LET THE 10-DAY BEGIN!

So the next posts are all on the mid-semester break. Block one done, one more to go!

Bratislava Opera

This is Bratislava (that's in Slovakia in case you didn't know). All of the groupies went to see the opera on a weekend.

Highlight sights: Seeing the church where Maria Theresia was christened. Staring at the outside of a building where Mozart performed. Standing in the center circle where every point in the world is measured from. Getting ice in our second pitcher of water. Laughing on our way out of the opera because the open dressing room windows were right next to the sidewalk.

Touring Parliament

Okay, so I don't really know why I'm posting a blog about this place except for the fact that I am so incredibly hot right now and this is one of the few places that is actually air-conditioned. Great to see government money at work.

Half of this building was bombed in the war and so only one of its halls is still original. The other was redone in the fifties. Still neat to see how other countries run politically.

Open air Concert

The Vienna Philharmonic ( the BEST orchestra in the entire world!) gave an open-air concert "Star Wars" themed concert. All of us groupies brought snacks, blankets, and settled in on the hill behind Schonbrunn to hear the concert. Did I mention how yummy schnitzel sandwiches are? pretty tasty. We were just happy to break the "don't step on the grass rule."

It became obvious really quickly that you could not hear the concert. No one had thought to blast speakers backwards onto the hill and so we couldn't hear much of anything. A couple of us moved spots to try and hear, but it was hard to do anything in the thousands of people that were there. Still---who can say they live in a city where you can lay out on the grass to hear the world's best orchestra give a concert. pretty cool experience.

Shots of Vienna

Dorfgastein

DAY ONE: Meet Dorfgastein....one of the prettiest places on the planet. You can walk from one end of town to the other in about fifteen minutes. After Salzburg we took the train out for about an hour and spent the next two days in this beautiful place. The sun even came out for us on the last day.

The night we rolled in after a train from Salzburg, the B&B owner himself came to pick us up from the train station. Every morning we were served hot chocolate in our personal hot chocolate pots and cup&saucer. So cute! Breakfast will never be the same without hot chocolate. The family who owned the B&B didn't speak any English, but it was fun using our miniscule vocabularies to talk about our plans. (Okay actually the mom would bring out breakfast and the dad would sit and try to talk to us.)

The first morning was really neat because we were there for their celebration of "Corpus Christi." (yeah, my favorite painting come to life!!) The ceremony was in their little church with men on the right side of the aisle and women on the left. Afterwards, their band marched around and played through the streets. The townspeople then spent the entire day celebrating in the only open restaurant. We found them later them night at dinner. Their day of drinking culminated in one of them on the accordion, one man dancing on the table, and the rest of them singing and swinging back and forth.

Anyway, after the ceremony me, Jess and Amelia hiked up to a family's house up on the hill. They own a restaurant and serve the biggest slices of homemade cheese torte you will ever see. The dad was so nice and sat down and tried to speak German with us...we had quite the conversation considering the language barrier. Oh--the whole way up we saw cows grazing on the hillside. This one had an itch...which it tried to catch with its tongue. Gross. The funny part was that the giant bell on its neck kept banging back and forth while it was itching in this awkward position. The video we took is hysterical! On our hike on the other side of the mountain we ate lunch and took a nap on a picnic bench. incredible.

DAY TWO: We took a tram to the top of the mountain and hiked down. We got to the top and couldn't see a thing on account of all of the clouds and the fog. Looking out off the mountain made you feel like you could walk off the edge of the earth and step onto a cloud. So much for seeing the highest peaks in Austria. Of course anytime is "have a drink" time in Austria and so we sipped on mugs of hot chocolate overflowing with whip cream for a little bit. Best hot cocoa ever!!

Halfway through our hike down the mountain the sun came out!! We hadn't even seen the sun yet in Vienna and so this was an amazing moment. We stripped off all of our jackets, stuffed them in our backpacks, and let our skin get sunburned! hooray.

DAY THREE: Five of us decided to look like we were at a family reunion in our matching navy blue t-shirts, jeans, and soccer mom tennis shoes. It was time to go back to Vienna and we hoped we would take the sunshine back with us.

Salzburg

Well what do you know...it rained in Salzburg. If anyone was wondering, it rained our entire first month in Vienna. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. In Salzburg it rained even harder and we were drenched. That night in the hotel we all sat with hairdryers in our shoes and hung our jeans on the warm towel drying racks so that they would dry in time for the next day. All of us were very soggy. Don't ask why none of us still have galoshes or ponchos because none of us know either.

When we first pulled in to Salzburg we spent a couple hours with tour guide Horst. His sarcastic Austrian humor was just an added bonus. He pointed out some "Sound of Music" filming spots and we sang the movie lyrics to our hearts content.

One of the most exciting things in rainy Salzburg was finding the egg store! Piles of egg cartons are stacked precariously throughout the store in sections--Christmas, Easter, etc. We were in Christmas ornament heaven.

Another highlight was eating a REAL Mozartkrugel. We see the imitation ones sold in Vienna all the time in the sparkly gold wrappers, but apparently this store has the original recipe. You can only buy these in Salzburg. We all got one for a euro a piece and enjoyed the hand-rolled Marzepan chocolate-covered wonders. Plus, we were inside out of the rain.

At the top of the "Festung Hohensalzburg" (medieval fortress on top of the hill) I about got blown over with my umbrella. It buckled inside out and wanted to fly me away over the wall. I loved looking out over Salzburg (clouds and all) because of the rooftops. There are so many spires that sit on the bends of the winding river.

Oh, and Garrett--I saw the biggest chess set ever in one of the squares!! It had giant lifesize pieces and I thought about how you win everytime we play. Maybe playing with bigger pieces would give me a chance of winning?? We'll have to see when I get home.