Vienna, Austria

Well it is about time that I posted something on this blog and I am sure you all are excited. And if you aren’t, then get excited…. Now. Well Saturday morning, bright and early, we all piled into the vehicles to make the drive to Vienna, Austria! Dalton, Jeff, Courtney, and I rode in Kelley’s car.. it was…. Cozy. One of the advantages to riding with Kelley is that she lets us plug in our iPods to play music. At times, this got dangerous. We got Dalton in the front seat who is a marvelous singer, me who loves to sing in the car, Courtney who adores singing and musicals, and Jeff who loves to listen to his hip hop. Plus we got some dance moves going on which proved to be quite entertaining. We had several scheduled stops along the way and Melk Abbey was the first. Out of all the places we visited in Austria, the library within this Abbey almost felt like a dream. You know back in the day when you would watch Beauty and the Beast? That library came straight from this Abbey. You walk in the doorway and there are thousands of antique editions carefully placed in floor length bookshelves. To reach the top shelve, they had a step ladder that leans on the wall and is secured by a rail at the top, the best part is that is slides along the wall. Even though they were roped off, lets just say I was very tempted to run up the ladder and push to see how far I could go. We all know my fascination of libraries and this is my #1. After we toured the rest of Melk Abbey, we all hopped back in to the cars (there was a small snowball fight between Andrew and I… and he partially whitewashed me) and continued to Vienna.

Our next stop was the Feud Museum. Can I just add that people in Europe are crazy drivers? It is quite ironic that Germany has a rule for everything, and yet when it comes to driving it is a free for all mindset. We had pulled into Vienna and were trying to find the street that the Freud museum was on. Parking is crazy there and Jerry was trying to find us a space. He found one but it was down a one way, and we were in the opposite direction. One ways? That doesn’t mean anything. Kelly pulls onto the street going in reverse, so technically her car is pointing in the right direction. Oh man, I don’t know why, possibly because we had been cooped up in the car for several hours, but we all thought this was hilarious. We finally made it to the Freud Museum where we spent several hours. It was kind of creepy and sketish-ish. There was a room with nothing in it except for a metal therapist couch where a patient would be asked “And how do you feel about this?” Once we got done with our tour, we took off to find our hostel.

That night was the Super Bowl so the boys and Dr. Trull were scouting our bars that were showing it. They found one: The Duke. Throughout our trips, we have found that the boys always get the better rooms (which is ok because at Regensburg, Courtney, Kammy, and I have the best room) but this time it was SOOO not fair. All girls were in one room and all the boys were in a room. We all trudged into our room with all our baggage and this room was tiny! There were 2 bunk beds and then a cot on the floor. The free space we had was probably 3 feet. We go into the boy’s room and it is GINORMOUS!! What the heck? We are girls and have way more stuff than they do. But they refused to switch, go figure. But it was quite cozy and hilarious staying in that room. That night, we were all craving Mexican and the reception desk told us of a good restaurant. We took off in the freezing night to find this place. We got a little lost and it took us a little big longer than expected. By the time we made it, we were all famished. And to top it off, it took us a million years to get our food. We got done with dinner and I had to decide if I wanted to watch the Super Bowl or not. Since we are in Europe it didn’t start until three in the morning or something and got done way late, or more so early in the morning. Plus our day was packed the next morning. I decided not to go which was a very wise decision on my part. Instead, some of us went in search of apple strudel (Vienna has the best) but failed. We did make it to a coffee shop and spent some time there. Went to bed that night and woke up in the morning with plans of going to the Schonbrunn Palace and an Orchestra later that night. We had been watching this movie Sissi, which is about Elisabeth of Bavaria, and this was her palace! It was gorgeous and very extravagant. The ballrooms were surreal and I could just imagine attending a party there. The rooms filled with people all dressed up with an orchestra playing ballads. Sigh, that would have been the life.



I had one mission for the rest of the day. Two words. Apple strudel. Courtney, Kelley and I went to a pub that had supposedly fabulous strudel. And let me tell you, they were CORRECT. It was funny because when we were eating it, the only thing that came out of our mouths were MMMMMMMMM. Delicious. One thing that was weird that first Courtney and then I found a ball of pepper (like salt and pepper) with the sauce. Either this was an accident or some type of secret recipe. We never did find out but it didn’t matter, it was sill scrumptious. Andrew, Tanner, Kelley and I went to the Strauss and Mozart orchestra. It was superb, I had never actually attended an orchestra concert so it was an experience. There were also ballet dancers (not my favorite) and opera singers. And I got to ride on a subway for the first time in my life. Andrew and I would race up the stairs, which kept us entertained.

The next morning was out last day in Vienna and it was a free day. Andrew, Courtney, Jerry, Dr. Trull, and I wanted to go to the Papyrus Museum. We walked with the others part way and we stopped to take a picture by a monument. We learned one of the best lessons in Europe here: nothing is ever free. There was this chick who was handing us flowers and we were like “Oh cool!” And we were taking our pictures, and then she came to take the flowers back and demanded money. We got scammed… good. Courtney refused to give back her flower and just walked away. Chuckles. But we went to the Papyrus Museum where we saw an Egyptian Book of the Dead, which was sweet. And the best part of the entire trip, next to the apple strudel, was walking around the museum district and looking at the monuments and the architecture. It was beautiful! If we hadn’t gone to that district, I probably would have not liked Vienna. We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon strolling the area and getting coffee at Starbucks. It was way fun, plus Dr. Trull was hilarious and that was fun getting to hang out with him before he had to leave. We left back to Regensburg that day and got there just in time for dinner.

Egyptian Book of the Dead

We had presentations the next day and Courtney and I hadn’t even started yet. Haha. That was a late night! But we pulled it off smoothly. By this point we still hadn’t bought our Paris tickets so we also did that the night we got back. Friday night we went to 80’s night at a club. Oh man, so many funny stories. Hmmm…. Dalton, Jeff, Courtney and I went. It was very entertaining. Saturday we got to chill and relax and then on Sunday, Heather, Lisa, and I met up with Kelley and we went to church by Vilseck. It was really nice to be able to go to church where people speak English! We went back to Amberg and planned on eating at an Italian restraint. Unfortunately, all the places were closed until later but we were set on Italian so we had some time to kill. This was a day of eating. First we stopped at a bakery and got some pretzels and croissants. Then we went a different restraint and ate gelato. I love ice cream. Straciatella is the BEST. This was the beginning to my gelato addiction. We stayed there for quite some, partly because we were blocked in, and because it was warm inside! When I say we stayed there for quite some time, I mean hours. But it was relaxing just being able to sit and talk, it was way fun. After the gelato, we walked around and went into Basilika St. Martin to warm up. A men’s choir was practicing somewhere within the church and it echoed from wall to wall. It was beautiful. I probably could have sat there and listened to them for hours. Plus, it was very dark and the only light was the flames from the candles. Spectacular. It was finally time for Italian! We went to the restaurant and I had the best calzone I have ever eaten in my 20 years of life. Oh-my-lanta. I want to go back there and eat again!!! Plus the waiter was trickster, and those are exactly the people that I love. Back to Regensburg and the next morning we left for Paris!!