A nearly-graduate's guide to Europe: First Week

It's been a whirlwind of a week in Vienna. I'm a lot busier than I expected, and I'm getting a lot more homework than I was hoping for. School is going well, though they placed me in a slightly more advanced class than I was expecting and I feel like a complete moron. I knew I was in trouble when I walked into the class and heard that students actually conversing in German. I have trouble sometimes just getting sentences together. I seem to be on the same level as far as grammar and whatnot, but they just know so, so many more words than me. They've also lived in Vienna for months, instead of 5 days.

By the way, this is the view from my classroom

Not too shabby.

On Monday after our placement tests we all went on a sizable hike up in the mountains to see a bit of the countryside and go to a Heuriger, which is German for "you'll eat so much amazing food and drink so much wine you won't be able to make it back down the mountain". Here's a picture of most of the gang:

Apologies to those who didn't make it in the picture (I don't have one of the whole group yet)

Robert and I met some awesome Polish/Serbian friends in our dorm who we have been hanging out with. We went to Schönbrunn yesterday and got hopelessly lost in the children's hedge maze.