Hi all,

I know - an update was long overdue. So, here we go! Again, to keep this structured, 'stichworte' are the key to this story as well, otherwise it's gonna be impossible to read.

So, some brief impressions of Germanness and life here in general:

* Zzzz.. It's much easier to fall asleep in class when there are 200 others around you. In Kybernetics I suddenly got a punch in the ribs from my neighbour 'Hey du, wach auf!' So yeah, I gave that class up. That is definitely a first for nerdy me.

* Good morning sunshine? 8.00-9.30, Monday morning. Biology. I want to know what drug my professor is on, cuz she's so crazily motivated, and if it's legal, I want it. Full stop. Because the problem is: my flatmates don't have deadlines, they sleep 'till noon. I go to bed at roughly the same time, but get up at 6.30. See the trouble here?

* Question: Whyyy would any-one, e-ver, in his right mind, wear a bicycle helmet. On a bike, OK, fair enough. But WHY put it on when the lecture ends and then walk through uni with it? Sigh, these German nerdy engineers...

* Again: WHY? Why carry around a 1.5 L bottle of water? You hardly ever see a person with a 0.5L bottle, it's usually at least 1 L. I've compromised: 0.75 L. And of course: no tapwater, god no! My flatmate also said it: 'Larry, I'm sorry, I'm afraid we're very German. We only have water with bubbles.' Thank goodness they're normal and also drink tapwater.

(For the ones wondering, yeah, they call me Larry. This nickname came from the time in Austria, they asked me what people usually called me, so this stuck.)

* Longboards! I see so many people with longboards around here, so as soon as I have money again (Stufi FTW!) that's gonna be my new investment. People even ride them through the uni buildings, on the streets, through the Englisher Garten. It's really a means of transportation and it's gonna be a nice replacement for the snowboarding I've been missing so much.

* Home. This is the main feeling of the past three weeks! The last blog I wrote was on the first day I moved in here, which is exactly three weeks ago. Since then, I've gotten used to life in the Gneisenaustraße, in the absolutely most chill WG I could have found, which now consists of 2 guys, one of their girlfriends (awesome chick, happy she's here) and me. I'm a damn lucky girl. From here it's only 25 minutes to university, 15 minutes to the Olypiazentrum (sports facilities, still from the Olympic Games) and you have a large mall about 3 minutes away by bike. We've all been working on the apartment in the past weeks. So the balcony was cleaned with a high pressure water spout (apparently that was fun), we bought and planted flowers (the bigger task is to keep them alive) and the guys are finishing the bar in the hall. For who's interested - pictures are on facebook. But besides the fact that the appartment is huge and beautiful, the feeling of coming home is even better. It's so nice to enter after a long day of uni, and random friends are here, people are cooking, and talking. Or it's quiet, you can just collapse onto the couch, talk a bit, watch a movie, go to sleep. Friends of mine have also been over, one of them (for various reasons) has slept in the living room both times she was here (entirely incapable of going home.) But the good thing is that it's possible; no one here minds if suddenly the living room looks like a camping facility because suddenly three people are put up on the two sleep couches and a mattrass. So conclusion is: since I moved in here, life has definitely improved a whole lot: I'm happy.

* Vienna. Yay, it was so good to see friends again! A friend of mine drove from Innsbruck to pick me up here, and he drove me back as well. Weekend went like this: chilling, driving, party, chilling, driving back. Lovely; saw my birthday girl and other friends from this winter - thankful for that. It was good to see people again that know me and like me despite of that, haha.

* Nerdy engineering subjects: I still love them. I've really missed this during LUC. Still enjoy chemistry and solar engineering the most, stil hate kybernetics, but ah well. And for Technik im Alltag I have to read Hannah Ahrendt now, so even here there's now way around philosophy, which is good. Had all three presentations I had to do in the past three weeks, so that's over and done with - I'm glad. Also here: help from my flatmates for TiA. Subject: re- and upcycling of drinking cans. So, somewhere between twelve and three, not entirely sober anymore, the toolkit came out and we (mostly me watching) built a candle holder out of two drinking cans. It actually looks really good. Happy me, happy professor, all was right with the world, haha.

* Sports: still go swimming a few times a week. Goal for end of the semester: to swim the 2 km in under an hour again. That's 80 laps... Right now I'm quite on schedule: 1 km well under half an hour, so I trust that with discipline that'll be fine. Also, something that most of my friends will not believe, I've started zumba... Horribly motorically challenged me and zumba.. This was not on purpose: we were gonna play volleyball, but got lost in the huge ZHS center and ended up there. So that's the wednesday night programma from now on! Went twice now, it's gonna take some practice for me to not look like a complete idiot, but I still have faith that it'll improve.

* Social life: also here, most credit goes to my flatmates. Their friends are around all the time, the majority of which I get along with well. Also my friends are always welcome, so that has resulted in some very chill and interesting evenings which mostly ended late and with people turning the living room into a 'matratzenlager'. I also get out more now; to a club sometimes, dinner with a group, but also just taking the scooter to the lake and hanging out there. I see my greek and italian friends most - they're lovely, interesting, intelligent girls, with good looks, which is again appreciated when they come around here.

* Soccer. Don't even wanna talk about it. Bayern München T-shirt hangs over the chair now.. it was a sad night for the city. But, we had a birthday to celebrate, so wodka limone, cake and various other substances saved the night to some extent :)

* Plans. Next weekend: BERLIN!We're going with the Erasmus students, it's my Italian friend and me and lots of strangers, for 3 days, I'm excited. The contrast between Berlin and this quiet, very village-like in its atmosphere city is gonna be huge. But I'm looking forward to some nice museums and a good party scene! Also booked my ticket to Stockholm today; Midsummer with my Swedish friends! I've missed them, it's gonna be goood.

So, that wasn't the most interesting update you will have ever read: life here is 'alltag'. But wanted to tell you what's been going on here.Right now I'm sitting on the balcony, reminding myself to water the tomato plant, enjoying the warm evening weather, and I hope to see some of you here at some point to enjoy it with me!

Bussis