Hello everyone!
This time I really do owe you all an apology, since it's been about two weeks since I've written. I't just been such a crazy two weeks! I intend to go back and put down the details, mostly just to be able to look back and remember it myself, but for you guys as well, if you're interested. For now though, I'm just going to throw down the basics to let you know I'm alive.
After Venice was midterms week. BLECH. I survived it, but Thursday in particular was miserable: three midterms back to back with two papers due. Then that evening we left for Prague, so there was hardly any time to breathe that whole week. It ended up being successful though ... my grades came back better than I'd even hoped, so that was exciting.
Prague was a really great trip. We left Thursday night at 8pm and drove overnight on a bus (12 hour bus ride...blech again) with a tour group called Florence for Fun, which plans trips for students studying abroad here in Florence. I went with Rob and my roommate Meredith, and the three of us pretty much did our own thing separate of the group the whole weekend. We did lots of walking around since it's such a beautiful city, and lots of shopping, since the exchange rate was phenomenal and they had lots of really original stuff. It was quite a bit of fun. We also had one really interesting (and by that, I mean scary) night. Prague has a 5-story dance club with a different type of music on each floor, so Saturday night we decided to check it out. Rob and I got separated from Meredith because she left with some guy without telling us, so we spent a frantic two hours looking for her and sitting in this disgusting club panicking thinking she was dead or raped or god knows what. She ended up bumping in to us an hour and a half after we'd planned to leave, and we convinced her to come home with us, but it was horribly stressful and a great way to ruin a night that would have otherwise been really fun. Then, on the way home we were mistaken for pickpockets and grabbed by two bouncers walking by another dance club. We tried to push them off because we didn't know who they were and we hadn't done anything wrong, and almost got in a fight in the process. Prague at night is a scary place, and it just reinforced why I almost never go out in Europe. I really love the place during the day, and will spend the rest of my late night hours here sleeping and avoiding the scary crowd.
We made it back from Prague early Monday morning (about 2am) and the next week or so just flew by. Before we knew it, it was Thursday afternoon and we were leaving for our third half-day bus ride in a week period, to Vienna. We arrived there about 3am to a surprisingly nice hostel, then woke up around ten the next morning to go explore. In all honesty, I can't remember much about our trip to Vienna except for that it was FREEZING cold. It was also windy and rainy, so it made it pretty miserable to be outside. We did our best to get the best out of the city, but we ended up doing a lot of museum tours and hanging out in coffee shops. We did, however, get to see a couple really cool things, namely a performance of the Lipizzaners of the Spanish Riding School and Mozart's house in Vienna. Mozart's house actually was only cool in that he lived there -- the museum itself was awful and overpriced. It was still inspiring though to be there and see what he saw out his windows and just be in the place that inspired him.
So, Vienna wasn't a complete bust, though it wasn't my favorite weekend out of all my trips so far. This morning, we woke up early and got ready to leave, and it was the most gorgeous morning (GRRR). I realized I probably would have fallen in love with Vienna had it been sunny, and so I'd love to go back someday and try again. The drive home wasn't too painful, but I am thankful to not be going on any more bus trips for probably the rest of my time here.
This week, once again, will be short. We're leaving for Spring Break on Thursday -- six days in Bavaria! We're still working out the details, namely where to stay since our apartment fell through, but as soon as that's figured out, it should be a great week!
Alright, I've got to go make Skype calls. Ciao!
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