Made it!

Ok... so almost 24 hours after my first take off, I am not only safely in Vienna, I am also to the lovely town of Mariazell for our weekend orientation into the program. But more on that later.

So if any of this blog decides to make sense it will be a complete miracle, considering that I've had very very little sleep for the last few days, and I have to stay up for at least a few hours more! So bare with me if at all possible...

Ok. So first things first. As I was walking to the gate for my first flight, my carry-on luggage roller broke! The entire handle to pull the bag fell right out. Needless to say it was a frustrating and sort of chaotic way to start. The weather in Denver was just awful for my flight out. The plane ended up sitting on the tarmack for about 2 hours just waiting to be de-iced. The nice thing was that the light was almost empty so I had an entire row to stretch out in! Thank goodness. The flight was freezing, but otherwise it was uneventfull and I got to Toronto without too much trouble.

Even with the delay from Denver I still had about a 3 hour layover in Toronto. I met a lovely Canadian family that was traveling to Austria for a family ski vacation. Their conversation mixed with some facebook helped to pass the time.

The flight to Austria was SO crowded and SO cramped. We were in a huge plane and every seat was full. The woman I sat next to didn't speak a word of English or German, so it was a very quiet flight for the two of us! To add to the ambiance of the Austrian airline, they were playing classical music over the PA system as we were getting ready to take off. Classy :). They fed us surprisingly good airline food, and really, I mean it was actually quite edible! Those 8 hours seemed longer than anything I've done... they dragged onnnn and oooooooooonnnnnnnnn........ But again, I couldn't have asked for a more uneventful and safe flight overseas.

Almost the instant I got off the plane, I heard a group talking about classes and concerns about where they were supposed to be going. Those were my people! I caught up with them and sure enough they were other IES students. Baggage claim went smoothley for some of us, and not so great for others... There was quite a large list of people who'd lost luggage, two from the little group I was in. Eventually, however, we were able to get through the rest of security to the larger group.

Lemme tell you what... brushing my teeth never felt so good!!

So we waited for a few hours at the airport until the IES people came to get us, and we all took our extra luggage to a big ol' truck they had waiting. Then about half of us boarded a bus to get to Mariazell, the town that our orientation is being held in. The trip took us about 3 hours.

The scenary for the drive was absolutely gorgeous!! The mountains and forests actually look a lot like the Snowy's from home! But the architecture and landscaping is totally different. I'll post pictures in my next blog... I'll write more specifically about Mariazell.

Anyway, I have been overwhelmed by new names and faces and more information that I can process... but it's fantastic! I'm loving the people I've met so far, and I can't believe all the amazing things they have in store for us, even just for this weekend. I'll try to post some info on Mariazell tonight if I can!

Love,

A very very tired and out-of-it Susan