A perfect ending to the weekend

Honestly, today was a terrific day! Yesterday I had a lot of problems feeling homesick (what's new?) and today was a whole lot better! It is so strange to me that I am already feeling homesick, because I know that I have been away from home for a much longer period of time than I have been so far. However, I think it is the fact that I know that it is going to be three whole months! And if you know me at all, you would know that I am TERRIBLE with change and therefore it makes some situations hard to adjust to. The thing is, though, that I already know it is going to be really hard to leave this place when it comes time to go home. I think I will miss Vienna as much as I miss home right now. Anyways, the point of this whole story is that today was a perfect day and I was able to get away from my feelings of missing home and just enjoy life here in the moment. Me and Kaley started the morning off with going to a nearby park to take pictures with George. George is a little bear that is kind of like our mascot. Rainey's mom teaches 2nd grade and this bear is their class mascot and we are taking pictures with him all over Europe, kinda like a Flat Stanley project. This week, we each had to take George and get a picture of ourself with him in a cool spot in Vienna to put on our Facebook group by Monday. This was a lot harder said than done between all 28 of us. Some people took George for a long period of time and no one knew where exactly he was. So, it has taken us quite a while to get ahold of George. Finally today, I got my picture with him! 

 George on the way to the park!

 George and I reading the Sunday paper! 

After this, we went to the common room of our apartment building and worshipped with another group of Americans! They are from Oklahoma Christian University and they are in Vienna this semester, just like us. It was so neat to meet other people our same age that are also from America! They were all so nice and I think it was a really good experience! We all had lunch together and then decided to go to the Danube for swimming, reading, and hanging out. We went all the way to the other side of town to a part of the river, just to find out that there wasn't really a spot for us to all hang out. So, we decided to go another area where some people had already been and knew would be a good spot. Only problem was that we had to go all the way back near the subway line closest to our apartments and then about 20 more minutes away. It almost took us a whole hour just to figure this all out and it involved quite a lot of subway exchanges and rides. fun stuff! Being in Wien and dealing with all this public transportation really teaches you to be patient... Finally we arrived at our desired destination and just had a good time. Some people went swimming across the Danube, some people read our books that are due this week, some people hung out with our new friends, and we all listened to one of the guys, Rainey,  play the ukelele along with Becca, who plays the violin. It was so much fun and whenever someone spoke, you could tell that they were just happy. We were all just content to be sitting in a perfect spot in perfect weather with great company.