Author Archives: Beatrice Freier

Best Thrift Shops in Vienna

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Thrifting has become a very popular activity that not only saves you money, but also saves the planet. With the amount of fast fashion being produced right now, the amount of waste and garbage being produced is overwhelming. We need to take a step back and reevaluate our overconsumption and need for buying new and trendy clothes that go out of style within just a few months.

Here are a few of my favourite places that have a great selection of pre owned clothing:

  1. The Kettenbrückengasse Market – as mentioned in a previous entry, the flea market is an amazing place to find really cheap, but cool clothing. There are always people selling clothes in bulk and if you have the patients and time to go through the piles, you can find some great deals
  2. Floriangasse 24 – a small thrift store with a decent  selection and very low prices, you can definitely find some good pieces here. When I went they even had a box outside with free books and some free clothes.

  3. Vinzi Shop – a bigger store with clothing organised by section, which makes browsing easier.  A very neat store with a lot of things to choose from and changing rooms to try them on.

Tips for Vienna – Getting around

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Vienna is a vast city with many forms of transportation available to make sure you can get around easily. Here are some tips for choosing the best transport for your trip:

  1. Buying tickets in the WienMobil app is cheaper than buying them from the driver
  2. Single trip tickets are only worth buying, if you’re only here for a few days and are taking the public transport less than 4 times a day. If you’re taking the transport 4 or more times during the day, a Day Ticket or a 24 hour Ticket is way more worth it.
  3. If you’re in Vienna for a week and are planning on using public transport everyday, then the Week Pass is the best option.
  4. Some of the Tickets, like the Vienna City Card have extra bonuses that come with the card, so definitely check those to not miss out on some great deals
  5. One of my favourite ways of getting around the city is biking. Vienna is quite a flat city and it’s filled with bike lanes, which make riding a bike here one of the best options for transport. You can either bring your own bike, rent it from a bike rental place or with the WienMobil app rent city bikes for only 0,60 euro per 30 minutes. And honestly, in 30 minutes you can get to most places in the city.

Weekend Activities – Prater

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Prater is a massive theme park located by the Donau river. It’s a great place to spend an afternoon riding all the rides or just strolling through the park. The entry is free, but the rides usually cost around 5-10 euros per person.

There are tons of types of rides, from ferris wheels and rides for kids to extreme rollercoasters with many loops (only for the strongest of stomachs).

There are also several mini games and arcade games, if you prefer remaining on the ground. 

The day I went the weather wasn’t the best, as it had been raining most of the day, but most of the rides were still going. I decided to keep my lunch that day, so I didn’t actually ride any of the rides, but just walking around the park is fun in itself, and also looking at all the absolutely crazy people that decide to go on some of the more extreme rides.

For the less adventurous people there are also a lot of different restaurants on the grounds.

Best study tips

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As I’ve been learning German for some time now, I wanted to tell you some of my favourite tips that I’ve learnt:

  1. Having a separate little notebook just for vocabulary. It’s way easier to memorise
    vocabulary when it’s all in one place and not all over your normal notebook.
  2. Trying to think or narrate your day in German. This is something I do when I’m walking to the store or to school, it doesn’t require much time or a lot of knowledge of the language, but when it becomes a habit it’s way easier to actually talk in German.
  3. Keeping a diary. If you have more time on your hands, you can try keeping a diary and writing how your day went (as best as you can) in German. It’s also a fun thing to look back on when your German gets better.
  4. Watching videos or movies in German. It can be quite difficult in the beginning, but you can also find short easy videos in German, such as Nico’s Weg, to practise listening to the language.
  5. Practising speaking German with your friends from class, or just in everyday life. Comes with practice, but this way you can build up your confidence while speaking German.
  6. Download an app for cue cards and input your new vocabulary, so that you can have easy access to more knowledge whenever you’re bored on the U-bahn or tram or when you’re waiting in a queue or just bored at home.

Tips for Vienna – Finding a Job

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Looking for a job isn’t the easiest thing to do, especially in a foreign country, so here are some tips and links to websites that I used to find jobs:

Links:

  1. Inditex Careers – a website with listings of retail jobs, from basic cashier jobs to managers
  2. StepStone – a wide range of jobs
  3. JobSwipe – great selection of job opportunities
  4. LinkedIn – higher requirement jobs

Tips:

  1. Ask your German teacher – this is how I got one of my first job interviews (at Swing Kitchen)
  2. Look for local ADs – most places just put signs in their shops advertising that they are looking for people (during my stay I saw it for 5 guys and BIPA)
  3. Ask your friends about their jobs and whether they have free spaces
  4. Just go door to door with your CV

Hope this helps!

Weekend Activities – Film Festival

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An amazing seasonal activity is the Film Festival, they set up a massive screen and seats right in front of the stunning Rathaus.

There are shows planned for every night and it is an extraordinary free experience for  this summer (until the 3rd of September, so hurry before it ends!).

There are also stalls set up with various cuisines from all over the world and delicious drinks for you to try. It’s  a very popular spot and you can meet very interesting people here. The shows vary from movies to concert recordings. An overall wonderful idea for a night out with friends or family!

Weekend Activities – Flea Market

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One of my favourite activities in Vienna so far has been visiting the Flea Market in Kettenbrückengasse. It happens every Saturday and I would recommend going quite early in the morning because it tends to become very crowded and hot after 11am.

It’s a massive market filled with numerous stalls selling everything from fruits and vegetables to vintage clothes to chandeliers and fancy old fashioned mirrors (my absolute obsession <3). Every single time I go I find interesting knick-knacks and always end up buying things. 

Weekend Activities – Donauinsel

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Donauinsel is a very popular spot during the summer, a lot of people come here to cool off in the river. The water here is surprisingly clean, especially in certain sections. There are small docks where you can set up your towel and get straight into the water without having to walk on pebbles.

It’s a very pleasant place to spend a chill day out, especially if you bring some food and have a little picnic. Although, I would watch out as the swans and ducks will swim really close to you, but I haven’t had them steal any food (yet).

There are also people that ride by with cold drinks and ice cream to make the hot day a bit more manageable. The water is refreshing, but not too cold, so it’s the perfect temperature for swimming during the summer heat. And the sunsets are absolutely stunning. It’s the perfect place to hang out with family or friends, or even alone with a book.

Beyond Vienna – Krems an der Donau

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If you’re bored of the hustle and bustle of the city centre and wantto experience a more peaceful adventure, I would recommend going to Krems an der Donau. It’s a bit further out, so going by car would be ideal, but it is possible to get there by train. It’s a lovely little town just on the side of the Donau river.

My family and I drove there and from there we rode our bikes along the river, through grape fields and aesthetic small towns. There is a great system of bike lanes and it’s hard to get lost. On the way you also pass by several wineries, where you could stop for tasting or to buy locally produced wines.

Sightseeing in Vienna – Natural History Museum

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The Natural History Museum or Naturhistorisches Museum, a beautiful historic building located in the centre of the city is an amazing place to spend some free time.The stunning architecture is enough to want to visit the site, but inside is even better. The expositions range from dinosaurs to gems and are entertaining for everyone no matter the age.

I personally went with my mother and younger brother (6 years old) and all of us enjoyed the experience.

All of the exhibitions are extremely large, so I would save at least 2 hours for the museum.

Also during my visit, we went to the top floor (Deck 50) for an interactive dinosaur show, which was really fun for the kids (our show was in German, but even just the visuals were entertaining). 

Buy tickets online: https://www.nhm-wien.ac.at/en

First day at DeutschAkademie

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My first day coming to the DeutschAkademie was, like any new situation and place, a bit stressful. I came only a few minutes before my lesson started (which was a mistake, I would recommend coming at least 10 minutes before) and in the hustle and bustle of the office I found out where my class was and went there.

I was put into a group with people from all over the world, including Peru, South Korea, Iran and Japan, which made the group dynamic very intriguing. Our first activity was aimed at getting to know each other with a fun little game. Then we had a quick revision of previously learnt grammar and rules. It was a lot, but it was good to relearn some of the most important information about the language. The plot twist was that when I came for the second day, I found out that I had been in the wrong class!

It turned out that I accidentally went to the same level, but a different group than I was assigned to. In the end, I ended up changing to the first group thanks to the help of the kind ladies at the office, as I already got to know that group of people and felt better with them than the new group.