A busy day today. Again we woke up to the familiar hotel breakfast buffet: a tepid pan of undercooked scrambled eggs, gray sausages links suspended in a greasy, film covered liquid, and strange granola cereal served with warm milk. I expect they thought this is what tourists want to eat. It was my understanding that Europeans eat no more than bread and jam for breakfast, and it did seem like many of the hotel’s guests were doing just that. The strangest thing I saw however was a gentleman gently slurping his coffee out of a bowl…a peculiar habit, but it worked [View Full Entry]

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Our tour of Vienna was scheduled for today. We loaded the bus this morning and got an extensive (if artificial, since we were in a bus) view of Vienna, complete with a stop at the Zentral Friedhof, or Central Cemetery where we were able to see the graves of some of the most important composers of all times. Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Wolf, Strauss, Schubert and Schoenberg all claim this cemetery as their final resting place, and although most of the musicians buried here were originally interred at different cemeteries in the greater Vienna area, someone had the bright idea of relocating [View Full Entry]

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When one thinks of Austria, they automatically think mountains. Flying into Salzburg, all I see is flat terrain which is a little disappointing. As we get closer, we are guided into Salzburg airport by tall, snow-capped mountains. After getting off the plane, I got myself to the Hauptbahnhof (Main train station) and made for Vienna. As the train winded it's way along the tracks towards Vienna, I got an amazing view of the surrounding mountains. I met and was talking to a couple from New Zealand so the trip didn't seem 3 1/2 hours long. I started, as I usually do [View Full Entry]

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ARRRRRRRRRRRlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllloooooooooooooooooooooo! Sonja here... Clive 5s for everybody! ok z´s are y´s in this entrz, cool? Kezboards are sillz here. Jeeeey, where do we even begin! Wellllllllll, um we left off in... Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic. BEFORE THAT there are somethings that we wanted to add so that ZOU know and so that WE don't forget. 12. In Krakov there is this legend that the tartars (monogolians) were sneaking up on the citz during the night time. Thez were spotted bz a lookout. To wake and warn the citiyines, he plazed a tune on his trumpet. Halfwa [View Full Entry]

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Pavel scheduled a tour of Brno this morning, but much to my chagrin and against my principles, I decided it would behoove me to sleep in. After our impromptu exploration of downtown Brno and incredible interaction with the locals yesterday, I felt I could skip this one and not be too terribly behind. By about noon, it was time to transfer to Vienna. We loaded up the bus and were on our way. However, this time we were one person larger. One of our friends from Brno--Martin--asked us if he might tag along to Vienna with us since he had never [View Full Entry]

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i just wrote a blog and it disappeared. i hate the internet. goodbze. Andz [View Full Entry]

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hi. just quickly because we are at our new hostel in vienna and there is a line up for the internet. the tour is done. its sad. it was hard enough last week when we lost julie and king bruce!! but now anna, alex, stacey and kiri!!! john and heather are still kicking around so we have a lunch date with them tomorrow. here are some things: TWO METER SAUSAGE! ABSINTHE! SPENDING MONEY! we have a couple more days here and its going to be nice and relaxed and expensive so we'll get to write a proper update tomorrow or monday. [View Full Entry]

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Europe, we are finally here..... The flight from Kuala Lumpur to Vienna took us around 11 hours, but it didn't feel that long. Since this flight also had an in-flight entertainment system (though not on demand as Singapore Airlines had) with lots of movies, we managed to kill time efficiently. About 40 min after take-off they served us food, which you might think a bit odd considering the time was around 1am, but hey....if they serve it, we'll eat it =) Since this was an overnight flight (we left at 12.30am and landed in Vienna at 6am) we were hoping to [View Full Entry]

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Started the day very early, checked out of my hostel and headed for the train station to put my big backpack in storage. I then jumped on the Metro and headed to the Hofburg, the residence of the Habsburg Monarchy for hundreds of years. It was originally begun in the 1200s, but everybody added onto it after that. It is also currently home to the Lipizzaners of the Spanish Riding School and the Vienna Boys Choir. After a quick stop at Starbucks (I couldn’t resist it has been ages since I have had a frapachino) I made my way to the [View Full Entry]

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Hey everyone! Hope all is well back at home! I miss you all a lot! this past week has been super busy and full of adventure! the lectures have been good and REALLY interesting! I love them. (i think theyre my favourite part actually.....haha....me love to be in class? Go figure...). On friday night our room went out for dinner to a cute little austrian place just down the street in the city centre and i had spaghetti and salad! I think its the best food ive eaten since being at this school!!!! haha. We actually had VEGETABLES! amazing, i know! [View Full Entry]

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