Well, my sunday was spent touring Linz, the capital city of Upper Austria.

And my, was it a long day!

It started kinda early, with us leaving the flat at 8:30 to be at the train station for 9. However, we over estimated how long it would take us to get there and it took us less than 15 minutes. Oops.. So we had some waiting around to do, as the train didn’t come until 9:15.

After a 40ish minute ride, we got off in Linz, almost directly in the middle of the city. Our first stop from the train was to the opera house of Linz. It is one of the most modern buildings of the city, and is quite cool architecturally.

And I will say that the funniest thing about this place is the art piece out front:

Its a giant pile of balls placed in a weird place that serve no purpose. Sound familiar Edmontonians? I had a good laugh about this one haha.

From the opera house we walked through the old-city streets and looked at the architecture.

We walked to this old Protestant Parish church, located right in the middle of the city. When it was first built, it was miles away from the city – now it’s been swallowed up by the city’s expansion.

We didn’t go in the church because they told us it was boring and not decorative, so there wasn’t really anything to look at. We’ll see next time I’m in the city.

Next was a big stop – the New Cathedral, as people call it. It is also known as “the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception”. It is MASSIVE!

It can hold up to 20,000 people for Mass, which is pretty impressive if you ask me. Speaking of Mass, when we walked into the church, they were right in the middle of it. I guess we should have predicted that – its 10:30 in the morning on a sunday. But oh well. So we all snuck to the back where nobody was sitting and waited for it to be over. Thankfully they were nearly done, so we didn’t have to wait super long.

The Cathedral also had a massive organ in the back, as pictured in one of the above pictures. Fun fact about this church is that it is technically the tallest in Austria. But they sweep that under the carpet a little bit. See, as they were building it, the people of Vienna got very angry, because they believed it shouldn’t be taller than the Cathedral in Vienna. But the people of Linz were very smart – they made the steeple a few meters shorter than the one in Vienna, but then lengthened the cross that sits on top of the steeple so they would technically be taller than Vienna. Pretty funny!

After the Cathedral, we walked past the oldest and most famous backerie in Linz (yes, that spelling is correct. It is famous for the “Linzer Torte”, which is known as being the oldest cake ever made. We also got some strudel because how could you not?! I got a strawberries and cream dessert thing, which was pretty fantastic.

We then went to the Parliament building, and passed through it into more of the old town.

We headed up the hill, past the Danube to Linz Castle, “Linzer Schloss”. Here you could see the city on the opposite bank of the Danube, and pretty much the rest of the surrounding areas.

 

(you can click on the images and scroll through them to make them bigger – especially the panoramic picture)

(also ignore my weird selfie face. I felt weird taking it, and it showed haha)

From the castle, we walked back down the “mountain” towards the Hauptplatz (city center), and that place sure doesn’t look ugly.

The panoramic picture is a 360 degree picture of the square.

One thing that I really love about the old city in Linz is that it reminds me a little of Diagon Alley from “Harry Potter” because the buildings are so tall and narrow, and the roads all wind in and around eachother with these massive buildings on each side. It was pretty cool to walk these streets. The streets themselves are pretty dark and cold because the tall buildings block the sun most of the time.

LUNCH TIME. And as good exchange students in a big city for the first time since arriving, where do you think most kids went for lunch?

The classic Mickey D’s never fails.

Although, to be fair, it was on the next block over, and we only had a short lunch break before we got on the “little yellow train”.

And Austrians do hamburgers well. This was the same price as a double cheese, and cheaper than a Junior Chicken. So I think I nailed it. Also, they only have 1 size of drink – you just order the drink and they give you the medium size. There are no size differences in fast food restaurants here, it would seem.

 

After a quick lunch, it was train time. I was expecting the train to be a big thing that would take us up the mountain to the parish on the top.

But the train was more reminiscent of the trains you see at the mall or the zoo.

It cost each person 11 euro, which is the most expensive thing I’ve ever purchased, including grocery items and meals. And you can see the sign on the side of the train says 25 minutes long. That’s an expensive 25 minutes! But then our tour ended up being about 50 minutes, so I think we payed extra for the “extended” version or something.

The tour worked as pictured above. There was a screen and speakers, so the driver would drive slowly down streets and the video would act as the tour guide – saying things like “Now on your right..” etc. We drove past some places we had already been to that morning, but it gave us some more interesting facts and such.

(Say hi to Yusaku in the front row haha)

It was kind of fun! We had a fun compartment of people.

Represented here is Columbia, Mexico, Japan, Ireland, Poland, China, Canada and Czech Republic. And I think that’s pretty cool. What’s unique about these kinds of classes and activities organized for exchange students is that you really mingle and get to know people of other cultures and how they live in addition to learning about our host country. And its cool to talk to and listen to students talk about their schooling experiences and what they want to do or where they want to go. Traveling as a diverse group is actually really interesting and pretty fun.

Speaking or Ireland, I found friends in Ireland on this trip. The Irish girls are super nice and easy going, and I really liked hanging out with them. Their names are Hazel and Naimh (pronounced N-eve. Like Eve, but with an N at the beginning) and Paulina (Paulina is originally from Poland, but has lived in Ireland for several years). I spent most of the day with them because my flatmates were being a little miserable. They actually went home after the ride on the little train. Actually, most of the group of students ditched the city tour throughout the day to go back home to Steyr. We started with about 26 students, and by the end we had around 10 + the ESN students doing the tour. And I think that’s a real shame. Because first of all, there is nothing to do in Steyr on a sunday – everything is closed. Second, this is a great opportunity to travel with Austrians, so it takes pressure out of figuring out your own way around. Its way easier to just show up and have people take you places than you trying to get yourself there. Plus hanging out in a bigger group is less awkward or pressured when you’re tourists. And what else would you be doing? Sitting in Steyr watching Netflix? Seems a waste to me. I felt back because some of the ESN students kept asking us if we were having fun or if we were bored because I think they felt bad that so many people left early. And I thought that was too bad too, because these students had put in time and effort to organize the city tour, and gave up their Sunday to herd around a bunch of foreigners they don’t know. I thought the day was really nice – good walking, good food, good company, and good sights. The ESN students really seemed to be trying to make things interesting and engaging, and I appreciated it a lot! I thought it was kind of a nice way to spend a day I probably would have wasted otherwise.

Anywayyyysss…. back to the post. Sorry for my tangent and small rant.

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We then bought tickets for the tram to take us to the top of the mountain to the church there. However, we had to wait about 20 minutes. In this 20 minutes is where we lost a big chunk of our group to go home.

The tram took us up the hill known as the “Pöstlingberg”, and ontop of this hill is a Pilgrimage Church. The hill is very steep and treacherous, and considered a pilgrimage of sorts for people way back when. That’s why the tram is there, also called the “Pöstlingbergbahn”.

You can see the church at the top of the hill in this picture that I took at the Danube river.

 

The view at the top is pretty ridiculous as well, because you can see the whole city and surrounding areas.

The church was pretty too – it had a massive fresco in the ceiling that was cool. I just love how ornate and decorative these churches are – it shows that people once really cared about God and religion, and I think that’s really good.

After the church, we took the tram back down to the Hauptplatz. We had a little bit of time before our dinner reservation, so our tour guides turned us loose and told us to meet them later on the other side of the river. Me and Ireland crossed the river and walked down the Danube River as the sun set.

I kind of look like a dork, but I wanted a picture with the Danube, so I could be cool like my parents. Plus the river is pretty beautiful.I just picked kind of an ugly spot to take a picture – next to a garbage can…. oops.

We still had time to kill, so we walked into the Ars Electronica Center. It ended up being similar to a science center, but dealt more with art and creative projects rather than science experiments. One this that was actually kind of cool was the “Fly on the Wall” exhibit. It was kind of fun to play with 🙂

After killing time, we walked as a group to this nice Italian restaurant where we ordered pizzas and pastas and had a nice evening.

Fun fact – Austrians smoke like chimneys. Seriously, everyone smokes here, and a lot. And inside?

People at other tables in the restaurant were lighting up. I wasn’t fond of it.

We ended up getting home pretty late. We actually had to run for our train because it left in 10 minutes and the next one wouldn’t come for 2 more hours. So we ran 3-4 blocks, through the station (which is pretty big), buy our tickets, run to the platform (which was the last and farthest one to get to, figures) and get everyone on the train. We made it with about 1 minute to spare. I’m sure we all slept well that night haha.

When I got home, the back of my heels/Achilles tendons on both of my feet really hurt. I took my socks off to find dried blood. I guess my healing blisters got a little too much action during the day. They still hurt now – on wednesday. I’ll have to be a little more careful next time.

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To finish this post, here’s a bunch of other pictures from walking around and stuff in Linz, because I like them.

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Some additional notes:

• sorry this post took 3 days to get up. I didn’t write it sunday night because I was tired. I started it on monday, but lacked motivation. Tuesday I accidentally took a 5 hour nap in the afternoon after lecture. I think I’m getting a bit of a cold and I get headaches pretty regularily. I’m hoping it goes away quickly. Plus, the WiFi in our apartment no longer worked on my laptop. My phone and tablet connect just fine, but my laptop can’t even register the existance of the apartment wifi, which is irritating. Which is why you can find me, on wednesday night at 21:22 alone in the new building on campus, using the school’s Wifi. Oh well. I’ll take it to tech support here in the school to see if they can help me. It’s not the end of the world – the campus is 3 minutes away from the flat, so it’s not like its super inconvenient to come here and use the internet here.
• I have a busy weekend ahead of me! I don’t have classes for the rest of the week, and so I have planned some fun things! Tomorrow I’m getting on a 9:15 train to Wels, the 2nd biggest city in Upper Austria, for a little day trip for myself. Friday morning I have a meeting at City Hall to register my visa with the state. I was supposed to do it yesterday, but my Austrian buddy got sick and couldn’t go. They tell us to go with an Austrian because the people at the register office don’t speak much english, and we need their help to translate. So friday morning was the next available time she could go with me.
• Firday after city hall, I’m going to Vienna! It turns out there is a small travel group that has formed of exchange students, and they organized to go to Wien on thursday and come back on saturday. Because I have to be in Steyr on friday, it didn’t make sense to spend extra euros to travel with them on thursday and then come back for friday. However, a member of the group also has visa stuff he has to do on friday around the same time as me, and then he was planning on joining the group in Wien friday afternoon. So I asked if I could tag along with him. So I think that’ll be fun, plus it’ll put my mother more at ease because I know she doesn’t necessarily feel comfortable with me traveling to bigger places by myself. So I’m going with a group of about 6/7, and we’re staying in a hostal close to the train station, so it’s easy to get around. I think if this group is fun to travel with, I’ll join them on other trips. They’re thinking of doing a few days in Salzburg, Prague, Italy, Munich, etc. – some of those bigger places, which is maybe better to do in a group.
• And now that I know Linz better, I’m planning on attending church on Sunday. It’s a german ward, but I’m hoping to run into missionaries there.
• I made my first big miscommunication fail today. After lecture, I went straight to the grocery store to grab a couple things to tide me over until the weekend since I was going to be gone for most of the next couple days. I also had to go break a 100euro bill that I got from the ATM, because no tourist spot would probably take it, but the grocery store would. On the way home I was starving, and stopped in on our kebab shop. I decided I would try using more german, so I asked for ” Kebab, Bitte.” which means please. Now the guy who works the front of the kebab shop during lunch times is pretty nice, and speaks a handful of english. He always speaks slow and double checks my order. So after waiting for several minutes for my sandwich, I am surprised when I get handed a pizza?! Apparently, he thought I had said “Kebab Pizza”, which could be due to the fact I mumbled the “bitte” since I was a little nervous. I also was handed a can of Pepsi, which I was not expecting. I really need to start my german class, especially for things like numbers and money. When you’re in the grocery store, the amount owed shows up on the screen so you can read it. In these shops and things, they deal with petty cash and not cash registers, so it’s hard to tell how much things cost sometimes. I had counted out the change necessary to pay for my Kebab, which is what I wanted, but when I was handed the pizza, it threw me off because I didn’t know how much it cost. In a panic, I grabbed the smallest bill I had, which was a 20euro. The gentleman I was dealing with spoke no english, and he didn’t have enough change to give me, so he kept asking me to give him some change so he could give me the proper change in return. However, I had no idea what he was saying! So I wildly reached into my pocket and pulled out all the change I had, and held my hand open to him. He dug around the coins a little, and took .70 euro, and gave me back my bills and small coinage. It was a bit embarassing. But the pizza didn’t cost much more than a kebab, and it was a big pizza, so I would get 2 meals out of it. So for an extra .85 euro, that’s not too bad. The pizza was okay – it had kebab meat, which is very similar to gyro or donair meat, red sauce, onions, and corn. Austrians are weird about corn – they put it on weird things like pizza. Eggs too, actually – you can order a pizza with eggs and corn and other stuff on it. Weird. Was it my favorite pizza, no. Was it awful? Definitely better than some of the weird foods I’ve tried here. Now I know, the next time I go to the kebab shop, I’ll be loud and proud and ENGLISH all the way!

• I’m hanging out solo tonight because tonight is the ESN Exchange Student Welcome party. We’ve been into the official semester for 2 days (Since March 1), and so they through this party every semester. This is one I thought I would attend because its held at the school cafeteria, and they were having a DJ and lots of fun stuff. However, you have to pay a 5euro cover charge, and that is to help cover the cost of the “all-you-can-drink alcohol”, as stated on the facebook event page. And that kinda put a damper on the party for me. According to stories from my flatmates, some of the exchanges can REALLY drink. And I just think it wouldn’t be a good idea to attend the party. It’s actually going on in the building next to me, but at the opposite end, so I can’t see or hear anything. The party here on campus lasts until 23:00, and then they’re continuing on at Studentspub, which is nearby. Wednesdays seem to be the party days, because that’s when everyone seems to go out drinking. I’m not sure why? I think it’s because Studentspub has special student deals or something on wednesdays, and that seems to be the place people go most often. I’ve already mentioned how not drinking and going to these parties will kind of ruin my social life, but I think this travel group I’m joining will be a good way to gain some friends.

Well, I’m going to head home and go to bed on time for once. I want to be up early to catch the train! Wish me luck!

 

Thanks for listening 🙂

emma.k