11/9

Aaaaaand first full day in Vienna. I still can't believe it. We got up at 7:30 ish, had a great continental breakfast, included in our 15 Euro a night hostel cost (so awesome), and headed to the train station. Every time we went to the station the whole weekend we were in Vienna, we had to pass that same doner shop from yesterday night. And every single time, the whole group looked over there as I avoided eye contact and that same guy was staring at me! Anyway, but ya we grabbed the U4 to our first stop, the Schonbrunn Palace.

Here's our view as we first walked in the gate:

(to the right)

(to the left)

Next, we explored the gardens a little bit. The fall colors were beautiful, but I'm sure the spring is the most gorgeous with all the flowers and everything. All the trees are perfectly groomed and trained in straight lines. We actually saw the frame they used to cut them, it was crazy. All done by hand.

All three of us girls decided that we need to come back in a few years in ball gowns to look for Prince Charming. Haha, I know we're crazy, but that's just the sort of atmosphere it was, it was so unreal and flawless.

Best picture ever.

War monument of one of the emperors.

Mimicking the statues like the classy tourists we are:

Landscaping behind the palace. 

Even the dirt-swirls where there should've been flowers were pretty!

Fountain at other end of landscaping.

Monument on top of hill built by another emperor:

Gabe traversing the switchbacks up to the monument:

(These pictures are complements of Kelty and Kyle, by the way. None of us had very nice cameras, but I let them take most of the pictures since theirs were better than mine.)

You could see all of Vienna from the top of that hill, it was an incredible view!

See the steeple on the skyline? That's Stephensplatz, or St. Stephen's Cathedral. You'll see up-close pictures of that in tomorrow's post.

There was a zoo there too! We could've gone in for 18 euros, but we figured we'd rather be able to  stay fed for the next two and a half days... Kelty still wanted a picture of the rhino though, so there you go:

The back of the palace:

Kyle photobombing:

The only room in the palace that we were able to see for free:

View from outside the front gate of the palace:

After our visit to Stephensplatz, we took the U4 further into the main city of Vienna. Not having any great maps, we wandered for awhile. I think we discovered later that this is either St. Peter's or St. Mark's Cathedral. At the time, we were just looking for the opera house where we were going to see a ballet later that night.

(the herald was standing right there^)

There was a guy there dressed in a Shakespeare-era royal herald costume who was roping passing tourists into buying ridiculously overpriced tickets for a musical going on that night. We met a lot of similar men in tights during our time in Vienna. But yeah anyways, we asked him for directions and he begrudgingly gave us directions toward the opera house we were looking for and alerted me to the fact that my train map would not be adequate for successful city navigating.

Father, this part is for you: I have been looking for the word navigating for the last ten minutes. I knew the word I wanted had something to do with sailing. I came up with course-plotting and maneuvering. I was trying to think through all the names of the sailing classes you've taken. "Off-shore..something." But I finally found it! Haha oh boy I'm enjoying this whole blogging thing wayy too much. 

Also, word rut of this week: "*sigh* oh boy...*finishes sentence with something random*" I don't know where it came from, but that's it! Probly I'll blame it on the Canadians... Our whole group except Erik and I are from Canada. Oh! Autumn says she's getting a "California accent." She says it's cute though, so she doesn't mind. Apparently, we say our 'a's like we're from the south..

Ok so continuing our day...we were all hungry and broke, so during our wandering, we found a McDonalds and ate lunch. As everyone else went inside, Autumn and I spotted one of those city tourist trinket booth things. Usually, I would walk right on past cause I know everything is so overpriced, but I really needed a map. Don't judge me, but I paid three euros for a map of Vienna. I know, I know, but it was really nice with transportation information and pictures of all the big attractions and everything and it ended up being completely worth it.

After eating, we used the map to find our opera house. 

Here's a picture of the City Hall on the way there:

Hofburg Palace:

Front:

Back Inner Courtyard:

Archway that traffic actually drove through! (I don't know why that was so crazy to me)

Back Outer Courtyard:

(The picture of the front of the palace got corrupted as I was trying to upload it, but it's behind the camera here.)

Inside the palace was the modern library, a travelling Ephesus museum, and the crown jewel museum. 

Autumn and I decided to go into the crown jewel museum. It was free for everyone eighteen and under, which was sort of a bummer for Stephen, Kyle and Matt, but they didn't really want to see this particular museum anyways, so they waited outside and Gabe, Kelty, and Erik followed us in a little later.

I think this museum was probably my favorite part of the whole trip. We found out later that there was no photography allowed. Autumn was taking pictures the whole time until the scary lady told her to stop, but all her pictures are on her ipad, which doesn't have usb capabilities:/ Hopefully when she puts them on facebook I can upload them to here, but for now this is the only picture I've got. It's a sword with a sheath made out of a Narwhale tusk. I thought it was the most awesome thing ever:

Some other notable items included a golden jewel-encrusted baby bassinet, a unicorn horn, supposed holy relics like a piece of wood from the cross that Jesus died on and the tooth of John the Baptist, and some really incredibly beautiful jeweled crowns and earrings, etc. Every display case absolutely stunned us, it was amazing.

Other side of archway:

Of course, jokes about the statues went around on multiple occasions:

"Dude, this morning I almost left the Bode without my fig leaf."

"Are you serious?! That would've been embarrassing.."

"I know, seriously. I feel naked without it."

No words necessary:

Around this corner was the other side of the palace, where the old National Vienna Library was. We didn't know we had to pay to go in, so we got a nice view before another scary lady came over and kicked us out. It was gorgeous though. If we'd have had more time, I definitely would've paid to go all the way in and see it. 

Old books all the way up to the ceiling, which was really tall with gold-decorated domes and pretty swirly stuff. Beautiful wooden shelving and rich carpets. I really don't know how else to describe it without a picture, but it was magnificent.

After getting kicked out of the library, we used the bathroom and took a little break.

Kelty slid down the wall to sit down and accidentally left her permanent mark on Vienna:

After our break, we kept walking around the castle and came to these steps. They were really interesting-looking. From far away, it looked like people were walking up a vertical wall:

The lead up to the Albertina, a film museum:

See the paint bucket spilled off of the roof?

After our little loop around the Hofburg Palace, it was time to head back to our hostel and get dressed up for the ballet. I still don't know what ballet it was. I borrowed a dress from Jess, one of our friends at Bode. Matt wasn't feeling good, so he decided to stay at the hostel.

Here's our seats inside of the Vienna State Opera:

Dignified-looking people:

In the third floor of the lobby:

"Show us how to be a ballerina!"

After the first act, the curtain went down and Kelty, Autumn and I hurried out so we wouldn't have to stand in line for the bathroom. We could hear the crown applauding as we walked out the door...and still when we made it to the bathroom...and when we walked out of the bathroom, they were still clapping. 

...and that's when I decided that upper-classness will never be the life for me.

There were three intermissions, one every 20-30 minutes. It was a really long time to watch ballet. At one point, I was sitting next to Erik watching a row of tight-clad men clasping one another's hands and skipping ballet-style in a circle and it hit me what an absolute lack of class I have. I turned and looked at him, and we both stifled hysterical laughter.

Chandelier inside the auditorium. You can't really see, but it was made of a million tiny little crystals. We were sorta mesmerized:

Autumn and Kelty especially were absolutely giddy to be experiencing such a famous ballet in Vienna. It was really cute. It was seriously a nice ballet though. Tickets on the floor were selling for as much as 1,500 Euros. It was fun to get all dressed up for it, and the guys were great about helping to make it special for us.

We let the boys sit up front since our seats had a limited view of the stage. They were getting really into the story line:

When it was finally over, we discussed possible explanations for what exactly the dancers were attempting to depict. There were a lot of theories, none of which gave any excuse for keeping us there for that long. I know I probably sound a little negative, so let me finish by saying that it really was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed it.

Afterwards, we wanted to take some pictures since everybody was all dressed up:

Since the Albertina was right around the corner, we went up there for pictures:

I was really cold. Haha see my gloves?:)

Afterwards, we went to the main shopping street in Vienna looking for a place to have a nice Austrian beer. We asked a group of kids to take a picture of us before realizing that they were quite drunk:

They thought it was cool that we were from North America, so one of them got in the picture with us:

Ironically, the only safe-looking bar was South-American themed...But we each ordered a beer (the girls got small ones) and afterwards, we headed back to the hostel.

That was a really long post. Hopefully it was entertaining!

Psalm 65:8
The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy.