New Year

Looks like I spent most of January not blogging! This month seemed quieter to me than the past have, but it's still been fun.
I spent New Year's at home with the Plaimers, which I enjoyed a lot. We went to a movie, made dinner, and watched Mr. Bean until midnight, when we changed the channel to see Stephansplatz celebrating. We toasted in 2016 with Oma and Opa, and then made Bleigeißen. Mine looked vaguely like a grim reaper, and I'm hoping for the best.

The next morning on Friday the 1st, I set off for Bad Ischl to hang out for the weekend with Martin and Erika. We went to the town's famous thermal waters for the day, hiked some strange trail, explored town, had our confidence questioned by an Indian man, and then found some delicious Chinese food.

Sunday I traveled back to Carinthia, and a new host family. My second host family lives about 10 km outside of Völkermarkt, in a town called Griffen. I can see the ruins of a castle from my house!

 I have three new host sisters, two of which are studying in London: Gianna, who is 24, and Chiara, who is my age, and will be returning from her study abroad semester in the spring to go back to school here. I got to meet them for the first few days of January while they were home visiting for the holidays. My other host sister, Filippa, who is 12, goes to school in another town called St. Paul.
I also have two new host cats that I love very much.

Also in the beginning of January, I got to finally meet my grand oldie, Karina! She was a Rotary exchange student in Völkermarkt last year, and even stayed with my first host family. Karina, Anna, and I went to the gymnasium Maturaball together which was a lot of fun!

Other things I've been doing this month includes making plans for next month (I think February will go by fast!), getting acclimated to my new host family and town. (For those reading from home, Griffen is much like an Austrian Hobson.) I've also gotten a chance to meet 3/4 of my newbies here in Carinthia. Anna and I met Adam from New Zealand and Lilli from Australia in Klagenfurt last Friday. We had a lot of fun hanging out. I found out earlier this week that the movie theater in Klagenfurt plays movies in English every Wednesday night at 8:00. So last night I dragged Anna and another Australian newbie, Owen, to The Revenant which I found to be incredibly good. Before we got to the theater we hit up Running Sushi, and struggled to find our bus stop.
That's mostly it for January, I'd say. My German is doing really well, and I'm also having to sort out arrival dates to return to the states. It's a strange feeling, knowing I'm halfway to going home, and I think it's going to just keep getting stranger until it happens. I don't know, I guess  we'll see. Thanks for reading :) Bis später!