Vienna, Austria

Vienna is huge and beautiful and packed with things to do! We started in the morning by attending the morning exercises at the Spanish Riding School. The school is famous for their well trained and beautiful horses and all the cool poses and formations they do during performances. But the performances are about 60 euro and the morning rehearsal was 6. So it was a pretty good deal. I had thought that they were actually going to rehearse the program for that night, but I was wrong. They pretty much just gallopped around the ring and maybe did some fancy steps here and there. So I was a little bummed. But hey, I got to see the horses and riders of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna and that's pretty cool. And I did see a horse or two stand on it's hind legs and hold the pose for a while. So I guess you get what you pay for.

Next stop: Schonburnn Palace and Gardens. This place is amazing! The palace is huge and beautiful and the gardens are AMAZING!!! We didn't actually go in the palace because it was a ridiculous 15 euro or something like that for a 50 minute tour. And I've been to multiple palaces on this and other trips and you've seen one you've seen 'em all! A throne here, a wall sized painting of the king's mother's sister's uncle there. You know what I mean. Also, my travel advisor, Kelly Warneke, told me the gardens were more spectacular than the palace, so I took her wonderful advice and spent all my time enjoying the gardens outside. By the way, thank you so much Kelly for all your wonderful advice on Munich and Austria. I followed your instructions for everything and had a fabulous time! You should write a guidebook! :-) So the gardens were huge! Henry and I walked all the way through the gardens and climbed up the big hill in the back to look out over the palace and it was pretty amazing. Around the gardens there's also tree-lined paths with fountains and running paths and benches. The property of the palace seriously takes up acres and acres. We couldn't even walk through the whole thing while we were there. There is a zoo and a maze and who knows what else in the gardens. It was beauitful and lovely!

When we got back into town I went inside the Karlskirche, a beautiful church, and climbed up to the very top to stand in the dome and look out over the city. It was amazing and the frescos in the church are absolutely beautiful. They are working on restoring them right now, which is why you can climb up on the scafolding inside and even get up there. The inside of this church was one of my favorites.

Next the most exciting part of my trip to Vienna: The Vienna Boys' Choir!!!! I can't believe I got to see them sing! They were so cute and amazing! And oh my goodness, some of them could sing higher than I could ever dream of singing. The little boy sopranos were awesome! There were a few soloists and they were all amazing. One of them was a really tall boy who sang high notes over the top of the rest of the choir during a song and I was extremely impressed. Then this super cute little tiny boy who stood next to the tall guy sang a really cute little solo. You could hardly see him over his huge folder. He was cute as a button! The first half was just the boys and it was amazing. The second half was selections from a mass by Mozart and the boys were joined by some men singing tenor and bass as well as an orchestra. It was cool because when Mozart wrote his masses, it was always boy sopranos and altos singing those parts. The boy who sang the soprano solos in the mass was unbelievable. His voices floated to the high notes and came out so pure and beautiful. It gave me the chills. Wow! Amazing! What a cool thing to see the Vienna boys' choir in VIENNA! :-)

Sarah Cusson joined Henry and I in Vienna after the concert! My next stop is Hungary where I will be staying with Sarah. She is teaching English there for a year through LCMS World Missions. She is in Gyor, which is only an hour and a half train ride from Vienna, so she came on over to spend some time in Vienna with us. So we headed to the Haus der Musik, an interactive music museum that is loads of fun! We played around and learned for several hours. Then we walked around downtown and had tortellini and ice cream for dinner.

Henry, Sarah, and I headed to the Naschmarkt the next morning. It is a huge outdoor market with fresh fruits and vegetables and other yummy foods. We also checked out the flea market but didn't find anything we quite liked. We stuck around long enough to get some lunch there. I had some really yummy falafel. After that we wandered around Vienna, walked up Karntner Strasse to look at the souvenier shops, get some starbucks, and just enjoy Vienna and each other's company. We made our way to St. Stephen's Cathedral, which is absolutely beautiful. It looks kind of gothic, but has a colorful tiled roof, so it's a pretty interesting sight. We went inside as well and saw beautiful stained glass windows and the intricate detail in the sculpting inside the church. There is even a spot where a bust of the architect is peeking out of a sculpted window into the church. It's pretty cute. We all enjoyed it. Our time in Vienna was drawing to a close, so Henry bought Sarah and I some homemade wine they were selling at a booth in the street. Henry is one of the most generous people I have ever met. And it was extremely nice of him to take vacation and come along on a week long of crazy adventures with me. I definitely tired him out making him power walk all over the place and see so many things. He was a great travel partner and I'm very thankful for him. Thanks, Henry! :-)

Vienna was pretty much amazing. They even had free water! The first place so far in all my travels in Europe. They had a big drinking fountain that you could fill up your water bottles and drink from. So cool of them. And of course the Vienna boys' choir was slightly cooler than the free water. :-) I'm so glad I got to go there! Now Sarah and I are off to Hungary. At least we won't be thirsty with the free water from Vienna...