While I'm not in Bratislava yet....

While I'm not in Bratislava just yet, I'm getting a little tired of having a totally blank blog on my hands. As such, I'm going to write about how the preparations are going.

I finally got my flight plans last weekend! (I actually squealed with delight. I am nothing if not easily excited these days.) I leave on August 24 from Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport. Then I go to O'Hare in Chicago, and from O'Hare I go to Munich, Germany. Why I'm going to Munich, I don't know. You'd think that Vienna would be a big enough city to get a direct flight, but no. At any rate, after going to Munich, I get on another plane to Vienna, where my host family is going to pick me up. It's only an hour away from Bratislava, so it's not like it's a problem. I suppose I'm going to have to learn some basic German so I can figure out where the heck I'm going in the two German-speaking airports. My father tells me I should learn numbers and "Where is the bathroom?" I think he has a good idea....

Learning Slovak.... yeah. To be quite frank, I'm not working on it as hard as I should. My first exam is coming up, and thus I have started applying myself more, albeit grudgingly. I can count, say the days of the week, say the names of most family members, and a few other things, like "Ahoj! Volám sa Ginny, ako sa máte?", otherwise known as "Hi! My name is Ginny, how are you?"
Read: Yeah. I need to study more. A lot more. We shall see how much I fail....

I've been in touch with my host family, or, more specifically, my host sister, Petra. She seems really cool, and she did the exchange program ten years ago, when she went to Michigan. I'm really excited, and seriously looking forward to meeting her! Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait!! I'm also almost finished with the afghan for my host family. I have a few connections that I may or may not neaten up, and a border, but after that, I'm DONE. Thank God. I will be so glad not to have that thing hovering over my head like it has been for the past.... slightly less than four months. Then I get to start on a scarf for Petra. I look forward to the change.

That's about it for now. When things get more interesting, I'll let you know. Oh, I'm also going to see if I can get a countdown gadgety thing, so if that doesn't work out, yeah. Let me know, please.
Later!