Yikes!

...I just bought a Eurail pass! That basically means this whole Austria thing REALLY IS HAPPENING.

I'm really excited but I'm also pretty intimidated.
Because lists are cool things (whenever they don't have horrible, unfun things you need to do on them)...

Excited for:

• being able to dawdle in Europe! Last time was all rush! rush! rush!, though I guess I shouldn't complain since I accidentally won that trip.
• getting the "full college experience" - i.e. living in a big building with people who aren't blood-related (horror, I know). I didn't really understand at my freshman, but it is hard to be a commuter, especially if you play college athletics. Between driving, helping a bit around the house, volleyball practices, and studying, there isn't a lot of time to be piddling around campus, so it's harder to make new friends and to actually get together with them. Not that I actually want to change this (I LOVE MY HOME) but living in Austria should be a nice little taste of that "experience".
• seeing a friend that I hardly ever get to see and going on adventures with her! 
• European fashion! Haha, I know, right? I'm not the most fashion-savvy person, but since I wear skirts pretty much all the time, I'm hoping that for once, I'll blend in well with the people around me (at least, until I open my big American mouth) and that my fellow students won't seem so judgmental of my fashion choices (or lack thereof)

Not excited for:

• being away from my HOUSE FOR THREE AND A HALF MONTHS! Trips and small "vacations", however enjoyable they were, tire me out pretty quickly, so how I'll handle all that time in Austria should be...interesting.
• getting the "full college experience" - I know what I said above, but this is definitely a mixed emotions thing. Since none of the people are blood-related to me, I can't just do weird things I do (like completely blank out when I'm talking to someone) and expect them to understand/not be offended. I'll actually have to communicate! With people! In real life! Who aren't related to me! Terror! On the flip-side of that, I'm going to have to figure out how other people work too. 
• the campus spirituality. It's funny, Franciscan is pretty "conservative" to most other colleges, but for a Catholic college, they do some things that just...well, weird me out. Like FOP's (Festival of Praise)?? Uh, yeah, I tried understanding that...um, energetic part of Catholicism, but I'm still not comfortable with a lot of it. So many times during campus Mass's, I've wanted to shout "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! EVERYONE PUT YOUR HANDS DOWN. NOW. AND PUT THAT GUITAR AWAY!" I've heard that things are more...levelheaded on the Austria campus, but I'm still worried about possibly going so long without a Latin Mass, or at least a really reverent Novus Ordo Mass.
• getting horribly lost in a creepy country. 

and finally

• not seeing any of my family for a whole three and a half months. :( There will definitely be some Skype attempts (I've heard the wifi there is pretty crummy), but man, no adventures or fights with siblings for that long? REALLY not looking forward to that.

So in the end, I'm trying not to get too excited in case I get horribly disappointed too easily, and I'm also trying not to be too much of scaredy cat so that I chicken out on any fun adventures. In any case, this should be an interesting three and a half months!