Winter is coming...Nope arrived

Temperatures dropped on Tuesday from the balmy, warm, beautiful 28 C from last week to roughly 4 degrees before windchil. I feel like that doesnt do justice to the wind- which was blowing umbrella's inside out and water off the street and into my legs. In the POURING rain I went in search of rainboots (thinking so enviously of the ones I turned down in Hannahs apartment mere hours before flying over here) and was unsuccessful- managing to only spend an extra half hour in the miserable weather conditions. Arriving at class fully drenched and freezing I did my best to dry off with the electric hand blowers, but our classroom was in this giant unheated window filled top floor and everyone was in their winter coats and other accessories and still freezing cold. Needless to say I now feel like utter junk and look and sound like a hormonal daffy duck. Big red nose, all stuffed up (stuvd ub), runny eyes, and a tissue always in hand. Excellent.
In other news- we went to this city about an hour and a half (cultural note-Americans give distance in time. The rest of the world does so in kilometers. 150 Kilometers vs. An hour and a half) north of Belgrade- Novi Sad. It was a very beautiful city, despite more inclement weather. We met with this NGO/Activist group that puts on Film Festivals about Human Rights (always a capitol word around here) Our second lecture was with Vladan Beara- who runs the War Trauma Center. WTC provides counseling and resources to vets of the Yugoslav 'wars' with stress and problems stemming from their traumatic experiences. Wars was in quotation marks because the government doesn't recognize that there was a war in Bosnia, but a Military exercise. It adds to the trauma because society and the government don't really recognize these guys. It was a fascinating presentation, and I may end up doing my independent project (the last 6 weeks of the program- starting REALLY REALLY soon!) working with them. Next week is the halfway point of the semester! I can't believe it.
The independent project is an interesting component of my program. The program is 15 weeks, and we spend 9 or 10 together, taking classes and traveling around. Then for the last 5 weeks, we go off wherever we want and study whatever we want. (within reason) Our final project is a 30-50 page research paper. During that time though we are really on our own-we have to find our own housing and our own food, and figure out our research as well. I am very excited.
I am going back to bed now- but thought I would update. Hope things are well for all of you- xoxo