First Entry

Welcome to my online journal detailing my experiences in Germany and Austria during the Fall of 2007. I am going through Earlham College's International Program Office (http://www.earlham.edu/ipo/) alongside nine other students and two program leaders, including my best-friend-since-third-grade, Aaron. During our program orientation, we were told that Internet access, while not frequent, will not be unobtainable during our stay; I hope to be able to update regularly enough that reading this will stay worthwile. I leave on the 22nd of August, and return on December 17th. Thus this journal is primarily for the family and friends I will be separated from for a semester, the list of whom is a mile long (if you write the names large enough). Overall I am certainly excited to be going, despite the reservations about my language ability, about leaving friends behind, about financial concerns, and so on. I have ordered the text books I needed to acquire before leaving (luckily I get to haul them around Europe with me the entire time), but thinking about packing lists and final checks and airport security is still a long way away. Right now it is all preliminary work, such as working for spending money, and setting up this Blogger. But already there is less time to wait for the trip than the trip will last. I guess "trip" isn't the right word. I am including two pictures with this entry. This first picture was taken in Eisenstadt, Burgenland, Austria during my one-month trip around Europe in the summer of 2006. Zweite: Aaron und Ian im ,,Air Guitar," 2007.