Most of you have probably talked with my parents and have heard something about what I have been doing, but I will include everything here.
I spent St. Patrick's Day in London, visiting 3 of my friends who study with me in Minnesota. I had a whirlwind tour of the city, and then met some British boys who had heard misleadingly from my friend Brittany that I was celebrating my 21st birthday. They treated the four of us to a bottle of 47 pound champagne because after all, "You only turn 21 once!" (May 7th, 2007 will then be my second time turning 21).
I had more than two weeks off for Easter vacation, and definitely made the most of the time off from school. I spent a wonderful week in Prague with my boyfriend Efrem, had a fun visit with my friend Muriel in Zurich, and met Efrem again in Salzburg and gave him the grand tour of my almost hometown.
Efrem and I met at the end of February, less than a week after my arrival in Graz. He's from Sofia, Bulgaria, and he is here on exchange also. He's studying automotive engineering and will someday build me a beautiful orange sports car. He has taught me how to cook (it started with fried eggs...now I'm up to stir-fry and schnitzel), and can you believe it? I even do dishes now. The power of love! He is the perfect linguistic project, and I never tire listening to the interesting English he speaks.
I am working on his American English and his vocabulary and grammar, as well as his pronunciation, have improved by leaps and bounds since February. We are not looking forward to having to part ways this summer. Thanks the internet the world is connected, no matter how far apart the distance is.
The movie "Eurotrip", which while is not Oscar-worthy, provides a lot of laughs. There is a scene in the film where the American teenagers accidentally end up in Bratislava, Slovakia. It is portrayed as being very Communist-looking, poor, undeveloped, and all-around not a place tourists would want to go. With 1.83$, the teenagers get an upscale hotel, massages, food, and entrance to an "in" disco. As they say, "You gotta love the exchange rate!" While I knew this is not how Bratislava really is, I decided I had to go and see for myself.
As a birthday present to myself, Efrem and I spent May 6th in Bratislava.
It was certainly not as extreme as the film portrayed, however, there are still signs of Communism in the many highrise apartment blocks visible in the city. There is a large highway going right through the center of the city, and the Danube and a small old city center cannot mask the fact that Bratislava has a long way to go before it has the standard of living that the older EU countries have. It was a nice comparison to Prague because the countries had been united for so long, but the feeling was quite different between the two cities.
Up until last week we were having unusually cold weather here in Graz for the season, with highs in the 50s and rain forecasted almost every day. That and the fact that colleges in the US were already out for the summer made my motivation to go to class almost null. But "winter" passed and the past week has been in the 90s. Weather doesn't know anything about a comfortable average I guess. 70 would be a nice temperature to stay at for a while.
Efrem and I were planning on spending last weekend in Budapest, but the thought of being amidst hundreds of sticky and loud tourists about as far from an ocean as one can be in Europe made us rethink. Instead, we hopped aboard a train with no hotel reservations and no real idea of what we were going to do, and headed south. We spent one night in a pleasant private home in Ljubljana, and discovered that the former Yugoslavian city has made great changes and has become a modern and beautiful European city in its own right. It has a very Italian feel, with street cafes, great street musicians, and here and there a well choreographed street theater performance. The euro is going to be introduced in 2007, and the Tolar/Euro signs made it easy for us (no having to divide Tolars by 239 to get the Euro amount). A little disappointing was the fact that with economic growth and modernization also comes an increase in prices. We were expecting something like the Czech Republic, which was very cheap compared to other EU countries, but instead found that Slovenia has very similar prices to Austria. After a romantic stroll through the lively streets of Ljubljana and a nice outlook from Ljubljana Castle, we strolled back to our hostel. The next day we headed for the coast with the intent of swimming in the Adriatic Sea. My "Europe on a Shoestring" book has come in pretty handy, although Efrem makes fun of Americans for relying too much on their guidebooks. With the help of a train and then a set of buses, we ended up in the small peninsula town of Piran. With red roofs, narrow cobbled pedestrian-only streets, and beautiful turquoise sea all around, we decided we had made a good choice. We found a nice little hostel with an extremely friendly landlord and set out as soon as we could for the sea. It was my first time swimming in a semi-warm body of water and was definitely worth the trip from Graz to do so. The Atlantic, Finnish lakes, and the pond are a far step behind the sparkling waves of the Adriatic. With a view of Croatia to the South and Italy to the West, we felt like we were part of a living postcard. All of my pictures from my time here in Europe are available for your viewing pleasure here:
My home base of Graz has not been as interesting as Eastern Europe. I have classes Mon-Wed, and thus have been lucky enough to have lots of time to travel. My classes each meet only once per week, and there is little to no homework. One could call an exchange to Graz a "Travel Abroad Program" and not a "Study Abroad Program". However, my classes are interesting.
I am taking
This is finally our last week of school and I have 4 exams still coming up. Tuesday is my last exam and Tuesday night I have leaving Western Europe for a three weeks and heading to Bulgaria with Efrem. We are taking the train from Graz to Sofia, 22 hours. We are planning on spending two weeks in Sofia and one week at the Black Sea. Unfortunately in recent years, tourism to the Black Sea has grown hugely and it's hard to find a non-resorty, non-touristy place. A classy hotel with swimming pool, mini-bar, and tons of German tourists is not something I am interested in. Efrem and I are searching for a cheap hostel or are hoping to borrow a tent from his uncle with the intent to camp there. We'll see how that turns out. I have been doing my best to learn as much Bulgarian as possible, and can now carry on a basic conversation with no problem. I understand quite a lot and things will only improve with three weeks immersed in the language.
After a tearful departure from Efrem and a 16 hour bus ride to Vienna, I will be flying to Finland for 3 weeks. No plans exactly, just visiting my friends and my host family and enjoying the Land of the Midnight Sun. After that I have two weeks left in Europe before returning to the States, in which I will visit family in Salzburg again and maybe see Lukas in Germany. That's enough for now, and at the end of the summer I'm sure I'll have more to write about.
I miss you all! Happy Summer.
Love, Anna