And We Made It!

Hello from Austria!

Amanda and I arrived today in Vienna around 9:30am (3:30am EST). Our flights were, well, interesting. Our first was a connection from Detroit to Washington D.C. on a cute, little puddle jumper of a plane. Note little. There were some interesting moments of turbulence during this trip that made most of us nervous at some point. At one point I closed my eyes and just told myself “pretend you’re on I-94.” The flight from Washington D.C. to Vienna had some turbulence as well, but that plane took it much better, considering it was about 50x the size of the previous plane. Between the two, I said a half dozen prayers, just to be safe. There were also better distractions on the overseas flight. Mainly, this consisted of personal TVs for everyone. I watched about 5 different things so it was pretty fantastic. We also 2 meals on board (dinner and breakfast), which were surprisingly good, and introduced me to the Austrian form of ginger ale. Between eating and watching movies, I attempted sleep. This was difficult, considering I’m not a good napper, and our seats only reclined to about 120 degrees. I briefly considered using Amanda’s shoulder as a pillow, but when I asked her if I could in “what if form”, she told me she’d punch me, which eliminated that option. I probably got about 2-3 hours of sleep, but am surprisingly not tired right now.
Upon landing in the Vienna airport, we got all of our bags from the baggage claim (yes! No lost luggage!) and proceeded with the group to Morbisch, a town about an hour and a half south of Vienna, for our orientation. We checked into the hotel, where Amanda and I are sharing a double room. The hotel also provided lunch to us, which was the largest lunch I’d had in awhile; 3 courses including dessert (sorry no ice cream yet). After that, Amanda and I got a much needed shower, and then decided to walk around the town with some people.
Ok now its my turn – so just to add a few notes to Molly’s part above… the plane was not considered “cute” – I think an extremely small theme park attraction might a better description. Also, we are waiting at the hotel for the other half of our group that few out of GR because of the volcanic ash cloud causing problems. The planes have to go around it so this made their flight late and then they missed their connecting flight from Amsterdam to Vienna– but I mean they should be here by 6pm as long as everything goes as planned.
Anyway, on our walk with some other people on the trip, we took a little self- tour around this town with the goal of finding a coffee shop. It took us about 20 minutes and a trip to the bank, where the tellers giggled at us when one of the girls asked where a “coffee shop” was (apparently they refer to it as a coffee HOUSE). Well the pointed us in the right direction and we finally located one. The employees at the coffee house were very friendly, even though we spoke no German at all and they spoke very little English. We did find a common language of Spanish that worked well enough to order some delicious coffee. I ordered something I had no idea what it was but I mean it was good! – it was like a strong latte but the name totally is gone minus it started with an “M.” After the coffee, we walked around to explore the town a little more and found the town bar is located right next to a elementary school (obviously not something we are used to…) and then proceeded to go up the hill and find grape fields that went on forever.
As for being in Europe, it still seems unreal to actually be here! I (sorry WE) are beyond excited for the next 3 weeks, and the experience we will have. We meet our host family on Friday and from what little information we know about them, I am excited to get to know them. Also, I cannot wait to experience the food in Vienna (in particular the Gelato). But I mean, none of that starts till Friday when we go back into the city.

So until then -
Amanda and Molly