Day 0/Day 1

Sorry I haven't been able to post anything!!  We've been really busy and it's hard to get internet time.

Before I start, since I forgot to do it in my last post, I would like to thank everyone who supported my decision to come here, especially my parents.
This is definitely a unique experience, and I am so thankful for this amazing opportunity.
I hope to get the most out of these next 90 days as I can, and to use my time as best as possible.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!



Well, here's a recap of the 18th and the 19th.
Sooo……let's rewind to 11:00 on the morning of the 18th.
Due to my sending Lucy the wrong house number, we didn't leave Provo/Orem until a little later than we hoped, but we somehow made it to the airport on time.

We had a smooth flight to Dallas, and a 2 hour layover there, so we had time to take some crazy pictures.

A Häagen-Dazs store!!!  I was so tempted to get something……

Bahaha, this picture is my favorite!

After a long wait and a lot of goofing around (as you can see), we finally boarded our plane to London!

No pictures during the flight, but Lucy and Kristen basically watched Psych the whole time, and I had a horrible time trying to sleep.  I usually never have trouble sleeping, but I just could not get to sleep on this flight.
Maybe it was fine, though, since I didn't end up getting jet-lagged at all, haha.









And then………We got to London!!!'

We had heard that the London airport was horrible, but it wasn't bad at all!
There was a security line that we had to go through again, and we almost got lost amidst all the fancy stores, but we really didn't have any trouble at all finding our gate on time.
Maybe the airport has changed since all of those horror stories that I had heard?

Sadly, our layover was only an hour and a half so we didn't get to leave the airport, but I made sure we documented the fact that we had actually been in London, even if it was just in the airport.








Also, we thought this was super funny.  Official Water? :)

I was really excited for the flight from London to Vienna just because this was my first time in Europe and I was hoping to be able to see out of the airplane window, but we were in the clouds for most of the time.

We had a wonderful view as we were descending into Austria, though.  There were miles and miles of beautiful black forests and green fields, little towns and white windmills.  And then, right before we landed, Vienna came into view.  My first impression from the sky was that, it looked much much huger than I had ever expected.  I guess I hadn't actually realized what I was getting myself into :P

The Vienna airport:

Wilkommen in Wien!!

Luckily, Lucy, Kristen, and I arrived at 2:15 on the 19th, which was right before the AAIE (Austro-American Institute of Education) was scheduled to pick us up, so we didn't have to wait around in the airport for very long, but there were people at the airport that had been there since 8:00 a.m. that morning.

After a quick trip to Billa (a popular grocery store here) and our first encounter with the wonderful bread of Vienna, we got on a bus and headed over to the AAIE!

My roommate Julia and me on the bus.

First impressions of Vienna from the bus:

The AAIE!  Our school for the next 3 months.

Yup, we get to have class in this fancy building :)

After a while, our host families came to pick us up.

I have pictures of our flat, but I will post them later!

To wrap up, here are my impressions of Vienna:

This city was definitely not what I was expecting--a huge metropolis.  Actually, my first impression as we drove through the city was not exactly the best (yes, I know, this is a horrible thing to say), because it seemed like just any other big city, just a little older.

As I learn more about this city, though, I'm growing to like a lot more too.

I'm very thankful for the opportunity 

Wow……that was long.  Hopefully I will come up with a more efficient way to blog for future posts?

In the meantime……Tschüss!