Meine Wohnung

I live in an apartment with eleven other girls.  In the red-light district.  In Vienna.

Never thought I'd say any of those.  But now they're all true!  I live in the most wonderful apartment building in the fifteenth district, right off of Mariahilferstraße, for all you Wieners out there.  While it's true that we have quite the collection of ladies of the night, it's actually one of the safer parts of Vienna.  So don't worry, Mom.

  

To get up to my apartment, there is a whole obstacle course that involves keys and buzzers and latches and trap doors and, Gott in HIMMEL, four flights of magical winding stairs.  I always feel very accomplished (read: I am usually wheezing) when I finally get home.

It's much easier for you guys to look than it is for me to describe, so here's a video of the upstairs part of the apartment, which I share with Sue, Nikki, and Ellen.

There's a downstairs of our apartment, too, which is where Nina (our adorable German R.A.) and Emily live, plus six other girls from our program.  It's a huuuuge place with plenty of room, so it's not as crazy as I thought it might be to live with so many other people.

My roommates are really wonderful, though.  Here they are: Nikki, Emily, Sue, and Ellen.

Sue and Ellen go to Penn State and Emily goes to Whitman, and all of them love to dance, sing loudly, tell really cheesey jokes, giggle about Helmut, and eat Nutella to excess.  

On Monday night, Nikki said, "Hey!  We should have a chocolate-and-wine night sometime."  We all agreed wholeheartedly, finished up our German homework, and went to bed.  The next day after classes were over, every single one of us, independently, returned to the apartment with a bottle of wine in one hand and copious amounts of European chocolate in the other.  

Due to these overlapping interests, we are quite compatible; however, seeing that we only enable/encourage one another's inevitable spiral towards obesity (or at least terrible cavities), we're probably a little bit bad for each other.  But what can you do?  I'm stuck.  

I leave you with a parting shot of a typical Viennese Tuesday night.  I spy, with my little eye...

1. Four dancing girls

2. A 2€ bottle of wine from Penny-Markt

3. An opened jar of Nutella

4. At least three different kinds of chocolate

5. One computer, probably playing the "All My Single Ladies" music video

6. Abandoned German homework