Friends and Fun Outside of the Classroom in Austria

12 years ago by Sarah Gourevitch In High School - Austria | #Ardsley High School Alumni #Greenheart Travel Scholarship Winner | Comment

There are endless things to do in Vienna! An afternoon might be spent at a museum or a little café or a park or a small concert venue. Museums Quartier is one of the favorite locations in Vienna—a culture center with delicious restaurants and cafes, as well as a dance center and modern art museum. There are giant geometric plastic chairs (I’ll try to snag a picture sometime soon for you!) and students often come just to hang out outside. There are outdoor games and things for children to do and even a photo booth. A couple weeks ago I went to a show called “Herr Yemineh” in MQ, which was a lot of fun!

I also participate in aerial arts practice here in Vienna. Here is a video clip from one of my practices:

Now that spring has sprung (I have to admit that while although I loved Vienna in the winter, I had been eagerly anticipating the day when I could finally wear sandals…!), I spend time Vienna’s many parks. There’s an amusement park here called Prater (famous for it’s giant Ferris wheel!), and it’s surrounded by woods, grass and play grounds. I’ve yet to make it to the amusement park (though I think that will change this weekend!), but I’ve loved spending time in the park there with friends. Vienna also has public city bikes that you can borrow for free and return to another city bike station, which I thought was pretty cool!

I’ve also been taking advantage of Musikverein’s 5-euro standing-place (stehplatz) tickets! Last night, a couple of friends and I went to here the Vienna Symphoniker play Dvorak and Bartok which was wonderful. Another popular activity here is bowling.

Every week, we usually have a lesson off from school in the middle of the day so we walk to one of the cafes right by our school. We just discovered a new one that has the best pies and cakes I think I’ve ever had : )

On a different note, this Tuesday was the Matura class’s last day of classes. The Matura is a series of end-of-gymnasium (high school) exams that began this week. To celebrate, the students put on their dirndls and lader hosen, ran and danced around the school playing music and throwing candy into classrooms. I’m not sure if this is an Austrian or Viennese tradition, or if it’s just specific to my school—nonetheless, a sight I certainly wouldn’t have seen anywhere else.

Here are a few photos from around Vienna…