Busy busy busy....

sorry it's been so long, i just can't find time tosit down at a computer for 30 min and get one of these published. i will try hard to get some pictures up this afternoon before i leave for Berlin with 3 friends, but no promises!! Life is good. we spent last weekend on a retreat in the Austrian alps! it was absolutely gorgeous and reminded me a lot of the cascade range back home in oregon and washington. for the first day and a half it was terribly foggy and i couldn't even see 15 feet in front of me. but once it cleared up by saturday mid-day, you could see forever! it was amazing! me and six friends went on a 6 hour hike down to the bottom of the valley and had lunch at the small village there. it was cool to hike through the mountains and go through people pastures and farming complexes. trespassing is not a big deal here like back in america. it was an overall elevation change of about 2500 ft, so it was a pretty good climb on the way back up since the entire first half was straight down the mountain. i slept outside with 3 other guys. we slept down by a fire in the grass and loved it. the second night, we fell asleep under the stars and woke up above the clouds that covered the valley floor. it was pretty cold, getting down wellbelow freezing to about 24 degrees fehrenheit, but my mummy bag did well and i didn't get cold at all! well, i better get ready for my last german chapter quiz. today is our last class and then we take the final next wednesday! it flew by. i cna't believe i recieved a semester's worth of german in such a short amount of time. I hope all is well back home and we are daily updated about the stockmarket and presidential race, but keep me updated! all of the europeans are more interested in that stuff than we are, so they are always asking us about it when they find out we're american and it's embarrasing when i say i don't know anything!! love you all
MARK