I voted in my first General Election!

Liebe Familie, Freitag 17 Oktober 2008
This morning I got up early to go vote! Haha, although I had tried so hard yesterday, we finally had the correct location and the correct time, and made it to the U.S. Consulate. We went through a security thing—didn't even have to prove we were U.S. Citizens in any way, and went through. We gave a man our absentee ballots, and we were done. Apparently you can even vote there, you don't even need absentee ballots, but it saved us time by having done them previously.

Willow and I went and met another friend and we wandered around Cindy's apartment. We visited the Servitenkirche, and then the Votivkirche. The Votivkirche would be so cool if it weren't for all of the scaffolding. It seems all of the churches in this city are being renovated at the same time, all of them are being thoroughly cleaned with a laser or something.

I went to my Opera and Theater class, then grocery shopping with my group—we take turns cooking for everyone on Sundays, so we're making Hawaiian Haystacks and Buckeyes. Haha, well, actually I'll be making the buckeyes.

After shopping I registered with the Citybike company, which allows you to rent bikes by just signing in. The first hour is free, the second hour is a €, the third is two, etc. I just rode around for 45 minutes and it was so much fun! Riding along the Donau is really fabulous, although it was a bit chilly.

I took care of some business at home, and then went to the Institut for the game and film night there. Apparently not too many YSA come to that, but there were enough for me to really practice my German. I actually liked it better in a smaller group, because then you get more in-depth conversation, rather than just flitting from person to person making small talk. We watched a movie that apparently came out while I was in Berlin and was extremely popular, so that was kind of cool. After the movie we played the Austrian version of “Mafia,” which is actually “Werewolves,” and is slightly more complicated, with many more characters than the average Mafia game.

At midnight we were kicked out of the Institut, as the missionary couple definitely needed to get home, but some of us went to get pizza at Schwedenplatz. We talked a bunch, and then wandered around the city.

Marvin, a civil engineering student told us a pretty extensive history of Stephansdom, which was so cool, as I never would have learned any of it otherwise. There's a tragic legend about a boy falling in love with his master's daughter, and making a deal with someone so that he can fulfill the requirements of his master in order to marry the girl, and then failing and tragically dying. I've heard loads of those types of stories since first coming to Europe. There are also several cannon balls still in the walls of the church from the second Turkish siege. We got to see the “secret” sign of the Austrian Resistance movement graffiti on the wall, as well as a copy of Mozart's skull. Weird, huh? I then walked home, as the night buses do not go all that often, and I live pretty centrally. But it was a late night, and I really need to sleep, Gute Nacht!
Anna