Spring Break: Adventure to Paradise

AftThis is going to be a pretty epic post. Considering how awesome the trip was, I'm going to have to crack open my journal to remember it all, and even then I will have to give you the spark notes version.
Agenda: Croatia, 1 week.
Dubrovnik (southern Croatia) Saturday-Tuesday
Zadar (middle Croatia) Tuesday night-Saturday morning

Dubrovnik: Day 1...planes and stuff
Plane to Zagreb, catch connection to Dubrovnik. Sit in boring airport for three+hours. Get coffee. (Did I mention the flight was super early?..coffee was necessary) Reflect on how strange it is I'm in Croatia. When we planned this trip we were super ambitious and wanted to do Italy-Greece, and I joked and said 'Lets throw in Croatia too'....and it turned into 'Lets go to Croatia!' I journaled at the airport for a good hour. My entry was seven pages. Get to Dubrovnik to discover we had a sweeeet sobe/apartment. Settle in and pick our bedrooms, and go to buy food to cook later. (We had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a dining room and kitchen and foyer).

Dubrovnik: Day 2-Exploring the City
Hanna, Kevin, and Harry had decided to take the train route to Croatia...so they arrived Day 2 around 7am. They'd traveled for over 24 hours. When they got in we all slept till around noon, and explored the city for the rest of the day. The Old City is the coolest place ever-it's all surrounded by giant castle walls, and there are ancient buildings and beautiful churches, and the whole city is paved with marble-ish tiles...so you almost feel like you're walking down a hallway, except outside...in Croatia. We also walked around the pier and harbor-amazing views of the islands and all the boats. Also, Croatia is ideal for pirates. Not even kidding. We saw a pirate ship...and in most of the Old Town the houses look like they're from the Pirates of the Carribbean ride in Disney. So awesome. We got pizza, because Crotian food is pretty much either seafood or Italian. And Italian is cheaper.
Pics from both days:

Me near the harbor...note the pirate ship...i wasnt kidding

 the pier

 myself and my friend Blair on the end of the pier

 one of the main streets in Old Town

 pier again...unbelievable view

 Team Croatia! -me, because I took the picture

Dubrovnik: Day 3-Locrum Island

We decided to take the ferry to the nearby Locrum Island...it was absolutely fantastic. For anyone that reads this and has climbed the rocks near the lighthouse on the FPC Maine trip...it was like that...except above clear aqua water with palm trees and 75 degree weather. So basically we hiked around the island all day. Oh, and it was inhabited with wild peacocks. Don't be fooled, they are exceedingly annoying. They make you think they're going to attack you but really you could probably kick them and they'd fall over and not be able to get up because their tails are too big for their bodies. We also came across an old abandoned monastery, with beautiful gardens that are still taken care of today. Oh! and at the top of the island was an old fortress that we climbed on top of...we saw the rest of the island underneath as well as all of Dubrovnik from across the Adriatic sea. It was absolutely amazing. Unfortunately my camera died that day:(
Oh, and we ate lunch in an underground cave that we found. And I got the worst sunburn of my life. But I recovered. I am happy to report I can now sleep on my left side again without my skin burning.

Travelling-Day 4-Dubrovnik to Zadar
Not much to write about...we took an 8 hour bus ride from Dubrovnik to Zadar...look that up on Google maps. We pretty much drove along the coast...on cliffs...on a giant bus....terrifying much? But the view was spectacular so  that helped.

Zadar-Day 5-Nin
After makin pancakes for breakfast, we decided it was a beach day. So we travelled to Nin Lagoon to get our beach on. It was crazy...in Croatia this weather isn't considered warm enough for beaching right now (high 70s), so noone was at the beach...seriously...noone. We laid out and explored everywhere. There were medicinal muds so that was pretty interesting. And there were spots with tons of crabs and crazy lookin creatures too. Later, one family came and was trying to catch all of the crabs from one of the lagoons. After we were crispy, we went to explore Nin town. It was probably about 10 feet long and 10 feet wide. Not really, but it was pretty small. Later, we got taxis back to Zadar...the plan was to find information about going to Plitvice Falls the next day. (Beautiful world famous waterfalls...but you need to go with a tour group to get there basically). Sparknotes version, none of the tour places were open or had affordable tours. We ended up stopping in a sketchy rent a car place to ask about it there. The woman called her boss who said 'Oh yeah..I can drive them there tomorrow, I'm going too'...The price was awesome so we were ecstatic. Afterwards we got kebobs and ate a picnic near the harbor. Then we went home to make some cookies. Oh, and we realized that Friends was on in English on one channel every night at 10pm till 11. So this became a tradition.
Also, since technology hates me my camera somehow magically deleted all of the pictures it took from this day. If anyone else puts them up, there are some really good jumping pictures ;) I'll post em here if later.

Zadar-Day 6-Plitvice Lakes
So bright and early we got picked up by our driver and sat in a sweet van for 1.5 hours. Croatia driving is crazy...kind of glad I was in the back and couldn't see. Our driver was...shall we say ..a bit aggressive. But hey we got there fast. So we bought our entrance tickets and started to the park. The entire place has boardwalk-ish paths that go right through lakes..so you feel like you're walking on the water. It's absolutely gorgeous. At the biggest waterfall we saw a guy propose to his girlfriend. adorable.
It was really just a great day of hiking around enjoying each other's company. On the way back, our driver played the craziest music...some ABBA...and some techno versions of musical songs...and some other trippy stuff. That night we made pasta for dinner. And watched friends;)

Pics from Plitvice:

Day 7-Kornati Islands

On the first day we got to Zadar, we asked the land lady if she's heard about any tours for these islands...you can only get there with a tour group by boat. It just happened her next door neighbor was in charge of a tour, and he gave us a student discout. So on Friday we got to the boat around 8am, and hopped on. It was pretty much a cruise around Croatia. There were schnapps at 8am (why?....why not?) and breakfast and lunch...(fresh fish...it looked like they had just speared it). Around 2pm we stopped at one of the islands and were allowed to explore for three hours. I got attacked by beetles, but thats another story.  After the cruise, we got off in Zadar Old Town and explored there....we got our last seafood dinner (pasta scampi...so good! and the waiters were super nice) and hit up a gelato stand. We also saw a  church processional through the city, as it was Good Friday. This is a long blog and I'm getting tired so uh...here are some pictures. 

 on the island

 Zadar!

The Sea Organ...basically a set of steps built as an instrument...when waves crash against different parts of it, different tones sound through holes at the top of the stairs. It's awesome.

 seafood din

 why is gelato so pretty?

Day 7- Back to Vienna
Pretty much we woke up at 4:30, hopped in a cab, got to the airport...which didn't open until 6, even though our flight was at 6:50. We went through security to find out that there was only one gate at the airport....sooo uhh, we sat and then got on the cute little plane and we were back in Wien around 930 am.


Easter and stuff
Saturday (day 7...see above) we hit up the Easter markets in town, and bought some hand painted Easter eggs...so pretty! We also got food for Easter the next day.
On Easter Sunday we went to a Catholic mass auf deutsch in Stephansdome....it was beautiful, there was a full orchestra as well as choir, and one of the Cardinals was at the mass. Later, we went back to the apartment and made ham, carrots, broccili, green beans, bread, scalloped potatoes, and cookies for Easter dinner. That night some friends came over and we all ate together. It was so much fun cooking everything...and quite the experiment. But everythig turned out great. I even brought a bottle of wine from the vineyard we visited on the Wachau trip. good stuff.

That is all I can possibly type for now. If you made it through this beast of a post...gold star for you.
I'm off to write a lesson plan, do homework, and cook some din.
-Alyssa

Things I never would have done before Vienna

Things I actually do now!...

1) Go to a cafe by myself to do homework, sit for hours, and also order in German.
2) Be decisive
3) Use German enough to make people think I'm Austrian
4) Teach a vocal class
5) Sing in public on a public street
6) Plan entire trips
7) Navigate large groups of people through foreign countries where they don't speak any language I'm even remotely familiar with
8) Ask random people for help when I'm lost and/or confused
9) People watch (seriously...some people are weird)
10) cook!
11) Get lost on purpose...and then find my way home again...without mass panic, and without a city map

I'm sure I could make this list a lot longer if I sat here for another few minutes, but the laundry is done and that's important...I need pants tomorrow.

Family and Spring!

I have been slacking on the posts lately...too much going on.
Last week my family visited! It was perfect timing because it was the point in the semester where the homework was piling up and everyone was getting peeved at each other for dumb things. So hanging with the fam was a pretty good escape. I found them during all my free time-showed them all the cool churches, palaces, went to a bunch of cafes. the usual. We saw the stables for the Spanish Riding School-I would love to see a show for real though.
Anyways, on Saturday, we decided to be super tourists and go on a tour of Salzburg with a tour company. We took a bus through the lake district (gorgeous) with nice picture stops along the way. In Salzburg the tour guide gave us an 1.5 hr tour through the city, then we had free time the rest of the day.
SUCH a pretty city...my fam wished I had studied there, I think they liked it better haha. But it's a smaller town, and being in a big city in Vienna is such a contrast to any where I would ever go that I think it's a really good thing I am there instead.
Anyways, we walked through Mirabell gardens, and most of the Old Town. We stopped for lunch in some Italian place to get pizza, and continued to walk around. We saw lots of places from The Sounds of Music (The catacombs and cemetary, to name a few), and went through the market street.
It was a fun way to spend the last day with my family before they went home. Hopefully Cole wasn't too bored in Vienna...most of the sites there are for music nerds and history geeks, but it's still really cool to say, 'oh, i think ill go to a palace today' and be at one in fifteen minutes.

Anyways, this week we are all counting down until spring/Easter break. Everyone as IES is soo antsy and kind of over the whole school work thing. The weather is finally nice! About high 50's to high 70s (yesterday it had to have been 80) and it's gorgeous out. I love walking through all the parks, and definitely want to get some people together for soccer or something before we leave.

Wednesday I had my internship at the high school, and got to talk to the students about their perspectives on their schools, versus what they know about American schools, and then I told them about schools at home and got to see their reactions. The first class was the older grade, and they had a lot to say about how their school could improve, and about what they liked.
For example, in schools here, each class is the same group of kids for every subject, every year. Also, they take 15 subjects at all times with about 50 minute blocks. Granted, I am teaching at a special music school so the same doesn't go for all schools...but generally most schools have a similar format.
In both classes, the kids asked me if American schools really have "cheerleader groups" that date the football players and hate everyone else...that kind of thing. I had to explain that since classes change, and there are a lot more clubs...people are generally a lot nicer, but there are still cliques sometimes. My favorite was when one kid asked if students really burst into song in the hallways when the bell rings...(High School Music, what have you done?)

The next day I went to the third classes I help teach, it's a private group vocal lesson with about 5 kids. This was the day it was about 80 degrees, and the kids were begging to go rehearse in Stadtpark (a city park by the school). The teacher rehearsed with them inside for a while, then decided we needed to go outside. We took the students, and sang two of the rehearsed songs as we walked through the streets of the first district. We got to one of the main streets, stopped, and stood on the side of the street singing four part harmonies. It was amazing. Some people stopped to listen. It was just so fun.

Anyways, this was by far the best week of my internship. Generally the teacher just assigns me a topic to teach about...and this school is lecture based so I stand up and lecture about music for the period. It's definitely not as fun as back home, but I'm also not used to it and haven't really explored different ways of doing things yet. If anyone has any good ideas of American traditions or music that I should teach, let me know...I'm trying to think of fun stuff to do that they would remember. So pleaseee let me know if you think of anything:)

Anyways, figured out courses for next year and housing this summer. I'm going to be a senior...what???
Also, I'm starting to realize I'm leaving here in a matter of weeks. It's so strange...I really miss home but I know I will miss Vienna so much.

Anyways, I'm currently preparing for an apartment dinner party type thing, so I've got to go make sure nothing's burning. If you read this entire thing, kudos, let me know of some teaching ideas. ;)

post script: ITS APRIL??! Let the birthday countdown begin.  Celebration suggestions are also welcome.