My Next Adventure

As of May 12 I am officially a Rice alum! I’ve moved out and said goodbye. Now I’m living in Germany for 10 weeks and then traveling around Europe for 2 weeks. This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done. I’m working as an au pair in a small Bavarian village, Vilsheim, and trying to get by with my non-existent German. I’ve met some great people so far and even went to a party at the university in Landshut, the nearest city of 60,000 people. I’m loving it here and am highly amused by the obsession with American culture. Almost all of the music is American. When watching television most of the shows and movies are American shows dubbed with German (they even have Law and Order here!). Any product they can they slap “American-Style” on here sells much better. I can hardly believe it.
So I am back in Europe, ‘where the history comes from,’ and can’t make up my mind what I want to see. I need to explore Landshut and Munich since they are close by. Prague is definitely on the list of places to see, as is Berlin (especially for the zoo to see the baby polar bear and baby jaguar). Other than that I have no idea where I would like to go. I can fly anywhere pretty cheaply so I’m up for anything. Any suggestions where this adventure should take me?

I’m DONE!

I am finally done with college. I was supposed to be done on Wednesday at noon, but a concussion last week and lots of vicodin made that deadline impossible to meet. I got extensions on everything and now I’ve gotten my grades online… AND I”M GRADUATING! My thesis advisor gave me an A which means that I will be graduating with honors in political science. Whoo hoo! Now I just need to catch up on sleep, pack and move out, and figure out what the State Dept did with my passport.

I leave for Germany on May 16. I’ll be working as an au pair outside of Munich until August. Then I’m spending a couple of weeks traveling around Europe before returning and hopefully going somewhere for grad school (yes, I’m still waiting).