There comes a point when you get so caught up in the moment that you forget what you used to do. Once the euphoria of travelling and explorations dies down, there’s a part of me that felt as though it was missing. I couldn’t remember what normalcy felt like. I couldn’t remember what it was like to go to the dining hall with my friends or sit in the library until it closes on a random Tuesday night. I couldn’t remember having picnics at Washington Park or going to club basketball practice.
Despite all of the normalcy I’ve lost, there are a few things that have stayed consistent. I cherish these since there’s not much else that has stayed exactly the same since leaving America. One of these activities, and my favorite, has been reading. I have failed to change my reading habits, and I think that this has allowed for my sanity to stay more intact. Since being in Rennes, I have started and completed four books, all of which have been properly logged in StoryGraph.
I have also taken to talking to my family equally as much as I did during the school year at DU. This particular habit extends to my friends as well, especially those who I am across the ocean from. Even the mere thought of being able to talk to my friends and family is enough. There doesn’t have to be any particular conversation happening, just the comfort of working silently over FaceTime is enough for me to feel comfort and normal among the chaos of a new chapter of my life.
The ability to transfer my hobbies and habits from America to France is something that is crucial to my well-being, and sometimes it can seem impossible, but I think my phone calls and obsessive reading habits are what will keep me motivated to not give up on the year-long adventure.
My trip to Vienna this past weekend was fantastic, but also the most chaotic 56 hours I have had while abroad. Here is an approximate hour by hour breakdown of how this chaos unfolded.
On Thursday afternoon, I got a text from an unknown number. Our flight to Vienna was cancelled due to a travel strike (you’ll get familiar with these if you study abroad in Italy). Austrian Airlines had rebooked us to the same flight on Saturday afternoon, which was not ideal because our return flight was on Sunday afternoon. Eventually, we got rebooked on an Air France flight through Paris that was guranteed to take off. With Vienna by Billy Joel stuck in our heads after playing it all day and a sense of triumph from dealing with our first travel issue we fell asleep.
Hour 1: After the 20 minute walk to Santa Maria Novella, Kira and I met up with Clara. We waited for the tram to come so that we could get to the airport and were chatting about everything that we were excited to do upon arrival in Vienna. After about 20 minutes, we realized that it was odd that no trams had come and that the ticket machine was not accepting credit cards, both of which were very odd. Looking at the public transit feature on Google Maps, we saw that there should be another tram coming in 2 minutes so we decided to wait. When there was yet again no tram, I quickly googled “is travel strike impacting trams in florence?” and was informed by the Florentine Daily News that indeed the trams were on strike. We quickly scrambled to get a taxi (Uber is prohibited in Florence due to local ordinances), but 100+ people were also in our situation and had the same idea. We needed a plan C.
Hour 2: We hopped on a bus that with 3 transfers, would get us to the airport just before our flight left. However, this bus was unable to pull out into the street due to gridlocked traffic which put us at risk of missing our connecting bus. Needless to say that we were becoming increasingly panicked. All of a sudden we saw a tram moving!! We sprinted across the tracks, and eventually made it onto the tram. It started to look like we were going to make it on time!! Not even two minutes after getting on the tram, the conductor opened his door, turned on the emergency stop and sprinted away. Kira, Clara, and I immeadiately broke out into laughter due to the irony of everything happening. Five minutes later, the conductor came back, turned off the emergency alarm and we were on our way.
Hour 3: We were just one stop away from the airport when suddenly three men boarded the train in navy blue jackets striped with reflective material. I quickly realized that in all of the chaos of getting on the tram and worrying about making it to our flight, we had forgotten to get our tickets for the tram. These men were the ticket checkers, and immediately asked me for my ticket. I admitted that because of the strike and the machine not accepting credit card I didn’t have a ticket. This resulted in a 43 Euro fine, which was unfortunate, but I was focused on making our flight. Next, our boarding passes were not able to be printed at the mobile kiosk, so we went to the end of the quite long line to get help from Air France.
Hours 4-8: After waiting in line for a while, we got pulled to the front of the line because our flight was scheduled to take off in 20 minutes. After some back and forth with the agents at the desk, we got our boarding passes only to learn that our flight was delayed 20 minutes. While this was nice for us making our flight in Florence, it cut our layover in Paris down to only 20 minutes. Upon landing in Paris we went to go rebook our flights yet again. Eventually, we landed in Vienna safe & sound.
Hours 9-13: We got to our Airbnb and found that it was… not exactly what the photos had shown. Some highlights were a shattered window in the entryway, linens reeking of cigarettes, and the cherry on top- police seals on the door of our room. We were starving and headed out to Schnitzel XL to get some dinner and our first taste of Austria’s specialty! After this, we wandered down the street to an Irish pub called the Golden Harp where we had Steiegl, the local beer and debriefed our day.
Hours 24-30: We spent all day Saturday roaming around Vienna. Starting off the morning with the most delicious chai latte I have had from Jonas Reindl. Then we went on a quest to find either pancakes or waffles for breakfast because we were all craving them. After striking out a few times, we stumbled into Vollpension. It is a resturaunt where they employ women over 65 who live off of pension, which is barely enough to get by in some cases so they can have supplemental income. They bake their recipies that you can taste by redeeming an “Oma Token” and you even get to watch them baking in a separate kitchen if you would like! The “pearadise” cake was insanely fluffy and my muesli was perfectly filling. We then ventured to the Belvidere palace and walked around the gardens, taking photos of the immaculate baroque architechture.
Hours 30-36: Next up was a 2 hour cruise down the Danube. We arrived 20 minutes early and then got in line to board. It was then that we were informed we were on the wrong boat but as long as we were fine with it, they didn’t care if we crashed the boat (it was a gathering of 55-65 year old Russian men). We had an amazing time looking at the cottages tucked away in the forest and new buildings along the waterfront. After we arrived back on land, we booked it over to Prater, an amusement park famous for their ferris wheel. There, we had the best nutella churros EVER and went on a haunted ride before getting a view of Vienna from above. The sun had completely set and all of the lights from the buildings in the city with St. Stephen’s Church standing tall in the distance was magical. Before we knew it, we were sound asleep and not ready for our trip to be over.
Hours 48-52: We got up early Sunday morning to get to Cafe Central, the iconic breakfast spot in Vienna, where figures like Freud and Trotsky were known to sip on coffee. We had Kaiserschmarren (scrambled pancake) with a plum sauce that was to die for. After feasting on that and some apple strudel, we headed over to the Hofburg Palace, which is the Austrian equivalent of the National Mall & White House in Washington D.C. Impulsively, we ended up in the Natural History museum and spent about an hour looking at geological formations, dinosaur skeletons, and recreations of the first civilizations in present-day Austria.
Hour 56: We had smooth sailing the whole trip back to Florence and arrived around 6 P.M. Sunday. Taking the train back into the city (made sure to have tickets this time even though nobody checked them) was seamless this time! This trip may have been very chaotic and stressful, but we came home with so many fun stories!!
DU Abroad 