Hi everyone. I've been thinking for a while about keeping a blog to document my time in Vienna for the next few months, so this is it (after a few hours of trying to figure out HTML). Hopefully I'll be able to post a few times a week to let everyone know what I've been up to, upload some pictures, and hopefully hear back from all of you (I'd love to come back and see comments to my posts).

Right now, it feels completely surreal that I will be living in another country in a few days. It has always seemed like such a temporary thing while I planned it out, but 4 months is going to be a long time - pretty wild.

I leave Evanston this Sunday to spend a few days at home and then I will say goodbye to the US on Tuesday. I'm arriving on Wednesday, a day early, just to have a day to explore by myself before the program gets underway. On Thursday, we have a 3-day orientation in a small city outside of Vienna during which we will be choosing roomates and a place to live.

Well, I won't get too ahead of myself. For now, I'm going to enjoy my last few days in Evanston. I'm starting to get nervous, but I guess that's to be expected....