Water, boats, bridges... It just doesn't get prettier than Venice.

When we were at the VanGogh museum in Amsterdam, I told Briann that basically, if you set something at night with the moon over a body of water and incorporate a bridge in some way, I'm sold. Based on that, it shouldn't be hard to see why Venice was my favorite city; there are bridges around every corner, some 400 total I believe our gondolier told us, but that's getting ahead of myself.

Leaving Vienna, unfortunately turned into a mini disaster. When I was booking all the hostels and trains for the trip, I had planned on us taking an overnight train between Vienna and Venice since it was quite a long journey, however, the website that I was using was going though some issues the week of all the booking and I ended up having to go into the city to book it. By that time, our overnight train was full. Being that the train ride takes 7 hours, I booked the earliest one possible, the 6:20, figuring that we would all sleep on the train anyway, and I wanted to get to Venice as early as possible. Unfortunately, I didn't consider that getting 5 girls up, packed and out the door that early wouldn't be easy. I bet you can see where this is going.

We missed the train. Luckily, we were able to get on a later train that got us into Venice at 6pm. We only had 2 nights in Venice, so it was sad that we'd gotten there so late, but we made the most of it. We checked into the hostel and headed out for pizza, gelato and walking around the city. We walked to the Rialto and then decided to take a vaperetto (like a bus, but on water :) around to St. Mark's Square. Even though everything was closed, it was really beautiful at night.

The following day, we went to the Doge's Palace, and were able to walk across the Bridge of Sighs. Outside, however the building was under construction and the bridge was surrounded by a big advertisement, a tragedy that I have been complaining about since.

We took the vaperetto again, in the daylight around the city. It's amazing how beautiful every building is, but each in a different way. Then it was a nice lunch and shopping, and in the case of Briann and I, getting separated from everyone else and getting completely lost. haha. The guy at the hostel said that was part of being in Venice though, so we weren't too disappointed.

We were then joined by a friend of Shana's, Dan, who is studying abroad in Venice, and the 6 of us went on a gondola ride. The night ended with more pizza, more gelato and drinks at a bar Dan frequents.

Writing out our stay like this, I realize that we didn't do a whole lot, but really, that's my kind of vacation, so it worked. Just being there was the experience.

Vienna: Mozart, Strauss, and Freud

I think I've made you wait long enough for my travel adventures! Here's the story of Vienna!

We left Prague on an 8am bus and by 12pm we were in Vienna.

After checking into the hostel, and taking showers and naps, we headed out planning to see Mozart's house and poke around the town and the huge flea market. We watched some street performers and were headed to Mozart's when, for once, we were actually glad to be stopped by someone selling tickets on the street. We ended getting tickets to a Mozart and Strauss review that was a concert/opera/ballet combo. It was really beautiful (much better than our Don Giovanni puppet fiasco).

The next day, a Sunday, we had every intention of getting up early to go see the Vienna boys choir, but unfortunately, all 6 of us overslept. We split into 2 groups then; the other four headed to Ring Road while Briann and I went to see Schonbrunn Palace. Personally, I think we made a good choice. There was an Easter market in front of the palace where we got a great lunch, and some pastries to surprise everyone with later that night. The grounds were huge, and it even had it's own zoo and a labyrinth in the back!

Afterward, we met up with the rest of the crew at Freud's house/museum. I was a little disappointed at it really. It would have been a lot cooler if it was still set up like he had it, but instead, the bottom half of the walls showed what it used to look like and the top half had shelves and pictures. We were given a booklet that told us what each thing was, but it was a little confusing. Still, I'm glad I saw it. I think it might be psych major sacrilege to visit Vienna and not see Freud's house/office :)

A few girls were hoping to do laundry at the hostel that night and another guy was flying in, so Matt went to meet him while we chilled at the hostel and then hung out in the lounge and ate the pastries that we had bought earlier.

Back from Spring Break + Prague Pictures

Hello, hello!

I'm back from break and I finally have time to start updating! I can't even describe how amazing the whole trip was, but it's very good to be off the road and back home.

I'll start updating by city over the next couple days, but for now, I believe that I promised you some Prague pictures! This is a very random sampling since I had so many:

Next time: Vienna!

Prague

Unfortunately, Spring Break started off a little rocky. Briann and I missed our flight to Prague on Wednesday and ended up sleeping at the airport to take the 6:30 flight out on Thursday. Needless to say, we were not happy campers when we got to Prague. We didn't miss much though because one of the girls that we were meeting there was sick and so they didn't do much other than sleep before we met them.

After a short nap and a shower, we were ready to hit the town! We headed out in search of food to the old town, and ended up stumbling on the Easter Market! We sat down at a traditional Czech restaurant for lunch, and then explored the market, watched some bandstand performances, and had some desserts. Four of us headed back to the hostel early because we were all very tired, and ended up watching Indiana Jones in the lounge at the hostel, while the other two went on a pub crawl.

The next day, we took a tour of Prague that lasted a good part of the day and covered everything. We started in Bohemia, then saw old town again, followed by the Jewish quarter, and headed across the bridge to see the John Lennon wall and Prague castle. The tour ended there and a few of us decided to revisit the John Lennon wall while the others sat by the river. We did a little shopping, and then when we met up with the rest, Shana had gotten a sort of deal to see Don Giovanni at the child's price and was looking for people to come with her... It ended up being a marionette opera, which was awful, but slightly hilarious.

Upon getting back to the hostel, we decided to set up Matt's computer in the kitchen/dining room area and watch a movie, but we were a little hungry, so half of us went in search of anything that would be open late at night. We eventually found a very random pastry shop that was open and pretty much bought one of everything they had. Although the movie Eurotrip was playing in the background, none of us watched it because a group of guys at the hostel joined us and we all talked and ate 7 different kinds of pastry until ridiculously late, but it was fun!

We left for Vienna the next morning, and we were all very sad to go. The consensus was that Prague was an absolutely beautiful, fantastic city, and is definitely near the top of my list so far. I'm trying to figure out if I can just work for 6 months in the states and then live the rest of the year there... I probably could because it's really cheap and the exchange rate is amazing, about 20 koruna to a dollar.

I'll update with a slideshow later, but I don't have time to upload pictures right now.

Miss you all!

-Kendyl