So I actually have spare time for once so I can blog. I always have my routine before I go to bed, check facebook then read Three Cups of Tea, which takes a while. So since I blogged last a couple things have changed, I started going to a tutor for reading comprehension and shes teaching me how to take notes which I know will really help me in HS and college, I got my temps, I'm getting my wisdom teeth removed this thursday and I went to a cooking class at laurel paganini! Enough about all that I have to get to my trip, I had to keep a journal there so I guess I'l just go off of that.

Day 1- Got up at like 5:30 to get on a plane at like 9. I met up with my delegation, which consisted of 3 other people and a traveling coach, who was a basketball coach. We flew to chicago from here and had a 6 hour layover, yay! Except not because theres nothing to do in an airport so we rode many moving walkways many times until we felt a little sick so we got auntie annes. We went to our boarding gate and this kid who was going for bowling came over and was like "Are any of you for bowling perhaps?" and were like no so he walked away except I noticed when he came over his fly was down which I thought was hilarious and it stayed down for the rest of the time at the airport, so our group nick named him fly boy, shows how bored we were. Then we finally boarded the plane for our 9 hour flight, great. So the first couple hours were fine, then the person in front of me decided she wanted her seat back. The seating of the plane was 2-5-2 and i was 2nd one in in the 5 seat section, lucky me, now this lady would not sit still, i was trying to sleep because we were flying through the night so we lost a night of sleep, so i put my head on the tray thing but she kept bumping my head so i pressed it forward with my head and she got the hint but didnt care. Then when she got up i reached up and pressed the button to bring her seat up then when she got back, she noticed and put it back again and that time i said oww really loud and she still didnt care. I was in the middle of 2 kids from my delegation which was really fun, Leah and anthony, well anthonys tv didnt work so I switched seats with him for a while cuz i wanted an aisle seat. Well that lady's husband or SO was in front of me and he had his seat back too...he was reading a stupid book! I don't get why you need your chair back for that, it made me mad. We finally landed in frankfurt then we got on another plane to vienna.

Day 2 - We arrived in Vienna and it was 11 am their time the day after I left. We got our bags and took coach buses to our hotel where we checked our bags with leaders from people to people and we got on a bus to go to "teambuilding" at their official handball gym. Well team building was just different sports set up around the facility. The highlight of my day was learning how to play badmitten from this crazy good kid that was there, then me and leah played ping pong, then we faced the guys, anthony and alex, from our delegation and we lost. After that we went in the stands and slept for an hour. We finally went back to the hotel and got food which was really crappy and got our bags. Then me and leah went to the volleyball coach and got our keys, well leah did because they made her teams keys but they told me mine wasnt ready. Well it turns out it was and I sat there for 2 hours for nothing. Then I went up to my room and I was the first one there then right after that came in this girl I met waiting for my key, she asked me to watch her bag but she never came back and Iwas like oh great. Her name was cara and she turned out to be my worst nightmare. I also had another room mate and her name was danielle and she was really nice. At 8 we had a volleyball meeting for all vball players, it was a little scary because I did not play club at all in my life and all these girls looked scary intense so when i told my team that I dont play club all of them were like OMG!!!! youre kidding?! But i got over it and went to bed.

Day 3- Today we had our first practice with Penn State vball coach Russ Rose and it went pretty well. After a 3 hour practice we went and had lunch. While we were having lunch it started raining so they canceled the amusement park and we went shopping for 4 hours instead, wooo! Except it got boring after 2 hours so we went to a pizza place. So my coach was a vegetarian and asked what was on the vegetarian pizza, they said cheese and corn, we all started laughing because no one had heard of putting corn on their pizza. It was an interesting experience, shopping in an Austrian mall. The first thing I noticed was that everyone dressed more fashion-ey there and they bring their dogs everywhere, I saw really big dogs at the mall too. It was a little hard to understand some people like when we were buying gelato, the guy didnt know whether we wanted 1 or 2 scoops or which kind we wanted because we couldn't pronounce them so we just pointed, it was very difficult. It was also weird seeing people smoke all over the place. Like after the guy at the pizza place seated us, he went in front of the place and smoked then would put it down when people would come. After we went shopping for 4 hours, we went back to the hotel and had the option of going swimming or just chilling out in our rooms and at that point I was kind of miserable cuz i hated my room mate and I missed home so I just walked around with my friend Nicole and went on the internet for 20 minutes, you had to pay 2 euros for 20 minutes. So that was pretty much the entire day, it was kind of boring.

Day 4- We went to the Shonbrunn Palace for a couple hours, it's the summer (I think) home of the Hapsburgs for those of you fascinated by history. It was so big and pretty inside, but you couldnt take pictures unfortunately. After that we got back on the bus and took a tour of Vienna, which was so pretty. We saw many historic place's, which I don't remember, and we saw many churches, but the only one we walked around was St. Stevens. Then we went to our 2nd practice which went very well but everyone was still a little shy on the court because no one knew each other. And I can't believe this happened but I completely forgot where we ate that night, I have a feeling it was at the hotel if I can't remember it.

Day 5- Today we had our last practice which was kind of exciting because it meant that the tournament would start soon and we went to the amusement park and I rode the famous ferris wheel there. They told us it was over 100 years old so that made me feel really safe. Then I had some authentic amusement park food. It was prett much a hot dog sausage thing that was in a piece of bread with ketchup. It was pretty tasty but after that I didn't go on any more rides because I don't like roller coasters. We only had an hour at the amusement park because after that we went souvenir shopping at this little street that supposedly had many souvenir shops on it, well if you count 1 as many then I guess it did. So after we went to that store we decided to be part of Austrian culture and get some starbucks and McDonalds! The weird thing at Micky d's was that they had calamari, eeeww, and they had curly fries which were pretty good. After that we went to dinner for some more food, we had viener schnitzel. I didn't know thats what it was at the time, i had a clue that it was but i didn't know for sure then I got home and learned it was baby cow :( I was so mad I ate baby cow, twice! After that we went back to the hotel for the night.

Well I'm getting pretty tired so I'll blog about the other half of my trip another time, until then...
ttfn!

♥~
MMS

I'm so freaking bored! Eric left for Hilton Head at 9 last night and I won't see him until I go to Hilton Head with my family next Thursday, we didn't plan to be in HH at the same time, it kinda just happened. I've tried texting my other friends, but no one is available, and Eric's phone died so yea I'm being a loner sitting in my bedroom on my laptop and I thought why don't I blog! So a lot has happened in the last month. I'll start with the biggest decision I've had to make in my life so far, which school to go to next year, stay at AL or go to st. joes, and long story short, I'm going to st. joes. It was really hard to make the decision because of my friends, in particular Eric. I will miss him a lot next year but I feel this is the right thing to do, I am not happy at AL, so I'm going to change that. My mom told me not to tell anyone but Eric... so I decided to post it on the internet, haha. On to more good news, I leave for Austria in one month minus one day (aka 29 days) I am kinda pissed I leave the morning of the fourth of July, but I can't do anything about that. I will be there the 4th-13th and i will be busy busy busy, like a normal day wil me wake up at like 6, eat, go to practice for the youth friendship games, im playing volleyball, that will end at like 2ish and then sight see til like 10:30. I think it will be a great experience. Last weekend I made my confirmation, the only thing I care about is that I am done with those dumb classes. Right after confirmation, I had to go straight to dance team try outs at my studio which went very well, they haven't called yet but I'm sure I'm going to make it because they haven't cut a senior in a very long time. Yesterday was the last day of school and i am so happy it is over. I was sooo stressed out and frustrated that no matter how hard I studied, I didn't get the grade I wanted. I am still a little mad that i got an a- in bio, yea I know i sound crazy but just hear me out. So i decided to waive my bio final which means that they average my 3rd and 4th quarter grades together. They don't go by percentages its only a, a-, b, b- and so on, so if you get an a and a-, your semester is an a, if you get 2 a-'s its an a-, if you get an a- and b then it's an a-, well my 3rd quarter was a- and my 4th quarter was .6% away from an a, so i ended with an a-. I was upset because I worked so hard and stayed up so late just to get the same grade as if i were to have gotten a b 4th quarter. Now I could have easily gotten a b and gotten a good 7 hours of sleep every night which sound nice compared to 5 and a half. But life isn't fair so I have to deal with it and gym is a prime example, our final was the biggest piece of bull shit I've ever seen. First of all they didn't even give my class enough of the papers we needed to study, so how do they expect us to know about fitness, football, and softball. Second of all, why do we need to know what college basketball was first played at. Lastly, how can they ask the question, is lebron james the best player on the cavs when it wasn't in the study packet and they don't know that i don't go home to a house with no tv or radio, or that i don't live under a rock and am oblivious to everything but school and my family, urgh it just outrages me. I'm just glad I won't have to deal with them next year. Well I really have to go clean my room because it's a mess since I'm switching my winter and summer clothes.
TTFN!

♥~
MMS