Monday, May 14- Day 1:

When you get off an airplane after traveling for over TWENTY hours straight what is the first thing that comes to your mind? Today it was "wow, we made it through with no troubles so far, heck yeah." Traveling internationally can sometimes (most of the time) be a struggle from having to fight the weather all the way to dealing with crying babies on airplanes, every trip has its pitfalls. After gathering all of our checked luggage (minus Lucas'- the air line lost his) all fifteen students and our lovely professors proceeded to board a train that would get us closer to the Austro-American Institute of Education in Vienna, Austria. When the train immerged from the underground tunnel all I remember thinking is "well this doesn't look all that different" as we passed by a large industrial park. Shortly after zooming by, that began to change. Slowly but surely the large cookie cutter industrial buildings began to disappear and I started to notice the architecture and the age of the surrounding buildings. The design and attention to detail is not like anything you see in the states.
The City Airport Train was very interesting to me. The entire system operates on the honor system. They do not check your ticket at the door upon entering, they just trust that you have one. That got me asking what would happen if you just ride the train for free all the time? Apparently there is a city train operator that randomly checks for tickets, if caught without one you could be charged a 150 euro fee!

The last task of the day once we gathered for lunch and finished our walk through the park was meeting our host families. The concept of living in someone's house for three weeks not knowing anything about them, what they value, or even meeting them before was a tad bit sketchy to me,but Mrs. Susie, Mr. Wolfgang, and Coco have put my mind at ease. My roommate Rebecca and I will be staying with the Franken's for the duration of our stay and I can definitely say that we started on the right foot with some nice Austrian gelato and a trip to the grocery store!