Vienna, May 25th, 2008

On Saturday we awoke early to take a train to Vienna, Austria. I just can’t believe how beautiful the country of Germany is. We arrived in Vienna and we immediately saw a tall blond man that we recognized as Spencer. I know he felt like he was in a dream to be back with family. Spencer then showed us around and took us to a Kebab shop. Ryan and I then found our way to the down town of Vienna. It was absolutely stunning. Everywhere I looked was a grand building. The streets were made of cobblestone. The statues were carved out of white stone and gold. Every way I turned there was beautiful art all around me. And what made it even more stunning, was all the plant life. In the heart of the city, there were trees lining the streets, big tall green leaved and black barked trees. I was absolutely amazed with Vienna. The art was bewildering. We walked around and looked into a few beautiful churches. We noticed a few monks taking pictures of me, I would smile and keep walking and their cameras would follow me! It happened about three times that I saw and Ryan said he saw a few monks take pictures of my butt! We went to a really large church in a large piazza, it was the main church in Vienna. We found some street performers and I was surprised by what I saw. Mexicans came to Vienna, dressed as Native Americans and we dancing native American ritual dances! I was shocked! Mexicans? In Europe? I was very glad when we were in Frankfurt that we didn’t have to see the second class citizens, but in Vienna? Sunday morning arrived and we went to church with Spencer. He was very homesick, but we're sure he'll get over it. We decided to get some food and we remembered a store that Spencer pointed out to us. We went to where we thought it was and couldn’t find it. We decided to check on a different street. So we hunted out the middle street. We found the sign for the store but not the store itself. We began hunting up and down the street until we finally found someone to ask where the store was. They guided us to a side street that we didn’t even notice. We walked down the street for a long time until we found the store. What we didn’t realize, is that the store would be closed on a Sunday. Out of luck, we went to a nearby gas station and found some snacks for the train ride. We were so tired and didn’t want to walk all the way back, we decided to take a bus back. We found the bus that we thought we needed and hopped on. We soon realized that it was going in the wrong direction. We hopped off near the train station and hopped on a subway thing and hopped off and hopped on another bus. We rode on that bus until we recognized the bus stop that we were to take. It was a long and tiring evening, but we made it back to where we were staying. The next morning we took off to the train station, and on the train we found a nice cabin with great big windows. The country of Austria is even more beautiful than I imagined it could be, even more than Germany. It is no wonder that tales of Faeries and wood nymphs came out of Europe. The hills really are alive with the sound of music.

p.s. to explain: the picture with Ryan pointing is at Vienna's outdoor drinking water called "Weiner wasser" literally translated as "Vienna water".

Frankfurt, May 22nd, 2008

We arrived in Frankfurt yesterday in the early morning. Both Ryan and I were very tired, neither of us had more than 3 hours of sleep on the plane. Our two days of travel felt meshed into one. The train ride from the airport was relaxing. I gazed out the window looking through the forest of green trying to see the city Frankfurt. The trees were too thick and the plants too green, I couldn’t see a thing. Eventually the train tracks took us up so I had a better view of the city. At first I had the impression that Frankfurt was rather a small, spread out city. It was an illusion. The trees were the cities mask to deceit the newcomer. We arrived at the train station and started walking in the direction of the red light district where our hotel was. I thought the red light district would be a lot worse, but it could have been a lot better. We went to our hotel room and to our surprise found it to be quite nice for 40 Euros. We had spent more money in the states for a worse hotel room before. We tried to stay awake to make the most of the day in the new city, but sleep overcame our exhausted bodies that lived 2 days in one. We slept to the television turned on to some old eighties movies translated into German. We slept and slept for about 6 or 7 hours. We awoke thinking it was only 2 in the afternoon. But we soon found it was quite late. We had a little biscuit and yogurt for breakfast on the plane and we slept through lunch. We were very hungry when we awoke from our long nap. We left the hotel in search of an ATM machine so that we would be able to eat food. We walked around and found some nice old buildings that were probably the center of what the city was built around. We found an ATM machine and had some schnitzel and fries for our dinner. We walked around and enjoyed a citron and strawberry shakes. In the morning for breakfast the hotel provided thick slices of cheese and pieces of sweet meat on tasty flaky bread with yoghurt , boiled eggs and juice on the side. Then later that night Ryan went to call Spencer to arrange a time to meet, and on his way to the internet cafe a black hooker chick grabbed his arm and wouldn't let go. She kept trying to force him into a strip club but did not succeed! Well, to wrap it up, we got our train tickets and headed off to Vienna Saturday morning. Oh yeah!

FUTON that is no longer ours

Well this is our first blog post. It happens to be a boring picture of a futon that we sold a couple of weeks ago. Hmmm. How boring. We are leaving to Switzerland in a week. YAAAAAYY!