Hotel & Palais Strudlhof Vienna

After waking up in Ric's beautiful apartment Sadie and I looked out the window and saw that it was snowing. I didn't think it would be so bad because it was snow instead of rain. Well when we made our way downstairs I realized different. Once the snow hit the pavement it might as well have been raining because the ground was so wet. We took the train into the main part of the city to Opering, the neighborhood area where all the operas and music take place. It took us three ...

... br> Much of the city is quite new and mediocre, as it was bombed flat during the war and rebuilt after. The Old Town in the centre is quite spectacular, with its cathedral, the Opera House, and various memorials, shopping squares and palaces. The Plague Memorial, put up in the 1300's by the surviving 2/3 of Vienna's citizens (happy to be alive, I guess) was particularly poignant.
Today is Russell's 14th birthday, so we ...

... plums. It was a very hearty and delicious meal that was perfect for the dreary day that we faced outside. After working up the courage to wander through the rain, Josselyn and I found the Westbanhoff metro station and took it into Stephansplatz which is the old part of town. The streets of Vienna proveed to be a mit more confusing than the public transit system, and we saw a lot more of the city than we ever intended to ...

... We then met back up with the group and toured the Mozart House in the city. Mozart's was my favorite museum of the trip. It was very interactive and informative. For instance, did you know that Mozart died very young from a number of conditions which his doctor attempted to treat by sucking his blood out of his body and feeding him mercury? Very interesting stuff. After the Mozart House, we had free time again. My friends and I did some ...

... nice as saw parts of the city I hadn't seen before. I really like Vienna, it is a beautiful city. Went for dinner with some people from the group and had the most amazing spinach and feta strudel with herb sauce for a main and for dessert apple strudel with the most amazing tasting custard. Very tired so early to bed for me!

... with great sounds of the baby and another seal calling back and forth to each other. One of the houses I went into was "Savannah Birds". At first it seemed there wasn't much to see, but again it was a matter of patience. When everyone else had moved on and I was alone, I simply stood quietly for a while. Gradually the birds began coming out and making noise so that the house turned into quite a busy place. Of course, that is true of a great many ...

... I had been raving about the ballet that I saw on Sunday, Karly wanted to check out the State Opera for herself. And because they change the show every night, I got to see two shows. So we saw Bellini´s La Sonambula. I loved it! And this is coming from someone who doesn´t even like opera. The artistry was incredible, and I was especially impressed by the singers ability to project over an orchestra to a room of 5,000 people ´without the help of a microphone. Off to Graz!

... or as I referred to it at the time, "ya know, that cool looking building that we haven't seen up close yet." It took awhile, but we did actually find it! Callan was convinced this was the building we were looking for. I said no, it wasn't fancy enough. And it actually turned out just to be another piece of the Hapsburg Palace. That's just how the Hapsburg Palace works in Vienna. All different ...

... pretend he knew the history of one of the paintings and tell Sheldon about it. He told him that it was the first painting to use orange, as orange paint only came about in 1850... he believed him!! was very amusing. Next, we went to Hotel Sacha to try the "World's most famous chocolate cake". It was good. We then walked back to the hostel and headed to the train station to go to Bratislava, Slovakia!!!! Saul

... the irony) so I did not get any pictures. I plan on saving a ton of my friends' pictures onto the computer throughout the trip. Before boarding the bus again, a bunch of us stopped for some ice cream. Their ice cream is pretty much what Americans consider gelato, but since it's not Italy, they refuse to call it that. They simply refer to it as "ice". Like a rose, ice cream by any other name will still taste as ...