Semester Break Trip (Part 3 of 3)

I apologize for this post, as it is less verbose than my previous vacation posts. I am letting the pictures speak for me this time, as I have to run and catch a train to Rome. I know, tough life....

And finally, I present Vienna and the grand Austrian ball, held at the amazing Hofburg Palace:
We arrived in Vienna earlier than most, in order to take in the sights and sounds of Vienna. Let me tell you, Vienna was COLD. But aside from that, it was pretty neat, too. For one, the city had a big winter festival set up, with multiple ice skating rinks and curling rinks. The city even used the Rathaus to stage a light show (I stole this picture from Liam's blog):The night before the ball, Liam and Meghan were also in town early, so Mark and I joined them at Hotel Sacher, to sample the famous Sacher Torte, which is a yummy chocolate cake with apricot filling

After sampling this fine cuisine, we headed to a very cute bar to sample some of the local Riesling, which is my favorite varietal. Here are Meghan, me, Mark, and Liam (you may recall Meghan and Liam are my across the street neighbors in DC):

So, that is the sightseeing in Wien (the proper, Austrian way to spell Vienna). Now, on to the ball. I must confess, most of my ball pictures are stuck inside a disposable camera right now. Therefore, I will have to make do with other people's pictures and then some of my own. First, here I am in my dress, which I loved:

Here are some pictures of Mark and myself taken at the ball. And I am sure Mark would enjoy me adding two things about these pictures/his attire. First, unlike what the second picture suggests, he does not have a silver or white streak in his hair. And, most importantly, his is a real bow tie that he tied himself:Finally, here are some pictures of the inside of the palace and of the main dance hall. And yes, I did dance. Although not well. Mark, however, can bust a move. Or at least, bust a waltz, however, that just doesn't have the same ring to it. I don't know what the proper slang term is for waltz? Bust a spin?And that was the Austrian ball. A good time was had by all. Except for my feet. But, luckily they have healed by now....

Semester Break Trip (Part 2 of 3)

Part 2 of my trip recap will focus on time spent in Salzburg, Austria, before traveling to Vienna for the big Austrian ball (this will be the subject of the next post). This was my second trip to Salzburg, the first occurring on Easter Sunday in April 1995, as a stop on a 5-countries in 10-days teen tour. While some people (and you know who you are) would question my travel methods, my travel intentions have certainly changed since then. Quality over quantity. Actually, it is interesting, because by the end of my year in Italy, I will have revisited nearly every stop on that "once-in-a-lifetime" trip I took when I was 16. At least that's how my teacher billed it. I am very happy that over the last 11 years, I have proven that moniker to be a misnomer.

Anyway, Salzburg in February was very different than Salzburg in April. For one, there were very few people there, which is something I love. The same was true for Ireland. It is so nice to be able to walk the streets and visit restaurants and not be just one of the masses. Actually, one very interesting aspect of Salzburg in winter was their treatment of their fountains. This is what the city does with its fountains in winter:

One neat thing I was able to do on this trip, which I was unable to do the first time because I had to attend Easter Sunday mass, was see the fortress that sits on a hill above the city. In addition to learning about the varied history of the fortress, one amazing benefit to making the funicular trip (which I love in its own right; show me a funicular and I will want to take it wherever it may lead) up the hill were the views of the city the trip afforded us. Here is a picture of Salzburg from the fortress (this picture is also my current computer wallpaper):

And here is a picture of Mark and myself atop the fortress. Unfortunately this picture is plagued by the same ailment as most pictures taken by strangers--they tend to focus on you instead of on the scenery. The worst offender of this was a woman who took a picture of Sri and me in front of the 12 Apostles along the Great Ocean Road in Australia. We had spent 15+ hours driving to see these structures and this woman was nice enough to take our picture in front of them. However when the film was developed (this was, of course, back in the halcyon days of 2000, when 35mm film was still the basis of recreational photography), we determined the woman had so completely focused on the two of us, the picture contained only the slightest hints of the great rock formations behind us. We were not happy. Anyway, back to out digital reality, here is the picture. You can't really tell that we are in Salzburg, but accepting the non-descriptness of the photo was easier than asking another stranger to take our picture:
The other special thing about Salzburg in 2006 is the city is in the nascent phase of a year-long celebration of Mozart's 250th birthday. I must say, I was a little disappointed by what I saw. The first Mozart-stop was to the museum in the house where Mozart was supposedly born. I expected a few things out of this museum--a little Mozart biographical information, perhaps a re-creation of the Mozart apartment. What I got instead however, was a weird, new age exhibit that seemed to have little to do with Mozart. Here is one of the exhibits. It contained a topographical map of Salzburg on the ceiling, stars on the floor, and illuminated upside-down pictures on the walls. Here is Mark "admiring" the exhibition. I still don't understand what this had to do with Mozart:
There was a second Mozart museum exhibition in town, too, and it seemed just as odd. The first room contained an oddly rotating, light/mirror configuration that was enough to make a sane person crazy....

Here are some other shots from Salzburg. The first is for the benefit of my brother, who has one picture of me in his room. It was taken in 1995 while I was standing in front of this fountain. Of course, it wasn't covered in glass then....

The next is of the inside of the dome of the Dom. This is where I attended Easter mass in 1995. What I didn't know then, but what I tragically discovered this time, was that the dome was destroyed by Allied bombing in 1944. The first picture is of the dome in 1944, the second one is of today:


This next picture is me on a bridge over the River Salzach, with a great view of the Altstadt part of town behind me:

This final set of photos taken by me is of one of the most unique stores I have ever encountered. This store sold nothing but delicately painted Easter eggs. That was the entire store. They even had Christmas eggs that could be hung on your Christmas tree. I have never seen a store only devoted to Easter before. It was rather interesting:

After sight-seeing all day, Mark and I attended a Mozart-based recital at the Mirabell Palace. It was amazing. I have never heard a recital that only included string instruments. The sound was incredible. Here is a picture of the room where the concert was held.

I very much enjoyed my time in Salzburg. It truly is a beautiful city....And the next post will take us to Vienna!

Semester Break Trip (Part 1 of 3)

I recognize that my most recent break in blogging is probably the longest yet. I meant to post a couple weeks ago to forewarn about my impending absence, but my last day in Bologna contained a little too much finals-taking, packing, dining, and wining to put together a worthy post. Therefore, I was left to abscond without notice.

Anyway, I just returned from a 10-day jaunt through western Ireland and Austria. A little too much time was spent in airports in London (Stansted, where it would cost $50 to go into London city and back) and Bratislava. There truly is a cost to Ryanair's low cost fares. Regardless of the travel inconveniences, the trip turned out well. I thought I would split my trip into three postings--Ireland, Salzburg, and Vienna. So, today I present you with Ireland:

I conveniently traced out the route of the trip, as well as adding Doolin to the map, in order to aid in the telling of my tale.

My second trip to Ireland (the first was in Sept. 2001) featured a few days in the western part of the country and then a day in Dublin. The main method of transportation for this part of the trip was a rental car. Of course, Ireland being a country with a British heritage, they drive on the "other" side of the road. This was not a problem for me, as I have logged thousands of miles driving on the left side in Australia and South Africa. Different in this case, however, was the extent to which the rental car company went to warn you about which side of the road to drive on. I, for one, was deeply offended at the suggestion I would travel to Ireland, rent a car, and not know which side of the road to drive on:

The other interesting thing about driving in Ireland was the extreme narrowness of the roads. At times you literally only had a foot on each side of you. You were left to choose between coming close to hitting a car in the other lane or hitting the stone wall on the other side. This was not the best part of the trip. Nor was I a very good passenger....

Anyways, one of the highlights was a stop in Doolin, Ireland. This is a tiny, 3-pub town that even lacks an ATM. This is the town:

Here is Mark standing in front of the town's sweater shop, which was closed:

Even given its small size, Doolin is known to be a center for great Irish music. While February is definitely not tourist season for this part of Ireland, some great music was still able to be heard in O'Connors Pub (the red building on the left). It was really great--just three guys, one playing the guitar, one playing the accordion, and one playing a really neat instrument that appeared to by a cross between a flute and a clarinet. I was quite taken by this instrument:

Anyway one funny thing about this evening of music was that Doolin being such a small town (note the fact the town wasn't even listed on the above map) and it being the off-season, we thought we would be the only Americans. Oh boy was this a wrong assumption. First, in the pub where we had dinner, we encountered a newly married, older couple where the first words we heard out of the bride's mouth were "what do you mean they don't have Corona?". Then in the pub with the music, I encountered two gentlemen at the bar who were from Rochester, NY and then two full tables of American college students. The rest of the Ireland trip was virtually American-free, but in this small town, on that night, it was like visiting an ex-pat community.

After Doolin, we traveled to Galway via some beautiful countryside and through The Burren, which is a large area of land known for its concentration of limestone. We even considered stopping at Ireland's premier show cave (yes, this is actually what they called it), but Mark wasn't too excited and my cave experiences have all been dimmed since visiting the glow worm cave in Waitomo, New Zealand. I mean if a cave doens't have glow worms, how exciting can it really be? Here is a picture of me in The Burren (please pretend my eyes aren't closed):
Then after Galway it was off to Dublin, via a couple small towns in between. Dublin was an interesting experience for me. For one, the last time I was there, I bought a great little necklace from a small jewelry store and was looking forward to going back. However, in the interim, the store closed and was replaced by a lingerie store. I was very disappointed.....

Anyway, overall the trip to Ireland was great. Good Guinness, good music, good non-pasta food. Oh and in Dublin, I had VB, a wonderful Australian beer. The restaurant also advertised having Toohey's Extra Dry (which some of you out there can guess my reaction to when I saw it on the menu), but they were out of it. I was bummed, but the VB helped....

Overall, I very much enjoyed my time Ireland. The people are nice, the food good, and the atmosphere festive. I just don't understand why th eIrish don't believe in street names or numbers. Invariably, whenever we were told to take a right, we actually had to take a left. It was crazy. But that just adds to the excitement, right?

Brokeback to the Future

Before I post about my recent jaunt through Ireland and Austria, I had to post this site sent to me by my lovely friend, Joanna. As has been referenced on this blog before and is known by anyone who knows me, I have an undying love for the Back to the Future trilogy. And while I have been in Italy and have missed the whole Brokeback Mountain excitement, I have heard enough about it and some of the jokes and mock movie posters that it has spawned. However, you MUST follow this link to see the very best spoof yet! At least in my opinion....

http://www.youtube.com/w/Brokeback-to-the-Future?v=zfODSPIYwpQ&feature=Views&page=1&t=t&f=b