The Treasures of Travel

Our dear friend Rick Steves (the travel guru and source of our self-guided city tours) says that Austrian food is bad for your heart, your cholesterol, and your figure. This may be true, but we have quickly found that Vienna is great for our souls.

It's amazing how a two hour flight can absolutely transform how a city looks and feels. Walking around is very pleasant and laid back. People do not seem in a rush. Melissa and I are always pleased when we are spoken to in German first rather than English; it means we blend in well!

The buildings in Vienna are majestic. We decided the word to describe them is opulent. Everywhere you look is like a perspective painting where all the lines focus onto one point. It's really striking that the buildings are the same height; a friend told us that the German influence of structure and order affected the architecture of the city. There are two main pedestrian streets - the Kärnterstrasse and the Graben. We spent our first full day in Vienna by fully exploring them and by people watching. Many of the significant political, religious, and historical buildings create a web around these streets, so as we strolled in and out of the shopping areas, we received a great dose of culture.

The streets of Vienna

Everything here feels like it is hundreds of years old (and for good reason!). St Steven's Cathedral is 900 years old. From a tourist's perspective, it's easy to think that a "church is a church is a church" when traveling through Europe. However, this one reminded us that we probably shouldn't put a cap on the number of churches we are willing to visit per city (kidding, Mr. Cedarholm). There's also a Palace right in the middle of the city, and when I say it is huge, I mean HUGE. The palace dates to the Hapsburg empire. This palace was considered the family's permanent residence; there's another palace down the street that is their summer home. Not too shabby. We also saw the parliament building, Vienna's technical university building, the Opera building, and the Spanish Riding School (famous court horses of the Hapsburg's that were replaced by tanks and now serve as entertainment) among others.

St Steven's Cathedral

Hofburg Palace

While I do enjoy all the touristy stuff, I'm a huge proponent of getting off the tourist path and really delving into a city's heart. For that reason, I have a personal challenge for myself to collect an owl from each country that I visit. The only rule is that the owl must be made in that country. I recognize this may seem a bit strange, but think about it as a scavenger hunt with no clues or a treasure map without an "X" marking the hidden treasure, and I hope you see how it can quickly turn into an adventure! My new treasure from Austria will always have a special place in my heart. For one thing, it's my first owl that isn't in the form of a figurine. It's in the shape of an old Austrian street placard and has the words "Priviligierte Studiosa" and a painting of an owl. This translates to "privileged studier." The very Austrian woman who ran the small shop also managed to come up with the term "bookworm" in her very broken English. What could be more fitting?

Vienna Owl

We had lunch at a lovely coffee house called Cafe Braünerhauf. The Viennese coffee houses are often described as feeling more more like an open living room than anything else. We absolutely found this to be true. The waiters were dressed in black suits, starched white oxfords, and black bow ties. Even though they look like butlers, they do not wait on you hand and foot. We still have to remind ourselves that this is Europe and meals are not meant to be scarfed down in minutes. I'd say our average meal time is well over an hour, almost two. There's really something be learned from putting work and stress to the side in order to enjoy a good meal and company. The apple strudel dessert was the thing that stole the show here. Thinly sliced apples stacked three inches thick, wrapped in flaky pastry dough. Yum.

Our afternoon adventure surprised us both for the amount of time we spent in it and the amount of fun we had. The Dorotheum Museum is five floors of antiques that are up for auction including furniture, artwork, jewelry, stamp collections, etc. It's essentially Antiques Roadshow combined with eBay - a pack rat's dream come true. It reminded me of walking through the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Thinking that the items could actually be purchased gave this "museum" a totally different feel. As girls do best, we oooh'd and ahhh'd over the jewelry before we picked out our favorites. It was neat to think about how many stories were behind all those pieces of jewelry! Just when we thought we were done, Melissa somehow managed to spot the fur coat roam from across a courtyard window. Treating this room like my brothers taught us to "shop" in Vegas, we found the most expensive items in the room and had ourselves quite the fashion show. Let's just let the pictures speak for themselves....

Our dinner and evening gave us an opportunity to strengthen friendships that were started in our hostel in Istanbul. We went to one of Vienna's wine gardens for dinner with friends who serendipitously live here. It was a beautiful underground brick cellar restaurant. It turned out to be an evening filled with great company and conversation that will stay with me for a long time, and I know Melissa feels the same way. Our eyes were opened as we learned more about our new friends and ourselves. It was fascinating to discuss the difference in what "heritage" means for Americans versus Europeans. Other cultural differences like the value of foreign language, the amount of vacation time in different countries (France has a 35 hour standard work week and over 5 weeks vacation!), and the the way we treat family meals and dinner times were discussed as we tried to understand each other better. At the end of another busy day, our friends and conversation kept us captivated and our eyes open for much longer than usual.

After our first week of travel, there were many great stories, conversations, and laughs. We can't wait to see what treasures are to come!

Love,
A&M