The Exchange Student

Last December I got the chance to go on an exchange trip with my school to Austria for a week. It was some of the most fun I've been on in my life. We got to go to Vienna, Graz, Weiz, and Klagenfurt. Over the course of the week we went to local restaurants, a chocolate factory, the capital's landmarks, a Krampus festival, and of course many, many Christmas markets. My exchange student, Verena, and I also went to a frozen lake with a giant cow (weird, I know), and also did some cute christmas shopping and baking.

My (on the left) and my host, Verena

On the way to the lake we stopped to take pictures of the Alps

 Here's the GIANT cow thing at the lake

 Me and friend at the Krampus festival with St. Nicholas and a Krampus

Verena and I also made some authentic Austrian cookies

My class went to a super cool local chocolate factory that had its own farm to provide ingredients 

In Vienna, one of the places we went was the Schonbrunn Schloss, where I illegally took pictures of every room.

I was also photobombed by the people who I was on the trip with. multiple times.

Anyway, we also did a walking tour of Graz, where we went to a huge clock tower at the top of a mountain.

don't tell anyone, but I took the elevator up instead. But that's our little secret. 

This was part of the walking tour through Graz and in the photo above there is a wooden Turkish soldier hanging out of the window

And of course no tour in Europe would not have an amazingly ornate church in it. (I swear there are at least five of these style churches in every town)

 The last place my class went on this trip was a city called Klagenfurt. We went to a foggy lake, aChristmas market, and got a backstage tour of the city's theater before seeing a show that only myself and another person in my group understood. (I understand german almost fluently)

And of course no trip could end without a couple selfies. It also started snowing the night before our flight was suppose to leave, but our flight ended up leaving on time.

Anyway that was my trip to Austria and in about three weeks Verena is actually coming to America to stay with me, so you'll be seeing more of us together soon.

Talk to you later,

-Karin xx