Finally!

Yay! An internet connection and some free time, amazing!! Hopefully after today I'll have wireless internet in my apartment, but for now I am stuck using the computers at the IES Institute. The keys are a little bit different than on American computers, so forgive me if "z" and "y" are switched.

So I'm in Vienna!! I arrived last Thursday after a long night of traveling. It seems like from Tuesday night though about Sunday was just one stressful situation after another, haha. I did meet some people from the program on the plane coming over here, though, which was nice. There were about ten of us at the Vienna airport waiting for our bags to come. Right after we got our stuff, we went to the train station, met the other 140 people in the program, and went on our orientation trip to Mariazell. Needless to say, it was kind of overwhelming- especially after not sleeping at all the night before! After about 5-6 hours of traveling (one of the buses broke down!), we finally got to the hostel. Mariazell is a very picturesque town in the Alps, mostly used as a ski resort in the winter. It looks exactly like what you'd picture Austria to be like! There are flower boxes outside every window. The weekend was filled with meetings explaining various aspects of the program, as well as etiquette and other important information. We also had to choose roommates... a difficult task when you've known people for about 12 hours... but I think after much stressing, it all worked out for the best.

I'm living in the 14th district of Vienna right near the Hapsburg summer palace, the Schönbrunn. It's a really low-key part of the city with a bunch of restaurants and cute coffee houses. I have two fantabulous roommates, both singers (did I mention that about 65% of the people in the program are musicians?). Lindsay is from Westwood, MA (I met her on the plane, haha), and Emily is from Wisconsin. The three of us get along really well, and our apartment is adorable! We went to Ikea the other day to get stuff like throw pillows and bath mats... yeah, I'm a little obsessed, I know.

So about that whole German thing... it's coming along, slowly. However, I can count to 999,999 and order coffee! Honestly, what else do you need to know? The coffee here is AMAZING, but ordering it is so different than in the US. People here take their coffee seriously- the only place where you can get coffee to go is Starbucks! Oh yes, there are about 10 Starbucks places in Vienna. It's where the pickpockets go to steal money from American tourists. That's another thing- Americans here are so conspicuous! They all wear shorts and flip-flops with their L.L. Bean backpacks, haha. I could go on and on about cultural differences I've noticed, but for the first time in a few days, it's sunny! So clearly, I must go outside and explore the city. I haven't been able to do much of that so far because the weather here has been a little cold and rainy (much like Seattle, actually). Anyway, I'll post some pictures soon! Ta-ta for now!