The First Post

Hello!

Welcome to my first blog post! I think this is a great way to connect with you all and tell you about my foreign adventures.

It was certainly a long trip.
We left for JFK on Monday around noon-time. We flew Lufthansa--not quite as large as the A-380, but comparable in size. Although it was a 7-1/2 hour flight, it seemed to go by quickly sitting next to two good friends, Hollis and Kristin. We landed in Frankfurt around 6:00 AM (midnight in New York and 9PM in California).

In the Frankfurt Airport, my passport was stamped for the first time!! Woo hoo! The layover was made comfortable by a free Wall Street Journal and a granola bar. An hour later, we were ready to board our plane to Salzburg. We took a shuttle bus to our tiny 75-seat propeller plane. There were only 5 stairs we had to climb to board. Smallest plane I've ever been on.

The plane ride was only 45 minutes to Salzburg. Irene, an administrator from SEAD, met us at the airport and we packed all of our suitcases in her tiny "euro-car".

It was great to finally get to our dorm and unpack. We are living in a really amazing studio with a private kitchenette and bathroom; and a really sweet view of an apartment garden (we hear birds chirping all the time...totally different from New York). We went out to get some euros, to eat some lunch, and to find SEAD.

Today, we woke up super early--still jet lagged. We picked up some Austrian pastries from a bakery down the street and headed for SEAD for a ballet class. Afterwards, we had our first adventure in an Austrian grocery store...I'm glad that groceries have pictures of food on them. Otherwise, I would have ended up with tartar sauce or something. Ah--and I don't know how to make a tuna sandwich without mayonnaise. I'll figure it out.

Anyways--that's a lot for a first post. It's almost midnight here, so I'm going to call it a night. I'll try to type a few times a week to keep connected. And I'll try to figure out how to post pictures too. Oh oh! And I have skype now, so I would love to chat with you!