First Post - here it is!!!

I wrote this this morning but finally have internet access so here it is!

The clock at the top of my screen says is 8:45 PM. But that's not actually the time, well it is in Seattle, but here in Vienna it's 5:45 AM. I'm up because we went to bed last night at 7:00 PM. Go figure, the craziness of switching time zones has wreaked havoc on our bodies.

I got to the airport Wednesday morning about 5:00 AM, and yes that is too early for a 7:25 flight to Washington DC, but I did have time to watch a movie and I had most of the terminal to myself for the early morning hours. The flight from Seattle to DC wasn't too bad, about 5 hours long. I sat with a bunch of newly minted military personnel. They had finished their basic training and everything and had their first assignment ahead of them - they were going to Saudi Arabia or somewhere else in the middle east. Did I mention how small the seats were? It didn't help much that the two girls in my row were both about as big as me. Anyway, we made into DC alright.

In DC I met up with about 13 other people in our group for our flight to Vienna. Somehow, meeting up with all those other people finally made it seem real. I was going to Europe. I was going to fly over an enormously large ocean - I had never done that before. We claimed our little area in the terminal and had a great time getting to know each other and waving in new members. "She looks like one of us," "Alright, you call her!" "Hey! Are you doing the BYU study abroad?" And then another member would join our group.

Once we got on the plane I realized how drastic the difference between first class and coach was. As I walked through the first class cabin on to my dinky seat it was like going through a mansion and coming out in a ghetto. Honestly, smallest seats ever (or maybe I'm just getting bigger). Anyhow, I was in a crappy window seat, but got switched to an aisle seat which was a little better. The plane had lots of movies playing - most of which I had already seen, but it helped distract me for 2 hour periods. The flight took about 9 hours total. We had an excellent grilled chicken dinner and a delicious breakfast of meats and cheeses. They did get the food right. It was absolutely fabulous!

Upon arriving in Vienna, we found our bags, and went through customs without any problems. Then we had to wait 2 hours for 4 more students. That's what you get for being the early bird. At least there was internet access and I fired off a quick email to my family to let them know I was alive.

When we left the airport, we went to the Austrio-American Institute of Education, which is more or less the hub of our program. It's where our classes are taught. It is right across the street from the opera house in a beautiful part of town. We wandered up the road to Stefansdome (the famous Cathedral), but after that short jaunt we were really too tired to do anything else. At 2, the whole group went out to lunch for Italian which was delicious and then we were back to the institute to wait on our new host families, Probably the greatest scene of the day was the entire classroom full of us American students with our heads down sleeping. What a sight. We were so worn out and we were trying to hard to stay up and go to sleep at a semi-normal time.

I have a room mate named Bryce Romney - he's from San Diego. We were the last two to be picked up. Our host Mom is an older woman (widow I think). She has a gorgeous home! It's really very big for Vienna. We are on the third floor and our window looks out on the beautiful Vienna woods. The home has a garden and a beautiful set of stairs to climb up to the house each day! She tells us that that there is one bus to take that connects us to the streetcar and then it is a straight shot to school. She has been hosting American students for over 20 years! My goodness. She made us a delicious dinner last night of schnitzel. She only speaks a little English, and we only speak a little German, so we'll have to learn a lot more quickly. Thankfully she is patient with our ignorance.

We have an orientation at the Institute this morning. I'll probably post this from there because we have no internet here at home. Yes, Blake has no internet at the house. This will be a challenge :) Anyway, we've got that orientation and then we will probably do a little more exploring. Our little district is quite a ways out, but it is very beautiful compared to other parts of Vienna that we have seen.

Oh and the cars. The taxis are Mercedes Benzes. It's crazy, there are nice cars everywhere. People take very good care of them and rarely do you see anyone driving by themselves. I think that's a good thing, to carpool. Anyway that's about it for this post. Aufwiedersehn from Austria!!!