Wien

On our way to Vienna (which was a very, very long train ride) we were pleasantly suprised by amazing scenery. Even though it was rainy and we had to spend all day on a train, the mountains, valleys, and tunnels definately made it worth it.

Once we got there, we went to our super fantastic hostel (Wombat's). We shared a bathroom with two other people and we got our own lockers and they even gave us towels and linen. We checked in, and then went to find something to eat. We found this fantastic little Chinese place that we ended up eating at more than once. On the way back, we got drenched in the rain, but the chinese was definately worth it.

The next day we went to the big Hapsburg palace-- it was awesome. It had these crazy statues out side with absolutely amazing detail. Then we went inside and saw the Sisi museum and the Hapsburg apartments, though first we had to go through the royal silver collection. I've never seen so many candle sticks. It was literally room after room after room of plates, forks, knives, candlabras, centerpieces, and gravy boats. The picture i've put up here is just half of one set.

We also got to see a very impressive interactive music museum. Tim went nuts, he loved it. We got to see how sound works and play with pitch. There were all these cool rooms with huge drums and samples of sound that you could mix together. There was stuff to jump on and this cool contraption that you stood in front of and the way you moved your hands dictated the way the sound changed. It also had a room each for 5 or 6 composers from Vienna. After getting to play with all the stuff, going through those rooms was very difficult. At the end though, you got to try to direct a video recording of the Vienna Philharmonic and when you failed (because it was super difficult) one of the people in the Philharmonic would stand up and tell you how awful you are at it. It was a good time.

We also went to see the Mozart museum. Can I just say-- How BORING. Probably the worst put together museum I have ever seen. It's in an apartment building, and you start at the third floor and work your way down. The whole top floor is just paintings of people who knew Mozart. Then you go down a floor and learn a little bit more about his music, but not much. The audio guide just went on and on about irrelevant things. The second floor is where all the speculation starts, and you begin hearing things like "he might have been a gambling addict" and "Cassanova might have been at the premiere of Don Giovanni in Prague". Then you finally get to the bottom floor, the actual apartments that Mozart lived in and you get to see how crappy the museum actually is. Apparently, Mozart only lived in the "mozart apartments" for 3 years, at his most lucrative time. Also, they don't seem to have any of his things. Everything that they had was a facimile, or it was 'something that mozart may have possibly owned at one time that could have possibly maybe looked like this table here, we don't actually know but we have this list that says he owned a table!' pretty disappointing, but made good fodder for the rest of the trip.

Over all, vienna was nice, but cold and rainy the whole time. At least in Rome and Venice we had some semblance of sun and not too much rain. Vienna was almost as rainy as Freiburg!