In the apartment

Okay. Just moved into the apartment. I have a single room, and my two room mates share the room next door. There is a small bathroom, and a separate toilet room. The kitchen is really nice and very European, and there is a dinning room table, a couch, and a TV. My room is really nice. It has pretty blue curtains, a twin size bed, an Ikea portable closet (pretty much the entire apartment is furnished from Ikea), and a desk.

Orientation (In Mariazell) was interesting. It was a rollercoaster. Thursday morning, I woke up in my hotel at 6:15am. I took my time getting dressed, and then took a short walk down to the U-bahn station (Subway), just to see and decide if I could haul my suitcases there. I decided I couldn't. I walked back, and had my hotel's free breakfast. Bread, meat, cheese, and some cereal. Yum :)

I grabbed a taxi to the train station where I was meeting the group. We eventually bussed to Mariazell, this little town out in the mountains. It's a place of pilgrimage where people go to see a figure of the Virgin Mary in the Mariazell  Basilica. We were staying at a beautiful hostel a little outside of town. I don't really remember Friday night, but I imagine my roommate and I crashed pretty early. Thursday wasn't a good day. We mostly had orientations stuff, and I decided to not do any of the tours in the afternoon and just chill. Chilling lead to homesickness. I went to bed early. Saturday was much better. After some orientations stuff, I went into the town of Mariazell, and saw the Basilica. It was gorgeous. Tons of pictures. It was really Baroque, which normally isn't my style, but because the Baroque styles were added onto a Gothic base, it wasn't very gaudy. Well... not too much. The craziest part of the town was the fact that it looks exactly like Leavenworth. Like, madcore legit. I got ice cream (Hazelnut, and white chocolate pistachio. I ordered in German!). It was a good day.

We came back to Vienna on Sunday (today) and got moved into our apartments. Tomorrow, I'm going to register with the embassy, and go shopping (hair dryer, hair products, soap, water bottle, etc). I also have my first German class tomorrow, and a walking tour of the city center.

I think I might actually be happy that I'm here.