The Most Expensive Free Trip Ever - TR Link is Up! Pg. 164

[tinkgurl]

Wow, the city looks beautiful at night. I'm a sucker for the nighttime life.

 

[glennbo123]

Absolutely! Wonderful coffee, I remember that much. I just saw there is one in NY!

NY is closer! I may have to look that up.

First the ballerina, then it's the men's turn to go all R Rated. All in the name of art though, so all's good. What is with "naked art"? I just don't get it. Perfect Rennaissance proportions, blah, blah, blah. Whatever... naked is naked.

I had to go back and look at what you were talking about. Yeah, if I had taken a picture of a flasher it would've been bad, but if it's a statue, that's okay. Hard to understand, but that's the way it is. Nekid is nekid.

I'm thinking we need to take a couple of days in Germany/Austria on our way home- it will be our last trip for a while overseas. These pictures are totally making me want to see more of the cities.

Those meals looked so yummy! Were the beers good that you ordered with it?

Bummer about your cafe being closed! a long trip on the train for nothing.

You should definitely take advantage of some sightseeing on your way home.

Oh yeah, the beers were good. We liked this meal even better than the one the night before. A year or so ago my nephew did a study-abroad program in Prague. My brother-in-law went to visit him and the two of them visited Vienna (among other places). We recommended this little restaurant to them and they loved it too.

Wow, the city looks beautiful at night. I'm a sucker for the nighttime life.

It's like a whole different place at night, as many places are.

Here's a website where they have a webcam up in the tower of the Rathaus (that first building after the dinner pictures). It updates the pictures every few minutes. It looks like they have an ice rink setup along where we walked.

http://www.wien.gv.at/english/webcam/cityhall/

 

[winkers]

The white building (I don't remember what it was) is gorgeous!

Dinner looked good.

 

[All7OfUs]

OK, made it through your 'Ohana dinner from the other thread!

I finally got to your "other" screen name! That would be so funny! Albeit a little long! Can you imagine having to type that behemoth every time you logged in??

You are one dedicated FiP runner! No wonder you didn't gain any weight on the trip! Maybe someday your older kids will do the leg work for dear old dad.

You certainly had no lack of character photos, and I admit I got a little choked when I saw Judy was having a Minnie moment. How sweet that she could just get all misty over something like that.

But my favorite photo was the one of the girls sitting back to back in front of the ball. Very nice. In fact, you know what would be really, really cool?? To take your seniors there for a senior photo shoot!! Just think of the really cool backgrounds and shots you could get!!

I see you were gettin' your hubba-hubba on at the same time.

LOL! There goes the neighborhood!

I love everything I've ever seen at 'Ohana! Those pot stickers are screaming my name RIGHT NOW!! I think I could eat peel and eat crustaceans and nothing else all night and be completely happy!!

"Shakin' what my Mama gave me!" Nice choice of picture words there!! Get down, baby!

Poor kid! A whole tray of drinks?? Good thing she had some extra clothes, Otherwise they should have thought about comping their meal so they could get him some new, dry duds!

More later....

 

[carissanboys]

I love reading about and seeing the different foods you ate on your trip. Yummmm.

Good job with the nighttime shots. I still struggle with getting something that doesn't come out blurry.

 

[glennbo123]

The white building (I don't remember what it was) is gorgeous!

Dinner looked good.

That building is called the Burgtheater. I would have liked to have gone inside sometime, but so little time, you know.

Our dinner was great. It was one of my favorites from the trip, although there were many favorites!

I love reading about and seeing the different foods you ate on your trip. Yummmm.

Good job with the nighttime shots. I still struggle with getting something that doesn't come out blurry.

Thanks. Happy to share.

Yes, it was hard to keep the pictures from turning out blurry, especially with the camera I had then. These were taken with a Kodak point-and-shoot...before I got the SLR I'm using now.

 

[glennbo123]

OK, made it through your 'Ohana dinner from the other thread!

I finally got to your "other" screen name! That would be so funny! Albeit a little long! Can you imagine having to type that behemoth every time you logged in??

I wondered if it's too many characters for a screen name.

I never log in anymore....it always recognizes me.

You are one dedicated FiP runner! No wonder you didn't gain any weight on the trip! Maybe someday your older kids will do the leg work for dear old dad.

Oh yes, I think this year's trip will be a good time to share the responsibility a little bit.

You certainly had no lack of character photos, and I admit I got a little choked when I saw Judy was having a Minnie moment. How sweet that she could just get all misty over something like that.

But my favorite photo was the one of the girls sitting back to back in front of the ball. Very nice. In fact, you know what would be really, really cool?? To take your seniors there for a senior photo shoot!! Just think of the really cool backgrounds and shots you could get!!

I see you were gettin' your hubba-hubba on at the same time.

LOL! There goes the neighborhood!

I don't think we stopped for characters at all the whole week before we did the big "Epcot Character Spot" receiving line. I had no idea Judy had such a soft spot for Minnie. Heck, I'm not sure that she even knew.

hubba-hubba!

I love everything I've ever seen at 'Ohana! Those pot stickers are screaming my name RIGHT NOW!! I think I could eat peel and eat crustaceans and nothing else all night and be completely happy!!

"Shakin' what my Mama gave me!" Nice choice of picture words there!! Get down, baby!

Poor kid! A whole tray of drinks?? Good thing she had some extra clothes, Otherwise they should have thought about comping their meal so they could get him some new, dry duds!

More later....

I think the pot stickers are my favorite thing there. That's all I'd need. Well, potstickers and bread pudding w/ ice cream.

 

[glennbo123]

We got up on Friday, our last full day (wah!), and met up with L and B2 again at breakfast. Since she had earned Top Performance Cluster (high achievements in sales, recruiting, etc.), they got a free day-trip to Salzburg yesterday. They said it was really nice but the bus ride there and back was very long. I was glad we could just hang around here. The four of us rode the U-bahn to the Karlsplatz stop and went to Karlskirche (Karl’s church), a church to honor Karl Barromeo, the patron saint of the fight against the plague.

We paid to go in and tour it, and at first I was a little disappointed because there was a lot of scaffolding inside due to the artwork on the walls of the dome being restored.

But then we discovered that we were allowed to go up on the scaffolding to get really close views of the art. An elevator took us about halfway up, to a large platform. That was high enough for L. B2, Judy, and I continued up the steps. Judy was ready to quit part-way up, but I encouraged her that she had made it this far, she had to get to the top.

We made it to the top of the dome and I got some “grate” pictures. Due to the protective fencing on the windows, to keep people from jumping out I guess, all you can see in the pictures I took are the grates. Oh well. It was a nice view in person.

When we got back down to the platform L had already gone back down to the ground. A group of school children had come up and were making the whole thing shake. That was too much for her.

After that we separated from L and B2 because I wanted to go to an art museum next, which they weren’t excited about, plus they had a friend coming in from London whom they needed to meet at the hotel. So Judy and I took the U-bahn to the Museumquartier area, one stop away. We were carrying Judy’s leftover chicken salad and a bag of ice in the bag/backpack that we had gotten from PChef and had to stop to empty the melted ice water. We went into the Leopold museum and I had to check the bag as we went in. The whole time I was in there I worried that the bag would leak and the workers would wonder why this bag was dripping. The museum had a bunch of works of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, two of Vienna’s most famous artists, from around the turn of the century. We bought some coasters with Klimt’s paintings on them the day before. Both of the artists died in 1918 – Klimt of pneumonia following a stroke at age 55, and Schiele of the Spanish flu, which ravaged Europe at that time, at age 28. I have become a fan of theirs as a result of this trip.

Judy’s stomach started not feeling well, so she sat quite a bit on the benches in the center of each room in the museum while I walked around looking at the paintings. I went through rather quickly so that we could go back to the hotel so she could lie down. Fortunately when we picked up the bag with chicken salad and ice it hadn’t leaked! So we went back and I ate the leftover chicken salad while Judy rested. After a while I went over to the café Oberlaa to have another apfelstrudel and mélange coffee. While in there I looked up in our Vienna book how to say “check please”. So, I got to use it: “bitte, die rechnung.” For some reason, the apfelstrudel seemed better the day before.

Link to next chapter

 

[jenbear123]

These pictures are great. I like the church made up for that guy that was trying to fight the plague. Good cause! Too bad Judy didn't feel so hot when you were looking around in the art museum. I didn't think art was that bad

I really need to tour Europe.

 

[All7OfUs]

WOW!! Those paintings are incredible!! I"m surprised though, that you were able to take pictures. Some of the places so far on your trip you weren't allowed to.

I hope Judy's stomach thing doesn't get worse!!! That'd be horrible to be sick on the flight back!

It's truly amazing at how much history took place here , and how much of it you're getting to see.

Just letting you know, also, that the 2nd part of our thread is up and running! Do your duty and check in!

 

[glennbo123]

These pictures are great. I like the church made up for that guy that was trying to fight the plague. Good cause! Too bad Judy didn't feel so hot when you were looking around in the art museum. I didn't think art was that bad

No, it's not that bad! She thought she must have eaten something that didn't agree with her.

I really need to tour Europe.

You definitely should.

WOW!! Those paintings are incredible!! I"m surprised though, that you were able to take pictures. Some of the places so far on your trip you weren't allowed to.

We were very lucky that we were allowed to go up into the dome....it'll probably be a few hundred years before you can do that again. Only the person who does the dusting will get those views.

I hope Judy's stomach thing doesn't get worse!!! That'd be horrible to be sick on the flight back!

It's truly amazing at how much history took place here , and how much of it you're getting to see.

You'll see in the next chapter that it didn't last too long.

Just letting you know, also, that the 2nd part of our thread is up and running! Do your duty and check in!

Oh! Time to report for duty!

 

[MKBekka]

:
We were very lucky that we were allowed to go up into the dome....it'll probably be a few hundred years before you can do that again. Only the person who does the dusting will get those views.



You'll see in the next chapter that it didn't last too long.



Oh! Time to report for duty!

GEtting to do that was seriously a privelege few will get! Suh-weet! Lucky duster- how much you wanna bet he doesn't love his job?

Glad to hear there were no unfortunate incidents on the plane- at least I hope!

You're in!

 

[All7OfUs]

And once again, we have a LOG OUT misfortune!

 

[FauntleroyFAN07]

at first i was thinking you should get your money back with all the scaffoling in there, but since yougot to get closer than you normally would have i say it wsa well worth it.

 

[glennbo123]

GEtting to do that was seriously a privelege few will get! Suh-weet! Lucky duster- how much you wanna bet he doesn't love his job?

Glad to hear there were no unfortunate incidents on the plane- at least I hope!

You're in!

I do believe this is your first post over here MKBekka, so

Blankastan is getting well-represented here.

It was a privilege to go up there. I'm glad I was able to keep my DW from chickening out part-way up to the top.

And once again, we have a LOG OUT misfortune!

Uh oh. What happened?

at first i was thinking you should get your money back with all the scaffoling in there, but since yougot to get closer than you normally would have i say it wsa well worth it.

You and me both....I was disappointed until we figured out we were allowed to go up.

 

[All7OfUs]

Well, the stinker didn't log out, so I posted in her name. However, due to the highly educational content of this thread, I may suggest she post here and learn something. She did enjoy the ones she's seen so far of the European sojourn.

Might keep her off of Facebook for 10 minutes...

 

[glennbo123]

I went back to the room and Judy was feeling better so we set out to take a tour of the State Opera House, the Statsoper. According to our Vienna book they offer tours daily at 2 and 3 pm. We should be able to catch the 3 pm tour.

We got there, but the man at the ticket window said, “no tours today, there will be tomorrow.” We won’t be here tomorrow, oh well. I took a couple of snapshots of what I could see in the lobby. I wanted to add this to my short list of opera houses toured (the only other one so far is the Sydney Opera House!).

So we started walking around that area and ended up at the Secession building.

The Secession was an artistic movement in Vienna around the turn of the 20th century where artists and architects wanted to break away from the confines of academic tradition. The first president of the Secession was Gustav Klimt, one of the painters I mentioned earlier. The Secession building houses the “Beethoven Frieze”, which was a work that Klimt created in 1902 for a Beethoven celebration. Since it was painted directly on the walls, it was intended to be destroyed shortly after the celebration, but fortunately it’s been preserved. It cost us 6 Euros each to get in, and it wasn’t worth it because the frieze was the only thing worth seeing – the other paintings they were exhibiting were not our tastes.

Link to Beethoven Frieze info (If you follow this link, about 2/3 down the page you can see what the room looks like that houses the frieze. Then, if you click on "Synopsis" at the top of the page, you can see detail of the painting. There are additional links for detail of each wall.)

So we left there and walked to the Hofburg Palace area. The afternoon sun prevented getting a good picture of the details of the large statue of Empress Maria Theresa there, but I got a neat picture of it in silhouette, with the sun directly behind it.

From there we walked to the Stephensdom area to go to the gift shop at the Mozarthaus to get some last souvenirs. We got a nice “starter set” of Mozart music – a package of 5 cd’s. Most of the stuff I’ve collected over the years has been on cassette tapes.

(Pictures of the roof tiles on Stephensdom)

Link to next chapter

 

[glennbo123]

Well, the stinker didn't log out, so I posted in her name. However, due to the highly educational content of this thread, I may suggest she post here and learn something. She did enjoy the ones she's seen so far of the European sojourn.

Might keep her off of Facebook for 10 minutes...

Oooooh, now I understand! Well, since she's looked in here she's still welcome!

 

[All7OfUs]

You're pouring on the WOW factor now! Is that a cathedral with the zig-zaggy tile roof?? That's really cool!

More nakers alert! I wish I had buns that hard. NOT.EVEN.CLOSE!

Too bad you couldn't get a tour. But judging by the pictures, you sure got a lot of great touring done anyway. That was certainly SOME opera house though. Massive.

 

[eandesmom]

I went back to the room and Judy was feeling better so we set out to take a tour of the State Opera House, the Statsoper. According to our Vienna book they offer tours daily at 2 and 3 pm. We should be able to catch the 3 pm tour.

We got there, but the man at the ticket window said, “no tours today, there will be tomorrow.” We won’t be here tomorrow, oh well. I took a couple of snapshots of what I could see in the lobby. I wanted to add this to my short list of opera houses toured (the only other one so far is the Sydney Opera House!).

I have actually seen the opera here! Of course I couldn't understand a word of it but it was an incredible experience. Bummer that you didn't get to tour it.