“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” – Susan Sontag

My Eurail pass came today, this was both thrilling and overwhelming. I can't wait to use it and at the same time the freedom scares me. ha. Everything seems so close until you look up the time it takes to get there, oh well, this is going to be ridiculous.

I finally signed up for the gym. I'd actually gone twice for free, first time for a mediocre aquafit class, well it was damn hard but not very much fun, and then on Wednesday for a class called BOMmer.. or something like that. I tried to pay but there was some confusion so the guy told me to pay next time. The gym isn't like how you would sign up at home. You don't actually get to use the fitness centre with the weights and treadmills and ellipticals and stuff, that costs extra. When you pay you get to go to all these open hour courses, so an entire gymnasium will be full of a step class kinda thing, or they have some open hours for swimming and tennis and the like.

You also get to sign up for actual classes. At home, that costs a lot, but here you request the class, then they do a draw to see if you get in, if you do you pay a 10 euro deposit and if you go to 80% of the classes you get your money back. Pretty good.

Anyways I signed up and paid today. I was hesitant to do that for a number of reasons, first, I can't usually do too much physical before my back starts to kill so I didn't know if I'd get my money's worth, then I thought I could put that money towards my travels, and last but not least the location of the gym. It is - and I looked this up - right around 5k bike ride to from my house. Ha, that is enough to demotivate a person, but there are a few girls who go all the time so it is easier that way. And to be honest, I had nothing to do for so many days that I would love to bike 10k so I could work out for an hour just for something to do. Oh, and I mean it isn't like I did nothing at home and this'll hopefully keep me in some semblance of 'shape' for when I get back for outdoor soccer.

I haven't been up to a lot lately. Going to class, cooking dinners, etc. But this week has flown by. I'm determined to go somewhere this weekend, but seeing as my weekend lasts from Friday night to Wednesday afternoon I'm planning on going on an overnight trip on Monday. This is mostly because the weather is supposed to be quite nice on Monday and Tuesday and because so much is closed on Sunday around here that it is difficult to plan to do anything.

On Wednesday night there was a "Trailer Trash" party put on by ESN, I was initially thinking I might go, be a good sport, but then I got tired and I started to see the costumes come out and I just couldn't do it. ha. It was funny though because everyone had a very different interpretation of 'trash' so there was some pretty decent euro-trash as well as some great interpretations of what I think of with trailer trash. Regardless, I went to bed and had an amazing sleep, except when a drunk person tried to get into my room, ha, good thing I lock my door at night.

Today, the two girls who I hang out with most here left for the ESN ski trip to the French Alps. As such, a friend of ours came over to make breakfast before the left. I was treated to some UK style thin pancakes - to be fair, they don't even stand up to my Grandma's Swedish thin pancakes but they were very good - and I didn't have to make them.

I went to go pick up my pictures (that I ordered a week ago!) from the store before class. Class was awfully boring, we talked about cultural differences and things like that, these are the types of classes that can be awesome or awful. This one consisted multiple tables of this v. that. But I did get to know one of the Dutch girls in my group better which is nice because I don't get many chances to talk to Dutch students. Both my other classes are internationals only and I live with only internationals. Its like living in a bubble.

After class I biked out to sign up for the gym then upon coming home crashed. I laid on my bed reading my traveling books and watching Mad Men for quite a while. I was half asleep.

I hung my pictures - so now I have friendly faces all over my room and a group of pics I stole off the interwebs of some great Alberta scenery, I do love it.

I have some homework and laundry to do tomorrow, and hopefully I'll go swimming. That'll put me in a good position to get me down south on Monday.

Oh, I also realized that if I skip two classes in April I can actually just be gone traveling from the 2-26 so I'm hoping to get through Portugal, Spain, S.France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, and end up on some sort of gorgeous Croatian beach. This'll be great too because for the second half I should be able to be traveling with a girl I live with, company is always appreciated. And she's been easy to travel with before. Lovely. Heck, that's only 3 weeks away.

I'm still working on convincing some members of my family to make the trek over for some fun and adventure. Common! Its warmer here, if nothing else. Hope some of you can make it work.

This is right above my desk. Great reminder of home :)

I love those prairie skies.