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There's so much to say; everything is so incredible here. I met New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg today. Actually I just shook his hand, but it was still cool. Though I did get to hear him talk in a very small news briefing with the National Journal writers. 

I also got to listen to two economic reporters from Newsweek at breakfast in their D.C. office. It's right down the street from the capital. We went out on their balcony (of sorts) and you can see it and the Washington monument. Also one of the guys pointed out where the Pentagon was from there.

In other news, I'm going to get a new phone tomorrow. Maybe I won't lose this one; I hope.

Also I realized something about my daily commute yesterday; I take the metro toward Vienna everyday on my way home. Granted, it's Vienna, Virginia, but I still thought it was worth mentioning.

Tough Times

So it's been an interesting few days. I've had my first class and my first full day of my internship. I feel better about them, but I'm still nervous. 

I did have a stressful day yesterday, but it was unrelated to work or classes. I managed to lose my cell phone. Yea me! I've never lost my phone before and I come to D.C. and lose it on a bus. As of yesterday afternoon they hadn't found it yet. I did manage to suspend the service though, in case someone found it and decided not to turn it in, but even that was an ordeal.

I called to cancel it and had to give my pin code, which I didn't know. So they asked me a security question. That, I also got wrong. So they told me go to a Sprint store. Do I know where a Sprint store is in D.C.? (In case you don't know the answer to that is, "No.") I found them online and then managed to make it there. 

I got there after they closed, but the guy was nice enough to let me in anyway. And he helped me suspend my phone. The one cool thing that came out of this so far is that I climbed the stairs that were featured in The Exorcist on my way back. I didn't know that's what they were till someone told me when I reached to top. It was A LOT of stairs.

Monument Tour

I played tourist today. I went on a guided monument tour that was provided to us by the program. It's normally not the way I like to see things when I travel, but the guide had a lot of really cool facts. Plus the buses had AC.

I'm not going to go into all the details of the tour, but here's a picture of the Capitol Building.

Hello again

So I’ve decided to rekindle my Vienna blog for my time in D.C. I know I’m not the best about writing, but I’ll try. It never hurts to get a little encouragement though.

Anyway, by the time I post this I’ll be in D.C., probably in my apartment. I’m writing this on the plane for now though.
It’s hard to describe how I’m feeling. I go from excited to scared about every five seconds. Hopefully I’ll have calmed down by the time I’m posting this. It probably doesn’t help that I had to get up at 2:45 this morning. That’s right a.m. My flight left 6:45 and of course you have to arrive ridiculously early, but I’m not knocking airport security I know it’s essential, just frustrating.

I have had a fairly interesting flight however. These some kind of girls’ sports team, at least I think that’s what the group is. It’s not very big, but they’re junior high-aged girls and they keep calling this one guy, “Coach.” Seems pretty obvious, huh? But they’re driving everyone crazy, especially the flight attendants.

Coach was sitting in front of me, but in a very cozy version of musical chairs, he and two other people moved around so another guy could have a window seat. Seemed like a lot of moving, but no one seemed to mind. After the guy moved I figured out why everyone was going to so much trouble. I overheard someone, on the phone before the plane took off, say it was Terrell Owens. I think he’s a football player, but I better check before I post this, lest I look uninformed.
I’m also sitting next to a to a couple that’s in love with crosswords. They’re both working on different ones, and sometimes they work on one together.

I helped on one of them. The clue was “sharks and jets.” They kept saying it over and over. The guys what thinking it had to do with sports like the New York Jets, but I knew without even looking. (Aren’t I smart? ☺) In case you haven’t figured out it’s Westside (still don’t know if that’s one word or two) Story, though it was actually just Westside.

Now that I'm here I have a short bit to add: My roommate's name is Matt; the stairs I have to climb to my apartment are Vienna all over again; and on the way in I pass the Iwo Jima memorial and the French Embassy.

Alps and Bike Tour

The Alps were amazing and it could not have been a better weekend to go. Our group was defineitly meant to go this weekend, we bounded so much. It feels like I've know the group so much longer than I actually have.

I got a lot of much needed rest at the Alps too. I slept late on Saturday and just stayed in in front of the fire. Then on Sunday a second group of us hiked to the top of one of the mountains where there is a cross. It was an amazing view and an exhausting hike, but it was completely worth it.

On Sunday night we had a communion service in front of the bonfire and then headed back to Vienna on Monday.

Nothing else interesting has happened this week until today. We took a bike tour around the ring today and it was amazingly cool. I think I will go rent a bike for the day and ride around. Other than that not too much to report, German is coming along and have used it some.

Tschüs

Alps Retreat

Just a quick note before I leave. We are leaving for our Alps retreat at Schwarzdeckhaus. It's about an hour a way. It is going to be a relaxing weekend and Dr. Fletcher said that in the mornings it will be below freezing so it's going to be our first day of actual cold. Well out of time I'll try and update again soon.

London to Vienna

Well we are finally in Vienna and a lot is happen, a lot more than I have time to talk about right now. But we traveled to London first and it was a pretty miserable flight for me at least. My sinuses were still clogged up and then the pressure on them from the altitude changes made them hurt really really bad, but other than that I made it safely.

I have never been so tired as I've been this past week. But we hit the ground running anyway. When we got to London we walked to Westminster Abbey through Hyde Park and the Kensington Gardens. We also say Big Ben and Parliament.

On Tuesday we went to Oxford and Warwick castle, both where very cool. Oxford works very different than most other universities but the way it works is very interesting. At Warwick castle we were able to see a Birds of Prey exhibit and a lot about the way life was in the middle ages.

Wednesday was our first day to travel the "tube" (subway) and Dr. Fletcher lead us on the wrong one. It was quite an experience, it's likes sardines in a can. When we got to the tower we were able to see the the tower bridge as well. The first stop we made in the tower however was the crown jewels and the doors that lead into them really are a testament to the value of them, it was like a bank vault.

At noon we went to St. Paul's Cathedral ("Tupins a Bag") where we climbed the 530, that's right 530 steps of spiral staircase to the top of the dome for an amazing view. We were able to see, the eye of London, the New Globe Theatre, and the Millennial Bridge. We went on to the National Gallery but we were all pretty exhausted so we headed back to the hotel pretty quickly.

On Thursday we went to the British Museum which was pretty cool but terribly crowded. We saw mostly just the highlights there, including the Rosetta Stone. Finally time one of my favorite things from London. We went to the British Library. It was amazing! Everything from Canterbury Tales to the Gutenberg Bible to the Magna Carta. Talk about old books! I loved it and it is definitely one place I would go back to again. Oh yeah, they also had original Beatles lyrics too.

After that we decided to take it a bit easier so we got on the first tube that came by, stayed on for 5 minutes then got off, found something to eat, and found a park to sit at for a while. It worked out really well too because school had just let out so there were little girls running around everywhere that looked like Madeline.

On Thursday night we went to see William Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors which was very humorous and it was really neat to see it done in the globe theatre as well.

On Friday Amanda and I made a quick run to The Texas Embassy Cantina to take a few pictures. We caught our bus to the airport at noon, but we were almost late because of some very horrible traffic. We did end up making it in time and we even got to cut in front of everyone at security and then the plane ended up leaving an hour late, oh well.

When we finally got to Vienna it was dark so we couldn't really see anything much but we did make it to the castle which is amazing, the pictures don't begin to do it justice. We were all able to unpack and most of us got private rooms as well. Well that its for now. I'll try and post about this week soon.