Not in Kansas anymore...

Well, here I am! In Klagenfurt, Austria. Living in the dorms. Yikes!
Katharina and I arrived in Klagenfurt yesterday about 7:15. Agnes, who is in charge of the exchange buddy program at the university picked us up at the train station and drove us to the dorms. She walked us across to the campus and showed us a few things. I'm literally directly across from the main building on campus, so that's very nice!
I would be lying, though, if I didn't say that the homesickness set in once I arrived here. The weight of being here on my own kind of all settled in, I think. Luckily, Katharina understands from all of her time in new places... so she gave me lots of hugs!! Then we decided it was best to just go get some food and relax. There's a nice little cafe directly next to my dorm, so we walked over and had some salad and decided a few drinks would probably help too :) Well, of course, they did! Katharina had me completely distracted from my homesickness and we were giggling and talking like always in no time!
Today we woke up and had some campus things to take care of-- letting the international office know I had arrived, filling out dorm paperwork, and so on. The priority in my mind was the internet!!!!! I thought that surely the dorms would have wireless... but no! After we got everything taken care of on campus, we tried to connect my laptop to the wireless on campus... didn't work! So, we went into town and bought a cable to connect to the Broadband in the dorms, spent the day at the mall and in the downtown shopping area, had ice cream and bought some groceries... And we were SO excited to have the internet in the dorm, finally... but no! Even with the cable, the internet isn't working in my dorm! So, no pictures and not a lot of time to be on here! But.. oh well! I should be exploring the city, not sitting online!!
So, short and sweet.. just wanted to let everyone know that we had arrived in Klagenfurt, at last!!

P.S. The train ride through the alps was INCREDIBLE! Can't wait to share the pictures!

Last day in Freiburg

It doesn't seem possible that it's already time to head to Klagenfurt! Katharina and I will leave tomorrow morning between 8 and 9 and will get to Klagenfurt around 7:15 tomorrow evening. It'll be a little interesting with all the luggage I have on the train.. but I'm sure between the two of us, it'll be fine! I really don't know how people can get by for 4 months with less.. but it's kind of a pain in the...!!

We didn't end up going to the Black Forest today. We were afraid we'd run out of time, so we had a pretty relaxing day in Freiburg. We rode our bikes across town and looked at a section of town that is really eco-friendly. Everything is built in a way that is supposed to cut down waste, etc. The houses are insulated really well and built.. well, I don't know but in ways that's hopefully better for the environment. Apparently, Freiburg is very well known for its efforts in solar energy and eco-friendly buildings.

I'm not sure if any of you caught it or not, but I did say that we rode across town on bikes. Yes... me on a bike. Well, we tried it out the other day and, they say you never forget how to ride a bike... and fine, I'll give them that! But you sure do get rusty at it!! Not to mention that there are soo many people riding around on bikes in Freiburg! Plus pedestrians and cars! It didn't take long for me to be able to ride but I'm certainly not a GOOD bike rider!! Haha. I do enjoy it though. Sadly, I don't have any video or pictures of me flailing around on a bike to share with you all!!

So then after we saw the eco-friendly buildings, we walked up a hill, small mountain?, something and stopped at the Jesuitenschloss, which has a restaurant and we had some delicious homemade ice cream!! Mmm! I had Schwarzwaelder Kirsch ice cream. Chocolate and vanilla with cherries and a little Kirschwasser (cherry liquor). I assumed they'd barely put any Kirschwasser but was I wrong! I had to make sure not to try to get too much in eat bite! But it was very good! We sat there and just looked down on the city for quite a while. It was so relaxing and the weather was perfect today! We got pretty hot on the hike up but once we got there, the wind was blowing and it felt great to just sit there.

I'm really happy to say that I've not been homesick yet. I've only been here 4 or 5 days, I know, but I really feel fine. I'm trying to take one day at a time and I think that helps. Of course, being with Katharina who I know definitely helps!! I hope that I continue to be able to just take each day as it comes, not think ahead to December when my family is here and not think about how long it's been since I've seen them too much, as well. And I'm still really excited to meet people in Austria, to see how I perform on my German proficiency exam, and to get acquainted with the city of Klagenfurt! Really, I just have to much to do to sit around being homesick! :)

Lots of love! Enjoy some pictures from today:

Switzerland!

Hi everybody!! Well... if I may say so myself, I'm quite the world traveler ;) HA! In the last week, I've been in the U.S., Germany, France, and now Switzerland.. and back to Germany, of course! Okay... not quite a world traveler, but I've been to three countries that I sure never had been to before!! I even left the European Union!! haha It's so weird too... I've only had to show my passport at the airport! Even in Switzerland, no one checks for I.D.s. I think it's pretty cool but it's kind of weird to think that now the U.S. is making it so much harder to come in and everyone else is kind of opening up their borders all at once.

Basel was really cool. It was only a little over an hour by train, with stops about every 10-20 minutes, I'd say. It's pretty cool that for about 23 euro, you can go to another country (as long as you're in a city close anyway!). While we were in Basel, we had lunch at a little cafe, walked through the main shopping area, and looked at the Muenster building there. Muenster is, according to wikipedia (what else, after all, could I rely on for educational info? HA!), was a type of church built, originally, not as a parish church but as a part of a monastery... but then in the 13th century, that all kind of stopped and it's just.. whatever it is! haha.. I sound so smart, huh?! :) Anyway, they're really cool, ornate, HUGE buildings. People are just everywhere in these churches and they (the whole two I've seen, I'm such an expert) have gift shops.

Then the Rhine river runs right through Basel, so we sat on some grass and watched people, talked, and had ice cream! It was really a very good day. We thought that it would be a nice, relaxing day but it ended up being at least 79 degrees Fahrenheit and with all the walking we did, we were both exhausted!! We got back to Freiburg and kind of just bummed around. We ate a quick dinner here and then watched a movie, KeinOhrHasen (Rabbit without Ears), with English subtitles *yay*.. it was a really cute love story. And now we're getting ready to crash for the day!

Tomorrow we're off to the Black Forest in the afternoon-- should be fun!

Hope you're all doing well!!!!!!!!!

Here are some pictures from Basel:

Pictures!

Slideshow from the last two days!

My first days abroad!

HALLO! :) Can you believe that I've been in Germany for 2 days already???!! It's so surreal.

Yesterday was a blur! I got to the airport in Frankfurt around 6:30 am local time. After getting my luggage and going through customs, it was a little after seven before I got out of the secured part of the airport... and I didn't see Katharina! So I was a little nervous... called home to let them know I made it and buy time to find her. Luckily, only a few seconds after calling home, she came around the corner. It doesn't seem like there's anyway that it has been 6 years since she and I have spent time together!! It is still so natural. Our conversations are easy and we understand each other very well!! It helps, of course, that her English is soooo good!!

After the airport, we grabbed a quick breakfast and went to Baden-Baden where her family lives and met her parents and talked, showered, etc. Then Katharina and her mom and I went into the town and walked around. Of course, when we decided to do this, the rain decided to come back! It rained all day!!! By about 4 o'clock, I was exhausted!! The night before I left, I only slept 2 hours or so and sleep on the plane is never as good as the real thing! So, we went back to her house in a little village called Vernhaft and I slept for a few hours... much better!!! Then our easy to understand English quickly shifted to German!! Katharina's brother came home and her boyfriend came to town... and German was very quickly the language of choice!! I definitely missed alot of the stories b/c I was so busy trying to translate in my head but it was good to become accustomed to the sounds!

Today we woke up and had breakfast... traditional German: bread rolls (harder than anything we eat at home), cheeses, meats, peanut butter, Nutella, jam, etc. Then we went over to France, which is only about a 15 minute drive from here! WOW! We went to a small town that looked exactly like things look in Germany!! The waitress where we ate lunch even spoke German :) So it wasn't that exciting but hey... two days and I've been to Germany AND France!! :)

A little later in the day, we went back into Baden-Baden and went in the remains of an old castle on a mountain. It was so cool. The castle is from the 12th or 13th century and we climbed to the very top!!! I could see the Rhein, the river that creates the border between France and Germany and I could the mountains in France. SOO Beautiful!!

Finally, we went to a "Dorffest" in Katharina's village. It's a street party basically, except the whole village goes. They close off most of the streets and drink beer, dance, play traditional music and have fun. Katharina was kind of embarrassed because it's a very small town sort of thing to do and she wouldn't normally go but it was a chance for me to see very "German" things! And eat very good food and drink very good wine and beer :) (But of course, not too much!)

Love you all!! Hope you're having a blast in the States!!

(And hopefully your weather is better.. it's rained almost nonstop since I arrived here!!)

.....My pictures are taking too long to load and I'm very tired!!! I will post tomorrow morning when I'm more awake :) ....

Headin' out!

I'm sitting at the Charlotte Airport... the beginning of my five hour layover here. How exciting! HA! I thought I'd take the chance to pull the rest of my "going away" pictures off my camera and post 'em on here.... but it's being funky, so... hopefully my sis will be sending me some that she has on her computer (Thanks, E!) and then I can post all of them at once...

The last few days have been rough.. saying bye to people, even for only a few days or weeks, is not something I'm generally good at, so leaving my family and friends for 4.5 months is tough! But I know that it's going to be so worth it!! I am more excited than I can express in words! Before my next post, I will have flown across the Atlantic Ocean (by myself!!), arrived in a totally foreign, but amazing, exciting, beautiful, and historic country(!!!), and, last but by no means least at all, reacquainted with an amazing friend I haven't seen since 2003! If I don't start falling asleep without Tylenol PM after this, I'm helpless!!!!!

I love and miss you all (I know.. already!)... keep me updated about your lives and I cannot WAIT to share about my (suddenly) very exciting life!!!

One Week!!

My count down is WAY down! According to my nerdy online countdown (b/c it's soo hard to count myself :)), I have exactly 7 days, 16 hours, 11 minutes and some odd seconds until my plane takes off for Germany!! WOW!!!

My to-do list is dwindling, as well. It went from a seemingly never-ending chore list to sitting and waiting until I can pack my bags and check off the last few items. Most of my clothes are laid out on my floor and one bag of toiletry items is mostly packed. I have been in Walmart more than any sane person ought to in the last 2 weeks. I can only think of two or three days I haven't been in... and some of the other days I went in twice so I'm not sure those even count!

I'm so ready to walk off that plane, see Katharina, and see Germany! I cannot believe that after 6 years, Katharina and I get to spend time together again!! Much less, in Germany!!! She has our week together pretty well planned, it sounds like-- Baden-Baden to visit her parents, Freiburg to see her friends, and possibly Basel, Switzerland and into France! It seems soo unreal that going to another country is soo easy!

More to come... and I mean, lots, lots more! :)