Es Schneit

26 November Tuesday

remember what Tuesdays are?..

that's right.  THE LONGEST DAY OF THE WEEK.

Jordan knows.

We met at 10:00 on the street for Art History with professor Kröll.  We took the D strassenbahn to the Belvedere museum.  This is maybe the most famous in all of Vienna!  I was so happy that we got to go for class.  There are two parts to the museum--the upper and lower.  We went to the upper.  The Belvedere used to be a summer home for Prince Eugene.  The lower building is actually where he would stay, and the upper building was built more grand and larger as a place to welcome visitors, have meetings, and to host parties and social events.

WELL, IT WAS SNOWING TODAY.

 Prof. Kröll teaching us out in the freezing cold outside the upper Belvedere palace 

 Renoir

 some beautiful impressionism

 Monet

Kokoshka - a view of Prague (I've been there!)

 Monet

 Gustav Klimt - The Kiss

This painting is SO FAMOUS here...every Vienna souvenir shop you go into has SOMETHING with the print of these patterns on it...mugs, scarves, teddy bears, pens, ANYTHING.  It is so beautiful, isn't it?

 Blessed to see some Schiele work...a family during the time of WWI

 Schiele - Embrace

 Schiele - Death and the Woman

 Schiele

 Schiele

 Kilmt

 Klimt

Klimt & Schiele were best friends.  Schiele was younger and therefore learned from Klimt.  They died the same year.  Egon Schiele is my favorite artist.  I talked about this all when I went to the Leopold museum here in Vienna which holds the largest collection of Schiele in the world.  It was amazing.

 Sooo yeah it was snowing outside.  And Christmas markets were being set up.  And we were in a palace.  Filled with famous, beautiful artwork.  Yeah, today was good.

 So there were a few rooms that were closed for renovation today...but I knew that there were two famous Schiele paintings in there--a self portrait and a portrait of his wife.  I asked one of the guards when the work would be finished, and he said tomorrow!  So Mara and I went to the ticket office, and since she is fluent in German, she asked the lady if there was any way we could see this room tomorrow, and she called somebody, and said we could!  So I'm going to go back tomorrow and check out those Schiele portraits.  THANK YOU MARA!

So I had a classy lunch today...I went to the grocery store and tried a new fresh fruit drink: orange + berry + mint.  SO GOOD.  I bought a bag of noodles + sauce for 1.99.....there is a stove at the school we can use.  I don't know how much 1/2 liter looks like really, and there aren't measuring cups anyways, so I put in way too much water!  I made a soup instead of a pasta...but hey it was still yummy.

 After classes (German, and then history...), Kimber, Tanner, Garrison, Klint and I went to one of the Christmas markets at Karlskirche.  IT SURE WAS SNOWING THE WHOLE TIME!  I love it.  It was actually really cold though...it gets super windy here for some reason.

 These mini-chandiliers hold a single candle and they are BEAUTIFUL!  Pretty expensive, though.

 My wedding ring is going to look similar to these at the top, except gold.

 The little animals slide out of the trees!!  SO cute!

Abendessen!!

 She rings this bell to us when dinner is ready! 

 Celery soup.  Better than it sounds.

 In the soup we had: leek, and celery ROOT (in her hand, she let us taste a bite), and the leafy part of the celery.  But not the stock.  And ginger, always.

 THIS WAS OUR DINNER!  A VEGETABLE CAKE!  Frau Feest is SO DANG HEALTHY it is hilarious.  There was meat in here though, AND PRUNES, so that's good.  It was actually delicious.  I asked her if she has a cook book or if she cooks from her head, and she said no recipe, her mom used to make this.  I want to write her a note and ask her for some certain recipes....I want to know the soup recipes so bad!

 I can't remember what this is called...it isn't quinoa but like it??  Maybe it is quinoa.

 dessert!: applesauce with a little cream and a drop of jam.  And these seed things that are delicious. Every time I eat them I hear Laura's voice saying, "Mom!  I'm not a BIRD!"

Dinner went great.  I feel like I could talk to her easier!  I told her that Mom is in Africa, in Mali.  She said, that isn't a tourist place...?  And I said, "Nein, sie hilfst die Kinder."  She asked if she was a doctor.  It all got confusing.  I can't remember what we talked about, but it was good!

Tomorrow we have a lot of time in the morning to do stuff, and I have a lot planned.  It blows my mind how soon we are leaving, and I hate that I am thinking about travel plans coming home, but my planning mind can't help it.

Barb's instagram post was too funny....oh bopaloo.  But, my vegetable cake beats Cafe Rio any day.

FHE and a Piano

25 November Monday

Today was lacking in photos, I apologize.

We had class at noon.  I slept in...still recovering from our strenuous Rome travel.  We had Art history, and then German.

After class, Amy, Caelyn and I stopped at Strük to get some pastries...I didn't eat anything for lunch so we needed to get something to tide us over till dinner.  I got this apple-roll swirl thing.  YUM.  Definitely going to try making that when I get home.  Along with SO many other things.

We went to FHE at 6:30 and ate Hawaiian haystacks.  I have never liked Hawaiian haystacks.  I can eat all the components separately, but the whole thing together is just a nightmare to me.

My dear friend LAURA called me...she is my closest friend.  Anyways, look at her...she is Brazilian.  She is in Brazil right now, and tonight I got to talk to her!  FINALLY!  Her travel was really complicated and her flights got delayed so that she had to spend a night in Atlanta alone...I didn't know any of this because I was in Rome!  But we can only talk when we both have wifi, which can be kinda rare! But I'm glad she made it safe to Brazil.  I miss her a lot; she doesn't get home till New Years Day.

After FHE, I started playing the piano...I am learning this beautiful arrangement of O Holy Night for a Christmas program we are singing in for the school.  It is so pretty!  Whoever stayed after sang with me...and we got some harmonizing figured out.  It is going to be beautiful.

Night Trains

24 November Sunday

Garrison and I woke up at 6AM, and through blurry, contact-lacking eyes, we both looked through the window at what was outside.  It was confusing...because I was looking at the tops of pine trees covered in snow.  SNOW!  I made a very loud "hhhhhm!!!!" sound?  And the Italian lady with us laughed at me.  I got so excited to see that snow!!!  I dug out my glasses and we watched through the window as we sped through these snow-covered mountains.  The sky was white from the fog.  Chimneys on tops of cute colored houses were puffing out smoke.  It was UNREAL.  Here is the best photo I got on my phone...not even 1/100th of how beautiful it was.

 Amy and Lexi showed up in our cabin to say good morning...we weren't quite sure who this silhouette was actually.  But we all squished together, and eventually Caelyn came in, too.  We watched the snow, then all of a sudden we went into a tunnel...and when we came up, no more snow!!!  Like magic!  (Some of us were thinking "thank goodness..").

 For some reason, our train got in super late to Vienna.  We were supposed to arrive at 8:30, but we got in at 9:15 ish I think!!  So we were sitting together anticipating an arrival any second...although we could tell we were still super far away from the city.  That made us late for church, but we made it to sacrament meeting!

Life is good!  It was hard to stay awake during church, but I got to come home and take a solid nap.  Then we went to the Minert's for dinner.  Katie & Mara made spätzle for dinner....homemade!  They put cheese on top.  They put eggs in one of the pans with it.  I want to try to make this when I get home!  I need a special kitchen tool though to make the shape.  YUM.

We had another advent fireside thing...we watched a movie--Silent Night.  I really just slept through the whole thing so that's fine.  Then I went home and did whatever it is I do then went to bed!

Oh, I figured out how to change the fonts on this here BLOG...and that sure did take a while!  SO YEAH

One short day...in the Vatican City

23 November Saturday

We woke up at 6:40 this morning, and we headed out to the Metro heading to the famous Spanish Steps.  This city is so dirty!!  Look at the lovely stairwell down into the Metro...so crazy.  We were sooo tired.  Our clothes weren't dry yet from yesterday.  And it was STILL RAINING!!!!

So these are the famous Spanish Steps....Piazza di Spagna.  They rise 137 steep steps from a fountain at the bottom at the piazza at the bottom up to the Trinità dei Monti church at the top.  This is the widest staircase in Europe!  Sadly, the fountain was covered up/closed because of winter coming.  And the church wasn't open as early as we were there hahah.

 But, the view was amazing!

Still kinda confused about the appearance of palm trees here.....

There was some human poop on the stairs....hahahahahaahahaaaaaaaa

We went back down the stairs to the Metro and headed over to the VATICAN CITY.

 And we got McDonald's for breakfast on the way....hahah

The sky cleared up!!! SO BLUE!!!

Psyche it was still STORMY....so crazy.  

So our first stop in the Vatican City was St. Peter's Basilica.  It is one of the largest churches in the world.  It is arguably "the greatest of all churches of Christendom".  The basilica is the burial site of Saint Peter.  The building is simply amazing.  The square in front is hugged by these colonnades made by Bernini.  At the center of the piazza is a four-thousand-year-old Egyptian obelisk 25 meters tall.  Bernini also constructed the fountain inside the piazza.

We had to wait in a line for 20-ish minutes in the rain to get through security in order to get into the basilica.

When you enter the building and turn to the right, this is what you see:

Yeah, a bunch of people gathered around this sculpture taking photos.

This is not just any sculpture.  This is Michelangelo's Pieta.  JUST LOOK AT IT....the photos do no justice....this is one of the most beautiful, mind-blowing pieces of art I have seen in my life.  I stared at it for a long, long time.  This is the only sculpture Michelangelo signed, because (a story is told that) people were talking about how some other artist created this beautiful sculpture, and he was so angry that people didn't know he was the sculptor that he signed his name on Mary's sash.  He regretted this, and decided to never sign another sculpture again, which he didn't.

So everything in this church is GIANT.  Those black letters up above in the gold?  Each letter is over five and a half feet tall.  Being in there I couldn't even believe that!!  It was just HUGE!

This structure in the middle was created by Bernini...a very interesting piece of art.  Kinda confusing....built with bronze.  It is a "baldachin"...a bronze canopy.  It is over the alter.  St. Peter's tomb is supposedly underneath this altar, and so the canopy marks his tomb underneath.  It is 20 meters tall.

That's me in there!! hahahah

We headed over to the Vatican Museums...namely the Sistine Chapel which is included.  It was confusing...this all didn't make much sense until we got there.  In order to get to the Sistine Chapel, you had to go through a bunch of rooms where museums have been set up.  There were rooms covered in frescoes, namely Raphael's fresco rooms.  Everything was incredible, and honestly really overwhelming.  It took us almost two hours to get through the whole thing....if I had stopped and looked at everything, that could have taken me up to 6 hours to get through.  Someday...haha.  Taking pictures was kinda useless...basically everything was just covered with art.  Every single inch (definition of Rococo art style).

One of Raphael's fresco rooms

sneaky, sneaky iPhone photo of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

picking up our checked bags...

We headed back into the other side of Rome where we met up with Tanner....he didn't want to come to the Vatican stuff with us at all (whhhhhat, right???), so he went and spent the entire time in the Roman Forum.  He loved that.

We met at this white building, which I was assuming the whole time was a parliament building or something, but we learned about it in art history this week and it is just a MONUMENT!  That's all!!  No purpose in this building!  Yeah it has rooms, which hold some exhibitions now, but nooooo.  Just a monument.  Wow.  The monument is to an old Italian king from way back when...Victor Emanuel II (Vittorio Emanuele II).  It is beautiful!!!!  So white!  We climbed up some stairs and found an awesome balcony looking out over Rome.  It was incredible!

ruins just everywhere... - iPhone panorama -

these guards are holding GUNS pointed out... hahaha

Piazza Venezia

not really a fan of all the seagulls...

we popped into a church at the top of the balcony

found this old biulding that looked like a mini-Colossuem

We walked down a few blocks and found a suitable place for lunch for some quick hot food.  Tanner was SOAKED!  He didn't have an umbrella!!!!  He was outside for like 4 hours!!  He didn't smell too great either.  And Amy was dead tired.  While we were eating we heard a bunch of people outside and heard some drums...?  We stepped outside and saw a line of people protesting...I don't really know what is going on here but they weren't happy.

Tanner's hands were so cold that he held my plate the entire time I was eating.  And then he found his train ticket, which was also soaked.

We continued on our exploration of the city, looking for this certain piazza where we read there would be a market.  It wasn't too far away.  But, when we got there, the market was all messed up!  I don't know if it was from the bad weather, or if the protestors had come through here and caused a problem, or if Italians really are just that messy.

We went to a little shop and looked at cute things, and then we got gelato again (stracciatella-my favorite- and hazelnut this time), then we walked through the horrible rain that started through even more shops...and we ended up all at the Trevi Fountain together.

cool old things everywhere we go

It was just after 6...but our train didn't leave till 7:15, but we decided to head to the train station anyways.  We stopped at a Spar grocery store to get some little things to eat for dinner (late lunch...so I just got a roll).  We got on that train as soon as we could, which was right when we got to the station!  We claimed one room for all of us, because Katie had the one reserved seat so that means anybody can sit in the other seats, so we just made that our group.  Klint had his own seat far away, Tanner had his own seat a couple rooms down.  Eventually, Lexi, Caelyn, and Amy would go to the back to their "couchette" seats....pretty much bunk beds (not comfy though).  These tickets were cheaper for some reason.  This is all really complicated.  We were just trying to work the system so that we could all lay down, basically.

All our clothes were so wet!  So we spread them out everywhere.  I don't know if you can tell from these pictures...but all the luggage racks above us had our clothes hanging all over them.

Katie, Garrison and I tried to claim our own room, so every time there was a stop to pick up more people, we acted like we were sleeping so nobody would bother us.  This one creepy guy kept coming to our window though!  He even opened our door, but didn't say anything!  I peeked and he had half of his body inside our door, and I suddenly got scared that he was evaluating all our things hanging everywhere and how easy they would be to snatch, so when he left I shut the door, and we sat up and decided we should let Tanner join us so that we would look more full, but still be with people we knew so it wouldn't be awkward to sleep next to each other, and we wouldn't have to worry about our things.  So we got Tanner, which was good because his room had just gotten really full so he couldn't lie down in there anymore.

So, the four of us were going to be so comfortable!  But then some lady came in who had a reserved seat for that stop!  We didn't think about that.  So we had to make room for her....so it ended up being FIVE of us in there...the lady stayed sitting, and Katie sat across one seat kinda....Tanner, Garrison and I shared the width of two bed things...it was not great, but we all slept alright I think.