Its official...

I'm H-O-M-E-S-I-C-K!!! Okay folks, it only took 2 and 1/2 months but I am officially homesick now. In the beginning everything was new and exciting but now the reality of life away from my closest friends and family has finally set in. The first few months were so busy for me I really didn't have time to miss people. We had our Spring Break March 19-31 and that's when I finally realized how much I miss all of you. Also, Randy came to visit for a few days so it was different having somebody leave me rather than me leaving all of you. So, with that being said you can all send letters and packages to the following address: *smile*

Rhianna Aaron
Stallvagen 24:87
SE-352 56
Växjö, Sweden

Okay, so let's recap the last month... The weather has been a little strange recently. We barely had any snow in January and February but come SPRING BREAK WE HAD A SNOW STORM! I'm no expert but I estimate we had between 10-12 inches of snow over a period of about 36 hours. Maybe some of you who are reading this think that's not a lot of snow but for this California girl it was a BLIZZARD! I almost had to whip out my snow pants but thankfully I didn't have to go to class so I just had a few snowball fights and stayed in for the rest of the time. It was such a beautiful sight to see the flowers poking through the snow (see pic above). I'd been documenting the arrival of Spring by taking photographs of the emerging buds and flowers from week to week so it was quite strange to see all "my plants" covered in snow.

I also went to see the Malmö Symphony at the concert hall in town. They had a Swedish guest artist by the name of Martin Fröst who is famous all over Europe. He was a really good clarinet player but there was this one piece where it was borderline musical theatre and clarinet playing...interesting to say the least. However, the crowd loved him soooo much that they gave him a standing ovation for about 5 minutes straight and then he returned to the stage to do his signature "freestyle" clarinet playing.

For Spring Break Randy, myself and most of the other international students traveled all over Europe. We were able to make it to Dusseldorf in Germany, Amsterdam in Holland and Copenhagen in Denmark. We all had such a wonderful time and hope to be able to do it again. The only thing about travel in Europe right now is that the dollar is sooooooo weak that it is extremely expensive to go anywhere. Here, let me give you an idea of the prices right now. These are actual purchases we made on our trip converted to USD from the euro and danish krone:

Dusseldorf, Germany
gum - $3.25
bottle of water - $4.50

Amsterdam, Holland
10 postcards - $10.00
bottle of water - $3.50

Copenhagen, Denmark
1 postcard - $1.50 (all I could afford...lol)
single ride on city bus for 1 hour - $5.25
dinner at a "cheap" mexican buffet - $64.06

So yeah, after my little excursions around Europe I'm quite broke. So please, feel free to send packages, letters and such to the address above. *smile* I'd LOVE to hear how you all are doing. Emails are nice but I'd love to get some physical letters now that I'm officially homesick. Send pics too! I love you all!