8 Miles Through Vienna

Photos from my day trek through downtown Vienna.




Rathaus



The Votivkirche Built in 1879, Neo Gothic Architecture







St. Stephen's Cathedral, in the center of downtown Vienna



A couple of pictures from the inside the the St. Stephen's Cathedral










When Jon arrived back from work, we walked down by the canal and I captured these pictures.














A swarm of seagulls surround this woman as she's feeding them. I start singing, "feed the birds, toppins a bag," gotta love Marry Poppins.








HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND.

Antiquing... and a fun find!

Last night we headed out for a walk. The weather hasn't been anything to write home about, and yesterday it sprinkled most of the day, but we put on our big girl panties and braved it anyway.

Here are some pictures I took with my little digital camera, (Not my big girl camera) and these pictures turned out horribly, but somewhat interesting none-the-less. I have yet to figure out how this little camera works....

















I guess I won't be using this little guy at night anymore until I can learn more about the settings. It sure does take nice day shots though.

As we walked through downtown we came across a wine shop! Ok, jackpot... we are huge wino's and love trying new wines from different countries. This couldn't have been a better store to run into. After spending quite some time in this store, we did find an awesome bottle of Pinot Noir from a well known vineyard in Austria, that was under about 20€. (Score)

We also came across an AWESOME find which I am not going to let on about just yet! This find is uber cool and I've decided to use it for a giveaway soon. I am not sure when, but of course I can't do anything with it until I get back home to Deutchland. I am so excited about this find and think it's going to be a big hit! Jon and I bought one for ourselves and Jon wouldn't stop talking about how much he liked our new purchase...... stay tuned for a giveaway soon.

Jon and I are old souls, in the way the we love shopping at antique stores. We'd love nothing better than checking out an estate sale on a Sunday afternoon, looking for antiques and old books. Jon is fascinated with old books, we've been collecting them since we started dating over three years ago. While we were there we found some awesome things. Jon loves old sunglasses. After watching The Darjeeling Limited, he wanted some sunglasses like Adrian Brody wore. Well we found some last night that were similar so he snagged them up.



Instead of plastic, the lenses are made with a heavy glass and Jon can actually see better with them.

My dad collects old tins. He's been asking me to look around for some while I am here so he can add them to his collection. I was so happy to find these for him.... I know he is going to be so thrilled to receive these from Vienna.



Luckily, the woman that owned the store spoke perfect English and I was able to ask for antique buttons. I am working on a project where I am using buttons and I REALLY wanted some antique buttons to make my handmade project even more awesome. I couldn't have been happier with this find!



I sound like an old lady.... seriously! But I do love old things! and handmade projects lol!

Anyway.... tomorrow morning we are off to Bratislava, Slovakia, and hopefully will be able to pop over to Sopron, Hungary, in the afternoon. There are a couple of vineyards we want to check out.
Three countries in one day! whew!
Sunday we are going to explore more of Austria and hopefully see some amazing landscapes. (So I can run in a field singing "The hills are alive with the sound of music.") I will totally tape it for you guys! Although my singing will be a scary sight...........

I hope everyone has an awesome weekend!

Tag, I'm it!

Step 1: respond and rework—answer the questions on your own blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, add one more question of your own.

Step 2: tag—eight other un-tagged people.

1. What were you doing before you started this post? Waking up... I checked my email and drank my morning coffee with Jon boy.

2. What is the last thing you read/are currently reading? At the moment I am reading Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris! Sooooo good. It's another vampire series, after reading Twilight, I was left wanting more ;)

3. Do you nap a lot? No not really ever. Unless I'm just exhausted.

4. Who was the last person you hugged? Jon boy! Sweetest hugs ever

5. What is your favorite TV series? I cannot get enough of True Blood. We are actually re-watching it at the moment, I love this show!

6. What was the last thing you said out loud? "Bye baby, love you, email me when you're on your way home."

7. What websites do you always visit when you go online? Yahoo to check the news, hotmail to check my email, myspace and blogger of course!

8. What was the last item you bought? A bottle of Viennese wine last night.

9. What is your most challenging goal? I'm going with exercising for sure.... I cannot get motivated, even though not fitting in my jeans at the moment should be motivating enough.

10. If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished- anywhere in the world, where would it be? Somewhere in Washington State or Colorado

11. Favorite Vacation spot? Costa Rica by far. Man do I miss the beach

12. Say something to the person who tagged you: Shannon - I absolutely love reading your blog everyday and love seeing all of the lovely photographs you take! Your family is adorable and so are you ;)

13. Name one thing you just can't resist no matter how bad it is for you: Chips, any kind really. I could eat an entire bag of whatever chip you put in front of my face. It's so sad.

14. What is your favorite item of clothing? 1921's are my favorite jeans I have 4 pair!

15. What would your American Gladiator name be and why? Man this is a hard one.... I'm not very creative today ;)

16. Name one thing you can not live with out: prob coffee I have to have it every morning to function. I proved this theory a couple of days ago..... I was like a zombie all day without my morning coffee.

17. Has a celebrity's haircut ever influenced you on your own hairstyle? Yes, I did the posh spice A-symmetric hairstyle for a while! It was fun.... but got old fast....

18. What is your drink of choice. Besides coffee, it would have to be wine. Pinot Noir!

19. What would you eat for one meal, if you could eat anything and not gain the calories or fat
grams, etc?

I would eat as much Mexican food, preferably Ted's, that I could fit in my stomach. Chips, salsa, guacamole, chicken enchilada's, more chips and salsa. and tortillas! Oh my gosh yum....

20. What are you wearing right now? red pj pants with white polka dots, Jon's camo OU socks (yikes), and a long sleeve shirt t-shirt.

21. What's your favorite room in your house? Our living room, because it is so cozy! That is where we spend most of our time.

22. If you were to have a baby boy and girl tomorrow, what would you name them?
The name Sloan for a girl is too cute, or Boston. For a boy Bordy. We had a family friend whose son was named Bordy and I always liked that name. It's weird, and I'm weird so it's perfect!

23. What is one of your fondest memories?

The one that comes to mind off the top of my head is the day I got engaged. Jon and I were hiking in Santa Fe, NM and we finally got to the top of this mesa with a panoramic view of Santa Fe, (which was amazing.) I was completely fascinated by the view, Jon asked me to turn around and there he was on his knee holding my ring in front of him, he asked me to marry him. I stood there for a moment in awe, wrapped my arms around him and began balling, (after say YES of course)! We were the only ones on the top of this mountain/mesa and it was so romantic and couldn't have been more perfect!

I'm tagging:

Jenny Lee
First Comes Love Then Comes Marriage
Off The Beaten Path
French Kiss
New Girl On Post
Satisfy My Soul
That Damn Expat
Valerie

and shoot, anyone else that wants to join in!
Have a great Thursday every one!

Evening Exploration

When Jon arrived back to the apartment after work around 4:30, there was still a little daylight left, so we headed out for a walk to explore some of downtown Vienna. Here are pictures from our stroll...

This is the St. Stephens Cathedral. I love the Gothic style architecture of this church; these humongous cathedrals amaze me. This cathedral was finished in 1160. I hope to get better pictures of it sometime during our trip, that is if the sun shows it's lovely face.
Right now they are doing some restoration to the exterior of the church so I could only shoot so many photographs without capturing the work equipment.













Another church near the cathedral

As Jon and I continued exploring Vienna we came across the Rathaus. This was definitely one of the many sights I wanted to see while we were here, and I am so happy we ran into it!

Through the trees.



Jon


As we approached, we saw all of the tents and people and realized there was a festival going on... Score! We grabbed a mug of gluwein and walked around the fest. This festival is known as the Viennese Ice Dream, in which they've built a 4,000 square meter ice skating rink. At the entrance of the festival there is a large rink, then the rink snakes through to the front of the Rathaus into another large rink. It was incredible to see.

I found these two pictures on the internet so you can have a better idea of what this looked like:
You can see the first rink in the front, then the trail snakes through to the back where there is another large rink, right in front of the castle. Isn't that amazing!


This is the other pic I found on the internet, showing you what the trail of ice looks like.


Here are a couple more picture I captured from our evening.
The Rathaus is the City Hall in Vienna. It was built between 1872 and 1883.








I'll keep the pictures coming ;)

Lost....

This is not about the television show...

I actually got lost today in Vienna. I went for a walk today past a nice canal and continued walking straight down this street for quite some time until it came to a dead end. Obviously the only choice was to turn either left of right. Well being that right sounds like the "right" way to go I turned right and made my way to the next street over. That street was actually lovely, with a nice walkway of trees. But as I continued walking I started feeling a little uneasy as I never did meet back up with the canal. Honestly the canal runs horizontally and I'm walking on vertical streets that must in some way run into the canal. But I never did find it. Me being a nervous nelly that I am.... went into full fledged panic mode. I turned on one street and then another and then another not knowing where the heck I was.... wandering around aimlessly. I was on the verge of crying and I was about to lose it. That's when I just decided to retrace my steps, find the street that came to a dead end and take it back to the canal. AWESOME. Then it starts sprinkling!

That was the fun part....

Which streets did I turn on and where did I turn was my concern. So I used my photographic memory and prayed to God that I made it back to the canal and sure enough a little over an hour later I made it back. What a morning! I didn't have my cell with me because our international calling plan is ridiculous and costs way too much, so there was no point in bringing it. What would I have done if I were really and truly lost. Try my best at speaking German or pray someone knew a little English to get me back to the canal.... I wish I would have had an overhead camera so I could have seen what I looked like trying to find my way.... I must have walked in like two complete circles or two ginormous U's.

Note to self and others: Carry a map with you at all times if you plan on taking walks in an unfamiliar city.

Here are a couple of shots I took this morning.










More pics to come soon......
If I can build up the courage to get out and about again tomorrow ;)

Traveling and Crazy Contraptions....

Just a couple pictures from our travel day on Sunday. We gathered all of our bags to load them into the car. Jon said, "seriously why do we have all of this stuff, we're going to be gone for two weeks." I had to take a picture because this is just crazy ridiculous.

We did pack stuff to make for dinner several nights during the week, because we are both trying to eat healthier. Going to a restaurant means too much food and too much wine! So it is better for the both of us to just eat dinner at home.

As we got on the road it started snowing......... of course. But really the drive was smooth and it really didn't seem like a 6 hour drive. Maybe because we were driving 100 mph the entire way there???? No matter how fast you drive on the Autobahn, there are still crazy fast drivers passing you!

Had to capture a picture of the sky because it looked beautiful. The sun was just trying to shine through.

This is a picture of the apartment we are staying in. It is really nice and very spacious for an apartment in Europe.




After getting settled and unpacked we headed to the nearest restaurant for dinner. It was actually a great choice. Very cozy and they had great Viennese wine.
After dinner we made made our way back to the apartment because it was freezing and we were down right exhausted from the trip.
Ok guys..... seriously the shower in this apartment is awesome. The shower at our place back in Deutchland is AWFUL!
This is a two person shower, with jets placed right above two seats, three shower heads above, and not to mention the shower can be turned in a sauna!


So of course we had to try this thing out! We turned on the water and the sauna to get the full effect of this mean machine. As we are sitting there relaxing and enjoying the warmth, Jon starts coughing a little. I ask him if he's ok, and shortly after, I start coughing. After a few seconds we both are coughing uncontrollably and put two and two together realizing the steam from the sauna is about to cause us to pass out. We slam the doors open gasping for fresh air and jump out of this contraption. So much for a nice sauna shower! lol

More exciting stories and pictures to come from the Adventures of Jon and Steph!

The Hills Are Alive.......

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye!
We are off to visit the magical land of Austria.



I'm so going to sing in a valley like Julie Andrews

Have a wonderful week everyone. I'll be posting pics of our trip soon. (Or like probably everyday!) ;)