it's almost the weekend!

I only have one more class at 4:30 pm before it's the weekend. YAY!
This weekend the other 4 girls in my group and I are planning on going to Innsbruck, which is a small town about 2 hours outside of Salzburg by train. It's supposed to be a cute little town to explore and with different shopping and the largest Swarovski Crystal store in the world, but it's closed for renovations I think, which is sad :( but it will still be fun to explore a new city, and it's supposed to be beautiful there.

Other than that, I am just experiencing lots of new things. On Tuesday I was out around town for "Faschingsdienstag" which is "Mardi Gras" here, it's a lot like Halloween in America, everybody was dressed up and in costume. I saw a lot of people dressed up in Native American costumes, which I found very strange. We met a guy from Austria, and he found out we were from Maine, he asked us if we knew Stephen King! It was very funny, I was surprised he knew who Stephen King was, but he said he had read all of the books.

So my classes are: DaF, or Deutsch als Fremdsprache (German as a foreign language) which is just a German language class here in Austria. I'm also taking a Film Class and a Literature class (not history like i thought). Both are just covering Austrian film and literature, a lot of movies and books from this country are very dark, so it should be interesting...the film and literature classes are held in my resident directors apartment, so it's a pretty casual setting. I have classes on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday...but I have Fridays off, so 3 day weekends!!

Today was the first day it rained in Salzburg or Austria for that matter where we were, but now it's bright and sunny again :) We went to an open air market after our class this morning, I tried Käsekrainer (sausage with cheese) from a Würstelstand (sausage stand) for lunch, it was really delicious! I also got a big pretzel to take home with me, it has chocolate and apricot on it and it's very, very yummy, but I brought most of it home with me because I didn't want to eat it all at once (I could just eat all day here, the food is soooo good, but I try not to overeat even though I easily could) We walked around another market later which was fun, they sell fresh flowers, fruits, veggies, more food, and little garden trinkets and other trinkets as well as clothes and purses and everything. I think next week I might buy some fruits or vegetables. I have noticed that the clementines and oranges here are both very tart!

Also, I'm officially addicted to Nutella..luckily they sell it in America too. It's a chocolate hazelnut spread, the consistency is very comparable to peanut butter, and it's only a little bit less healthy for you than peanut butter..it's really yummy on toast for breakfast or with fruit. It's SO GOOD. I could eat it by the spoonful.

I've also been running a few times down the Salzach river which is really just very beautiful, and there are swans on the river. It's awesome! I've been told it will be even more beautiful once the trees bloom and everything is green again! I'm trying to get into a running routine here, it's different running in the city because of stoplights, and becuase you always have to predict the direction where so many people are walking around and dodge them as you run. It gets annoying, but I think I'll get used to it, and once I get to the river it's easier. And so pretty! I think I picked a great semester to come here (SPRING semester!) I want to get up hiking into the mountains and get some really awesome pictures, as well as see a few Sound of Music things like the gazebo. I want to take a picture up in the hills like the sound of music picture where she's spinning around in flowers!

This weekend, I have the plans to go to Innsbruck, figure out how to do laundry, and tonight our school is hosting a party for people to meet each other, it's on Akademiestrasse (the street where we have our classes) in one of the buildings where we have class. I think a lot of people are going so hopefully it will be fun.

So I apologize if I already blogged about any of the stuff above, but I've been telling so many people about so many different things that it's hard to tell! I will have to do another entry when I get back from Innsbruck and let you know how it was there. I hope the weather is as gorgeous in the US as it is here right now!