our tour to start

We arrived at 8:30am, and had a free walking tour by Sandeman’s New Europe booked for later that morning. I’ve realized that free walking tours are one of the best ways to see cities because of the “did you know?” facts that many of the tourguides have, that you would’ve never known if you were just perusing the city on your own. Our tourguide for the tour was Marquito, a guy originally from Ireland who had moved to Berlin recently. He also had a Master’s degree in Totalitarian Regimes (who knew that existed??), so he was very knowledgeable about Berlin and its involvement with WW2. During the tour, we visited the Jewish Memorial, a haunting exhibition of concrete blocks with no explicit explanation. Peter Eisenman, who designed the piece, purposely did not create a plaque or writeup because he wanted people to form their own interpretations of the art. Some other notable places that the tour brought us were the place of Hitler’s suicide, the the Georg Elser monument (he attempted to assassinate Hitler in 1939), Checkpoint Charlie, and more.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe – up to your own interpretation

Amanda in the distance – the concrete towers varied in size and reached up to 5m

Apparently Hitler committed suicide merely metres under this manhole

Georg Elser memorial – his profile is shown on the left

Checkpoint Charlie, aka tourist central

We of course had to visit a Christmas market while in Germany. We visited several: Gendarmemarkt, Alexanderplatz, and Potsdamer Platz. In Berlin they have some food items we can’t get in Vienna: notable mentions are bouletten / frikadellen and currywurst.

Gendarmenmarkt

Bouletten / Frikadelle

Currywurst, of course.

Later that evening, we met up with some other exchange students: Angel from WU and Diana from the London School of Economics. It is known that the Berlin nightlife is quite legendary, especially one club called Berghain, which is considered the “church of techno”. Unfortunately, it has a reputation of being very strict and almost impossible for tourists to get in, so we decided not to take the risk of lining up for several hours just to get rejected at the door. We opted for another club called Matrix, which is open every night with a different theme. It just so happens that the theme that night was “College Party”, where they played Top 40’s, progressive house, and generally music you can dance and sing to as a group. Although Matrix is probably not considered the most “happening” club to the locals, it was definitely a fun night out for us!

The next day, Amanda and I went to Museum Island and the German History Museum, which to me was quite fascinating. Later that day we visited the East Side Gallery, the biggest tourist attraction in Berlin displaying the famous murals of the refurbished Berlin Wall. It was incredible to see this celebrated monument in person, beyond the great photo ops 🙂 (although I felt sad seeing graffiti over these works of art) Some of the most popular / my favourite murals are shown below.

Part of Museum Island

Jolly Kunjappu: Dancing to Freedom

Birgit Kinder: Test the Rest

Gamil Gimajew: No title

Thierry Noir: Hommage an die Junge Generation

Dmitri Wrubel: Mein Gott hilf mir, diese tödliche Liebe zu überleben

One of my all-time strongest beliefs was eloquently summarized by Muriel Raoux and Kani Alavi in No title

That evening we did a pub crawl, again with Sandeman’s, with Angel, Diana, and Sharika also on exchange at the London School of Economics. We met a guy named Corey, who is in the US Navy. I thought it was pretty cool meeting someone in the Navy, but apparently it’s not uncommon in the States to know several people in the military. I guess it’s just not as common in Canada. That’s what’s also great about doing walking tours and pub crawls: you get to meet people from all over the world and from all walks of life.

One thing stuck with me when we did our free walking tour with Marquito: near the end of the tour, he mentioned a stereotype that everyone has of Germany – that everything is always punctual and organized. From his experience, he said, this is not the case in Berlin. He referenced the opera house, which has taken almost a decade to refurbish. He said, and I quote, “If Germany was a family, Berlin would be the drunken uncle that turns up at Christmas and embarrasses everyone”.

However, while wrapping up the tour, he mentioned that one of the greatest strengths of Berlin as a city is its people. It was ultimately the people who demanded change at the end of WW2, the people who persevered through the destructive aftermath of the war, and the people who developed the courage to rebuild the city as it is today.

Classic East German Trabant (or nicknamed “Trabi”) in my favourite…. giraffe print!

To me, Berlin’s dark past, underground nightlife, and eclectic street art makes it quite the “rebellious” city. But all of these aspects are also what makes it such an interesting place. Like I mentioned in my Week 12 post about Prague: as tourists, we often overlook the decades of very recent history that hang over the heads of the population. Berlin has been in a state of rediscovery for the last little while, and along the way it’s reinvented itself as a sort of off-the-wall, grungy city… with a side of tourism. At least, that’s the impression I got from the place. For those who have been to Berlin, what do you think??

I’m not sure what this piece is called, nor the artist. But it sure is nice to look at.

PART 2: ROSTOCK

On Saturday morning, I took a 2.5-hr bus from Berlin to Rostock, Germany, to visit family. It’s the same family as in Week 10, but my cousin Cara and her fiancé Markus are currently living in Rostock (her mom lives in Büdingen, where we visited last time). Rostock is the most northern part of Germany, and was formerly part of the DDR (or GDR in English). It certainly is different from Munich and Frankfurt, with its typical Eastern German characteristics such as simple, square apartment buildings and a slightly more run-down feeling.

They probably wouldn’t be living there voluntarily, but Markus currently plays for the Bundesliga team FC Hansa Rostock. I’m pretty mindblown that I know somebody who plays on a professional football team. They even have a team store, and he appears on posters and merchandise! Although the team isn’t the best in the league right now, I’ve learned that it really is like a job for Markus because of all the hours required for team practice, travelling for away games, and the constant pressure of performing well on the field.

Area where FC Hansa Rostock plays.

In the team store!!

It was quite the relaxing few days as I kept Cara and Markus company during their every day activities. As usual when you go to visit family, we ate lots of food, caught up a bit, and had a generally lazy time. I wasn’t complaining though! With all the travelling, it’s nice to have some downtime and spend it with family. The first night we watched two movies.

Making a delicious meal together.

Let me just say that it’s hard to come across another couple as in love as these two: they have been together for 5 years (ish?) and genuinely just enjoy each other’s company. They seem to understand each other, and rarely have to make compromises because they’re both on the save wavelength. They never get tired of each other. At least, that’s how I perceived it as a third party. I love them so much together, and I can’t wait for their wedding next year!

The next day, the two lovebirds took me to the Baltic Sea, a big destination for domestic German tourism. Although it was freezing in mid-December, it was beautiful! I was pleasantly surprised by the cotton candy gradient skies and crisp blue water.

Lighthouse & other buildings

Baltic Sea

Panorama of the beach

That afternoon, we went to the local Christmas market. The Rostock Christmas market is pretty huge, and is the only market that serves the surrounding towns and cities, making it quite crowded each day.

My cousin and some yummy treats at the Christmas market!

In the evening, Cara and I were in for a treat: Markus was making a typical German meal for us! It consisted of frikadellen, stewed vegetables and creamy mashed potatoes. You really can’t beat a home-cooked meal… it was soooo delicious. That evening we watched yet another movie and lazed it out.

Can’t beat home-cooked.

Three of us – self timer ftw.

Sadly, the next day I had to leave the cousins in Rostock. Aside from the few weeks prior, the last time I’d seen them was 4 years ago. It’s always a pleasure visting family members, especially when they’re halfway across the globe! Thank you Cara and Markus for a wonderful few days. 🙂

Goodbye C + M…. bis bald!

Next post: Tourism and thermal baths at Buda & Pest!

Wien + Zell Am See: Week 14

This weekend, we were all super excited because the day had finally come: Ski Trip with EBN! Back in September, we’d lined up for a considerable amount of time in order to reserve our spots for trips organized by the student organization, and since many of them would fill up quickly, it was a privilege to snag a spot amongst the hundreds of others in line. For Ski Trip, we were promised a crazy and superfun weekend, and it definitely lived up to our expectations!

We started our journey nice and early by meeting at Westbahnhof station at 7:30am. We took a series of trains (total travel time about 5 hours) to arrive at our final destination: Zell Am See.

200 of us waiting to be assigned hotel rooms

We stayed at the 3* Gasthof Schütthof and had a buffet breakfast and dinner reserved for us each day. We were also welcome to use the hotel’s spa amenities, including several saunas and a steamroom. It was so nice having everything planned for us and not having to think about anything. I bunked with Jason and our Belgian friend Christophe.

Once we checked in, we were given a slip of paper showing the time we could get ski rentals. Since we were all exchange or international students, naturally nobody brought their ski gear (except the handful who actually did bring their proper gear… props to them!) The goal was to keep things organized and orderly by assigning times, but it was an absolute madhouse and of course everything fell wayyy behind schedule.

While standing in line, a group of fellow students came over and told us we should go to the rental shop across the street because there was no line and the stuff was brand new. I felt pretty skeptical, but we’d been waiting in line for a long time, so we went to check it out anyway. At first, the shop seemed completely normal and reliable. But slowly I started to notice some things that made me question the legitimacy of this rental shop. As I was trying on snowboard boots, I noticed the employers were pulling out brand new gear from boxes for us to try. Boots, helmets, skis… a lot of it was brand new. The helmet I rented was straight out of the box. Yes, stores get new inventory all the time, and maybe they just didn’t have enough time to organize everything before opening up shop. But I thought it was weird how all the boxes were just in the middle of the store and not brought to the back. Second red flag: some of the gear, especially the stuff they’d just pulled out of the boxes, didn’t have any stickers or anything to indicate that it was from that store. There was no way of identifying where most of this gear came from. Third and final sketchy point of this whole ordeal: everyone was paying in cash and we weren’t given a receipt stating that we’d rented from them. They didn’t take down credit card numbers as collateral, and they didn’t even take our names or any personal information. Which means, if we wanted to, we could have just walked away with the gear and they would have no way to track us down! Talk about a morally grey situation.

You might be thinking it was some kind of questionable underground setup, and I thought that too, but the store signs and the fact that it was across from a series of nice hotels made me legitimize the operation in my mind. Overall, it was quite the strange experience, and we probably should have just waited for the “legit” rental place, but everything worked out in the end. No, we didn’t steal the gear. 🙂

Each night, there were themed parties at the neighbouring pub. The first night was Oktoberfest-themed, so people whipped out their dirndls and lederhosen from months ago. Unfortunately, I’d given my dirndl to my mom to bring home when she was in Europe, so I had nothing Oktoberfest-y. Since I wasn’t going to buy something new, I went the boring route and just wore a tanktop. The following nights’ themes were “Players and Cheerleaders” and “Flower Power” (hippie-inspired). I absolutely love themed parties and dressing up because of the effort that some people put into their costumes. There’s always some creative improvisation that goes into it.

I’d recently learned from my tandem language buddy (a voluntary program at WU where students are paired together to help each other learn and practice different languages; in my case I improved my conversational German while improving my buddy’s conversational English) that in Austria there exist certain Christmas traditions we don’t have back in North America. One example is the tradition of Krampus and Nikolaus. On December 5, Krampus, the devilish “keep kids in line” aspect of Christmas comes and attempts to scare children. The idea is that if you’re naughty, Krampus will come and punish/kidnap you. If you survive Krampus on Dec 5, then the following day on December 6 Nikolaus (basically Santa) will come reward you and bear gifts. I strongly encourage you to watch this video about Christoph Waltz explaining the significance of Krampus on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. So hilarious. So, since our first day on Ski Trip was December 5, you can bet that Krampus came that night… except it was in the bar during our Oktoberfest themed party. One of the EBN trip organizers had dressed up as Krampus—in a huge carved wooden mask and a cloak of white fur—just as described in the Jimmy Fallon video. I imagine it would be absolutely horrifying as a child.

The wood-carved Krampus mask

And now for the best part: hitting the slopes! We were lucky to have three full days available to us for skiing & boarding. Last year, I only snowboarded once, so I was a bit worried I wouldn’t be as “pro” as my roommates. I’ve actually been snowboarding since I was 14, but I’d only gone once or twice each year. Since I went so little, I felt like I was re-learning how to snowboard at the beginning of each season. My learning curve has been quite flat with snowboarding, because after so many years I should be way better than I am. But the somewhat expensive hobby and my lack of commitment stopped me from going more over the years. Despite my initial worries, I surprised myself and I could decently keep up with the rest of the gang!

One of our first chairs up

Unfortunately, we didn’t have the best snow for our ski trip. It had barely snowed at all, causing only one mountain (of five) to be open. Instead of being able to arrive at the Zell Am See slopes within 3 minutes as originally planned by EBN, we had to take a 30-minute bus with all our ski gear to the open mountain, Kitzsteinhorn. Since we were such a big group and many people wanted to hit the slopes first thing in the morning, it was a struggle getting 30+ people (in a frenzy of skis, snowboards, helmets, goggles, gloves) into the bus at the same time.

Kitzsteinhorn was quite busy

The first day we had incredibly blue skies in the morning, and it was a beautiful sight as we skiied above the clouds. After a full day of skiing, we made our way down for a satisfying buffet dinner at the hotel.

Beautiful sunny skies on our first day (but not too much snow as you can see)

Above the clouds

One of the coolest experiences for Jason and I was the European concept of Après Ski. What started out as a tradition in the Alps, Après Ski is when you unwind after a day of skiing by spending time in gazebo-shaped huts, drinking lots of alcohol, eating some snacks, and dancing to Après Ski music. While it literally means “After Ski” in French, for some this happens in the middle of the day, with skiing resuming afterwards. Or sometimes people skip skiing altogether and just spend the day drinking at Après Ski.

You see, this was such a phenomenon for us because back in North America, there isn’t ever anything as specific as Après Ski. Sure, we’ll go to a bar or pub with friends to unwind after a hard day of skiing, but we’ve never experienced it as such an organized and “institutional” activity. I describe the Après Ski songs as comparable to “Cancun all-inclusive resort” music: very upbeat and happy, intertwined with early 2000s techno flavours. Most of the songs actually revolve around the theme and activity of skiing, and were also blasted in the middle of the slopes themselves (in addition to during Après Ski). Our favourite Après Ski song was hands-down “Atemlos durch die nacht”: we would belt it out everytime it came on, even though we basically only knew one or two lines of the German song. After experiencing this European tradition, Jason and I wonder why it’s not a thing in North America, because it’s so much fun and a great way to relax with friends.

Après Ski hut on the mountain

Inside the Après Ski hut

After our second day of skiing, Jason led us (myself, Christophe, Nadia, Melchan, Melissa SR) in a stretching session to loosen up all our extremely tight muscles. Boy, was that goooood. Sadly we were still sore for several days afterwards… at least I was.

The student organization that I’m part of back home, CVC, organizes Western Canada’s largest ski trip every year. So, I’m aware of all the blood, sweat and tears that go into organizing such a large-scale event like a student ski trip: the difficulty of finding accommodation that will take such a large group, the risks involved, administrative nightmares, etc… I really have to applaud the organizing team from EBN for doing a great job!

The pattern for the entire ski trip was: Eat, Sleep (sort of), Ski, Party, Repeat. Overall, the trip was totally worth the money and an awesome experience for us. When can you say you’ve skiied and partied with 200 other exchange students over a weekend in the Austrian Alps? Because of the skiing, and, as usual, because of the awesome people, this was definitely one of the best weekends of my exchange, and I hope to one day return!

Another scenic photo on Kitzsteinhorn

Next post: Berlin and visiting family in Rostock, Deutschland