Baden, Liesl, and Home.

A week or so ago, we took a jaunt over to Baden. It’s a lovely little town that is basically built around the hot springs. We spent a couple hours wandering around the won before we headed to the baths. We walked through a few of the Christmas Markets and then took a detailed tour of the parking complex for the baths while we searched for the baths themselves. Finally we found it, noted the prices and hours it was open, and headed out to find lunch. I opted for my typical European afternoon meal – bread, meat, and cheese. Like usual, it was excellent.

After lunch, we hiked up to the Beethoven Temple. It gave us a really pretty view over the town. After we had seen that, we walked past the Mozart Temple before heading to the baths.

The baths were fantastic! In one of the pools, the water was just the perfect temperature. Every few minutes there were different water jets that would go off every couple minutes. Some places the water was shooting up out of the ground and others it was bubbling all over. It was really fun to try to jump/swim over the jets. It was pretty forceful and rather hard to get over. If you did it just right though, you could float on your back on top of the jet, above the rest of the water. It was so cool! After playing in that pool, we crawled under the bridge and jumped into the next pool. This one was a little deeper and there were no fun islands or water jets. However, I liked this pool much better. The water was a little cooler – the perfect temperature for swimming laps. The ceiling/roof above the pool was made of big glass tiles that you could kind of see through. You could also wee your reflection in it. It was amazing! You could see yourself floating through the sky and it looked like you were flying. What was even cooler, was that there was water playing under water! When you were swimming you could hear the music. It was cool underwater-type music and it kind of makes you feel like a mermaid! It was such a fun day!

Now on to the main reason for this post. Liesl. On the way home from Baden, I had my camera and got bored. Liesl was sitting across from me, so I had some fun. She has so many crazy facial expressions! It’s great!

My next item of business - I'm coming home tomorrow!!! I can't believe it's come so soon! Things are all going so fast. I'll add more pictures to this blog later. I've gotta run to dinner and then finish packing!

Thanksgiving... Europen Style.

As you may know, Thanksgiving is a North American holiday. So, being in Austria during the holiday led us to question what exactly we would be doing. To celebrate or to not celebrate.... that definitely was the question. Luckily for us, (instead of paying the 20+ Euro for the dinner that school set up) Elder and Sister Robison set up a huge Thanksgiving Dinner for us at the LDS Institute Building. It was great! We all pitched in and made a wonderful dinner. I was put in charge of the sweet potatoes and so I got to make my sweet potato cheesecake and some candied sweet potatoes. I thought they turned out pretty good.

Kimberlee, Heather, and Anne making mashed potatoes

David being domestic... way to go Dave!

Our dinner was really good, and it was fun to have us all eating together like that. After we stuffed ourselves on turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, candied sweet potatoes, stuffing, peas, fruit salad, and rolls, it was time for dessert. There were pumpkin pies, apple crisp, and of course, my sweet potato cheese cake. We all ate so much it hurt!! After dessert, a couple of us went for a walk to try and alleviate some of the pain. Then it was time for the talent show.

Dessert... Guess which one I made. :)

The first act was an interpretive dance themed on the First Thanksgiving. I think “interesting” would be a good word for it. We could hardly hear the music because everyone was laughing so hard! It was great! Our second act was me. OK, so that sounded really weird. I played my guitar. It was kind of funny, because I didn’t know that I was going second and so when they called my name, I still hadn’t picked a song to do. I had to kill some time with the story of Marty – my guitar – while I chose a song to sing. It was fun though and I thought it went rather well. After that, we were graced with everything from hula dancing, to music videos, to violin concertos! Over all, it was definitely a great day.

Lainzer Tiergarten

Another week come and [almost] gone here in Vienna. This week, Eric and I finally made it out to the Lainzer Tiergarten. We didn't have any big trips or tests to worry about and it was quite relaxing to just have a few days to just spend peacefully in Vienna. The Tiergarten was the perfect choice. It's a great wildlife preserve out it the 23rd district of Vienna (out it the country). It's so beautiful out there and it was really nice to get out of the city for a while. We also picked the perfect day head out because it started snowing at noon today and it's suppsed to snow for the rest of the weekend! We discovered some fun, new animals.

There was the Damwild (or Fallow Deer, in English)

and the Mufflon (aka: Mouflon)

and even European Bison.

Aparently, the Mouflon is a kind of wild sheep or “goat antelopes." We learned that it is thought to be one of the two ancestors of modern sheep breeds! They were pretty cool, but not nearly as friendly as the Fallow Deer. In fact, one of the deer came right up to the fence and after a little sniffing, one of them let me pet him!


He was terribly cute! Then two adorable little kids with their grandma came over and we all pet/fed the deer.

The little girl was just darling! She looked about three and she kept picking "mitten-fulls" of grass and then she would hold it out to me and say "Bitte, bitte!" (Asking me to feed it to the deer). [Note: Fallow Deer prefer clover to grass; just in case you were wondering.]


Right now is getting to the end of the "Rut season" for Fallow Deer and we got to watch a few chases. One of the males was being rather territorial and would chase off all the other males. He chased one poor female all around the field (and was joined by two other males), until she had the sense to go back to her group of girlfriends - then the guys left her alone. Sounds just like humans! I think the best part was the lady's explanation to her grandchildren of what the deer were doing and saying. "Er sagt, 'Ich liebe dich, ich leibe dich'!" It was quite fun.

After thoroughly enjoying the deer and the sheep, we went looking for the wild boar that they apparently have in the park. Unfortunately, the only other animals that we saw were European Bison, or as Eric would say, "Sissy French Buffalo". It wasn't nearly as exciting as frolicking boar would have been, but I guess that just means that we'll have to go back in the snow and look for them again!

**This sad little pile of snow is all that is left from the snow that we got last Sunday. Hopefully next time I got to the park there will be a little more snow than this!**

Dublin, Prague, and then some...

Ok, here I am, late again with my posts. So much has happened in the past couple weeks! Two weeks ago was our last group trip… to Prague! Our train ride there was lovely. The countryside through the Czech Republic was so beautiful! There were so many cute little villages with cute little houses! It was great! I didn’t really know what to expect once we got to Prague. I had been told how wonderful and beautiful it was, but other than the Charles Bridge, I didn’t really know what it had to offer.

It was amazing! The weather forecast had predicted rain for the whole week, but somehow we got lucky and only got a 5 minute sprinkling on the second day we were there. (Taylor claims that since her offering of an apple core to Mother Nature back on our trip to Melk, the weather has been in our favor…) Although it didn’t rain, it was cloudy and overcast the whole time we were there and it made all of the colors seem so much more vibrant. I loved it in Prague. Every couple minutes I would have to just stop and remind myself that I was really there.

We had a tour almost every morning with our wonderful tour guide, Vladimir. The first tour took us around the city, mostly to get our bearings. The next morning we went down to the Jewish Quarter. There were some interesting memorials and a really cool cemetery. It was more of a tombstone forest than anything else. Our tour the next day took us up to castle hill and on a tour of St. Vitus and St. George’s Cathedrals, to name a few. I think, for me, the one of the coolest things in Prague is the different architecture and design. Every building is so different and just standing in one square you can see styles ranging from Gothic to Romanesque to Art Nouveau to Cubist to Baroque. It’s really fascinating. I also think that Prague has one of the coolest skylines – sticking out above all of the other buildings are hundreds of different spires, including those of the “Sleeping Beauty” castle. We saw the Powder Tower, the Charles Bridge, the Old Bridge Tower, the Prague Castle, St. Vitas’ Cathedral, St. George’s Basilica, Wenceslas. Square, etc…. One of the things that I got to see while we were there was really interesting. It was a museum of medieval torture devices! I’ve never seen one and it was disgusting, sick, terrible, heart-wrenching, cruel and unusual, and all around fascinating!

One of the things that Prague is known for is it’s beer. I couldn’t tell you from first-hand experience, but apparently Pilsner Urquell is some of the best in the world! Every meal in Prague consisted of beer and maybe some food to keep you from getting too sick the next morning. (actually, they even make soap, makeup, and bath products out of beer!) The Czech Republic is also one of the only places in the world where Absinth is even legal… and they sell it everywhere! According to Eric’s “Cheap Eats” book about Prague, Absinth is a very strong alcoholic drink to say the least. It is made from wormwood and side effects range from hallucinations, to seizures, to amnesia, and the flavor has been compared to bilge water at it’s best, to toxic waste at it’s worst. In case I really need to say it, Prague is a rather drunken city. Our first night in Prague we went to dinner and our waiter so completely drunk – he could hardly walk straight! He had a hard time taking our orders, and then later, figuring out how to give us our bill. While we were there, he broke a huge mug and then a set of salt and pepper shakers. Then as we were leaving, he took our plates in the back and immediately we heard a huge crash! I kind of felt bad for the guy, but it was really funny!

Along with drinking, a very popular pastime in Prague seems to be defenestrating people, or in other words, throwing each other out of windows. Apparently there have been multiple “Defenestrations of Prague.” We were very lucky and got to walk right under the window where the 2^nd Defenestration of Prague took place. “….and threw him out the window, the window, the second story window….” It gives such a new meaning to the old nursery rhyme.

Another of my highlights was our lunch adventure on Friday. We went to a little restaurant in the more residential area, where we were the only people not speaking Czech. That was fun enough in itself, but then I saw the menu for the daily special. They were serving vareyky! I was so excited! I’ve been craving some good varenyky since I was in Ukraine and this definitely fulfilled my desire (now I want more… oh dear). Even better though, I got the very last – as soon as I ordered, they crossed it off the menu board! It was great!

We got home from Prague and that gave me a couple days to get my laundry done, get packed and ready to leave for Dublin, and brace myself to go from one drunken city to he next. I thoroughly enjoyed those couple days of soberness. We took a bus to Bratislava and it was kind of cool to get to look out at the city as we were driving through it. The last time we were in Bratislava it was raining so hard and we didn’t get to really see a whole lot. Bratislava looks like a pretty cool place! After a little confusion with our tickets, we got on the plane and we were off to Ireland! It was around this time that we remembered it was Halloween. We knew that in Austria they don’t celebrate Halloween and we wondered if was just an American tradition, or if other European countries (Ireland included) celebrated Halloween. Boy, were we in for a big surprise. As we flew in over Dublin, we could see huge bonfires and fireworks going off everywhere! It kind of reminded me of the view of Butte from my house on the Fourth of July where you can see fireworks going off in almost every direction! It was so cool to see fireworks from above. Once we got settled into our hostel and started walking around town, we saw so many people wearing costumes! Many more teenagers and young-ish adults, and not as many children. We decided that the interpretation of Halloween in Ireland was to see how much leg you could show and still be legal. Most all of the girls were wearing mini-skirts in one form or another, and we even saw a couple guys in mini-skirts. That was a little disturbing.

Dublin felt like a mix between America and Europe. It was kind of strange. Most of the signs were written in two languages: English and Celtic, although most everyone speaks English there. And then there were European restaurants and stores, with a scattering of things like McDonalds, Quiznos, TGIFridays, etc… So fun! Another rather interesting thing is that, just like in England, they drive on the left side of the road! I didn’t realize this at first until I walked past a parked car with someone sitting in the drivers’ seat and it was on the “wrong side!” It was so crazy! It didn’t really affect me when we were walking down the road, but it was the little things, like remembering which way to look when crossing the street that made me really confused. Luckily for us, at the crosswalks, they had little things painted on the road saying “Look Left” or “Look Right” or there would be a picture of an eye with an arrow showing you which way you needed to look. They were very helpful! I guess they had too many tourists get squished so they put in signs. Our first full day in Dublin we spent in the city, seeing all the sights. We started our day at Phoenix Park and then went to [part of] the National Museum of Ireland. My favorite exhibit there (of course) was the one that was specifically furniture and design. They had a beautiful exhibition of a style that I have never seen before! It’s called Neo Celtic. It’s very cool! It seems to incorporate a few different styles, but mainly uses different Celtic patterns and designs. I really like it, and it was really cool to see something completely different. We also went to see the Guinness Storehouse, the Christ Church Cathedral, the Dublin castle, the Book of Kells, and then instead of taking a tour of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, we heard that they were having a special musical service for All Saint’s Day that evening, so we went to that. The music was absolutely beautiful! We got to see so many other things while we were walking around as well.

Then on Friday we got up and did a little bit of shopping and stuff and then we caught a train to a little town called Howth. It's right on the coast and everything was so beautiful! We started walking towards a lookout point that we had seen when we were getting off the train and ended up walking all over the place. We had a lovely little picnic lunch on the extremely green side yard of a little church that we past. Then we kept walking. After quite some time we figured we had probably gone too far or something and we were going to turn back, but then we saw a horse. With 5 girls, Eric was slightly out numbered and so we stopped to feed, play with, and take pictures of the horse. Finally we turned around and went up a different road. That led us right where we wanted to be. We found a lighthouse on the edge of the white cliffs and right next to it we saw a little staircase that went down the side of the cliffs right to a little beach. Of course, we went down to it and climbed on the rocks and played in the water. It was so fun! It’s been so long since I was at the coast and it was really nice. The water itself was cold, but not freezing. Actually, the weather there was really nice the whole time and everything was so green! Yes, it is the Emerald Isle, but I didn't expect it to look and smell like spring in November. There were even flowers everywhere!

Overall, I loved getting to spend time in Ireland. It’s someplace that I’ve always wanted to go and now that I’ve had a little taste of it, I can’t wait to go back!

DUBLIN

HOWTH and THE COAST

Budapest

Well, I’m getting this up a little later than I had planned, but last week we had our trip to Budapest, Hungary. Budapest is such a beautiful city! There was quite a bit that was similar to Vienna, but overall there was a different feel to the town. The Danube runs right through the middle of the two towns, Buda and Pest, and they are connected by the Chain Bridge (among other bridges). On thing that I found very interesting about Budapest is that instead of cleaning up and rebuilding everything after the wars, they have left bullet holes in buildings, and created countless monuments to war victims and such. They also managed to keep their “Hungarian-ness” so now, visiting the country, you are still able to see, feel and taste their culture. I decided to do something a little different this time. Instead of writing everything I did, I'm going to take you on a picture tour of my stay in Budapest.

The money (Forints) was really fun - like playing Monopoly... they didn't have "dollars and cents" - we dealt in thousands!

The week in Budapest was perfect - nice weather and beautiful fall colors.


We took a tour that took up into the castle district ... they were so beautiful!

Hungarian, or Magyar is a very interesting language. It's not similar to anything else! I felt completely helpless. My Germanic and Romantic language skills did not serve me well at all.

There were quite a few homeless people sleeping in parks and other areas. Walking up these stairs it felt like I was intruding on someone's home.

Backyard community laundry. It was somewhat run-down but it had a nice feel to it.

Watching the sunset from the castle district on the first night in Budapest while writing in my journal. It was so beautiful! I took a series of pictures about every five minutes. It was great.

This was beautiful little walking path along the castle wall. The beautiful view of the city and the fall colors came complete with cannons.

This is the beautiful Chain Bridge over the Danube. The way everything was light up at night was potentially more amazing than the buildings themselves during the day.

This is a rather interesting Synagogue. It was designed/built by a catholic man who had never been in a synagogue before. It looks just like a cathedral, except that where there should be crosses, there are Stars of David.

"Whoever saves a life is considered as if he has saved an entire world."


Holocaust Memorial - each leaf has a name on it.


This is one of the bombed out buildings - you can see the bullet holes in the side... the largest being in the middle of the wall just between the two cars. The inside of the building is not much more than an empty shell.


We were going take these stairs down the hill, but they didn't go very far...

The stairs we ended up taking...


Sunrise on the Danube. Beautiful! What more can I say? It was such a great way to start out the day.

The train station built by Gustav Eiffel - also known for designing the Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately the train station is not kept up quite as well as the Tower. It was pretty awesome though.


We found a mini zip-line at one of the parks we went to. It was really fun, but we were pretty worried about scraping the ground as we went.

Rebekah and I on the bridge just before we went to Margret's Island. It was so windy!! The island was really cool though. There were so many wonderful trees and we stopped to climb quite a few of them.


One of the spectacular trees that we climbed. This one was just perfect for sitting, swinging, and/or reading in.

I don't know what this was for... it was just standing out on the side of the road. Weird.



We hiked up to see the "Lady Liberty" on the hill and on the way we passed a little waterfall. It is actually part of some monument and the waterfall is man-made... but it looked pretty cool anyway.


Up on the hill with the Lady Liberty statue, we found a line of huge machine gun/cannons. Of course, we had to stop and take pictures on them. They were kind of scary.


It was really cold up on the hill and so we stopped for some hot chocolate in an amazing little cafe. The whole place was done in a very modern design. It was very sleek and artsy feeling. They were out of hot chocolate, so they brought out some hot carmel. It was wonderful! We enjoyed our hot carmel so much, so we decided to order some chocolate cake. It was so good! I've never had anything like it! It looked amazing and it tasted better than it looked!


On the way back to Veinna, we passed seemingly endless fields of windmills. They were so beautiful.

Der schönste Mantel in der Welt

I forgot to post this earlier, but while we were in Salzburg I found the most spectacular, amazing, and wonderful coat ever. I instantly fell in love with it. Unfortunately, I didn't have the 700 + Euro that it cost. It is one of the most beautiful coats ever... the color is great and the cut is very flattering. I'm sad I didn't get it (it's probably for the best, though), but at least I have a picture of it.

PS - Christmas is coming up soon... If anyone is wondering what I'd like for a Christmas present when I get home, this would be the perfect gift. I'm sure some sort of group gifting could be arranged... ;)

Belated pictures from Venice

Es tut mir leid that I didn't get these up sooner. Hungary is coming soon....