just another weekend

unlike past weeks where its been go go go, i was able to catch up with myself a little bit and relax for once... i spent the majority of the weekend hanging around the house, only to go out for short excursion such as the zentralfriedhof, or central cemetery, out by simmering, where i walked around for about an hour and took a few pictures of beethoven, strauss, and schubert's grave (weve been learning about them in my music class) tonight, sunday, im going to the opera to see the barber of seville. afterwards i have to do a paper for the music class, i really hate this class fyi...and i was planning on going to see the lipizzaner horses at the spanische winterreitschule but i put it off for much needed sleep. i am thinking this week i might end up going to the kuntsthistorisches museum, one of europes top museums, most likely on wed after my european cities class.
as far as the rest of my schedule goes
20.2-22.2 budapest and/maybe miskolc hungary. ive been wanting to go to budapest for awhile and just havent found the time...also during the time i will be in hungary, miskolc is having a meat jelly festival which sounded interesting. miskolc is about 150 kilometers from budapest so i would take about an hour and a half to get there. the plan is to go on thursday night to budapest and go to miskolc on fri and spend the day at the festival and then back to budapest on sat morning but it is all up in the air. most likely i will avoid the excess travel and stay in budapest and enjoy it for 3 full days. its a pretty cheap place to stay, they have an abundant amount of hostels for under 10 euros a night.
the following week
26.2-1.3 trieste, italy for a class trip
they have informed us that we will be leaving very early on thurs morning at 630 and arriving back in vienna late on sun. at this point i am even more thankful i have mon morning off and i will be able to sleep in. trieste is a small city sandwiched between slovenia and the gulf of trieste. there is a lot of scheduled free time and i believe we have an entire day to ourselves so a lot of us were talking about taking a day trip to nearby cities such as venice, rijeka croatia, or ljubljana, slovenia, all of which are about an hours worth of travel away.
6.3-10.3 amsterdam
im going to be meeting thomas and larry who are coming over to visit in amsterdam for a few days. i am taking a night train leaving thurs the 5th and arriving the following morning around noon. i will have a few days on my own to walk around and sightsee before i meet them on sun afternoon. i am planning on renting a bike on day, sat, and touring the city via bike. i have heard from many people that a bike is the best way to experience amsterdam's many bridges and canals along with the fact that amsterdam is known for their biking. this way i will be able to save on public transportation as well.
after i meet up thomas and larry, the plan is up in the air from there, i figured that the fact that they have come this way i dont care what we get into, im just happy to see them...no worries i wont be experiencing the red light districts offerings...at least not the x rated or illigal american kind. ive been there before and its the kind of thing where you have to see it and you cant not go if your in amsterdam, but once youve been there, its not that big of a deal if you go back or not.
13.3-14.3 bratislava
another class trip, but this time thomas and larry will be coming along... not sure what the plan is but i have talked to thomas and larry about spending the night and just coming back the next day but that is up in the air as well. that sat, there is a rapid vienna game, one of the top teams in austria, and we were going to go watch the game. i figured that we can decide on staying the night once we get to that point.
at this point im sure i will be a little bit worn down from the past 4 weeks and i will want some time to relax for a bit...i will have 3 weekends left until i come home on the 5th of april but i will want to make sure i make it out to salzburg for a day or two. im thinking i will go on a fri morning and come back on a sat night. i think that would be an ideal 2 days, plus i would save some money on housing as well.
another trip i want to make is to go from krems to melk... there is a 25-30kilmeter (15-18 miles) trail that runs along the danube river. ive read that you can rent a bike and travel the trail by bike which would take only a few hours or i might decide to hike it and stop off somewhere to camp for the night. there are numerous villages along the way that i would be able to stop off at for a nights sleep. either way, the end result will bring me to melk where i will visit the melk abbey, considered one of the most 3 beautiful abbeys in the world.
im sure things will again change though, but i will keep you informed of my whereabouts and im going to try my best to keep my mom from pulling her hair out due to her worried nature.

my viennese weekend

we had a long weekend this week, which means instead of the normal fri-sun, we were given thursday off as well so that we would have the opportunity to do some traveling. let me remind you that the week before i was in paris... so while others were headed to rome, dublin, or munich, i sat in vienna on wed deciding where to head off to on my next weekend adventure. i had a list of possibilities from ljubljana and maribor slovenia, budapest hungary, or a trip around western austria visiting salzburg and innsbruck. i sat for the better part of two days deciding and going as far as a click away from a friday night hostel stay in salzburg or budapest, but it soon dawned on me that i havent yet been able to truly explore vienna...i asked myself if i really wanted to leave this beautiful city and have to try to remember it amongst a collage of other cities as well, im studying here for 12 and a half weeks and i did not want to be leaving without knowing what the city has to offer. so once it hit me that i should save some cash and view the uncharted territories the viennese. i have already told u about my day hikes through the wine valley, so i wanted to let you in on the rest of my weekend.

i woke up on fri morning and decided that i have not really seen the sights close to where i live, there is a huge park, Prater, about a 5 min walk from the house i am currently living in, and when i say huge, i mean a 5 and a half mile walk from one end to the other and back. it includes a theme park and an olympic sized stadium along with numerous other activites such as a golf course and tennis clubs...there is even a small train that goes through that you can take rides on throughout the park. after about an hour of walking through the park, i hoped on the metro over to the arsenal where the heeresgeschichtliches museum (military history museum in english) is located.

for only 3.30, it was one of the better museums i have been in beside paris... but it dates back about 600 years of austrian military history and ends with ww2. the best aspect of the museum was the ww1 wing, they had the car (the one in the pic) that archduke franz ferdinand and his wife were in when they were assassinated in sarejevo. you could see the damage to the car from the granade that was thrown at it earlier in an unsuccessful assassination attempt as well. in addition, the museum had the uniform he was wearing along with the blood stains on his jacket and pants along with the couch he dies on.

afterwards i decided to walk back home cutting through belvedere gardens where i took this picture of bamboo. one thing that i noticed today was the amount of people out just walking through the parks, i have always known that the parks were a large part of european culture, but vienna seems to take that to another level. people of all ages were out enjoying the green landscape only meters away from the surrounding buildings. they make it out to be there oasis and there was something relaxing about walking through tree lined paths as you were able to block out the noise from the busy streets and only hear the birds or the others around you. it has quickly become one of my favorite things to do while visiting a city, you tend to forget that you are tired from travel or walking around for 5 or 6 hours and u can take a few deep breathes and for a moment you forget about everything and are able to take it all in.


on sat, i went to schonbrunn palace and for one price i was able to visit the palace, carriage museum, palm house (green house), wusten house (an indoor desert) and the zoo. it was a great way to spend the day, the palace was amazing and it was the perfect length. in most places it seems like they drag it out and u get to the point where u cant wait until the end, but here once the end came u wanted to keep going. also, they had audio guides for free that didnt talk and talk on and on about each room, it said what u needed to know and went on. fyi, schonbrunn was the summer residence of the imperial family dating back to the late 1600s. the surrounding area was nice toand as big as the palace is, the gardens were that much larger. the zoo was also fun too, i felt like a little kid, not to mention i was surrounded by them esp at the lions den. and i still havent gotten over how funny penguins are, they are just so awkward .

today, sunday, it was raining so i decided on another museum, i went to the natural history museum, again only 3 euros or so (i love being a student for discounts) it was a good way to get out of the house and kill a day as well, i wanted to go to the kunsthistorisches museum, right across the platz in the museum quarter, but i was tired and decided to save it for another weekend, i have to make sure i get there, its considered one of the top museums in europe.

all in all, im glad i was able to stay, it gives me the chance to save money and to spread out my traveling as well. and now i have given myself the opportunity to further gain an appreciation for my 12 week home.

the vienna countryside

on thursday, 5.2.09 i took a day hike through the country side of vienna in the towns of grinzing, kahlenberg, and nussdorf. between grinzing and kahlenberg i took some stray paths and wound up on a walking path that zigzaged its way through the vinyards of vienna. what i didnt realize at the time, was that during the tram ride to grinzing, we had slowly made a steady incline
into the courty side. by the time i had walk through the small town and made my way down the unmarked paths, i began to notice the snow and soon realized that i was in the alps. though small, they are the alps nonetheless. one thing that i noticed right away was how active the elderly still are, the walking paths were moderatly busy for the time of year with day hikers and inhabitants of the nearby villages. i have always been told that the viennese were very active and full of the love of nature, but this was my fist realization of that fact.
after i made my way off the small paths, found kahlenberger strasse. this street leads to the summit of kahlenberg mountain. once i reached the top, i ate my packed lunch of fruit and a sandwich of jam and nuttella, i admired the view that streched for inches and inches through the think fog before i made my way back down. the path was an easy one to walk as well. not too steep and it has enough twists and turns to keep it that way. there was a lot of nice scenery as well, even a graveyard dating back to the 18 hundreds with a woman named karolina trauernwieser who was said to be the most beautiful woman in
vienna in 1815. on the stone, a man inscribed "ye that ere lost an angel, pity me." naturally i took a picture of one of viennas most beautiful, but i know she doesnt compare to abbie.
but like i stated before, the path wasnt too terrible, so on the way down i got a bit more adventurous by sneaking on the closed path that was covered with snow just to see where it lead. once i found my way back to kahlenberger strasse, i took that the rest of the way into the town of nussdorf, one of the many towns that beethoven lived. next i navigated my way back to grinzing and came across the former home of albert einstein from 1927-1931.
grinzing was one of the most interesting towns i have been in, there is a lot of red vienna influence and secessionist houses as well, including the karl marx hof. it was neat to see something in person after having just studied it in my psychology class the week before.

rough guide to paris

day one in paris was about as good as it gets, notra dame cathedral...walking up the eiffel tower, and the lovure for a night cap. what was even better is that we had enough time to walk around the city, down narrow streets, smell the fresh markets on the streets, look in the shops, experience paris, not just the tourist sights and the metro system. our hostel was in a great location also, we were on les gobelins street which is in the latin quarter, where most of the students are. about a 5 min walk down the street, u were engulfed with street venders selling fresh fruit and veggies. the oranges were the best i ever had. there were bread shops everywhere as well that were made fresh each morning. one of my favorites though, was when i walked by a market selling fresh sea food, fish, clams, crab, everything, i could have sat there and taken in all the smells and i dont think i would have ever forgotten paris from the moment on.