Monday, July 02, 2007

Swan Song




So as of Wednesday my time in Vienna has drawn to a close. It has not been the easiest year, but I have gotten a lot out of it. As I have mentioned before, the European education system is not for me. The Diplomatic Academy is not typical for Austria, but in most of the classes there was still far too much emphasis on regurgitation and summary than on analysis and coming up with new ideas. Still, I was able to spend a year in Europe on scholarship doing German, French, and Russian simultaneously. I also got an introduction to international law. There were a lot of fun moments and it was great to travel, but I have always been a person looking ahead and who wanted to get going with the next thing so I am happy to be off.

On Wednesday I leave for Kiev where I will be hanging out and doing some Russian language stuff for two weeks (very excited!). After that I will be in Minsk for four days visiting some friends from the academy. Then I am off to Moscow for a month long exchange with the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Hopefully while there I will manage a weekend trip to Kazan aw well. In any case, it is a former-Soviet Union themed summer, but that is how I like them and I am at a point with my Russian where I am genuinely excited about using it and less intimidated than I used to be.

From here on out the posts will be much less frequent until I make it back to the states in August (I definitely won’t be fulfilling my 20 posts a month quota, which is self-imposed of course). Still I hope to squeeze a few in from interesting places and things develop.

1 comment:

Edward Rueda said...

Mazel tov on ending, mein buddei. As the great General McArthur said, "I will return... to your tres amusant blogge."