Am now in Gaming Austria

So as the title now says, I am now in Gaming Austria. The packing for the trip was very stressful. I was trying to jam everything into my suitcases without making them too heavy. My parents drove me down to Philadelphia International Airport. I couldn't believe how much security I had to go through. We never had to do anything like that when I last flew in 1985.

Anyway, I found other franciscan students at the airport. I was happy to see familiar people because I thought I would have had to fly to DC all alone. So the flight to DC was a quick one, but a turbulent one. Once we got to DC, we saw a whole bunch of franciscan students. we waited to the plane for about an hour. Once we got on the plane, we got to watch movies and listen to music. You could choose whatever movie you wanted to watch. So I watched Beauty and the Beast, and the Social Network. Both were good. I didn't sleep much while on the plane. I think if I got two hours sleep, I was lucky. Anyway, the dinner they served us was very good. We had the choice of pasta or chicken. I had the chicken. It seems like it wasn't too long before we were served breakfast. For breakfast, we had a ham and swiss sandwich on a bread stick, a muffin, and yogurt. It wasn't that bad.

We arrived in Vienna at around 8:15am Central European Time (2:15am Eastern Standard Time). The people from the school were there to pick us up from the airport. I got my bags from baggage claim, and made my way down to customs. It was harder leaving the United States than entering Austria. All I had to do is present my passport, and I was in. It was too easy. The buses were there to take us to the Kartause. It was really interesting to see the street signs, and how different they are to those in the united states. All of the lines on the road are white. The speed limit is in Kilometers per hour, and not miles per hour. I'll see the speed limit signs say "100" and have to realize that it's in kilometers, not miles.

Anyway, it took us about two hours to get to Gaming. Once we got there, the children gave us flowers and brought our luggage to our rooms. I got a single. I'm on the 6th floor. My room is in samuel hall, or "six track" as people affectionally call it. It's not too bad. I've had worse housing at Rutgers, so I'm not that worried about it.

So these last few days, we've been having orientation. We've been learning about the Kartause, and about Austria and Europe. Yesterday we went to an old monastery in Melk. We're going to Vienna on Saturday. And next weekend is Salzburg/ Munich. And classes start on Thursday. So I hope I don't oversleep like I almost did the other day (where I slept for almost 10 hours). But I think that this semester is going to be absolutely amazing. I hope it's better than last semester.