Pläne für das Wochenende!

I get to go to Bregenz this weekend!

There is another exchange student here from Canada that has invited to me to travel with her to Bregenz for the weekend. Bregenz is a city in Austria that lies directly next to Switzerland, Lichtenstein, and Germany so it is a very lively and cultural location in Austria. We will travel by train early Friday morning and arrive that afternoon. Our hotel is in the pedestrian only zone in the heart of the city and is walking distance from the train station, lake, National Museum, and various other attractions. We will spend all day there on Saturday and return Sunday afternoon so that we can prepare for our first day of class on Monday.

I went to meet with the director of my school today and we determined that I should be in Klasse 7D which specializes in math and science. I was really hoping that I would be in the same class as Marlene, however her class, 7A, has many language courses including Greek and Latin which I know nothing of. Yet I will still know one student in my class. His name is Rudy and he is a friend of Simon's, my host brother that is doing an exchange in Illinois, USA this year. I met him for a few minutes about two weeks ago and he offered to help me out at school. My director gave me a quick tour of the school today and the only words to describe it are... HOLY CRAP!!! I think he recognized the amazement on my face because a couple times he mentioned that this must be different from our schools back in the USA. I will be sure to take my camera with me on Monday so that I may show to everyone just how incredible these buildings and rooms are. I felt like a VIP while I was walking around because the section of the monastery that is for the school is barricaded from the public by glass walls and doors. They can see that we are there and we can see them, but the public has noway to get into our area of the buildings. I also have to purchase some "house shoes" to wear while I'm in school. They have six large rooms at the entrance to the school where the students are required to change into their school shoes and may hang up their winter coats. All of the classrooms have wooden floors and apparently there was a problem when pebbles would get stuck in people's shoes and scratch up the floors. So now everyone is required to purchase a pair of school shoes that they leave at school all year long and wear during school hours.

I just got back from school shopping with meine Gastmutter (my host mom) in St. Pölten. It is a city about 15 minutes away from Melk and has a very nice shopping area. I got my school shoes, a rain coat because the weather in Bregenz this weekend is not supposed to be very good, a new scarf, a purse because has a hole in it, some new sunglasses because mine are broken, and two sweaters because it is already becoming fairly chilly when the sun goes down. There are many stores here that are ridiculously expensive but there are also very many that are possibly even cheaper than back at home in Texas.