Hello all,

Sorry it has taken me so long to write. I will start from the beginning.
I arrived in Europe on February 3rd, and my aunt and uncle picked me up at the airport in Munich. I spent a few days in Salzburg visiting my grandparents, my sister and her family, my friends the Dollnigs, and my aunt and uncle. It was nice to see them all again, and with everyone but the Dollnigs, an interesting encounter. I am used to being around them, but in the past it has always been that I visited them with my parents, and spent more time talking to Karl than to other family members. But things were great and I'm glad that I get the chance to get to know everyone personally, rather than just through my dad.

Then I spent 2 weeks with Lukas in Stuttgart. It was nice to see him again, and we spent a lot of time together, even though he had to go to school everyday. The first week I was there, my friend Muriel from Switzerland, who I met in Finland, came to stay with me at Lukas's, and we kept ourselves entertained while Lukas was at school by going sightseeing and shopping in Esslingen and Stuttgart. I met a lot of Lukas's friends that I knew from the summer, and a lot of his friends I didn't know. But they were all really nice and I, since Lukas can't function well in a non-social situation, saw quite a lot of all his friends. I got to visit my ex-boyfriend in the mental hospital, which was quite a sad experience. He is 19 years old, but is confined to the one floor in the institute and shares a room with old crazy alcoholic men. He isn't allowed to leave the building unless his parents are there to accompany him. It seemed to me that he had gotten a lot worse since I had talked to him last. He finally got out at the end of February, and I hope that he has since been able to get his life back on track and reintegrate himself into society. Muriel and I went to see a rock concert with three Finnish bands, and were both so glad to be able to have someone to speak Finnish to again. We were able to say whatever we wanted about anyone around us while we were in town since no one else understood. I spent an afternoon with Lukas's family in the Alps to snowboard, sled, walk around beautiful snowy paths, and drink Gluhwein and eat sausages.
I returned after 2 weeks to Salzburg again, where I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and my friend Susi Dollnig, who I hadn't seen since 2000. It was amazing how we were able to pick up exactly where we left off 5 years ago, and if it's even possible, we get along better than we did before.

I then continued to my final destination of Graz. I am living here with a friend of my dad's from his youth, and things couldn't have worked out better. My host mom Claudia is a tour guide of Graz, and so she knows everything that there is to know about the city. Every time I have a question about where to find a certain building, she knows where it is, and also tells me historical or quirky facts pertaining to that place. She also seems really glad to have me here, and many of my evenings are spent playing cards, looking at old photos of my dad, or just plain chatting. My host sister Resi is studying English/German/Spanish translation and interpreting at the same university that I am at, and so not only is she interested in cultures and languages like I am, she knows the Uni and the language departments quite well. My host brother Franz has an American girlfriend, and so I get to see her quite a bit. She began here last spring as an exchange student from Arkansas State, but has since transferred here and is loving it. If I decide to do the same, she knows all the people I would need to talk to and the documents I'd need to fill out. And I am considering just staying on here, for another year or to complete my studies. I have to make a decision by the beginning of April because my apartment lease in Minnesota has to be signed. I have my own bedroom, I have a bike that I can ride, and once Claudia and I go for a practice drive, I will be able to borrow the car if I want to. We are already planning family excursions to Slovenia, Croatia, and Hungary. Eastern and Southern Europe have attracted my attention.
Here I have met lots of exchange students from Slovenia and Croatia, and my closest friend here to this point is a Bulgarian guy named Efrem. We are already planning my summer trip to Sofia. There are thousands of international students here, and it is interesting to meet people from all over the world. I seem to run into interesting people everywhere. The University started on Monday, and so I am finally back to school after 2.5 months of winter vacation. And my classes seem pretty good. I am taking a few German linguistic classes, some German to English translation courses, some English linguistic classes, and then an Intro Romanian course, a Global Studies lecture, and a course on Austrian German. I never have class on Friday. I have also joined sport courses: volleyball, innebandy (which is called floorball in english, and is indoor hockey played with plastic sticks, a wiffle ball, and of course no skates), and Austrian folk dancing. Hopefully these will prevent my dad from being able to say "One daughter left for Austria and one and a half daughters came home" as he said when I returned from Finland.
Graz has a lot of culture, and my host family often gets a free box of seats at the opera. I will get to see during my time here a lot of great productions. My roommate from Minnesota, Brittany, came to visit the first weekend that I was here, and it was nice to have someone to discover the city with. We spent two days in Vienna with my friend Christoph, and Brittany loved Austria so much that she will come back in June for a few weeks. I am going to London March 17-19 to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with Brittany and another friend of ours from Minnesota, Carly, who is spending her spring break in London. I seem to be doing just fine with the German language. I understand everything in all of my classes, and Claudia always tells me that I speak without mistakes. I don't think that it's quite that good, but it makes me happy that I am truly able to get around in another language. It's such a change from Finland, where I didn't speak a word when I arrived there. I must say it seems to be an advantage over a lot of the other exchange students here who don't speak German. I am loving it here, and hopefully spring will soon be on its way. We had a giant blizzard on Sunday, but things have since warmed up and the forecast seems to keep predicting sunny weather. I miss you all and of course you are welcome here any time!

 Love, Anna