Wien ist anders.

Yes, I know. I should keep anyone who still knows that this blog exists up to date on my latest travels---blah blah blog. After three days of random milk-run travel and three nights of sleeping on various airport benches

I arrived in Vienna!---But first-----Took an afternoon to re-explore London.

(that’s how everything looks through my rose-colored sunglasses. It was a Sunday morning so I went to church at Westminster Abbey. It was father’s day---Westminster neglected the musical numbers from the primary kids and the chocolate all around.

Classic traveling-solo shot.

I took a walk in Green Park in the early morning on the way to Buckingham Palace and I was suddenly hit with a wave of disbelief and gratitude to find myself cross the pond again. I have lived a truly charmed life in that respect and I stopped that instant and prayed thanks for it. Good thing I did that then because later in the day nothing was open because it was a Sunday morning and it was very cold and strangers kept alternating between hitting on me and asking for money---starting with the cheeky squirrels in that very park---it made me ein bisschen cranky.

Then I got to---well, Helsinki, but THEN I got to VIENNA!

We got here just in time for Corpus Christi so we got to see a procession and it was such an interesting cultural experience. After that, we went walking toward the Hofburg, the big royal palace in the city and we rounded the corner and ran into the same procession again. MADNESS. We’ve crammed a ton into the almost three weeks that I’ve been here and it’s impossible to capture it all here. We’ve been to two Operas and a million museums and eaten way too much ice cream (Zanoni & Zanoni is officially better than Castellos, Schwedenplatz Eiscafe, AND Aida---take note).

Schönbrunn and the Kunsthistoriches have been my favorite places so far. Schönbrunn is the Hapsburg’s summer palace (by the way the last of the Hapsburg died on Tuesday…..). They have outrageously beautiful architecture as well as lovely gardens, but my favorite part was the stories about the royalty that lived there. They have an actual recording of Franz Joseph saying “it has been a pleasure” the way he always did after every meeting he had with anyone. Don’t even get me started on the royal romances. No, but seriously—that could (and probably will be) an entire other blog post.

I’m attempting to take more pictures from here on out and trying hard to keep detailed records of my experiences, I’ll see if I can capture some echo of that here.