Well hey guys! Here begins the first blog about Adventure #1: Liturgical Choir pilgrimage to Central Europe!

Internationally known! And it's even in English!

We (about 40 choir kids and a few adults) flew out on Monday, two days after classes finished on Friday, so that was already an exciting start! We flew from Minneapolis to Chicago to London to Prague. We began our ten day tour in Prague, then drove to Poland (we had a bus), and ended in Budapest.

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Hello again! It has been awhile since the last post-what an adventure this summer has been! But more on that later. For now, I shall give a few tips to you awesome incoming Tommies, the class of 2015.

When buying books

-As much as I love the bookstore, buying books there is usually more expensive than buying them online. There are always exceptions, of course, and I have found some excellent deals at the bookstore, but I usually end up getting my books from Amazon. The bookstore website underwent some awesome improvements and now shows you how other stores compare to the bookstore, price wise, so it’s easy to see right away where you can get the cheapest book.

-You also might run into these confusing things that aren’t books but that you still have to buy. Specifically they might be in your Spanish or math classes, and they are online codes. For spanish and math, as well as some other subjects, you need to buy a code to access an online assignment program. In this case, you’d be better off buying the code from the bookstore. I made a rookie mistake last year and bought a used spanish book PLUS a brand new spanish book with the code. Which was obviously not necessary at all! If you have any questions, you can either email the bookstore or just wait until classes start and ask your teacher or advisor. You most likely won’t use the codes the first day anyway.

- Bibles! For those of you taking a Theology class your first semester, pay close attention. In my humble opinion, you do not need to buy the giant red Bible. You can if you want, and I happen to have two of them, but a Bible is a Bible and if you already have one of your own, you should be okay with that. If you’ve already bought the big red Bible, don’t worry, you can never have too many!

When packing

-Oh, packing for college. It’s kind of a crazy thing. Things you should bring: a few summer clothes, a bunch of fall clothes, a laptop, a whiteboard, some picture frames, a dirty clothes bag, laundry detergent, pens and pencils, scissors, tape, spirals and folders, sheets, blankets, pillows, maybe a soccer ball or basketball and corresponding shoes/cleats, a few plates, bowls, silverware, a glass or two, some sort of knick knack to wash dishes with, HANGERS, and some books. These are just the things I can name off the top of my head.

-Things you don’t actually need: a can opener (unless you plan on eating out of a can, then you will need one. The only thing I ever ate out of a can was chicken noodle soup and I got the ones with pop tabs on them so it wasn’t necessary after all!). You also don’t need tons of t-shirts. I brought 15 and only wore about 7. If you keep your eyes open, you’ll get at least 3 free tshirts in the first month of your life as a Tommie. I suppose if you work out a lot you could go through them faster, however. That’s a good thing to keep in mind. You also probably don’t need a lamp. I can only speak for Dowling, but we have built in lamps in the desks that are quite handy. If you can find a little lamp that clips to your bed, however, you should definitely invest in that because your bed could be lofted and then you don’t have to climb down to turn out the light. You also probably won’t need a power strip, one of those things that has lots of outlets in it, because you have a pretty awesome amount of outlets in your room.

That’s all for now! Don’t even hesitate a minute to ask me any questions. I love talking about packing for college! My email is schm9587@stthomas.edu. You guys will be in my thoughts and prayers as you prepare for this awesome adventure of your freshman year!! Good luck and see you in three weeks!!