Vienna and Venice

April 11-14th we took a class trip to Austria and Italy.  We spent two days in Vienna and two days in Venice.
Vienna was beautiful, and strangely enough, reminded me a lot of Washington D.C.  We had the opportunity to tour the Schonbrunn Palace (summer palace of the royal Habsburg Family).  It was gorgeous! My favorite tour so far. We also got to tour the Albertina museum and saw/walked by many other places including: the opera house, Mozart Denkmal, Imperial palace, museum of fine arts, and parliament.  We saw so many places in this city it's hard to keep track of them all! It is definitely a place I would like to revisit.
Venice is a city unlike any other--waterways instead of streets, water buses instead of cars, bridges instead of crosswalks.  This is probably the only city that I don't care to see again.  I wasn't a fan of all the canals, narrow streets, bridges, getting lost--apparently the best way to experience Venice.  We saw San Marco Square (the heart of Venice), Palazzo Ducale, the bell tower, Doge's Palace (where Casanova was imprisoned), and even went on a gondola ride.  Even though I didn't love it, I would say we had a full Venetian experience.

 

Walking through Vienna.

 

 Loved this sign in Vienna. 

                                                             Museum of Fine Arts, Vienna.

 


Stefansdom Cathedral, Vienna

                                                                                                                Mozart Denkmal, Vienna   






                                                                                           

                 

           Me, Yoli, and Lisa outside the Museum of Fine Arts, Vienna

 Driving through the Alps between Vienna and Venice.

 Water bus in Venice on the Grand Canal. 

                                          San Marco Square  



Prettiest part of Venice.

Enjoying some excellent Italian gelato.

 A waterway in Venice.

Gondola ride in Venice.
Our gondola driver was the cutest little fellow!

Budapest, Hungary

Wow, it's easy to get behind on blogging! It constantly seems like there's so much to do with so little time to do it! Here are my updates from the last month:
Budapest:
A group of us went to this unique city over our three day Easter weekend.  The most impressive part is along the Danube River.  It is lined with buildings, trees, and people.  We crossed the Chain Bridge several times which was quite an experience! The bridge is huge and, no matter where you look, the view is marvelous. On Easter Sunday we briefly visited St. Stephen's Basilica.  It was yet another magnificent church and so full of people.  No matter how great the building, though, I missed spending this special holiday at home with loved ones and in an English-speaking church service.
Most of my weekend was spent with Yolima.  We had a wonderful time wandering around Budapest on either side of the river and eating at American restaurants: Starbucks, Subway, Starbucks, TGI Fridays (and we are not even ashamed).  Yoli has become a very special friend, and we had a lovely weekend!

Standing on the Chain Bridge

Along the banks of the Danube River

Parliament

I am finding elephants everywhere!

On the Chain Bridge: Me, Yolima, Karen

Chain Bridge. Budapest is beautiful at night!

St. Stephen's Basilica, Easter morning.

Yolima and me enjoying a Hungarian dessert. So delicious! 

Why yes, I am an American...

Today our class lecture was especially interesting.  Martin Elbel, one of the program coordinators, started class by asking us about stereotypes.  "What are some Czech stereotypes about Americans that you've noticed?" I said, "loud" and he said (in his Czech accent) "Yes, but I'm afraid that is not just a stereotype." We (loudly) laughed.
Even though we've been here three weeks now, we still stand out as foreigners.  All we have to do is talk.  If the perfect English didn't immediately give us away, the volume of our voices would.  We are definitely accustomed to receiving stares.  And, if I was a European, I would stare at us too!  Oh, I love having a foreigner's perspective!

Brno, Czech Republic

 We ate dinner at a brewery. There was a hockey game playing...apparently Czechs do yell sometimes.

 Mozart performed here when he was 11.

 A view of the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul

 This is how we warmed up. It tasted as good as it looks.

 The foundation of Gregor Mendel's Greenhouse

 Waiting for the train, I decided to befriend some pigeons. 

This weekend seven of us took the 1.5 hour train ride to Brno, Czech Republic.  It was cloudy, rainy, and cold the whole time we were there but that did not ruin our fun! (Yes, we knew Nebraska was enjoying summer weather at the time.) We did most of our touring on Saturday.  Our agenda: a cool, creepy crypt full of dead monks, the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul, a palace that was later a jail, and the abbey where Gregor Mendel did all of his research.  The city wasn't nearly as nice as Olomouc, but apparently we were staying in the Gypsy ghetto so maybe that had something to do with it! Overall it was a good first experience of traveling without the guidance of Jan or Martin, our Czech program coordinators. Yay for us!