Vienna.

Top to bottom: Me and my dad, the famous Demel chocolates, the crystal dresses, some tasty food, and the Sacher Torte.

Well

everyone. Being the spacey child that I am, I didn't write for, 3 days? I know you guys were all in suspense, so I apologize for not writing things down.

We spent the Saturday before in Vienna, and Easter Sunday, too. We were planning on going to Easter service at the giant cathedral right down by our hotel, but we overslept :( We were kinda bummed, since it was Easter and whatnot. So what do we do when we can't go to church? We walk around, ALL day. I'm not even joking. We walked from 10 a.m (I think that's when it started) to almost 9 that night. Talk about exhausting.

SATURDAY

I can't really remember everything about Saturday, but I can tell you a little that I do.

We just got to Vienna, and we walked around until nightfall, so that was pretty cool.

And then we went to this place called Cafe Sacher. They're supposedly famous for their "Sacher Torte". You can read about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachertorte

I think it's gross. But that's just me(:

Then we just went back to our hotel and chilled.

SUNDAY

First off, we had breakfast in the Mariott "Garten Café" We got french toast, which was surprisingly delicious, and Oatmeal, too. In Austria, they have sugar cubes that are wrapped in paper, and insanely hard. So you unwrap them, and then put them in your tea, or in this case oatmeal, and they don't do anything whatsoever. They just sit there and make your oatmeal all lumpy, and they don't make it any sweeter. So much for that idea.

After breakfast, we headed out into downtown Austria, which was right down the street from our hotel. Pretty much downtown is this huge pedestrian shopping center, full of designer shops and old buildings. It goes on for like, a million streets. (Well maybe not that much, but you get the idea:) So we walked around there for several hours and looked around. All the shops were closed, it was Easter remember, so we just looked at all the stuff. They have a Swarovski Crystal shop there, and on display they have these multi-million dollar dresses covered in crystals. No pressure wearing those, right?

So after the shops, we went to a really old cathedral that's right around there. They had Sunday mass going on, and it was really cool to listen to them for a little while. We left the cathedral, and headed on our way to other things.

The nice thing about Vienna is that everything is within walking distance. The shops, and a bunch of cool palaces. One of them is called The Hofburg Palace. It's amazing inside, and very gaudy. The won't even let you take pictures. How lame is that?! Anyways, you can read about them/it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofburg_Imperial_Palace

The lady that lived there, Empress Elizabeth, had so many dining utensils it's ridiculous. She must have had at least a thousand plates and saucers and all that stuff! Gosh! She kinda was a stuck up snob in our opinion. But who are we to judge?

So we went there, and then got TOTALLY turned around when we left the palace. Thanks to my superb guiding skills, we got home safely before nightfall(:

(Well, my superb guiding skills + a really good map of the city...)

All in all, Vienna is an AMAZING city. I highly recommend you go there if you ever get the chance. It has everything you could ever look for in a city, plus it's clean!

-Annie

p.s. Pretty sure that only the city named Vienna is nice. Definetly not the girl on the Bachelor(:

p.ss If you want a FANTASTIC book to read, I highly recommend The Zookeepers Wife, A War Story By Diane Ackerman.