VIENNA

Vienna, Austria, was a beautiful city. It was very modernized but still had the feel of a city in the 18th century. I went to an art museum, the Albertina, and saw many works from Picasso and Monet. They were beautiful. We also went to a few castles: the Bellevedere and the Shoennburg. They have been restored and kept in the same state that they were in 100s of years ago, and they were absolutely gorgeous. It was amazing.. the high ceilings and gold crusted door frames.. so beautiful. These castles were the "summer homes" of historical characters such as Marie Antoinette and Franz Ferdinand. They showed us a room in which Mozart played his first concert at six years old. It was amazing. A lot of the students I was with got bored during the tour but my love of history kept me interested. Thank God.. each castle had about 45 rooms and we went through every single one!

There was an open air market by our hotel that I visited multiple times while in Vienna. It had fresh produce and tons of dried fruit, cheese, wine, raw fish, Kebobs (like a gyro but even better, very popular in Europe) and anything else you could imagine. We would walk through and try samples of everything without even buying any food, and there was lunch! It was perfect. The weather was great too. The weather during the entire 10 day opening tour was mostly nice which was definitely a blessing.. walking tours in the cold or rain would not have been fun.

Wednesday night I made my way to Florence (finally!) and got in around 1:00 pm. I finally finished unpacking and went to a day of school, and I'm already headed off to Munich in the morning! Bad planning on our part... but oh well! I'll be back on Sunday and will have many stories about my Oktoberfest experience I'm sure. Ciao for now!!