Welcome to my new home

The first few days or actually weeks I spent here in Vienna, I felt like I was still couchsurfing while I was visiting university and unpacking my packing cases. Everything was new, I didn't know anyone, I was walking around with a map all the time - still I didn't go sightseeing, but I went to university, and after university I went home to study.

Paired with the coooold weather during my first days, you can imagine that this was quite challenging.

But as you know, good things come to those who wait, and by now I already made some amazing friends, speak Hebrew, Arabic and Turkish fluently (just kidding, but I can write!! :D), and even the weather decided to be magnificent again.

this is where I start my day to uni

Votivkirche, from Schottentor, where the main university is located

horses on the Karlsplatz

a nice shop close to my home :D

And this is where my favourite area starts. When you walk through the streets around the park you will see in a second, you may happen to notice a well-known smell everywhere around you..

It smells like chocolate!

Thanks to the famous Manner factory just a hundred metres down the street, I get free shots of endorphines almost every day. I love it!

I also love the park just in front of our house, with this beautiful, beauuutiful church at the start of it. Especially during the afternoon it almost becomes golden, and so do the leaves everywhere around. The park itself is often used by groups of children from the school nearby, and you also find elderly men playing cards and women sitting together and talking.

 

Yesterday I even sneaked a peek into the church, because the doors were wide open (I wouldn't go inside just like that by myself). Later I stumpled across a huge wedding party - what a great day for a wedding!

Today, the weather is beautiful again and I think I will finally take some time for myself and just wander around the city center without having to do anyhing.

Statistics again! - Israel & Palestine

My favourite part of a trip, hehe.. just kidding, but you will have to admit that the following is quite interesting:

click to enlarge

Transport: Originally I planned to hitchhike a lot, but again and again found myself sitting in one of the comfortable, highly frequented busses of which some even had wi-fi. Compared to Europe, public transport in Israel is definately cheap as hell - you pay around 3€ for 60-90 minutes of driving. You will see what I mean when you take a look on my last statistic concerning the Europe trip: Even though I almost only hitchhiked, I still spent 59€ on public transport. (Not to speak about the UAE, where I spent 170€ in 3-4 weeks, almost staying in Dubai only, or India, where I spent 119 € in only 2 weeks on public transport & taxis.)

Accommodation: Originally I planned to couchsurf a lot as well, but as I changed my plans and got sick all the time, that didn't work out quite so often. I met some amazing couchsurfers in Tel Aviv, Be'er Sheva, Ramallah, Jericho, and Kfar Gil'adi, but (almost) for the rest of the time I stayed in hostels. The prices I paid ranged between 70 and 90ILS, equaling 14-18€, which are good prices if you compare them to the price for e.g. toothpaste in Israel (around 3€).

Food: To be honest, I celebrated myself for a couple of minutes when this number popped up in my excel chart. 67€ for food in one month! How is that possible?
First: I was sick with Tonsillitis for the first whole week, so I almost didn't eat anything.
Second: People kept giving me bread (pitas) as presents wherever I went, especially in the Westbank - I don't know why, but I liked that. Also I mostly ate for free when I couchsurfed or stayed with people I knew already.
Third: I went to a "real" restaurant exactly once, in Tel Aviv, and for the rest of the time I cooked my own meals consisting of a salad (with vegetables I bought for almost nothing on local markets, which can be found almost everywhere), pitas (a lot cheaper and more tasty in Palestine), and hummus from the supermarket. Also I ate a falafel sandwich for 2€ here and there.
I really fell in love with the middle eastern version of salad, for which you cut all the vegetables you have (mostly cucumber, tomatoes, paprika, and most importantly onions and a lot of garlic) in small pieces, add a little salt, good olive oil, maybe a little bot of lemon - et voilá! Refreshing, stimulating and unbelievably tasty, definately something I will keep on doing.

Softdrinks: This is mostly iced coffee for 2€ a cup, just needed those especially in the unimaginably hot area around the Kineret (Sea of Galilee). Also I had a HUGE craving for Coca Cola from time to time, which can be fucking expensive, especially if you're desperate and it's friday night, haha! Generally I drank water from the tap, which you can safely do both in Israel and in Palestine, even though it definately doesn't taste as good as the clear water from the Alps which I'm used to from home.

Alcohol: Well my friends! Believe it or not, this is exactly the one and only beer I bought during the whole trip, namely in the Florentine quarter with my lovely host in Tel Aviv, Gil. Afterwards I became severely sick and wasn't allowed to drink, so I thought this would be a nice thing to keep up for the rest of the trip. Indeed I didn't miss the drinking and partying, as there was a lot of other stuff to see and do. For comparison: In Europe I spent 44€ on alcohol, in Dubai even 74€ (in only 3 weeks), in Nepal 41€ (4 weeks), and in India, where alcohol is wayyyy cheaper, 6€.

Clothes & Souvenirs: I bought a dress for around 24€ during my first days in Jerusalem, some of you know how it ended: With a terrible allergic reaction all over my body that took a week and another bunch of pills and unctions to disappear - probably owed to the antibiotics I had to take because of my Tonsillitis. Still I bought an amazing Arabic coat for another 14€, as well as the lovely Stars&Bucks mug you can see below.

Entance fees & Phone: I dare say I didn't do a lot of touristy stuff, at least not the expensive type, but still I spent around 30€ for entrance fees. The rest is for the horrifically expensive Israeli SIM card: 8€ for the card itself, 12€ credit which was gone after three weeks, and then another 10€.

Medication: Well well. For some reason, Israel and my good self didn't get along very well in the beginning. As you might know, I get sick hardly ever. Still I arrived in Israel with a little cold which I owed to the Frequency festival I had visited before, and for some reason, even though I had visited a doctor before in Germany, the small cold shaped up to a serious, serious Tonsillitis. When I finally managed to see a doctor (an odyssey for itself), I had to pay a general treatment-fee of 90€. The drugs I bought for the Tonsillitis made another 20€. One week later I had to by antiallergics (thanks to the dress) for another 8€.

 stuff I used almost every day

1. sleeping shirt, bra (the only one I had, ha!), sunscreen, toothpaste, face cream, face cleaner, toothbrush, antiallergic lotion, face powder
2. Lonely Planet, long grey trousers, scarf, soap, rasp, deodorant, tops, foundation, mascara, eyebrow powder
3. pillow (made it in grade one :3), short trousers, cardigan, blouse, kabuki & foundation brush, concealer
4. netbook, notebook & pen, passport, wallet, phone, daypack (most important!), hat, towel

stuff I almost never used

1. almost never used, but still essential: fleece jacket, Ali Baba trousers, shampoo, shaver :P, drugs I actually brought with me, bikini
2. almost never used, but still nice to have: longsleeve, blush, special brushes, perfume,  mouse, thick scarf, thin sleeping bag, socks, BB cream
3. never ever used for real: fancy night-out dress, stockings, purse, eyeshadow, concealer, deodorant, condoms (....yeah), extra wallet, fabric bag

stuff I bought, found, or got as a present/for free

bought: hat, fucking lots of drugs, Arabic coat, scarf, Stars&Bucks mug
found (on the street!): Top (Jerusalem), scarf (Jaffa), white scarf (Kineret), brown bracelet (Be'er Sheva), bracelet with bells on it (Akko), sunscreen
got as a present/for free: jewelry (Jerusalem), mud from the Dead Sea, thriller, multi-colored bracelet (thanks Josh <3)

stuff that didn't make it

sandals: probably the 8km-walk with Josh was too much for you... rest in peace :D
bracelet from the hospital: fell off just after I met Josh (if you ever read this, thanks for making me concious of the meaning of bracelets falling off)
blue cap I bought in Hamburg: sorry, lost you somewhere in a bus.. but you wouldn't have fit in into Israel anyways

Yalla that's it! Hope you enjoyed this revue of my trip as much as I did. Personally I think that this financial stuff is fucking interesting, especially concerning the food.. I definately didn't expect to have only spent 67€ on food in a whole month. Would be nice if I could keep that up in Vienna, where I just moved to recently.

It's fucking cold here by the way! Still I enjoy it a lot.

Let's see, maybe I'll keep you posted about my "new life" here as well. All I can say by now is that I still feel like I'm couchsurfing and not actually living where I am right now. The outcome of this is that I also still feel like travelling, and I want to take pictures of everything. I didn't bring my camera to university campus yet, but maybe I will.

Are you interested to see something of my daily life? Let me know!