Greetings from Vienna, Austria! I apologize for not updating sooner. We've been out all day and night, so by the time we return back to the hostel, I'm exhausted and go straight to sleep. We are staying at an awesome hostel called Wombats. It is literally located two minutes from the train station, which is great with our big backpacks! However, the city center is quite a hike-- we did it once and decided it would just be easier to buy a 48 hour unlimated train pass (the pass spares time and sore legs). The train system here is a very laid back system. I'd say it's too laid back-- we have been on the train about five times already and have yet to have our tickets checked. Basically, it seems pointless to buy tickets! Unless, of course, we're missing something... Our last day in Salzburg was a lot of fun. We all really enjoyed Salzburg-- three days was the perfect amount of time to see everything that we wanted. I woke up early to go on The Sound of Music tour. I thought it was great, except they didn't stop in as many places as I wished. There were many drive by sites-- "...and on the right you will see a big yellow wall where Maria sang her confidence song...up that hill you will see the abby where the Nuns lived..." My favorite part was seeing the Do-Re-Mi site and the I am 16 Going on 17 Gazebo. The scenic views in the hills were gorgeous, too. And of course, I loved all the soundtrack with all the songs that they played on the bus! I came back to the hostel singing away :). We finished up the day in Salzburg with some sightseeing in the Old City across the bridge. There is a lot of shopping in the Old City, with these really cool egg shops. The egg shops are filled with crates of thousands and thousands of decorated, hand-painted eggs (just the shell of the egg-- the inside is blown out). We visited Mozart's Birthplace, which was this big yellow building in the middle of town. We also visited a creepy Catholic Graveyard with a lot of spider webs and Jesus statues. We tried ghost hunting, but found nothing. After that, we did a lot of walking and headed back to the hostel. The next morning we missed out 9 am train to Vienna, Austria. Trains to Vienna run hourly from Salzburg, so it wasn't too much of a big deal. We caught the 10 am train and 2 hours and 40 minutes later arrived in Vienna. The city is bigger than the other cities we've visited so far. Although traveling by foot is doable here, traveling around by the train or bus is more suitable. There is a lot of shoppings and artsy type things to do (Museums, The Symphany). I love the architecture on the buildings, but Vienna isn't my favorite city. Maybe it is because I feel a little rushed here. You stop somewhere, realizing that you only have so much time to spend there because you want to see five more places before the day ends. Yesterday was a lot of fun-- we explored a lot of the city and some of the main sights. We stopped for dinner at an international food tasting area. There are stands of foods from all over the world. They represented each country very well-- even America was there with burgers, potato chips, and coca-cola given out as our food. That was a little embarrassing, haha! Our hostel bar is HOPPING at night! We went out with some new friends we made from England to a bar called Chelsea-- it was a lot of fun. We danced all night and had a great time! Today we went to the Sigmund Freud Museum in the morning and the Danube River in the afternoon. The Sigmund Freud Museum is actually in the office where Freud lived and practiced psychoanaysis for years. His office was located in Vienna, until he fled to London before the Gestapo could find him and his family. The Museum contained a lot of his original furnishings and antique collections. Later that afternoon, we decided we were going to check out the Danube River. We only went for a short while, so we are going back tomorrow morning for a row boat ride and swim.
We are all having a wonderful time in Europe. We are really lucky to have had beautiful weather every day (the only time it rained was our first day in Lucerne). It has been sunny and 80 and is supposed to continue on that way for the next couple of days! Tomorrow is our last day in Vienna-- then it is off to Prague, Czech Republic! Keep in touch! <3 Allie, Andrew, & Jason