Beer, Wine, and Business Courses

It was quite lucky that I managed to put up my last blog entry when I did because like the next day my internet was turned off until December 1st. MADNESS! Yeah, there's like this really low limit, and Tina had bought more but the office kept messing it up, so we had no internet in our room for a couple days. It was horrible. I thought I was going to die of insanity. On the 29th I talked to Sara, Hannah, Odile, and Amy on the phone - from my room phone. I was on the phone for like hours because I was SO BORED. And not checking my email just makes me all nervous. I felt like a drug addict in withdrawal. On the 30th, I caved in and went to the university - which is a 30 minute trip each way - just to get online (for 7 minutes) to check my email. At midnight, when it came back on I was so happy I did a little dance.

Ok, so what else has happened?
After German class last week, a bunch of us went to the little Glühwein (hot wine) stand outside the uni. By outside, I mean it's on the steps right in front of the doors. I was with a bunch of French people, a Belgian, and a Czech. So Ms. Czech and I were like "ooook, we'll speak English over here, then, while you guys speak French." Which seems to happen to me a lot, especially around Angélique and Raphaëlle. When they're speaking French to each other, I wait for a pause and then go "oui!"

On Sunday I went to the Christmas market at Schloss Belvedere with an American girl, Jessica. That market actually wasn't that great, and the Glühmost tasted like more alcohol than cider.

In my int'l financial markets class on Wednesday, the girl next to me, Anna, noticed the most amazing thing. Annoying Canadian Boy (as I like to call him) was drinking beer. In class. And the professor saw it too. And all he said was "you should not have too much beer" after Annoying Canadian Boy asked a dumb question (hm, go figure?) during a presentation. I was amazed. Then the following day, in German, Raphaëlle did her presentation (on Bordeaux) and gave out wine. So afterwards, I'm sitting in class, listening to my professor talk about how to apply for a job in Austria (resume, cover letter, etc), and it hits me: I'm drinking WINE in class. It's ridiculous. These crazy people here. I love it.

I also had *my* presentation in German class. I talked about Texas. The professor said I spoke "surprisingly freely." The hand strikes and gives a flower (yes, I totally took that line from The Office). I have to admit, I'm a little offended, but I found out later that she said the same thing to the Brazilian boy. We (North & South) Americans gotta stick together! Actually, though, I only spoke "surprisingly freely" because I had practiced several times with Raphaëlle the night before.

In German class, sometimes when I'm not really understanding what the prof is saying, I'll zone out for a few seconds, and then sometimes I'll hear something like "unsere Amerikanerin" that totally zaps me back in. All I need is "Amerika" to get my attention. Yesterday she was saying that you have to put a passport photo on your resume, which is important for "our American" to notice. She smiled at my face that was in total disbelief. She added later that it used to be required to put what religion you were on your resume, and I hung my head, closed my eyes, and was shaking my head in utter disbelief and thinking about how you could NEVER have that in the US, which also made her laugh a little. Sometimes Austria doesn't seem too different from the States, but then there's stuff like that. Geez.

Two weeks from today I will be completely done with the semester. Geez. Come quickly!