vienna + some prague things
so they are filming the next james bond movie here... it's kind of cool b/c randomly i will see trailers somewhere. one of the locations was at this building, the rudolphinum, that is right outside of my school (they also filmed a scene from mission impossible in front of that building...) and a bright red sports car was outside of the building for a few days.
last night i went to a jazz club, my second one in praha. jazz clubs are pretty fun! a little drinking, lots of cigarette smoke, and jamming to nice music.
this past weekend AIFS took us to Vienna, Austria. vienna is a beautiful city; like prague, but much bigger and cleaner. there are historic buildings everywhere and they keep up their parks beautifully, so there always seemed to be a nice place to stroll if you wanted to. in austria, they speak german, and i saw a few business signs for a "klein" business, and got pretty excited... i think i must be related to them, very distantly, somewhere in there?
friday was st. patrick's day and we were fortunate enough to find a st. patty's day celebration in vienna! after a tour of the city's gorgeous evening sights and a puten schnitzel dinner (thinly fried chicken and french fries), we headed out to the tent. they had kilkenny and guinness on tap (and 2 other beers, which were cheaper and died green and therefore had sold out before we got there...) and a live irish band. we danced the irish jig (i think? i wasn't sure what i was doing...) and hung out with the local viennese-irish folk. at the end of the night, we somehow convinced the people in charge to give us memorabilia, so i came home with a heavy cardboard poster and hanging flags saying "taste the irish spirit: st. patrick's day with jameson" and a big poster of ireland. it was a good time. i'm sure they were wondering what the damn americans wanted with all their signs...
saturday started off well b/c they had scrambled eggs at breakfast! i was so happy. that day, zdenek took us on two different tours of the city. we went to the belvedere palace, the municipal house, a pub where mark twain wrote one of his books, a reconstruction of the Last Supper ordered by Napoleon in one of the churches. after that first tour, we ate sacher torte (the famous sacher hotel's chocolate cake) at the sacher cafe. on the second walk, we went to some of the parks and saw a lot of stuff about mozart. and goethe. and then we ran across one of the world-wide anti-bush/anti-US war on iraq rallies!! i also got a sign from that, saying "world's #1 terrorist, kein angriff auf den iran" with a picture of bush behind it. pretty exciting.
i know this is silly, but two of the most exciting parts of my saturday were a) getting starbucks and b) watching the daily show global edition on cnn world. i don't often do starbucks at home, but now that i'm gone it seems so great.
sunday in vienna was GORGEOUS... all you folks at home seem to be talking about how beautiful it is there, but it's finally gotten nice here! we visited the hundertwasserhaus, which is this crazy building full of colors and different shapes and looks so amazing. we also visited the Schönbrunn palace, which was also gorgeous! it was magnificent and had amazing gardens. i would love to go back sometime and just hang out in the gardens for hours, reading a book or exercising. there was a building at the end of the Schönbrunn property, i think called the gloriad, which was a monument, and when you climbed it, there was a spectactular view of the entire city.
i feel very fortunate to have all of these trips already paid for and planned for me. all of the full weekend trips are now gone, but there are still many day trips to go on. and in a little over a week, i will be going on the ECES trip to venice, a city that i've always wanted to go to! mom, do you remember when we used to listen to those composer-on-tape books, and there was the one about vivaldi in venice, with the stratovarius? (beethoven lives upstairs, mr. bach comes to call, vivaldi's ring of mystery) i think the mozart one was based in vienna also... how cool! but it's spring break starting thursday and i don't leave for venice until weds night, so i will be hanging tight until then, experiencing the wonderful city of prague by my lonesome.
okay this update has gotten long enough and i want to go hang out in my fav cafe and get their amazing hot chocolate! hope everyone is doing well.
last night i went to a jazz club, my second one in praha. jazz clubs are pretty fun! a little drinking, lots of cigarette smoke, and jamming to nice music.
this past weekend AIFS took us to Vienna, Austria. vienna is a beautiful city; like prague, but much bigger and cleaner. there are historic buildings everywhere and they keep up their parks beautifully, so there always seemed to be a nice place to stroll if you wanted to. in austria, they speak german, and i saw a few business signs for a "klein" business, and got pretty excited... i think i must be related to them, very distantly, somewhere in there?
friday was st. patrick's day and we were fortunate enough to find a st. patty's day celebration in vienna! after a tour of the city's gorgeous evening sights and a puten schnitzel dinner (thinly fried chicken and french fries), we headed out to the tent. they had kilkenny and guinness on tap (and 2 other beers, which were cheaper and died green and therefore had sold out before we got there...) and a live irish band. we danced the irish jig (i think? i wasn't sure what i was doing...) and hung out with the local viennese-irish folk. at the end of the night, we somehow convinced the people in charge to give us memorabilia, so i came home with a heavy cardboard poster and hanging flags saying "taste the irish spirit: st. patrick's day with jameson" and a big poster of ireland. it was a good time. i'm sure they were wondering what the damn americans wanted with all their signs...
saturday started off well b/c they had scrambled eggs at breakfast! i was so happy. that day, zdenek took us on two different tours of the city. we went to the belvedere palace, the municipal house, a pub where mark twain wrote one of his books, a reconstruction of the Last Supper ordered by Napoleon in one of the churches. after that first tour, we ate sacher torte (the famous sacher hotel's chocolate cake) at the sacher cafe. on the second walk, we went to some of the parks and saw a lot of stuff about mozart. and goethe. and then we ran across one of the world-wide anti-bush/anti-US war on iraq rallies!! i also got a sign from that, saying "world's #1 terrorist, kein angriff auf den iran" with a picture of bush behind it. pretty exciting.
i know this is silly, but two of the most exciting parts of my saturday were a) getting starbucks and b) watching the daily show global edition on cnn world. i don't often do starbucks at home, but now that i'm gone it seems so great.
sunday in vienna was GORGEOUS... all you folks at home seem to be talking about how beautiful it is there, but it's finally gotten nice here! we visited the hundertwasserhaus, which is this crazy building full of colors and different shapes and looks so amazing. we also visited the Schönbrunn palace, which was also gorgeous! it was magnificent and had amazing gardens. i would love to go back sometime and just hang out in the gardens for hours, reading a book or exercising. there was a building at the end of the Schönbrunn property, i think called the gloriad, which was a monument, and when you climbed it, there was a spectactular view of the entire city.
i feel very fortunate to have all of these trips already paid for and planned for me. all of the full weekend trips are now gone, but there are still many day trips to go on. and in a little over a week, i will be going on the ECES trip to venice, a city that i've always wanted to go to! mom, do you remember when we used to listen to those composer-on-tape books, and there was the one about vivaldi in venice, with the stratovarius? (beethoven lives upstairs, mr. bach comes to call, vivaldi's ring of mystery) i think the mozart one was based in vienna also... how cool! but it's spring break starting thursday and i don't leave for venice until weds night, so i will be hanging tight until then, experiencing the wonderful city of prague by my lonesome.
okay this update has gotten long enough and i want to go hang out in my fav cafe and get their amazing hot chocolate! hope everyone is doing well.