I am writing today at a much more normal time - it's 10:10 AM. Thankfully we were able to sleep in a little this morning. I took some pictures of the view when I wake up in the morning - hopefully I can figure out how to post them here, or at least post a link. It is the most beautiful sight to see this wooded mountain out the window.

So yesterday was our second official day in Vienna (in German it's spelled Wien). We met at the Institute in the morning and had so much fun seeing each other and comparing stories about our haus-fraus. I think our host mom is one of the funniest. She is a little crazy but really nice. I think most of the craziness is due to our lack of ability to communicate with clarity. And hopefully our communication skills will get better.

So we went on a walking tour yesterday with the people who work at the Institute as guides. I was in the back of our group and started my own tour - "the blue and green signs on the outside of buildings signal an ATM inside" I guessed... turns out I was right. It was fun to see all the places that I had read about in the guide book- I've been lucky to remember a lot of the details from reading which makes the experience more enjoyable. Anyhow, after walking around a little bit, we went to the Nashmarket. It's a lot like Pike Place Market back home. Open air, all kinds of food. A lot of people eat there for lunch, as we did yesterday. I had a delicious kebab sandwich - only 3 euro and very filling - granted that's like 5 dollars American, but here it is a pretty cheap and filling meal. The Nashmarket is maybe a 5 min walk from school, so we will probably eat there most days for lunch. There were a lot of bakeries with great bread that I saw as well.

Oh, I forgot to tell about how we got back into the city center that morning. Our haus-frau came with us on the bus (it picks up 2 doors up the street from us). Then we transfer to a street car which takes us right into downtown. We got off the stop with her and she explained in broken english that we needed to get on one more streetcar from here but that she would be going back home. She pointed at the right street car, we hopped on and then realized we had no idea where we were going. The most comical part was when German tourists would ask us for directions and we would do our best but invariably led them astray. Oh golly it was funny. Luckily most of the young people here speak very good english.

So in the afternoon after lunch and some more orientation, we all went shopping. Four of us went to T-Mobile to buy a prepaid cell phone - it's pretty crappy, but it was cheap and I mainly got it so friends and family can call me (you can call me on skype - it's really cheap). A bunch of the girls went to H&M, but I found the european sizing confusing - I don't think any of it would fit me anyway. Speaking of clothes the Austrians are incredible dressers. Everyone looks sharp, even on the bus. Even the bums - some guy asked me for money yesterday and he was wearing an old suit, but he still looked good, plus he was able to speak english, so I hooked him up with 20 cents.

The institute for the Church here in Austria has an outreach center - it is a beautiful building in downtown with foosball, pool, computers, lots of couches and meeting rooms for institute classes. It's a really neat place. On Friday nights they host a game night and they invited our group. We all went! It was a blast, although I think we were a little overwhelming, 21 American BYU students crashing the party of normally around 10. We also met the 4 missionaries who live here in Vienna, two of which are in our district (part of town). They seem like nice guys. I still enjoy being around missionaries and have to stop myself from introducing myself as "Elder Behnke" when they reach out their hand...

After the game night about 6 of us and 5 of the Austrians went out for "eis" or gelato. It was incredible. My first gelato in Europe, and now I understand what all the fuss was about. Wow. That was at about 10:30 or so that we got gelato together. And then Bryce and I walked out to the streetcar station to find our way home. Again, we weren't sure how to get there, but there was a really nice couple at the station and they spoke excellent English. We told them where we lived and they live on the same street so we just followed them. The bus that runs up our street doesn't operate that late at night, so we had a nice 15 minute uphill walk. It really is a beautiful neighborhood. Aufwiedersehn!