Vienna waits for you

Day 1 / Day 2

I woke up this morning after a good night's sleep. For the first time since I can remember, I slept through the night before a big trip. My lovely Mom and I had breakfast together while she got ready to leave for school, and I took care of last-minute packing things. The most last-minute was the emergency trip to Wal-Mart to replace a watch battery, which was done by the world-slowest employee (who did a great job, but certainly in no hurry). After that, Dad came from work to load me into the car and drive me to O'Hare.

It was really reassuring for my family to be so excited; Mom could barely contain herself, jumping up and down and giving me lots of hugs. Dad was more subdued, but he was smiling the whole drive over and wished me well. I'm so pleased that they're going to meet me in Vienna in a few days – it's going to be such a great experience for our family.

Going through the airport went as well as you could expect. One Luftansa woman was cranky, the other was bubbly; I saw a flight attendant who knew Hope, and the other flight attendants were very kind as well. The group met up and talked until we had to board the afternoon flight to Frankfurt. We arrived in Germany at 7am local time (but 1am for us!), where we were delighted by free wifi and airport bike-riders, had a short wait, then hopped on over to Austria.

Doc met the group at the gate with a Hope College banner. We were all excited through the jet lag, and it was great to see him. Loading all 30-something of us into tour busses, we set of towards Mörbisch. Dr. Cunningham told us many facts about the town, but mostly to deaf ears – most students fell asleep as soon as we got on the road.

Arriving at the Hotel Drescher in Mörbisch, we divided up into rooms and moved in our things. I'm with Ellen and Audrey for the next couple days, both of who I'm excited to get to know better. The whole group enjoyed our first delicious Vienna lunch, with soup, meats, rice and potatoes, with cheese dumplings for dessert.

After lunch, almost all the girls (about 14) went to the bank to get some spending money, then to rent bikes. We rode through the streets of Mörbisch for a while, then crossed the border into Hungary! We took lots of pictures with the street signs and our bikes, as well as standing on the border between the two countries. After returning our bikes (for only 2 euro!), we stopped for gelato on the way back to the hotel.

Mörbisch is absolutely beautiful, especially on this lovely day. The houses are old and sometimes shabby, and they remind me of houses all stacked up against each other in Tuscany. There are lots of birds singing, green trees, and flowers in full bloom. The streets are narrow and cobblestone, barely leaving enough room for passing cars and cyclists. Most of the people we saw in the town were older, and usually very friendly. I'm awed by the beauty of everything here – I love the weather, which is sunny and warm; I love the landscape, which has rolling hills and seems to go on forever; I'm even growing to love the people, who speak beautifully and seem kind. I'm excited to learn more German words soon so that I can communicate better.

That's it for day 1/day 2. Hoping that this jet lag will wear off soon, but that the excitement of being in this exciting and lovely country never will!