Leaving on a jet plane

We slept in this morning until about 11am / when the cleaning lady came in yelling at some roommates, so we took that as a cue to get out and get going. We left our hostel and went in search of some lunch and sat down at a cool little restaurant up the street called Cervecería 100 Montaditos. It was kind of a tapas restaurant but not really. We ordered four little sandwiches, a Cesar salad and a plate of fries that was served on a plate similar to a painter’s palette that had 4 different sauces in little divots around the edge. While we were eating lunch, we got a text from Natalie and Blair, our Aussie buddies, that they were heading toward town and wanted to meet up to do some sightseeing.

We finished our lunch then checked on the prices for a hop on/hop off bus tour and saw that it was pretty reasonable. We shot them a quick text and did some window shopping around Puerta del Sol when we got a text from them that they were across the street from us. We headed over and did Rachael’s signature “tap on the opposite shoulder” move to surprise them but since they’re awesome Aussies they already knew this trick and caught us. Curses!

We headed off together to window shop and find some iced coffee for Blair. We ended up stumbling into this really cool shop that had lots of fun and eccentric decorative tchotchkies. After some shoppin’ there we headed to a Starbucks near our hostel for some iced coffee and frappucinos. Yum! While there, Natalie got a call from their other Aussie friends, Ramon and Katherine who had slept in (they had traveled all the way from Australia the day before - 20 hours traveling!). We wanted to wait for them to get in town before we all got the hop on/hop off bus tickets together, so we went to kill some time at El Corte Inglés (an amazing department store in Spain) to check out some shoes that Natalie had been eyeing the day before. We talked her into getting them. We’re good at helping others spend their money. We all eventually split up for a bit to do some of our own shopping. Rachael got lost and was about to start playing an epic game of Marco Polo in the store when she got a text saying that the whole Aussie gang (and wannabe Aussie, Katie) were outside. That would’ve been a long and embarrassing game of Marco Polo for Rachael! We all finally got together and headed off to buy our tickets for the hop on/hop off bus.

We hopped aboard, like you do on buses, and went to sit in the back on the top, because we’re cool like that. We popped in our headphones and jammed to the history of Madrid, with the occasional Spanish opera. It was awesome. We wanted to be sure that we got to hear everything and still get to the Reina Sofia Museum around 6pm because we had heard that it’s free to get in on Wednesdays. We were ridin’ and jammin’ and got to the Palacio Real when our bus broke down! Wah-wah. We decided this was a good opportunity to go check out the Palace. We hopped off, like you do off of buses, and headed toward the Palace to find that it was closed.

At least it looked pretty through the gate, so we took some pics anyway. We then headed back toward our un-Tigger bus (no hopping, get it?) and waited for another bus to come along. One came by so we hopped on, grabbed some seats and got back to rockin’ out to the history of Madrid.

We stayed on until we got to the Prado Museum and hopped off and began to make our way to the Reina Sofia Museum. We also wanted to check out the botanical gardens near by, but we decided to head to the museum first and take advantage of their “free admission” deal, hang there for a bit then go to the botanical gardens. We got to Reina Sofia and discovered that the free admission deal didn’t begin until 7pm - it was 6:15pm. Well shoot! We were already there so Rachael and the Aussie Gang shelled out the 6 Euros to head inside while Katie, who visited the museum when she studied abroad 4 years ago, opted to go visit the botanical gardens that she hadn’t seen before. We made plans to meet back up after about 1 ½ hours and meet Katie at the botanical gardens, so we split off and went off to see some art!

The Reina Sofia houses a ton of modern art all from the 20th century such as Salvador Dali, Joan Miro and Pablo Picasso. One of the more famous paintings in the museum is Picasso’s Guernica which depicts some events from the Spanish Civil War. We had all seen pictures of it in the past but never realized how huge the painting was! Near it are also some sketches and process photos of Picasso creating the work. It’s was really cool to look at how Picasso’s process began and to see the final product. It’s a really cool museum, full of all sorts of fun, abstract and modern art work. It soon became time to meet back up with the Aussie gang. Blair and Natalie wanted to stick around and see if they could find Dali’s painting “The Persistence of Memory” while Rachael, Katherine and Ramon headed off to find Katie at the botanical gardens. We got there to find Katie sitting outside. It was closed! We decided to head off and find a cool road with poetry inlaid in the pavement that Katie remembered was near by. We started to make our way there when it started to drizzle. Rachael, not having an umbrella, decided to head back to the Reina Sofia up the street to stay dry and see some more stuff while Katie, Ramon and Katherine kept going. As both parties went their separate way, the rain started to pick back up. Rachael ducked into a Starbucks near the Reina Sofia while Katie, Ramon and Katherine ducked into Pinocchio’s, the restaurant where Rachael and the Aussies had had dinner the night before.

Once the rain let up, Rachael headed back toward the Reina Sofia to find that they too were closing and that she couldn’t go inside. So she went and looked around their gift shop while she waited for Natalie and Blair. The three of them met up and went in search of the other half of their gang. We found each other and decided it was time for some dinner! We looked up the tapas restaurant that we had tried to find the night before in their Lonely Planet book and realized that it was quite a trek away. We knew that we wanted to get into bed fairly early and that they had to catch a train back to their hotel around 11pm so to play it safe, we decided to go to a tapas restaurant up the street from our hostel which is fairly close to the train station they need to get back to their hotel later. We ordered a couple of different tapas and shared some sangria. It was delish! It soon got to be pretty late so we asked for our check, paid, and began to make our way back to our hostel. We bid a tearful farewell to our Aussie buddies (we’ll miss you guys!) and headed back up to our hostel to pack up and get ready to head to the airport early in the morning.

It’s been a bittersweet last day. We’re sad to be leaving but excited to go home and sleep in one bed for more than 2 nights in a row. We have had the trip of a lifetime and have had a blast traveling together, seeing all the sights, trying all the food and meeting all sorts of amazing people. We will miss everyone that we’ve met and hope our paths will cross again some day and are excited to see all of our peeps back home. Thanks again to everyone that’s been following our blog! We hope that you’ve been having just as much fun reading and following along with our adventures as we have.

See you at home!

XOXO K&R

Well, trains, you’ve been fun. We’ll miss you.

We decided to take full advantage of our hostel’s noon checkout time and slept in this morning. There is a speed train between Sevilla and Madrid that leaves every hour or so, so we didn’t have to be in a rush to get to the train station. We got our things together and started to walk toward the train station when a cab stopped right in front of us to let a lady out. We decided that it was fate that we take a cab to the train station so we loaded up our backpacks and had a nice ride instead of walking the half hour to the train station. Because we took the taxi, we got there about 25 minutes before one of our trains left so we reserved our seats and hopped on the train. The ride was about two and a half hours. It was cool! This train line has all speed trains and they play movies each time like on the airplane. Neither of us took advantage of being able to watch the movie, but we thought it was cool that we could nonetheless. We finally got caught up on our blogging! We were sad to think that this was our last train ride. We love and will miss those awesome trains!

When we got to Madrid and found that the train station is connected to the metro system so we hopped on the metro and made our way to our hostel. We started walking toward our hostel and ended up taking a wrong turn somewhere and ran into Blaire and Natalie! In case y’all didn’t know, Madrid is a pretty big place. We were really surprised to bump into them. They have a couple of friends that came to hang out for a week before starting a 4-week European tour next week. The four of them were about to grab a bite to eat so we ran to the hostel and checked in and threw our things down and met back up with them.

We had heard through the grapevine that the Prado Museum is free on Tuesday nights from 6 - 8pm so we all headed off in that direction to check out the museum. We did some photo shoots and exploring along the way and made our way to the Prado. They only let in so many people every 15 minutes so we stood in line for a bit and waited our turn. We got inside and decided to all meet up at the Goya statue out front at 8pm so we split up and went on our own art exploration adventures.

The Prado Museum in Madrid houses a ton of European art from the 12th - 19th centuries. Lots of Byzantine, Romanesque, Romantic, Gothic, religious and realistic paintings and sculptures. One of the more famous paintings here is Hieronymus Bosch’s painting of “The Garden of Earthly Delights.” We had recently heard comedian Stephen Colbert compare the new KFC Double Down sandwich to this painting. We actually ran into a KFC about 15 minutes before going into the Prado to grab one just to test his theory but the “deep fried madness and breaded insanity” has sadly not made its way across the Atlantic. Oh darn.

We met back up outside afterward and talked with our new Aussie friends about the awesomeness known as Australia. We talked about everything from kangaroos, to politics, the Aborigines, the epic blue ring octopus, and even learned some new Australian phrases. For example, when Katie tried out her new Aussie accent, one of the guys responded, "You've got Buckley's doing it right." Apparently that means that she had no chance of speaking with a believable Aussie twang. Also, we taught them how to say “y’all.” It was a very productive evening.

After a while, our stomachs started to get a bit grumbly so we started to make our way to a tapas restaurant that Blair had found in their Lonely Planet book. Katie wasn’t feeling too well so she left and headed back to the hostel to rest while Rachael went to go eat dinner with the Aussies. We ended up going to a small Italian restaurant called “Pinocchio” that served great pasta and sangria. After dinner, we made plans to meet up at some point tomorrow to see the Royal Palace of Spain and possibly do a hop on/hop off bus tour together. We bid adieu for the evening then headed back to our respective hostels. The Woodmere Gang is now at the hostel and chillin' for the rest of the night. We want to make sure we get enough sleep so that we can take full advantage of our last day of our epic European adventure tomorrow! How did it get to be so late so soon?!

Peace ninjas!

XOXO K&R

It's okay - we're Americans!

Pictures have been added. Enjoy!

We left Vienna on Thursday around 11:00 am. We ended up purchasing our tickets to Salzburg so we could save a day on our rail passes. It was a 3 hour train ride and we basically passed out. We called this our "Harry Potter train" because we it had compartments rather than rows of seats. We grabbed one to ourselves and took off our shoes so that no one would want to be in there with our stanky feet (which, incidentally, we composed a song about shortly thereafter).

We got into Salzburg and checked into our hostel around 2:00 pm. We were all bundled and layered up from being in Vienna and once we got off the train in Salzburg, we were delighted to be greeted with some lovely Springy 60-degree weather. We were definitely sweating by the time we reached our hostel because of all of our layers. We unloaded all of our stuff and Rachael went to go take a shower so she could feel so fresh and so clean, clean. We were about to leave

the room for lunch when Rachael dropped her watch behind our bunk beds. The furniture in this hostel is pretty solid, we soon learned. That stuff is really hard to move! Luckily, after some major grunting and groaning, we got her watch back and all is well. We then headed out to find some grub. We found a cute shopping

area with tons of food and shops. We stumbled upon this great little restaurant with outdoor seating, which we just had to take advantage of. On the menu, we were both drawn to the same dishes so we ordered the same thing. The first was a creamy garlic soup. Yeah, that’s right, garlic soup. It was basically the best thing ever. We both wiped our bowls clean and then we moved on to the gnocchi with gorgonzola cream sauce dish that we shared. Our breath was awesome by the end of the meal. Afterwards, we decided to do some exploring and made our way to the Old Town. There were tons of cute shops, restaurants, and historical venues to check out. Salzburg is in a valley surrounded by mountains on either side and has a river that runs through it. You’ve probably seen this river and these mountains before. In fact, these aren’t just any mountains - these hills are alive! This is the city where “The Sound of Music” was filmed. So knowing that, we just had to do a tour! (Thanks Amanda!) We headed back to the hostel and booked our tour for the next morning (Friday). Our hostel is all decked out in “The Sound of Music.” There are pictures of the movie, the stage production, filming locations, or the actual Von Trapps themselves lining every wall of the hostel AND every day at 10:30am they show the movie.

Our hostel roomies were doing the same tour so we all woke up and had breakfast together. The tour bus picked us up right at our hostel (score!). It also picked up Jonathan and the Shorter College gang at their hotel so we were all on the same tour together. We were a little disappointed to not see Jonathan sporting his Maria dress as he had promised. The tour got going and we had a vary flamboyant tour guide who sang and yodeled for us the whole way. We learned that Hollywood took a lot of liberties when they made their movie version of the story. This did not exactly fly well with the real Maria Von Trapp, but she got quiet real fast when they wrote her a $900,000 check. The first stop on our tour was the lake where Maria and the gang flip over in their boat as well as the house they used as the back exterior of the Von Trapp house. The gazebo used in the movie lived here for some time after the film came out but was later moved to another location because the occupants of this house got tired of people hopping the fence day and night to snap pictures of their gazebo.

The next stop on our tour was the gazebo itself! It’s locked up now because an 80 going on 90 year old lady broke her hip trying to hop around on the benches a couple of years ago. We also passed the street where Maria sang her confidence song (which is now a pedestrian road, so our bus couldn’t go over there). This road runs in front of the house they filmed for the front of the Von Trapp house. After that, we left the city limits of Salzburg and headed up into the mountains to see some more lakes, mountains, and other scenery used in the film. As we left the city, our guide began playing the movie soundtrack so that we could all sing along. And we did. And it was great.

We visited the church where the wedding scene was filmed and had lunch in the town there, called Mondsee. Apple strudel is a very popular Austrian dish, so we just had to have some for dessert (oohh darn).

After lunch, we got back on the bus and headed back to Salzburg. The tour ended in front of the Mirabell Palace which you can’t visit because they actually do stuff there, but behind it are the Mirabell gardens, which you can visit (for free!). This is where they filmed several different scenes, most notably, the “Do-Re-Mi” song.

While on the tour, we met our new friend, Matt. He’s from Seattle, so we call him “Matt from Seattle.” Creative? We think so. We exchanged numbers so that we could all meet up for dinner later. After touring the gardens, we headed back to Jonathan’s hotel (which we later learned is only 2 blocks away from our hostel). After hanging there for a bit, we headed off to find the Mozart house. We walked around and toured where Mozart was born and raised. You can see some of the instruments he played, music and letters he wrote, as well as other personal belongings. At the end of the tour, you can see sketches and models from some of the first productions of his operas. There were original costume sketches from the first production of “Le Nozze de Figaro” and models from several notable productions of “The Magic Flute.” It was pretty spectacular.

After touring there, we headed up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress. It was built in 1077 and is one of the best preserved fortresses in Europe. A tram took us up the very steep hill. At the top, there is a fantastic view of the entire city.

We were exploring when we ran back into our hostel roomies, Jennifer and Rodrigo. They told us that everything was closing, and that we should probably head back down. We found a path, and walked back down to the town. Once we reached the bottom, we found a cool looking cemetery and started walking around. The caged in graves looked a bit familiar. We looked in our “Sound of Music” map and found that this cemetery was the one used at the end of the movie when the Von Trapps are hiding and trying to get away from the Nazis.

We left there and began making our way to a church for dinner. However, this isn’t just any church we were headed to, it was the Augustine Beer-hall at the Mülln monastery. Yup, they brew their very own beer here and there are monks pouring pitchers. Needless to say we had a deliciously fun time:

After dinner, we decided we had to check out the roof top bar at the Hotel Stein that our guide told us about. Although it was fairly warm during the day, it was definitely getting chilly by nightfall. As we were walking toward the hotel with the roof top bar, we could see the outdoor heaters poking up, so we figured we would be okay to sit outside. We headed into the hotel and made our way to the top. We got outside, sat down, and started shivering! The heaters weren’t even on - what a tease! Luckily, they did have blankets which helped some but it was still pretty chilly. After we ordered some drinks, our new friend Matt from Seattle came to join us. We also saw the group of ladies who sat next to us on our tour (Hey Edelweiss buddies!). We decided we couldn’t take the cold any longer and headed inside, but didn’t stick around for too much longer. The drinks were 9 Euros each (that’s $12 folks). So after thawing out, we left and started to make our way back toward the hostel to take advantage of the bar there. On our way there, we found a different bar. We were debating on whether or not to go inside, when a Dustin Hoffman look-alike turned around and beckoned us to come inside. We obliged. Who can say no to Dustin Hoffman!? We made friends with “Dustin” who is actually French and owns the bar. Now a sizeable group of 7, we got pretty rowdy, but for some reason, they loved us. At one point, they turned the music down so “Dustin” and Trey, an opera singer in training at Shorter, could sing “O Sole Mio” together. A good time was had by all. The bar seemed to start closing as “Dustin” was leaving, so we left too. We headed to the hostel to hang out some more. Not long after, our group dispersed and we hit the hay.

We woke up around 9:00 this morning so we could get packed up and checked out by 10:00 am. We looked up rail times for Prague and saw that we had to go back to Vienna to catch a train to Prague. Trains for Vienna leave about every ½ hour so we were good to go. We went to get breakfast and found an outdoor market where we ate some delicious pastries. After leaving there, we realized we were right next to the Shorter College gang’s hotel and Jonathan’s window was open. So we just had to be “those Americans” and started yelling his name. Five seconds later, he walked out of the lobby where he had been talking to one of his chaperones. He told us after he heard his name being called from outside, his chaperone had said “I think your friends are outside.” We got to say our farewells again and left the Shorter gang for good (tear). We headed back to the hostel and collected our belongings before making our way to the train station.

Not too much to report after that. We got to our train and slept all the way to Vienna and are now in Prague! We’ll be here for the next 4 days and are super excited to see what everyone’s been talking about. We plan on doing the free walking tour tomorrow morning and then a castle tour on Monday.

Peace ninjas!

XOX K&R

Au Revoir Paris! Guten Morgen Vienna!

We’re typing this blog while on a night train leaving Paris en route to Vienna. But Woodmere Gang, (you ask) your schedule from way back when said you would be going to Berlin after Paris, why are you going to Vienna now? Well, read on, folks and find out!

Friday morning we woke up and had to find another place for the night. We had originally planned to stay in Paris through Thursday night and leave Friday, but we have just had the best time with Dan and Sara that we decided to stay through Saturday. Our hostel was already booked up for Friday night so we had to find somewhere else to stay. Dan booked us a room at the Hotel Belfort (sounds swanky, we know, but…. not so much). We checked out of our hostel, and set off to find a UPS where we could mail some Belgian chocolate gifts and vino home. We were able to fit it all in one very small box but it would have cost 99.00 Euros (about $135.00) to mail them. Soooo to all of our loved ones to whom we had promised to bring some delicious gifts? Sorry bout cha chocolate - it ain’t gonna make it. If it makes y’all feel better, though, it was delish.

However, not to worry casa de Koplin! Dan has the kosher for Passover vino and it is heading home to Orlando with him and will be to you guys in time for Seder.

We headed back to the hostel to drop off our would-be shipped items, started muchin’ on some delicious Belgian chocolate (I guess we just have to rub it in now. The first apology goes out to Jeremy! Your chocolate went first and man, was it good).

We then headed off to Versailles. The palace at Versailles was first built by King Louis XIV aka the Sun King. He thought the Parisians didn’t really like him so he went ahead and got out of town and built his own palace thus the Palace at Versailles.

It’s pretty Roccoco-ed out: lavish rooms with fabric covered walls, gold trim, heavy furniture and frescos on the ceilings (aka, bliggity bling). We went and toured the inside and saw the Hall of Mirrors as well as the King’s sleeping quarters, Marie Antoinette’s sleeping quarters (mmm.. cake!), as well as Dauphine’s sleeping quarters.

The interior of the palace was interesting but the best part of Versailles is the gardens.

We walked around for a bit and saw some lakes and smaller gardens then found the mothership of the gardens, a long lake, lined with trees and gardens on either side. It was pretty spectacular.

We walked around one area for a bit and saw a couple of different fountains. Since it’s still winter, everything is really dry and the statues are covered up (some even look like they’re wearing mittens) to protect them from the adverse weather. We then passed several people on golf carts. Turns out, you can rent a golf cart for 30 Euros and see the gardens on wheels! We think this is aimed toward American tourists. We decided that was a bit out of our price range, but then we stumbled upon bicycles! What better way to see Versailles then by bike? (Maybe golf cart, whatev) So we rented some bikes and got pedaling.

There is no possible way that we could have seen all of the gardens in the short amount of time that we had. To anyone out there planning to visit Versailles someday, skip the palace and just check out the gardens.

They’re free, way cooler and much more fun! It’s not like you can touch anything inside. Look in a book!

After our biking adventure, we headed back to Paris. Dan and Katie were pretty tuckered out:

We met back up with Sara and had some dinner then went to the Louvre. On Friday nights, the Louvre is free for anyone under 26 so we definitely had to hit that up. Free is our favorite price! We split up so everyone could see whatever they wanted. These are some of the pics Rachael took:

After the Louvre, we all headed back to the hostel where we all first met to dine on the rest of the Belgian gift chocolates. However, we didn’t get too far. We were all pretty exhausted and the daunting realization that we still had to tote all of our stuff to another hotel before going to sleep (it was already 10 pm) hit us pretty quick once we got back to the hostel. So we didn’t dine on the chocolates just yet. We picked up our backpacks that we had left in the luggage room that morning, and headed off to Hotel Belfort. We got to the hotel and played on the interwebs for a bit before hittin’ the hay.

Katie and Rachael still weren’t really sure where they were going next after Paris. As of 48 hours ago, the plan was to go to Berlin, maybe see a big wall and eat some more schnitzel, but thanks to the glorious Facebook, we learned on Rachael’s newsfeed that Jonathan Parks, will be in Vienna. Why have two awesome reunions in Europe, when you can have three?! (Dan and Sidonie were the first two, for those of you not keeping track.) So the Woodmere Gang is now en route to Vienna to see Jonathan Parks! Thanks, theatre, for making the world a smaller place!

We had planned to wake up Saturday morning around 9:00 but we really didn’t start moving until 10 am. We headed off to Gare de L’Est and bought tickets for a night train to Vienna. The coolest part? It’s only 20 Euros for a bed! Yeah that’s right, we have a bed and transportation for the next 11 hours and don‘t have to pay for a hostel. Score! Also, since it departs after 7:00 pm and arrives the next day, the two travel days count as one on our EuroRail pass. Cool, huh?

After getting our tickets, we met up with Sara in the Latin Quarter and ventured off in search of crepes. We ate at a restaurant named Creperie Saint-Germain and it was delicious!

We then headed off to the Eiffel Tower to get some daytime pics.

Then we decided that we’d seen everything Paris had to offer so we walked around for awhile. We stumbled upon a patisserie that had a very inviting window display, so we spent some money in there before continuing our walk. Sara had the brilliant idea to pull out her handy dandy map and find us a park to eat our sweets in, but when she did, we realized that the Rodin Museum was only a couple of blocks from where we were. Idea! Let’s go look at some sweet sculptures to kill time! The ticket price for the museum was 5 Euros, but it was only 1 Euro to see the gardens so we paid that and went out to the gardens.

There wasn’t really a whole lot to see so after about five minutes, the four of us posted up on a bench by a little pond with a statue in the middle and three peculiar ducks. We ended up sitting there long enough to get to know the ducks’ personalities really well. We noticed that one kept getting out of the water. Did he not like the water? Maybe he’s a shy duck or maybe they were playing a rousing game of Marco Polo. We think this was the smart duck since that water did look pretty darn cold. We then realized that the other two ducks weren’t letting the other one into the water. When someone came to feed the ducks some bread crumbs, the two ducks in the water would chase off the loner duck. When the loner duck tried to get into the water, the other two chased him away. We began cheering for the loner duck and decided that if we could, we would definitely punch the mean ducks in their duck faces. Unless the loner duck had done something wrong, like murdered one of their duck friends, which maybe why the other two ducks were not playing nice with him, which if this were the case, he deserved to be chased off.

Yeah, that’s right, a good long paragraph was just dedicated to three ducks. Hope y’all are enjoying this blog as much as we are.

Well, after all that duck business, we figured we should probably get moving and make our way to our respective train stations via the hotel to get our bags. We got our bags from the hotel and learned that most restaurants weren’t open yet because the French like to eat late. We knew there would be food at the train stations so we went to Katie and Rachael’s first, where they put their bags in lockers, and then to Dan’s so that we could get food since he had to be there a little earlier than we did. We dined on salad and French fries (Katie) and spaghetti with meat sauce (Rachael and Sara) and beef stew business (Dan). It was pretty good. We headed back to the train station and said our goodbyes to the magnificent Dan Dansby and then Katie, Rachael and Sara went back to the other train station. We got our bags and then found our platform and bid adieu to the lovely Sara Siegel. (We’ll see you in Cinque Terre, Sara!)

When we boarded the night train, we met our roomies, a cute German couple about our age and some German dude a bit older than all of us. We found it a little difficult to sleep on the train, but mostly because we were worried someone would try and steal our junk while we were asleep. We were surprised, though, when we got the 20-minute warning of our arrival in Munich, so we must’ve slept okay. All in all, the night train was a neat experience, which we’ll be glad to repeat, we just need to not worry about our stuff. The best part was traveling and sleeping at the same time and not having to pay for a hostel.

When we got to Munich, we realized that we had arrived an hour later than we thought we were going to so we had to wait an hour before another train could take us to Vienna. Katie vaguely remembers being stopped at one station during the night for what felt like a long time and hearing frequent announcements before getting moving again. They were all in German, so we had no idea what was going on, but no biggie. We took the extra time to have breakfast and write some postcards before hopping our next train to Vienna!

We’re seeing a whole lotta snow on the ground outside the train, so we’re a little concerned about the temperature, but we’ve survived so far so we’re sure we’ll be okay.

We checked into our hostel in Vienna and had some lunch at a restaurant next door. We started to head toward the museum district when we got a call from Jonathan! We decided to meet at a popular gelato place called Zanoni & Zanoni near the Vienna Opera House. We got lost for a little bit there, but finally found him! We each had some delicious gelato then followed Jonathan and his Shorter gang to the Vienna Opera House. When in Vienna, do as the Viennians do and go see some opera!

Tonight they were performing 'The Flying Dutchman' by Wagner. We stood in line for the student tickets for awhile only to find that they only had two seats left and the rest were standing tickets. That means, you guessed it, we stood up the whole time. Fortunately, this is one of the shorter operas out there so it wasn't too bad. From what we could see, it looked and sounded really good.

After the show we went out to celebrate one of the Shorter gang's birthday. We made plans to meet up with them again tomorrow and pretty much piggy back onto their Vienna adventures.

After hanging out with the Shorter gang, we headed back to the hostel and here we are updating the blog. Good times. Hope yall enjoyed all the pics in this one! We'll eventually get all of the pics loaded up to another site so you can see them all.

Peace ninjas!

XOXO K&R