Vienna

This weekend I found myself in Vienna Austria, home of Mozart, the Hapsburgs, and Marie Antoinette as well as the seat of the Holy Roman Emperor. ( after Rome fell the Empire was split into two parts, Byzantium and the Holy Roman Empire whose first ruler was Charlemagne, the guy who legalized Christianity...)

We took a VERY uncomfortable night train from Florence and wound up at Vienna's Sudbanhof station at 8am Friday morning. We went to see the Shonbrun palace, the summer home of the Hapsburg Emperor, and saw St. Stephens Cathedral. We also saw the State Opera house where some of the worlds most famous musicians and Opera singers perform.

The next day we visited the Hofburg, the main royal palace of the Hapsburgs where we toured the Sisi Museum and the Spanish riding school. The Sisi museum is devoted to Queen Elizabeth, nicknamed Sisi, who was a rather odd royal. Basically, she was a pre Princess Diana in that she hated the restrictions of her position, despised the royal family, and disliked her husband. She was obsessive about food and rarely ate so much so that she had a 20 inch waist! Sadly ( and strangely) she was assassinated with a nail file by an Italian in Geneva, Switzerland.

At the Spanish Riding school we watched as they trained white horses to trot and jump. This school is known for training horses to do tricks etc.. Here's some pictures to get my point across.

There were also some wonderful Christmas markets out in front of city hall that we spent alot of time at. Since there's no Thanksgiving here in Europe, the Christmas festivities get started earlier. We walked by the booths, grabbed some sausages, hot pretzels an cider and bought a few ornaments while enjoying the atmosphere.

We went to see an Opera on Saturday night. We saw "Carmen" in German so I cant really tell you what the plot was because we didn't understand anything but basically a woman betrays the man she loves and he gets mad and kills her. The best part was the music and the singing, both were AMAZING!

I forgot to mention that it was freezing this weekend! It actually snowed quite a bit during our time there. None of us had the right clothes so we all froze to the death, but I managed to escape without frostbite! I think ill buy some warmer socks before I go to Switzerland in two weeks.

I'm off to Rome on Friday and Saturday. I miss you all so much and wish I could be there to celebrate Thanksgiving with you! HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Eat lots and have a little extra cranberry relish for me :)

love,

Michelle