Exchange student in Austria - UPDATE

Austria,
It's incredible, I love this country.  It's not so cold here, and I'm told that it won't get cold.  This leads me to believe that it won't take long for me to miss the snow, something i've never had the chance to go without.  I'm in a beautiful part of Austria though.  North of austria in the little town of Langenlois, which is famed as the wine capitol of Austria, and my hostfamily proudly supports this industry, as my host uncle was the number one winemaker in Austria.  And so, because of this, there's no questioning, that i've been a little cultured by the experience.  I've learned about how to make wines, and a little about wines, and of course, Sturm.  Sturm is an Austrian traditional drink, which is an "early wine", meaning that it is wine before it has fully become wine.  It's still working, and so when you drink it, you say 'mal zeit', which is basically a type of bon apetit.  It's really exciting though, and because you can't stop it drinking you have to drink it straight from a vinter.  My house here is surrounded by vineyards, which create a beautiful atmosphere, and my school town is built on the Donau river.  I'll be switching families in a week and half, so iIdon't have much time left with them, but i already know my next host family, and I like them; despite the fact that they're my Physics and German teachers!
 
German,
It's incredibly hard, but I love it... sometimes.  It's full of all sorts of strange rules, and too much grammer.  I've been fairly successful as far as speaking the language goes, as i can use basic german to get by, and i could probably do a pretty bad job of translating this email, but it's extremely hard to understand, especially because they speak dialect, which throws unbeleivible twists at me, for example
- high german: wir gehen jetzt zu heim (we're going home now)
- austria: gema zha (the exact same thing)
but i'm learning, and my teacher arranged extra german lessons for us, however i don't really think that they're working,
and I've been most successful by just reading books and writing down all of the vocab that I don't know. (and i've moved from kid books to novels!!)
 
School,
It's incredibly boring, but I don't know what i would do without it.  School is social, but it's also between 5 and 10 hours of either pretending to pay attention, sleeping, or reading (depending on the teacher).  I'm very glad that I've got an exchange student from america in my school, Holly.  Needless to say, we've become pretty good friends, just talking english between classes. 
 
Friends,
Not very hard to make, becuase everyone here is friendly.  In comparison to other countries, in austria, we have a lot of events organized by rotary, so most of my closest friends are exchangers too.  However, I've made some good austrian friends too, as they're interested in new people.  Everyone in Austria is nice, with the exception of my bus driver!!  That was basically just a "Ican't speak german" kind of misunderstandings though.  My collarbone, which for those who may not have known was broken, is now completely healed and better.  And so I've resumed sport playing, which is always really helpful to meet new people. 
  
Depending on if it's appropriate, i love and miss you, and if not, then you just get a sincerely,
 
Everett