Welcome to Salzburg

I've been in town just a few days and been catching up on some jet lag and am ready to go with school this week. While I am here please send questions and I will know what exactly to talk about.

If you just want a brief synopsis: I really like Salzburg. The weather is cool 50s/60s and no rain yet. My program had orientation yesterday and we have a great group of students. My luggage got held up in Frankfurt for a few hours and was delivered straight to my dorm on Friday night. Saturday was orientation, walk around the city, and I went to the movies. I will take language tests this week and then begin classes on Wednesday.

Okay if you want more details keep reading:

There are 10 undergrad students and 6 grad students (incl. me). Some students attend other undergrad schools and maybe 4 of us grad students aren't from Bowling Green. My roommate is Kristen. She is an undergrad/junior at BG and very nice. Our room is a good size. The one really good thing is that we share a personal bathroom. The kitchen on our floor is pretty big but of course a lot of people share it.

When I first arrived, my luggage wasn't here yet. Since I just had my backpack I took the bus instead of a taxi to the dorm. My suitcases came later that evening. I officially brought the most stuff. I'm just incredibly thankful that I didn't have to pay anything to check 3 bags!!! During yesterday's orientation it was cloudy so I haven't taken any good pictures yet. The ones I will download are from the airport and the view from my window.

Last night I went to the movies with another student. We watched Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex. It was about the German terrorist group Red Army Faction. Anyone who knows a lot about this group please post your comments and correct what I think I understand about it now. The RAF lived in West Germany and seemed to be socialist or communist that were against American Imperialism in the 60s to 80s. They protested involvement in the Vietnam War and the creation and support of Israel. If it were only a protest movement I could be a understanding of their cause end of story. But they decided to rob banks, kill lots of people, bomb many buildings, and at the end of they movie they had kidnapped a man and hijacked a Lufthansa plane. It seemed to cause a huge panic in Germany. The police couldn't stop them or predict their next moves. The movie represented the confusion at that time very well. I think the group began with maybe 30 people and one by one they were killed by the police or arrested. The main four leaders were put on trial while the 2nd and 3rd generations of their group continued to kill/steal. After the Lufthansa hijacking didn't work in the groups' favor, the four men and women in jail killed themselves. Their violence without guilt or hesitation was unbelievable to me. The terrorist attacks on the US were the first I was ever really aware of on a global scale. I kept thinking throughout the movie why don't I know more about these things that happened just a few years before I was born. I wondered what my parents and grandparents heard about this in the US at that time. Did it not seem to have an impact on us in a country so far away? and Today do others around the world not seem to feel an impact on terrorist groups that exist?

Well, I will write a new post about the start of classes and include more picture this upcoming Friday. Please feel free to post here or email me with comments and questions.