I would like to thank you for the very warm welcome you have given me since my arrival here three weeks ago. Yet again you have proven that time indeed is relative, as experienced in new relationships.
I came here to study, but that has so far not really been taking up a lot of my time. I would like to study more, but I only have a few classes per week and no course literature. My university claims to be "flexible", although all international students know that it's just a nice way to say "completely unorganised". It's quite funny actually.
So since I got here, I've spent a lot of time with my new flatmate, Stefan. I'm trying to make friends, but it really takes time and effort, as anyone moving to a new place knows. My efforts may not have been as intense as they could have, but honestly I just miss my old friends. So I've spent more time skyping and emailing with people as well, which is a great, and I'm receiving a lot of love! And being able to give my loved ones some well-deserved attention.
But to be honest, I've been up to quite a lot here. I've been to a festival and saw the local band A basement in bloom (yay!) and went to the museum night, bought furniture and brought it to my place (took a wardrobe and later on a chair on the metro), built an IKEA bed on my own, biked out to the surrounding forest (Wienerwald), visited the garden of Schönbrunn, had a few nights out with Nathalie and Stefan, went to a couchsurfing meeting in a boardgame bar, joined a bookclub and went to a meeting, read 3 novels and watched quite a lot of a TV serie with Stefan...
Nathalie is helping me move a closet!
Sunset from our apartment
And that is not even including this weekend, when Stefan took me to his parents' farm in upper Austria where we were helping out with the cows, and hiked up a mountain. The excursion started early in the morning and was by far the most challenging one I've done, passing on the ridge of a mountain and using hands and feet to get by. I admit I was pretty scared, but it was well worth it! Both for the view and the fun and adrenaline-induced experience of pushing my boundaries.
Then it's also all the small things of finding my way around a new place. I've found a place to go running (not so easy in a big city), a market to buy food, places to go dumpster diving, which way to bike to university... It has all been so much nicer thanks to the excellent weather, allowing me and Nathalie to have a coffee outdoors in the sun after class. Warm welcome in a double meaning, that is.
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