Tuesday May 29, 2007
9:45 p.m. Apartment
Austria = no kangaroos

Guten Tag!

The “Austria, no kangaroos” is something they sell on shirts/bags that really cracks me up here. Before I leave I’m definitely going to have to get something with that, especially since everyone on this trip has had at least one person either tell them something like “go to New Zealand while you’re there” or “Have a good time on the gondolas.”

So, Vlad (he’s a biochemistry major originally from Romania) came over to our apartment yesterday and spent like 3 hours fixing our internet connection by completely reconfiguring it, and last night it worked and it was wonderful sweet heavenly bliss. Then this morning it went back out again, so I gave up hope. Of course this means the landlady sent her awkward son Peter and some other guy who fixed it, so we have wireless now. A little bit ironic, don’t you think?

So the pictures below, I hope that link works, even though the picture is cut off because of the format. Just click on the picture and it should take you to a sampling of the others. I have many more, but I posted only the highlights due to the internet restrictions since none of us want it to go out, AGAIN.

I love Vienna sooo much. Anytime I even have a faint fluttering of feeling homesick something happens that totally excites me and that little feeling goes away. Doesn’t mean I don’t miss everyone, just I’m happy here. I am so jealous of the Viennese taking their dogs everywhere with them. The dogs usually have an old fashioned muzzle hanging around their neck because it’s Austrian law that when they go on public transport they need to be muzzled. Anyway, I saw about 4 Cocker Spaniels today, which completely made me miss Phoebe really bad. Three of the spaniels were English Cocker Spaniels, which has been all I’ve seen so far, and one was scooting it’s head like a shovel (Mom knows what I’m talking about, it’s a cocker thing) and running around outside the Kunsthistoricisches Museum we went to today. I had to refrain from running over, scooping it up, and giving it a thousand kisses. Even worse, I was walking around later and passed what had to have been some mix of a buff American Cocker Spaniel. Wow. I’ve seen a Maltese, but no Schnauzers. Go figure. I think they were too loud and got kicked off the sidewalks. Oh, and one of the spaniels started a deep woofing to warn some walkers…. : ( Ok I’ll stop.

Yesterday (Monday) we had our first German class, which isn’t for a grade, so whoo hoo, except we still take quizzes, but whatever to that, we’re learning because we want to. My German teacher is an older women who married a man from Minnesota (she’s Viennese) but she has the exact same enthusiasm as Mrs. Sasarides (my high school French teacher) had, and sometimes I swear gets the same expression on her face even though they look nothing alike. It amuses me.
After German we met Professor Waldman in front of the Stephansdom. My professor is a really fascinating person. He’s in his mid-late 30’s and he teachers art history, so that means he is an equal expert on both art AND history, let alone his European specialty. Before I even took the class I knew he was brilliant from former students and even from some of my professors. He got his PhD after working in Florence, Italy, and is going back there after our Maymester ends for a fellowship with Harvard to do more research work and taking time off from UT. Anyway, he is really go with the flow and doesn’t restrict our class to traditional confines. He uses the city as our classroom, and is all about talking about how we feel/our perceptions studying abroad, and has us interviewing locals as mini projects to talk about what they think of America and keeping detailed journals (this blog is part of mine!) Prof. Waldman definitely fits into “groove” of Austin. He runs, he’s vegan, likes to be outdoors, and just has a passion for many things. You can tell when he talks not only that a) he knows what he’s talking about front to back but b) he is just someone you could carry on a conversation with for hours. It’s awesome.

So yesterday, during our class we talked a lot about Medieval Vienna and the architecture of some of the main churches (like the Stephansdom, which is St. Stephan’s Chuch, the center of the city). We walked around a few other places, including the Minorite Church, a Franciscan Order, which is now the Italian Catholic church of the city. Inside there was a life size reproduction of the da Vinci’s Last Supper, which was commissioned by Napolean since he tried and failed to move the orginal, but after his defeat the Habsburgs bought it to show their final triumph over Napoleon, who stormed the city and ended up marrying one of the sisters or daughters of the Emperor to show a sign of alliance after he took away all his power.

Well inside the church I realized something. I had already been thinking about it, but May 28 is the two year anniversary of my severe rollover car accident. To myself I was secretly celebrating the fact that compared to last year, this is the first anniversary I am completely free from the accident’s affects, and can look back with almost a sense of triumph. Triumph of the fact that two years ago yesterday I was at the absolute lowest and worst things could almost get, and this year I’m a sophomore neurobiology major at UT spending the summer traveling Europe. I think it is one of the most empowering feelings one could have. Well, St. Francis is my patron saint, and it came over and hit me because it meant a lot to be standing in a church founded hundreds of years ago by some of his most immediate followers, and the closest physically on Earth to any of his works. There I was, standing in front of an ancient fresco of St. Francis on the anniversary of my most trying hour. I can’t describe it, but it was the type of moment where you feel like you are exactly where you need to be at that exact moment in time.

So we finished our walking tour. A few of us have adapted the philosophy of whenever we hear of something we want to do in Vienna we try to do it as soon as possible, that way things don’t build up and we run out of time. One of my roommates went to the Belvedere Botanical Gardens, and yesterday it was gorgeous here in Vienna, so after class we headed over and looked around. It was basically a really nice sampling of many different plants (University of Vienna’s botany department uses this location) so it was just nice to walk around outside awhile. After that we went to a Brewery in town, and got local cuisine. I wasn’t in the mood for beer, so just had water “with gas.” I hated it way back in Ireland, but I guess I’ve aquired the taste because I like it now. I ordered a salad, but to confirm what Mom already know, Europeans don’t understand what a true salad is. It was basically a bunch of vegetables and like a leaf of lettuce. Oh well, it was still good.

Last night it got really cold, which meant I slept the best I’ve slept since I’ve gotten here since for once I wasn’t sweating at night. I actually wore a sweater today, which was fun and for once everyone, I wasn’t walking around with perpetual goosebumps! After German our class went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which I believe is only the Imperial collection (although it is quite large) of art and sculpture. I cannot even begin to describe everything, because I’ve fallen in love with this place. We are going back tomorrow for class to do even more, but not only was Professor Waldman incredibly interesting, but the museum itself is beautiful, not to mention all the art it contains. Inside are a few of Klimt’s commissioned designs, a Rembrandt I really loved, the portrait of a girl that hangs inside my dorm, and sooo much more.

Prof. Waldman is a riot too. He had us act out one of the paintings we were looking at in the museum to illustrate how they were moving in violence in ballet like movement, and I played one of the Roman soldiers about to kill one of the martyrs, one of whom was Prof. Waldman! It was so interesting, and we were all divided up in the gallery to observe and talk about different paintings. It just so happened, I accidentally picked the one from far away of a women getting fondled (most Renaissance paintings find any excuse to make it moral to stair at sexual paintings of women) so that was interesting and fun to talk to the class about. I just talked about how two of the minstrels were a little “off task” along with other features of painting. I can’t wait to go back.

After that I had to go finish turning in my Austrian registration form. I really know my way around the city by now, and am learning all the little features. Like walking down Kärtnerstraße they always have street performers for the tourists, so it means the street is always serenaded by at least one string quartet playing Mozart of Beethoven.

On the way back to the apartment I grabbed a sandwich from one of the bakeries which is always delicious.

Ok, I’m completely out. I need to look over some German verb conjugations since we have a “quiz” tomorrow. I think this is the perfect activity to help me learn to control myself so that I can study without any stress.

Ich heiße Elaine. Wie heißt du? Ich habe eine frage.

*Elaine

Taste of Vienna: Part I

Photobucket Album

Are you ready for this??!?!?!?!?

I’m really sorry it has taken me so long to post, but my internet at my apartment will only let me on AIM (yes, it’s weird) and then most internet places and IES are closed this weekend, plus I’ve been staying really busy so this entry is huge. It may be completely boring, but it is the complete update on EVERYTHING I’ve done since I’ve been here. I hope you feel like you’re in the middle of Austria with me, or at least know a lot more!
If I repeat myself forgive me, but I’ve written all of this in many parts to make it possible since I’ve stayed so busy.

Also, I absolutely LOVE reading everyone’s comments! Yay you guys!

*******************************************************************************

Our very quaint European Apartment
May 25, 2007
11:23 p.m.


Hello!

All day I feel like different words and anecdotes have been whirling through my head to write in here, but I’m probably not going to get it all down since there is soooo much and I can’t even begin to chronicle it all!

So we’ll start with the rest of yesterday (Thursday). In the morning I was the only English speaker at breakfast, which consisted of a modest buffet of cereal, cream, tons of different roles and pastries, cheese, and of course coffee. I checked out and made it to IES using the U-Bahn (underground subway system) all by myself, which was really exciting. The night before I had been a bit south west of central Vienna, and at night I was just a tad disappointed because everything looked a bit more Eastern European than charming, Western Europe. Well my opinion of that quickly changed as soon as I emerged from the U-Bahn into the center of the city to get to IES. I came up out of the tunnel (keep in mind towing my luggage) to the main pedestrian street, and was immediately surrounded by sidewalk cafes, shops, and the entire European feel.

Arrived at IES, and buzzed it. C-Geo (UT’s study abroad office) wasn’t lying, or at all exaggerating when they said IES is in a 17th century palace. The interior is so beautiful. The rooms have exquisite muraled ceilings, and gold leaf on the moldings, a large marble staircase and statues everywhere! The story is that the owner was an Italian officer in the Habsburg military, and needed a palace in the city for ball season. So he built the place and imported all the marble and detailing. Well I thought it was weird when I walked in that the staircase is just off to the side, but it turns out there used to be another half of the palace but it was bombed and completely destroyed in WWII. This is a very common theme unfortunately in Vienna. Whenever you see a new (and very plain building) next to an old one it is because of WWII, which is all over the city in huge chunks. Like the huge and beautiful grand opera house was bombed, but luckily the front, and most elaborate part, was left almost unharmed. Well the descendent of the Italian officer still owns the place, but has to rent it out and lives in the basement but is VERY cranky about students touching anything and to people in general. lol

So I walked around with someone until time for our meeting. We had a giant orientation, full of lots of information, and then we finally came to our apartments, which are in a really convenient location, and right next to the Naschmarkt, the largest “flea” market, or basically market in Europe and also the Farmer’s Market. Well we got here, and met our landlady, who was a very robust and older Austrian with a very thick German accent (she kept saying ja [yah] a lot and doesn’t understand the internet, which is why my internet access is really messed up right now. She has gold teeth but was very nice and overall hard to understand. Our apartment, 15, is on the 4th floor, which in the US would be the 5th floor since they call their first floor the ground floor and the second the 1st. This is an older apartment building, so that meant we all had to take our luggage up five flights of narrow, spiraling stairs. I almost died. Because it has now been two straight days of me lugging around my big rolling suitcase (which weighted 49 pounds) and my rolling carry on and dragging them through the U-bahn up and down stairs, on and off, and all across European airports.

Anyway, our apartments are really nice, and very European. I am in a bigger one with 6 girls. We have a kitchen, dining area, living room with a German TV, and three rooms (one big, one medium, and one small size, I’m in the big one with three girls, but it’s four times larger than my dorm room). Everything here is from Ikea, which makes it even more European. We have giant windows that open and we get a nice breeze. The furniture is all randomly acquired, but very nice overall.



Last night we all took cold showers, and assumed we had run out of hot water. By the time I took one it was ice cold. Austrian water is freezing coming out of the tap, which is good for me drinking cold water, bad for taking showers. I wanted to cry in the shower. It was like ice. No more 15 minute showers for me. Well thank goodness tonight we discovered that the hot water heater, which is like literally a flame, hadn’t been lit yet so that is a relief.

Ok, I’m going to bed and will continue this tomorrow. It won’t make a difference to any of you since I have no internet and won’t post it until maybe Saturday.

*Elaine



May 26, 12:32 a.m.
Apartment

The past few days have been so busy, and I have yet to find a successful internet connection. At our apartments basically our internet is just wacked up, so all I can access is AIM, not email or websites. Our landlady is out for the weekend, but I’m not sure she’ll be able to help at all.

Ok I’m going to try really hard to catch everyone up since I’m already falling desperately behind. So Friday we had a walking tour of Vienna with some of the resident students who work for IES. They showed us their favorite places to eat around central Vienna and gave us a few tips on where to break the giant bills you get from the ATM and other randomness. We ended the tour at the place where we are supposed to register to live in Austria this month. The line was way too long so we went out with our Professor for lunch and decided to come back later, like on Monday since it was going so absurdly slow.
At lunch we went to this deli, and since I know no German I have to point, gesture, grunt, and hand over more than the possible amount of money I need to the person in order to successfully get through. I have to say, for any place where they do not have a fluent English speaker, the Austrians are very patient and polite. I have been very impressed, and they go out of their way to try and help you as best they can, but really most people here speck at least basic English. Really, that makes me want to learn a little German even more because they have been so accommodating. With my program they have an introductory German class I’ll be taking 4 days a week, which I’m really happy about.




Sunday May 27, 2007
Apartment 4:30 p.m.

Continuing this giant blog entry that I cannot post until I get internet access. So to continue our Friday activities, after ditching the registration line, a bunch of us and our professor, Dr. Louis Waldman, went over to a local gelato place. Picking flavors was fun, since for the most part you weren’t sure what you exactly were getting. There was one word I knew the second I saw it, and the selection was a done deal: tiramisu. Gelato is a type of ice cream, but less creamy and a slightly different texture, to be honest I don’t know a whole lot about it other than it’s very European, so good it’s sinful, and just making its way over to the states.
After eating gelato, we headed over for our IES bus tour of the city in front of the Staatsoper, the enormously grand center opera house. Our tourguide, Dr. Ottersböck, an American and art history professor in what I guess to be her late 50’s, who I believe came to study in Vienna, fell in love with her ski instructor ( I could be completely wrong on that, but I thought she mentioned that, otherwise just fell in love) and bottom line got married, stayed in Vienna, and raised her kids here. We made a few stops along our bus tour, including the grand summer palace and garden of Prince Eugene, a brillent, but apparently scrawny, military stragist who after being turned away from the French (what a joke!) came to Austria and defeated the invading Turks for the Habsburgs (ruling family), and thus became quite wealthy. We are going back there, so we just looked around the gardens, and there are these giant sphinxes that are supposed to show women as having strong lion bodies, wings, and intelligent heads and be all powerful, but they have giant breast that appear to be a bit cold so basically I think it’s just soft porn that men tried to pass off as art. Although Prince Eugene wasn’t interested in women and never married, so either females freaked him out more than the Turkish army, or he had some huge closets in that palace. We may never know.

After that we hit up the work of a really neat architect, who didn’t like to use straight lines, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who had roof tenants (plants). Even the floors are a bit uneven, inside and outside his building. Normally I’m not into that sort of stuff, but I actually liked his work. After driving around, we saw a few other examples of his work in Vienna, although his work is throughout the world. He died a few years ago.

Well this was the hottest day thus far of the trip, and we had been out standing in the sun, and getting back on the bus which didn’t have sufficient air conditioning. We were dying, especially poor Dr. Ottersböck, who kept fanning herself and exclaiming, which made me think of a few certain ladies back in the states. We were dying, since you can’t even cool off inside.

We ended our tour in the Vienna woods up in the hills, which are completely beautiful. Up toward the hills there are home run wineries, called Heurigens. You go and have an Austrian meal and drink last year’s wine. We had a wonderful meal, and yes I do believe in the saying “when in Rome” or rather “when in Vienna” so I had some wine. In case you all were wondering, I am the largest lightweight possible and got slightly dizzy after half a glass. lol
I eased up after that, but to my defense they were big glasses, it was strong (but I will admit very good) and we were all dehydrated. Nuff said.

We all laughed, because at the end the directors were like “ok, take the public transport back, have a good weekend” and we were all like “great, they get us drunk then make us find our way home!” But as all public transport is here, it was really easy.

So Saturday. I woke up early and went to the Farmer’s Market. The Naschmarkt, which is the flea market part, wasn’t that terribly exciting but the farmer’s market was amazing and very reasonably priced. I got some fresh strawberries, some dried fruit (with even kiwis) with nuts, and a loaf of whole grain bread that was still warm when I picked it out. After that we went to Merker, the local grocery store for shampoo, and other things. When I was walking around, they started to play “Raindrops keep falling on my head” which I found rather amusing. After that we had a class meeting by at the Historical Museum of the City of Vienna. We looked at a lot of changing maps of Vienna, and talked about the influence of taverns on local life. It was really interesting, but by the end all the German words got overwhelming and all of our feet hurt really bad from standing a lot. This museum was right by the enormous and imposing Karlskirche (St. Charles’s Church) that was built in 1713 to celebrate the end of a plague that hit the city. Outside we passed the weirdest thing. There was a performance of human statues, all painted like roman statues, playing this really loud classical music with nature sounds. The more we watched, the weirder it got, because it was like there were starting to move and whisper, but then they would stop. As a group of us walked away in search of food, they started making a lot of really loud noises, so we were glad to be heading the other direction.

I ate at this bar called 1516, and had asparagus cream soup. Spargal (asparagus) is in season, so it was really good.

Later that evening, we got standing tickets at the Staatsoper (main opera house). What you do is you wait in line several hours before the performance, then they let you into another room and everyone files in, then you by tickets ( €2 each!) and then you are led into the grand stairs, wait again, and then there is no kidding a mad dash for the standing seats. I was with three other students and our mouths dropped open because there were grown adults running and pushing to reserve their railing space at the top. Well after much pushing and confusion, we got our seats. To mark your spot you tie a scarf or belt along the railing and then leave and go socialize. Well we hadn’t brought anything so we finally tore up a plastic bag and ghetto-fied ourselves at the opera but we just chilled by our “seats.” We saw Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chénier, which was set in the French Revolution. It was really good, but thing that made it really enjoyable was the English translation that you could program on the screen in front of you. That way you knew exactly what was going on (for the most part) but it was funny after each act there was an intermission, and we would sum to each other what was happening in “common” terms. Overall it was full of drama and very enjoyable. I looked that that night as my trial run at the opera, since we didn’t have to dress up. There were plenty of people in full dress, plenty of people in casual clothing. Next time I plan on dressing up, but that will mainly be for my own enjoyment. Also, standing got pretty tedious, so I may try to get the €10 student rush tickets that sometimes are hard to get, but they are just the leftover seats. It would be nice to sit. Sitting is wonderful.

Finally, I’m on today! I got up and went to mass at a local church. It was entirely in German except for one song, and Jesus tastes like cornflakes in Austria! I’m sorry if that was offensive, but seriously, the wafer was very cornflake like. There was a modest turnout, and today I just went to the local church instead of one of the huge central churches. It was very beautiful, but hard to understand what was going on since I was surrounded by what I’m guessing were tourists who didn’t know either, so I couldn’t just follow their lead since things were going in a slightly different order than I’m used to. The small choir was pretty good, and even sang the end song in English, so that surprised me.

I was feeling kind of tired, so I just chilled in the apartment today. A few of my roommates went hiking, and a few others just chilled around. I’m trying to not over do it since I have an entire summer of this left to go, so I sat with the windows open, wrote most of this, read in my guidebooks, and completely relaxed.

*Elaine

May 27, 2007
11:15 p.m. just got back from the center of Vienna (1st District)

So I just went out with four of my other roommates and we walked to the center of Vienna, which is around the giant Stephansdom (St. Stephan’s Church), walked around and then had dessert at Europa, a sidewalk café. Especially since it has been so hot the past few days this cool weather and light breeze was heavenly. We sat around and talked, had my first encounter with rude service, but the Blackforest Cake I got was quite enjoyable. We took the subway back and got right next this couple making out and the women had no eyebrows. Oh the things you can observe!

*Elaine

May 24, 2007
Hotel Furstenhof
2:37 a.m.

Good Morning!
So I’m getting ready to check out of my hotel for the day and head over to IES (Institute for European Studies) our homebase. Last night I went down the street with the other Maymester students and we got Frankfurters from a stand. It was really neat because the bun was an actual oblong roll, not like an American bun, and they “spear” the end of it on this long spike like thing and then squirt your condiments down the long hole and stick in the frankfurter. I’m going to have to learn very quickly how not to be picky since I can’t say in German what I don’t want on there. It will be very frustrating until I learn. No more “When Harry Met Sally” ordering for me in Vienna.
I’ll probably add to this entry later. Nowhere has air conditioning, which is fine for the moment because you don’t need it.
*Elaine

May 23, 2007
London Heathrow Airport
8:45 a.m.

Hello everyone!
I would say something more culturally fitting, but I’m not really that immersed yet and I don’t feel quite feel up to being European right now. I’m going off of about 1 hour of sleep and a nap yesterday on my first flight, so here’s to caffeine.

I’m not sure when I’ll actually be able to post this, so hence the time stamp. It may be at least a day before I can since every wireless network I can find at the airport requires some sort of membership, or that you be a T-mobile England customer. Go figure.

So up until this morning everything had been running smoothly (nobody freak out, everything is fine, just a hiccup re-checking my bag for my flight to Vienna; British Airways cannot take the bag until 12:25, so I need to wait outside the terminal.)

My first leg of the trip was entirely uneventful. The smaller plane to JFK was no big deal, and judging by the material the guy next to me was working on during the flight I bet he was a UT graduate student, but he wasn’t really social, so I just read my O Magazine. Flying into New York was neat because I looked up from reading JUST in time to see the Manhattan skyline off in the distance, which totally put me in a Sex and the City mood. Side note because I have like 5 hours to type this and bore all of you: I keep thinking of the series’ final episode “American Girl in Paris Parts Un and Deux” because I’m totally American girl in Vienna/Europe this summer. Let’s just hope my trip doesn’t end in me breaking up with my lover (pronounced Luuuuver), breaking an extravagantly expensive crystal necklace, and having Big come over and chase me down to end the epic.

Ok moving on. So the transport between terminals was about as clear as mud in JFK because I got completely spoiled by the new DFW. The check in people were atypical cranky New Yorkers, except for this one guy at the McDonalds near where I had dinner, he was entirely overly enthusiastic about taking bewildered traveler’s orders.
On my flight over there I sat next to this really old couple (I would guess mid 60’s). They seemed like pretty experienced travelers and were American but I think they lived in England. I never really gave them the grand inquisition. During some of our random comments they asked what I was going to be doing in Europe, and they said that there son did some post doc work at Oxford and is now a chemistry professor. They were very nice, and I got to hear all about their calcium pills etc. that they took at dinner. lol

British Airways is really neat because the TV screen is in the seat in front of you. They had tons of movies to choose from, and really neat features that showed a live map of where the plane was, how high we were, how fast we were going and so on. I got really excited and watched this documentary called “Beautiful Minds” which was all about Autism and tied it into the differences between the male and female brain. I was enthralled. Tried to get some sleep, but there really wasn’t a whole lot of time since our flight got in at 6:10 a.m. London time, which was around like 12 Austin time.

So the problem with my luggage here is Delta didn’t put my luggage all the way through, so I had to go reclaim it, after going through customs and then British Airways cannot recheck it until 12: 25 since my flight doesn’t leave until almost 3 p.m. So this all means, I’m stuck outside the terminal in the small coffee shops they have here until I can check my big bag. It wouldn’t be so bad, if I could find a freaking plug to keep my laptop charged. I’m not really sure what the English have against electricity, but I FINALLY found a plug and had it charging until a minute ago, when a worker told me I couldn’t do that. I can be ON the laptop, I just can’t plug it in. Everybody has their laptops, I’m just trying to conserve my battery so I can continue to keep myself entertained for the next few hours, since reading will only make me sleepy, something I cannot indulge in.

Ok, I love all of you, and someone send England a memo, I need to power my laptop. I’m not demanding internet, only a freaking plug. I swear they are everywhere in the United States, and I’ve been lucky to find one, which apparently I can’t plug into. Whoo-hoo.

*Elaine

London Heathrow
Approximately 1:18 p.m. at the boarding gate waiting again

Update of the boring wait. So after getting kicked off the electric plug, the lack of sleep, really unhealthy food, and a dash of anxiety about getting everything checked in, I really began to not feel so fantastic. I sat for a bit and tried to make myself feel better, but I just kept feeling worse. At this point I was up near where I was going to have to check my bag and I still had a few hours to go before they would even take my bag so I could go into the real airport.
Really, it was just like a movie. Here I was not feeling well at all, and thinking to myself “Elaine, you are such a moron signing up to do this the entire summer and here you are feeling sick on your first day…” and completely second guessing myself. I pulled over to the side to dig out my Pepto Bismol tablets from my giant suitcase (since I still had it with me) and as I’m digging through I look up and at the computer kiosk low and behold I see a familiar Longhorn face. It was a girl I remembered from our Vienna cultural class, so I said hello and she said “Hey! I’m here with two other Maymester students at the café at the end.” It was the best possible thing that could have happened.
I was feeling my absolute lowest (a combination of the no sleep and anxiety because it is all so complicated [including the fact that at 6:30 this morning I had to be completely patted down at a security checkpoint) and here are three other UT students with the same British Airways flight to Vienna, staying in a Hostel RIGHT across the street from the hotel I’m staying in tonight.
My guardian angel made sure I ended up at the right place at the right time because they were in the same predicament I was in about not being able to check their bags. Not only is it REALLY nice to have people to look after your bags while you go to the bathroom and have conversation to pass the time with, but it’s extra support to help you resist jet lag and I won’t be going into Vienna all alone.
In case you were wondering, I felt better within 20 minutes.
*Elaine