Tuesday, December 20, 2011
People!! It is almost Christmas! That is so nuts that another year is flying by, let alone just this past couple of weeks. We’ve had another couple of matches and I am happy to report another couple of wins! But the extracurriculars are the best things about being in Vienna.
One of my teammates, Lucia Hatinova, is from Bratislava, Slovakia, and since I’m betting most people reading this are a little rusty on their European geography, I will let you all slide on this one. Bratislava is only 45 minutes east of Vienna, and she was kind enough to invite us for a visit and guide us around. Bratislava is a cool little city, but my favorite part, of course, is the shopping. (The prices are a bit kinder than those of Vienna) We also stopped at one of their Christmas markets, a cafe where we got flavored hot (as in melted) chocolate, and a memorial site which overlooks the entire city. It was so exciting just to visit another country and city so easily.
Later in the week, Kayla, Svenja and I went to go see a production of Hair, The Musical! One day we came downstairs to drive to practice and Kayla goes ‘Look!’ The poster had been in front of our faces the entire time! It took a little research but I found out the show was in English and we were super relieved. I had little prior knowledge of the show (besides a few key songs- Hair, Let the Sun Shine In, Aquarius). It was definitely different, but overall it was very cool, and very hippie which is seems appropriate, no? 🙂
A few days later Kayla and I got an awesome bonus- Ellie Blankenship, our teammate from USA this past winter had a match against our second team so she somehow managed to come the day before on her own to see us! We went to a couple of the Christmas markets and a restaurant for dinner but has SUCH a nice time. There is nothing better than seeing a friend here, let alone another American. We had so much fun reminiscing the past and catching each other up with the International Experience we’re all having now.
The next day I decided to have a Christmas Cookie Decorating Shin Dig at my apartment. I made a small ton of sugar cookie dough and made anyone who wanted to come bring something we could use to decorate. We ended up shoving 7 people in my bitty apartment and having a blast while making a manageable mess. It turned out that at least a couple of girls had NEVER made cookies before! And that’s not okay in my book, so they will be my baking assistants in the future. But it was really fun to get a little creative too. That’s an outlet I sometimes forget how much I miss.
NOW……. drum roll please……. I’ve saved the best for last!
I remember when I was little how I would get so excited for Christmas and I would think of it as ‘how many sleeps’ I would have until Christmas. Or Nick and I would talk about the Eve of the Eve of the Eve of Christmas Eve. Well I feel like I have been counting the minutes until tomorrow morning, when MY FAMILY ARRIVES! I am so so so so so ecstatic, I really can’t express it through a keyboard and onto this web page. KLA;SFJ;AIEWQEIOJFNSIOEAW, maybe something like that. So it’s late here, and I’m gonna get that one sleep out of the way now so I can wake up and hunt down the people I love most.
Working Hard, Playing Harder 