Well, as you would expect from letting two months go by since I wrote, I have a lot to talk about! I also have a lot of studying to do these days, so I think I'll be catching up on this blog in my study breaks.
First, in answer to my last post: my mom has now figured out Skype! I really should have cut her more slack, because she is very much of the generation that finds computers mystifying. So I got to see her, not to mention the dogs and cat, for the first time in over four months! It was very nice, especially since I'm starting to feel homesick. Bizarrely, one of the things I feel homesick for is my mom's maroon Honda Odyssey. It's not like the car itself is special, it's just a big symbol for Home for me.
I won't write about this properly now, because it needs a post of its own with photos, but I went to Vienna! It was a trip with my history class, it was completely exhausting, and I enjoyed it very much.
And perhaps the biggest news of all: Geoff has been here, and is now on to his job in Ireland. We were in Graz for Christmas, Paris for New Year's Eve. I'll be writing a post about all that soon.
Now I'm in class again and studying for finals, and the time is going fast. Before you know it, my time here will be half over! It's hard to believe. Harder still is that some of the good friends I've made here will be going home. There's so much to be sad over. Luckily, there's just as much to look forward to.
You know what this is.
The Pyramids outside the Louvre.
My favorite graffiti in Paris. It's on the Rue Mouffetard in the Latin Quarter, where Geoff and I had dinner every night.
A grave I thought was especially beautiful.
In front of Schloss Belvedere. It was my favorite castle in Wien, not least because it houses a beautiful art museum. Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss" is the highlight of the collection. I had seen reproductions of it about a thousand times, but seeing the real thing was very moving.
Here's the castle from a distance. The roofs symbolize the tents of the Turks who laid siege to Wien. Prinz Eugene, builder of Schloss Belvedere, began his rise to amazing fortune by defeating them. Interestingly, he was hunchbacked and a Frenchman. He offered his services first to the Sun King, but was turned down for not being pretty enough. Prinz Eugene went next to the Austrian Emperor, who care more that he was a brilliant tactician than that he wouldn't win any beauty contests.
The Wien Ferris wheel. When I make my post on Paris, there will be yet another Ferris wheel.
In short: Wien/Vienna is beautiful, interesting, and amazingly cold!
Some of them were even filled with hooligans.
A rather impressive-although not very old-church in Mexikoplatz.
Me in front of Castle Schoenbrunn, home of Maria Theresia. This is where Marie Antoinette grew up. I was kind of disappointed in the castle, but there was an amazing Christmas market in front of it.
