Hey all! How do you like our quick blogs? We are finally up to date! Yay for free internet.
Well we just arrived in Budapest after a wonderful time in Vienna. Vienna is a very classy town. While it is a bit of a contradiction to see the beautiful old buildings clashing with the light up trendy shops, it is very easy to imagine the in-crowd of the 18th century bustling in the streets. All of the street names and restaurants are related to music, especially composers like Mozart, Strauss, Haydn, etc. The city is known for the coffee shops. We had a few very tasty cups of coffee while we were there, I must say.
The first night we ventured out to find a wine bar. We ended up at another Augustiner, but way different than the beer halls in Munich. This was a wine cellar that used to be a monastery. It serves its own locally grown wine. Christie got a glass with her Viennese wienerschnitzel. Nicole got some Viennese dumplings, and Tricia solely ordered a Viennese apple strudel. Christie and Nicole split a topfenstrudel for dessert. It was delicioussss. We took the metro home to get a good nights rest for sight seeing in the morning.
We awoke to pouring rain. Lame. But we made the most of it. We went inside St Stephen's cathedral, which was gorgeous of course. This church has catacombs that encase the Hapsburg families intestines. Yummy! But no, sadly we did not see the royal innards. We then walked to the Hofburg Palace, and on the way stopped in the world famous Delem chocolate shop. Everything looked amazingggg and you could watch them bake. It was so hard not to buy everything.
We then took a tour of the Hofburg Palace, which took us through the royal families silver and dining collection, the Sisi museum, and the imperial apartments. The Sisi museum took us through Empress Elisabeth's interesting but very depressing life. But it was still very intriguing.
We went back to the hostel to cook some pasta on our own and get ready for our night out...at the opera! We caught the metro early to the WORLD famous Vienna State Opera House. We paid 4 euro for standing room tickets right in the center aisle under the balcony on the first floor. We saw the premiere of Wagner's Tannhauser. As soon as the orchestra, comprised of members of the Vienna Philharmonic, started playing, we all had goosebumps. The sound was just amazing. And the singers did not disappoint. It was 3 acts, a total of 4 1/2 hours. And yes we stood the whole time. But it really wasn't that bad and DEFinitely worth 4 euros. The crowd went wild as the final curtain went down. It was so cool to watch opera with the people of Vienna. They were all ages and all types. And every single person was so well cultured and appreciative of their city's famous art form. It was a great experience.
The next morning we went to the Spanish Riding School. We saw the world class horses at their morning practice. They were beautiful! They did all sorts of dressage exercises. Christie exercised her knowledge on us, which was nice to understand the difficulty level of the tricks the horses and riders were practicing.
We topped the trip off with some pastries and headed to the train station. We will miss this classy town! Next stop-Budapest!
Love you all
Nicole, Christie, Tricia
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