On Orientations and Things

This past few days has been orientation. Yay orientation. Our lovely directors keep telling us we should go "squeeze the juice" and get out into the city and explore. They then proceed to shove us into housing on a Friday night, tell us we need to be at Mandatory meetings at 9 am Saturday and schedule us within an inch of our lives for the next two days. Oh yea. And we are supposed to go grocery shopping so we don't starve Sunday. All I wanted was a nice day just ONE day to maybe move in and settle down in my new apartment. Perhaps get some good sleep. Go to a disco. Ya know--BREATHE a little. But instead the insanity continues through our first weekend so we have basically nine days straight of things to do. Masochists--every single one of them!

Alright, enough with the whining. Now that I have gotten that out let's focus on the happy things. This city just rocks. There is no better way to say it than that. I am in love. I am in love with this city unlike any man I will ever meet. There is a thriving cafe life, a subsidized art scene, and a hopping night life. The U-bahn is clean and safe. The people are quiet unless they are out partying. Somehow the Viennese make the German language sound pretty. I am simply addicted. We start German classes tomorrow and I cannot wait. I want to be able to talk to people--even simple sentences--so I can stop explaining at every conversation that I don't speak German (even though when I say this my accent is good enough people stare at me funny). I cannot wait until my schedule is such that I am not walking around with a big group of Americans all the time--I like the quietness of Vienna and the people and I want to experience that in a big big way.

There are so many other things I could talk about but I went to the Discothek last night and only got four hours of sleep. More on that trip another time.

Happy living!