Monday, January 8, 2018

Think of This as a Training Exercise...


Thought it has been just a day, it has been over 30 hours of no sleep on my part of this trip, so in my world view it has been 4 different days of different activity going on. (Note: I am actually writing this on no sleep because I want to remember what I thought when I first got here with no interruptions from rest.)

For those who don’t know me, I love looking at graffiti. I love the colors it gives cities, and I also appreciate the amount of skill it took to get the art there. While I didn’t get the best shot of this mural, I thought it was beautiful and I wanted to share it. (displayed below). Throughout this course I will have many pictures of the street art because that is the part that makes cities like Vienna breathe with life.
There has actually been a lot of interesting happenings since I have been here in the short 30 hours it has been. Luggage was lost, check in to the hostel was delayed, and Paige Balut and I went on an adventure of sorts just to try to get working phone SIM cards for emergencies on this study away. This was especially hard for me because: 1) I don’t do well in conversations with strangers 2) I ESPECIALLY don’t do well in conversations with salespeople and 3) I don’t know a single word in German. Everything was against me at this point. Well, we tried anyway.We went in and *thankfully* the salesperson was able to speak English so that made one thing on the list of problems vanish for me. We got the sim cards into our respective phones and left. Should have been easy. Well, good thing I'm here because it wasn't. We weren't even able to contact each other.

So we went back. Poor salesperson, trying to explain to us how to activate our phones even though he probably told us how the first time and we just did realize what was going on. But SUCCESS! We got phone calls from each other! We’re in the clear!

Nope.

Then we weren’t able to receive messages from others like Dr. Powell, who has an international plan so he should be able to, so Paige and I went back again. Thankfully it was a different person at the front of the store so it made it a little less embarrassing (at least for me anyhow).

After figuring that out, we explored a bit and then headed to dinner, which the way there was a good practice run on the subway system here, which does take skill to be able to know what to do or how to get where, so I had an experience.

This all isn’t saying that I am not having fun, I am enjoying every minute here in Vienna, and I am excited for the month that is to come from this exciting adventure. Just a long hectic take already taking me to high stress situations on a daily basis.


To sum up my first day I will use the wise words of Guy-Sensei from the popular show, Naruto:
“Think of it as a training exercise Lee” (or in this case… me). Today was my training day for Europe, and I'm excited for tomorrow.

2 comments:

  1. You can do it! Feeling like a dope is part of the fun. You’ll be laughing at yourself soon. Pictures YAY!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You can do it ���� Feeling like a dope is part of the fun. You’ll be laughing at yourself soon. Pictures �� yay!!
    (btw…posting a comment is a training experience for me)

    ReplyDelete

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