School Begins!

Well, I have started to take classes again like a normal college student! However, it is not normal what so ever, because I am in WIEN!!! I remember I had the same feeling...and to be honest still do...when I started at Sewanee. Sewanee seems like an amazing summer camp for learning! And Wien seems like a giant adventure with learning thrown in! However, I realize that I am here to learn, and I cannot wait to make the most of my experience learning about culture here while mixing it with my academic passions!

I am taking two psychology classes-my major- and one education internship! I am also taking modern architecture and german, natürlich! I am super stoked about all of my classes, especially because I get to integrate Austrian culture into them! I am so excited to learn more about the schools here!! I get to help out in English classes, which students here start at a young age! Learning a language here is just a completely different concept! At first when I was learning German here I could not get used to it! I could not believe that we were already learning sentences when I did not even know the alphabet or numbers! Things that I expected we would learn first because they were simple, I mean, don't you learn those things first? Well, answer: in America yes! However, the perspective of language here is so different! They learn sentences, words, read articles, listen, speak, and they do not learn things like grammar straight off the bat! They do not spend time in class learning nitpicky things like we do in the English language, or in foreign language classes! Here English is much more prevalent than German in the US. I often hear English songs being played everywhere! About 80% of the music I hear is English! They believe language should focus more on conversation, while in the US, they believe in the written word much more. It was an interesting way of learning to get used to, but I have to say, I feel like I have learned a lot of German in only four weeks! Much more Spanish than I learned the first month at school!

So, anyways, I am super stoked about classes!

Other happening this week!

Grace, Courtney, and I along with Carolyn and Erica had a lovely Valentine's Day cheese and wine dinner on Monday night! I have to say, a lovely way to spend Valentine's Day with some wonderful ladies! We seriously killed some cheese! NOM NOM NOM!! Again, my new found love of cheese! Super duper tasty!

I have had some bad luck with the public transportation this week! Once the sbahn kicked everyone off, they do this sometimes, and another time there was an accident blocking the tracks! They have also been checking the tickets like crazy this week! As I mentioned before, Wien is on an honor system. Today when I came upstairs from my ubahn there was a blockade of people checking cards! That has not happened yet since I have been here! It was quite a strange sight coming upstairs to see it!

In other news......BOOKED TRIP TO PRAGUE TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YEEAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!! I am going to Prague with my friend on the program Kristen!! Woop Woop!!!

Super duper excited!!!!!

Also, if you have not looked to the upper right of the blog page, I have updated the picasa picture album page with more pictures from my trip last week!! There are lots of pictures! And one album just with people because I realize not everyone wants to look at hundreds of pictures of buildings and many of them duplicated into black and white!

The weather here has been gross the last week :( I hope that it gets warm soon!!!!!