1. X-Men Origins comes out in 4 days in Ghana.
2. There are only 28 more school days and then I'm home to Michigan
3. My trip to Austria and Germany has already ended! :'(
4. It's HIGH time to post about the completed European trip!!
As you saw in the last posting, our sending off was done by Kellie (KJ) and Darrel. They ended up staying a few more days in our house, seeing the Ghanaian sites while we took off to Vienna on Thursday night! Yikes!
Friday Morning 9am-ish:
The VERY first thing we did (which was most important) was the following...
Starrrrrrrbuuuuccckkkkkssssss....mmmmmmmmm
Although it may not be specifically Viennese, it was necessary for my happiness. We made a fool out of ourselves by taking a few cheezy American pictures and headed for the ATM and train station. The ATM took lots of money from our account and the train took us to the main part of town where we could lock up our bags and see the sites! Our first stop? A sausage stand with INCREDIBLE sausage just RIGHT THERE in the middle of the sidewalk! mmmm
Second stop?
H & M!!!!!
This is my ultimate favorite store in the U.S. and you KNOW they've gotta be better in Europe! Turns out, they are! We were in there for 2 hours. The plan was to find an outfit for the opera that evening. We spent as little money as POSSIBLE then hopped over to a McDonalds (our first one in months) just to hang out for a few minutes, change into some new clothes and get back to ACTUALLY touring the city of Vienna. We made our way towards the center where we found some palaces and museums and a bunch of people laying around on the greenest grass I've ever seen in my LIFE! We took a few minutes to lay down in the grass too. It was glorious. Then we trudged on (remember we arrived that MORNING-we were tired) to find ourselves the opera house to buy some tickets. All the doors had a white sign that said "Geschlossen". We weren't sure what this phrase meant so we kept searching for a main door where we could buy tickets for the evening. Finally we ran into a guy in Mozart clothes and we asked him about the opera. He said, "Of course the opera is not selling tickets this evening, it's CLOSED. See? Geschlossen." Haha, thanks Mozart guy. Apparently, our internet information was wrong. As it was already 6pm we decided to head to the house of our first couch surfer, Doris.
For those of you who do not know about couchsurfing.com, I suggest you get to know the website and maybe register yourself! It's a great opportunity to meet new people and see new places for FREE!
Now something we had planned to do but deemed impossible was to see a wine garden. Wine gardens in Vienna, as far as we know, are up the mountains from the city, and therefore hard to reach (as a tourist with no car). However, when we showed up at Doris', she asked if she could take us somewhere that serves local wine and a bit of food and it's farther away from the city that not many tourists get to see. YES!!!!! We would LOVE TO GO!!!!! So we did! You could see the entire city, full of lights from up there. It was fabulous.
Saturday, the next day, we headed to a big fat palace named Schonbrunn. We were there for most of the day, walking around the grounds, touring 40 of the rooms, and of course taking pictures. This is JUST the side view of this castle:
I wish we could have taken pictures of the inside because it was gorgeous. This castle is said to be the only thing close enough to rival Versailles. This was followed by a self-guided tour of Vienna, which helped us to learn a great deal about the city's history. After a long day of walking and touring and snapping pictures, we decided to settle in for a night on Doris' balcony, playing cards while drinking wine and eating crackers and....CHEESE! It was a wonderful night.
Sunday we woke up with smiles on our faces, for two reasons. The first because it was Easter and we get to have treats after 40 days of Lent with no treats. The second reason was because for 20 years of our lives we've woken up on Easter ready to search for the painted eggs and rip through our Easter baskets for the Resees Peanut Butter Eggs and Egg-shaped malt-balls. UNFORTUNATELY, we're dumb grown-ups and have to bring our own happiness to ourselves. So we did. We got up early enough before church to stop at a bakery and get three different kinds of strudel. MMMMMMMMM. It's no PB egg, but it will do! Happy-day-Jesus-Rose-From-the-dead!!!! Church this Easter morning was at the one and only St. Stephen's Cathedral. This little picture doesn't do it justice, the place was gorgeous. Sadly we did not understand the service with our minimal German knowledge, but it was still an experience I will not be quick to forget.
After church and a McDonalds quick lunch, we headed straight back to Doris' to pack and get ready for the train to Halstatt!
The next blogs about Halstatt, Salzburg, and Munich will follow shortly, but I did include the links to my 60-photo photo albums on facebook. There are two photo albums, one is a photo summary entitled "Yer-Up" and the next is an entire album devoted to the food and drink we were able to experience in these four fabulous cities.
Yer-Up:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025518&id=178200121&l=cb3d2ace78
Food and Drink:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025540&id=178200121&l=7e97bb7cb1
Alright, talk to you soon! Thanks for reading! :)
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