Day 53

On Friday morning I got up and went to the plasmazentrum to donate plasma. That took about 50 minutes. When I was done I stopped by a bakery and grabbed a chocolate muffin. I had said that I would go shopping with Charlotte so while I waited I watched an episode of Friends. When she called me we met at Neubaugasse and then started walking down Mariahilferstraße. We eventually made our way to Starbucks. Charlotte ordered a coffee drink and chocolate truffle cake and I ordered a hot chocolate and the caramel apple pie. We chatted for a while there and then decided that we’d better go leave to get ready to meet students from the Vienna University of Business and Economics. On our way back we saw Stephen who was just heading to Starbucks to get some studying done. Charlotte had not yet been to see my dorm so I showed her and then she headed back to her dorm and I headed to the office. Once I got there Erica, Stephen, Andy, Dan, and I left to go to meet the VU students at their campus. As part of our meeting we had made posters about what positive and negative stereotypes/opinions we had about Austria and the US and the VU students did the same. Next semester most of them will be studying in the US, so they actually wanted to meet and talk with actual US students to get to know more about the US. After going around the room and introducing ourselves, we all took time to look at everyone else’s posters. Many of the students were surprised to see that I had The Sound of Music on my poster, because it’s really just an American thing. Some of them didn’t even know what it meant. Of course they had things about fast food, guns, and Hollywood on their US posters. After our meeting, most of us headed across campus to the University Brewery (Unibräu). We all ordered drinks and dinner and had a blast talking with one another. We probably stayed there for about 2 hours! After I left I headed back home to my dorm. I skyped with Kels and we probably talked for about 2 hours. After that I FaceTimed with Mother. She led me through all of her tentative plans for her, Dad’s, and Ally’s time in Europe. She showed me a few hotels that she had booked and asked if there was anything extra that I thought we should be seeing. Since she had been working with Frau Smith all of it seemed perfect. After we hung up I decided that I was time for bed.