Time flies when you're having fun....

This summer I started a note on my phone of really random, but great quotes that I found wherever I just happened to be. This basically started when I would drive to work and find interesting sayings on the signs in front of churches. Anyways, the note of quotes eventually grew and I don't even know how many quotes I have in there now... I am not sorry to say, but I have become obsessed with quotes. Anyways, the point of this is that I was looking at my American phone tonight thinking what I could actually do on it since I couldn't call, text, use internet, or the like, which are basically the most used features of my smart phone. So, I stumbled upon my notes and started to read all of my old quotes. One of the very first ones that I had entered really stuck out to me tonight and I actually used it in one of my speeches this summer, but it just really seemed to fit for this trip and this point in my life.

"Life is change. Growth is optional." - Anonymous

 It just really made a lot of sense to me. Life is change. Life is always changing and there are always new and exciting adventures, just like this journey I am on. But, growth really is optional. You can choose whether you want change in your life to influence you and cause you to grow into an even better person. I know that a lot of people have said that this trip will change your life, so I am realizing now that I want to grow as much as possible and learn and experience new things and become more confident and find new things out about myself and discover another way of life and so on and so forth...Vienna has already been such a positive experience for me and I can't wait to see where the rest of this journey goes.

Time has already flown by since living in Wien and I am starting to mix up all of my days! It is also still so strange to me that I am getting ready to go to sleep and everyone back home hasn't even had dinner yet! Maybe one day I will be used to this time difference.... Oh well! Anyways, today has been a pretty good day! We had German class and Humanities, like always, and then went looking for a bank to put money on our laundry card. By the time we were almost there, the bank was closed for lunch. Luckily, we were kinda close to home, so we went back, had lunch, and then made our way back to the bank. Me and Kaley were so proud that we did it all on our own! Sounds lame, but it's the little things... We went to the grocery store again today to get a couple more things for dinners and then went back to actually make dinner. I have great pictures that I wanted to add, but they are all on my US phone since my cameras were dead, but I have no wireless internet to send it to myself. So maybe I can do that tomorrow at the school building. Oh and speaking of making dinners, I was wondering if anyone had some really simple recipes of quick dinner ideas? We are already running out of good ideas and keep relying on pasta as an option. Any help would be greatly appreciated! After dinner, we went to an amazing cafe with almost the whole group. It is called Cafe Landtmann and it the cafe that Sigmund Freud frequently studied at. I love psychology and Freud, so I thought this was very interesting. The group that I sat with had so much fun and laughed non-stop. We bonded over Disney channel! What more can you ask for?? It was a perfect ending to a day with feelings of homesick-ness....

The past two days before today haven't been too exciting, but they have been good all the same. Yesterday, for class, we went to the oldest church in Vienna, saw a memorial for all the Jewish people that died during WWII, and went to a couple other churches and historical monuments. Later we shopped a little, hung out, and then had a worship service as a group and watched the movie "New in Town" together. Later in the evening I had a really weird foot problem, freaked myself out, and almost had a panic attack. I just wanted to be home with my mom for her to say everything was going to be okay. I know I am almost 20 years old, but I can be a baby at times. Other than my eventful evening, the day was great!

Tuesday, after class, I went exploring the neighboring streets of our apartments a little bit and found a neat church currently being renovated. I have several cool pictures from this time, but I will have to upload them later. For dinner, we had two other girls over to our apartment and made pasta and had a little dinner party. It was kinda neat! Oh! AND in case any of you didn't know, Tuesday was International Chocolate Day. (I think I should become the official spokesperson for this glorious holiday...) Being international and all, I just had to have chocolate. A couple of us went to a cafe and all got different chocolate cakes! It was incredible! That basically sums up that day, but it was a good one, nevertheless.

"Life is change. Growth is optional."
Thanks for joining me in my constant journey of growth!