Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän

Dearest friends and family,

Yep, that's a real word in German! During our lesson yesterday, Julia explained to Kristina and I how the German language is unique in that one can string together nouns and verbs in one word. In this case, it's a word that means the captain of a steam-ship on the Danube River. Obvious, isn't it?

This last week has flown by! We lost a heartbreaker in 5 sets last Saturday, which put somewhat of a damper on our Halloween plans. Kristina and I had planned to be ballerinas, but the loss combined with the cold weather was enough to extinguish any flames of motivation! We went into town anyway, to find out that Halloween isn't celebrated nearly as widely here as it is in the states.. No trick or treating (I know, what's up with that??), very few people were dressed up, and no Jaime Lee Curtis screaming on ABC Family. Dang.

Nichole arrived on Monday night for the last leg of her European journey, and it was awesome to have her in town for a couple days! After so much traveling, I think she was OK with laying low while she was here, so we spent many hours hanging out reading (I'm on to the last Harry Potter, she was finishing A Thousand Splendid Suns) and attempting to watch movies online (I don't think I'm meant to do things that are illegal, it never works for me!!). I got word that she got home OK yesterday, and Klagenfurt misses her already!

One of our fun projects this week was to bake bananen brot (banana bread) and "American cookies" (chocolate chip, obvi) with Rosa, our adorable 16-year-old teammate. On Tuesday I got to watch as Kristina taught Rosa how to smush up bananas and wait patiently as the bread smells take over the kitchen far before it's ready to eat, and Wednesday brought chocolate chip cookie deliciousness. Rosa is on her way to becoming a regular Martha Stewart!

The weather here is becoming more and more winter-y. No snow yet, but I'm waiting to wake up to blankets of white covering Klagenfurt's rooftops. It's going to happen soon!

We're off to Rijeka, Croatia for a match tonight. They're one of the better teams in our league, which should make it interesting!

Love you and miss you! And here's our team's site if you're interested: http://atsc.at

XOX

Anna