My trip to Vienna was quite the adventure. As I had previously never been to another country, or even flown on a plane, I didn’t know what was in store for me. With no flying experience, taking three planes over two days and spending a combined 16 hours sitting in airports was quite stressful. When I finally made it to Vienna I easily worked my way through the airport to the exit where my taxi driver was waiting for me holding a sign with my name on it. I was very happy to see him because I knew it meant I would be to my residence hall where I could sleep and then finally start familiarizing myself with Vienna like I had been waiting to do for so long. When I got to him I quickly realized he spoke no English, meaning we were not able to talk at all during our half hour drive together. The driving style in Vienna came as quite a shock to me after always living in small towns where people are generally safe and considerate on the road. The entire way he drove at extremely fast speeds while leaving no more than a few inches between him and the car in front of him, even through places in town where there were bikers and pedestrians trying to use the road as well!  Several times he crossed lanes on a whim regardless of their being other drivers in the lane, at one point shoving a car off the road. While we were stopped at a red light there was a pedestrian in the middle of the road talking to another stopped car through the drivers window and the driver rolled up the window causing the man to come to our car and talk to my driver. They exchanged some words in German that I didn’t understand and then my driver rolled up his window as well and drove off. Shortly after that we arrived at my residence hall where I was to enter my birth date into a lock box to get the key to my room, as I was arriving in the middle of the night after the office was closed. By the time I got to my room I was quite scared to say the least. I suddenly was very alone in the middle of the night in a foreign place with crazy drivers and that was so far all I knew of my temporary home.

Reina