I finally have fifteen minutes to write this!

Hey guys!

Sorry (again again) about the delay.. so let's just get right to business.

My spring break was the week after mid-terms.. So my last test was on thursday, and then the festivities began. That weekend, Jess and I stayed in Florence, and had a few people over for a dinner party. It was a lot of fun.. Jess made a seafood risotto. Afterwards a few of us ended up indulging in what I like to call "NOT-3-euro-a-bottle" wine (we've stepped it up to about maybe 5 euro) and watching Family Guy until about 3 am. I feel as though it was an accomplished night, haha.

The rest of the weekend was spent cleaning our apartment (obviously, because who else would?) and packing for our adventure.

On monday afternoon, Jess and I caught a train to Milano, then a bus from there to Bergamo airport. From Bergamo we flew to Prague and landed at about 10:30 pm in a horrific ice/snow/sleet/wind storm.. I actually watched the wing of our 737 do this weird bendy thing while we were flying. Yeah.. my mom didn't know about that one until now. We stayed with a friend of mine's sister, who lives about a 45 minute train ride west of the city in a cute little village called Hostivice. She picked us up at the airport (thank God, we had no money because the Czech Republic isn't on the Euro and also the Czech language makes no sense, so getting to the bus stop would have been a problem). We got back to her apartment and basically fell asleep as soon as we got there, because it had been such a rough flight.
The next morning we got up, were two minutes late for the bus.. and waited in the snow for an hour. In that hour we memorized the bus schedule for the next day, haha. Finally the bus came, we somehow communicated to the driver the name of the place we were trying to go, and got to Zlicin, where we picked up the Metro into the city. This was slightly less complicated, and the two of us arrived in the city in one piece.
Our first day in Prague was an adventure, as it snowed. The entire time. It snowed from the left, then from the right, but never from the sky, for some reason. We got to see the Prague castle, which was also an archaeological museum, and was really cool. Prague is SUCH an old city, and we loved it. We also saw a few more places, ate some lunch and dinner.. In general it was a good day. The next day in Prague, we were much better at public transportation, and the weather was significantly nicer. We bought a ticket to the Prague Jewish Museum, as the Czech Republic was one of the areas that was affected most by the Holocaust (though, I would say you do not hear about it as often). The ticket included entrance to a few memorials, synagogues, and informational museums that were scattered throughout the city. All-in-all, Prague was pretty cool.

We left pretty early on Thursday and once again, caught our bus to the train station.. we got on the train and then got on another bus, destined for Brno, CR and then eventually Vienna, Austria. A friend of mine had set us up with the bus (the website was in Czech and German only, and he happens to speak both) and it was only 10 Euro per person.. whereas flying would have cost us a solid 100 euro each.
We arrived in Vienna and then (barely) navigated ourselves on the Underground to our hotel. Taubstumengasse was the name of our stop. Yeah, German is a CRAZY language.. however the same friend who set us up with the bus has a tendency to babble at me in German (..and czech.. and Italian..) so SOMEHOW i was able to translate things for us as we wandered around after we checked in. Our friend Andrea met us at our hotel, and all three of us passed out for the night.
The next day, we went to the city center and wandered around for a while. We went to Freud's house and Mozart's house. Freud's house was cool, Mozart was a little boring. Maybe that is because I'm a psych major. We also went on "der Prater" (giant ferris wheel in vienna), which was really cool because you get to see the whole city from the top. The next day we visited more sites in Vienna, and had absolutely perfect weather. NICE. Then we climbed the Danube tower, which is the HIGHEST tower ever (but there's an elevator.. and an old German lady hugged me in it because apparently she liked my facial expression) that overlooks the Danube River and all of Vienna. We had dinner in the restaurant up in the tower, and the whole restaurant rotates around so you get to see the entire city lit up at night. This is also where my "Wind" picture (see previous post) came from. Vienna might rival Athens for the "Favorite City Visited" title.

Then I had a week of classes.. I didn't go to two of them (each class allows you five absences, and I have yet to miss any) because my obnoxious roommate decided to have a friend over that kept our entire apartment up three nights in a row. Yes, I did yell at her.

This weekend, our program took us to Siena, a sweet little town in Tuscany.. and then to a natural spa that had pools of naturally hot mineral water. Today we went to Perugia, a city a little further south near Assisi. Then we went to a wine tasting in the Chianti Classico region. The wine was absolutely amazing, so I bought some to ship home. And by "some" I mean "a lot". Don't go there, I'm still in a state of mourning for my bank account.

So there's the update. I only have a little over a month left. I'm devastated.

However, I am excited to start my new job. I was hired as a Mental Health Nurse at Butler hospital over the summer, which pays significantly better than Build-A-Bear does, and it also pertains to my major! My first real job! I'll be doing checks on the patients, admissions, and providing some of their direct care. I think I'm the messenger between the doctors and the patients. "Troubled economy." Don't think so :)