Made it!

After some frustrations with United delaying my first flight to Chicago (O'Hare was a big mess with weather conditions - Krista got stuck for a long time there and I'm still waiting for her to arrive), a nice United man helped me transfer to Washington, and then I had a little wait there before the eight hour flight to Vienna. I had an interesting little event with leaving my bags unattended for fifteen minutes to get dinner, then coming back to find out that if I had gotten back two minutes later, the airport police would've come and confiscated my bags. *whew!* Another crisis averted! 

Everything went pretty smoothly, aside from the fact that my nose was drippy the ENTIRE time and I didn't always have access to tissues. An Austrian lady had the window seat, and I sat between her and an America guy. He thought I was Austrian at first and asked me if I spoke English. 

"Yes!"

"Oh, good, because I...how do you say it, no speake Englase?"

"Um, I don't know - I don't speak German."

Anyways, he seemed like a jolly fellow - made me think of how someone would describe a typical happy American businessman. 

I watched a movie, then tried sleeping, which was very sporadic, thanks to my drippy nose. 

When we started coming down into Vienna, my ears went kinda nuts so I couldn't hear anything well for a good while (my left ear hearing is still wonky). I've had to repeat myself a lot so far because I can't tell how loud I'm talking, so I just try to talk normally, which apparently isn't loud enough. 

The food on the plane tasted decent enough, but I definitely felt the aftereffects of it. Combined with that, and my drippy nose, I haven't ventured to talk to many people and I avoided the Mensa (cafe). 

I slept for half of the two hour drive to Gaming in a bus driven by a very handsome young Austrian who was teaching a girl and her boyfriend how to say "I love pickles" in German. 

For the parts of the drive I was awake, the landscape seemed very similar to something you would see in New Hampshire (I've never been there, but I imagine it'd be like that...plus I overheard another student saying the same thing) - hilly and pinetree-y. 

The campus isn't quite as secluded and up in the mountains as I thought it would be, but it's very pretty! I still have to find those "alive" hills yet, Dad. ;)

The room Krista and I are sharing with a Bosnian exchange student is really nice - it has a beautiful window sill, which we're not allowed to sit on! Why have such a pretty window sill if you're not supposed to sit on it? Hmph! Speaking of that rule, there's a TON of rules for living in the dorm - more so because the Kartruase is used as a hotel in the summer. I'm sure I'll feel the benefits of living in a dorm soon, but for right now, I'm missing those commuter privileges (not having/not knowing rules) 

I can't WAIT to go to sleep tonight! Also, I found the Dickens book and the St. Therese book I thought I had lost in my backpack (so clever of me to put them in the back!), so I'm feeling much better about this shindig now. Thanks for all the prayers! This first week is gonna be a tiring one, what with learning all the rules and going on all the excursions, so I'll definitely be needing them!