a tall personality

This is a rather unhappy Chelsea, she was forced to leave her home on Wlassakstrasse wwaayyyy to early. At any rate, this is right outside the gate to the house where we live

This is the Dona Insel Crew getting ready to have some cultural experiences

Again, Laura with the Swans. Laura and I are co FHA group leaders (that's Familie Heim Abend), our group is 12 girls, it's awesome.

Another cultural experience on the Donau Insel. With the lack of BYU police to inhibit our immaturity we took eachother for rides in a stray shoppin cart

More fun at the Donau Insel. We were supposed to go there for a cultural experience. Look at us being cultured!

"hey chels, go stand over there so I can take a picture" "noooo not again! I want a friend who will take pictures WITH me!" "like this?" "noooo *click*...well fine, but next time I am taking the picture!"

This is in the Schonnbrunn Tiergarten Park Scholss thinger. on a bbbeeaaauutiful day. It was even better in real life, if you can imagine.

More fun on the grass after the zoo. We worked for a long time to get our cartwheels synchronized with the timer on my camera. This wasn't the best picture but the only one where we both managed to keep our shirts completely tucked in!

Another Picture from the Riesenrad

Chelsea and Laura with the Swans on the Donau Insel

This is an example of Chelsea's genius. Look at the colors, the lighting, the contrast...the subject matter!

I call it "Ich kann nicht" I had just perfectly completed the cheeta puzzle (top right) and completely failed to complete the ostrich puzzle, as you can see. Ooo ostrich looks kind of like osterreich which is the German word for Austria often confused with Austrialia where there is another giant flightless bird, the emu. That must be how they're related!

Those are Chelsea's knees, and the Riesenrad is behind me

before we went to the Prater we took a little break on some grass! We had just spent a long day at the zoo so we figured we deserved it!

This is on the Riesenrad at Prater (a giant ferris wheel at an amusement park)

This is at the bus stop at 6 am before our bike trip. I'm so excited that I had to get up at 5 to catch the bus to Melk that I'm dancing!

Just before the whole group took off from Melk on our way to Krems! Two of those boys are the Brewers' kids, the other two make up 1/3 of the guys in the group. So that's 6 out of 38...a little one sided maybe

Perspective from a vinyard.

Lauren looknig like she is from California yo

Chels sitting on the 5 by the Donau photographing Lauren sitting on the "beach". It was a beach just like the beaches at home! Really small, lots of big rocks, no sand, cold water! It was so comforting!

Lauren, Chelsea and one of the Brewers' kids Andy. he rolled with us for the last 18 k of the ride, it was a party. This little town was basically built into the cliffs you see on the right, it was incredible.

This is a picture of some ruins on the bike ride. I took this while eating banana and walnut icecream.

This is Chels with the Donau and the mountains and a little red-roofed town and the vinyard. When you imagine 'central europe' you're imagining the spot on which chelsea is standing.

Chels and I on a rail in front of a church on our bike ride....ok so I don't know anything about this place that someone couldn't derive from looking at the picture. Needless to say it was beautiful

Chelsea's picture of a church on our bike ride

This is me when we were eating lunch on our bike trip. Once we realized we had 5 hours to make a 2 hour bike trip the pace became more liesurely and the stops more frequent!

This is what we call 'nordic walking'. It is all the rage here among the older folks. We have yet to successfully determine why one MUST walk with poles if they are over the age of 50, but it seems to be a pretty popular phenomenon

This is Lauren my friend from California yo. She's crazy, definitely her own element. She says yo after everything she says...yo

now I have tried to post these pictures 3 times, so I hope this works, this is Chelsea and me on our bike ride by the Danube river

This is Chelsea in our favorite place so far in the city, it's called the Volksgarten,and it's just a little park with lots of chairs and places to sit. With the fall air becoming brisk, but the green still onthe trees and all the historical buildings around it is overflowing with ambiance...and mothers berating their 3 year olds for picking roses from the historical rose garten...or garden

Now this is the exciting part. See that massive stack of very informative looking paper? That's made specially for us! Remind anyone of aca-deca? That is a stack of political articles that we are to read and discuss in class. I don't REALLY mind since I generally enjoy reading political articles...it's just A LOT, ja?

When we got back from Bratislava Chelsea and I went to a 'jazz club' which was...well..more or less a bar, to listen to our host dad, Rudi play in a big band! It was awesome except for all the smoke. Definitely an adventure.

This was the Bratislava trip. I didn't have an umbrella but it was ok because since everyone else had one, it formed a roof for those who were without!

This is Chelsea at the upper Belvedere one beautiful day

This would be the rice pot after it cooked for over an hour, it was about 1/8 of an inch thick on the bottom. We'll have to have a round two with the rice sometime, I'll keep you updated on how it goes.

That's rice, yeah, that mushy soupy porridge stuff, that's rice. So far it has been our one and only cooking disaster. For the record we have succeeded in making roasted chicken carrots and potatoes, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, boiled carrots, and lots and lots and lots of ham and cheese sandwiches. We have moved on to peanut butter and jelly for this week. And the myth about european peanut butter being gross: completely false, it's wonderful stuff! I'll see if they can let me smuggle some back to my country.

This is Chelsea in the kitchen of the Seuhs's (our family). Their oven instead of being on a hinge is on...a...track, so it pulls out like a drawer, we love it. The fridge however, you have to hang on to the wall for extra leverage in order to open it, I guess that's to keep the contents safe from hungry adolescents.

This is the whole group, all 38 of us meeting in Prof. Brewer's apartment (that's professor and brother Brewer in the back with the green and white shirts on) for our weekly religion class. I love religion class for obvious reasons, AND a little group always makes dinner for everyone, so that means free food! I have never been so keen on free food as I am here!

This is Chelsea in our little room at the top of a hill at the top of the house right before the roof. It's messy, but not dirty, and it no longer smells like shoes because mine are now banished to the outdoors.