Update!

Hola amigos!! Alrighty, so with exams, writing papers, trying to pack, and trying to get my life here together before coming home in 4ish days, there's no way I'll be able to finish blogging about my spring break adventures and last weeks in Scotland before coming home. Rest assured that once I get home and lose the jetlag, I will blog a bit more and fill ya in! (that is if you're not sick of me by then! ;)

See ya soon, Iowa! Xx

Scotland Movie Teaser

Meet My "Scottish Mum"

Ailsa is hilarious. And loves to sing. :)

Spring Break Adventures: First stop, Paris!

The next 8 days finds me needing to write three 2,000 word essays, memorize a piece on my bagpipe chanter and take a final exam. I have TONS to do before I come home, and I am coming home 2 weeks from yesterday! My blog entries will be my breaks from paper-writing. Here is the first one. :) First stop of Spring break travels was Paris. Lizzie and I had an amazing time. We kept a killer awesome budget when we were there-- don't know if it is possible to spend 5.5 days in Paris for less money than we spent. We still saw TONS of stuff-- and were totally content living off delicious French baguettes and pasteries (ok yes, I am exaggerating a bit... we had pasta a few times too... :)

The only big downside of my time there was that I dropped my camera in the fountain right outside the Louvre. It slipped out of my pocket when I was sitting on the ledge. It was emerged in water for about 8 seconds before I noticed that it had fallen. I took out the battery and memory card right away and when we got back to our accommodation, I took my camera apart into as many pieces as I could and gave it 24 hours to dry out. Tried to turn it on the next day.... didn't work. Gave it another 24 hours. Nope, still broken. Finally, at the end of day 3 it turned on but still had quite a bit of water damage and the picture quality was horrible. As the days went on (and when I got into Madrid) the quality improved and now it is almost back to normal.
Here are some pictures from our time in Paris.. mostly from before I (almost) killed my camera.

Flying into Paris. We were welcomed by a rainbow :)

Sacre Coeur at night

At the Louvre

Mona Lisa

Outside the Louvre-- this was right before I dropped my camera in the fountain!

Laduree- AMAZING (expensive!) dessert shop.

Eating a delicious macaroon from Laduree

Notre Dame

Notre Dame on Easter Sunday

I met up with Ally and Allen, two friends from ISU who are studying abroad this semester too! (in France and Wales)

Grave of Chopin

Grave of Rossini

Moulin Rouge

Hellllllo Spring! So good to see you! :)

Adding another kiss to Oscar Wilde's tombstone

Aphrodite statue in The Louvre

If you'd like to take a gander at more of my Paris pictures, here is an album:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2049102&id=1172700088&l=5eb0836069

just a teaser...

After 24 days of traveling, 10 of which I was stranded in Salzburg due to our lovely Iceland volcano... I am back in Scotland! :) Spring break was stellar. I won't have a chance to blog about it for a bit, so I will just leave you with a few video teasers for now. Pictures and stories to come later! xx

#1: Metro in Paris


#2: American stupidity in Paris


#3: Easter Sunday mass at Notre Dame


#4: Just a typical day walking around Madrid

Update Numero Dos

Hallo! This is blog post #2 from the lovely Austria. My flight scheduled today was yet again cancelled. My next flight is Monday, and I hope I can leave then!! I am missing this week of class but after emailing my professors, it seems there are numerous other students stranded around Europe as well and that the University is being really flexible about everything. If I am able to fly back to Scotland Monday, then I would have spent 10 extra days here in Salzburg. Yesterday I was able to find a bookstore that sold some books in English, so I took advantage of the opportunity and bought a few books to read, since I have an ample amount of free time. :) Today I have been journaling and reading "Little Women" while gazing out at the Alps. I really cannot complain about being stranded here. :) I am becoming totally hooked on the chocolate here. It is dangerous.

I am going to see if I can figure out how to get some of my spring break pictures straight from my camera onto my blog (since I am borrowing a computer while I am here) so that I can blog about my Spring break adventures while I have the time. Keep checking back... I am going to see what I can do!

Slight Change of Plans...

Wow, it has sure been a while since I have written on here! For a quick update here, I am currently stranded in Salzburg, Austria. As you have probably heard, the volcanic eruption in Iceland has caused massive ash pollution into the air which to sum it up, has caused mass chaos in most areas of Europe. Yesterday (Thursday) alone, there were 7,000 flights cancelled due to unsafe flying conditions. I was due to fly back to Scotland early this afternoon, but my flight from Munich to Edinburgh was of course cancelled. I stayed up late last night, waiting for the RyanAir website to start working again (it was completely backed up due to too much traffic) and was finally able to rebook my flight for the earliest flight with an opening, which isn‘t until next Wednesday. The news stations have been reporting that there is a good possibility things will get worse and possibly not improve for a week or more which would mean I would need to move my flight back yet again. Things in Europe are bonkers right now-- it is impossible to buy train tickets, rent a car or get a taxi, as they are all overbooked. This is the biggest air traffic disruption since Sept. 11, and is anticipated to get worse. People have even been paying to take a taxi from London to Paris/Munich/Turin-- which is thousands of pounds! I do not know how long I will be here in Austria (at least 6 more days), but I do know that I am in the best hands possible for something like this. I have been staying with my friend Hannah and her host family here in Salzburg. They have been amazingly hospitable to me and of course have no problem letting me stay with them for as long as I need. What a blessing in a time like this!!