the beginning

and here i am. i am at a bit of a loss because kendra wrote a really great account of our time up til now, so i'm trying to think of what to write. i'm really horrible at keeping up with these kinds of things, but i will try!
i guess i'll start with saying that this last goodbye at the airport was one of the hardest ever, and i've said my fair share of goodbyes. i knew i had so much to look forward to and i should be excited, but goodbyes are always hard for me. on the 2 hour flight from athens to vienna i watched "snoopy come home", on my ipod. for those of you who don't know, this is a peanuts movie when snoopy leaves charlie brown (of course to return by the end of the movie). there is a reason i'm mentioning this though. after snoopy had left charlie brown couldn't sleep and this little speech stuck out to me:
"why can't we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together forever? someone would leave. someone always leaves. and then we'd have to say goodbye. i hate goodbyes.
you know what i need? i need more hellos."
sigh...charlie brown, you are a perfect pessimist; but you are so right.

anyhow, i'll move on from sad topics. i will try to fill in some of the things kendra has not written about. we arrived in vienna around 5:30 local time and were met by joann richards. tom and joann have lived and worked here for more than a decade and they had us for dinner, which was lovely. it would have been a very sad thing if we had just come straight to the guest house. but they gave us a nice welcome :)
our accommodations at the guest house are not what i would call 'homey', but it's not fair to compare to my own lovely home. it is nice tho. kendra and i share a room that is ironically decorated "greek style", with bright blue and white walls along with photos of scenes of greek islands and shells and pottery and such. how did they know...? anyhow we get a lovely breakfast at 8 in the morning, which will keep me in the habit of waking up at a reasonable time and of eating breakfast: win-win.

kendra already told you about the pension. it was a neat experience. while kendra was visiting the chechnian family with david, i was with eileen visiting the only afghan family in the whole pension. i think after spending time working at the arc i have a soft spot for afghans - i really like them! the two little girls are beautiful. anyways, i got the impression that the wife especially is just very lonely because she has NOBODY to talk to. she was so excited when miriam came and she said so, because she has not spoken to another woman in many weeks. before miriam came though, eileen and i spent the whole time wracking my brain for any farsi words we could possibly remember, but we weren't doing too well with communication. finally after a rough start i got out a pen and piece of paper and we communicated through drawings. it wasn't anything outstanding, but it worked. got through basics of family and such. like i said, it was a rough and awkward start, but by the end of it i really enjoyed the visit.
and today i met two girls from azerbaijan. the only reason i mention that is because not only were they very sweet, but i have never met anyone from azerbaijan before (in fact, i only just learned how to spell it). i love the name! again it was hard to communicate because of the language barrier (i speak NO turkish and NO russian), so you just smile a lot in the attempts to make chitchat. it can be fun :)

i am still rather new with austrian ref-min (refugee ministry), but i am finding it interesting to just observe the differences between ref-min in athens and here. it's very different! not just how things happen at the oasis (the ministry base here) and the arc (ministry base in athens), but also how the government deals with each. from what i've heard greece is just rather uncaring for them, while austria either gives them housing at a pension or even if they are not here legally still has a "camp" for them to stay at. i had always heard that refugees never really wanted to stay in greece, but now i'm seeing why. they are helped out much more in countries like austria, norway, sweden. they really get nothing from greece.
another thing that i am experiencing is being a part of a team not as a leaders' daughter or as one of the kids, but as any other intern that might come in, wholly unconnected as i am. i'm not saying that they are any less welcoming, it is just a different role. i'm not one of the kids that they knew since i was 10 anymore. haha

anyhow, i apologize at the lack of substance in this particular blog entry. i just read back and i'm noticing that i'm writing a whole lot without really saying much, if you know what i mean. well that's getting in the head of becky sirinides....HA! hopefully i will get better at this, but for now i say GOOD NIGHT