the good and the bad

Im sorry I havent kept up with the posts. I havent had a lot of time, and we only have internet when we go into the school..
This week has been extremely fun, but also a little discouraging.. It's been overwhelming with ry finally going into the mtc, not really getting a chance to talk to my family, hearing really fun things that friends are doing at home like skiing and rock climbing trips, school starting, and not speaking the language. Other than the couple of time that i was discouraged inside, the week was great.

School started this week. Hard, but interesting. I am taking an art history class from a native austrian and I have learned a lot already! We went to the Vienna Museum on tuesday and got filled to the brim about every detail and more about the sculptures, the town, and the paintings, and old houses. We have spent a lot of time already in museums, i swear there are more museums here than in all of America combined.

Wednesday we rode for an hour on a bus to Bratislava, Slovakia. Before i came here, I dont think i knew that this place even existed. It was the most interesting town i have ever been in! We got off the bus stop and the first thing we saw was every color of graffiti. There is a lot of the normal names of Graffiti, but there is also amazing murals of Graffiti! My roommate and I took some pictures by it, just as my camera died. The rest of the day is documented on my friends camera, sorry, Ill post those next week. Brother Jacobs (our director) just left us as soon as we got off the bus. We all just looked at each other like, is he serious? It ended up being a good experience though, venturing our own way through town. Most of the day was just wandering through the streets, looking at architecture, stores, landscape, and the normal and the crazy Slovakians. Downtown is on a big hill, and the streets are very close together. Some areas have been cleaned up, but I think that my favorite part was going through the run down parts of town, seeing, well i cant think of the words, but it was neat.
We went hiked up to a massive castle, looking out over the city and the danub river. On our way down I started talking to some guys and we ended up walking around with them for awhile. The four of them were from Argentina, but the very cute one is living in Italy playing professional rugby. As we were saying good bye, he kissed my on the cheek, hah i was not expecting that one. I was supposed to meet up with them again in Vienna, but when we got home from bratislava my eyes were far too tired, and i wasnt up for any more of that kissin..
We found a market down an alley with very cheep stuff, I got some white sneakers for 4 US dollars:) The shopping was not great in Bratislava though, I dont think that they can quite get out of the late 90's American style.
The churches were very beautiful, and the architecture of all of the buildings was amazing!
I liked the people of bratislava (except for the fact that they loved purple hair). They were all very friendly and kind. It is not like Vienna, where if you give someone a friendly smile, they look at you as if you are crazy.
We met up at the shore of the Danub, caught the high speed ferry-like boat, and took that home. This had to have been the most scenic things i have ever seen. The trees were luscious and green; tiny, cute wood fishing houses scattered along the shore, and there were random little old towns and castles along the way.

Yesterday I had school until 3:30. After school, Richy, two friends from the group: Bryce and Danielle, and I ventured out trying to find an american football to play in the park. No luck. At 7:00 we went to The Sound of Music Opera, we got standby tickets so we didnt have to stand! So much better!!!! The opera was beautiful and fun, but they changed my favorite song not only into german, but also from "doe a deer" and so on, to singing about cdefgab. For example e was elephant?? it was weird.