A Short Note post Berlin and Riga!

Hello All.

I am truly sorry for my neglect of this lovely little blog the past few weeks. I am still really sick and that has just been putting a huge damper on life... :( No one (as in no doctor) can seem to figure out what is wrong with me. One lady even went as far as telling me that "it is all in my head; I am probably just homesick and depressed". No lady, I love Freiburg. I am not depressed. I am puking. And the only thing that I am all that homesick for at this point is a doctor that has a brain. And some god damn sympathy. That obviously wasn't one of my best exchanges with the locals...ha!

Although I am not prepared at this very moment to provide you with the sort of entry that my adventurous life demands, I did want to drop a quick note to update everyone! Since my last update, I have really started to get into the swing of things in my life here in Freiburg. This is an AWESOMe city, just perfect for me! On September 15th, we left Freiburg for a week long trip to Berlin, German and Riga, Latvia. While there we visited a number of monuments, government institutions, and lectures, all of which supplemented my study of the European Union in some way. The trip was a whirlwind, absolutely exhausting, but I loved it! I learned so much and got to see the highlights of both cities, which is pretty impressive considering the short amount of time we were there for! IES does NOT mess around when it comes to scheduling their field trips. I had approximately 4 seconds of free time the entire trip and I was forced to spend that time eating, pooping, and sleeping (Many of my compadres spent their 4 seconds partying...I like eating, sleeping, and pooping too much to waste my time grinding up on some sweaty Berliner who doesn't believe in deodorant.) Needless to say, I will be recovering from that trip for a while.

We returned from Berlin and Riga on the afternoon of the 20th. Since then I've been dealing with my perpetual sickness and doing homework 24-7. We started our full schedule of classes last Monday and it it pretty intense. This program is hard as hell. Im dying over here... I seriously think it is more challenging than school at home and I am NOT a fan of that. If I was going to sit in a room and read books and write papers all day long, I would have stayed in America where they have microwaves and 24 hour grocery stores. The good news is that I was elected as one of the members of student council this past week, so the administration is about to get an earfull from this girl. Just call me Congresswoman.

I think I'll wrap things up here. I have a monstrous entry coming your way soon, complete with awesome pictures and more details than you all would probably care to know! You are getting it anyway. I would love to hear from those of you who are reading this (all four of you...) so PLEASE email me if you feel so inclined! You can track me down at aferoah@aol.com.

Love to you all,

Ali