Some Observations

some observations - of my short time in Austria so far:

1. Austrian beer tastes better than American beer. And it is wayyyyy stronger (found this out the hard way).
2. Everybody is really, really, really nice.
3. EVERYBODY SMOKES!!
4. They all say that their English is not so good, when in fact it is pretty damn good.
5. They like when I try to talk in German, or at least are nice when I make a mistake, and they like to teach me new German words.
6. For the most part, all the guys here are more attractive than American guys.
7. People greet each other with a kiss on both cheeks :)
8. They are really fun to hang out with.

This is what I have noticed in 4 days.

Umm...Minus 2 Days!

so i've been here since yesterday evening (for me, it was 5 pm when i got here so that means it was about 8 am AZ time). i got from phoenix to chicago alright, and once i got there i realized again just why i hate O'Hare airport. had to wait in line for almost an hour to get my passport checked in order to enter terminal 5 (the international terminal) and then i had to pass through security AGAIN. at least my gate was right there, right? well, i went to the gate that was printed out on my boarding pass, and sat there and waited, but after a little bit my sixth sense told me something was up. so i went and checked a monitor and found out that my flight had been moved to one gate over. not so bad, i still had plenty of time to walk a few meters over. easy enough. so then they start boarding, and they're checking passports and boarding passes again. so i go to have them check mine, and i'm told that because this is a LOT Polish flight and my boarding pass was issued through United, that i have to check in at the gate desk. which made me kind of pissed because in phoenix when they gave me all 3 of my boarding passes they told me i wouldn't have to check in at any of the gates. anyways, after i did that, i was able to get on the plane, which was a 9.5 hour flight to Warsaw, Poland. it was one of those 3-row type setups (there's two aisles because there are seats placed on either side of the plane along by the windows as well as a set of seats right in the middle. you know?) i ended up in an aisle seat right next to some older lady who wouldn't stop yakking my ear off. apparently she is from san francisco and was taking a trip to Ukraine for some sort of river tour. 90% of the passengers on this plane were Polish, haha. they showed some sort of Polish cartoon, they showed an E! documentary, they showed some music videos, they showed Sherlock Holmes, and they showed Night At the Museum (pt. I). since the plane left a half an hour late i realized that when i got to Warsaw i was going to have to really hurry to my gate, which sucked because i had less than 20 minutes to make it, and i didn't even know which gate it was at because it hadn't been printed on my boarding pass. Luckily, as soon as i exited the gate there were monitors and i was able to quickly identify which gate my connection was at. i had to pass through immigration (poland wasn't my final destination, but since it is also an EU country, they stamped it there, so i didn't have to have anyone look at it in Austria). and after that i had to pass through security - again - but luckily this time it only took about 30 seconds. another 60 seconds later and i was at my gate, which was good timing because they had already started boarding; i was one of the last people to get on. if the flight from chicago had been another 15 minutes late, then i definitely would not have made it. this flight from Warsaw to Vienna was only about 2/3 full and only took 55 minutes, much less time than i had anticipated. we finally land in Vienna and from there i find my way to baggage claim. lo and behold, my bag is not among the rest. After waiting to see if maybe my bag would pop out at the last minute (i waited long enough for a new flight's bags to start appearing from the same carousel), i conceded that i would have to notify the lost and found - what i figured was that since i only had 20 minutes to make my connection, it was highly unlikely that my bag also made it, but would probably make the next flight out from Warsaw. i went into the lost and found office and talked to a really nice lady who had me fill out a customs form and asked me to describe the bag and give her an address to which it could be delivered once it came in (which i did). then she printed out a confirmation page for me, and i was good to go. i exited the baggage claim area to head outside to start looking for my aunt, and they actually spotted me first, haha. my aunt Barbara was there along with my cousins Alex and Mathew. Alex is 25, almost 26 and his english is really, really good - he is a native German speaker and when he speaks English i don't hear an accent, he sounds just like an American. there a few words that come out British-sounding but he says this is due to conversing with one of his British friends.

i planned to write more, but it's 230 am here and i should get to sleep. Tschüss :)

8 days!

Tomorrow is my last final (Japanese) and I'm going to totally breeze through it. After my final is over in the afternoon, I'm going to finish moving my stuff out of my dorm, and then Wednesday afternoon I'll officially check out. I can't believe my first year in college is already over. Seriously, no matter how "eh" or nonchalant I come off, I'm quite floored. I feel like the second semester passed by even faster than the first. Soon it will be August again, and time to start classes again. If I haven't done it already, I'll post my tentative class schedule sometime in the next few days. In the meantime, I'm getting ready for my vacation - man, I'm so excited! I called the bank today to have some Euros ordered, they said they'll have 'em by Thursday and I can pick 'em up then. My aunt told me to only change USD$200 worth, and that if it turns out I need more, then she'll buy them off me. ...I'm sure I'm going to need more, but she's being really, really nice because she's already expecting to buy me pretty much anything. Of course, I'm not going to take advantage of her like that, but it's still nice. I've been requested to bring over a few things, like Cheetos, Kraft macaroni and cheese, Kool-Aid, and fajita mix...lol. What was really funny was when I was talking to my aunt about which types of Kool-Aid she wanted me to bring (because as you know there are a ton of flavors). She said "Oh, I don't know...anything, I guess. Except grape. Well, maybe a grape, just to remind me of how much I hate it." hahahaha. And then when I was talking to one of my cousins via Facebook, I mentioned that his mother wanted Kool-Aid, and he said "Yup, mom can't go long without her Kool-Aid." To me, there's just something about the mental image of a 50-year-old Austrian lady going nuts over Kool-Aid that I find totally hilarious. :)

Anyways, I leave next Wednesday, and my cell phone won't work over there. So I won't be able to respond to text messages/phone calls (obviously), but I will still have regular (I'm assuming) access to a computer and the Internet, so should still be able to frequent Facebook, Blogger, e-mail, all that jazz. So, just a heads-up.

8 days! Yesss!!~~

The best shirt to ever emerge from Japan (possibly)

Oh, those crazy Japanese are at it again: