Schatz!

Time for my weekly update!

In trampoline class on Wednesday I did my first successful front hand spring! And I have perfected my front flip to the point that I not longer fear that I am going to fall off the trampoline or land on my head every time I do it. My teacher even told me that I am "modestly gifted". Not sure it that's a compliment or not. Whatever. I'll take it. :)

Besides that, my week has been pretty routine. The IES Chicago people came to visit Vienna, so I got to meet with them for breakfast and tell them everything I did and didn't like about the program. And in my Cultural Heritage of Austria class, we took a trip to the Naturhistorische Museum (for those of you whose German is minimal, that's the Natural History Museum). And since the dad of the one of the guys who works for IES is a geologist there, we got to go places you don't normally go. Like we got to go to the roof of the museum, which provides an incredible view of all of Vienna. Super cool!

I spent this weekend in Zürich, Switzerland. Stephen and I went to visit Ben, a former foreign exchange student of mine. It was really neat. We took an overnight train there (the 7th overnight train I've taken in Europe). That Friday, we all sort of just chilled around Zürich and ate a really, really delicious Swiss dinner. On Saturday, we took trains through all of the Italian part of Switzerland. For those unfamiliar with Switzerland, the Swiss have 3 distinct cultures-- German, French, and Italian. It was quite odd, because we were in a "german-speaking" country, but everyone spoke Italian where we were. Anyway, it was absolutely gorgeous. The alps were everywhere, and we got to visit a couple of castles. AND. We got to go to the dam where the James Bond stunt guy bungee jumped in 007 Goldeneye. For those of you who play the video game (Dad!), it's the dam he jumps off of at the end of the first level. It was so cool! We had to take a scary bus up the mountains and hike down a cliff to get there. It was dark by the time we got there. And we missed the last bus down, so we had to hitch a ride with a local to get back to the train station. It was an adventure! On Sunday, we took a really beautiful boat ride through Zürich lake. And we saw "Burn After Reading", which was incredibly weird. And then I took my 8th overnight train of the trip back to Vienna and got in a couple hours ago. And now I'll be in a cafe for a few hours catching up with friends.

For those of you who get Thanksgiving Break (not I!), I would love to Skype with people! Let me know when you have a free afternoon. I'll be gone Friday through Sunday, but before that would be sweet!

To see pictures of Switzerland, click here.