The last couple of days in Haus Erasmus were very emotional. I think that I signed more books and wrote more notes to people than I did at my high school graduation! Julien had me in tears when he gave me the biggest French hug ever. I am going to miss everyone SO much, and will definitely never forget the past four months. Our big group of friends had one last dinner together at a Mongolian restaraunt, which was absolutely delicious!!! It was also Connie's birthday, so we had a double celebration. After dinner, all of us finished packing and the girls and I sat around and talked for a while. Nina and I layed in our beds and had our typical nightly conversation and just laughed until the wee hours of the morning. I finally fell asleep around 3am. Studying abroad in Vienna has been the absolute BEST experience ever, but after 4 months away from my family, friends, and the Kentucky Wildcats, I was quite ready to go home. Amber and I woke up at 6am and stuffed the last bits of our luggage in and headed out the door. The first person that we met when we came to Vienna was Srdjan, so, naturally, he wanted to be the last person that we saw! Surge helped Amber and I lug our massive tons of suitcases to the Westbahnhof bus station. Saying goodbye to Surge was a really hard thing to do. He was so fun!!! We met up with Steve, Ralph, Kelly, and Kristine at the airport...... and the frustration began! We were first in line, and I think that the KLM airlines hired a bunch of elementary school kids!!! It took the 6 of us almost an hour to get through the line. (My luggage was only 3 kilos over the limit, so I didn't have to pay nearly as much as everyone else) When I got up to the counter, the lady told me that when we connected in Amsterdam, we would have to print off our tickets when we got there for some reason.... I dunno! Then, when Amber got up to the counter, the lady notified our group that bad weather was going to be on an hour delay!!! This was not good, because mine and Amber's layover in Amsterdam was very short originally... so we would be cutting it very close. -- As we were walking toward the gate, a girl that was beside us in line was running back to the counter and stopped us. She said that we had to rebook our flights from Amsterdam to Detroit, because of the hour delay. The two of us turned around, went back to the counter, but then had to turn right back around. The lady told us that we would only be able to rebook when we got to Amsterdam, but to see if we could make our original flight first...... grr..... ok. Over an hour after we were supposed to, we boarded our flight in foggy Vienna, and were off to Amsterdam. I immediately fell fast asleep, since I was running on very little sleep!! When the plane landed, I looked on my watch, and it was 12:55.... and our next flight was supposed to take off at 1pm!!!!!! Um... not good. When we got to the terminal, Amber and I said some very very quick goodbyes to the Bostons, and then rushed off to look at the screen to see if we could possibly make our flight. Amber saw our flight number first. We looked at the time, and our jaws both dropped. The flight was long gone. WHAT WERE WE GOING TO DO? We ran over to an information desk and asked the cute little info guy where to go. He pointed us in the direction of Transfer Desk 2 and said, "Get in line, girls. It is a disaster." Well awesome. I've only been gone from home for 4 months, and in a few days it is Christmas time.... but there's no rush... not at all. I was beyond frustrated when I saw a crowd of several hundred people standing around this transfer desk. We took a number from the automatic number machine and sat down on the floor. We started talking to people, and learned that because of the bad weather in Amsterdam, tons of flights had been canceled.... and they were all in the same spot as we were........ and the wait began. We could tell that we were going to be there a while when the airline people brought out free water and sandwiches. They feared that we would STARVE or DEHYDRATE before we got our flights rebooked!!! That definitely not a good feeling. The numbers that we got were split up between the business class and the poor college student aka economy class. Our number was in the 700s, and after 2 hours of waiting, the desk people had only begun to creep through the 500s. We knew that there HAD to be other flights going out to Detroit. That wasn't the question. The real question was if we would ever even get to the desk to catch one of these flights. FRUSTRATION!!! Amber and I just plopped down and waited it out, when we were approached by an older English guy. He asked us what number we had, and said that originally he had an economy class number, but picked up one of the business numbers, because the desk people didn't check!! SWEET! We quickly found a discarded number and hopped in line behind some Sweeden people in suits! After 6 hours of waiting in line, we got up to the desk to rebook. The next flight out to Detroit wasn't until the next day!!! WE JUST WANT TO GO HOME!!! So.... we finally had our tickets.... but NOW what? This girl was not, under any circumstances, sleeping on a bench by the nearest Starbucks. Noooo sir. The KLM airlines woman told us to go down to the KLM counter at the exit, and they would hook us up! The KLM lady called a hotel for us, gave us a pack of free things (including soaps, 5 minute phone card, and socks!) We went outside and caught a shuttle to the hotel after waiting some more in the freezing cold. Amber and I just laughed at this, because we had been waiting in lines for most of the day... why not wait some more?? lol. While riding to the hotel, I just pictured in my head two Kentucky girls huddled together, shivering, under a brown sheet in an Amsterdam roach motel. Bleck! However, when our bus pulled up in front of our accommodations, our jaws dropped. This hotel was awesome! There were huge Christmas trees and snowmen decorating the lobby, and well-dressed people walking all around. This place was looking sweet! We navigated our way through the halls and finally reached our room..... and OH, how glad we were to see a bed. I didn't even care which country I was in... I just wanted some sleep!! Amber and I rested and relaxed, took baths, called home, and watched CSI (in English) on our huge flat screen tv! Oh, it was wonderful. The next morning, we got up super early, caught the bus, and headed off, once again, to the airport. When it was time to line up at our gate, we were kind of confused. There were 4 airport workers at different podiums. They called people up one by one and kind of interviewed them! I had never seen this in an airport before! Amber and I looked at our tickets and saw that we were GOLD MEMBERS (heavenly sounds!). This meant that we got to skip the HUGE line and immediately board the plane. Amber's step-dad, Eric, bought our tickets, and since he travels a lot for his work, he got to use his gold member status on our tickets. Thank you, Eric!!!! We boarded our flight smoothly enough, and snuggled down in our seats. On almost every flight that I have ever been on, the people helping have been women. I had never had a male flight attendent before, but EVERY helper on this plane was male. Amber and I made friends with Jerry, who made us fresh coffee upon request!! :) We didn't sleep much, but watched some great movies and just got even more excited to come home. The flight went by relatively quickly, and before we knew it, we were in the United States!!!! More specifically, Detroit. -- We had one hour to get to our next flight, which would have been fine, had we not had to go through customs (along with a million other people). Amber and I had to wait for our luggage, pull it off the conveyor belts, and get through customs before the flight took off.... and our gate was pretty far away. Needless to say, we were stressing. I found both of my huge bags in about 5 minutes, but one of Amber's big bags was no where to be found!!! We waited until the last possible second, but eventually had to leave the bag that had most of her clothes in Detroit. We were not about to miss another plane and stay in Detroit for another day!! I went in front of Amber and got through customs, and then hurried straight ahead to re-check my bags to Lexington. Bob (the suitcase security man) helped me, probably because he could tell that I was frazzled about having only 20 minutes to get to the plane. I turned around, and Amber Dillon was (like her suitcase) NOWHERE to be seen. I flipped out! She was right behind me!!! After about 6 or 7 minutes of wondering where the heck she was, she appeared out of a random door to the side of the room. The bald customs guy had gotten mad at her because she was rushing, and made her go through the food and live animals checkpoint (even though we had no fruit or squirrels in our luggage, I assure you!) After we finally got her back, we got Bob to fast track us through the next series of lines and give us directions to our gate. And then we ran..... As we were hustling through the airport, this young American guy kept looking at us. I guess he heard us talking in our country accents to eachother, because he started chatting with us. He was pretty cool, and we walked with him and talked about our travels until we reached our gate and he kept walking to his gate (which was taking him to Alabama). Amber and I were QUITE relieved to sit down by our gate knowing that the next time our plane landed..... we would be in KENTUCKY! But, of course, the plane was delayed (as was beginning to be custom with this trip, haha). Finally, about 40 minutes later, we got on the plane, sat down in the front, popped in the ipod, and took off for Lexington. The plane was a small one, so we could see out the window. The terrain started looking ever more familiar, and I was so excited that I couldn't contain myself! :) About 5:30, Amber and I felt the plane touch down at the Lexington, KY airport. OH MAN! We rushed off the plane (I had just about enough of flying for a few months!) and went...... into the bathroom! We had to freshen up to make sure that we looked as good as possible for our little families! Plus, this was the first public bathroom that we had used for free, so we wanted to take full advantage of it! As we came down the Lexington escalator, I almost jumped out of my little Ugg boots! My entire family was standing at the bottom, with colorful signs in hand! I ran to hug my little mom, and then dad. Dad started crying, so of course, I did, too! Then I went around and hugged the other 15 or so people that were waiting to see me: Mom, Dad, Sara, Danny, Bryce, Meem, Phil, Pam, Keith, Brent, Angie, John, Haley, Adam, and even Rhonda, Jeff, and Alyssa! Alyssa looked just about as happy as I was to finally be on American soil!! -- The last, and probably one of the most exciting, things was the present that Rhonda and Jeff gave me. I opened up a little wrapped box...... to reveal a University of Kentucky Music City Bowl 2008 shirt! This got me super pumped for the next installment of my life..... American Football! YES! After leaving the airport, my entire family went to my house for chili and story time. I can tell you that I am unbelievably excited to be home, see my family and friends, and just relax for the Christmas season. My trip to Europe is something that I will NEVER forget. I had an amazing time, and will never be able to describe all of the things that I saw, people that I met, and experiences that I had. I LOVED Study Abroad 2007....... let's do it again! :)

25 Most Memorable Moments
From Studying Abroad 2007

25. International Thanksgiving
24. Eating a crumpet with Will
23. Night train to Prague
22. Watching Lost with Greg and Paul
21. Model guys in Rome
20. Spanish Riding School
19. Kentucky football beats LSU and U of L
18. Anti-George Bush kids
17. Christmas Markets
16. Sheep in the Vienna zoo
15. German Class with Ich bin Ralph
14. Washing clothes in the shower
13. Traumatic Art museum
12. Learning to count in German with Farhad
11. Frankfurt Christmas moose
10. Church in Vienna
9. Vienna Boys Choir
8. Sound of Music Tour in Salzburg
7. Spontaneous Hiking in Zell am See
6. Car wreck to Slovenia
5. Jumping in the freezing Danube
4. Getting lost in the Frankfurt airport
3. My Crazy Eye
2. Snowball Fight
1. Being attacked by pigeons with Alyssa in Italy

It has been one amazing semester -- filled with memories and stories that will definately last a lifetime!!!! Should learning something be on this list of 'study' abroad things.... haha. Nope!

For the past several semesters, my dear friend Ben Osborne has created an "Elite 8" list of those people who influenced him the most during that semester. Well, in the spirit of that tradition, I have complied a list of the 17 people I met and/or hung out with this semester who were simply the best! My Vienna Sweet 17 (in no particular order) 1. Alyssa Story (bff Kentucky) 2. Julien Macario (France) 3. Nirveen Basra (Vancouver, Canada) 4. Laura Clinton (Kentucky) 5. Srdjan Mavrenski (Serbia) 6. Farhad Oskouei (Iran) 7. Amber Dillon (Kentucky) 8. Nina Tekavčič (roommate Slovenia) 9. Will Taylor-Medhurst (England) 10. Greg Sanderson (Buffalo, New York) 11. Paul DiBona (Boston, MA) 12. Connie Guo (Vancouver, Canada) 13. Charlotte Ekholt (Norway) 14. Ugur Ersoy (Vienna, Austria) 15. Christine Nguyen (Texas) 16. Dania Gilany (Vienna, Austria) 17. Susanne Hammer (Vienna, Austria) I couldn't pick just 16.... so we went with a Sweet 17!!!

As the Study Abroad experience comes to an end....

For the past few weeks, I have thought a lot about how this experience has changed me. Before I came to Vienna, I had people all over the place telling me what a "life-changing" experience studying abroad would turn out to be, and how it was sure to be something that I would never forget. -- So, coming in, I had a few expectations/assumptions of what could possibly happen to me. I had traveled quite a bit before, so I also thought that I had everything figured out before I even got here, and looking back on me 4 months ago, I think that I expected study abroad to be like a GSP Gone Global.

Here is what I found out:

1. Never be afraid to ask questions. - Even though I was an "experienced" world traveler, I quickly realized that there are many more things that I don't know than things that I do. I had been to Vienna before, but asking questions here has saved my life! I had to figure out an entirely different way of life, so asking people for help was crucial to me surviving this experience!

2. Diversity is a GREAT thing. - I come from a place where a lot of people are very similar, so I hadn't been around a whole lot of ethnically diverse people in my day. Well, for starters, my roommate was from Slovenia, so the diversity started out right away! I have made friends with people from walks of life that are 180 degrees different from my own, and I wouldn't have them any other way. Some of my best friends are from Iran, England, New Zealand, Canada and Serbia... so they are worlds different than this Kentuckian. Differences between people have made this semester SO interesting and fun... and definitely not boring! -- Even if I did have to communicate in sign language half the time (because of language barriers), I enjoyed every minute!

3. God is everywhere. - I got a little discouraged the first few weeks here, because I was really missing my church family and friends. I was surrounded by people in a very liberal environment, and at first, wasn't quite sure how I would grow spiritually while over here. Well, I did! God is present wherever you need him to be, and I have seen Him in so much. Whenever I look at pictures from Lake Mondsee in the lake district surrounding Salzburg... I see Him. Whenever I heard the Vienna Boys Choir... I heard Him. And whenever I survived the car crash in the snow... I definitely felt Him. Even in a society that doesn't value the personal relationship with God (as much as my family, friends, and those back at home) do, I found God in some of the most surprising places and in some of the most powerful ways. -- I have also learned to really stand up for who I am, and not to be ashamed of the fact that I am a Christian (Romans 1:16).

4. I can do it! - I might be from a rural city of 14,000 people, but I can hang in there! After traveling all over and living in Europe this semester, I have become quite capable of getting around and doing things on my own. I had to book flights (and get there on time!), cook dinner, do laundry, navigate in foreign environments with non-English speakers, go to the hospital and fix my eye, pay rent, etc. I have had to take care of a lot of important things while I have been over here, and I think that I have done a pretty good job! I survived, after all!

5. Traveling is AMAZING. - After being to all of these wonderful and beautiful places, I know that my travels are not going to stop at the end of this semester. I am very excited about whatever adventures await me next, either domestically (going to Wal-Mart is an adventure sometimes!) or abroad (family vacation to Cabo!). Traveling gives me such a rush, and just seeing all of the things in the world makes me SO happy. There is really no other way to put it. Traveling makes Amanda happy. :)

Last night was a lot of fun! I, along with everyone else in Haus Erasmus, was quite tired of studying by the time the day reached about 10pm. Since it was our LAST MONDAY in Vienna, we decided to go out with a bang! -- The whole group of us (including the Canadians: Connie, Nirveen, Julie, England Rachel, the Boston girls and guys: Kelly, Kristine, Greg, and Joe, French Julien (my partner in crime), and the Kentuckians headed out for one last hoorah at our favorite dancing spot: The club formerly known as Kaiko (the owners changed the name last week and changed some interior stuff, but it will always be Kaiko to us)!

Tonight was especially interesting, because they didn't play the normal rap and such. Tonight, they had an entire hour block of oldies and really random songs. We had the BEST time just singing and dancing and being fun! -- My friend Rachel had a friend visiting her this week from Warwick, England, named James. This kid was the funnest dancer ever! Most guys really don't do much in the way of dancing, but when you combined him with the craziness of Julien... those two were hilarious and unstoppable. This definately relieved some of the stress of finals week!

Now if I can only dance my way through this International Finance exam on Tuesday night.... eek!

My last Monday was definately one to remember! -- Countdown 4 days!

Another short tidbit for the day:
Some people just make me very happy. :) One such person just left my room. -- My little French friend, Julien, is one of the sweetest people that I have ever met. He just finished making a huge picture album of all of our friends in Haus Erasmus. It was so awesome, and he had each of us sign it. On the inside of the book was a map of where everyone was from... and on the map.... a little arrow that pointed to Kentucky that said Amanda! :) -- Last week, Julien cried when we talked about me going home. He is so nice! -- Who ever said that the French and the Americans can't be friends?? I love that guy!

Yes, I am still alive!! -- These past few weeks have been almost entirely devoted to studying.... eew. -- Last Tuesday, I turned in 2 26-page papers, which was absolutely crazy! Since then, I have been giving presentations and studying for my exams, which are tomorrow (Finance) and Thursday (Trade). We will see how it all goes.... but they are going to be beasts.

Today, when my friend Jaclyn (from Oregon State University) and I were at the university studying for our finance test, we heard someone's cell phone vibrate on the table next to us. Then, their ring tone started...... and it was the Sir-Mix-A-Lot song, "I Like Big Butts." Jaclyn and I started dying laughing, and it definately lightened the finance mood a little! haha

I am coming home in 5 days, and I seriously feel like one of those little kids who still believes in Santa at Christmas. I think that this is going to be the most exciting and definately the most anticipated Christmas of my life!!! -- I can't wait! :)

December 6 -- Trip to the OTHER Frankfurt After resolving my bank crisis, I was ready to get out of Vienna as safely and smoothly as possible to have a stress-free weekend of sigh-seeing. I caught a bus at 3:00pm at the Westbahnhof train station that took me directly to the Vienna airport. The bus took about an hour, so I just took a short nap. Easy enough! :) I was quite early for my flight, so after checking in at the desk and getting to pick an isle seat, I sat down and had my first Starbucks in 3.5 months. It was glorious. While I was sitting, I just sipped my tea, read a book, and listened to the English Christmas music (they played old favorites such as the Little Drummer Boy!) over the intercom. -- At 4:55, I boarded my plane, sat in my seat, and fell fast asleep (it had been a very long couple of weeks up to this point!). Before we left, Alyssa and I tried to figure out how we would meet up in the airport. Our flights were supposed to get in very close together. She was supposed to arrive from Madrid about 35 minutes before my plane did, so I just told her that she could come to my gate. Then, just in case something went wrong or something happened, just meet at the front entrance of the airport. We figured it was better to have a back-up plan, so that we could eventually meet up. Alyssa knew all of the details of our hostel, so we were just going to leave the airport together to be safe. Well, due to bad air temperature or fog or something, my flight was delayed while we were in the air. We landed about 30 minutes later than we were supposed to, but I figured that would have given Alyssa time enough to come find me. I got out of my plane, and there was NO Alyssa to be found. Knowing about our second meeting point, I thought she might have just gone on to the entrance, so I headed that way. I got out into the main departure area, and my heart completely sank. There was, apparently, a concert going on inside the airport, and there had to be at least 2,000 people all over the place. I couldn't find Alyssa ANYWHERE in the huge airport, and everyone was partying but me. My heart started racing when I thought of not knowing even the name of our hostel, and not being able to find the one person who did. I looked all around, even outside. Then, I saw that there was a second level of departure floors downstairs, so I hurried down the steps. At the foot of the stairs, I saw an information desk, and asked them if they could page Alyssa Story. I started to get SO worried, and asked them to page her in English and in Spanish! (the things you think when you are freaking out) I stood at the desk for about 30 minutes, and she never came. I asked the information people to keep announcing for her, and they did two more times. How is she going to hear this, no matter WHAT language it is in, if there is a rock concert going on in the main floor?? This was not not not good. I looked helplessly at the desk workers, and started to cry a little bit. I kept trying to make the situation seem better to myself. No need to freak out, Amanda... I am sure if I can't find her, they must have a nice place that I can lay down and spend the next 3 days......... Then, I asked the desk man if there was ANY way that he could look to see if she was looking for me. -- He pulled up a screen of all of the pages that had been made that day. I practically jumped over the desk when I saw Alyssa Story at 8:20 for Amanda Tyree. "CALL THEM! THAT IS HER!" I pretty much scared the info. man to death, and he called up to another information desk. I don't think that I have ever prayed so fast in my life. I could only pray that she was still standing at whatever information desk that she had placed the distress call for Amanda from. -- About 10 minutes later, I see a familiar pair of feet coming down the stairs across the room. I started crying and then heard my best friend yell, "AMANDA, oh my gosh!" -- Alyssa and I ran to eachother and just cried and hugged. We had been lost from eachother (in what turned out to be the 3rd largest airport in Europe) for about an hour. It turned out that her flight had been delayed, too, and was also in a different terminal than mine, so she had to ride a bus over to this one! OF ALL THE THINGS! So, after surviving that experience, we knew that we were capable of getting through ANYTHING. We bought tickets for the Frankfort U-Bahn, which was very sketchy. When we got out, we saw that we were in the Frankfurt Red Light district.... but that wasn't going to bother us, since we just survived a real crisis..... we weren't scared!! We walked away from the craziness and found our hostel, which turned out to be VERY nice! The next obstacle was trying to open the door to our room. The key system was unlike anything that I had seen. You had to push a button, wave the card in front of it, and then turn in in a special way a special number of times to get in. It seriously took us about 10 minutes to get in the room, but we made an Israeli friend in the process. Alyssa and I were hungry, so we ventured out and found a very nice little pasta joint and had a nice, relaxing meal. We just laughed at the fact that I thought paging Alyssa in two languages was going to help, haha. The whole situation was crazy, but we had made it to Germany!!!!! Day 1 - - Frankfurt Alyssa and I woke up and went down to breakfast, which was free with our hostel, and then decided to set out for a day of just exploring the Christmas markets and enjoying German life. We heard that it was supposed to rain, but today it was very nice outside! -- One of the first things we saw while navigating through Frankfurt's streets to the markets was a very interesting store. This store was called CHRIST seit 1863, which means Christ since 1863..... and all this time I thought that Jesus was born in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago! According to these people, he wasn't any older than the United States. haha. We laughed a lot about that! Using our amazing sense of direction, we soon found the markets! It was soooo beautiful. For lunch, we ate traditional Frankfurters, which were quite good. We spent the majority of the day looking at all of the wooden crafts, checking out a cathedral, and laughing at all of the random things we could find. -- After leaving the market, we strolled through the financial district of Frankfurt. I got pretty excited when I saw two statues in the middle of a square of a big Bear and a Bull. This was to symbolize the bear and the bull markets! I am a business major, so I get really pumped about these things. haha. We also got to see the amazing Opera House, which was right down from the financial part of town. After that, Alyssa and I decided to do what all girls our age do around Christmas... SHOP! We went into our new favorite store, Promod, to look for what Alyssa called a "Eurotastic" outfit. I succeeded in getting a cute little shirt that was on a great sale. To escape the cold weather, we had gingerbread lattes at Starbucks and some Amaretto nuts. Frankfurt is more of a shopping city than anything else, but Alyssa and I were completely content just enjoying the company and taking in the Christmas scene. We heard some loud music coming from a nearby square, so we decided to check it out. When we got there, we realized that it was a HUGE Coca Cola Christmas party! The music that we heard were these two peoploe singing about Jesus on a big stage. It was wonderful!!!! I am definately in the Christmas mood now!! We started waking around some more after the Coca Cola Christmas. We passed a large crowd of people standing by a rather large Christmas booth. What sort of Christmas cheer is being spread that everyone is so excited about? I wondered to myself. Then I saw it...... mounted atop a big booth was the craziest, strangest bit of Christmas that I have ever seen in my life....... There was a Giant moose head with a Santa cap.... and it was singing. The moose started off with a lovely version of Silent Night or something, but then the real show began. This huge moose started singing Feliz Navidad.... yes.... a bi-lingual singing Christmas moose. I thought that I couldn't be amazed any further, until the moose started singing in GERMAN! This moose knew 3 languages, and was spreading Christmas cheer to the whole square. Alyssa just looked at eachother and died laughing and took pictures. This was SO random, but very funny. Near to the square were some of the random tourist shops. Alyssa needed a postcard and a few little things, so we ducked into the store for a bit. The shop owner was this older lady who was very excited to see us. She just talked and talked and showed us all of the things in her store. Since we didn't know much about the city, we decided to ask her about a good traditional German place to eat that night. She drew me a map to a restaraunt across the main river to a place called Wagner, where she said we could enjoy some German atmosphere and food. -- That sounded good to us! We got cleaned up at the hostel, and then followed the lady's directions to the Wagner restaraunt. When we got in, we saw a VERY German-looking place. There were no private tables, but instead big long tables with random people sitting all around. The waiter seated us in between two groups of older "Bingo" looking people. They were thoroughlly enjoying their apple wine and kept their conversations to themselves. Alyssa hadn't ever tried schnitzel before, so we ordered some and also the traditional apple wine of Frankfurt. -- Alyssa and I were two of the most friendly people around, and we wanted to make friends! We were happy when the old people left and two well-dressed guys sat down. We found out that they were on business from Munich (one of them was Polish, though)! We talked to these guys for the entire meal. We then asked them if there was anything good to do in Frankfurt this time of night, and they told us about this nice bar close by. We decided to check it out and see if we could make any more friends, lol. When we walked into the pub, we quickly realized that it was VERY upscale. Everyone in there looked pretty snazzy, so Alyssa and I weren't exactly sure if we belonged. We were approached by this group of 3 people about our age, and instantly struck up a conversation with them. We sat down at a table and talked with this guy named Simon for quite a while. He was originally from Frankfurt. He was studying Economics, and his friends had all just finished law school. Wow! Respectable, intelligent people! We got some inside local information, and went to a club pretty close by. Alyssa and I were incredibly excited when we heard a song by Usher. :) We spent a while in that club just talking and laughing with our new Frankfurter friends. Our favorites were Simon, Oli (a crazy little guy), and Jan (translated, means John). They were very cool Germans! Day 2 -- Heidelberg Alyssa and I woke up early to catch a train to Heidelberg. One of our friends studied there all of last year, so we thought it would be nifty to see everything that he saw. -- While we were getting ready, we talked to the other people who were in our hostel room. First, two girls walked in speaking Spanish. Alyssa's eyes lit up, and she immediately struck up a conversation with them. I really had no idea how amazing she had gotten at speaking over these past few months. I was so proud! I could understand the basic conversation, but wasn't able to say much, so I just listened to them chit chat away. If Momma Story was worried that Alyssa hadn't learned anything this semester, I can completely vouche for her and say that she is, in fact, quite the Spanish speaker! :) After the girls left, another guy walked in from breakfast. His name was Adrian, and he was from Melbourne, and was back-packing around for 2 months alone before he started classes in Germany in February. He didn't have anything to do that day, so he just decided to hop the train with us! -- The train ride to Heidelberg was about 1 hour and 20 minutes, so not too bad at all. We arrived at the train station in the center of the city, and got out eager to explore! We weren't entirely sure where to go from the station, so I decided to put my semi-okay (at best) German skills to the test. I did great! I found out that to get to the castle, we would have to take tram 33 to the base of the mountain, where we would then take the Bergbahn up one extra stop to get to the Heidelberg Schloss (castle). So.... we did! -- While we were on the tram to the bottom of the mountain, Alyssa struck up another 10-15 minute conversation with some ladies from Spain. She was just awesome!! I guess that she gave me some confidence in my little language skills, because once we got off the tram, I communicated in German to the Bergbahn ticket lady and even got us a discount using our student IDs (studentin karte). This was definitely the day to test our communication, and we were passing wonderfully. -- While we were riding up on the bergbahn, Lys started singing the song from Sound of Music "Climb Every Mountain," and all of the other people on the ride thought it was hilarious.... it's never a dull moment with my best friend, that is for sure. Our Australian companion kept pretty quiet... maybe because he couldn't get a word in between the 3 languages we were speaking and our chatty nature! ;) The castle at the top was very awesome. It really reminded me of something that my dad would just love. The entire castle grounds were very rustic and manly. We got to see the winery and the place where all of the medical stuff was done. This city and castle are famous for their research in medicine and pharmacy things. Where was Bryce when you needed him?? After spending some time at the castle, we climbed our way back down the mountain and had a tasty lunch of sour kraut, brats, and hot chocolate (which I also ordered completely in German.... go AT)! YUM! -- We then explored the Christmas markets, tasted some German hot wine, took pictures of people ice-skating, bought some presents, and just enjoyed the most picturesque little town you have ever seen. It seriously looked like something out of a Christmas card. We left Heidelberg at around 4:30 and caught a train back to Frankfurt. I was quite aware that the stop for Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof was the very last stop, so Alyssa and I decided to take a nap and just wait for the end of the line. We were suddenly woken up by Adrian, who was like, "this is our stop, let's go!" Sleepily, Lys and I climbed off the train and walked down the platform. In about 1 minute, I realized that somebody (not naming names) had made a BIG AUSTRALIAN MISTAKE and told us to get off too early. Now, how is a kid supposed to backpack through Europe for 2 months if on his first trip, gets off at the wrong train station!!!???!!! -- Luckily for us (and for his life in particular), the trains ran hourly. We just got a snack, read a magazine, and talked. Alyssa was looking at one magazine, and saw a picture of a man, woman, and kid in the most awkward nude pose ever. Alyssa tapped my shoulder and said, "Now THAT is a special family picture!" I turned to look (expecting some happy smiles coming from a typical nuclear family), and almost spit pretzels all over the train station from laughing so hard!! haha. -- After an hour, we hopped back on a new train and caught the next ride home. Oh, Australian kid....... It was bitter cold when we reached Frankfurt, so Alyssa and I decided to stay in. Our hostel served free spaghetti dinner that night, which was delicious! We ate up, put on our pajamas, and sat up in my bed for a long time..... just laughing. We laughed about everything that had happened on our trip: me paging her in Spanish at the airport, our run-ins with the locals, our Australian baby-sitting job, etc. -- I really felt like I was back at home, chilling on the couch with my best friend. This trip was definately a perfect way to get into the Christmas mood and de-stress before the next 2 weeks of exams and hard work started up. Such an amazing trip to end my semester travels in Europe! December 9 -- Coming back..... Alyssa and I both caught flights back at 8am. We both had a lot of studying to start, so getting back early was the best idea. -- When I was on the bus back to the Westbahnhof train station (after my flight landed), I started a conversation with a man from the states. I found out that he (Chris) was from Michigan and was just vacationing in Vienna for a week. He was a travel agent in training, so was exploring around getting a feel for the land. -- I explained to him how to get around in Vienna, some of the must-see sights, and even offered to show him where his hotel was (because he had no idea and since it was quite close to where I live). He was a very nice man! What a nice end to a WONDERFUL weekend!

A small glitch in the day.... About 2 hours before I am supposed to leave on my trip to Germany, I get a little e-mail fromthe Erste Bank people. They said that my account was 158 Euro in thenegative.... I almost fainted right there. I knew this couldn't beright, because I haven't even used that account in over a month, and thelast time I used it, I still had money. --- something was fishy. Not wanting to leave this unresolved over the weekend (I don't want worries on my trip!), I jetted down to the bank and got them to print me out a list of all transactions. Surely enough, there was a 235 Euro debit forthe November rent for Haus Erasmus. But this shouldn't have been, because I have paid all of the rent in cash so far. They had charged me TWICE! Jerks. -- So, I asked if this charge could be taken off and themoney put back in. The debit was over a month ago (and they hadn'talerted me until today) but they said there was nothing they could dopast 20 days of the charge. SO, I ran back to the Haus Erasmus officeand nicely demanded for them to put 235 Euros in my little hand so thatI could to pay the balance on my account..... they checked the books and did! -- I just kept thinking... what would mom do... freak out - NO, she would get things fixed.So, everything is dandy, the account is fixed.... no thanks to Haus Erasmus and Erste bank..... AUSTRIANS! sheesh.

Sometimes, even the smallest little thing can brighten my day. Today, I had to go back for another control check-up at the AKH hospital at 8:00am. I wasn't exactly excited about getting up before the sun to go sit in a waiting room for an hour just to have the little doctor tell me to keep taking my eye drops and come back in a week. I usually don't like going to the doctor at all, because it is pretty impersonal over here. The conversation usually goes something like this, "Hi Ms. (butcher my last name). Your eye is still broken. Take these three times a day. See you soon. Bye." There isn't much more to it than that. I've never been asked what I was doing in Austria, or really anything about myself before. My visits to AKH are all business, and not very friendly, so I always try to get out of there as fast as possible. I got into the examining room after about an hour of waiting (as expected), and saw my regular eye doctor waiting for me. Also in the room were a few nurses bustling about and two medical students waiting to see the American girl with the crazy eye. -- It didn't take the doctor very long to look at my eye, and then he turned to his desk to write out some notes and give me an Rx for some more medicated drops. While he was scribbling away, the boy medical student looked over at me and smiled. He said, "Well hi! Where is it that you are from?" I was quite surprised that he was talking to me! While the doctor worked, he asked me all about the weather in Kentucky, my studies and travels, life in the US, and about my crazy eye. He ended up being German, so then I told him that later today I would be traveling to Germany for the weekend. -- He got very excited and just talked and talked about how fun it was and how he hoped that I had a great time! :) This time, when the doctor said that he would see me next week, I was kind of sad to leave. The short conversation that I had with this guy really made my day start of wonderfully. He was so friendly! -- I am quite confident that this medical boy will make an excellent doctor one day. His bedside manner is the best I've seen in Europe!!!

You know what they say: You will turn into your mother. I have. I believe that it takes a certain special person to be a teacher, honestly. You have to have the patience of a saint, first and foremost (something which Amanda Tyree is most definately NOT blessed with. When God was handing out spiritual gifts, he gave patience to mom and loudness to me.... oh well... I use it to the best of my ability!!). So, when I was thinking about careers that I would best be suited for, I decided to leave the teaching to those who are blessed with the ability, and pursue a career in something where I am supposed to be super vocal.... marketing! :) All my life, I have had people tell me that I am 'so much like my father,' probably because we kind of look alike (except I am not bald) and we have the same crazy sense of humor and are just kind of wacky in a lovable way (love ya, dad!). Very recently, however, I found out exactly how much like my mom that I really am.... to a scary extent! Since I have been in Austria, I have been named the 'smart one' by Greg. I think that is probably because I actually study, and most students on exchange decide to conveniently forget the first 1/2 of the term "Study Abroad." -- With this newfound title, I have recently had several non-American students approach me and ask me to correct the grammar in their essays. I helped Johann with a report about Wal-Mart, Karolina with a research essay on Disney Pixar, Sonia with a paper about her most inspirational family member, to name a few. Most people would help correct sentence fragments for 2 hours just to help out a friend..... but while I was in the middle of making a list of items have a parallel structure, I realized something astonishing...... I like this stuff. gasp! I really am going to come out and admit, in front of God and all these witnesses, that I enjoy correcting essays. I really get a sense of accomplishment out of making an essay flow and sound lovely. If that elevates me from 'smart' to 'big time nerd' status... then I gladly accept the title! -- My mom taught me how to put a comma in the right place, and I am not ashamed to pass that knowledge on to the rest of the world. I am proud to be like Nancy!

IBCV (International Bap. Church of Vienna) was, yet again, wonderful this morning!! :) Samuel Bamford (the man that spoke at the first service we attended... the atomic physicist from Africa) spoke. His message was centered around the first Sunday of Advent. He told a true story to start out: There was a family that was having a baby shower for their new child. It was winter, so everyone was hanging their coats up in the house... but soon, after a ton of people came over, there were no more coat hooks. People took their coats into the back room, and then continued to the party. Everyone had gifts and just had a great time socializing with each other. After a while, some people said, "we haven't even seen the baby yet!" The mom went back to the baby's crib, but the baby wasn't there. She asked the father where their new child was, but he had no idea! They couldn't find the baby! -- After a while, they looked in the room with the coats. The people who came to the party hadn't paid attention, and had laid their coats on the bed..... where the little baby had been put to take a nap! Luckily, the little kid was okay... just covered in coats. The people had been so concerned about the party, that they had forgotten about the child. This is a similar situation to how we are today around Christmas. We get so caught up in Christmas and its activities, that we cover up the baby! Samuel then said, "A gift is never a gift until it has been recieved!" -- If we never truly accept Jesus, then we can't benefit from recieving the gift in the first place. Bro. Samuel also talked about how precious of a gift that Jesus was. He said that when someone gets a gift, only the giver really knows how much it cost. Giving Jesus to us cost Jesus EVERYTHING. The gift is free (to us), but not to God. -- A lot of the times, when we don't think about the real value of a gift, and just think of it as free, we tend not to value it nearly as much. We should take care of this precious gift of salvation, and really be thankful for it. We have recieved a priceless gift.... so take care of it!

It is officially DECEMBER!!!! I get to come home this month! -- I really can't believe that I have been gone for over 3 months, and that I will soon be snuggled up on the couch at 102 Harrison Court playing with the dog and talking to mom and dad.... woah. I get incredibly excited just thinking about it! :) This week was probably one of the wierdest weeks of school ever. I had class every day from about 9am - 4pm straight. We would get a short lunch break, but I was literally in class all day. NOT FUN! Monday through Thursday, I had a mandatory Statistics lecture that i had to attend. In this class, we learned how to use this data analysis program to analyze the data we collected for our Market Research project. One heck of a party, ladies and gentlemen! lol. On Friday and Saturday, I finished up my Negotiation Management class. We had a presentation of a real world negotiation case with our groups. My group was the first to present, and everything went very smoothly.... or so we thought. Our professor got up in front of the class after we got finished and began telling the good points and bad points of our presentation. She said that our content and video and everything was just fine and dandy, but THEN she started in on our presentation style..... oh boy. Apparently, me, Anna, and Jay (they are from Canada) are entirely too "Dynamic and North American." Well, EXCUUUUSE me for being a self-starter! And excuse me for being American.... I'll just go change that really fast. I'm sure that it will be no problem! She really criticized the fact that we seemed very comfortable up in front of people. Before we presented, she told us that it was a very casual setting..... so, though we were completely serious and professional, we didn't stand up in front of the class like soldiers. I thought we created a lovely learning atmosphere..... apparently not! -- Our teacher really didn't say one good thing about us.... or any of the groups that followed. We were just the guinnea pigs for her criticism.... SOMEONE got up on the wrong side of her Austrian bed this morning, is all I have to say! haha. On Saturday, she told us that those presentation style criticisms wouldn't reflect our score (thank goodness!), but that it was a useful lesson, since OBVIOUSLY none of us had ever had presentation experience before. Well, the people in Kentucky like me! This coming week will be full of group meetings for my 3 presentations due next week.... looking forward to it! -- On Thursday night, I leave for Germany for the weekend with Alyssa! YAY!