I'm Alive, I Promise!

Luise and I representing our favorite Washington universities.  Go Cougs!

I owe everyone a big apology, I most definitely fell off the map after St. Patricks day.  So please allow me to offer my sincerest apology and a brief explanation on what I've been up to for the past seven weeks.

As soon as I got back from Dublin I had three major class projects come due.  Now, typically, this wouldn't be a big deal, but I lucked out and got three professors this semester that calculate my final semester grade off of only two things:  my mid-term project and my final exam.  Yeah, no pressure or anything.

So, the minute I got home I hit the books.  In the course of two weeks I put together a 22 page group project for my Marketing class, a 12 page essay on 'Criminal Transportation to Australia' for my Victorian Cities class, and 13 page in depth political comparison project on Switzerland for my Political Science class.  Needless to say, I had my work cut out for me.  Apparently, this isn't the norm for professors at Swansea--I just got really lucky.  Good news is, thanks to all of these projects, now I have plenty of material to choose from for my Junior Writing Portfolio (WSU's mid-education writing assessment).  I got them all turned in on time, and was able to leave for Spring Break with no remaining work hanging over my head, except to study for exams when I returned home.

I'll go into more detail later, but I spent my first week of break in Edinburgh, Scotland.  Talk about an amazing country (within a country--although, if they have their way, they may be independent of Britain come September) with a wild, natural beauty.  Now I understand why it's been the background of so many movies.  It was breathtaking.  I took a day trip into the highlands and Loch Lomond.  Only the pictures really do it justice, so check back soon, there will be lots!

I ventured onward from Edinburgh, back to London, to catch my flight to Frankfurt.  I was greeted by my favorite German person on the planet, one of my best friends, Luise, and her dad, Marc.  I spent two and a half weeks with Luise, her mom and dad, and her siblings Paul and Mathilde.  We spent the first week sightseeing, then the second week I attended German high school with Luise.  Quite the adventure!  I finished my trip off by spraining my ankle-I may or may not have tripped coming down a particularly vicarious set of stairs while visiting some friends-but luckily, Luise's mom is a doctor, so she patched me up quite nicely.  It wasn't too bad, and I was good to return to Swansea a couple days later, no brace necessary.

So now I'm back in Swansea studying for my final exams.  Lectures ended the week before Spring Break, so now we have a month to take exams (I will never understand why they feel three weeks is an appropriate length of time to drag out exams), then I'm off for some more traveling.  I'll finish exams on May 29.  One weekend in June, my flat and I are taking a weekend trip to London to do some sightseeing.  The following week I'll move out of my dorm in Swansea, and take off to Athens, Greece to spend a week with my next door neighbor whose family lives there.  I'll visit her for a week, then it's back to Germany to go celebrate my 19th birthday and Luise's high school graduation. On July 2, I will officially be safely back on American soil, and back to my family who are all beginning to voice their wishes for me to return home very loudly--Dad, that's 49 more days!

Just under two months left.  I fully intend to make the most of them.  I'll do my best to keep the posts a little bit more regular, promise.  Lots more to come!  Check back soon.