The End.

So here I am back in good ol' St. Louie, sitting on my gross old couch in my dusty apartment, so very happy to be home! Let's wrap things up while I can still remember what the heck happened that last week in Spain.
I big Michelle adieu one morning to depart on the 17 hour bus ride from Paris to Madrid, that I gotta say was not that bad! Right off the bat I watched this nutty Johnny Depp movie called dead man and Neil Young's strung-out guitar riffs throughout the movie put me in some kind of calm coma that kept me from wanting to die/kill others on a bus ride that long. That, or my seat buddy from the Ivory Coast who kept telling me how all humans are one being or something. I had to give him my email address just so he would stop trying to be so vaguely inspirational all night long.
After a really cinematic sisterly reunion (dropped all my luggage at the sight of her and practically tackled her to the ground), we went and got cafe leche and walked around Madrid, where everything was closed because of some festival. Went through a park, the empty streets, and took a super long nap. We almost went to mass twice but got the Protestant jitters and left... one of the cathedrals was so crazy looking! It was kind of like a really tall knick-knack shop with a bunch of nonsensical art that didn't match and was super gaudy. That night we checked out the HUGE water festival or irrigation day festival or whatever crazy festival was going on and the streets were packed.
The next day we did the Royal Palace and the Prado, with a picnic in the park in between. We sat on the grass and sunbathed whilst eating birthday treats and cheese and bread and wine and apples. It was a feast! Then the cops came and chased everyone who had gathered around us off and we watched a soccer (sorry FOOTBALL) match going on nearby. Soccer players! So cute! No matter what!
That night I think we found an Irish pub with a cute Scottish bartender... kind of camped out there...
The next day took us to Barcelona! We stayed in an adorable little hotel in an untouristy yet still classy as hell part of town where everyone was gay and there were palm tree murals all over the walls. Even though our room was the loudest place on Earth (right by the street and one room away from the common room), it was so adorable.
The first day we saw a street that was supposed to make you feel really disoriented by all the crazy architecture, an apartment building made by Gaudi, a really famous architect from the city who reminded me of Hunterwasser- he HATED straight lines and LOVED mosiacs. Continuing the tour of all Gaudi-related fair we went to his unfinished cathedral, I think it was called Santa Familia or something St. Family-esque. It was ENORMOUS and beautiful, especially on the inside. The design is supposedly so complicated and extensive that it won't be finished for another 50 years, if they have constant funding. I don't know, ask Rick Steves. He was nuts about it.
That night we went to see a brass band play at this Symphony Hall that was very flowery/mosiac-y/stained glass-y, i.e. everything in Barcelona. They played everything from Mozart to ragtime, and I really liked it, the MC-type guy was talking really fast in Spanish and I could only catch a few phrases but he was really cracking up the audience so all in all it gave me pretty good vibes.
The next day was the Picasso Museum (small, but worth it), Las Ramblas (a really long Market road you can barely walk down), a boat tour (of a bunch of oil rigs! wowie!), my first pitcher of Sangria (big, and worth it), a walk through a gorgeous park with a HUGE marble fountain of Poseidon and making Erin rent a row boat and row me around while I took pictures of her looking tough. We watched a lot of a crappy movie called Exit to Eden that made me realize how much good Rosie O'Donnell has done for cinema (a LOT) and rang in Erin's birthday at a Kebab/Tapas bar with shots she couldn't even finish. What a baby!
For Erin's birthday we went to a really fancy pants grocery store and bought a picnic feast round 2, and hiked up millions of miles of hills to get some lovely views of Barcelona. We drank champagne and ate more and more bread and cheese, and toured the park's Gaudi houses. We headed to the beach to be harrassed by Thai massage hounds and weirdo guys who liked Erin's blondey locks. It was pretty funny though, to see the Police come and all the massage chicks to go running and all the dudes illegally selling beer to throw themselves down in the sand and pretend like they were just maxin' and relaxin' alone with a giant cooler of beer. We napped, we got another pitcher of Sangria at a Lindsay Lohan-esque lounge, and then changed at home for a celebratory birthday night that was really more like a champagne chug-a-thon. Excellent end to a sunny sunny week!
The next morning we parted ways, and after a LOOOOOOOOOONNNNNGGGGG 18 hour travel time, found myself on American soil again. I immediately made friends with some Moms from Cleveland, and when the Passport officer looked at where I'd been he said, "Wow. You've been gone a little while... Welcome home!" I almost cried.
I am going to miss Vienna very badly, and everywhere I've been (except maybe Bratislava), but it is so nice to be able to have smalltalk with gas station attendants.
That's all folks!

spain or bust, i must i must!!

AHHH so much has happened since last time I am going to go straight to outline form to try and conserve space in both this entry and my brain power used to write it.

SALZBURG mit mom und dad
-high upon the fortress you can see both mountains and greenery for miles and grown men in pink cowboy hats.
-never order a platter of schnitzel when you are only sort of hungry
-there is a channel that replays sounds of music 24 hours a day. equal parts depressing and awesome.

LAST WEEK OF SCHOOL
-working on devin's film project, or rather, watching him edit it and realizing i should throw away my black dress, i look like a nun in it.
-a little bit of finals stress, a little bit of packing stress, all solved by the final sauna club meeting
-saying tchuss to mom and dad with my pals at another rick recommended restaurant (more schnitzel was consumed)
-saying goodbye to meghan, who got swept off to istanbul for the rest of the week (and fell in love with turkey and the turkish folk alike subsequently)
-hanging out with my printmaking professor and jessica's mom at an art opening and getting kicked out of a bar. totally strange, totally rad.

PARIS
-sightseeing and a LOT of second hand store shopping after meeting up with meghan, my partner in crime, again.
-staying two nights at a very expensive hostel (that really was just a bar with rooms above it and a very intoxicated staff) and meeting claudia (who always follows her inner compass... to latin bars), jesus (cute, but needed to get rid of that weird earring), and nathan (from ohio!)
-after the hostel moving in with michelle, a girl who lives in paris and lets visitors stay with her. she is so so cool and a very stressed out film editor. she is going to cannes this year, if that impresses you!
-getting my flight cancelled, booking a train only to realize my flight got uncancelled, missing my flight so i can take a night train instead but then having that get cancelled to, and the next two busses i tried to book cancelled too. finally got a bus two days later to madrid, and this all happened in one night. i cried a lot, i tell you. i cannot handle stress anymore!
-meghan going home (lucky abandoner), michelle and i figuring out my bus to madrid, and staying with her again.
-last night i stayed with her friend jeremy who is a french/cameroon stoner living with three other guys (columbians and a syrian) at a seventh floor WALK UP apartment, and had two lithuanian tourist girls staying with him too. all very friendly and very into digital photography. when i tried to explain the benefits of analog they all nodded politely but rolled their eyes, ha.
-eating, drinking, playing games, and sleeping on the floor with everyone there and then spending the day walking around paris taking pictures with all of those fools, afterwords meeting michelle and her two very suave and very french friends for dinner and a movie.

now i am sitting around with michelle while she stresses out about her movie and i try and give her positive vibes. tomorrow i will be on my way to spain, finally! wish me luck, i feel like i will never make it there... but i MUST!

Busy Busy Bee and Hungry Hungry Hippo (right now, at least)

Well, I have entered the hurricane of the last couple of weeks, and it will be interesting to see if I can manage to get myself out of it! Two weeks ago Jess left on a solo-trip to go to Berlin and Devin and I had a "Mom's gone let's play computer games until we pass out" weekend. While she was there she met up with my friend from the States, Meghan, and they saw what is apparently the hippest place on Earth. I've gathered that Berlin is like the Portland of Europe or something. A lot of people with a lot of cool hair-dos basically.
Anyway, the next week Meghan moved into this tiny dorm room with me, and has been staying in Vienna ever since! She is basically a Viennese citizen by now because she helps people with strollers and she is really into kaiserdogs. The first day she was here we went into serious tourist mode and saw St. Stephan's Cathedral and got accosted by the Opera hounds, and we sat at a window overlooking Stephansplatz at the oh-so-pink Aida and had some yum yum cake.
Following the grand tradition of my life, boring everyone I know with nonsense about art and art-related frivolity, I took her to my Art Theory class' tour of some galleries around Vienna, which I had to admit, were less than impressive. Afterwords we went with some other people to lunch at this cute cute vegetarian restaurant and then to the Kunsthaus. More on this goofy building later.
This last weekend with my birthday weekend celebrations! Devin, Jess, Sarah, Nick, Meghan and I went to Prague for a day and a half, but really it felt like two hours. We ate Mexican, we took a three-hour walking tour and fell in love with the guide, Justin, what a DREAMBOAT (ish). There was a music festival going on while we were there too, so we saw a guy that I've seen play in the states a couple times and danced our hearts out. There are actually young people in Prague! Who like good music! Weird.
After a quick Sauna Club meeting we travelled home and stopped by the Prater for some giant garlic bread, a ferris wheel ride, and got swindled by some game stops... BUT the next day was my birthday! It was also the day I got so so sick I couldn't breathe and cursed all of the pollen in the world and declared it my mortal enemy. We went to the Naschmarkt and bought ingredients for a feast and made a great curry stirfry but about an hour later I passed out. I'm a wild one.
BUUUTTTTT the next day Mom and Dad got here and it's been non-stop since! Devin is filming a movie as a final for his Video 2 class, starring Jess as an unsuspecting visitor to a cult member (me). So Tuesday after class, Mom and Dad and I went to the Hunderwasser Kunsthaus (main point of the place: straight lines are ungodly), and they, being the generous souls that they are, took me and a bunch of my pals out to dinner and ordered things that we had no idea what to expect from. Surprisingly awesome for how surprisingly bad we all are at German! Then we proceeded to shoot Devin's movie until 2 a.m., and everyone had to put up with me being sick and grumpy and coughing up crap every five seconds.
Yesterday after class Meghan and I met Mom and Dad to check out the Schoenbrunn palace, summer home of the Habsburgs. They were all pretty ugly and crazy, with the exception of Sisi, who was pretty but, alas, also crazy. It supposedly is the only palace to rival Versailles, but I was most impressed with the gardens. It reminded me of Alice in Wonderland with all of its meticulously groomed trees and hedges. We had some gelato, we toured my magnificent school (only school to rival the Schoenbrunn), and walked out by the river across the street from Webster. It's my favorite part about going to Uni there, the water is so clear and you can see the UN building and there's nearly always some hippie drum circle around.
Last night M+D took Meghan and I out to one of Rick Steve's recommended Italian restaurants on one of the hidden sidestreets of Stephansplatz, and he was so so right (he always is, apparently). We were all stuffed and rosy afterwords, and while Mom and Dad got to go home and go to bed, Meghan and I worked on the movie with everybody until 2 again. It was all shot in the sauna (are you even suprised?), as the cult in the movie is based on water. I think it's going to be really cool, and I hope when Devin becomes a famous filmmaker people will look back on this movie and say, "whaaaattttt?????"
So here I am on Thursday, trying to get this weekend figured out right so I can go to Salzburg with Mom and Dad. Meghan just left for Budapest and Devin and Jess and I need to finish shooting. Along with homework and printing, its going to be a busy busy day!
so here we have: St. Stephansdome, the river by Webster that I hung out by on my very very exciting birthday, our first night in Prage by the St. Charles' bridge, and Jess with the largest piece of fried bread Austria can get you

amsterdarn and eindheaven

It's been travels aplenty since the last time I've checked in here and I'm not sure where to begin!

I suppose I'll start with Easter- which is a big ol' deal over here, and most Universities had two weeks off for everyone to go home and hang out with their families and eat yummy foods. Not mine, though, lucky lucky me! Some friends and I spent Easter Sunday eating apples and chocolate eggs in Bratislava, a.k.a. Snoozeville, Slovakia. The short and short of it is that we ran out of places to go after about five hours and sat in an Elvis-themed cafe for the last two hours before our train home. There is a giant castle there, what seemed to be the city's pride and joy, but it was under construction and was basically a giant scaffolding on a hill. We spent a lot of time secretly exploring a closed transportation museum which also seemed to be some homeless person's love nest, and got some pretty moody-looking photos of each other wandering around the abandoned station. So, there were perks!
I can't remember much of what happened last week, mostly hanging around the dorms and doing homework and stuff like that. It has all been pushed out of my brain to be replaced by the AWESOMENESS that is Holland! On Thursday morning we left for this lovely lovely country, and I'm pretty sure my heart is still over there.
We saw all the normal touristy type things, like the Van Gogh Museum, which was worth the trip, even though there were three huge groups of people in wheelchairs hogging up the views of Sunflowers and Wheatfield with Crows. There was also a really graphic Sex Museum right by our hostel and a ton of those famous cafes...One night coming home from one of our recurrent visits to Amsterdam parks we got terrifically lost, but made our way to the red light district and saw all the pictures from the Sex Museum come to life. There was even a guy doing push-ups in front of one of the "ladies" trying to impress her with his brute strength or something. Personally, I don't think muscles were really what she was after. Anyway, anyway, moving on...
On Saturday we took a train ride to Eindhoven, about an hour and half from Amsterdam (a really Mission Impossible-type ride, where we got on the wrong train and had to jump across seats and throw bags not to get separated at a transfer station... I don't think we will ever get any good at public transport, at least when it is in a foreign language). My friend goes to design school in Eindhoven, and he cooked us and a ton of his cool, design-y type pals really really really great spaghetti and kiwi apple plum pear yum yum fruit salad. A total relief after three days of pastries and butter cookies in Amsterdam.In general, the Holland I saw was a combination of the greenest, flattest countryside I've ever seen, more bikes than Ive ever seen in one place, really charming canals flanked with townhouses on every block (they are lit up in the evening, it was so so romantic!), and really crowded public parks where people just lay around and play music.
We had a great time there, to say the least, and we spent a lot of the weekend making up songs about Holland and how much we loooove it. I hope Vienna doesn't get jealous.

But alas, I am back home now, and have spent all day working and booking flights and trying to figure out the next couple of weeks. I am EXHAUSTED, but excited. There are still so many things to be checked off on my to-do list, but at least bloggin' my heart out can be crossed off! Now for paying my credit card bill.... yipes!

Budabest, Fungary

I am so so sore right now-my body cannot handle of this physical activity! There is a rock climbing room in my dormitory, and two days after crawling all over the walls I am still aching all over. It's seems like all I ever do is walk, walk, walk everywhere, but I am totally okay with it when I get to someplace like this:That building on the left is a supermarket! Our hostel was on the main drag of Budapest, which was awesome. Every building is so old and elaborate-looking. We left Saturday morning and after a confusing (and expensive) cab drive downtown we wandered around and found an underground labyrinth! They give you lanterns and let you wander around, where there were a tons of wells and rock sculptures and fake fossils (the fossil of the computer keyboard was probably the best and obviously the most realistic). The next day we found a really cool market and bought some clay bird necklaces that whistled and Devin bought a pretty crazy looking flute. We played our new instruments all day and it made us several friends and a couple enemies. After a boat tour and a million more miles walking around we headed home Sunday night. About four very stressful hours later (taking wrong buses, almost missing the train and a really traumatic train ride) we got back to the dorms.So there is Jessica is in a really cute bonnet at a tourist trap shop, a picture of the view from the window of our hostel, and a weird picture from inside the cave labyrinth. This whole renting a camera dig is pretty cool.
Anyway, today we went to a rotating ice cream shop cafe thing on top of a radio tower inside Donau Park. Really pretty views, you could see where we lived and the school and the Sports Island (it sounds like exactly what you think- an island where a lot of people play sports). I am falling in love with this city, I even wrote it a love song. Not a good love song, mind you, but it did rhyme the words "city" and "pretty" at some point.
Tonight- more rock climbing and Sauna Club, tomorrow I start my printmaking class (!), Saturday there is an HUGE Easter festival in front of one of the palaces downtown with markets and Easter jollity all round, and Sunday we're taking a day trip to Bratislava. Actually I'm supposed to be researching what to do there right now- so I better get on that.

P.S. Happy April Fool's Day! I put stickers all over unsuspecting people on the U-Bahn today.

P.S.S. For any of those out there who care about how I'm doing in school (shoutout- Mom and Dad), my Art Theory teacher was so into a film review I wrote that she printed it out and made the whole class read it and bask in its film-reviewy glory. I am the only native-English speaker in the class, though, so that dampened my ego a bit. She said when we start writing our art critiques, she'll submit the best one and submit it to the Vienna Review! I don't know exactly what the Vienna Review is, but it sounds official. So, cool.

The Life and Times of the Past Week

Things I've done since my last post:
1. Been to the Natural History Museum: Way too many dead stuffed animals for one building, but still- what an incredible building it is!
2. Gone to a 9-story aquarium filled with strange and beautiful sea creatures. On the top floor was an art gallery opening (free food and wine!) and a rooftop view of downtown Vienna.
3. LOTS of Sauna Club meetings
4. Made best friends with some Kebap guys down the street who make some pretty sick falafel. Brought my camera in there the other day and they nearly lost their minds, they were so excited to give us photo opportunities. Jess and I both cut some Kebap meat (greasy and smelly and gross) and got a little too close for comfort with Billa and Taiwan. I don't think those are actually their names but that's what it sounded like...
5. Went to Budapest: FLEA MARKETS EVERYWHERE

just a little preview of some photo stuffs...