Palaces, Horses, and Small-Town Germany

Hey team!

Feels like it's been awhile since I've written anything at all! I guess it hasn't been all that long, really. I only need to catch you up on one city's worth of stuff, so that's a plus!

Alright, so, Vienna, Austria- country number six- was quite lovely. And quite a bit warmer than home when we were there, oddly enough. When you think Austria, you think cold and snow, right? No snow. In fact, it was quite sunny the first day. Still not necessarily WARM, but sunny at least!

So the first day we headed out to see some palaces! The first palace we went to was the Schonbrunn Palace which, incidentally is the palace that is in the photo on the front of our Eurail passes, which is kinda cool! Anyways, so we went there, and the only way to get INSIDE the palace was to pay for an outrageously expensive guided tour, but you could walk around the back and all through the grounds for free, so that's what we did. And it was quite cool! Had to walk up some hills, and I was tired (getting more and more exhausted as the trip progresses) but the views of Vienna were incredible and it was super pretty!

The front.

The gardens. (So small. Hah.)

Doesn't everybody need a fountain that looks like this? 

The back.

Aaaand this was pretty pretty.

Decent. 

Next up was the Belvedere Palace, into which we got for free because we're a couple of youngins. So nice getting discounts and such just for being young. Hehe. Anyways, this was really cool as the first part of it was an art gallery which had some Monet and Van Gogh as well! And I'm sure some of you are aware of how much I love art galleries, so I was very happy with this. We wandered around that for awhile, unfortunately unable to take photos, and then headed to the next part of the palace, which was an exhibition of a very modern artist whom we did not particularly enjoy, and some medieval history and art, which was quite a bit more cool.

Front of the Belvedere!

Aaand a closer up look at the front. Those windows in the middle are in a big hall and you can see right through the building through to the other side!

They had this hilarious display up and I HAD to sneak a couple snaps. The artist created busts of people showing different emotions, characteristics and different reactions to certain things. The results? Hilarious.

Aaand the back of the palace. Also very gorgeous with very 'small' gardens.

Next we headed to the cathedral in Vienna, which is HA-UGE, but it was getting too dark to take any good photos, unfortunately. However we did take a short stroll inside, and because of the fact that the ceiling is all the same height, even on the sides, it felt like the biggest cathedral we'd been in yet, although I don't actually think that's the case. Anyways, sorry I don't have any photos to show for it, but it was quite cool. And large. And yep.

The next day we woke up (relatively) bright and early to head off and see the Spanish Riding School Lipizzaners, as per my mother's request/recommendation. For those who don't know what they are, I recommend looking them up. They are quite beautiful and it's fun to watch them do the warm-ups or "morning excercises" as they call them. Quite interesting. And then when we were walking around looking for our metro stop, we came to a doorway and saw them be led right past us! Sooo that was pretty cool, and I was able to get a couple snaps of them (they don't let you take photos of them during the exercises).

Being led right by us! Gorgeous horses, oh man.

The Spanish Riding school building.

And next we headed to the Military History museum! And again, it was free for us, we only had to pay 2 euros each in order to take photos inside. Which we definitely payed for. Because we're us. Anyways, it was amazing! There was loads of WW2 stuff including uniforms, guns, cannons, vehicles, and even a submarine that they recovered years after it had sunk! It even had clams and barnacles and stuff still on it! Crazy. And they also had the largest cross-section model of a big steamship there, which was amazing. The attention to detail in all of the models they make is incredible.

Even the OUTISDE looked cool!

And we came across some winter flowers! Dunno what they are, but they smelled INCREDIBLE.

Sweet airplane from WW2.

My dream cell-phone.

Crazy-detailed.

Pocket watches that were found in the submarine they had on display! It had sunk and been down for several years before it was recovered and given to the museum. (Well, part of it is in the museum.)

More things recovered from the sub. Crazy actually how intact they were! 

Largest cross-section model in the world. So big!

And again, ridiculously detailed! 

On the left are bunks. These guys were sleeping literally a couple feet from a missile. No biggie.

Sweet hats from the 17th/18th centuries.

And a big ol' hot air balloon!

And then we headed upstairs to check out whatever else was up there - like a WW1 exhibit that turned out to be closed, so sad- and SURPRISE we walked into the middle of a UN meeting! Um... what? Doesn't the UN have huge secret meetings with lots of people from lots of different countries where they discuss important secret world matters? Apparently not! This was right out in the open in the middle of a museum! We had to pretty much walk right through it to get to the rest of the museum! So that was an interesting experience.

Creeping the UN Austrian Peacekeepers meeting.

A hallway in the museum which was quite cool, I thought.

And then the next day it was to small-town southern Germany to see Julia and Kelsey who are going to Bible school there! We RAN for literally all of our trains that day which is frankly exhausting with 15 kg on your back. But in any case, after walking 1.5 km to our hostel, we crashed for awhile, and then went back out in search of supper, which we found after a long time of wandering and wondering why on earth everything totally closed. But we did find somewhere and had some delicious schnitzel, which I don't think I shall tire of. However, I thought that of pizza/pasta, so it's still a possibility.

On one of the trains we even had our own compartment! So cool!

And the next day we navigated Kelsey's extremely coherent instructions for the buses to get to their school and visit! It was so lovely to hang out with them for the afternoon/evening, and meet some of the other people that they're going to school with! So nice to socialize with people other than just each other for a little while! (Not that I'm tiring of that, it's just nice.) Thanks guys again for having us! And we also got to stay for supper (at a small cost) and for the lectures afterwards, which was kinda cool!

View of the Bodensee lake. Quite nice.

All that green? It's all Christmas trees. The town where Julia and Kelsey are going to school does this thing where they all dump their trees on the beach and apparently on a certain day they set them all on fire. I don't even know, but I know I wish I could witness it.

And then the next day it was off to Prague where we are now! I'll elaborate on our adventures here in another post, but what I will tell you is that to get here, we had a couple trains, and then the first bus ride of the trip! Well, the first long charter bus ride, at least. And, surprise! TJ doesn't do well on buses. So he's under the weather right now, since the bus, but hopefully he'll feel better soon and we can see Prague without him feeling miserable the whole time!

Update you again soon!