Finally...

Ok, so we finally figured out how to get me on the blog! Wow, it has been a crazy two weeks. First, I ended up in a house by myself instead of rooming with Jean, so I am staying with a lady named Helga. She is super sweet. I have the whole upstairs to myself, and she stocks my refrigerator up there with pudding and yogurt and chocolate (I think she has a sweet tooth like I do!). She makes breakfast every morning (with coffee - an absolute necessity!) and sends me off with snacks every time we have a weekend trip or an excursion. She doesn't speak fluent English, but we have been understanding each other beautifully overall - with the help of some hand motions! And I have learned some German from her, which is fun. She also likes to make pancakes for dinner. Of the two dinners she has cooked for me herself, both have been pancakes! Or, actually, a pancake. Singular. These things are as big as a dinner plate! The first one was an apple pancake that she made because her grandchild said it's her favorite thing Grandma makes. I think there was an entire apple in it! Last night was a different kind of pancake, something she said was an Austrian specialty. It had raisins in it, and that's all I recognized, but it was good. So I am enjoying staying with Helga, although this morning I discovered a bad side of living alone - there's no one to wake you up when you sleep through your alarm!!! (Sorry guys!)

Last weekend, Shannon and Adriane and I took a trip to Vienna. I have to admit, I wasn't sure it was going to be worth the time (an overnight train, about 12 hours!) and money. I had been to Vienna before and loved it, but I still wasn't sure. I got to the train station early Friday morning, packed for Vienna just in case but not even sure I could get a train there. Luckily I did, but on a different train from Shannon and Adriane going over. Like Adriane said, I ended up in a sleeper car, which was quite nice and meant that I definitely got more sleep than they did, poor things! So I thought everything was taken care of, and then I realized later during class that I didn't have Austria on my Eurail pass, and I had forgotten to ask about arranging for that! It ended up ok, I just bought a ticket from the border of Germany to Vienna and back. As far as Vienna itself, we three enjoyed it immensely. It's an absolutely beautiful city with huge decorated buildings. I enjoyed just walking the streets and looking around us. We saw St. Stephen's Cathedral, the Opera House (which is AMAZING), and the outside of a few museums, the Parliament building, and the City Hall. And I found ice water at a Starbucks in Europe!!! (Those of you who have never been here have NO idea how hard that is, nor how exciting. Leave it to Starbucks to have ice water. And leave it to me to be at a Starbucks even when I'm in a foreign country!) We spent the evening in a hostel that only cost us 15 euros each for the night, and it was clean and provided towels and everything. The next day (Sunday), we went to Schonbrunn Palace, which is absolutely amazing as well. The rooms are so decorated in Rococo style that by the end you're kind of tired of gold. But the rooms decorated in Chinese style were beautiful, the dance hall with its chandeliers was amazing (I need to find a new word), and the room done in all blue and white to look like the walls were decorated porcelain was intriguing. We took the overnight train back to Duesseldorf, showing up at the AIB in the morning tired and dirty and desperately trying to clean ourselves up in the bathroom before the others arrived! It was worth it though, and Shannon and Adriane, you guys are a lot of fun! Thanks for letting me come with you! :)

That's probably far more than anyone wants to read right now, so I'll hopefully post again Tuesday, after our trip to Paris this weekend. Here's hoping I won't get run over by Lance Armstrong on his victory lap. ;)