Hello again! I have some time this afternoon, and thought I would add another posting.

Things are going very well. I went to bed last night at 7 pm Austrian time... that would have been 1 pm DC time. I was sooo exhausted! I slept all through the night and got up around 7:30 am this morning. I am feeling a lot better today now that I've had some good sleep.

I had a short German language survival course this morning.... they taught us some basic phrases and how to introduce ourselves to people. I am a slow learner when it comes to languages so I am not doing so hot right off the bat. Ah well... the people here are very nice and they will speak English to you if you say, "Sprecken sie English?" (Do you speak English?) I will just have to force myself to speak it and it will come eventually.

I spent much of the morning singing through my songs.... I haven't sung for a good week before today, so I took my time and warmed up good, etc. I just got back from having a very short rehearsal with my accompanist. He is going to play for me at my hearing tomorrow. All singers have to sing for the faculty so that they can decide what concerts and music they would like us to learn. Say a prayer for me that it goes well.

We had lunch today at the school that we will be having classes at. Classes don't start until next week. We are spending this week getting settled and resting up - getting used to the time change, rehearsing and having hearings. Lunch wasn't too bad.... but not all that great either. We had soup, salad, and rice with chicken. The salad was chopped up iceberg lettuce with pumpkin seed oil for dressing. I'm going to go to the open market later and get some fresh fruit and veggies. They have the yummiest fresh food here. Get this though. They don't serve ice in their drinks. And you can't ask for it because they'll think you're crazy. Ice means icecream. They don't have ice here. Weird.

Anyway, I have a break now.... I just finished my rehearsal for tomorrow. It went ok. The pianist and I are going to meet again in the morning, because one of the pieces I am singing is very difficult to play..... and he is going to practice tonight and then we'll work on it again in the morning. I have to go to a meeting in about an hour to learn about the German classes that I'll be taking. And then we have orientation and a dinner tonight. Should be fun.

The people here are very nice.... there are definately some egos flying around, but you just kill em with kindness. I've met a few people from DC. It's fun to talk to them about home.

I met this girl here from Australia. She is very nice. She has a husband and little 1 year old at home. She got a phone call only 2 weeks ago from someone with AIMS asking her if she'd like to participate. Something happened where a person from there was going to come, but couldn't or something. So she got everything together in just a couple of days and came out. It took her 2 plane rides.... the first from Melbourne, Australia to Singapore was 9 hours and then from Singapore to Frankfort, Germany was 12 hours!!! Is that crazy or what???? Then she met up with us all in Frankfort... where we flew from there to Graz. That was a small jet plane, like those small prop planes. Anyway, she speaks German very well, so I try to go to as many places with her as possible so that I can learn the language.

That's all for now. More later.