Today was a very happy surprise. It's been a long week of goodbyes; Wednesday night Chris, Liz and I spent the night bonding before Chris skipped off to Paris with his mom and sisters and Thursday night Liz and I got wings for the last time. Yesterday I took her to the airport (as her mass amount of luggage prevented the operation from being a one woman job) and spent the rest of the day consoling myself by exercising my wallet (during which I realized that if smoking crack were my coping mechanism it would probably be a lot cheaper). This morning I went and met my friend Jon for tea and he informed me that it was the Queen's birthday today and that I should head to Buckingham when we were done. I did so, forced myself like the pushy little girl I am to the front of the "queue" aka massive crowd of people and clung to the gates of Buckingham Palace (after walking from Charing Cross... CHAMP!) until the royal family came out onto the balcony. It was so fantastic! So many different jets flying overhead and thanks to the super zoom on my camera I got some awesome pictures of Prince Harry (and Prince William, the decidedly less gorgeous future King). Now I'm awaiting the arrival of Kyle, who should be starting his journey on the Piccadilly line right about now.
Now that the quick recap of my week is over I will attempt to give a brief description of my absolutely incredible trip to Salzburg, Vienna and Prague. For the first time I feel like there is no way for me to accurately describe my trip (but now that I type that I feel like I've probably said something like that before). I hope that, if any of you are even slightly interested in my trip, that the first question you ask me is "How was Austria?" While I have yet to experience my upcoming adventures with family, I must say that Vienna is, without a doubt, my favorite European city thus far. The architecture is beautiful and consistent, the palace is gorgeous, everything in the city is so accessible, the food is fabulous (even the pizza was pretty top notch, thank God), they have lovely traditions and the most important and wonderful thing about it is that the people there are indescribable. However, knowing me you know I'll attempt to describe them anyway. We had the good fortune of getting in contact with Rick's cousin and staying with him. He picked us up from the train station and took us to his home where he'd prepared a room, bought food and drinks, a map for us and he even wrote his address on three separate pieces of paper in case we got lost so that we could give it to a cabby. He was the most gracious host, he even set out a little jar of water in the bedroom. That night his cousin Sebastian and their friends Michael and Nikolaus came over and we all went out to some bars and had such a good time. I've had some pretty amazing nights in the last six months, and some pretty funny ones, and I can't remember the last time I laughed as much as I did that night. The next day we went and got wiener schnitzel at a local place that gives you such large portions that it spills off your plate, if you ever get a chance to go I suggest you try it because it's delicious even if it stops your heart in the process.
After lunch Martin (who took off the day of work for us) and Michael gave us a tour of the city. We saw the university, parliament, the supreme court (we even went on the roof where there's a view of the whole city), they showed us the spot where Hitler gave his famous speech (you know, the one you always see pictures of?), we had coffee and these pastries with "surprises" inside, Austrian chocolates, etc, it was a great way to experience the culture. I prefer that to seeing a city from a tourist perspective, this way we actually got to see what their culture is like from a more realistic perspective. That night Martin stayed in since he had to work early but Michael and a friend of his, Jakob came and took us out again that night. On our way out we got little bottles of jagger from a hot dog stand and apparently it's tradition to wear the cap on your nose and then the person with the lowest number on the bottom of their bottle (yes, there are numbers) has to buy the next shot. So here's a picture for your viewing pleasure of that little experience.
After that we went to a local bar that Michael promised had "odd" people, he was right, we sat next to a group of garbage collectors still wearing their bright orange uniforms (mind you it's about 11 at night) and this guy Arnold starts talking to us about Fraternities (but I should be saying thanks Arnold, because he paid for all our drinks), and then there was a guy behind Liz who was really old and asleep in the corner. We moved on to a club that was playing nothing but Austrian music, which to me was so much better than your average pop club because I can find one of those anywhere. There was a conga line during one song, it was quite funny. Before catching the bus the next day I walked to the palace, which is modeled after Versailles, it's beautiful, I wish I'd have had more time to wander but I was in a bit of a hurry. That's where the Austrian Zoo is where there's a baby panda. The maze was so tempting but I knew better than to go get myself lost right before I was supposed to head to Prague.
After that we went to a local bar that Michael promised had "odd" people, he was right, we sat next to a group of garbage collectors still wearing their bright orange uniforms (mind you it's about 11 at night) and this guy Arnold starts talking to us about Fraternities (but I should be saying thanks Arnold, because he paid for all our drinks), and then there was a guy behind Liz who was really old and asleep in the corner. We moved on to a club that was playing nothing but Austrian music, which to me was so much better than your average pop club because I can find one of those anywhere. There was a conga line during one song, it was quite funny. Before catching the bus the next day I walked to the palace, which is modeled after Versailles, it's beautiful, I wish I'd have had more time to wander but I was in a bit of a hurry. That's where the Austrian Zoo is where there's a baby panda. The maze was so tempting but I knew better than to go get myself lost right before I was supposed to head to Prague. Here are a couple of pictures of us on our tour of Vienna. This one is in front of the Supreme Court with Michael and Martin.
This picture is of me on top of the Supreme Court building overlooking the city.
Once we got to Prague and found Hamilton, my elementary school friend who offered us a place to stay, we got ready and decided to go out. Before we went out we got some Bekerovka, which is a popular Czech liquor and had some drinks at the house. Then Ham's friend came over and we all went out to a couple different clubs where his friend was djing. It was such a fun night! The next day Ham took us across the Charles Bridge and showed us the Lennon Wall, which is a tribute to John Lennon (and is also the wall I'm standing in front of in the picture below)
After the Lennon Wall Ham had to leave us to go meet his new roommates while we wandered the city for the day. Dre went to a museum while Liz and I opted to relax at the top of one of the parks near the castle. Prague is a very hilly city so once we got to the top we had a great view. Liz opted out of climbing the abundance of steps it took to get to the palace once we got down so I made the trek alone before meeting up with them at the Charles Bridge, it was beautiful inside! We then went to meet Ham and headed to the beer garden, which is an outdoor area in the middle of a park on the opposite side of the city from where we'd been all day. By the time we got there we were so pooped from having 4 late nights in a row and a whole lot of sight seeing (plus my allergies don't agree with Prague AT ALL and I was about ready to flood the park with my snot) so we grabbed the keys from Ham like big party poopers and attempted to find our way home. Now in saying attempted I don't mean that we got lost, rather that it was just ridiculously far from where we were and probably took close to an hour to walk to. I was so hungry so I stopped at a mexican restaurant (I realized all too late that it was the last place likely to have food before we got home and it ended up being really expensive, but I had no other options). It had started to rain, which was weird because it was such a beautiful and hot day up until that point. Once inside the restaurant we looked outside and it was literally pouring rain, luckily we were right around the corner from Ham's place and Liz and I spent the rest of the night in. Dre, at this point, went to a friend's place who was also studying in Prague and we didn't see him until the train back to Salzburg.
This picture is of me on top of the Supreme Court building overlooking the city.
Once we got to Prague and found Hamilton, my elementary school friend who offered us a place to stay, we got ready and decided to go out. Before we went out we got some Bekerovka, which is a popular Czech liquor and had some drinks at the house. Then Ham's friend came over and we all went out to a couple different clubs where his friend was djing. It was such a fun night! The next day Ham took us across the Charles Bridge and showed us the Lennon Wall, which is a tribute to John Lennon (and is also the wall I'm standing in front of in the picture below)
After the Lennon Wall Ham had to leave us to go meet his new roommates while we wandered the city for the day. Dre went to a museum while Liz and I opted to relax at the top of one of the parks near the castle. Prague is a very hilly city so once we got to the top we had a great view. Liz opted out of climbing the abundance of steps it took to get to the palace once we got down so I made the trek alone before meeting up with them at the Charles Bridge, it was beautiful inside! We then went to meet Ham and headed to the beer garden, which is an outdoor area in the middle of a park on the opposite side of the city from where we'd been all day. By the time we got there we were so pooped from having 4 late nights in a row and a whole lot of sight seeing (plus my allergies don't agree with Prague AT ALL and I was about ready to flood the park with my snot) so we grabbed the keys from Ham like big party poopers and attempted to find our way home. Now in saying attempted I don't mean that we got lost, rather that it was just ridiculously far from where we were and probably took close to an hour to walk to. I was so hungry so I stopped at a mexican restaurant (I realized all too late that it was the last place likely to have food before we got home and it ended up being really expensive, but I had no other options). It had started to rain, which was weird because it was such a beautiful and hot day up until that point. Once inside the restaurant we looked outside and it was literally pouring rain, luckily we were right around the corner from Ham's place and Liz and I spent the rest of the night in. Dre, at this point, went to a friend's place who was also studying in Prague and we didn't see him until the train back to Salzburg. The next day Liz and I were in the ultimate poop mode and went to the movies to see Iron Man over doing more sight seeing (to be fair, we'd walked for no less than 9 hours the day before). To make myself feel less guilty I braved another massive set of stairs to get to a very old church that overlooked the city from yet another angle. Liz sat half way on a bench and enjoyed the view from there. Here's a picture of the Charles Bridge during the beautiful weather we had (about 15 minutes before Hurricane Prague hit).
At this point Kyle should be arriving in about 45 minutes, I can't wait for all of our traveling, if any of it is even remotely as wonderful as Austria was then I think we're all in for a treat. First stop is a day trip to Cardiff (a 3 hour bus ride that equates to $10 each way, AMAZING!) on Wednesday. Then next Sunday we're off to Edinburgh, Stockholm, Rome, Venice, Chinque Terre, Zermatt, Cologne, Amsterdam and then I'll have one night in London before coming home. I figured I'd write in the itinerary here in case this is my last blog before I head out. 28 days until I come home, crazy isn't it?! See you all soon!
At this point Kyle should be arriving in about 45 minutes, I can't wait for all of our traveling, if any of it is even remotely as wonderful as Austria was then I think we're all in for a treat. First stop is a day trip to Cardiff (a 3 hour bus ride that equates to $10 each way, AMAZING!) on Wednesday. Then next Sunday we're off to Edinburgh, Stockholm, Rome, Venice, Chinque Terre, Zermatt, Cologne, Amsterdam and then I'll have one night in London before coming home. I figured I'd write in the itinerary here in case this is my last blog before I head out. 28 days until I come home, crazy isn't it?! See you all soon!
