Jul 4, 2005 - Wein for the 4th of July!

Vienna, which means wine, was lovely and chaotic. Chris had been there something like 20 years and couldn't believe how much he had changed. The city was beautiful and full of people for the summer. It was very pricey and a little daunting. One of our great discoveries was an old palm house (green house) at one of the palaces that had been converted into a butterfly house. It was pretty cool outside, so it was great to go somewhere that was 90 degrees and have it look like South America all over again. Very odd, but quite fun. We spent the...

Jun 29, 2005 - Vienna - Day 80

Have arrived in Vienna, the hostel is great as it has a large courtyard where the residents congregate for chat. A nice atmosphere. Havent seen too much of the place yet - but have a few days up my sleeve as dont leave until MOnday morning (7,08am departure for Russia arriving Tuesday night 8,30pm). There must be a time change in there somewhere, but still, a very long trip. Am meeting a friend of Mum and Dad's on Friday which will be fun. Nothing much else to tell. AMx

Jun 27, 2005 - Vienna, Austria

Ellen: Instead of taking a long ride, possibly overnight, right to Prague, Kevin had the nice idea of breaking it up with a stop in Vienna. I had been there 11 years ago on my study abroad in college, and didn't remember being bowled over by it, but thought it sounded nice to go with Kevin. We arrived, bought our tickets to Prague for the next morning, and had the room-booking people book us a room. It was a nice place, close to the train station and a Metro. We wandered the city, had a nice meal, and spent some time in the Manner store....

Jun 19, 2005 - Vienna

9:10am yesterday morning found us staring dumbly at a poster in the a Budapest subway station that roughly said our stop for the train station was closed due to construction. I should have know this from that WWII bomb that they found the other week, but failed to put 2 and 2 together until this morning. %$!&?, we only had 20 minutes to either figure out the bus that was taking the place of the metro or find a cab. And this just after I talked up how great the subway system is in Budapest was in the last post, uggg. Dashing up to street...

Jun 19, 2005 - Vilnius to Warsaw and on to Vienna

Caught yet another train from Vilnius to Warsaw on Sunday. About a nine hour trip through farmlands into Poland. There was no food on the train and we had no Polish money, so arrived tired and hungary at about 9 pm. Found a good hostel near the train station, had a huge meal and crashed. In the morning I had a quick look at the old town - Warsaw is a really interesting place. Worth a longer visit- before hopping yet another train to Vienna. Only a seven hour journey this time and everything very clean and modern on the train. I appeared to...

Jun 17, 2005 - Vienna 2

Well, now that the semester is over everyone is starting to leave or go travel, one by one. It gets a little more sparse every day! My roommate Will left on June 11 to get back for an internship in Texas. I was lucky to get stuck with a good guy, I'm sure we'll hang out alot back in Manhattan. On June 15 Mom, Kari, my aunt Caroline, and my cousin Carla arrived from Kansas City. They spent 10 days in Europe, seeing Prague and traveling to four other cities. It was really nice to see them after being gone for several months. I met them at the...

Jun 17, 2005 - Viena - Praga

Viena tem aproximadamente 1,5 milão de habitantes, mas é uma cidade super compacta e organizada, onde os pontos de maior interesse, em especial os do período Habsburgo, concentram-se ao redor do Hofburg, sede da antiga Corte Imperial. Esta cidade é muito limpa, organizada, bonita e com um povo muito atencioso. Nossa primeira parada foi o jardim do palácio de Hofburg, onde ao longo dos séculos transformou-se num grande palácio, que foi sede do poder austríaco por 6 séculos e no qual sucessivos governadores quiseram deixar a sua...

Jun 12, 2005 - Travelled to Vienna

Well we had another travelling day today this time to Vienna. We stopped at a small Czech town just before the border called Cesky-Krumlov. It was a very cute place and we were given about 30mins to explore it. We saw a choir singing on the streets, which was cool and made the town seem even cuter. We arrived in Vienna at about 3.30, which was about one hour earlier than expected. We had a fairly long walk from the drop off point to our hotel but when we arrived we didn't mind as our hotel is very nice. We spent the night going through...

May 29, 2005 - A long night to Vienna

After getting on our sleeper train to Venice, we were stuck into a minivan sized booth with 5 people! this meant that we couldn't pull the seats out to make beds...grrrrr! Lets just say, I am going on about 4hrs of sleep in the last two days! Luckily enough, we planned ahead this time and we reserved a hostel in Vienna! It is really nice and clean and is only 14 Euros per night! Me and Jesse are waiting to rent bicycles for the afternoon, we get them for e5 if we wait until after 2:30 (regrlarly e12!!)..so I have about 45min to kill! We are...

May 22, 2005 - DAY 12: Vienna

We started the morning slowly, getting ready to head towards the Spanish Riding School to view a performance by the Lippizan stallions. The show started at 11, but we had to be there by 10 since we had standing room tickets. Quite a bit different than regular standing tickets, the majority of all the seating is standing, and is a free for all once the gates open. We were able to secure very good spots near the centre of the ring. The building they perform in is magnificent. Nearly 500 years they have performed for the Austrian court and...

May 22, 2005 - Vienna Austria

We didn't run into Arnold and we didn't write any Mozartesque concertos, but we did learn to play the harpsichord while pumping iron. Vienna is a nice place. They have plenty of big buildings and plenty of famous alumni such as Sigmund Freud and Johan Strauss. After a day of walking around as usual, we decided we should be highly cultured tourists and see some classical music performed. We bought standing room tickets because our hemroids are acting up and sitting down is a bit of a problem these days, but lucky us, it was cheaper that way...

May 21, 2005 - DAY 11: Vienna

Today, we started out with a small problem. We tried to take out some Euro, but the machines kept denying our requests. After travelling back to the hostel and checking our account online, we realized the first transaction went through, but didn't provide any cash! It used up our daily limit, so we had to start making phone calls. Jen was successful in contacting CIBC in Canada and getting her daily limit raised. She also started a claim for not receiving cash from the machine. After contacting Austria Bank, it looks like it will all get...