Hi to everyone! This week I was celebrating one year since I have arrived to Vienna. I can definitely say that time flies here, especially the summer went crazy fast! I am happy to say that this year has been awesome for me, full of unique experience, fun times, great friends, studying struggles and, of course, a lot of unforgettable memories. I have fallen in love with this city and I never want to leave this place (I hope I will not). I am looking forward to seeing what the second year brings me and I am ready for surprises. 🙂 I have done a lot this year: studied in my university, worked part-time this summer, partied and had fun with my friends, travelled to other places, but mostly I am proud for starting German courses this summer. I have never thought I would love studying German so much and that I would be extremely interested and motivated to improve my knowledge of German and try to learn it as much as I can. I have tried to study it before twice (!) and it did not go anywhere, but DeutschAkademie raised the bar to completely another level and proved what kind of quality real teaching should be. I highly enjoyed studying at this school for two months and I am very excited to continue my journey by taking my third course this September, moving to level A2.1.

Usually I end all my posts with saying “More posts to come, stay tuned!” However, unfortunately, this is by now my last post in this blog and I think it is time to say goodbye and wish everyone who is reading this post success in all future undertakings, especially in learning German! 🙂 I had a blast writing posts for this great blog and I also enjoyed reading posts of other authors, which I am going to keep doing, obviously! And also, since I have already found one good friend through this blog, I thought maybe there are more people here who would like to reach out to me and discuss awesomeness of Vienna and German language goals: you can find me by my name @llemonime. Have a great autumn, you guys!

P.S.: The picture is taken in Pötzleinsdorfer Schloßpark – an awesome and very atmospheric place. I made this picture in the evening of the very first day I came to Vienna, and that is why I thought it would be very symbolic to have this picture in my last post.

Sending my warm greeting to everyone!
Best wishes to all,
Anna

Hi to everyone! Ever since I arrived in Vienna, I have been impressed with the quality of shopping in this city. Before Austria, I lived in Milan in Italy, which is a very famous fashion capital and is obviously one of the best cities to shop at. Nevertheless, while I was there, I became more and more convinced that shopping experience in Milan might not be that amazing and extraordinary if you are not very wealthy and cannot afford shopping at expensive stores with luxury brands (surely that is me – I am a student and students are always poor!). Of course, there are many nice shops there that sell Italian clothes, shoes and accessories at a reasonable price, but it is really difficult to find them. That is why most of my shopping experience in Italy was mostly going to fast-fashion stores such as Zara and Mango or nicer shops like Benetton and Sisley during the discount period.

So taking into account my existing shopping experience, I was gladly surprised how satisfying and pleasant shopping in Vienna can be! First of all, the choice of shops is extremely high – there is everything for people with different levels of income, taste and style. During the summer I enjoy going for a little shopping to Mariahilferstrasse but when it is a colder season I prefer to stay inside to I go to a large shopping mall like SCS or DonauZentrum and spend there an hour or two exploring different stores and always finding something nice. Especially I love service in shops in Vienna – the staff in stores is extremely friendly, helpful and always available if you need any help, which is a complete opposite of how it is in my country, in Russia. Also, I really love how everyone speaks English in Austria, so you never have any problems when shopping. In addition, I have discovered that shopping is a great way to improve and practice German, even if you only say very simple and short sentences, it still helps a lot!

More posts to come, stay tuned!
Best wishes to all,
Anna

Dear all, I would love to tell you about a great place in Vienna that anyone would like. This place is Mexikoplatz (Mexico Square) located in the 2nd district right next to Danube embankment. A beautiful church called St. Francis of Assisi Church is situated on the square and, in my humble opinion, it is one of the most beautiful things to see in whole Vienna. It is a Basilica-style Catholic church, built between 1898 and 1910. The church is administered by the Order of the Holy Trinity. This church looks incredibly gorgeous from the outside, always reminding magical castle from fairy tales, and quite modest from the inside, though having an awesome atmosphere.

Moreover, there is a great place nearby Mexikoplatz where you can enjoy a beautiful view of the church from. It is a restaurant called The View located right at the embankment on the opposite from the church. The restaurant has a very nice terrace that gives you a view on ether Danube or the church depending on where you decide to sit down. The View serves amazing drinks, delicious food and has a great overall atmosphere. I highly recommend you to try it if you haven’t been there yet!

More posts to come, stay tuned!
Best wishes to all,
Anna

Dear all, I would like to tell you about an awesome place to eat in Vienna. It is a vegan restaurant called Swing Kitchen that specifies in serving burgers.

When my friend who lives in Vienna for 5 years now first told me about it, I was very sceptical because – I have to be honest – I am a huge meat lover and I am not a huge fan of vegan food as I cannot imagine it being the same. Especially it was quite weird for me to hear about vegan burgers – how is that possible? And imagine how surprised I was to discover that not only their burgers are incredibly delicious, nutritious and extremely healthy but also taste exactly like meat! How awesome is that?! 🙂

The idea of Swing Kitchen was created by Charly Schillinger, an ex-broker who became first a vegetarian, and then a vegan, and together with his wife Irene decided to recreate Austrian home cooking but purely plant-based. They set up their own restaurant in 2015 and became the best known pioneers of vegan gastronomy in Austria in no-time. Their kitchen has proved that a free-animal diet can be tasty and diverse. 🙂

The price range of the restaurant is extremely democratic! You can get a menu (burger + a side dish + a drink) for around or even less than 10 euros and you will be full for the rest of the day (I could not even finish actually). Currently Swing Kitchen has 5 locations, so you can visit their website, pick a location that suits you the best and maybe visit them some time. I highly recommend to, and I am sure you will like it as much as I do!

More posts to come, stay tuned!

Best wishes to all,

Anna

Dear all, if you haven’t been in Vienna for a long time now and you still haven’t explored Vienna at night, I highly recommend you to do so since the rain season is about to start anytime soon! You got to do it while you still have time and while it is still quite warm because – believe me – you will love it!

Vienna at late evening or at night is gorgeous. The city has an awesome atmosphere even during the day but it only enhances and becomes almost magical at night. My favourite thing to do is to grab a friend (or you can even do it alone if you want some alone-time) and to walk the city centre starting from Schottentor, following the Ring, passing Rathaus, the Parliament, visiting Volksgarten and Hofburg, MuseumsQuartier, and when reaching the Opera, turning to the most central part of Vienna and finishing the walk at Stephansplatz. This is the ultimate route I am always doing and it cannot be better, with the night lights being especially unbelievably beautiful in the centre of the city. And once you are there, you can choose one of the numerous nice places to sit and eat or drink, and enjoy the rest of your night. That is exactly what I usually do, and I am loving it. 🙂

More posts to come, stay tuned!

Best wishes to all,
Anna

Hi to everyone again! Today I would like to tell you about a place with one of the best desserts in Vienna. And believe me, when I call it the best, I know my stuff, because I am a pro when it comes to sweets. 🙂 It is not a fancy place, on the opposite, it is very casual, so anyone can afford it really!

The place I am talking about is an Italian (obviously!) café/restaurant called Gelateria Castelletto. Do not let the word gelateria mislead you because they do not only serve ice-cream but they also have a huge menu of different Italian, Austrian and international dishes that are absolutely delicious and are a great price-quality bargain. Nevertheless, as much as I love this place, I usually come there specifically for its amazing range of various awesomely-looking desserts that they serve in different forms and variations. Their dessert menu is so large that it usually takes people ages to choose what they want (true story!), and whatever you choose it will definitely be amazing!  I highly recommend you to go there if you haven’t done it yet and explore it for yourself. You can find this café in SCS shopping centre, and Stephansplatz, but my favourite location of theirs is actually at Schwedenplatz, because I think it’s the coziest one.

P.S.: The dessert on the picture is my favourite – banana crepes with Nutella, ice-cream, cream and nuts 🙂 But I suggest you to try more ! 😉

More posts to come, stay tuned!

Best wishes to all,
Anna

Hi to everyone again! I have to be honest – I am not a huge fan of museums. I love art, so I can never say no to an art gallery visit, but museums are often quite challenging for me. Also, I sometimes have troubles understanding modern and contemporary art, but I nevertheless find it very interesting so I usually tend to visit modern art museums. One of them has been MAK (Museum of Applied Arts) in Vienna, and I really recommend it! Here is my positive review about this place.

Museum of Applied Arts is all about design. It’s a perfect place for a perfectionist or a person who is into creative, unusual, colorful, unique and beautiful creations. This museum shows furniture, glass, china, silver, and textiles from the Middle Ages to the present day. You can find there work of different famous designers and artists. There is also an awesome design shop there that sells a huge variety of incredible stuff and a restaurant as well. One of the most interesting things about this museum is the building itself because it is extremely beautiful from inside with tall columns and lights. Another great thing to see there is one of the numerous temporary expositions. I was there to see a 3D printing exposition and it was quite fascinating!

You can find this museum at U4 Landstrasse (address: Stubenring 5). By the way, every Tuesday from 6 to 10 p.m. admission is €5, and that’s when I recommend going there. Even if you won’t find it your cup of tea, you will not regret the money. 🙂

More posts to come, stay tuned!

Best wishes to all,

Anna

Hi to everyone again! Today I would like to tell you about my happy place. Maybe one day you will visit it and see by yourself how great it is! 🙂

I have discovered this location when I just moved to Vienna almost one year ago, September 2017. At that time I was living in the student dorm in Pötzleinsdorf (18^th district) and I spent a lot of time exploring my neighbourhood, especially walking and jogging in Pötzleinsdorf and Türkenschanz parks, both situated nearby. To be honest, I noticed right from the beginning how wonderful 18^th district is: beautiful houses, extremely green area, very clean and fresh air… But the thing that amazed me mostly was what I could see when I climbed up the hill a little bit not far from my house – a breathtaking view of Grinzing with its beautiful vineyards and many hills including Kahlenberg surrounding it. While I was wandering the streets trying to find the highest point from which I could see the best view, I have accidentally found a small but very cosy playground that was almost always empty. Since then, I started to come there very often, sit on a swing and read a book or listen to music and enjoy the view. Particularly special this place was when it was the sunset and it was getting darker – really awesome! When I was there, I forgot about everything, all my problems. It was so very peaceful and quiet that I could be just with my own thoughts and not worry about anything for a while. That was such a great feeling and I am still very happy to come back there sometimes for some alone-time even though I do not live there anymore.

More posts to come, stay tuned!

Best wishes to all,

Anna

Hi to everyone again! I thought it would be nice to show you that learning such a difficult language as German can be much fun too!

During classes our teachers always find a way how to make studying easier and more fun for us. They come up with different games that allow us to both practice the language and at the same time relax and laugh a little bit. Some of the latest games that we had were to imagine and describe your dream house to your partner and then draw the houses as you imagine it would look like, or draw your fantasy animal and then describe it to your partner. Today we had to ask each other questions about our dream man or dream woman, which was much fun! 🙂 Also sometimes we play with the ball or dice, or move around the room doing fun activities. This way we manage to practice new vocabulary that we learn during the class and give our brain a little rest, which is really nice! 🙂

More posts to come, stay tuned!

Best wishes to all,

Anna

Hi to everyone! Today I would like to share with you the latest challenge we as a group faced during our A1.2 course. We have learned two new topics in class – Possessivartikel and Personalpronomen. By themselves these topics do not seem to be very difficult, however, we have started to confuse these two things and in the end did not really understand when to use what, so we asked our teacher to explain us everything once more in detail, and he kindly agreed. This is what we have learned:

Since Possessivartikel is basically an article, it is not possible to use it by itself without a word that it is supposed to go with. For example, you can say “Sein Garten ist groß” (His garden is large). In this case, you have to specify exactly what you are talking about (garden) and you cannot leave this word out as it will be impossible to understand what you are talking about. Personalpronomen, on the contrary, is independent. Also, it is tricky because you always have to remember that you need to change Possessivartikel from Nominativ to Akkusativ case and Personalpronomen from Nominativ to Dativ case when the sentence includes more than one person or one object, for example: “Ich mag seinen Garten” (I like his garden, ‘seinen’ here is Possessivartikel in Akkusativ), or “Das Garten gefällt mir” (This garden is liked by me (literally), ‘mir’ here is Personalpronomen in Dativ). In both of these examples there is a person (me) and an object (garden) included, that is why we need to change cases.

All in all, German language is indeed quite tricky, full of surprises and details but it is definitely possible to clearly understand it once you really try to and give it some time and effort!

More posts to come, stay tuned!

Best wishes to all,

Anna

Hi to everyone! There are many fun things to do in Vienna when it comes to spending a great evening. One of my most favourite ones is going to Prater.

Prater is an attraction park located in the second district (Leopoldstadt, U1/U2 Praterstern) and was first open to public back in 1766, therefore, has a long and rich history. The most popular attraction that the park is known for is, of course, the Ferris wheel. Nevertheless, I would not personally recommend it to the younger people because it is pretty expensive and, to be completely honest, quite boring.  You can have so much more fun looking at the city from high up if you take a huge carousel (Prater Turm)! 🙂 There is such a wide variety of attractions and roller coasters in Prater for different people that, once you are there, you will definitely find something interesting for yourself! You can also visit Madame Tussauds museum there, as well as one of the restaurants/cafes that serve delicious food and cool drinks, or one the many souvenir shops. There is also a Rollercoaster restaurant in Prater, which is a very fun place where the food is being delivered to your table not by a waiter but with a food rollercoaster, which is a very unique and unexpected thing to see in such a conservative city as Vienna. There is even a club there (Prater Dome), how cool is that?! 🙂

All in all, once you enter Prater, you will surely be lost there for an hour or two! Especially I recommend going there in the evening when it gets a little darker. The park is open 24 hours a day but the attractions are usually open until 1 am. There is no entrance fee, you just pay for each separate attraction, which is pretty convenient, to be honest, if you decide just to take a walk there or see around.

More posts to come, stay tuned!

Best wishes to all,

Anna