wien

apologies, apologies for the lack in updates. i haven't been very "blog motivated" lately. plus, my parents are here visiting, so i'm a little distracted.

we took our our first trip from budapest to vienna, austria a couple of weeks ago. it's just a three hour train ride away, so reese has officially had her first european train ride. she had fun making friends with the romanians sitting across from us. they let her hold their phones and took pics of her and everything. it was cute.

our friend betty from houston had planned a trip to vienna and it worked out for us to meet up with her there. seven years ago she stayed in vienna for a month learning german. since she already knew so much about the city, we felt like she was our own personal tour guide. it was great! we all stayed at the same cute pension in a fabulous location in the city center. vienna is a beautiful city and a bit more western than budapest. matt was especially impressed by all the rich history there. it was like he couldn't take in enough! i have to say it IS pretty amazing that the habsburgs empire ruled for over 600 years.

this is schloss schonbrunn, the summer palace of the habsburgs. it looks a bit different in the winter than in the summer. the statues were all covered with plastic and the lawn was missing all the pretty colored flowers. we took a tour of the palace, but only got to see three percent of it. that's 40 rooms, all of which was beautiful! it helped that reese slept for most of it, so we were all able to listen to our audio guides. as we walked through we pretended we were the imperial family living in the palace, picking which room we liked the most. we also enjoyed a light lunch at the gloriette where betty and matt stiffed the waiter. well, they didn't do it on purpose, but it's true. they thought the tip was included at first and then tried to make up with him, but he was all mad and stormed out in a huff. oh well, his loss.

one of the great things about vienna during december is the christmas markets scattered all over the city. each one is a little different, so we visited three different ones. i bought a nutcracker, but that's it. of course, we ate some of the food and pastries and just enjoyed the atmosphere.

despite the cold, we enjoyed a little snow, walking around the city and the hofburg, st. stephen's cathedral (built in the 13th century), the christmas markets, the tours of the habsburg palaces, the sissy museum (aka: empress elisabeth), the horse drawn carriages riding through the city (reese especially liked the horses), the cafes, shopping, our little pension, church on sunday morning which was translated from english to german, weiner schnitzel, apple strudel, and last, but not least....

starbucks. yes, starbucks. although we are not die hard starbucks fans, we couldn't resist the gingerbread latte. it's become a little tradition for matt and me to drink this during december. in case you are wondering, starbucks has not invaded budapest, yet.

on our last night there, i got to have a girls night out, which hasn't happened since before we arrived in budapest. it was great. matt took reese back to the hotel, where he swears she said "my dad" while she gave him a hug. i believe him! betty and i went out to the volksoper to see "the merry widow", her favorite operetta. it was in german, but there was a screen with subtitles above that told us the overview of what was happening. it was a great show!

betty, we had a great time with you and enjoyed seeing a familiar face during the homesick weeks! thank you for taking me to your favorite operetta at the volksoper!