I don't really know what to write...I've had a busy month, but it's nothing that is too fun reading about. It's more fun living it. My friend from Graz just visited. She stayed about five days. It was fun. We took the bus to the Swiss border and got our passports stamped. I think we confused the swiss border guy. When he asked us where we were heading, we pointed back towards Austria. We were planning to then go to Lichenstein (sp?) but we decided on McDonalds instead. McDonalds is almost as big as that country.  The application for Euro tour arrived! We will go to seven countries. We are in Italy several days. We are also in Euro disney for two days, and we go to Amsterdam and Berlin. Sehr cool. Ski week is at the end of the month too. I am really excited about that, since there hasn't been a rotary get together since December. 

Faschings (sp?) just finished here in Austria. It's like carnaval. There was a huge parade in each of the cities. My friend and I went to the Rankweil one. We were invited by the mother of the girl I tutor. It lasted like two hours. It is kind of like our Halloween, in that people dress up. Also, candy is chucked at you from the parade. One hit me on the head and I spilled my drink all over myself. And then I couldn't even find the candy that did it. The parade was great though.

There are also a lot of special foods that go with this holiday. We had potato/fish salad at my house. There are these special jelly filled pastries as well. Very good. Mmmmm. Tuesday every school but mine got the afternoon off in honor of the holiday. Our school decided, for the first time ever, to keep school going. My host mom was surprised, since she had assured me that I wouldn't have school. The teachers sympathised (and they lost a day off too this way) so they didn't ask much of us. 

I visited Italy a couple weeks ago. It was great to see my family again. It hasn't sparked homesickness of anything, but it was nice being in a place where you could just relax and not worry about making a good impression. My Italian is better that I thought it would be, and I am acually now reading the book Hannibel in Italian. My family was great. I have the best family in the world. And there were the cutest little newborn kittens there too. Awww. I was a day late coming back though, since all the Italian trains decided to go on strike Sunday. Then Monday I had The Train Ride From Hell back. I missed my first train, and then the next one was obsenely (sp?) crowded. I had a ton of fun there though.  

I don't know what else to write...I know there are other things, but those are the main things that are happening. Life here is normal, everyday life. Sometimes boring, sometimes not. I hope everyone in Florida is doing equally well.

Luky