Fall has arrived

FYI everyone: daylight savings DOES occur in Europe. Oh, and they do it on a different day than the US. Also, no one reminds you about it here like they do back home. Whoops. Haaa I had NO clue, but it was today. Way to go Chelsea. Just imagine me running around in my room freaking out that I was late and you’ll get the picture. I’m sure I must’ve looked like a chicken with its head cut off. It’s just a good thing I had an hour extra this morning and not an hour less, or I might have been in deep doo doo haha.

On a completely unrelated note, who knew BYU had a study abroad program in Vienna?? You guessed it, not me. I went to FHE on Monday and met up with a ton of BYU students! It was such a fun night getting to know a bunch of kids from the Y and making lots of new friends!

Wednesday, we traveled to Bratislava, SLOVAKIA to play a match. Unfortunately, we don’t have a ton of time on our own when we are on the road, but we did have about 45 minutes to explore a bit. A few of us ventured out to see what we could find, but we only had enough time to walk to the grocery store. Yep, a sweet grocery store was the extent of my sightseeing in Slovakia ha. The match went well; we killed em! We won in three, and got home in time for dinner. Pretty good day in my book.

Today, Jenna, Svenja, Cooper and I decided to go to a park and have a little fun taking some pics. The leaves on the trees are such beautiful fall colors right now! We had a grand time :) Such a blast. Afterwards, we went over to Jenna’s to carve some pumpkins! When I say “we”, I really mean that Jenna and Sven carved while Coop and I watched Hocus Pocus (such a classic!). Apparently, pumpkin carving is definitely an American tradition because only those two could find pumpkins to carve. Bummer. They did a FANTASTIC job though and we had fun just relaxing and hanging out. Here are a few of my favorite pics from the day :)

With Svenja and Cooper

Hahahaha Sven stepped in some dog poo...she's trying to scrape it off with a stick here.

:) Jenna, Coop, me, and Svenny

Yeah, I'm a little immature, but I really find this pretty hysterical

They got some hops!

Playin in the leaves

Workin on their masterpieces/watchin the movie

The AWESOME finished products. Jenna and Svenja are PRO pumpkin carvers :)

Food

REALLY???

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. Those are KETCHUP chips. Saw these puppies at the store the other day and couldn't resist taking a pic. Sounds appetizing, doesn't it?

Because my apartment isn't ready yet, I've been living in a hotel for the past week. While it is a slight inconvenience (living far away from the rest of the team, having to get picked up to go everywhere, and having a teeeeeny room), there are a few benefits that help to make up for it. The best ones are that my room gets cleaned daily and I get free food twice a day! This apfelstrudel (apple strudel) that I had last night was köstlich! YUMMMMY.

So, don't worry Mom, because as you can see, I am eating quite well :)

What a great weekend!

Saturday night, I went out with the some of the girls on the team to celebrate Dianna’s birthday! We had a blast! I attached a hilarious little video taken while we were at Conny's apartment at the end of this post. The story is this: we were trying to get Jelena (who is from Bosnia) to speak in an American accent, but she had no idea what she should say. One of the American girls, Jenna (who is from Ohio), recommended that she repeat the phrase, “I’m from Ohio”. So, of course, all of the European girls had to try it :) After Jelena's fabulous attempt, Dianna, Niki, Conny, and then Svenja tested it out. My favorite is Niki, who definitely sounds like she’s speaking with an Asian accent or something haha. Of course, Sven’s American accent is perfect since she went to school at the U of Pacific in the US for four years :) Watch it!

After hanging out at Conny’s apartment for a while, we went out looking for a place to go dancing. Lesson learned: trains and subways definitely take off on time and they don’t mess around. Once those doors close, there is no getting out. We were running to try to switch trains and Jelena was ahead of the rest of us. As soon as she got inside, the doors closed. Oooops. Yep, she was the only one quick enough to get on. Thank goodness (or maybe it wasn’t a good thing) the rest of us were in heels and couldn’t run fast enough to make it. Oh man, I can still see her, face and hands pressed against the window, sad little look on her face, yelling for us as the train pulled away. HAHAHA! It was pretty funny. Luckily, we were able to meet up with her at the next station and we all had a good laugh about it. We also had some good laughs when Jelena kept telling strangers that she was from Ohio haha. I think she might need to work on that accent a tiny bit more before that’s believable though ;) Well, we ended up going to a bar/club to go dancing. I must admit, that was the first time that I've even been to a club like that, so it was all pretty foreign to me. I was grateful that the style of dancing here isn't dirty at all. Actually (don't laugh when I say this), it was almost like a dance party back at the Y, exceeeept for the presence of alcohol everywhere. I mean, I'm from Vegas, so alcohol isn't a new concept to me by any means, but that was my first experience where my friends all drank as well. They only had a drink or two, so it’s not like they drank a lot and I have absolutely no problems with them drinking, but it was just weird for me. I just felt a little uncomfortable with the environment and ridiculously out of place. Hanging out and dancing with the girls was a complete party though! I had a super fun night and am so grateful that all the girls are so cool, welcoming, and fun to be around :)

Today it was reaffirmed to me that Sundays really are the BEST days of the week. I was a little nervous about trying to navigate through Vienna solo this morning to get to church for the first time out here, but boy am I glad I did. Perhaps it was due to such a stark contrast between the dance club a few hours prior, and then being in sacrament meeting today, but the moment I sat down in the building, I was utterly overwhelmed by a sense of peace, love, and security. That ward in Vienna literally felt like home at that moment. I have never really felt that with such intensity before and it was incredible. THAT was exactly where I was supposed to be this morning. It's almost impossible for me to comprehend that I could be halfway across the globe, attend church in a foreign city, not know a single soul, yet feel like I was surrounded by family. The church is true no matter where you are. I am so grateful for that knowledge. I already love the ward so much. Everyone was so kind and happy to have me there. There are even a few young single adults and couples my age from the States! How lucky is that?? I am amazed by this wonderful gospel of Jesus Christ and am so indescribably grateful for it in my life.

Here’s a picture of Böcklinstraße, the street that the church is on. I love Europe.

Here's the promised vid. SO FUNNY!!!

Insomnia

Blogging while I should be dead asleep. Hmm, this could be a bad sign. Rather than say I'm already addicted to the blogging world, I'm going to blame it on the jet lag still. That's plausible four days in, right? Please say I'm right...

Anyways, I was looking at some of the touristy things to do in Vienna, and here's one that I found. Visit the Belvedere Palace:

Dang, gorgeous right?? I just want to get up and go right now! We do only have one practice later on today...I miiiight have to do it this weekend :)

Well, that's all for now. Really, I just wanted an excuse to share this beautiful pic I found.

First Trip? Check.

I'M HERE!!! After only a few slight complications, I made it! :) By complications I mean: 1. I had an extremely full bladder while seated at a window seat for 6 hours of a 9 hour flight. Trust me, NO BUENO (or should I say nicht gut? haha). 2. My bus driver in London nearly got in a fight with a disgruntled passenger. Hmm. Words like racist (the passenger was not white) and about 50 F bombs (I thought "bloody" was synonymous with that out there, but apparently this wasn't the case with this guy) were thrown out like they were no big deal. I was seriously worried that punches were going to start to fly before the police had to step in... and 3. A baby screamed the ENTIRE duration of my second flight from London to Vienna. Normally I wouldn't have minded, but my lack of sleep on my first flight, combined with the fact that she was loud enough for me to hear her through my headphones, wasn't the best combination for my mood. Oh come on! Ironically, she would stop crying long enough for me to nod off, then start wailing again. Coincidence? I'm not so sure anymore...

Well, I arrived in Vienna around 7:30 on Tuesday night, got picked up by the team trainer, and then went straight to the gym to pick up all my team gear. After arriving at my hotel and thoroughly enjoying a traditional Austrian dinner of schnitzel and pommes frites (essentially pork chops and fries), I was off to bed, or so I thought. I figured that my utter lack of sleep on both flights would be great for the jet lag; I assumed that I would have nooo problem falling asleep since I was exhausted. No such luck though. I slept for about 3 hours, woke up at 3 am, and could not fall back asleep to save my life. All in all, the 9 hour time difference is not so fun.

The next morning, and my first day in Austria, we took off for Maribor, Slovenia for a couple of friendly matches against a team from Azerbaijan! It turns out that one of my friends, Nancy Metcalf from the USA National Team, plays for them! I was so excited to get to see her before I realized that she is still in the States with Team USA since their season isn't quite finished yet. Man, what a bummer. It was still a super fun first trip and it was a blast getting to meet all the girls on the team. They are HILARIOUS and so much fun to be around. I can't wait to become better friends with every one of them. There are girls from Austria, Russia, Germany, Slovakia, one from Croatia, another from China (woot for the fellow Asian!), and a couple Americans on the team. A few of them have taken it upon themselves to start teaching me some German, which is awesome! I have to say that they are super cool to keep straight faces and not laugh while I struggle miserably with the pronunciation of EVERYTHING. I can't even say "danke" correctly yet haha. Any tips on learning German, Mutter (Mom)? :)

Oh, and P.S. We won both of our matches. Not a bad start to what is shaping up to be a fabulous six months :D

Unfortunately, it was pouring both days we were there, so I didn't get to take many pics, but here's one of the few that I did get. Here's Maribor, Slovenia! Beautiful little mountain town.

I'm Leaving On A Jet Plane

I’ve never been great at this whole blogging thing, and I can’t imagine that many people will be dying to hear what I have to say, but I thought that this would be a great way for my family and friends to see and hear about my adventures overseas. So, here goes…

Uncontained excitement. Anticipation. Panic. Nervousness. Pure joy. These, in addition to about 500 other emotions, describe what I’m feeling at this moment. Here I am, sitting on the nasty floor of the McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, getting ready to embark on what very well may be the most exciting adventure of my life! I AM GOING TO AUSTRIA. Vienna, in fact. Not for a mere couple weeks’ vacation either. I am moving to Vienna to work for a professional volleyball team. At times I wonder what I could possibly have been thinking when I agreed to this, but then I think about the alternative option: living in Vegas to work at a doctor’s office from 8-5 every day. Yep, I think I’ll take the “live and travel around Europe for six months” choice J I feel so blessed to have this incredible opportunity. I realize now how VERY lucky I am. Who would have thought that being a computer nerd with super fast typing skills would give me the chance of a lifetime?? Certainly not me.

Well, my plane is about to board! AHHHHHHH! Insanity. That about sums up what I’m feeling NOW ;) I love you all and thank you for all the support and love you give me. I seriously am about the luckiest girl in the planet right now <3