50 Shades of Hotdog (I went there)

Some of you may know that I was in France two years ago for a couple weeks in the summer. There I ran into my first foreign hotdog, and today I stumbled upon another one. Lets take a look at the types of hotdogs, starting closest to home and working our way out.

Usually in my Freezer:

usually paired with....

Chicago:

New York:

Paris:

 It was in the Tuileries Gardens that I stumbled upon these monsters of hot dogs, unfortunately I had just ate a sandwich and was too full to try it.

However this kind sir kindly modeled for me, and although I didn't eat it, I was able to take a nice touristy picture!

Vienna:

Sorry about the blurry photo, I was walking, eating, and taking a photo. 

So this is the Vienna hotdog. As you may or may not be able to tell, the "bun" is a baguette that is hollow. They squirt the ketchup and mustard inside first, then put in the hotdog, and then top it off with the top of the baguette like a lid. This is a very convenient type of bun because when you are walking and eating you don't get ketchup and mustard all over your hands.

However our friend gravity causes a little problem. All of the ketchup and mustard tends to slide to the bottom, leaving you with condiment soup and no hotdog for the last inch or so of bun. This might sound unappetizing but when you are an American teenager living in Vienna starving after a long long day of school, you eat it all.

Bipa, Billa and Libro!

Shopping here is hard. Unlike in America there is no such thing as the "one-stop-shop", there is a specific store for pretty much everything. It makes it difficult for me to know where to go because none of the stores are the same as back home. For example, to get shampoo I would usually go to Walgreens, here the store is called "Bipa" and it is all makeup and hair products, nothing else.

For a girl, walking in this store is a like a dream come true.... as for guys, they must have to go undercover to buy shampoo. 

An American fridge could eat a Austrian fridge and go back for seconds. So instead of doing their grocery shopping once a week, or every two weeks, they go grocery shopping pretty much every day. Luckily my apartment is literally right above a "Billa" which is pretty much a miniature version of the Pick-n-Save. 

So every night or every other night I run down to the Billa with Sophia and buy "dinner" which here is pretty much bread and cheese. Lunch is where the parties at, so you better be hungry then, or you will be starving later!

The final store that I have been to is "Libro," if you know any Spanish you might have guessed what this place is for. Its where you can buy books, office supplies and some music and movies. I had to run there after school today for some school supplies. Fun fact, binders here only have two rings, and on occasion four. Never three.

They also hide their notebook paper. So if you are ever in Europe looking for notebook paper, don't look in the paper section. Look by the "hefts" which are folders. Who would have thought!

Sweet Tooth!

Look at that! Its an Austrian Milkyway...who would have thought! It doesn't just look different either, it tastes totally different as well...

Artwork

I had a lot of free time during break in the Alps....a lot... sometimes I was really bored, or hungry, or both. There was no internet, and I didn't have any homework. You know I never thought I would actually wish for homework. But when you have nothing to do you can't think of anything to do, and when you have too much to do you only think of more things to do. Funny how that works. So anyway, I discovered some old drawing materials in a drawer upstairs, so when I wasn't skiing, I was drawing!

Note

The tour of my apartment in Vienna video should now be able to be viewed! Sorry about the mix up!

Skiing! in the Alps!

So I went skiing…for the first time in six years. And of course since I haven't gone in six years the best place to start would be the Alps, right? At first it was weird being on skis again but then it sort of came back and I felt pretty comfortable. I made it to the top of the mountain on the first day (the top of a MOUNTAIN!) You actually feel the pressure change when you are on the chairlift, my ears popped…

Going down the mountain is the exhilarating part. When the wind is so strong you really can't fall because it just pushes you back up, or when it is snowing so hard it stings your face, or maybe when its just so damn cold you can't even feel your face, what ever the weather you feel like the king of the world when you are flying down the hill. Ya, its pretty awesome :)  

English Class

So today I had my first English class. It was very entertaining. I wonder who writes these textbooks... You would think a fluent speaker but i'm not so sure.... The grammar maybe right...but the sentence structures that they use are so uncommon in everyday speach that it sounds wrong! It might be because they learn British English. Well whatever the case may be, it is hilarious to read and listen too. Problem was I couldn't laugh for fear of offending the teacher! Finally feeling like I'm not the idiot, over and out
Signe