London to Dusseldorf to San Francisco

I didn’t get much sleep the night before I left for home, and what sleep I did get it wasn’t a very deep sleep. I was really nervous about flying by myself, in particularly my ride to the airport would arrive at the airport around 6:10, and my flight was scheduled to leave at 7:25. I was concerned that I would not have enough time to check my bags and go through security so I was anxious all night about missing my first flight to Dusseldorf. I woke up, got everything ready and got my ride, arriving at the airport around 6:05 (early!) and I walked in to find the Air Berlin desk to check my bags. It was a desert. This place was bare, and that was really exciting for me because I figured I’d have plenty of time and will most certainly catch my flight.

I checked my bags and the lady was very nice and helpful, then moved on over towards security. Once again I was very impressed with the British service, they were just all so nice. Very much Unlike the TSA in the States, who I feel, are just a bunch of individuals on a power trip. They all just had a smile on their face and we’re very accommodating. Unfortunately I went through the metal detector and it went off meaning I had to get a really inappropriate pat down, but whatever I was excited to officially be starting my journey home. I walked to the gate and didn’t have to wait very long before boarding. Even the plane was bare, with very few people on it. I was sitting in the second row from the front and there was no one sitting next to me or in the 2 seats in front of me, and to my left, there was only one person in each row. It was awesome. That flight was very quick, and I noticed for some reason that the Head Steward kept going in to the cockpit. I had never seen that before. The guy went in there at least 4 times during our short hour long flight. Curious. As we landed, and pulled up to the gate, before any one was allowed off, 2 paramedics came on the plane and into the cockpit. I couldn’t see much, but they were taking the pulse of one of the pilots, and (from the back of him) it looked like maybe he was unconscious or just waking up. I think one of our pilots had fainted! That was crazy to think about, but heck, we were in Dusseldorf safely, and there was no panic or anything. So if that was the situation Air Berlin handled it very well.

I got off the plane in Dusseldorf, and had about 3 hours before my next flight, so I slowly walked through the passport control booth (twice-there were 2 that I had to go through) found my gate, and basically hung out for a while. I used one of the internet booths to check in with Ben really quickly and got myself a little sandwich, but otherwise I just hung out in the airport for a while.

They started calling our names and I was one of the last to board the plane, so I found my seat, an aisle seat. Yes! It was an aisle seat on the edge of the middle cluster of 4 seats. I looked over, and there was no one in the other 3 seats. I was one of the last people on the plane, does that mean what I think it means? Heck yes! Whole row of 4 seats all to myself for this 12 hour flight. That will make it much more bearable. I even moved over one so I could stretch my legs longer (plus there was a guy sitting behind my aisle seat, so I didn’t want to recline into him).

I had a fairly comfortable flight, well as comfortable as a 12 hour flight could be. I landed in San Francisco, and fairly quickly went through customs, got my bags and met up with my parents. It was so nice to see them and to officially be home. 

Homeward Bound...Stop Over in London

I have had an amazing 3 days in London with my cousin Kimmy. I believe my last blog let off at me flying on Ryanair to London Stansted airport. I arrived around 22:15 local time, but still had to go through customs than get my bags before I could take the bus to the Liverpool Street Station where I would be meeting up with Kimmy. I accidently got in the wrong line at customs which was for other EU members (I just followed every one else that got off from my plane), but the airport customs agent was very nice and told me where I needed to go. So I went over filled out my little card of information about where I was staying, what I was doing here, etc. then quickly moved on to get my bags. Since the customs took a little longer, seeing as I was in the wrong line, my bags were already on the round-a-bout so I quickly picked them up and headed to find the kiosk where I could buy my bus ticket. I bought my bus ticket and had approximately 10 minutes to find where the bus left from, so I immediately asked for directions from staff and ran to the bus portal. The bus ride was long, but we had free wifi so that made the trip go by much quicker. It was so weird to be on the left side of the road! Leaving the airport we had to go through a round-a-bout and we were going clockwise, it was so weird.

When I arrived at Liverpool St. Station Kimmy was right there to pick me up, and I was super excited to see her and start my quick trip in London. I crashed at her dorm that night, and the next morning we got ready, got some Starbucks and we were on our way sight-seeing. First we saw the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. Both very cool. I was shocked to see how big the Tower of London was! The palaces/castles that we have seen in Central Europe were tiny compared to this. Also, it all looked so well preserved! I decided not to pay to go inside, and save my money for shopping and food (more my thing than history stuff haha). So we walked around, took some pictures, headed over to the Globe and the “Wibbly Wobbly”bridge. We didn’t get to go inside the Globe, but we did do some shopping there haha. Then we headed out to see Big Ben, the London Eye, and Westminster Abbey. Big Ben was awesome, once again looking like it was in pristine condition. We looked around, took some pictures and Kimmy was giving me details on certain things that we saw, which was very helpful.

After seeing those big things we took a walk through St. James Park over to Buckingham Palace there was a lot of construction going on with the roads right outside the palace, but it was still very cool. I loved the elaborate gates, and of course the traditional Red Coat guards. We took some pictures then headed out of the area walking through another park. We then were able to do Picadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square (where we saw the USC marching band putting on a performance), Neil’s Corner and we got to do some shopping as well. That evening Kimmy and I went to a pub “Punch and Judy” where Kimmy got a typical Sunday Roast, and I got some “Bangers and Mash” along with some beer.

After our meal we went back to Kimmy’s dorm to relax a little bit before going back out for an evening service at Westminster Abbey. Now apparently, you’re typically supposed to pay a fee to go inside the Abbey, but as an American I find it ridiculous that I would have to pay to go into a church, so I thought “heck, why don’t we go to a service there?” It’s free, we still get to walk around a little, and we get to say that we went to a service at Westminster Abbey! I was super excited for this too since I haven’t really gone to church the whole time I’ve been living abroad, due to the lack of choices for English churches, so I was super excited to get back into a House of God and worship in a language that I know haha. The sermon was really great, with hymns, the Lord’s Prayer, and a really nice message about how we live in a world where people are constantly questioning the existence of God (Why would God let this happen?), and how we are always looking for physical proof of the Lord, searching for relics and such, but in the end we as Christians are the physical manifestation of God. The Holy Spirit lives within us and how we act or react is (supposed to be) a physical representation of the Lord. It was a very nice message. After the service, Kimmy and I slowly walked on out of the church, trying to take in what we could (we even walked over Sir Isacc Newton’s tomb while inside!) I shook the hand of the Reverend who gave the sermon, and we were on our way back to King’s Cross. I headed to the hostel and quickly went to sleep.

On day 2 of London, we first headed out of the city a little bit to go see (from a distance) the Olympic Stadium that will hold the Summer Games in July. It’s really hard to actually get to so we just saw it from a distance and then headed back into town. We were then planning on going to Abbey Road from there, since there’s a stop near the Olympic Stadium called “Abbey Road”, but it apparently has nothing to do with the Abbey Road where the Beatles went to record their music. Whoops. So instead, we went to Baker Street next, to visit the famous residence of one of my favorite characters ever, Sherlock Holmes. We took our pictures outside the 221B flat, then went inside the gift shop quickly to get a few little souvenirs. THEN, we headed on over to Abbey Road. Mind blowing stuff. It was so cool to walk across Abbey Road, just like on the cover (yes, I had Kimmy take my picture while crossing Abbey Road). We stood outside the tiny Abbey Road studio, read some of the writings on the concrete wall outside of it. This was the place where a lot of the Beatles hits were recorded! It was amazing.

Now Kimmy had been telling me about this store Primark, which had great clothes and great deals, and she told me it was where she bought her Oxfords (shoes) for like £ 6. She also told me how they have some nice kind of “touristy” stuff, but it’s not very expensive, and it’s not TOO touristy. So we got on a double decker bus and headed over to Primark. Kimmy was trying to explain what this store was like to me, and I didn’t really get what she was talking about until we got there. She was saying it was a mix between like a Target and a Macy’s and she imagines it would be like what Black Friday shopping is like, but every day. So needless to say, I was a little intimidated. We got there, and I quickly realized what she meant when trying to describe this store. They had some awesome clothes, and were all at pretty good prices! I got a retro Disney shirt there that also had a Union Jack on it, so that could be my “souvenir”, but it didn’t fit (Kimmy’s going to exchange it for a larger one for me, yay!) Also, while getting in line I saw a large collage tote bag with London phrases and pictures on it for only £ 1.50 so I also made the impulse purchase of that as well.

When the mad rush shopping trip was over we headed over to Harrod’s, which I must say was very impressive. Everything was extraordinarily expensive, but very cool. We walked through the grocery store, candy/chocolate store, as well as the baby, toys, pet, handbags, and perfume/cosmetics section of the enormous store before heading to the Tea Room. Surprisingly, we were able to get a pot of tea that averaged to about 3 cups each (the flavor was Vanilla Excellence, and it was delicious), as well as filing amounts of crumpets and tea cake for a fairly reasonable price. We felt so fancy! We had our afternoon tea and crumpets at Harrod’s and were just trying to fit in with the rest of the classy crowd.

Unfortunately our tea party had to end eventually and we again headed back to Kimmy’s dorm to relax for a little while before heading back out for dinner at the Breakfast Club, which is apparently Kimmy’s favorite place to eat in London. Unfortunately they seemed to not have anything I wanted so I had to “settle” for other choices, but it wasn’t bad. I wish they would have had the pies and mash that I originally wanted, but such is life! After we ate at the Breakfast Club with Kimmy’s friend Lisa, we headed over to Kimmy and her crowds favorite pub, “Filthy Mac Nasty” (tehehe- I thought the name was funny). We had some drinks, played some Jenga, and just chatted which was really nice and enjoyable. Then we went our separate ways for the evening, me to my hostel, Kimmy to her dorm.

The next morning, I got up got ready and met Kimmy outside her dorm so we could head over to a bakery she likes to have some scones for breakfast. We got our scones for take-away and headed over to Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guards. It was such a BEAUTIFUL day! It worked out perfectly that that was the day we went to see the Changing of the Guard. When we got the Palace, it was already pretty crowded, but we still were able to fine places close enough to see everything and take pictures. While we waited we ate our scones, took some pictures, etc. We also saw that the flag waving above the palace was the flag that meant that the Queen was home. I thought that was really cool, and was hoping she’d walk by a window, or come out on the balcony to say “hello”, but no such luck haha. The Changing of the Guard was really cool! It took a while, but it was so beautiful out, that it was still all very enjoyable. We took some great pictures, and enjoyed watching the marching, and listening to the band that was playing. We were actually a little shocked when we heard the choices of music they were playing! We thought it would be like the National Anthem, or at least the Liberty Bell March or something, but no. They played the Jurassic Park theme music, as well as a compilation of songs from the musical “Chicago”, which Kimmy and I enjoyed and were singing and dancing along while they were playing. As the Pomp and Circumstance was dying down Kimmy and I started walking over to Hyde Park, but were stopped by a Bobbie until the procession had completely stopped. He was quite the character, and a super funny guy.

We walked on over to Hyde Park, which I never realized how big it was! Kimmy and I walked from one end to the other, and it was a long walk. Thankfully, the weather was absolutely gorgeous, so we really enjoyed walking through the park. We saw the gardens, the Princess Diana Memorial, the little pond with paddle boats, and many statues, but of course my favorite was the Peter Pan Memorial Statue.

After walking all the way through Hyde Park, we headed over to the British Museum. Now, there is a BUNCH of stuff in there, but we didn’t really have a huge amount of time to spend there, so there were a few things that I really wanted to see, then we moved on. We spent most of our time in the Ancient Greece and Egyptian section, and of course saw the Rosetta Stone. That was really neat to see. The basis of language and communication as we know it came from this stone! There were a lot of people trying to see it, so we didn’t stay there for long before moving on to see the Greek section of statues and other sculptures. We were there for a little while then headed over to the Egyptian mummy section, which, call me creepy, but I’ve always found fascinating. How the Ancient Egyptians took care of the dead, and how amazingly preserved these bodies are was always really cool to me. So we saw a few mummies, and we even got to see Cleopatra’s mummy. All the mummy’s that I saw also had a picture of their CAT scan, and it was interesting to see how the people embalming them took out there organs then put them back in the chest cavity. Also, the way they injected liquid in to the head after the brain had been removed to preserve the body. Very neat. The other cool thing Kimmy showed we was more of a “Social Art Experiment” and it was about the amount of drugs prescribed to people every year. This artist physical represented the amount of medication that the average person will take in their life time, put every pill in its own little pocket in nylon and it was rolled out for you to walk by. It was so crazy to see this physical representation of the amount of drugs that the average person will put in their body in their life time!

We left the British Museum, and we didn’t get to spend that much time there, but it really is more of a “Day Adventure”, thankfully it’s free to go in, so I didn’t feel bad about leaving fairly early haha. Before heading back to Kimmy’s place to relax, we stopped by the British Library, which held pieces of the Magna Carta, writings from Leonardo Di Vinci, religious texts, AND the original first drafts (hand written) of some of the Beatles songs. The Magna Carta was neat, I’m not as in to history like Ben, so I was more excited about some of the other stuff that was there. We checked out the Di Vinci writings which are written in “Mirror Style” since Di Vincia was left handed, we wrote from right to left on his papers instead of left to right. Even though it was in Italian and I wouldn’t be able to read it even if it wasn’t mirrored, it was still really neat to see his journal and what he dashed down about his theories of arithmetic and such. Even his mathematic equations were backwards! It was neat. Then of course there were the Beatles writings. They had the original hand written first drafts of “Michelle” (written on the back of an envelope), “Yesterday”, “Ticket to Ride”, “Help!” and another one that was written on the back of a Birthday Card, which I can’t remember right now. I obviously thought this was really cool, and the thing I found the most fascinating was how all these lyrics were just written on scrap paper. Things that were lying around the house. These men were so talented that they would have inspiration strike and they’d pick up whatever was around to jot it down as quickly as they could. On the display it has a little story of how Paul McCartney wrote “Yesterday” and apparently he woke up with the song in his head, the melody the lyrics, and was convinced it was already a song. He thought he had heard it before and it was stuck in his head, nope. He just came up with one of the most popularly covered song in the history of pop music, subconsciously while sleeping. Fascinating.

That evening after we had our “quiet” time we went out to a pub for our last meal together in London. I got fish and chips. Yes, I know that doesn’t sound like me at all, but Ben made me promise to have some for him since he couldn’t be with me in London, plus I wanted to try the local food, so Fish and Chips it was. It wasn’t too bad, thankfully it was very fried and didn’t taste much like fish. Kimmy and I talked over our meal, and we hung out at the pub for a little while. Once we were finished we decided to head back to her place, and get my stuff so I could start my journey home. We got my stuff, then took a bus to Liverpool Street Station, where I then (just barely) got on to another bus that took me out to Stansted airport, then I took a cab to my Bed and Breakfast for the evening. I checked in and quickly prepared myself for the long trip the next morning. Took a shower, got into bed and watched some South Park before going to “sleep”.

I woke up the next morning at 5:00 after a long night of not much sleep to start the second part of my journey home. 

My Journey Home-Bratislava

I’ve been in London for 2 full days now with Kimmy and I’ve been having a blast. What a beautiful city! I’ve loved everything we’ve done so far and I still have 2 whole days left =). Although, starting my trip home started a couple days ago, so I should probably re-cap.

May 18^th was my last day in Vienna, so Ben and I went to visit Schönbrunn and walked around a little before settling on a bench to just relax. We sat and talked and enjoyed being there together one last time. We then had a fairly relaxing evening, saw some friends then headed home to get some rest for the busy day ahead.

On May 19^th we had some chocolate croissants from Der Mann with coffee before heading to the train station to go to Bratislava (with all my huge bags in tow). We checked the bags at the train station then walked around the city, seeing a few sites, like the Castle there, St. Michael’s Gate, etc. Since we didn’t have a big breakfast we were starting to get hungry so we found a little place (a brewery type restaurant for a local beer) and decided this would be a good place to eat. Plus the fact that a half liter of beer was only 1 Euro 70, also helped make our decision ;). We had some delicious food, Ben got garlic soup that had a bunch of cheese at the bottom, and I got a half chicken in a blue cheese sauce with fries. It was delicious! After that we walked around a little more just exploring the city and saw a few booths with homemade knickknacks and stuff for sale. We checked those out and kind of meandered on back towards the train station where we would take the bus to the Bratislava airport.

We got on the bus with our huge bags and took it on out to the airport. Since I was flying Ryanair their desk didn’t open until about 7 (my flight was at 9) and we got there around 6:30, so we just hung out at the airport which was nice. When the desk finally did open I was nervous to weigh my bags to make sure I kept them under the allotted weight, since it was very expensive if your bags went over. They were supposed to be under 21 kg and under 16 kg and my bags were 20.8 and 15.8 kg. Woot woot! Once huge burden had been lifted and I immediately felt much better about traveling. Ben walked me to security we said our sad good-bye.

As I was going through security my name was called on the speaker overhead, so I asked what that was about. The security agents all said, “ah you is ok” so I moved on. I walked through security, through customs, where the lady seems confused seeing I only had one stamp in it when I came in through Dusseldorf back in September, so I quickly showed her my Vienna ID and she allowed me to pass on through. I settled in near my gate and my name was again called on the overhead speaker. What the heck do they want? They didn’t stop me in security when I went through and I kept telling them all I was the person being called on the intercom. I freaked out a little when I realized I had to go back to security, so I did and quickly told and agent that I was the person they had been calling and asked them what to do. “You wait here madame.” Oooohhh kkaaaay. I waited while the agent went in the back room to get another man who then came out and asked me to follow him. Oh my gosh, do they think I’m some sort of threat to security? What’s wrong? He quickly asks me if I have a lighter in my bag (which I had bought as a souvenir for a friend of mine) so I tell him “yes” and he says you can’t have that in your checked baggage. Well ok, this sucks I guess I have to throw it out now. So I got to my bag in the bag room, then removed the lighter and gave it to him, he looked at it and told me to put it in my pocket. Ok? I was glad I didn’t have to throw it away, but I was confused as to what kind of security rules allow you to have fire on your person, but not in your checked bags. Oh well.

The rest of the trip was fairly calm, waited to get on the plane, with the typical Ryanair mad dash to the plane. I had terrible expectations for Ryanair, but it wasn’t too bad, so that was nice. Besides the screaming baby behind me, the flight overall was fairly uneventful.

The "RyanAir" Mad Dash to get the best seats!

Now I know I’m in London now, but I think I’ll hold off on my London blog until after I get home.  So I know you all are on the edge of your seats, but you’ll just have to wait to hear about my London trip.

I'll leave my heart in Vienna

Well Ben and I just spent a lovely but quick weekend in Prague. We have been wanting to do a trip to Prague since before we arrived, and continually put it off until now and I’m really glad that we finally got to go.

We arrived in the Czech Republic late on Friday evening, found a cab and had them take us to our hotel. We stayed in a really nice, reasonable place with complimentary breakfast in the morning, and was (of course) walking distance from all the down town attractions. We quickly got to sleep and set our alarm for the next morning.

When we woke up the next morning we had a lovely breakfast and tried to fill ourselves up with the free food so we wouldn’t have to pay for much more food for the rest of the day, it is interesting how people’s characters come out when a free breakfast is involved too. There was one woman there (it wasn’t me I swear!) who took about 3-4 baguettes worth of bread to her table for her little family of 3. I understand that it’s a free breakfast but there’s’ no need to take THAT much bread for yourself! Geez! Anyways, after breakfast Ben and I headed downtown taking pictures the whole way of the lovely architecture. We walked through the old gate into the old part of town and walked around near all the souvenir and crystal shops. At the end of the road there was a huge town square of sorts with the big clock, and every hour everyone gathers around to see it chime and have the little robots dance around. Since we had some time before the clock would start chiming, we went to check out a church right near the town square. It was beautiful! It was definitely a “Bohemien” church with beautiful art and amazing architecture and statues. It was all very baroque so the church seemed much lighter than other churches we’ve seen. We then walked across the town square to the clock to see it chime. The chiming itself wasn’t super impressive, in the context of todays technology, but when thinking about how long this animatronic clock has been dancing around at the hour, it was really neat to think about!

When the clock was done chiming we decided to head over to the castle, and along the way found a Hard Rock Café! No, we didn’t eat there, but it was really neat to see, and I almost got something from it, but decided against it. We continued our journey to the castle and crossed the beautiful bridge where many jewelers and artists were selling their work. It was all very beautiful, but didn’t get to buy anything from them unfortunately. On the bridge we came across a sculpture of sorts that apparently is rubbed for luck. There’s two pictures, one of a woman and one of a dog, and apparently you rub the woman for good luck, and the dog is bad luck, but people were rubbing both, and I didn’t get to get close to either of them since there was such a huge line, so on we went with our journey to the castle. We trekked up a huge staircase to get to the castle and when we got to the top we had a beautiful view of the city. We took some pictures and enjoyed looking at the city before walking farther into the grounds of the castle. Apparently, we arrived there just in time for the “Changing of the Guard”. Since the castle is technically no longer a castle, it is currently a political building which is guarded, and we saw a little bit of the changing of the guards before moving on to the next part. We saw a tiny part of the garden then moved to the other side of the castle where we saw another church. This one was older than the other church we had previously checked out and was more of a neo-gothic style. Once again, another beautiful church.

We then left the castle area, tried to see Kaftka’s house on the way down, but apparently you can only get to it if you’re in a tour group, which is unfortunate. We walked down another set of stairs and crossed another bridge and made our way over to the Jewish Quarter of Prague. Since it was a Saturday the area was very quiet, but we still got to see the synagogue and the outside of the Jewish cemetery. Also, while we were there we did some crystal shopping! We had seen other stores, but Ben showed me the store where he bought crystal for his parents when he was there in 2003 so we went to that shop. Thankfully, they said they will ship our crystal for us, so we bought a few things 2 gifts and 1 thing for ourselves. All together, it was pretty expensive and would love to come back to buy more nice things, but for now I think we’re good. After some more shopping around we had a later lunch/early dinner at a restaurant had some local Czech beers and enjoyed our time there. We even met an older couple from Arizona who were on vacation there. So we talked to them for a little while before they had to leave. When we finished our meal we walked outside and, BAM! It was raining! The whole day the weather had been gorgeous, bright, sunny, and warm, and now it was raining. Thankfully, I had my umbrella so I busted it out on our walk back home, stopping a few times to get souvenirs. We got back to the hotel around 4 and spent the rest of the evening in our room watching hockey on TV, playing games on the internet and eating our snacks for “dinner”. It’s a good thing we got back when we did too, because not long after getting back the storm had hit and we could hear the pouring rain outside with thunder and lightning as well.

The next morning we had another filling breakfast then checked out of our hotel before walking around downtown again, looking for more gifts and other types of food. For lunch we got some foods that were being sold from booths in the town square. I had a yummy Langos which is basically a flat piece of fried dough and you can pick your “topping” they had Nutella, ketchup, or garlic. I chose garlic. Ben had some kraut, but got a little bamboozled with the price since the guy said you had to buy it by grams, so Ben wanted 100 g of it, and the guy pilled on a bunch more anyways. Oh well, he seemed to enjoy it even though it was overly expensive.

After our lunch we headed back to the train station and waited for our train to arrive then hopped on the train to start our 5 hour journey home. After we arrived back in Vienna, we met up with our friends at a Heurigen for some wine and food and of course just overall conversation. It’s been great to spend as much time with our friends as possible before heading back home.

It was interesting though, as we were riding the U-Bahn to meet up with our friends, I felt so peaceful. I felt like I was home after being in Prague where I didn’t know where anything was, and didn’t know the language that was being spoken. Riding the U-bahn once we got to Wien felt comfortable to me, and it made me feel relaxed because we were home. I will only be able to call this amazing city “home” for 2 more weeks, and then I leave. I got kind of teary eyed thinking about it. I have loved everything that has happened in the past 8 months for Ben and I. Yes, it’s been stressful at times and I thought to myself, “Why did I leave the States and a job to come here?” But I know it was all in God’s plan for us. I am so grateful for this opportunity, and when I leave I know I’ll be leaving a little of my heart in this city because it will always be special to me. I pray that Ben and I will get to come back often, and maybe (if we win the lottery or something) we could have a flat here to come to during the summers or during holidays. We will see what the future holds.  

More Esswein's in Europe

I just counted (again) how many days I have left in Vienna. Fourteen. Only 14 more days left before I head to Bratislava, then London, then home. There’s still so much to do! I’m starting to feel a little overwhelmed.

Well a few big things: First off, I just started working with another family about 3 weeks ago. Crazy, I know since I’m leaving so soon, but they’re American and have a 6 month old baby. The Dad works for the UN and they just moved to Vienna, so the Mom said she’d be willing to have me babysit at least for a little while that I’ll be here. I’ve really enjoyed this family and wish it would have worked out for me to have worked for them longer, but hopefully we will be able to keep in touch.

Secondly, Ben’s parents just visited us! They arrived on Tuesday the 17^th of April and we got to do a lot of the touristy things since they were here, obviously St. Stephan’s and Hermesvilla as well as the Hofburg, plus Café Landtmann . During the first weekend they were here, we took a trip to a little Austrian town, Mittersill where we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast, did a little exploring in the rain, and checked out the castle there. We also got to go to Munich (which was only 2 hours way) to meet up with a second-cousin of Ben’s mother. We had a good time, but weren’t in Munich long (next time I go to Munich I need to spend more than 24 hours there! Haha). We went to a Bierhalle got some souvenirs, then headed back to Mittersill. Ben’s parents left for Italy the Monday after they arrived and were there there until that Thursday, then they came back to Vienna to spend more time with us before heading back to the States. Thankfully they arrived home safely and they were even able to take home some of our space bagged clothes and souvenirs.

Thankfully, we’ve been doing better financially so we’ve been catching up on all our souvenirs, and will hopefully be able to finish soon. I believe we only have 8 or so souvenirs left to buy, and since we’re going to Prague this weekend, we’ll be able to get a few out of the way while there. The plan for this week is to get as many as I can, but also try to enjoy being in Vienna. While I’m thinking about it, here are a few things I want to do before I leave:

-Another picnic or some sort of gathering with the rest of the Fulbright gang before I leave

-Prague

-A nice brunch out by Heitzing (Ben and I have found this place that has a great deal for a huge breakfast, and haven’t been able to go yet!)

-Hookah bar

-Finish buying souvenirs and ship them home!

-Heurigen (as many times as possible)

-One more opera- “The Barber of Seville”


Ben and I are doing a last little “vacation” before I leave and are going to spend the weekend in Prague, checking out the castle, doing some shopping, and overall just enjoy being together for one of our last weekends left before I head home. I plan to get a lot of shopping done, mostly crystal.  

Prost! Ben and I at Cafe Landtmann on a lovely afternoon with his parents.

45 Days and Counting...

On the train coming home from babysitting today, I got out my Planner to make a “To-Do” list for tomorrow since I don’t have any work. I looked at the date, and it really hit me, “Wow, today is April 4^th, and I’m leaving Vienna on May 19^th.” I counted it up and have a total of 45 (or 44 depending on if you start by counting today or tomorrow) days left in Vienna with Ben. Over the past few weeks I’ve been so excited about going home to see my family, my friends, Murray and start settling back down to life in the States, I completely overlooked the fact that this city of Wien has been my home for almost 8 months and I’ve gotten in to my own little routine here. I’m really truly going to miss this city and this amazing adventure in my (our) life is almost over. Ben and I spent so long preparing for this trip here, but now that the end is coming near I feel like I’m not really prepared for it. There’s still so much to do and like I said, I’m really going to miss this time in our lives.

Don’t get me wrong, Ben and I have been able to do so many things while here, but there is still a lot that we want to do. Example, we need to do our trip to Prague! We are planning on doing it the first weekend in May, taking a train on May 4^th in to Prague then spending the night there, then doing all the sight seeing and shopping on May 5^th, taking a late train back to Vienna (Fellow Fulbrighters: if you are interested in joining us for this weekend trip let us know via FB!).

There’s also the things that I don’t think we’ve taken ENOUGH advantage of while here! The cafes, the Heurigens, the down town adventure, and more. So for the next few weeks, I plan on trying to do all these things more and more, even if it means just me going down town to the Hofburg by myself to sit in the park with a Käsekrainer.

For the past few weeks I’ve been thinking about what type of things I will be excited for when I get back to the States (mainly food items) and thinking about all the things I will miss, so while they are in my head, here are just a few of the things I’m looking forward to vs. things I’m going to miss:

Can’t wait to have in the States:

• ·         In’ N’ Out Burger Cheeseburger
• ·         A Chocolate Milk Shake
• ·         Buffalo Wings
• ·         Starbucks-Ok, now I know that it won’t be the same as the “real” coffee here, but I do miss my sweet little treats from there like the White Chocolate Mochas. I now put Starbuucks more in a category for being like a “Milk Shake” or “Dessert” place than a “coffee place”.
• ·         Availability to a car- I’ve loved the public transit here, don’t get me wrong. But it will be nice to have the freedom of a car again, where I can leave when I want, arrive when I want, park right next to where I need to be, etc.
• ·         My friends and family
• ·         Vanilla and Peanut Butter – Aww, The simple pleasures in life! I’ve done some baking while here, and they don’t sell Vanilla extract here the way that we have it in the States. In the States it’s a liquid. Here it’s in sugar form, which obviously is harder to bake with. I miss regular Vanilla for my baking. Also, we have not had peanut butter once since being here. It’s not big here. Although, I have become a huge fan of Nutella, I still can’t wait to get home and have a classic PB & J sandwich.

Austrian things that will be missed:

• ·         Coffee – I’m going to miss having a Melange with the delicious Julius Mienl coffee
• ·         Pastries – All of them. The Sacher Torte, Apple Strudel, Chocolate croissants, and more.
• ·         "Grüß Got" – I LOVE this greeting! Translated it means “God’s Greeting”, which I’ve always found so welcoming. It’s really just used as a “Hello” here, so it’s just a nice way to acknowledge someone’s presence, but still. I love this greeting, and might try to take it back with me to the States.
• ·         The kids I babysit – I’ve had ups and downs with all of them, but they will all be missed in one way or another.
• ·         Schnitzel, Berner Wurstel, Käsekrainer and other assorted Viennese food
• ·         The freedom/Routine – Ben and I have had a lot of flexibility and time to be able to just spend time with each other. We’ve gotten in to a routine where we have our morning coffee together, maybe with some pastries or cereal and play cards, listening to the radio and talking. It’s been nice to have the ability to sit and talk with out feeling a real time constraint. I’ve also loved my little routine when going to work. Walking to the train station, picking up a “Heute” and looking through the articles (Is there anything that I might be able to translate? Anything that looks interesting) Then getting on the train, flipping to the “Spiel” page and doing the Sudoku while traveling to my destination.
• ·         The opportunities- Yes, we’ve been living in Europe for 8 months, and no we haven’t really been outside of Austria much. It’s been nice just being close to say, Italy, Switzerland or France. We haven’t been able to go unfortunately, but because we’re so close, the opportunity was always there!
• ·         The walking/Public Transit
• ·         The Fulbrighters – We’ve been so blessed to have such an amazing group of Fulbrighters here with us and willing to socialize with us! I’m glad we’ve made our little clique, and Ben and I look forward to coming to visit all of you in the States once we get back (Yes, I just invited ourselves to visit you all! Haha).

I’m sure there’s a ton that I’m missing on both lists, but this is what I could think of for now. Well, I’m off the enjoy the beautiful weather, in this beautiful city that I’ve grown so fond of.

Sacher Torte & A Baby

Only approximately 8 more weeks for me left in Vienna. I can’t believe how quickly time is passing! I leave Vienna on May 19^th, then go to London for a few days to visit Kimmy and see the sights. I’m trying to enjoy everything here with Ben, but as I’ve stated in the past, it’s exciting to think about going home to see my family and friends.

One of the main things I wanted to try to do before going home was to practice making the Viennese specialty, the Sacher Torte. Yesterday, I invited some friends over for the day so we could attempt to make the Sacher Torte as well as some other baking goods like chocolate chunk cookies and hot cross buns. The Sacher Torte recipe I had was in German from the Hotel Sacher Cookbook, so I needed Tessa and Ann’s help to translate and it was quite the complicated and detailed process. We spent most of the day making the batter the perfect consistency, allowing the cake to bake, then letting it cool, cutting it up to make a Marillen Marmalade layer, then making the icing to cover the cake with. We all had a part and we were glad we were all there to attempt the first Sacher Torte we’d ever made. Now hopefully the next time I’ll need minimal help haha. Later that evening we all had a piece and from the feedback it sounded like many people thought it tasted fairly similar to the Original Sacher Torte, so now I will be able to use this recipe in the future. There are a few things that I would think I would try to tweek for next time, but overall it turned out very well.

Another big thing that happened this weekend is that the Easter Market opened at Schönbrunn! We went there on Saturday but just got to look around quickly, so we will be going back sometime soon to try the g’spritz Wein as well as the yummy food. Well and of course do some shopping! They had a lot of beautiful booths with lots of fun gifts to buy. I can’t wait to go back and shop!

For those of you who didn’t see, Ben and I also became and Aunt and Uncle this weekend when Ben’s younger sister gave birth to a 9 lbs. 1.06 oz, 20 in, Azaileeya Rose at 4:05 am on March 25^th, 2012. We welcome this little girl and can’t wait to see her when we get home.

A Night to Remember...

Well a lot of stuff happened this week. Some good, some bad, but at least it shook things up a bit. I’ll start with the good exciting stuff that happened this week.

First off, I booked my flight to come home in May! I’m going to miss Vienna, the people we’ve met here and obviously my husband since he will be staying here for another month before coming back home. But I also can’t wait to get home to see my family, friends and of course my little Murray boy. The other big exciting part about coming home is that I will be stopping in London for a few days to visit my cousin Kimmy and obviously see the sites. I’m so excited to go to London and do as much touristy stuff as possible! I’m very much looking forward to the entire thing. So for those of you who are wondering about the dates, here’s the plan for my trip coming home:

Ben and I will take a train to Bratislava and spend the day there on Saturday, May 19^th, I will then fly from Bratislava to London. We were able to find a good priced ticket on Ryanair, but it doesn’t fly out of Vienna so we figured we could at least make a last little day trip out of it as well. I will arrive in London late on the 19^th and will stay until the 23^rd. On May 23^rd my flight is bright an early out of London Stansted airport at 7:35 meaning I will have to be at the airport by like 5:35 or so. It will be quite a long day, but it will be nice to start my journey home. From what I understand I will arrive back in San Francisco around 16:00-17:00 (4:00p-5:00p for you non-military time folk lol) on May 23^rd, so it will be nice to be back home and the plan would obviously be to stay up as late as possible to try to avoid jetlag haha.

The other good news is that my cousin Kimmy will be visiting Ben and I in Vienna next weekend! We can’t wait to have her and we’ll have lots to do! It’ll be so nice to see a familiar face again.

Now for the “bad news”. Well Ben and I have really enjoyed going to opera while here and Carmen was playing on Thursday so we got Tessa and Jeff to come along with us and we we’re all really excited. We stood in the standing section for Act I and II humming along to all the beautiful music and trying to follow the plot line as much as possible. As the third act came around, I was standing in the corner, and because Carmen is such a popular opera, we we’re all jam packed in the standing area. Even the walk ways were filled with people standing. Anyways, after the set change in the 3^rd act we had a few minutes to chat, and I turned to Ben to tell him I started feeling really hot, which I didn’t think was unusual since there were so many people in this little tiny area. Ben gave me his program to fan myself and I tried to sit down for a second, and that didn’t work. The opera resumed, so I stood back up and was feeling really uncomfortable, nauseous, and hot. I couldn’t stand there any longer and told Ben I had to get out of there. Of course I was in the corner so had to try to push by Ben and Tessa and Jeff, and as I started trying to leave, I got really dizzy, I turned to Ben and the next thing I knew Ben and Jeff were grabbing me by the arms and trying to help me get up off the floor and out of the standing section. Ya…I definitely passed out at the opera. I was quickly guided out of the area and started to pass out again so I became very disoriented, and all I heard was one of the ushers giving me directions in German, making me obviously even more confused. They began speaking English and I laid on the floor and propped my feet up. The ushers came over and gave me some water, then the doctor came over to check my blood pressure. Tessa translated what the doctor was asking and basically told me that my blood pressure was really low and after telling him how I had coffee on an empty stomach and apparently not enough water he concluded that I was just dehydrated and to drink as much water as I could. He opened up his first aid kit and put some drops in my water (which I still don’t know what it was) and told me to drink it up, because when a stranger puts drops of an unknown substance while in another country, you know you’re supposed to just follow orders haha. So obviously I was very embarrassed and felt bad that our whole little group had to miss that last part of the opera, but I was so glad everyone was there and were as helpful as they were. I quickly felt better and we left before the crowd got out. We all got something to eat and laughed about the situation, which made it all much easier to deal with. Clearly we all had a night to remember at the opera, and will have a great story to tell everyone in the future =P.

For those of you who are concerned, I’m fine now. I was just dehydrated and quickly was able to rehydrate myself. Damn you strong Austrian coffee! If I had just had the watered down coffee that I’m used to from Starbucks this never would have happened! Oh well, like I said, now I’ve got one hell of a story. 

"Nine" vs. "Nein"

Not much new going on here. But, on my way home today on the train I thought about how I should write another blog when I get home, just discussing some reflection I’ve had since being here in Vienna. Maybe it’s just the two cups of strong Viennese coffee that I’ve had today, but here it goes!

Well the biggest “news” is that I got another nannying job for the duration of my time here (yay!) so now I will be working with 3 separate families Monday-Friday afternoons, and be getting an extra 30-70 Euro a week, depending on the week. This new family also has younger kids, a 3 and a 5 year old. Today I only got to meet the 3 year old, but man was he a cutie! And such a goofball. This family lived in London for the past few years (even though the Mother told me she’s actually Dutch, and her youngest son was actually born in Malaysia, so needless to say they’ve done a lot of traveling and moving around) and so their English is very good. The three year old has a precious (but faint) British accent when speaking English with an underlying Dutch accent. Seeing this 3 year old go from speaking one language with his mother to another language with me really reminded me of how I want to have my kids learn many different languages from a young age.

Ben and I were actually just talking about teaching our future children other languages this morning too. I told him how I had been looking into job possibilities for when we get back to Southern California, and how frustrating it was for me to find a job that looked like an amazing opportunity, a job I would be great at, a job working with kids in a non-profit setting, then just to scroll down further seeing that I MUST be bilingual in Spanish to even apply. Granted it’s my own fault that I never learned Spanish, it never interested me. I was always more in to “exotic” languages like French, or Italian, and eventually Sign Language (I’ve always been a speaker with my hands anyways, so it came much more automatic to me). We discussed how we want to be able to open those kinds of opportunities for our kids and teaching them other languages besides English. I’m not expecting my kids to be multi-lingual per say, but even just giving them tools and vocabulary in certain languages besides English I would imagine could be very beneficial.

Regarding the topic of “language”, I’ve noticed a bunch of little things that I just find interesting since arriving here back in September. For one, noticing the fact that the “context” of a word has more to do with when the child learns it vs. the actual ability to make the sounds. For example, in English, a child wouldn’t learn the word “nine” until maybe they were about 3 years old and begin to learn to count, learning all their numbers. In a German speaking country the word “nein” (pronounced “nine”) is one of the first words a child will learn, because it means “no”.  The ability to say the sound “nine” is not difficult, but when the child will learn to say it all depends on the cultural context of the word. I know I’m kind of rambling, but stay with me. I remember in college learning about how in different cultures, a child’s first words (when translated into English) may not make much sense to us, and aren’t “typical” first words for a child. We discussed how in some cultures, the first words that a child will learn are the words to identify feelings, like “love” or “hurt” vs. the first words in our culture which are “labels” like “Mom”, “Dad”, “Ball”. This is all stuff that I had already known, but when actually living in a different culture, it makes it all stand out and it’s much more clear to me. It’s just really interesting to notice the cultural language differences.

Even though I’ve noticed many differences in language while here, there are similarities I have noticed as well. I was working with one of the 3 year olds I work with yesterday and it was so cute to see her try to tell a story in German. I obviously didn’t know everything that she was trying to say but I would understand when she would get “stuck” in her story and start saying “und, und, und, und, und” like how any American kid would do when “stuck” in a story, “and, and, and, and, and”. It was very cute.

Maybe this is all sticking out to me now because I just turned in my Loma Linda application for the Communication Sciences program, and I’m trying to get in the “Communication Sciences” mode.

Also, I find it fascinating that while I write this I’m watching two Austrians have a conversation in German (Our landlord and a “handy man” to fix our windows). Just from watching these two converse, I also noticed that they are talking simultaneously to each other, which I’ve noticed as well here. People having a conversation will talking at the same time, and I have no idea how they catch what the other person is saying when they are talking, but they do it. It looks way too complicated to even try, haha.

Besides my rambling, not much else is new. I’ve been baking a lot this week and want to try to make a Sacher Torte here sometime soon, which I want to “perfect” by the time I leave. Also, we just now bought ground coffee to make at our apartment, we were just buying all our coffee at the local quick coffee spots, Anker, Der Mann, Ströck, etc. But now we can make our own coffee at home, which is actually fairly dangerous. We bought the Julius Meinl coffee and have been making it fairly strong, leaving me jittery and energetic all day. Thus why I had this urge to write a random blog ;)

Liebe,

Katie

Stuck in a Rut...

Not much new has really been happening here. I think it’s the reason I’ve been feeling so homesick lately. I’ve been less busy with nannying, which is a good and a bad thing. I enjoy having the time to myself, but it can get boring and then all I do is think about home and how if I was back home I could call Chelsea and maybe go to coffee. Or I could go see a movie with my brothers. I hate not being able to do those things. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still so grateful for the opportunity to be here, and Ben’s doing well with his research. He told me just the other day that if he HAD to he’d be able to use all the information he’s already gathered to write his dissertation. Thankfully he still has about 5 months here so he will get all the material needed to write a truly great dissertation.

I think one of the main things that’s bugging me right now is the fact that since I’m not really nannying as much, our finances are a little tighter than they were before. So even when I do have time to myself (and even if it wasn’t as cold as heck here!) I can’t really go do the things that I would love to do, like just go to a coffee shop downtown or go shopping. The burdens of having no money…

Since I’ve been kind of limited to what I can do these days, I’ve spent most of my time watching random TV shows online, or looking into job opportunities for when I get back home, giving me even more to look forward to. I already had one phone interview for a Summer Camp job in San Jose (I didn’t get it) and I have another 2 phone interviews coming up for similar jobs, which is exciting. I love thinking of the possibility to work in San Jose and stay there for the summer spending some well-needed time with my family and friends before Ben and I head back to So-Cal in August-ish. There’s so much to look forward to for us, so it’s hard to just enjoy the moment. I miss my family and friends so I can’t wait to see them. I’m excited for Ben’s teaching possibilities for once he gets back, and this week I just turned in my Loma Linda Transitional Master’s Program application for Speech Pathology/Communication Sciences, so if I get in that’s another huge thing to look forward to. Also, the possibility of Ben and I extending our family (all in God’s timing). These are all such exciting things to look forward to for ourselves, but I’m forgetting to live in the moment.

Hell, I’m in Vienna, Austria. I’ve wanted to come to Europe for as long as I can remember. Although, it’s really tough being away from my family and friends, I need to remember where I am and to continually thank the Lord for this amazing opportunity. I’ve still got at least 4 months here, so I better enjoy every second of it =).

                                                                                                                                                                 

P.S: Since my cousin Kimmy just got to London for her study abroad program, I’m planning on trying to visit her at some point (and hopefully she’ll be able to visit us here too) so maybe that will help with my homesickness, seeing someone from the amazing family that I miss so dearly =)

TU Ball 2012

Whew! This past week has been tiring! On Thursday Ben and I went to the TU Ball at the Hofburg Palace, which we have been preparing for this whole New Year. A few weeks ago, my Mom sent me a dress from the States along with shoes, a bag, Ben’s shoes and other essentials for a Black Tie affair and we we’re getting as prepared as possible for the long night ahead. Plus, since it was cheaper and more worthwhile to do so, Ben bought a tux! Which I must say he looked rather dashing in. Having all the clothes and attire ready, we then had to take a waltzing class to at least learn the basics, so we didn’t look totally foolish for the TU Ball.

Last Thursday we went to the waltzing lesson, which really wasn’t long enough (only for an hour). Ben and I tried to get the steps, but since Ben is left-handed/left-footed the natural way for him to turn was the reverse way so we had to “relearn” it a little bit, but eventually felt a little more comfortable with the steps. The steps themselves were easy, but it was more keeping to the beat of the music, and trying to keep up with the music. So we all waltzed around and practiced then were turned loose to practice at home over and over again until the Ball a week later. So throughout the week, Ben and I would move some furniture around in our apartment and practice waltzing around our living room, and eventually we got a little more comfortable with the steps, but still want to continue practicing.

This past Thursday evening was the TU Ball, and we had already made arrangements to get together with some friends ahead of time to have dinner and get ready, so I went over early and dropped off all of our Ball Attire, then went on to nannying. I was nannying for 3 hours and the whole time I kept checking on the time to see if it was time to go get ready yet, eventually the time passed and I met up with everyone at Tessa’s apartment for dinner then we all got ready to head to the Ball. Ben and I had brought some champagne but didn’t really have time to drink it before, so we brought the bottle with us and drank it along the way. Yes, super classy I know.

We arrived at the Hofburg quickly checked our coast and tried to scope out a good place to see the “opening ceremony” type performance, which was absolutely beautiful. After all the VIP’s walked in there was a quick little speech and the dancing began! First we wanted to check out the other rooms, so we saw the Main Ballroom with all the waltzing, then we went into another room which had some jazz and swing type dancing, next we went to the Polkanaise room, which had a little Polka band playing and Polka dancing, since we had just arrived we didn’t join in for the Polkanaise, but I wish we had because it actually looked really simple, very much like “Follow the Leader”. Moving on we went back to the Main Ballroom to watch the Quadrille, which is really hard to explain. It’s a huge line of people and it’s sort of like a “Square Dance”, but much classier. It looked pretty complicated, so it was nice to enjoy it from a far at first.

After the Quadrille they played the “Blue Danube Waltz” and of course we had to take to the dance floor for the most popular waltzing song ever. So Ben and I braced ourselves and started waltzing…well we TRIED to waltz. There were so many people on the floor that everyone was running into everyone! It eventually just became a game of spin and shuffle around trying not to hit or get hit. It really was like a huge game of Bumper Cars. However, it was fairly enjoyable, and even though because of the limited space we didn’t really get to do any of the official waltz steps, I still really enjoyed it.

We danced a little while longer, then wanted to try to find some seats, unfortunately there really weren’t any. The Fulbright had reserved about 4 tables with 4 chairs at each table for about 80 people including the undergrads in the exchange program. It was pretty ridiculous and weren’t really able to even sit down until 2 am because the undergrad exchange students were at the table for the whole time, which I don’t understand. You’re at a Ball in Vienna, go dance! Don’t just sit there buying drink after drink, getting drunk then just take up space. Eventually we were able to sit down and rest, but it wasn’t for too long, we eventually got a few more dances in and then were able to do the Quadrille which was at 2:30 a. That was interesting, but really a lot of fun, and probably one of the more interesting dances.

We left at around 3:15 in the morning and took an hour long night bus to get home, so we didn’t even get into bed until 4:30 am, so needless to say we were pretty tired! Overall, we had a great time and it was a lovely experience. Now we just need to practice our waltzing and save up some money for a really nice reserved table for the next time we’re in Vienna ;).

Also, for those who don’t know I recently started working with another family, just once a week on Thursday afternoons as a “Mommy Helper” with her 3 year old and 9 month old, but it’s been a lot of fun. The 3 year old goes to an English preschool and the mother wants me to help her with her English. On this last Thursday she started talking to me more in English as opposed to German which is obviously her first language. She started singing some songs to me in English like “The Vheels on the Bus” which was absolutely adorable, haha. I’m really enjoying working with little ones again.

I’ve also been looking into job opportunities for when we come back to the States, mainly at Summer Camps or something in San Jose for when we first get back, so we can save up some money for a deposit on an apartment once we go back to So-Cal, so keep us in your prayers for trying to organize as much as possible for us to come back home and ease in to our life back in the States. We still have 5 months or so before we head back, but we’re trying to get a jump on things so we can hopefully have something set up for when we come back. Like I said, keep us in prayer!

Love,

Katie

Bonsall Family Vienna Trip 2011

Well this morning my family headed back to the States after their visit here with Ben and I for Christmas and New Years. We had a great time with them, but we are both so tired since these past couple weeks have been so busy! Even before my family got here, we had to do a lot of running around trying to get everything ready for their visit, so today we’re planning on just staying home to catch up on some well needed rest, laundry and dishes. Even though we are totally pooped, we had a great time and got to do a lot with my family.

My parents and brothers arrived in Vienna in the evening on Christmas Eve and Ben and I were super late meeting them at the airport, but eventually got there and headed back with them to the hotel. The plan was to go see the Christmas Eve lights downtown, but since we were so late we didn’t really have time, and once everyone was at the hotel, everyone just wanted to relax and wind down from the trip, so we quickly went to a restaurant down the street for some pizza then off to sleep they went.

On Christmas everyone ventured over to our apartment (I was so proud of them taking the public transit all by themselves!) we opened our presents (thanks to the amazing awesome family for the Kindle by the way, Ben and I have been fighting over it since we got it haha) then headed over to Schönbrunn Palace to check out the Christmas Market and do the museum there. We all got some punsch, glühwein, and coffee as well as some pretzels, Nockerl, and Krapfen to taste Christmas in Vienna then did a little bit of shopping. We also walked around the grounds and got to see a beautiful view of the city of Vienna. It was so neat to show one of our favorite places here to my family and see how much they enjoyed it as well. After walking the grounds, we checked out the museum, then headed back to the apartment to relax and start out Christmas dinner. Overall, our first Christmas dinner was a success! With the American traditional ham and mashed potatoes, but we also had some German/Austrian Spätzle and Kipferl. After our Christmas dinner, we walked my family to the train station and sent them back to the hotel.

The next day we met at the U-Bahn station downtown and got to see Stephansplatz. We walked around the huge church taking pictures, and just overall taking in the downtown Vienna experience. With our tour guide, Ben we walked over to the Hofburg Complex and walked through it with Ben explaining the history of each part of the palace. For lunch we headed over to Café Frauenhuber to have some traditional Austrian dishes, at the Café that Mozart and Beethoven had played. Everyone really seemed to enjoy the food and the coffee, so that was a good sign.  We then headed back to St. Stephan’s to look on the inside and my Dad and brothers did the Catacombs tour. After St. Stephan’s we headed over to the Natural History Museums, and got to check out a bunch of cool Roman and Egyptian artifacts. After the first floor of the museum, my parents and Casey were pretty tired so they headed back to the hotel while Ben, Andrew and myself stayed to check out more art. It’s a good thing we stayed too because we got to see some Monet’s and even a Van Gough painting, so overall it was a great museum. PLUS Ben and I finally got our museum passes so we can go to it (as well as like 5 other museums around Vienna) as many times as we want! When we had our fill of art, we headed back to the hotel, and my mom, Ben and I ventured out to find some quick and easy food. We came across some kabobs and they all got to try some kabobs, then we all turned in early.

Our third day started off super early, meeting at the McDonalds at the WestBahnhof at 7:15 am to make sure we caught the train to Salzburg. We had a nice relaxing train ride to Salzburg playing cards, reading, listening to music and arrived in Salzburg around 10:30 in the morning. We quickly got to the sightseeing areas walking through the palace in Salzburg then pointing out the houses that Mozart had resided in as well as the big church there. We then had a fairly quick lunch, and my family did the Fortress while Ben and I walked through the St. Sebastian’s cemetery where Mozart’s father was buried then walked up the huge hill to the monastery. We met up with my family a couple hours later then walked through the town back to the train station to catch the later train to Munich, Germany. We stopped at a grocery store to get a few snacks got on the train and arrived in Munich around 10 pm that evening. We checked in to our hotel and all quickly fell asleep.

We woke up early the next day got all our stuff then headed to the train station to put our stuff in some lockers, get some coffee/breakfast then took a train to Dachau to see the Concentration Camp and Memorial Museum. Surprisingly we spent almost our whole day in Munich at Dachau. It was such an amazing experience, and although it was completely emotionally draining it was also very humbling, putting a lot of things in perspective. For those who don’t know, Dachau was originally a prisoner camp, that at first just held P.O.W’s and then extended becoming a Concentration Camp for all the targeted people of the Nazi Party. Dachau was never meant to be a “Death Camp”, so they didn’t originally have ways of disposing of the bodies, so seeing the pictures of bodies just piled up was absolutely gut wrenching. Also, towards the end of the war when the Nazi’s realized they had to start killing off their prisoners, the gas chamber and incinerators were constructed…by the prisoners themselves. We walked through the gas chamber with the sign saying “Bad” in German meaning “Bath”, since the prisoners were told they were going into the shower room. Overall is was such an emotional experience, and we all really enjoyed seeing this place to be able to put it all in perspective. Hearing about the horrors of the Concentration Camps were one thing, but actually being there seeing the places where these poor people stood, was quite another. Since we didn’t have a whole lot of time in Munich we then headed back into the City Center area to find a Beer Hall for dinner. We walked around down town Munich which was fantastic, seeing the lights still up, all the people walking around, and over all just enjoying the atmosphere. We ended up going to the Augustine Beer Hall, which is apparently one of the older beer halls and had a very yummy traditional German meal, including a liter of beer all around! Once we were sufficiently stuffed, we headed back to the train station got our stuff and began the 5 hour train ride back to Vienna which was actually a lot of fun, playing cards, chatting, laughing, drinking, etc. Once we arrived in Vienna we all went our separate ways to get some well needed rest.

For Thursday, we all slept in a little bit and I met up with my family at the hotel in the morning, we all kind of hung out the relax a little bit, then headed out to check out the Belvedere Palace. We met Ben there and walked around the grounds, then headed over to the Soviet Monument which was erected to thank the Soviets for liberating Austria during WWII. We then headed over to our favorite place to eat, Pizza Venetia, which is cheap and delicious. We all had a filling late lunch, then we headed over to the Opera. We got some coffee first, then waited in line for a few hours for our standing room tickets to see the Marriage of Figaro, which was awesome by the way. Since we were one of the first groups there, we got in line first so we could get the first row of the standing area, unfortunately two woman in front of us decided they were going to pick a spot and not move, which for those of you who don’t know, isn’t allowed. You pay 4 Euro a ticket for standing room so you don’t get to just choose to stand in the center. These two woman made a huge dramatic scene out of it when the ushers told them they had to go to the end of the aisle, and one woman responded, “If you keep talking to me like this, I am going to sue you,” umm what?! You’re going to sue an usher for telling you that you have to follow the rules of the standing section? Needless to say we made fun of them the rest of the evening, and unfortunately we got split up between 2 rows, but we were still close to each other. When the opera was over everyone was tired from standing for so long, so we once again split off to our respective beds and went to sleep.

For that Friday, the original plan was to head to Budapest, but we were all so tired from everything we had been doing that we decided to still hang out around Vienna. We met up in the morning and basically walked around the downtown area to see the Rathaus, the University and Votivkirche. After seeing a few of the sights we all stopped at Café Landtmann to get some coffee and Austrian pastries to share (Sacher Torte and Apfel Strudel mit vanilla sauce) it was quite the Viennese experience. We all just sat around and were reminiscing about being kids, playing with our cousins, and hearing stories from our parents, so it truly was a great day. When we were done downtown we headed back to our apartment to relax, have some dinner and just overall enjoy each other’s company.

On the morning of New Year’s Eve we met up with everyone took the U-Bahn to Simmering, got some coffee and pastries then took a tram to the Zentralfriedhof, mainly to see the “Musicians Graves”. We walked around the old cemetery and found it interesting to see all the old tombstones. We finally came across the Musician area, which had the graves of Beethoven, Johann Strauss, Brahms, and a monument to Mozart, since he was buried in a Pauper’s grave, and no one really knows where he is. It was really neat to see the final resting place of these famous musicians. We then continued to walk around the Cemetery and got to see the WWII monument as well as a whole section devoted to Soviet Members who had died in WWII as well. Something not seen typically at cemeteries in America. After sufficiently looking around the cemetery we headed back in to town to get some Käsekrainers for lunch and walked around the Naschtmarkt, with the family doing a little souvenir shopping. We once again then spent most of the early evening at our apartment relaxing and taking naps so we could be well rested for New Year’s Eve. We were going all out and decided to go to downtown Stephansplatz so celebrate with the rest of the city of Vienna. New Year’s Eve was…interesting to say the least. We got down town around 10, and it wasn’t too crowded so we did some souvenir shopping, walked around to the different concerts, hung out mainly at the Rock Concert area, then started to make our way back to St. Stephan’s. We tried to stake out a spot near the stage, but quickly moved because of some idiot teenagers lighting off firecrackers in a crowd. A few of them even came towards us and pretended like they were going to throw them at us….idiots. So we quickly moved away from them, and right before New Year’s my mom and brother went to go find a bathroom, but it was so crowded that they didn’t make their way back to where we were for the New Year’s chime. It wasn’t really what anyone had in mind, but we did it and probably won’t do it again.

New Years Day was pretty calm, since it was the last day that my family was going to be here, we basically just went back to Schönbrunn to do some shopping, then downtown to finish shopping. Overall, just trying to take in as much as possible. After shopping we met up with Ben and hung out at the hotel for a few hours, then went back out to check out the UN building, which we could only appreciate from a far, as well as check out the Danube and the Prater area, which everyone seemed to enjoy. When we all got hungry we decided to go back to Pizza Venecia for dinner since it was cheap and delicious, so we enjoyed a nice big meal for their last night in Europe.

My family left this morning and I already miss them so much. I can’t wait to see them all again, but until then I will enjoy this experience of living in Europe with my husband as much as I can. Continue to pray for us, and we miss you all back home! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!