Vienna, Austria

Vienna has always been one of the cities I’ve always wanted to visit. I’m not sure why but I believe its because of my brother’s love of classical music that I’ve always been drawn to the city. While we didn’t get to take to go to an Opera or a concert, we still got to visit them.

Schonbrunn Palace: Unlike the Nymphenburg Castle in Munich, we decided to actually take a tour of the palace. The Palace was beautifully decorated and much of the furniture used by the family was still there. Outside, the gardens would have been absolutely beautiful if it had been summer instead of winter but I could still imagine how they would have looked. The best view of the palace and Vienna was from on top of the hill towards the end of the gardens. 

Central Cemetary: For music lovers, this was definitely the place to visit since it had the graves of many famous composers. I couldn’t believe how big the cemetery actually was.  We walked around for 30 minutes along the main roads and probably didn’t even see half of the cemetery. The only negative was that it rained previously so the bottom of our jeans or atleast mine got all muddy.

Munich, Germany

Munich was one of the cities I was most excited/nervious. I saw it as an oppertunity to visit the country my Dad's family is from and eat real German food. However, I was super nervious because this was the first country that I would visit in which I didn't know any word of the language. Sure my brother knew German but that didn't help me which was clerely evident when we were brought our food or when someone came up and asked for help. My mind completely blanked on what to say.

English Gardens:  The gardens reminded me of Hyde Park in London however, after walking though both of them I prefere the English Garden. It was very beautiful and calming because of the streams and the large trees which would cover the path. 

Alte Pinakothek: The Alte Pinakothek was my favorite musuem. I felt that the quality of all the paintings were excellent overall as well as the presentation of the paintings.

Nymphenburg Palace: By the time we visited the palace, the weather was warm and sunny. We didn't go in and take tour of the inside but we walked in the 'garden' in the back. We walked along the reflecting pool before finding a bench to sit and enjoy the view.

Food: I was really excited about eating an authentic German meal. We went to a local Bavarian restraunt literally right next to the hotel. Thankfully they had an English menu or I'm not sure I what I would have ordered. Looking back, I'm pretty confident that no matter what I ordered I would have really like it. So I decided on a mixture of different types sausages along with mashed potatoes and sauerkraut. It was so good. And to drink: a good German beer. Usually, I'm not one who drinks beer but I have to say that it was really good.

Pisa

 I’m really glad that my brother suggested that we visit Pisa.  It was such a beautful city. Pisa had such a small town feeling that it was a nice change of pace compared to Rome or Florence. Even though we only spent half a day there, we still were able to see everything that we wanted.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa: My brother and I have gotten into the habit of climbing to the top of domes or buildings so naturally we couldn't pass up the opportunity to climb to the top of the tower. In my opinion, this was one of the worst climbs. It wasn't because there were a lot of stairs but because the riser changed heights from step to step. While all of the stairs had indentations from where people had walked some of them were really bad that we almost fell as we walked up. However, once you got to the top you had an amazing view of the city and the mountains that was definately worth the climb to the top. The only disappointing thing was that we could not actually get to see even the main space of the tower.

Cathedral and Baptistry: Originally we weren't planning on going into either of them due to the cost but we decided to anyway since it really wasn't that much more. Both of these buildings really surprised me. I don't know what I was expecting to see on the inside but it wasn't what I saw. 

Travels with Charlie

         This year for spring break, my brother and I decided to be a little more adventurous than last year and planned a very intense week filled with tons of train trips and one night stays in hotels. Originally we planned to stay in one city and then take little day trips, but when we looked at where we wanted to go we realized that wasn't going to be possible so we had to re-think our plan. My brother wanted to spend the entire break traveling across Italy, which isn't a horrble thing, but I really wanted to see some new cities. And I wanted to travel across other parts of Europe. So we comprimised and saw 3 Italian cities(Florence, Venice, and Pisa) and 3 non Italian cities (Munich, Vienna, Krokow). Planning was the hardest part. I'm in school, he's working and in school so trying to find time to plan this trip was difficult and stressful. Since we were on a tight schedule in each city, we already had an idea of what we wanted to see so we just had to make sure that we could actually see them.Thankfully it all came together and we had an amazing week together.
       
     
      

Istanbul Thoughts

Pre-Istanbul Thoughts:
When I found out that we were going to be spending a week in Instanbul, I have to say, I was really disappointed. But the more I thought about it, the more my disappointment turned into excitement. The idea of experiencing a whole different culture with different ideas and customs intrigued me. Plus I couldn't wait to visit mosques and study Islamic architecture since I had very little exposure to it. However, I knew that if I was too excited and set expectations really high I was going to be disappointed. Because of this,I really wasn't sure what to expect when we went to Istanbul.

Post Instanbul Thoughts:
Istanbul was an amazing and beautiful city. There was so much to see and explore that I wish we had more than a week to do it. I would have loved to have visited places more outside of the city but there is so much to see and we didn't have a whole lot of time I realize that it wouldn't have been realistic.

Favorite Parts:
 1. Hagia Sophia- It was such a beautiful and grand space. I only wish I would have been able to see it the way it was intended as a church. I can only imagine how much more in awe I would have been.

 2. Grand Bazaar/Spice Market-After spending the morning sketching, it was really nice to be able to just walk around and browse/shop for items. There were so many options to choose from. I love walking around the spice market and being able to smell all of the different teas and be able to try turkish delight.

 3. Carpet Shopping- I really enjoyed looking at all of the different carpets. I liked that you can look athe the colors of the carpets and you can know what region it is from. Plus I got to actually to help weave/fix a carpet.

 4. Turkish Food- I was really impressed with Turkish food. I'm usually a really picky eater but I have to say that it was excellent especially the last group dinner.

Honorable Mention:
The Amazing Race Istanbul- A group of us decided to race each other back to the hotel from the ferry. I'm sure we looked like a bunch of idiot running along the streets, dodging cars, jumping over stairs but it was so much fun.

Pictures from Istanbul