A few pics from our party...

Alright, I got the pictures from our party and I'm willing to put a few of them online. The two people you have seen in other pictures are Ted (to the left in the 1st) and my roommate Tobi (to the right in the 2nd). As I mentioned, this was a combination birthday party for Tobi and our housewarming party, although it came much later than planned! The other people pictured attend the University with Tobi. We also finally got to meet our neighbor after 3 months.

I know that I have been really bad about posting in the blog after such a good start, and I got out of the habit of posting when I didn't have my camera for a while. I'm going to try and be much better about updating this in the coming weeks.

More Vienna at Night and Wine Taverns

I went with a few friends to a wine tavern on Saturday night and took a few pictures on the way. Here are two pictures I took on the way to the Shottentor train station, where we met. The first is the Votivkirche and the second is the Rathaus. I've taken pictures of both buildings before, but I thought the view this particular evening was quite beautiful.











I didn't think to take any pictures when we were at the wine tavern unfortunately. It was raining, and I simply forgot, and I actually just remembered that I had them on my camera now. We ended up going to one of the more touristy wine taverns in the 19th district in the Grinzing area, mainly because it was not too far from the train station, and priority 1 was getting out of the rain. The wine taverns open up in the spring and start serving last year's wine, and I hope to check out some different places in the coming months.

We met some interesting characters at the wine tavern. The first was a man who was about to get married. Apparently, there are a whole bunch of things that he was required to do at his "bachelor party," one of which was to tell some random people the pros and cons of marriage. Lucky us, we were the random people! It was pretty funny, at least the parts of it that I was able to understand. We also met a bunch of middle-aged men from Cologne when we were leaving, all of which also got on the same Strassenbahn that we did. I hopped off earlier than the rest to catch the U-Bahn back home, and these same people ended up on the U-Bahn with me. They must have been there for a while, because the gentleman I was talking to was too drunk to remember that I had just been talking to him 20 minutes earlier at the wine tavern and on the Strassenbahn!

I took it easy this past weekend though. We had a belated birthday party for my roommate, Tobi, which was also a REALLY belated housewarming party. This was on Monday, since Tuesday was a holiday here (May 1st). The party was good and all my friends are still talking to me, so all is well! Tobi took some pictures that I will soon have a copy of, but they are available by request only with the exception of my mother! (just joking Mom) :)

Hiking to the Vienna Woods

That's not a grammatical error! I hiked "to" the Vienna Woods today. Unfortunately it had been raining earlier this morning, so the ground was still wet. I was in major need of some outdoors time though, so I decided to hike at least "to" the Vienna Woods and check out some of what was around. I came across a sign for the Wiener Wein Weg (Vienna Wine Trail) which I will have to check out later once the weather is not so wet. This is on the outskirts of the 19th district of Vienna, but the Vienna Woods are actually about 1000 sq km. Only a portion of it is actually in Vienna. There are hiking and biking trails all over the place which I intend to take advantage of in the coming weeks, and the views were spectacular. This is the highest point in the city of Vienna, and is also the start of the Alps (foothills). The last picture is nothing special, just a house that I liked which overlooked the valley in the previous pictures.

A Sunny Weekend in Budapest

I have my camera back! I went to Budapest 2 weekends ago and left my camera there, but I have it now and am back in business! The first picture is Budapest at night (obviously!). I was staying with a friend of mine, Gabriella, who works occasionally as a tour guide in Budapest so I got a world class tour of the city, but at a comfortable pace this time. One of the places we visited was a museum the size of a small town. It is made up of buildings from all over Hungary in different architectural styles dating back several centuries. They were all transplanted to this location from various places around the country, and they even have some animals that were common at the time, including pigs with hair! Neither Gabi nor myself had ever seen one, although her mother later told us that is part of what we ate for dinner on Sunday! Her mother prepared a traditional Hungarian dinner, and I have not seen so much food in one place in a long time. Everything was great, and it was nice to get some spicier food for a change. The last picture is of Heroes' Square. There are a total of 12 statues which represent important people in the history of Hungary, including St. Stephen (born in 1000), the first King of Hungary. Only the right hand side is pictured here. Throughout the city you can see references to St. Stephen, who is symbolized by a double cross. Budapest is really a beautiful city, and like most places, you can not really take it in all at once. I need to go back there again to see some of the sights that I missed this time for sure.

Happy Easter!

I just wanted to wish all my family, friends, and everyone at St. Laurence (also considered family of course!) a very happy Easter! I was planning on going to the Jesuitenkirche this morning for mass, but I never made it. I didn't mention it last night, but I was amongst those standing for the entire 3 hour Easter Vigil Mass. In addition, I was standing outside the cathedral for about 1.5 hours prior to make sure I got a place. This seems to have irritated my back problem from last summer a little bit, and I want to make sure that it is better for tomorrow so I can begin my week with no problem. It was nice for a change though to have this option of not going to more than one Easter service. Anyway, enough of the excuses!

I made it down to the center of Vienna early yesterday because I was not sure what time the service would start. I took the opportunity to go into several churches in the area, and I had decided that if I made it to the 1st district for mass today I would go to the Jesuitenkirche. It isn't too far from Stephansdom, and is simply gorgeous inside. The pictures speak for themselves, and certainly don't come close to doing it justice. One of these days I'll learn to keep my hands steady during those long-exposure pictures, but yesterday was not the day!